I Like Dirt (Jack. Book 2)

by Laine Watson

  “Man, we should throw a party! How ‘bout it, Becs?” Alex suggested.

  “Yeah, I’m down. I can…invite some people over. I wanna try out my new hookah, anyway,” Becs said, biting into her hot pocket.

  “Yeah, sounds good.” I said, walking over to her. “So, can my brother come? I mean…”

  “Katie…I…I haven’t talk to him since we…you know. I mean, he had to move out because, well, I just think…” She sighed heavily.

  “It’s not gonna be weird,” I promised her. “Trey’s cool. He’s not even worried about that. It’s gonna be a lot of people here anyway. He probably won’t even notice you.”

  “…Well,” she sighed, “…okay.” She smiled.

  “Alright, thanks…this is going to be awesome,” I said, looking at Alex. I grabbed her hand and lead her downstairs to my room, so we could choose some cute clothes for me to wear. When we got to my room, Alex looked around.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s so pink,” she said.

  “Shut up,” I grumbled.

  “I mean, it’s cool. It’s disgusting, but cool— I didn’t picture your room looking like this at all…like, at all.” Alex laughed.

  “As Jen would say, ‘Don’t judge my life.’” I smiled, pulling clothes from the hangers.

  “Hey, can you braid my hair?” Alex asked me.

  “You want me to braid your white people hair?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, what’s the big deal?” She shrugged.

  “Well. Okay. I don’t have a problem with it. How do you want it?” I asked.

  “Eve braids.”

  “Girl, what?”

  “Yeah, just to the back.” She gestured with her hand.

  “Okay. If you say so. But if you jacked up, don’t blame me,” I told her. I shouldn’t have said jacked up; it immediately made me think of Jack.

  “It’s okay. I think I know how I’m gonna look,” she assured me. “And even if I do look bogus, we’re all gonna be drunk, so who gives a shit?” She smiled.

  “You know what? You have a point,” I replied. I grinned as I hopped on my bed and grabbed the comb. She sat down between my legs on the floor.

  “…Oh wait. I gotta text Jen and my brother about the party,” I said, grabbing my phone to check it.

  “That’s not till tonight! You can text them later,” she complained impatiently.

  “…I guess.” I shrugged. “Okay, lemme at least start on your hair.”

  “Yeah!” she said excitedly.

  About a half hour into braiding Alex’s hair, which she didn’t look as bogus as I thought she was going to look, my brother called me.

  “Hello?” I said after hitting the accept button.

  “Man, Katie, can you come pick me up?” Trey asked.

  “Where you at?” I cradled the phone between my jaw and my shoulder as I continued to braid Alex’s hair.

  “I’m at Jiggs’s crib,” he replied.

  “Why you so ready to go?” I asked, frowning.

  “Cuz, I need to take a shower or something,” he said. “I don’t wanna just be taking a shower at they crib… I just got done cutting the grass, man.”

  “You just spent the night over there, but now you can’t use their shower?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Yeah man, I don’t wanna just be over here like, yeah, it’s one thing when I stay over here, but that’s overstepping boundaries when you just taking showers in the middle of the day.”

  “I’m braiding Alex hair, so I can’t. Not right now,” I replied. “One of them can’t bring you over here?”

  “Let me…hold on,” he stated, and from far away, he said, “Ms. Cathy, can you take me home? My susta braiding somebody hair.”

  “Yo susta know how to braid hair?” I heard a woman’s voice in the background say.

  “Yeah,” Trey told her.

  “Ask hah if she can braid mine! How much she charge?” the woman wanted to know.

  “Katie, Jiggs’s mama say can you braid her hair?” Trey said into the phone. “And how much you charge?”

  “Ask her how she wants it,” I replied.

  “She say how you want it?” Trey asked the woman.

  “Ask her can she just give me some micros?” the woman yelled in the background.

  “She want some micros,” Trey mumbled.

  “That’s a hundred.”

  “She say that’s a hundred,” he told Jiggs’s mother.

