Skin (44 Chapters #1)

by B. B. Easton

  “Pssh.” I giggled, uncomfortable with our audience for once. “You’re so cheesy.”

  Lance smiled back, but it quickly faded as I felt Knight’s shadow disappear from my side.

  He’s leaving??

  I turned and hustled after him, the guys following behind, as Knight took long, graceful strides across the parking lot. He finally came to a stop in front of a fucking monster truck, parked in the grass with one of its front tires lurched up onto a boulder. Holy. Shit. It rose up over us like a white tidal wave cresting a rocky shoreline, threatening to kill us all.

  I vaguely remembered Knight driving me to Juliet’s house in a big truck, but I didn’t remember it being that big.

  “Get in.” Knight had to reach up to almost eye level to open the passenger side door. He tossed my backpack onto the floorboard then turned around with an expectant look on his face.

  The cab only had one long bench seat with a few pieces of duct tape stuck on it here and there. There was no way we were all going to fit.

  As if reading my mind Knight said, “Not them. You. They’re riding in the back.”

  The back? Like, the back back? Like in the back of the fucking truck?

  Before I could protest Colton said, “Fuck yeah!” and scaled one of the knobby, four-foot-tall tires, and hopped over the side of the truck bed. Pretending to look around he said, “Hey, Knight? You got any rebel flags back here we can fly on the way home? I wanna play Dukes of Hazard!”

  Lance just smirked and climbed in behind his best friend.

  Once he was up there, Lance turned around and held out his hand to help August up, but August just waved him off and climbed up on his own—albeit a little more slowly than the other two.

  Satisfied that everybody was okay, I turned back toward Knight, who was still standing in front of the open passenger side door. How the hell had I gotten in there before? The floorboard was chest-high and there wasn’t a step or handle or anything I could see that would help my ascent. Just as I was beginning to consider just climbing into the back with the rest of my friends, Knight wrapped his thick fingers around my waist and hoisted me into the air, setting me down gently on the worn, gray leather.

  I didn’t know shit about trucks, but I could tell that that baby was old. And it looked like it had been pieced together from a few different vehicles. The dashboard was faded black, but the glovebox was gray. The original radio had been replaced with a CD player, but there was an old-fashioned CB radio below it that looked like something from the ‘70s. The shifter knob was shiny and new, but the cracked leather on the steering wheel was clearly original. I couldn’t even tell if it was a Ford or a Chevy. Maybe both?

  I have no idea how Knight managed to climb into the driver’s seat with the front tire up on that rock, but his door opened and he appeared, easy as pie.

  I was about to ask him if he’d built the Frankentruck himself when he cranked the engine, rendering me momentarily deaf. The truck’s lift kit bounced us up and down violently as Knight backed off the boulder and over the curb onto the pavement. I held onto the dashboard as my ass bounced off the seat, Colton shouting, “Woo hoo!” from somewhere behind us.

  Knight pulled out of the parking lot and gunned it. The engine sounded like diesel-fueled hellfire and spewed a cloud of black exhaust behind us, temporarily shrouding my friends in toxic fumes.

  “Where to?”

  It had been months since I’d been to Colton’s house, but I remembered it like it was yesterday. The peeling paint. The cracked driveway. The sagging front porch where Colton gave me my first real kiss. The itchy mustard brown colored wool couch where he gave me a lot more kisses, and did some over-the-clothes stuff too.

  I also remembered that his mom probably wouldn’t be there since she worked like forty-seven jobs just to pay the rent on that piece of shit. Colton was too much of a spoiled brat to get a job and help her out, and his older brother, Jesse, was still living in Las Vegas with their dad—who I’m pretty sure was one of the founding members of White Snake. Colton’s mom, Peggy, had former ‘80s hair band groupie written all over her.

  “Um, just go right on seventy-eight and turn right again after the Waffle House. Colton lives in the neighborhood behind it.”

  “Cool.”

  Knight lit a cigarette, prompting me to light one of my own, and we rode in silence for a few minutes as I looked around, trying to remember more from Saturday morning. It was such a blur and it seemed so long ago, but it had only been two days. Two days. And there I was again.

