by Lisa Ladew
She reached the door and stepped inside quickly. The room was a break room full of white plastic tables. Along the far wall ran a vending machine and a counter with some food, plates, silverware, and a microwave. One person was in the room and Eme headed straight for her.
She was young and beautiful, with thick black hair that fell halfway down her back. She wore tight jeans and a simple t-shirt, and Eme could see her piercings from across the room. At least eight or nine in each ear, plus one in her nose and one in her lip. Her eyes were plastered on a white phone in her hands.
"Hi," Eme said when she got close, doing a silly wave.
The girl looked up and Eme was immediately crestfallen to see the disdain on her face. Martina did not want a big sister.
Martina shot Eme a dirty look and turned back to her phone. Eme thought about just turning around and heading back out the door. Maybe giving up. Maybe requesting another little sister. But she might as well at least try.
She sat in a chair next to the girl. "Are you Martina?"
The girl's lip curled and she threw eye daggers at Eme. "No one calls me Martina."
Well that would have been a good thing to put on the fucking sheet, Eme thought, noting the contempt with which the girl said the name.
"You have a nickname?"
"Ina."
"Ina. I love it."
Ina rolled her eyes and turned away. "Like I give a shit," she muttered under her breath.
Eme took a deep breath and tried again. She wanted to help, even if she didn't know how that was possible. "I'm, ah, your big sister. Did they tell you about me? My name's Emerald but I like Eme as a nickname."
Ina just looked at her phone, not acknowledging Eme at all.
"Hey, you want a snack or something?" Eme looked over to the vending machine and rummaged in her pocket for some money. She hadn't brought her purse, thinking maybe they would be doing something active.
"Why don't you just fuck off," Ina said, still not looking at her.
Eme heard someone walk in the room and for once, she didn't turn to see who it was, if she was safe or not. Her mood had bottomed out, along with her self-confidence. The girl didn't want to talk to her. And she was no Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds, knowing exactly what to say to earn respect and dampen rebellion. She stood, ready to walk out and never come back. "Sorry. I was just trying to be a friend."
She heard footsteps approach behind her but before she could turn, she watched Ina's entire attitude change in an instant. A broad smile crossed the girl's face, making her look younger, innocent even.
"Hi, Bronx," she breathed, like she was talking to the captain of the football team, or maybe a movie star.
Eme froze.
She knew of one Bronx who was handsome enough to engender that kind of a response from a teenager as hardened as Ina was.
And from the look on Ina's face, he was standing right behind her.
Chapter 17
Bronx
His day was looking up. Way up. Since there was no more written testing left, only one hands-on test that he knew he could pass with his eyes closed, he hadn't needed to study with Jazzy, so he'd headed over to Inner City for the first time in a couple of weeks. He missed the boys. Besides, it would take his mind off that bullshit article and that asshole Harrison. Bronx had never said anything like that in his life, but if people believed it, well, he was going to have a hard time.
When he'd walked into the break room to grab a soda and seen Lieutenant Avalon, wearing jeans and a pink top, much like the one he'd seen her in the first day he met her, the weight of all of that had fallen away. He'd headed her way, thinking nothing at all, but instinctually homing in on her like a moth to moonlight. Maybe she would be different outside of the classroom. Maybe her hard shell was just because she was the instructor and he the student.
She looked upset, and if she was trying to be a big sister to Ina, he knew why. None of the older girls would take to someone immediately, if ever, and they tended to have callous mouths and fiery dispositions, just to keep people at arm's length. It took a long time to earn most of these kid's trust.
The girls tended to be easy on him, but the boys had run him through the ringer when he'd first started volunteering. Only after almost a year of consistent showing up, gentle reminders, and never backing down, had he been accepted. Now he almost never got shit anymore. One he's cool from a veteran, and even the new boys extended a hand in friendship right away.