  “A hundred dollars? That’s all?” she said in surprise. “Ask her can she come do it tomorrow?”

  “She say…” Trey began, but I was tired of the back-and-forth because I could hear her just fine.

  “Yes…I heard her,” I said. “Yes, I’ll pick up the hair and stuff tomorrow, but tell her we gotta start in the morning cuz it’s gone take like eight or nine hours, and ask her can Bianca come?”

  “Why Bianca coming?” Trey asked suspiciously.

  “So, she can help me, duh,” I told him.

  “Oh, okay,” he told me before talking to Jiggs’s mother again. “She say is it cool if my baby mama come over to help; it’ll be done faster.”

  “I’m only giving who ever a hundred dollars,” she replied.

  “She said…” he began again.

  “Tell her that’s fine…” I said.

  “She said okay,” Trey told Jiggs’s mother.

  “Alright…oh Trey,” I said, suddenly remembering why I needed to talk to Trey.

  “What?”

  “We havin a party,” I replied.

  “So?” he shot back.

  “Becs said you could come.”

  “How I’mma get there?” he asked, exasperated.

  “Jiggs mama can’t bring you?”

  “Man, hold on…” There was silence, “Jiggs, Ant…y’all wanna go to a party at my susta crib?” I heard a chorus of voices answering.

  “Fuck yeah.”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “What they smokin’?”

  “…I got a ride.” Trey told me.

  “Alright then,” I said and hung up the phone.

  Chapter Three: Katie FM

  I didn’t know this at the time, but my brother asked Jack to come to the party, too. Trey walked into the garage of the house next door to Jiggs’s.

  “Hey bro,” my brother said, and Jack turned around to him as they bro hand shook. “You coming to this party tonight?”

  “What party?” Jack asked.

  “The one at my susta house? It’s hoes over there who’a do anything.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jack said, looking up at Trey with mild interest.

  “Yeah, I’on never see you with no gal,” Trey replied. “And hoes be on you.”

  “Man, fuck them.” Jack shrugged.

  “I swear, every time we go out, bitches be like, ‘Where your white friend at?’” Trey said in a girl voice. Jack smiled—ego stroked.

  “Uhm…” he said, swallowing uneasily. “I’on know. Just gimme the address. I might come through.” Trey did so.

  All it takes is a little Fuzzy Navel, and I’m pretty much happy. You see, we threw parties all the time at our place. It was sort of a thing that our balcony was like, the most populated area. These black guys, they were like duo group rappers, one skinny, one…not skinny one. That night, they were using the longest bong that I’d ever seen. It looked like one of those long, mixed drink cups that you get at a fair or something. At the kitchen table, there was a game of spin the fruity alcohol bottle and a lot of kissing going on. The television was on in the living room, and people were down the first flight of stairs in the hallway and on the landing by the door.

  There was a lot of dancing, twerking, and gyrating, and clothes burning; all kinds of crazy things happening when my brother, Jiggs, Ant, and Jew walked in. They were all smiles.

  They were used to going to different kinds of parties: the ones with the lights off while everybody was just smoking weed and drinking, real chill. And the ones with people fucking and minding
their own business, and you got in where you fit in. But the parties we threw, we were diverse, and you never knew what was going to happen. And this party was anything but chill.

  They walked upstairs, and of course, Becs and I were in the middle of the floor, dancing on each other to the newest pop songs. Becs was a horse, she could drink anything and still be completely coherent. Me, on the other hand, if I had a little more than a wine cooler, I was gone for the night. At that moment, in my hand, I had my second raspberry twister of the night. I had also already had a whole champagne bottle of Mimosas, which is my favorite, so I was near ‘bout toasted.

  Becs and I were screaming in each other’s faces, groping each other and inviting others to grope us. Of course, the boys nearest to us were all over that. We took our act to the balcony and continued. There we were, two girls on our second-floor balcony, gyrating and touching each other in a sea of twenty-something guys watching us.

  As we danced, we forgot about our problems.

