Tricked Steel: A Friends To Lovers Standalone Romance

by Fields, MJ

  His eyes narrow further, and then he shakes his head and sits back. “Yeah, well, we knew every damn one of them basically from birth. This is a different breed. Just a name, not deets.”

  “Might be right.”

  “Then spill.” His jaw tightens. He looks a bit more pissed than he normally does.

  “Hooked up with a girl name Chloe.”

  I swear he looks relieved, which is fucked up.

  “Now you.”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing I want at that place.”

  “What the fuck, JT?” I toss a throw pillow at him.

  “I’m staying out of all that shit. I need to nut, I’ll do it when I’m far away from this place.”

  “Like when you work with Bella and Tags?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, why the hell did you need to know—”

  “Just curious. Now, back to the whole you wanting your dick pierced thing. You being serious?”

  I nod.

  “Even if you weren’t my cousin, I’m not thinking I’m gonna be swaying in that direction. I like the art part. Maybe dabble in some nipple piercings, if need be, but no dicks.”

  “What about chicks’ genitalia?”

  “No desire to shove a needle through a clit.”

  I laugh. “No?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  From just outside the room, I hear, “Ring, ring. Ring, ring.”

  JT and I look at each other, both confused.

  “Hello, PJ, is that you, il mio amore?” Max says, using a shitty attempt at a female voice with an Italian accent.

  “It is, Momma Joe. I got a problem,” Amias says, obviously attempting to mimic me.

  “Well, you made the right call. You know I’m always here to help.” Max uses the same voice.

  “This is kind of big, Momma Joe. Like, I came to you because I couldn’t go to Mom and Dad kind of big.”

  “I understand they can be a little bit overbearing. But, as you know, I raised your father, and I know what he did at your age, so you’ll get no judgment from me.”

  “I always know I can count on you, Momma Joe.”

  “Don’t you ever forget it. No problem too big or too small. Now, tell Momma Joe what is troubling you.”

  “Well, I really want to get my dick pierced, but I’m afraid to ask Dad for permission. And JT doesn’t want to do it, so I was wondering if maybe you could.”

  JT and I both hold back a laugh, because these two are nothing but fucking trouble and a major pain in the ass.

  “Oh, PJ, of course I’ll pierce your penis. I did change your diapers, you know. But you mustn’t forget to take proper care of it. You don’t want to get an infection.”

  I stand up and head to the doorway. “Get the fuck in here, you two. Now.”

  They both bust up laughing as they hurry in.

  “Why won’t you do it, JT? It’s just a dick,” Max asks.

  “Fuck that, how about you do it?” he asks Max.

  I cut that shit right to the quick. “Not fucking happening.”

  “He did your tattoo after watching a YouTube video. I’m sure I can figure it out. What’s the worst that could happen?” he asks, and then he and Amias both bust up laughing.

  Chapter 16

  Of course I am not worried about intimidating men.

  The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

  ~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Savvy

  “Why do you keep looking at your phone? I thought you hated technology,” Chloe remarks snidely, not asks, because I’m still technically not talking to her.

  She came back two days early because she said she was sick to her stomach the entire time she was gone, because she misread me.

  Misread me? Understatement of the fucking century, dipshit.

  “Savvy, come on; talk to me,” she whines.

  I slide off my bed, walk past her, and into the bathroom. Then I sit on the closed toilet and take a selfie to send in response to the one Patrick just sent me captioned, “Boooorrrrreeeeedddd.” I roll my eyes as I snap the picture, send it, then type out my response.

  Truthfully, I have no idea how he gets the text on the picture, and honestly, I’m not invested enough in technology to figure it out. I am, however, getting invested in him.

  10:00 p.m. - You’re with your people. Music is your jam. There is no way you can be, “Boooorrrrreeeeedddd.”

  10:01 p.m. - Bet?

  10:01 p.m. - Step away from the phone and enjoy. I’m shutting off this evil device.

