by Mj Fields
“If you make love to me, I’ll—”
She inhales deeply as I bury my head in her chest and thrust into her fully.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I growl as I rotate my hips and look up. “You okay, Queenie?”
She nods.
“Words,” I groan out as I pull back.
“More.”
“I love you,” I say as I thrust in hard.
“Love you,” she whimpers.
I thrust in and out of her, slow and deep, enjoying every part of what she feels like and the dizzy, intoxicating feeling of being connected with her like this. I fucking love watching her as I slide in and out of her heat, fucking her, feeling her pussy around my cock, feeling her get wetter and wetter. Feeling her body tighten and tense and her back arching, causing her nipples to rub against my skin.
I could watch her for hours, and I plan on doing just that.
Walking out of the bathroom after my shower, I watch her sleep for a solid minute then put on some shorts to head upstairs and grab a couple bottles of water.
Dad is standing at the counter.
“Everything good?”
“It is.” I nod.
“What are you gonna do if she decides to buy a house down there?”
“Go with her and drag her ass back here, kicking and screaming.”
He sighs. “She the one?”
“She’s always been the one.”
“Then you think you need to go, you take Tobias and your sister.”
“You being serious?”
He laughs. “You think you may have to drag her back, you’re gonna need some assistance.”
“Then why Truth?”
“Because I just got my ass handed to me by five foot nothing of a girl who looks like my wife and has my temperament. Because you just carried Gabs down to the beach and probably had, in her words, angry sex, and I didn’t do a thing about it. Apparently, I’m a hypocrite.”
“You bringing me a condom would have been hypocritical.”
“You did wrap that, right?”
I shake my head.
“She on the pill?”
“Not really thinking so.”
“Justice, what the fuck are you thinking?”
“In the moment? I was thinking I waited years for that and that getting her knocked up would guarantee she’ll be where she’s supposed to be.”
“She know you were thinking that shit?”
I nod.
“How many others have you played Russian Roulette with?”
“You want to know the truth?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “I always wanna know the truth.”
“None. Not one.”
“I’m gonna need confirmation as to what I’m thinking.”
“Plenty of others, just never let it go that far.”
“I thought you and the guys were all—”
“Dad.” I shake my head. “Told you she was it. And no, none of them know.”
“She know?”
“Fuck no, she doesn’t.” I laugh. “And she never will.”
“Jesus, you are more like your mother.” He chuckles.
“How’s that?”
“She didn’t tell me she was a virgin, either. Not till I figured it out after the fact. Pissed me off, too.”
“It pissed you off that the woman you love was a virgin?”
“At the time, yeah. I had rules.”
“Oh, I know all about your rules.”
“Then do me a favor.”
I nod.
“Follow the one about wearing a condom, or I will kick your ass. Your mother is more afraid of you getting someone knocked up than she is Truth getting pregnant.”
“Not thinking where I finished can cause pregnancy, Dad, and if it does, it does.”
“No doubt that you’ll be a good dad someday. And not gonna lie and say I’m not praying that your pull-out game is as strong as your ball game is. But wrap that shit tight. You have your hands full, JT. A long road ahead of you. You gotta learn how to care for her heart before you two add to that.”
“Wasn’t planned.”
“Love never is, kid.”
Epilogue
Justice
Five Months Later…
Five months ago, I thought I had the world figured out. I would spend my senior year with the one and only girl I ever loved. I thought after finally being with her in a way I’d never been with anyone, physically as well as emotionally, it would all be smooth sailing.
But it wasn’t.
There was a bit of kicking and screaming the day we left Colombia, but it was me doing it. She was doing the crying, because she’d yet to see what I was seeing. And I wasn’t liking what I was seeing, and she wasn’t liking that I was telling her what I was seeing.
The minute I met her father, I knew that Santiago Morales-Ortez didn’t think he’d done anything wrong by leaving her in the U.S. to fend for herself. He believed he’d given her an opportunity, and Sam, the smug fuck, used the hell out of it.
There was no remorse for anything he’d done, including not getting ahold of her to tell her that her mother was ill. His excuse? To fucking many.
He couldn’t face her. He was grieving. She was better off because of it. He bragged about what he’d given up for her and what he had done for Sam, who was most definitely selling smack behind his back. He wore his suffering like a badge.
Sam coddled him, and Gabrielle felt sorry for him. Never once did either acknowledge that she was the victim in all of this. That Sam’s drug issues were, in fact, what made her that way. And when I brought it up, they acted like I didn’t say a word, they did a lot of that shit. And she was pissed at me… again.
When I called my parents and told them I wasn’t coming home, that I couldn’t leave her here, it wasn’t safe. Dad told me that she would be fine and that Ranger, the ex-military, part-time tattoo artist and all-around badass biker, had been there the whole time, watching out for all of us.
Being as fucked up in the head as I was, I wasn’t even believing my own father. I insisted on proof. It came in through the window of the house that Gabrielle had bought for two million dollars cash, before we even got to Colombia. Nicest house in the area, too, but still not fucking safe enough for me. But she wasn’t budging.
