by Rebel Hart
Cherri led the way up the stairs, and I took a seat while she turned on the fire pit, the fake coals glowing in a variety of different colors as the fire started to blaze up. She sat on the couch adjacent to me, kicked off her stiletto heels, and pulled her feet up to get a little more comfortable. Part of me wanted to go sit next to her and kick back, as well, but I figured the distance was okay for now, especially considering she did have a boyfriend.
“This is oddly nice and warm for the Loches,” I said.
She laughed. “Yeah. It’s actually my doing, technically. For my birthday my sophomore year, Nathan had Avery poke a little bit and find out what I would find really romantic. I told her sitting around a fire in the woods with just the sounds of nature seemed lovely. It reminds me of being back in our old neighborhood. Of course, Nathan isn’t going anywhere near the actual wilderness, so this was his compromise. It’s not bad, though.”
“It’s not,” I replied. “So…you guys are a real, actual couple?”
Cherri tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
The cool wind mixing with the warm fire created a delightful temperature against my skin. “I don’t know. I kind of thought from the way you talked about him yesterday that maybe you’re not really into it.”
“Can I be honest with you?” Cherri asked.
“Of course.”
“I’m not. I mean, back when we first started dating, I thought he was really cute. I’d never really been with anyone before, so it pulled me in, but he’s not a good guy.”
Understatement of the year. “Then why are you with him?”
She shrugged. “Because it’s easy, I guess?”
It was time to take a leap. Something about the strained look on Cherri’s face as she spoke about Nathan told me that I had to make a now-or-never move. “Can I be honest with you?” I asked.
She smiled. “Of course.”
“Being with you is…so easy for me.” My heart started to pound faster than I expected. “We liked each other back in the day, and it feels like there’s something between us now. Why couldn’t this be easy?”
When she started to nod, I was relieved. “Being with you is easy. Not just easy, but it feels… I don’t know. It feels right. Like we haven’t been apart these last four years.”
“Yeah. I mean,” I stood up and moved to sit next to her on the couch she was on. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t dreamed of picking up where we left off. Haven’t you?”
She turned to face me, and there was less space than a person could fit in between us. Cherri was wearing some sweet, flowery perfume that made me lightheaded. Mixed with the smell of the fire, the scent was so intoxicating that it would be burned into my brain forever.
“Yeah,” she said, “but I had to get over you. I didn’t know what happened to you, Deon. You were just gone. Your mom said you didn’t want to see me. I couldn’t contact you. No one from the neighborhood knew what happened to you. You just weren’t there anymore. I was crushed.”
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry. I thought about reaching out to you a bunch of times, but then I thought you’d be better off without me.”
“Why would I be better off without you?” she asked. “Is it true what everyone is saying about where you’ve been?”
I wasn’t unaware of the rumors. In fact, I was pretty certain Nathan had started them on purpose. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I was locked up. Two years in juvie. Two in adult.”
“You were in an adult prison?” Cherri asked. “Why?”
That was the million-dollar question. My mind took a whirlwind trip back to that day when Cherri and I were on our date, and a body dropped from the sky. I had no idea where that body came from or why it crossed paths with me. All I knew was, my life diverged onto a totally different path that day, though I couldn’t bring myself to regret the choices I made, not for a second.
I sighed, knowing it wasn’t the time to come totally clean to Cherri about that just yet. “It’s complicated.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I stopped her. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, just…not here.”
She settled, seemingly accepting that for the time being. “Was it that bad that you got sent to an adult prison?”
“Well, no, that was more my fault. The group of friends I picked weren’t the softest, most-liked group at the juvie, and one of the guys tried to kill one of the guards and break out. No one wanted to snitch on anyone for what happened, so they took us all down for it. I was the only one who didn’t get added time, but they did send us all up the river for it.”
She shook her head. “Jesus. I can’t imagine sending a sixteen-year-old to an adult prison. How did you survive?”
Venom’s ever-present smirk splashed across my brain. “I made better friends.”
Cherri chuckled. “Well, in the interest of total honesty?” I shrugged, so she kept going. “I would never be happy about what you had to go through, but prison, Deon.” She looked away as she mumbled, “Pretty sexy.”
My stomach turned over. Suddenly, I was plagued with a new problem—not jumping Cherri in a public place when she had a boyfriend. “Is that right?”
“Oh, yeah.” She locked her eyes on mine. “You got the arms going on, the tatts. You’re all…buff.” Her eyes flared with a hint of excitement, emboldened by the actual flames from the fire reflecting in them. “It’s a good look on you.”
“You like the arms, huh?” I leaned away and flexed. “Well, I didn’t have a lot to do while I was in there, so I worked out a lot.”
She eyed my arms hungrily and pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “I can tell.”
I was right on the precipice of fuck it. Cherri was leaning in, her eyes were wild and intrigued, my lower half was already trying to convince my brain to flip sides, and given that my brain was already half in one camp, the debate wasn’t difficult. After four years of being apart and many more of waiting to kiss Cherri, the fact that it would be as easy as leaning a few centimeters forward to end that wait was difficult to ignore.