He smiled at Ina, returned her greeting, then turned to the lieutenant. God, she was beautiful. Even flustered and clearly uncomfortable, the sight of her made him want to move towards her, touch her, maybe brush her hair out of her face. He imagined how her hair would feel in his hands, light and smooth. His cock bucked in his shorts, making him scowl lightly and concentrate on something, anything other than her. Mowing the lawn on his father's estate. That would do it. Grass. Fresh cut smell. Not sexy at all. Hard work. In the heat. The sun beating on his shoulders. He breathed a sigh of relief as his cock wilted obediently. He wouldn't be able to hide an erection in the gym shorts he was wearing and he didn't want to have to leave. He wanted to talk to her.
"Hi Lieutenant. Good to see you. What are you doing here?" He hoped he sounded as carefree as he was trying to.
She locked eyes with him for the first time since his graduation day, when he'd made a monstrous fool out of himself. She gave him a small, half-smile. "Ah, Ros— Bronx, hi. I'm, ah, volunteering here."
"That's great. I volunteer here too. Is Ina your little sister?" He hooked an arm around Ina's neck and pulled her into a half-hug, half-noogie. He'd learned a long time ago that he needed to be careful around many of the teenage girls, but he wanted everyone to be at ease, and softening Ina's hatred towards the term little sister would be the first step in that.
The lieutenants' hand went to her throat, to the gemstone there, pulling, worrying. "Well, I don't think she wants a big sister right now. She's, ah, busy."
Bronx let Ina go, holding her at arm's length. "Ina, say it isn't so! You're going to refuse Lieutenant Avalon as your big sister? You won't find a better one."
Bronx dropped his arms and looked at Ina, his peripheral vision on the lieutenant. She stared at Ina too.
"You work with her?" Ina asked in a perfectly normal voice.
"She's my boss," Bronx said with an encouraging smile.
Ina looked at the lieutenant again, with new eyes, although she hid it with a hip cock and a gum crack. "Cool," she said grudgingly.
He switched his attention to the woman who floored him every time he looked at her. "Did you have any plans for your first meeting, Lieutenant?"
She smiled at him for real and his brain lit up. "No, ah, I wasn't sure what she would want to do. Unless, well, ice cream."
"I love ice cream. There's a Cold Stone Creamery two blocks down. You guys mind if I tag along?"
The relief in Lieutenant Avalon's face made him glad he'd asked.
"'Course not," Ina said, her eyes big and focused on him. She turned and scooped up her phone then looked at them expectantly.
"Let's roll," he said and headed for the door without waiting to see if they were following.
***
Bronx
An hour later, as they strolled back towards Inner City, three abreast on the sidewalk, Ina in the middle, Bronx's heart felt light as a baby's breath. His mind kept replaying the moment at the ice cream counter when Lieutenant Avalon had touched his arm and told him, "Call me Eme." When Eme had touched his arm, he reminded himself.
Ina raised a hand in the direction they were going. "Hey, girl!" she yelled. Bronx saw three of her friends just exiting Inner City. The group turned and saw them, then put their heads together and started whispering frantically. Ina ran towards them. Just before she was swallowed up by the group and they all took off in the other direction, she turned back to Bronx and Eme. "Let's do it again tomorrow!"
Eme raised a hand. "Ok!" she called, but In
a was already crossing the street with her girls, not paying attention to them.
Eme's steps faltered and then she stopped. Bronx stopped with her. "Bronx, uh, that was really great of you to come with us. It wasn't looking good for me till you showed up." She put a hand on his arm and looked into his eyes, causing warmth to shoot through his body. "Thank you."
"Welcome," he mouthed, thinking there would be no better time than this. "So class is over tomorrow. Do you think you and I could go—"
She cut him off, then, breaking his heart for the first time since his mother had turned away from him when he was six, seeking her comfort after her long absence. "Thanks again, I really gotta go. See you tomorrow."
She walked swiftly back the way they had come and he stared after her, his chest tight as a vise.