  And my friends in the back had no idea.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said, trying to break the tension. “I didn’t think you’d want to come.”

  “I don’t.” Knight exhaled a puff of smoke toward the cracked driver’s side window, never taking his eyes off the road.

  “Oh. Then why—”

  “Because you needed a ride.”

  Knight flicked his icy eyes to mine for just a moment. Just long enough to make my breath catch.

  Thankfully Colton’s street came into view just then, giving me an excuse to change the subject. I pointed and told Knight which turns to take.

  When Knight pulled into Colton’s driveway, it was so much worse than I’d remembered. The bushes and grass were at least a foot taller, and the places that needed painting before now looked like they needed to be replaced altogether.

  Knight hopped out and came around to my side of the truck. I opened my door, prepared to jump out of the ten-foot-tall cab like I’d done at Juliet’s house, but before I could, Knight reached in and pulled me out. Just grabbed me around the waist and yanked me out. I didn’t appreciate that he thought he could just touch me whenever he wanted, but I did kind of like how little it made me feel when he did. How light.

  From the back of the truck I heard a loud groan followed by hysterical laughter. I spun around, my cheeks flushing, thinking the guys were reacting to Knight’s hands on my waist, but they weren’t even looking at us. They were gathered around Lance who was rolling around on the driveway holding his crotch.

  I ran over and asked what happened, feeling Knight’s shadow following right behind. Colton said, through his giggle fit, that when Lance jumped out of the back of the truck his pointy-ass bullet belt stabbed him in the groin when he landed. Now we were all laughing, including Lance, who was still curled into the fetal position on the driveway. I turned around to see if Knight was laughing too. He wasn’t, but there was definitely a smug little smirk playing on his lips.

  Once Lance had recovered enough to stand, Colton led everybody up the rickety front porch and into Peg’s 1970s time capsule of a home. Surprisingly, Peg was home, and she was running around in a tizzy.

  “Colton, baby! Have you seen my keys? I’m gon’ be late for work! And you have got to cut the grass to-day or the county’s gon’ fine us again! And poor Shep ain’t been fed since—” Noticing that she had company Peg turned toward us, hopping on one leg while trying to smash a tiny white waitress’s sneaker onto her foot. Her stringy dishwater blonde hair was so long it almost touched the ground when she bent over to grab the other shoe.

  “BB! Oh, my goodness, look at you with that sassy hair! I love it, girlfriend!” Peg came over and gave me a quick little hug, then snatched her keys off Colton’s outstretched finger and kissed him on the cheek. “Y’all be good, and Colton—I mean it about the grass.”

  As Peg tried to pass through the small crowd of teenagers gathered on the parquet square she called a “foi-yay,” she suddenly stopped short and looked directly at Knight.

  “Ronnie? Ronnie McKnight? Is that you?” Knight clenched his jaw and looked at me, then nodded slightly at Peg. “Oh, my goodness! I ain’t seen you since you was on Jesse’s baseball team!”

  Recognition lit Knight’s face as he braced himself for Peg’s hug.

  “Oh honey, look at you! All grown up! And so handsome! I can’t wait to tell Jesse. You know, his daddy got him some fancy sports agent out in L
as Vegas and now he’s a professional skateboarder. Those tricks he does scare the shit outta me, but ain’t nothin’ I can do about it. You boys always was rowdy as hell.”

  Peg smiled as Knight just blinked at her, then said, “You tell your mama I said hey, okay?” then opened the door, turning around one last time to yell at her son, who had already taken a seat on the couch and flipped on The Jerry Springer Show. “Colton! Cut the grass and feed the damn dog! I mean it, now!”

  Slam.

  Knight played baseball? I couldn’t imagine him doing anything so…normal. I wondered if he had hair back then. Had he been happy? Or was he just an angry kid with a buzzcut who liked hitting shit with a bat?

  Knowing that Colton was a terrible host, I went and grabbed five cans of PBR out of the fridge and brought them back into the wood-paneled living room. August and Lance were sitting next to Colton on the world’s itchiest brown sectional, but Knight was nowhere to be seen. I assumed that when he got back he’d want to sit by himself, so I left the equally itchy plaid armchair open and squeezed into the space between August and Lance on the couch.