  “Whoa!” said a guy as Becs stumbled into the lose part of the gate that fenced in our balcony. “You better get that fixed.” He smiled, and Becs kept laughing and dancing. She danced right inside of the house, and I followed her with some guys following us. We couldn’t really be comfortable in one place, so we kept moving around. Our balcony consisted of a white gate, one to the left, one to the right, and then one in the middle that bound all three parts together. The part of the gate that was right in front of the sliding doors and that let out to the back staircase to the patio had been loose since we had moved in there.

  The guys who were following us seemed a bit anxious, when I think about it. But I wasn’t thinking about it then. I don’t even remember who these guys were, or if they had even been invited to the party. One of them, the one with short blond hair, pulled Becs’ plaid skirt up over her butt and pressed his pelvis against it. They moved smoothly against each other as he kissed her down her neck. As I watched them, a dark-haired guy got behind me and did the same thing. His lips were gross, he was all sweaty, and had I been able to process any of this, I may have pushed him away. But I wasn’t. It was fun, his sweat almost felt good, and his warm body pressed against mine made me feel sexy.

  And we danced like crazy, erotic people in the middle of our living room as people were swaying and holding up their bottles. I could have done that all night, until the guy that I was dancing with tried to put his hand up my dress. Maybe I was a tease, or maybe I still hadn’t gotten drunk enough to not feel like, “This here pussy belongs to Jack.” But for whatever reason, I laughed at the guy and pushed him off of me, but in a way, that didn’t reveal my true feelings. You know, that he was disgusting and how dare he touch me? No, I pushed him off seductively into the wall, staring deep into his eyes like I wanted him.

  My brother was standing on the landing, and I just walked down the stairs past him. I knew that even if I wanted that guy, Trey wasn’t going to let him follow me down those stairs.

  Neither my brother nor I knew that Jack was parked outside the house. He sat in his car for a while, listening to the radio, deciding on what his move was going to be. Just like me, just like most people, music got to him, it opened him up.

  That was the greatest thing about Jack. He understood music and how it connected you to life and love. I didn’t find that out until years later, much like I had found out he was sitting there, deciding whether he was going to come in or not.

  He got out of the car and stood in the yard, watching through the window. When we had walked in from the balcony was when Jack had decided to stand in our grass and look through the large window in the front of the house, curtain opened wide, a clear view to both Becs and I.

  “I know that bitch,” Jack said, mindlessly chewing on a plastic toothpick. He sniffed. It wasn’t hard to see me gyrating on other guys and spilling my drink. Jack didn’t know that side of me, who I had become, and I didn’t know who he had become, either.

  He stood there for more than a few moments, watching me. I don’t know if he understood body language, but it was clear I wasn’t really having fun, and I wasn’t really into what I was doing. In fact, more than anything, had I known that Jack was standing outside my house, I would have dropped everything to be with him. But I didn’t know, and he didn’t come in. He got back in the car and drove off. And I continued to wave off the guy who may have thought he was going to get laid that night.

  “See ya later,” I giggled as I drunkenly sashayed down the stairs and past my brother, who looked at the brown-haired guy like, “I dare you, bro…I dare you.” The guy just pulled himself off the wall and went into the kitchen. My brother came down the stairs behind me.

  “Katie, what’s wrong with you?” he said as I fell into the sofa. We had a large blue wraparound sofa with two recliners on each end, and a huge entertainment center that divided the downstairs living room from the apparent dance floor on the other side, but it really wasn’t. It was just a place that didn’t have any furniture in it at that moment.

  “Nothing, it’s a party, Brothee!” I said, leaning back into the cushions.

  “Man, I’on trust these dudes,” he muttered, folding his arms across his chest.

  “It’s cool. These are our friends,” I assured him.

  “Really? What’s that dude’s name?” Trey asked doubtfully. I sat up and looked at him,

  “Devin?” I giggled.

  “You a lie. You don’t know that dude, man. See, that’s why I didn’t want you living here with these hoes,” Trey stated.

  “You went out with Becs,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we not going out no more. Remember she cheated on me?” he said.

  “No, she didn’t,” I replied, frowning.