Chapter 18
Eme
The last day of class was a busy one that had Eme wrestling with herself. She'd always shunted Bronx off to Baker for anything hands-on, but now it made her feel bad. Now that she knew firsthand what a nice guy he was. He'd rescued her the afternoon before, as surely and completely as if he'd pulled her out of the path of a speeding bus. But then he'd tried to ask her out. She sighed and put him in Baker's group again, and tried to focus on her work.
At three o'clock, she passed out one last handout for each student, carefully avoiding looking in Bronx's direction. She could feel his stare. "Take these back to your stations. Make sure all your colleagues know what kind of changes they can expect when we adopt these new procedures."
She dismissed them all and held her breath to see if Bronx would talk to her or not on his way out the door. Her heart wanted something that she viciously beat down with all her will. It just wasn't smart.
He didn't. He raised his hand in a half-wave, and left, catching up with Jasmine in the hallway. Eme forced her eyes away from them and turned to finish her work. He was a nice guy. But there were about a thousand things keeping her from pursuing a relationship with anyone for the foreseeable future. It just wasn't an option, no matter how perfect the guy was.
Perfect? Did she just call Bronx Rosesson perfect? She barely knew him. And perfect, didn't exist, right? There had to be something wrong with him, she just hadn't seen it yet.
She bent over her desk and tried not to think about later. Was she going back to Inner City? She wasn't sure. She hated to disappoint Ina, but Ina didn't want to hang out with her anyway, just Bronx. That much had been obvious from her every exaggerated lick at her ice cream with her eyes locked on Bronx, and her pointed questions to him. She had loved that he was there. Bronx had dodged her attentions masterfully, never once being cruel or making her feel bad, but definitely drawing that line.
But still, that was no reason to abandon the girl, or the establishment. Her arguments raged on in the very back of her mind while she finished her work. An hour later, she headed to the locker-room and changed out of her uniform, still undecided.
Eme walked out into the sunshine, with the thought that she would just let her feet take her where they would, and she wasn't surprised at all when that meant she ended up in front of Inner City.
She pushed her way in the door, smiled at the clerk, and headed for the break room, figuring if Ina was going to show, that's where she would be.
She was, sitting at the same table she had been the day before, listening to some music on a pair of tiny earbuds and dancing in her chair.
Eme slid into the chair across from her. "Hey."
Ina popped out her headphones and looked around the room. "Hey," she said back. They sat in silence for a moment before Ina asked, "Bronx coming?"
Eme looked around. "I'm not sure."
"Oh," Ina said, the disappointment in her voice obvious.
"Let's wait a few moments."
Ina nodded. "Good idea." She went to put the earbuds back in her ear, but stopped. "So what, you two together?"
Eme's hand went to her necklace. "Me and Bronx? No."
Ina nodded once, eyeing her like maybe she didn't believe it. "He dating anyone?"
"I don't know," Eme said, her fingers tracing the rough edge of her emerald.
Ina glanced at her phone, then turned it off and dropped it on the table. "I'm hoping he'll stay single for another year and a half. So I'll at least have a chance."
"A chance?" Eme asked, not sure if she should be encouraging this conversation.
"Yeah, he won't date anyone under eighteen. I know that for sure."
Eme nodded, a fierce gladness welling up inside her, which was stupid. America wasn't like her tiny, backward country in South Africa, you couldn't arrange marriages at sixteen like had happened to her. Men in America didn't prey on teenagers. Well, not most of them.
"He's hot though," Ina said. Eme only nodded, having no clue how to respond to that. Ina glanced at the door, and when no one came through it she leaned forward and talked to Eme like she was a friend, her voice lowering with a secret. "My girlfriend, Ella, like a year ago, she talked some boys into clearing out the locker room when Bronx was in there, and then blocking the door so no one would come in, and she walked straight up to him naked when he came out of the shower. He folded a towel around her and told her that her body is a precious gift and she shouldn't unwrap it for just anyone. She was seventeen, sexy as shit, but he wouldn't even look at her. Told her she was too young."