Unfortunately, footsteps stomping up the gazebo stairs made the decision for me.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Cherri flung herself away from me as Nathan pounded into the gazebo and rushed over to me. I stood up, and Nathan got right in my face. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled.
I was stone-faced and unphased by Nathan trying to size me up. “You father invited me.”
“He wouldn’t,” Nathan growled back.
“I saw it.” Cherri stood up and wedged herself between Nathan and me before shoving Nathan back a few feet. “He personally gave him an invitation.”
Nathan looked down at Cherri. “What are you doing with him here alone?”
“You’re one to talk,” Cherri hissed.
Nathan ignored her and looked back up at me. “You need to leave. Now. You’re not welcome here.”
“What is wrong with you?” Cherri asked. “You were fine with him yesterday.”
Both Nathan and I looked down at Cherri. Given that Cherri didn’t already know that Nathan was actually my brother, he must have had his own reasons for keeping the truth hidden from her. He looked up at me and shook his head. “I just don’t like someone stealing my girlfriend on my birthday.”
Cherri crossed her arms. “I’m not someone that can be owned.”
I saw the look of frustration on her face and knew I was about to make her life much more difficult than I wanted to. We’d taken a giant step forward, so I needed to cut my losses and get out before things got any worse. “I’ll go. It’s not as if there’s much here for me, anyway.”
Cherri gave me an apologetic expression, so I tossed her a quick wink to let her know everything was okay, and then I made my way off the gazebo. The shouts of Cherri and Nathan arguing bubbled up as I was leaving. Cherri was no slouch, though, and I’d learned a long time ago not to treat her like she couldn’t take care of herself. She could handle Nathan, probably bett
er than I could. I re-entered the house and found Sicily sitting on the sunken couch in the living room to the right of the backdoor. He was eating and had a beer in his hand. It was surprising that Connor had supplied three hundred teenagers with alcohol, but was definitely an additional reason to leave sooner rather than later. He wasn’t participating in any specific conversation but was throwing thoughts into several here and there.
I tapped his shoulder. “Sicily.”
He looked up at me and then jumped up and climbed out of the couch. “Hey. Where the hell have you been? I went to grab food, and you fucking ghosted.”
“I was talking to Cherri.”
Sicily recoiled. “The queen? Really?”
“Yeah, but the king found us, so long story short, I need to leave. Sorry. I’ll call an Uber.”
“Nah, nah. I’m full, anyway.”
I laughed. “All about the food, huh?”
“A guy’s gotta eat.” He set his plate down on the floor and raised an eyebrow at me, then stepped over it. We left the house, headed back up the path, got in his car, and left the Loches’ estate behind.
Sicily tried to get more info out of me about Cherri, but I remained tight-lipped. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share the story with Sicily. Actually, as I considered it, I felt like I probably could be honest with Sicily and be just fine, but I had so few memories of Cherri that I wanted to keep them to myself. Her watching me with that starved look in her eyes and with the night sky and lights behind her was one I hoped to remember for many years to come.
I waved goodbye to Sicily and walked up the path and into my house. I planned to stop by the living room and talk to my mom, but my phone buzzed in my hand. I could see Cherri’s name on the notification, so I gave my mom a quick hello, promised to talk about the party in the morning, and made my way back to my room. I smiled as I checked the text, feeling far more awful about the fact that Cherri felt bad than about how I got kicked out. The only thing I regretted was that my time with Cherri got cut short.
Omg, Deon. I’m so sorry about him.
Don’t worry about it. I’m not worried about him.
I’m bummed our conversation got cut short.
Me too. Though, truth be told, it didn’t really seem like we were headed for any more talking.
Oh, is that what you think?
That’s not where I was headed.
Since we got cut short, I guess we’ll have to use the tech way to “not talk.”
The tech way?
Hehe. Ever heard of sexting, prison boy?
Just the mention of the word had excitement rushing all over my body. Ordinarily, I would never mess with someone that I knew was already in a relationship, but knowing Cherri wasn’t emotionally invested in her relationship with Nathan made me slightly less strict. I wouldn’t date her until she was uninvolved with Nathan, but why couldn’t we have a little tech-fun in the meantime.
Oh, it was a long four years. Educate me.
Fine then. I walk in your room, and I look like this. What would you do?
Look like what?
The next thing I got was a series of pictures of Cherri with the top of her dress pulled down to reveal her breasts. Her head was tilted teasingly to the side, and her bottom lip was held between her teeth. A few of the images showed her from the front, while a couple of others were shot over her shoulder, giving me a nice view of her full backside. My temperature doubled, and my groin was already straining in my pants.
Good god, Cherri. What wouldn’t I do?
Tell me.
13
Cherri
I was relieved that Maine pulled out one last relatively warm Saturday so that Avery and I could go shopping without needing to be too bundled up. My top of choice was still a thin orange hoodie and a pair of warm sweatpants with my knee-high converses. Avery had gone for a long-sleeved purple t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. Postings Proper had an outlet mall that served as the main shopping district in Postings, and it was our favorite pastime to go and spend lots of our parents’ money there. We’d already done quite a bit of damage in the first half of our trip and had decided to take up an entire booth in a 70s-style diner with our bags and grab some lunch.
