Dark Cherries

by Eve Bradley

  “You don’t think this will last,” he corrects me and presses his lips together, and then leans forward. “But you want to try, don’t you?”

  “Well I didn’t think…I just assumed I’d be with Shawn because he…then he texted the other night saying I could do what I wanted with you two,” I lay my fingers on my temples and shake my head. “I just feel selfish.”

  “Because you like it.”

  His words are firm and completely correct.

  “Of course I like it, Rhett. What woman wouldn’t like getting the undivided attention of three men?”

  “Mimosas!” the waiter approaches, swinging the bubbly orange glasses down in front of us with expertise. The waiter also brings the first course, which is some vegetable medley with crisp toast and creamy herb butter.

  Rhett smiles as he sips his mimosa.

  “It is what it is,” he murmurs, and I sigh, guzzling my own drink.

  “So why are you still doing Xanax if you’re supposed to be out of that lifestyle?” I ask him, automatically fearful of his reaction. But I can’t shrink back. I need to know.

  “Allie,” he elongates my name and seems, for the first time in his bad-boy existence, placed on the spot with actual discomfort. “To relax. Sometimes it’s needed, you know?”

  I ponder this as I swallow the tingly mimosa, and then take a bite of toast. Is it needed? I watched thousands of people on the streets succumb to their addictions, never to be free from them. I always partook when I felt the urge, but somehow I still knew that I could have a problem if I had let it happen. People end up on the streets because they have no other option, and because the drugs cause them to forfeit everything they know and love. They lose themselves in the process, till they are a shell of a human and become a slave to their drug of choice. And fuck if being a slave to an inanimate object my entire life sounds like hell itself.

  “I don’t know. If you need it, is it a problem?” I ask him, keeping my voice level. Our eyes meet and his brown irises are flecked with gold as the sunlight hits them. I want to run my hands through his swoop of dark hair and feel his kiss, the same kiss that I experienced in the theater. The same kiss that lit my body on fire and made me realize all of my carnal desires.

  “That is the question,” he nods, and I’m surprised that he agrees. “I can’t pretend like I don’t know the signs. I’ve seen men go crazy with heroin. Xanax can be similar.”

  “So why do it?” I practically assault him, and he laughs.

  He reaches a hand across the table for mine.

  “Okay, miss. I hear you. Thanks for caring.”

  His fingers grip mine, and the warmth from his skin slithers up my arm and makes me want more of him. I lift my chin in indignation and offer him a soft smile.

  “Caring? Who said anything about that? I thought this was just a weird sexual agreement,” I snicker under my breath.

  “Oh,” he tightens his grip on my hand, and I feel like he’s staring straight into my soul as he says it. “Honey, feelings happen. Even if you don’t want to admit it.”

  I laugh and then shrug. Because who knows? I’ll never admit it if they don’t, and I guess for right now all I can do is try to enjoy what is. Shawn told me this, and now I really have to listen and just enjoy the moment. Live for the sake of living.

  “No promises,” I say, but I know he can tell what I really mean.

  Rhett leans across the table and plants a kiss on my nose, and we start to eat our breakfast as if we were a long time couple enjoying themselves on a peaceful getaway. No mafia, no death, no money hanging in the balance. Just a girl being lavished by one of her three boyfriends.

  Didn’t he say he sold art? That he drank booze all day, and his entrepreneurship allowed him that lifestyle? Rhett wanders ahead of me as we walk through the forest trails. The resort offers an array of hiking trails, and sometimes you can catch glimpses of the ocean through the green pine needles. I feel slightly wonky from the mimosa’s as we walk, and my stomach is completely satiated. If this is what rich people eat like every single day, I could get used to it.

  “Come on,” he says. “There’s a great view up here.”

  “Have you been here before?” I ask, dodging roots and rocks as I go.

  So, I said I love nature. I do, but damn these trails are killing my legs. My thighs and ass are on fire. I thought I was in generally good shape due to walking all over Cali, but no, apparently I’m a fat cow when it comes to the mountains. Rhett looks back at me, laughing at my out-of-breath state.