Eme's mouth dropped open. She couldn't imagine young girls acting like that, and the pride with which Ina relayed the story extended to Ella's actions as much as it did to Bronx's.
Ina looked around again, then back at Eme. She shook her head. "He don't shower here no more, but Ella ain't been back since she turned eighteen neither."
Something inside of Eme parted sweetly, with a feeling like a gasp in the moonlight. Something that separated who she had been from who she would be. Separated the past that she'd hated from the future she wanted to believe she could love. Perfect, her mind offered again. The more she heard about Bronx Rosesson, the more she wanted to believe maybe he was perfect. Perfect for her at least.
Ina's eyes shot over Eme's shoulder and a smile lit her face. He had showed up. Eme turned to look at him, to really see him for the first time. To see him as a man in his own right, a man who deserved fresh eyes, unencumbered by the weight of her history and the load of her hangups.
He was tall. Over 6 foot. Fit, muscular. His dark hair was cropped closer than it had been on the day she met him, and it looked good both ways. His smile came easily and stayed for longer than it did on most men. His teeth weren't perfect—no braces for him, but they gave his smile a crookedly cute nature that she couldn't look away from. Spoiled rich boy shot through her head and she threw the phrase out once and for all. That wasn't him. Nice guy. Good guy. Sweet man. Those fit him well. Hero? That one too.
She smiled at him as he approached their table and mentally apologized for judging him and avoiding him.
She would never say the words out loud, but he deserved better than how she had been treating him.
Chapter 19
Bronx
Bronx finished off the last bit of ice cream in his cup and pushed it away from him. "Ina, what are your plans for after you graduate?"
He kept his eyes off Eme. He'd sensed a bit of a change in her. She seemed happier, lighter, but none of that had anything to do with him, so he'd just keep his attention off of her. She didn't want anything to do with him, or worse, she just wanted to be friends, so he'd get through this last meet-up with her and Ina, beg off of anymore, and go home to lick his wounds. Maybe call up one of the his girls. He hadn't been on a date in months, but he was still on good terms with plenty of women, the ones who had accepted that he didn't have anything more to offer than dinner and sex.
He was supposed to go out with his brothers that night, but they wouldn't mind him bringing a date. Knox and Talon were probably bringing their fiancés anyway. Only Daxton would be dateless. Hell, he could make Jazzy happy and invite her along too. Make a big pa
rty out of it. Something he normally shunned on his birthday. But what the hell, he was feeling just shitty enough to want to drown in a celebration and a sweet-smelling pair of thighs.
Ina was just staring at him with big eyes.
"What?" he asked.
"What makes you think I'm gonna graduate?"
Bronx blinked. "Well of course you're gonna graduate. You're smart. I've seen you tutor Marcus and Amato in math."
Ina waved a hand at him. "So what? A graduation certificate ain't got shit to do with my future. All you can do with that is drop fries at McDonalds. I got plans. They gonna start soon."
Bronx eyed her and wondered if it was worth getting into. Of course it was. You helped the world by helping the one. He leaned forward and began an earnest conversation with her, trying to draw out her future plans and explain to her why finishing high school would help her get there.
While he did, he felt Eme's eyes on him. Like now that she'd turned him down for a date she felt safe to be more friendly and open with him. She'd made it clear where she stood and he wouldn't ask her again. She must have sensed that.
He focused on Ina, who was telling him about Amato's band and how they were going on tour at the end of the school year and how she was going to be their manager.
"Wait, Ina, that means you're going to drop out of high school to go tour with Amato?"
Ina smiled. "They got some bars lined up already. And a state fair. That was me," she said proudly.
Bronx shook his head. "So Amato is going to finish high school, but you aren't?"
Ina began to argue but Bronx cut her off, incensed. He turned to Eme. "You finished high school. Tell her how important it was to you. To your career."
Eme's eyes went wide and her lips curled together like she was panicked. She looked to Ina, then looked back at Bronx and shook her head. She brushed crumbs off her shirt then stood up. "Excuse me, I have to go to the restroom."