  We drank and laughed as Colton announced the blow-by-blow for every fight that broke out on Jerry Springer, just like a boxing emcee. “Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe Tanya-Lynn just got her wig split. Yes, folks, that is a third-degree split wig right there. Jessica is going in for the kill. But wait! Here comes Jasmine, and she’s taking off her earrings. I repeat, Jasmine is taking off her earrings. This is a game changer, folks.”

  Realizing it was after three thirty, I walked through the tiny dining room and into the kitchen so that I could call my mom’s school. I had a cell phone, but my minutes weren’t exactly free until after seven o’clock. My mom didn’t even have a phone, so every day I had to leave a message with the secretary letting her know where to pick me up when she got off of work.

  After I hung up I grabbed a glass out of the cabinet and walked over to the kitchen sink. No more beer for me. My mom would be there in less than an hour.

  I looked out the dirty window as I filled my cup, and noticed that Knight was outside in the backyard. He was carrying two metal bowls over to a skinny, gray-faced German Shepherd who was lying in the shade and panting like a son of a bitch. Shep was old and mean and mangy as hell, but Peg liked him because he was a “good guard dog.” (That’s Southern for “a biter.”)

  I was about to bang on the window and tell Knight to get the fuck out of there, but something about their interaction made me stop. Knight was approaching Shep so slowly it almost looked like he was doing tai chi, and Shep was letting him.

  Knight crouched down and set the bowls aside, then held out both hands, palms up. Instead of growling or snapping or gnawing them off, Shep simply sniffed them. Then Knight turned his hands over and let Shep sniff the backs of them too. I’d never seen anybody do that before. It was like some weird Crocodile Dundee shit.

  Unable to peel my eyes away from the lion taming going on in the backyard, I called over my shoulder, “Colton, you gotta see this! Knight is out back feeding Shep! And he isn’t even dead yet!”

  “Cool,” Colton yelled back. “Hey, why don’t you be a doll and go show him where the lawnmower is too?”

  The rest of the week went pretty much the same way, only I made sure to throw my muffin away before I got to my locker in the morning. Knight kept his calmer, quieter demeanor going, which I appreciated, but it made me feel uneasy at the same time—like I was standing next to a dormant volcano. It wasn’t natural for him, I could tell.

  He waited for me every morning at his locker, but when I got there he never said much. At lunch I never even noticed him sit down anymore—he did that quietly too—but Colton noticed.

  Every day he would lean around Lance and call down to the end of the table, “Yo, Knight. You wanna hang out today?” (Which we all knew was code for, You wanna give my friends a ride to my house and do my chores?) And every day Knight would cast his icy eyes over to me and raise one scowling eyebrow, asking silently if I was going to come too.

  Knight never really interacted with anyone at Colton’s—just busied himself outside, but I usually made a point to at least bring him a beer and say thanks for the ride.

  By Friday I was actually kind of looking forward to my new routine when a familiar face plopped down across from me at the lunch table. It was Juliet. And she looked like a completely different person. The eye makeup she usually caked on to hide her lack of eyelashes and eyebrows was shockingly absent, and the hair she usually killed herself to straighten had been braided back into cornrows.

  It reminded me of how Tyra Banks looked whenever the tabloids posted a picture of her on vacation—no makeup and cornrows. I guess Juliet had been on a little vacation of her own. And she seemed pretty happy about it.

  “BB! I missed you so much! You should spend the night tonight!” The confusion on my face must have come across as suspicion, because she lowered her voice and said, “No clubs. Okay? I promise.”

  With that she flashed a death stare at Knight but quickly brought her gaze back to mine, looking a little shaken. Ha! She should have known better than to try to compete with the Skeletor Scowl.

  All I really wanted to do that afternoon was sit on Lance’s lap, drinking beer and willing him to kiss me, but I knew I needed to go with Juliet. I felt bad about the weekend before, and she looked like she could use some girl time. And a shower.

  I told the guys they were on their own and tried my best to ignore the fact that the side of my face was being seared off by Knight’s disapproving stare.