  “Shut up!” I nearly shriek through my gasps. “I’m not used to…” I inhale deeply. “This much exertion!”

  His laugh, as I’ve gotten to know him, is more earthy, filled with wholeness and genuine appreciation. I feel like he is alright right now, and that he isn’t thinking about anything else. But it would be very easy for this light inside him to die and for his brooding demeanor to return. He’s definitely got the look of a miserable art connoisseur, although I can’t picture him in a fancy museum or anything like that. Or maybe I can. Maybe he would be the lonely man with his leather jacket and motorcycle outside, pondering art and life as he stands there, completely unaware of the women in tight sheath dresses ogling him.

  “Not much farther,” he says over his shoulder.

  “You said you do many things. Why do more if you make money from conning?” I ask.

  “We have to have a front. Shawn has his hotels, Alexi has modeling, and I have the art business. It’s also a way to make money while we’re not in the middle of a hustle.”

  I ponder this as I gather my breath again, following him up through a tightening of trees and then out to what looks like a clearing. It’s a grassy hillside that leads out to a threatening clifftop. I lean my hands on my knees and breathe deeply. Rhett goes and crouches to take a drink of the water bottle he has at his waist.

  “Well, I don’t know. It seems pointless.”

  He snorts and tosses me the water bottle.

  “You’ll learn,” he says, and something in this makes me wistful. What exactly will I be learning? Does that mean I’m involved in what they’re doing? Am I even smart enough to do what they do? I hate that these thoughts even run through my mind, but the reality is I don’t know if I’m up for the task, as blissful and theatrical as it sounds.

  I stand over him, and he glances up at me with an expression riled with both challenge and chagrin. But then he looks down again, ignoring me.

  “We never got that raincheck,” I nearly whisper, my mind curious at the idea of him. What will he be like? I can’t compare him to the other two, but I cannot help wanting to know what it would be like between us. The night we danced together and our conversations, the time in the movie theater- all of it comes to mind.

  Rhett’s gaze turns out to the brilliantly teal blue ocean, his features never betraying his thoughts.

  “What?” I ask, feeling strangely awkward.

  “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, Allie?”

  I blink slowly, then cross my arms as the breeze chills me to the bone. Even though the sun soaks into me, his words are unsettling.

  “I told you, I tried to kill my stepdad…what could be worse than that?” I say, mildly shocked.

  “That’s not the same,” he shrugs and shakes his head, never parting his gaze from the wildness of the sea. “You did that because you wanted to save someone. Some people, my people, would call that noble. Impressive, even. The worst thing you’ve done will be something that you’ve done purely out of selfishness or anger.”

  I let out a sigh and then sit myself down cross-legged on the grass.

  I think back, flashes of my times on the streets coming to mind. Flashes of my childhood rocketing behind my eyes. I’ve never been a saint. I’ve always felt like I had to protect myself because no one else would. But Emily? Mom? I’ve always loved them. I’m not incapable of devotion…yet…I did leave. I could have gone back to see what sort of situation I left the
m in after I shot my stepdad, but I didn’t. Still, I don’t think this is the kind of thing Rhett is talking about. When I was on the road, I encountered all sorts of situations. I weaseled money, alcohol, food, and other items out of people when I was on the streets. But how else was a girl to survive?

  “You want to know how this can last? You’ll have to integrate yourself into our world. You’ll have to become everything that we are. There will be no secrets. No mistakes. No hang ups. The second Shawn feels like you might betray us, he won’t be kind about it.”

  “But I would never do that,” I say, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice.

  “Why not? Our life is one big Ponzi scheme. How long do you think we can keep it up, taking money or conning mobs and gangs into falling for our ploys? Maybe you get too much of a taste of the life, the nitty-gritty, the death, the lies, and then you don’t want any part of it?” He says, and with these words, I feel the air shift around us. Again, I feel cold. Like there are a thousand jagged glass pieces scattered all around us, and any direction I go in the conversation could stab me.

  “So what? If I don’t like it, I won’t stay. I’d never say anything to anyone. I’ll keep my mouth shut,” I retort, flicking my hair over my shoulder.