Ranger assured me he’d make sure she was safe. He had been living in the place next door, a place Dad had rented for him to watch out for us. He told me he had eyes on her and that he’d make sure she was safe and promised that when she was ready, he’d follow her ass all the way home.
Took a couple days of her totally ignoring me for me to do what she’d previously told me to do, ‘Go home, there’s nothing here for you.’
Three weeks of FaceTimes, I love yous, and I hate yous until she came back to the States.
She bought a house a mile down the road from her old one. Big place, six bedrooms, and close to the beach like ours, but it needed a lot of work. I didn’t find out about it, or that she was home, for a solid week.
When we finally did talk face-to-face, her eyes were wild, and I didn’t play the fight and let’s fuck and make-up game. I straight up fucked her. Spent the entire weekend in bed. Most of that time, she was sleeping. And on that Sunday night, she waited until after everyone left our place to tell me, in front of my parents, that she had received her diploma from Seashore and was starting at Rutgers in a few weeks, her focus in international business and then law school. She decided she was going to become a lawyer so she could use her resources to help her father and others like him, as an immigration lawyer. That didn’t go over well, either.
After that, we didn’t talk for two weeks. I knew Ranger was still looking out for her. And when we did start talking again, and yes, I had to wear her ass down, she spent every damn night in my bed until she left for college.
The parties started up shortly thereafter, and I knew she’d been paying them all when they weren’t happening. She didn’t have to do that, bu
t the fact that she did made me fall harder for her, which made it nearly impossible to be rational through the transition of her going to college.
I was as jealous as she was. At one point, she was sure I was sneaking into her old house and fucking with Torrance. I told her she was crazy, and she said that I was crazier for loving her. I’m pretty sure she was right, but the heart wants what the heart wants.
Two months ago, she shared that she’d started seeing a therapist, and that, as part of her therapy, she was supposed to contact people she had unresolved issues with, and that her therapist thought I was her biggest problem. It was a Friday night, and there was a party at Gabrielle’s new place, which she did not attend. Parties she was having, because she was still taking care of people in a way, doing right by them, yet terrified to do the same for herself. And even though she was less than an hour away at school, she never showed up, afraid of what people would say or think of her because her address had changed. The only thing they knew was that her mother passed away, her father was living in Colombia, and she’d had enough credits to graduate high school and chose to start college. I told her that I was not the problem, that she knew that, and that I was done. Dick move, but I’ve never been one to not use such a move when need be. She showed up within the hour.
We battled a bit, but no one was the wiser. At the end of the night, when everyone was gone, I told her loving her wasn’t supposed to feel the same as losing her. And that I would never subject my future children to this shit, and if she didn’t get her shit straight, they wouldn’t be with her. I told her to find a new shrink because, if they couldn’t see her issue was abandonment and fear of loss, then they weren’t worth the paper their diploma was printed on.
I stayed that night because I knew she needed sleep. And I stayed because, as pissed off as I was, it was a big fucking step for her to face them all—her imaginary enemies. Hell, even Harrison looked genuinely happy to see her. And talk about growing up, when he hugged her, I didn’t want to kill him. Well, not all that much anyway.
How could I hate him? He had been there for her at the beginning, and although he didn’t know what was going on, he filled a void for her. And apparently, he’s the one who recognized she had an addiction to sleeping pills and broke up with her because of her refusal to seek help. She didn’t get help, but she told him she did. She simply slept in a closet for a fucking year.
After that night, I broke down a bit and told her what she was doing to me. And she promised, if I didn’t leave her, she would get better.
Mom hooked her up with a new therapist, and at her therapist’s insistence, we don’t see each other often, and never alone.
I’ve had a hard time with it. I know Gabrielle has, as well, because she and Truth talk daily, and Tris and Brisa spend most Saturday nights at Rutgers with her. Their Instagram pages are flooded with pictures of them at games or fundraisers, no doubt to poke whatever bear that wasn’t paying attention. I knew whose bear Tris was poking. Brisa? No fucking clue. The Saturday nights they don’t go, she stays at my place while I’m in the city, doing what I love.
Truth goes with me to the city every weekend, unless Gabrielle’s ‘home’. Not that she and I hung out, she and Tobias shacked up the entire time. Doesn’t piss me off anymore, just makes me miss Gabrielle more.
Patrick stepped in for Miles as treasurer. None of them questioned the transition, and Patrick, being the one who dealt with them after getting back from Italy, gave them just enough. Gave them a little more after the Whitaker shit hit the fan.
They knew Whitaker was hacked into most everything to do with Seashore and, because of that, into most every students’ family’s finances. But that didn’t make the news. Why? Because Principal Whitakers, wife’s old man was a politician. But we knew that precious little app was a gateway. It was taken down and replaced with one Patrick had designed within a week, with Steel Incorporated’s best tech geek and a firewall thicker than the U.S. governments.