  When I found Tony and Juliet in the parking lot that afternoon I was pleased to see that Tony’s hood actually looked better than before. Of course, the new glossy red finish clashed completely with the rest of his faded, rust encrusted paint job, but at least it didn’t say BB IS WITH KNIGHT MOTHERFUCKER on it anymore.

  Tony and I exchanged glances, but neither one of us spoke. I tossed my lightened backpack into the back seat and climbed in after it.

  As we exited the parking lot Tony turned left instead of right, muttering something about needing to make a “quick stop” on the way home. I assumed he meant he needed to get gas or something, but a few minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of a shitty apartment complex right off the main highway. I’d seen it a million times, but I’d never known anyone who actually lived there.

  I wanted to volunteer to just wait in the car, but early September in Georgia still feels like mid-July, so I decided I’d take my chances inside.

  Juliet walked beside Tony like she knew where she was going, absentmindedly plucking at the few eyelashes she had left. She reminded me of August that way. They were both pickers. August picked because he was anxious and afraid of everything, but not Juliet. Juliet wasn’t scared of nothin’. She just liked the pain.

  Tony knocked three times, which I was beginning to think was the universal code for Ding-dong. The drug dealer’s here.

  The guy who opened the sliding glass door wasn’t wearing a shirt. And he was ripped. And his beefed-up chest had a huge tattoo on it that said No Regrets, which was partially obscured by several thick gold chains. And his boxer shorts stuck a good eighteen inches out of the top of his impossibly low-hanging jeans. Oh, and he had a purple bandana on his head.

  Awesome.

  “Yo! Cholo!” The guy cupped Tony around the neck and pulled him in for a violent looking hug. Turning to whomever else was in the house, he said, “Heeey! T-bag’s here!”

  The masculine sounding cheers that erupted from inside let me know that, a) Tony was popular with whatever gang wore purple bandanas, and b) the entire purple bandana gang was inside that apartment.

  I flashed a nervous glance at Juliet, then followed Tony through the open sliding glass door. Sure as shit, there were at least twelve dudes in there who looked like they could get walk-on parts in any prison movie they wanted. It was just a sea of tan skin, gold jewelry, and purple squares of fabric. Every flat surf
ace was covered in half-rolled blunts and forty-ounce beer bottles, and every seat in the living room and small eat-in kitchen had a thug in it.

  And all twenty-four of their eyes were on Juliet and me.

  “Yo, T-bag, you brought some party favors for us?” The guy who opened the back door said, gesturing to Juliet and me with a sneer.

  Before Tony could respond a female voice said, “What up, bitches!” We looked over by the fridge and saw Angel Alvarez, the new girl who told me her brother and his friends would fuck Knight up for me. She smiled at us with heavy eyelids as she made her way over.

  Evidently, Angel’s brother and his “friends,” were the east Atlanta chapter of the Bloods or Crips or some other shit I didn’t want to have any parts of. I had assumed that Tony was their dealer, but considering the amount of weed just within my view, I suspected that they might be his supplier instead.

  Angel was wearing a purple LA Lakers jersey and baggy jeans, but all the thuggish clothes in the world couldn’t hide that body. I was so jealous. She had tits for days, her messy bleach-blonde bun looked effortless, and she didn’t even bother to wear makeup.

  Angel walked over and gave us both a half-assed hug. “What’s uuuup, chicas?” Her voice sounded a little scratchy. Even that was sexy.

  Tony got pulled into the living room by the guy who answered the door—Angel’s brother, I assumed—while the three of us stayed back in the kitchen.

  Angel handed Juliet a small glass bowl and a lighter, which she accepted graciously, and slurred something about it being crazy that I was at her house. Weed wasn’t my thing, and neither was being on gang turf, so I just kind of smiled and stood there, letting my rigid posture broadcast my discomfort.

  The music that I hadn’t even realized was playing in the living room suddenly got louder, and somebody yelled to Angel that her jam was on. It was 1st of tha Month by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Angel grabbed Juliet’s hand and ran into the living room.

  I peeked around the half-wall that divided the two rooms to see Angel’s ass damn near on the ground as she humped the air to the beat of the song. As she came back up, Juliet went down, gyrating the same way Angel had.