  “But you’d try it?” Rhett asks, and now he focuses his fierce, salient gaze onto me, nearly knocking the wind out of me.

  “Try…yea, I’d try…it,” I nod.

  “So you’d help me steal from some unsuspecting couple at the resort? Just for the hell of it? You’d hold someone at gunpoint if you had to? Do you even know how to hold a gun, Allie? What if you had to kill someone?” His eyes grow darker with these statements, and I won’t lie, my stomach grows tighter in the process.

  “I…” I swallow. “This isn’t about me, is it? It’s about whether you three think you can trust me or not.” Suddenly, everything clicks into place.

  “You telling me about the girl before me, the one who betrayed you all…you asking me these questions, it’s all to figure me out, isn’t it?” I say, heat rising in my chest.

  He shrugs.

  I am nearly shocked, and anger fizzles through my lungs. I guess I haven’t exactly proven myself as trustworthy, but Shawn asked for my trust first. Now he’s going to use Rhett to weasel his way into finding out where I’m at mentally? If they can’t read me, then maybe that’s a good thing. I can’t figure out why this interaction hurts me, but it does. Maybe it just seems so impersonal, or maybe it’s just the fact that they don’t trust me, and that I’ve been forced to be at their mercy the entire time.

  “So why don’t you just have fun? Live a little? Enjoy the moment?” I say, repeating a mixture of what all three of them have told me.

  Rhett chuckles darkly and I crawl towards him.

  “Do you not want me, Rhett? Is that it?” I ask, making sure he can see my cleavage as I lean forward, coming towards him.

  “I want to fuck you, honey. Don’t get that twisted,” he says, but keeps a complacent expression on his face.

  “So why don’t you?” I ask, wishing he would just give in. With Rhett I feel a sense of equality. He’s on my level, and he inspires me to think deeply. I want to feel that in how he does things sexually, because ever since his kisses in the theater, I’ve been unable to get him out of my mind. I even fucking worry about him, and that’s saying a lot.

  “Because I want you to really want it,” he says, and motions with his finger for me to come closer. “Not because you got the approval to fuck three men and are excited to try us all out.”

  “Rhett that’s not fair,” I nearly groan.

  “Isn’t it?” he smirks, extremely smug and wraps a large hand around my chin and neck, pulling me towards him so that he can peer deeply into my eyes. His hold on me is loose, but it gives me the sense that he is in control, and that he likes it that way.

  “You know what’s easy?” he says, and the soft tone of his voice vibrates through my entire core. “Asking questions and worrying about what will happen. It’s when we give up our control over a situation that we allow ourselves to truly be free. To exist not only as ourselves, but in a pleasant state where there’s nothing else between you and me, and our fears disappear into the full release of that freeness.”

  I swallow, trying to wrap my head around what he’s saying. I guess I understand. It’s similar to what Shawn expressed. That giving up control was enjoyable. Putting your pleasure and life into someone else’s hands? That is something that requires vulnerability on the highest level, and every wall you’ve placed up to protect yourself must go in order for you to succumb to their will. This meaning, they see all of you. Everything; bare, exact, defenseless.

  “Then don’t question me,” I smile, and I see his upper lip shift so that he’s holding back a grin.

  “You know…I want to paint you so bad,” he says, his eyes dragging over my face and body. It’s a small intriguing thought as if he’s judging exactly what he’d do as he ponders me.

  “I didn’t know you painted,” I say, nearly breathless because of his closeness.

  Rhett is a tall man. He’s not as bulky in musculature compared to Alexi or Shawn, and his shape reminds me of a man who’s spent his years working on cars or fixing things around the house. His aura oozes complicated, heart-wrecking, broody bad-boy, and I know that out of all three of them Rhett does hold the capacity to hurt me. He has irresistible qualities paired with danger, and although I’m afraid, I’m on his hook. The fact that he paints adds a layer of depth to his already multi-faceted personality.

  “Yeah,” he waves the thought away as if it’s unimportant. “Here and there. But I think you’d make a beautiful specimen.”

  “Like a muse?” I smile up into his lazy expression, and he nods once, affirming.