  “Katie! Yes, she did,” he insisted.

  “No, she didn’t. She was just playing.” I grinned at him.

  “You don’t just play with another nigga dick in yo ass,” he said, getting heated.

  “Lighten up, brothee,” I said and smiled.

  “Really…we’re gonna start that again?” Trey sighed.

  “I love you,” I told him. “I only love two people Trey— you and Jack.”

  “Who the fuck is Jack?” Trey asked.

  “I love him,” I told him, like it was my biggest secret.

  “Okay, you stay yo drunk ass down here. I’m ‘bout to get you some crackers or something— you talkin crazy,” Trey said. “Every time yo ass have a drink, you talkin ‘bout Jack! Who the fuck is Jack? Is Jack like the magic hand mu’fucka? Cuz you know yo ass like to make up shit.” Trey laughed. He got up, leaving me downstairs on the sofa, almost passed out, already too drunk to really articulate.

  There were some people dancing in the corner, and some people outside of the sliding glass doors behind the sofa. There were people standing around, but no one on the sofa with me. I sighed, in a drunken daze. Jew came down the stairs. He was headed for the bathroom, but he saw me sprawled out on the sofa and came and sat down next to me. I barely even noticed anyone was next to me.

  “Hey, sexy! What’s up?” Jew asked me.

  “Hey sexy to you, too,” I said, pointing my index finger into the middle of his chest, which was hard as a rock.

  “Oh…” I said, smiling at him and touching on his pecs. I lifted his shirt up to expose his six pack. My eyes widened. I slid my hands across his bumpy, muscly stomach, and I smiled.

  “You like that?” he asked, leaning in to kiss me. If I would have been able to fight him off, I would have. I didn’t know him like that. But that was the whole point of this party, right? To do things that, if sober, you would frown upon, and to forget about Chad Masterson and Jack Fitzheigken.

  He laid me back on the cushions, and I think he was a pretty good kisser. If I was ever going to forget about one boy, this was the way to do it— by occupying myself with another. Although, I couldn’t forget about Jack. It was almost like he was always watching me while I did things that I didn’t want to talk about the next
day.

  I kissed Jew with all of the passion that I could muster as he slid my dress up past my hips and touched the sides of my ruffly underwear. He paused and looked at me. He gave me that look that means “Can I keep going?” I smiled back with a confusing look, you know, that, “I don’t know, can you?” look. He took the coin toss and went ahead. He kissed me on my neck and tried to slide my underwear off and onto the floor, but again, I must have been a tease because I moved his hands and got up. I made him follow me to my room, walking seductively and swishing my tush around from side-to-side. When we got there, he was about ready.

  “You can’t come in.” I smiled like a kitten, and maybe even purred like one, and then slammed the door. I slammed it so hard that my brother, who was coming down the stairs, looked to his right to see Jew standing at my door.

  “What the fuck you doin, man?” Trey yelled.

  “Nothing, I was…uh-looking for the bathroom,” Jew mumbled.

  “This ain’t no ba’thoom! It’s over there.” Trey pointed.

  “Oh, okay man. I’m lit.” Jew smiled, rubbing his hands together. He stood at the entrance to the room where a bunch of tables and chairs were shoved in a corner and some pipes and other random things were lying about, ready to be used. The living room was carpeted, while that room was just a shiny cement floor. I think it was shiny because it was painted, but I could be wrong.

  My brother knocked on the door to my bedroom. I didn’t answer. He waited for a while, then he came in slowly around the door.

  “Katie?” he called.

  “Trey?” I said, propping up on my bed to make sure it was him. “Oh, okay…I thought you were one of those gross dudes.”

  “Gross dudes?” He arched an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know, man,” I whined, flopping back down on my bed. “I’m not going back out there. I feel like everybody keep trying to tongue me down. They looking at my titties.”

  “Katie, you ain’t got shit on. What they s’pose to look at? Be that as it may,” Trey said, rubbing his hands together. He walked over to stand by the side of my bed. “You want me to fuck somebody up?”