  10:01 p.m. – Fine, I’ll “enjoy,” but only if you leave it on.

  10:02 p.m. - I’m going to bed. Have fun.

  10:03 p.m. - Sleep well, Savannah. GN.

  This entire break, he’s dragged me out of my … existence and brought me more holiday joy than I have ever felt. Some of that joy is due to the texts and the conversations that are incredibly deep. In one, he told me he never would understand why anyone ever muttered the words, “I wish I could be a teenager again,” because it was seriously the most confusing time of our lives. How is it we’re supposed to make a decision within the next year that is supposed to determine the path to the rest of our lives? When I said I thought he had already decided, he said he had, thanks to me, but the question of college was now hanging heavy over his head.

  His parents want him to have that experience; therefore, it’s confusing in a different way. He wasn’t sure if he needed a three-hundred-thousand-dollar experience or some assholes accepting him because of his name, therefore fucking over a kid who was probably better prepared, had better grades, and had more of a need for that piece of paper to get ahead.

  Another four-hour text conversation was about SATs and his annoyance that the college board had created a test that can ruin a person’s dream in less than four hours, simply because they didn’t test well. I didn’t tell him the scores I received on the three that Whitaker made me take because I, too, think they are a shit way to measure someone.

  This whole conversation, via text of course, reminded me of Mom and Liberty and gave me a little bit of confirmation that maybe they weren’t that far from normal. Well, at least their thought process wasn’t, and maybe, just maybe, I’m not either.

  Another discussion was on college essays and how he wondered if every other teenager heading in that direction got pissed that two people raw-dogged it almost eighteen years ago and now they had to pay the price for their irresponsibility.

  I’m so incredibly convinced he’s not one of “those men” that I created a freaking fake profile @basicbitch214, because I feel like one for getting sucked into this social media shit and now follow him on all his social media platforms.

  On Christmas morning, he did a live video of him playing guitar and singing “White Christmas,” a gift for his parents, and then he and his dad did “Mary Did You Know” for Taelyn, his mom, together. Patrick sang, and that voice … truly incredible.

  The other videos of Christmas were of him and his cousins—mostly Max and Amias, some with Brisa, and a couple with Truth—and they were funny, sweet, and telling of how much he loved them and how close they all were.

  In a sense, had we stayed at any one of those “communities” for any length of time, I’m sure I would have made deeper connections.

  This conclusion, yet another one brought on by Patrick, allowed me to draw the conclusion that so many of the things I was passionate, sometimes overly, about were because those were the things that were important to me. They were my constant. They were consistent.

  And then they were gone.

  What has become very consistent is every day that I work, he shows up for coffee at the very end of the shift, always the last customer, and the texts and daily pictures.

  A banging on the door brings me from my thoughts.

  “Savvy, I have to use the bathroom.”

  God, if You’re really a thing, I’m really in no hurry to be t
aken now, but I could seriously use some clarity as in why … just … why?

  It’s me,

  Savvy Sutton

  I flush the toilet and wash my hands for show. When I open the door, she’s crying. It never affected me before, but this time, it does.

  It does because, when I lost it a few days ago, while crying in the rain, I wasn’t made to feel it was selfish to do so, that it was weak, which now seems to be yet another contradiction from my last life. Or maybe not? This shit is so confusing.

  “What?” She sniffs.

  I shake my head and walk to my bed.

  While she’s in the shower, I scroll through hundreds of messages and back to the one from Christmas Eve when he stopped at The Bean before heading home after church and his family dinner. He didn’t just get coffee that night, he stayed until I came out, carrying two trash bags to put in the dumpster.

  Standing against his Jeep, he waited for me, in suit pants, a matching jacket, and cashmere scarf. I couldn’t help but laugh at the way he looked in comparison to how he looked for the past couple days that we had spent together.

  “Laugh it up, Savvy. I may not look like me, but I still look good.”