  “Yes, Allie. Like that,” he says and pulls me closer so that our lips are barely touching, and it’s only in the minuscule movements that they brush against one another.

  I smell his cologne. It’s a sweet, spicy, woodsy scent that tantalizes me. His breath smells sweet and fresh, and all of this, paired with the warmth of his touch on my chin and his nearness to my body, makes me nearly puddle at his feet. His dark stubble prickles me, sending a rush of excitement through my limbs. I feel like we’re breathing in each other’s souls.

  “So, now that you’ve been fucked by two men who know what they're doing, do you think you’re less impatient?” he asks me, referring to our conversation in the theater when he called me greedy.

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly, and feel a little embarrassed.

  “Let me see you,” he says, lips brushing against mine. I nearly moan, aching just to kiss him, to feel anything other than the hairsbreadth of space between us.

  I work at my shorts, pulling them down slowly as I go. He sits back and watches me, and suddenly I feel nervous. Something causes me to freeze up.

  “Allison…” he breathes my name, causing goosebumps to rise on my skin. But then, behind him, I see something move.

  “Rhett!” I shriek, just as a man jumps out of the trees behind him.

  The man’s hands wrap around Rhett’s neck, but he’s able to stand and project two jabs into the man’s gut and twist out of his hold. I stumble backward, unable to even comprehend what’s happening. It happens so fast. The man is holding a gun, and he points it at Rhett. I scream, but Rhett is able to struggle against him so that both of their arms are raised in the air, both men fighting for control. I hear a gunshot crack overhead, and my ears ring. Then, somehow, the gun is flung off to the side of the clearing, and Rhett punches the man squarely in the face. The man throws himself toward him, catching Rhett around the middle, hurling him to the ground near the cliff’s edge.

  “Rhett!” I scream.

  What the fuck. What the fuck. What do I do? The man is beating Rhett’s face, and as much as he’s trying to fight back, the man has him pinned awkwardly. I run to where the gun was tossed, searching for it in the grass.

>   “Allison, go!” I hear him yell, voice hoarse.

  My heart lurches when I catch sight of the gun in the grass. Do I even know how to operate this? I grip it in my hand and hold it, aiming at the man. He sees me and stops and offers me a grisly smile.

  “Get off of him, you bastard,” I hiss, my voice shaking. I regrip my clammy hands over the metal, shaking as I point it at the man’s despicable face. A face anyone would label as horrible, his features waxy and emotionless. “I swear to god, if you touch him again, I’ll kill you.”

  The man slowly maneuvers to a stand, his bald head shining with sweat. Rhett stands too, and I glance at him only briefly to see him watching closely. He’s watching me to see how I handle myself. How I dissolve the situation. To me, this feels like déjà vu. Now when have I been in this position before? Holding a gun at a man’s face swearing to kill him if he didn’t leave someone alone…oh yes. Somehow I keep getting myself into these positions, don’t I?

  “Aww. You’re cute, aren’t you,” the man speaks through grit teeth. “Do you know how to shoot that thing?”

  I swallow hard, my belly pulling in as I draw in deep, panicked breaths.

  “Want me to teach you how?” he growls condescendingly, narrow eyes laughing at me.

  I know at any moment he could jump toward me, and I wouldn’t be ready. I wouldn’t even know if the gun needs to be cocked again. In my experience, guns aren’t just pull-the- trigger and keep going. So, to find out, I point the gun out at the ocean and pull the trigger. Click. Nothing.

  The man starts to laugh. I glance at Rhett, and he, in an extremely subtle motion of his head, gestures for me to come around toward him.

  But before I can do anything, the man jolts forward, dead set on grabbing the gun. If he gets it, we’ll both be dead. Everything we’ve worked for, everything Shawn’s worked for, every time they’ve successfully completed a con, every asshole mob boss or cartel they’ve taken down, none of it would matter because Rhett and I would be dead. And I’d be the reason. Furious, I throw it over his head, hoping, willing, pleading with the universe for Rhett to catch it. The man pushes me to the ground, and then I hear it. Another gunshot and the man slumps to the forest floor.