“Okay,” Avery started once we had ordered our food and gotten settled. “You’ve been in a delightful mood all day. Out with it. What happened? You disappeared with Deon last night. Don’t think I didn’t see it.”
“I did,” I responded with a smile. “We talked for a while. We ended up catching up a little bit, and then we started talking about, you know, us.”
Avery smiled. “Like you and Deon?”
“Yeah.” Just thinking of Deon made me smile. “We talked about how I’m not really into Nathan and how he’s dreamed of picking up where we left off.”
“Did you talk about him going to prison?” Avery asked.
“We did,” I responded, nodding. “He didn’t want to talk about why he went there, which I understood, but he did confirm that he went.” I snickered and covered my face with my hands as I said, “I told him that Prison Deon was sexy.”
Avery gasped. “Oh my god. That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you. What did he do?”
My body got a little hotter. “He flexed. I honestly think if Nathan hadn’t interrupted, we probably would have kissed.” Our waiter brought our food, and I took a bite before dropping, “We sexted last night.”
Avery was halfway through a bite and nearly choked on it. “You what!”
I giggled. “I couldn’t help myself. I was all turned on from talking to him, so when he left and when I finally got Nathan off my back, I texted him, and things got heated.”
“And?” Avery prompted. “Did you get dick pics?”
The images that I eventually coaxed out of Deon made my phone feel like it was smoldering through my pants pocket. “Maybe?”
Avery squealed. “Is he just as blessed beneath his clothes as he is over them?”
I smiled even wider. “Maybe.”
Avery started to bounce in her seat and clap her hands. “Okay, so then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t just break up with Nathan and start dating Deon. It’s settled. You two have so much more chemistry, and Deon is obviously a better choice for you. What are you waiting for?”
“Honestly?” I said. “I think I’m gonna do it.”
Avery leaned in. “Shut up.”
“I’m serious. Deon, he’s… He’s just the one I should be with, you know? If it weren’t for whatever happened with him, we probably would have made things official and would still be together. I just wanted to get through last night, get beyond Nathan’s birthday and the party. I was expecting to have to take a couple of weeks to gauge where Deon was at, but we figured that out last night. I’m gonna go for it.”
Avery seemed truly surprised. “Really? Like, for real?”
“Yeah. I should be with Deon. There’s no doubt about it.”
Avery made fake, dramatic sniffling sounds. “My baby is all grown up.”
“Now I just have to figure out how to actually break up with—” I looked up over Avery’s shoulders, and my heart sank. “Nathan.”
“Well, yeah. That’s the thing.”
“No,” I said, nodding my head in the direction of the front door where Nathan was walking in. “Nathan’s here.”
“What?” Avery looked over her shoulder, and that shift drew Nathan’s attention to us. He was alone and walked over to our table, not even asking if he could join us. He just instead slid into the booth next to me. “Hey, Nathan,” Avery murmured.
“Hey,” Nathan said, before turning his head to kiss me on my cheek. “Hi, sweetheart.”
I was frozen and speechless. What were the chances that Nathan would show up in the midst of that conversation? Better yet, how did he even know we were there? I intentionally didn’t mention that I was spending time with Avery, nor did I mention my plans at all for the day because I was still frustrated that he had the audacity to act the
way he did while he was still—not subtly either—carrying on an affair with a teacher.
“Nathan,” I finally managed to grumble out. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d join you guys, maybe let you spend some of my money instead of your own,” Nathan replied. “Starting with lunch.” He whipped out his black card and set it on the table. “It’s on me.”
He flagged down a waitress and placed an order for some food and something to drink. Then he wrapped his arm around me, pulled out his phone, and started to immediately ignore both Avery and me.
I looked across at Avery, and she shrugged. Annoyed that his presence had effectively ended our conversation, I unwrapped Nathan’s arm from my shoulders. When he looked over at me, I scowled and growled out, “Can you at least wait for us outside? Part of the joy of spending time with your best friend is girl talk.”
Nathan eyed me for a long time. There was something in his gaze, something harsher than I’d ever experienced from him before, but eventually, he stood up, walked over to a table a few down, and sat down by himself. He sat facing me, and I wasn’t unaware of the fact that he was clearly trying to keep an eye on me. Where his sudden obsessiveness was coming from, I couldn’t be sure.
“Did you tell him we were hanging out today?” Avery whispered to me.
“No. When I left his place last night, I told him I was spending the day at home, doing homework and applying to colleges.”
“Maybe he went to your house and your mom told him or something?”Avery asked.
“Not likely. My parents aren’t his number one fans, and besides, when I left to come pick you up, I told my mom that I was exhausted from dealing with Nathan and his birthday last night and was looking forward to a girl’s day out with just the two of us. I don’t think she’d tell him, knowing I specifically didn’t want him to be involved.” I glanced over at Nathan, but he was back to looking down at his phone and absent-mindedly munching on some of the fries from the food he ordered. “Do you think he tracked me somehow?”