  “You look like my worst nightmare.”

  He smiled. “You sure you don’t mean fondest dream?”

  “Sorry, Brad, is that you?”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” he said dryly.

  “All you white boys look the same in suits, are culturally washed.”

  “Well, let me tell you something, Savannah; it’s what’s underneath the suit that counts.”

  I shook my head and told him, “Watch it,” as I walked to the dumpster.

  He caught up with me and grabbed the bags. “Trust me; I know I am living in the friend zone. Got a letter today from the post office issuing me my own zip code.”

  Lifting the dumpster top, I tried to hold in a laugh, but I couldn’t.

  After he tossed the trash in the dumpster, we stood there, smiling, and for as long as it was, it wasn’t a bit awkward, at all. Then Patrick’s smile lit up all the darkness surrounding us, and I wasn’t the least bit upset that my beloved darkness was slowly fading.

  He lifted his chin and said, “Look up, Savvy Sutton.”

  When I did, I saw snow falling for the first time in what felt like an unusually long fall season. It fell in huge, fluffy white flakes, and it fell hard.

  Same, snowflakes, same, I had thought.

  Lost in their beauty, I hadn’t noticed him step closer, and I didn’t have time to pull back my hands. Truth be told, at the moment, I wouldn’t have. But instead of grabbing my hands, he grabbed my wrists and lifted them high above my head.

  “Merry Christmas, Savvy Sutton. I wished this for you.”

  I had to turn around in fear I would kiss him, or he would kiss me, and that would quite possibly ruin the most perfect moment I had ever experienced with any man in my life.

  I didn’t stop when my back was to him. I looked up and continued to turn in circles as I watched it float down.

  Lying in bed at midnight on December 25th, I got a message from him with dozens of pictures he had taken of me while I had been lost in that moment.

  I hold the phone to my chest and sigh as my body starts to tingle from the tip of my toes all the way to my nose.

  He didn’t wait by the Jeep afterward, which I could seriously be upset about, but how could I? It hasn’t stopped snowing since then either.

  This has been, hands down, my favorite holiday season.

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re so damn happy?”

  I jump when Chloe startles me, and my phone falls to the floor.

  “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says as she picks it up. “Oh, Savvy, the screen … Wait—who’s Trish? Is she the reason you’re smiling?”

  I snatch the phone from her. “Mind your business.”

  Trish? I think, and when I see the screen, I can’t help but laugh. At a brief glance, with the way the glass shattered, it totally looks like it says Trish instead of Tricks.

  * * *

  For the next few days, as some of the bitches return, the halls are buzzing with the news that Kiki Steel, the oldest of the Steel crew, is with Brandon Falcon, and that his IG post, that he posted on Christmas morning—also his birthday, apparently—said, She Said Yes. #myfirstmylastmyeverything #childhoodsweethearts #brandedsteel.

  I already knew. He brought her Christmas gifts to Patrick’s house when I was there. And Patrick had told me the whole sordid story of Katy, aka Kiki, being the reason Truth flipped out at their old school on the nuns. Told them, and the priest in charge, that they were drunk and that’s why Kiki had thrown up. At the time, Kiki didn’t even know she was pregnant. Long story short: that’s why they are here. That’s also why Patrick punched Brand. He felt like Brand used him to get to Katy after she had blocked him on her phone and all her social media. He had told Patrick he wanted to start dating her … when he had already more than dated her. He had gotten her pregnant.

  All this information came to me over cutting what ended up being seventy snowflake-shaped sugar cookies. He asked me to keep it to myself, which I laughed at because, as I said to him, “Who the hell would I tell and why?”

  I’m learning that I actually like to know some little tidbits of information about others, learning that not all men, and not all people with money, are assholes, and that it didn’t matter who you were—everyone had their own issues to deal with.

  I have since learned that Patrick seems to be the buffer between not only Brand and Kiki, but the entire Steel crew.