The ‘Horseman’ knew I wasn’t going to abuse power like they had feared, they knew the drill with Gabrielle and me being kids when we got together, and they knew their lives weren’t changing because Gabrielle had given them a place to play.
Today is our weekly date, the only time we are allowed to see each other, per the therapist. Gabrielle sees her twice a week on her own and once a week with me. We don’t go in timid. We don’t cat and mouse the shit. She’s practically on my lap while we’re in the office, and most of the talk is about her progress.
Dr. Spada smiles at me. “Tell me about your week.”
“Mine’s the same as always. I’d rather hear how Queenie’s doing.”
Her weeks aren’t any different either. She’s killing it in school, doing yoga and meditation at night, sleeping six solid hours for the most part, in her single dorm room, which I never pointed out was about the size of her closet at her old place.
“Would you like to tell him how you plan to spend break, Gabrielle?”
She looks at me. “At home.”
“Not Colombia?”
She shakes her head and smiles, I see it hurts a bit, but I’m also relieved.
“That’s not home. The house that you, your dad, and Brand seem to sneak in and work on is our home.”
I nod and swallow hard.
“I’m going to try to keep my Saturday night schedule. Maybe do dinner with your family on Sundays.”
“I bet we could host a dinner.”
She smiles and nods. “I’d like that.”
“Then it’ll happen.”
“Justice, part of what we’re doing here is planning ahead so Gabrielle knows she not only has people, but things, and events she can count on in the future, and we’ve not really nailed down what your plans are after graduation. Will you be living in the city and continuing with your artistic endeavors?”
“That’s always gonna be my outlet. Thought maybe it would be a career, but I’ve decided I’d like to work to help fix a flawed system. A system where socioeconomic status or the color of your skin decides your sentence.”
“Tiggs?” Gabrielle whispers.
“Both he and Tyler got fucked, Queenie.” I look back at Dr. Spada. “Sorry for the language.”
She smiles. “You have your mother’s eyes and your father’s mouth.”
Queenie grins and shakes her head. “And both their hearts.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m never going to make loving me feel like losing me again, Justice. I swear on the sun.”
“Then you’re good with my early acceptance to Rutgers Criminal Justice program?”
She nods so hard I think her fucking head’s going to fall off.
Christmas break was kind of epic. Her house, she and I decorated the fuck out of it; boujiest shit I’ve ever seen, too. But it was all her, including the personalized stockings hung on the fireplace, a real ass fireplace, too, none of that gas shit. She hosted a Christmas Eve-Eve party with food and booze and cars to bring people home, but the invites went out from me, Reeves, Kai, and Tricks.
When everyone left, she handed out stockings, also personalized with each of our side crew’s; as Patrick calls them, names on them. We’d decided to give them what we’d spend on each other, so we stuffed the stockings with cash and gift cards. Our gifts to each other would be the good stuff—favors, sex, and making up lost moments; the shit money couldn’t buy.
When she handed them out, she told them, “An envelope of cash makes us business partners; a gift makes us family. And I don’t know about you all, but I could use more of this kind of family.”
Fuck if my eyes didn’t burn.
“Dude, you good?” Patrick whispered.
“Fuck you,” I mumbled, and everyone laughed, except Queenie.
She hugged me and whispered, “I love you.”
Christmas Eve, after our family get together, I surprised her with her first tattoo. She had earned it. And you would have thought I put a ring on her damn finger and not tattooed, Forever Ste
el, inside the middle one.
She surprised me with a request. She wanted me to tattoo, “Justice Crew” down her rib cage. Took for fucking ever because she has the pain tolerance of that princess in the story books who can feel a pea under a stack of a hundred mattresses, The Princess and the Pea.
“Guessing we’ll have one kid?” I joked.
“If it’s anything like this, we’re adopting.”
“I’m down with that.”
She looked at me curiously. “You would?”
“Fuck yes, I would. Let’s make our Christmas card look like our family is the United Nations of all the Steel Crews.”
“Do you know how much I love you? Truly, Justice, it is so hard for me to imagine you could feel half—”
“I feel it, Queenie. From the beginning I felt it so hard that I …” I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“Tell me.”
“Ask me now how many girls I’ve fucked.”
“I’m laying here in pain, asking you to mark my body for life with your name, and you want to inflict more pain on me?”
“Ask me the question, Queenie,” I say as I wipe the blood from the spot I was just working on.
“How many?” she says, looking pissed off, annoyed, and cute as hell.
“None.”
“We letting go of the promise to be honest?”
“No, Queenie. That’s one hundred percent truth. I could do anything with someone else, but when it came down to it, I didn’t want to look in anyone else’s eyes, see anyone else’s face, but yours.”
“You’re being serious.”
“I’m always fucking serious.”
“Not even the tip?”
“Not even the tip,” I confirm.
“Are you telling me this to make me feel like a ho?”
“I’m telling you because I’m hoping you remember this if you ever have even a thought I’ll ever fall out of love with you, that you know from the moment I saw you, there was never a second I didn’t think you belonged to me.”
“Justice, I don’t love you any less than that.”