  Even though I want to stay as far away from all of it as I can, I do think Patrick should know. So, send him a text.

  3:27 p.m. - The bitches have returned, and not that it’s any of my business, but they’re speculating that #brandedsteel and the Thanksgiving video is a hint to who he proposed to. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, because it’s apparent that’s kind of the thing you’d need to know.

  Two hours go by, and he still hasn’t replied.

  After another hour, I’m sick to my stomach. I scroll through and see if he told me that he had plans today. He didn’t.

  I mean, it’s not like he has to, but it is odd. Hell, I haven’t even gotten a pic today. The only text I got was from this morning.

  So what? You aren’t the boss of him, I tell myself, and he’s not the boss of you.

  “Savvy, will you please talk to me, or at least listen?” Chloe pleads.

  “Talk.” I lie down in my bed and cover up.

  “I know I keep messing up with you. I know I keep hurting you. This isn’t an excuse; it’s the truth. I’ll probably do it again, and again, and again. I’m impulsive at times … reactive, too. It will never be intentional. Not ever, Savvy. I told you I didn’t ask to room with you for any reason but because I like you. I don’t have to compete with you.”

  Compete with me?

  “And I kissed you because I love you.”

  Oh, fuck no, not this shit again.

  “You even try to love on me again, I will shank you in your sleep,” I warn her, breaking my vow of somewhat silence.

  “I know now it’s not in that way, but I do. And honestly, that’s what I know how to do. I’m a lover, Savvy. I am, and fuck anyone who judges me. I like sex. I like touch. I like it a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. And isn’t that freeing and empowering, too?”

  I sit up. “That’s not empowering.”

  “It is, Savvy. For me, it is.” She sits on her bed and hugs herself. “I’m going to tell you my darkest secret so that you stop hating me. I can’t take that. My dad hates me. Everyone at my public school hates me. The people at the damn conversion school hated—”

  “The what?” I gasp.

  She shrugs and looks up at me through the curtain of blonde hair hanging in front of her blue eyes. “I was a bad girl, Savvy. Everyone said so. Everyone except my mom, and look what that did to her life. I ruin everything; that’s what I do.”r />
  When she starts to cry, I shake my head. “No, you don’t, Chloe. We’re teenagers; we’re still trying to figure out who we are and where we belong.”

  She wipes away her tears the way a girl who wants to make sure her mascara isn’t dripping down her face does. The way a girl who cares too much about what others think does.

  “If I tell you I think you need a hug, because you do, and if I give you one, do you promise not to ever try to kiss me, like ever again?”

  She lets out a strangled sob while saying, “I promise.”

  Before I have a chance to get out of bed, she is all wrapped around me.

  “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

  I awkwardly hug her, pat her on the back, and tell her, “I accept your apology.”

  She sniffs. “Can I sleep in your bed with you?”

  “We aren’t there yet, Chloe.”

  “Too early?”

  “Yep, it sure is.”

  “Sorry, I’ll try harder.”

  And that statement right there tugs harder than the tears did at my heart strings.

  “No, Chloe, don’t try; just be.”

  “Be who?” she says, stepping back then sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Be you.”

  “I have no idea who I even am anymore.”

  “I’m guessing conversion school had something to do with that. Fuckers. Who do they think they are? Who do—”

  She shakes her head and honestly looks scared. “You have no idea.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “I wish I never did.”

  I move back so my back rests against the wall and pat the spot next to me. “You talk. I’ll listen.”

  “You sure?”

  I nod. “Sometimes, we just need that, you know?”

  She falls asleep in my bed, and I let her.

  11:59 p.m. - Sorry, crazy fucking day. Yeah, it’s been all over the gossip blogs, too. Pretty fucked up they can’t just be, you know? It’s none of anyone’s GD business. He’s ready to lose his shit. I can’t say as I blame him, but Kiki’s not wanting him to say a thing. GN, Savannah. See you tomorrowwwwwww.