by Edwina Fort
Mean Tucker
Napthali and Free’s Tale
Edwina Fort
Copyright © 2020 by Edwina Fort
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below:
Author Edwina Fort
P.O. Box 346
Keithville, LA 1047
www.authoredwinafort.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Published by Griot’s Garden Publications
Griot’s Garden Publications
2533 Bert Kouns Ind. Lp.,203 #187
Shreveport La. 71118
Griotsgardenpublications.com
Mean Tucker/Edwina Fort. – 1st edition ISBN
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
To Be Continued…
Redemption: Beyond the Looking Glass
Also by Edwina Fort
Social Media
About the Author
Acknowledgments
As always, first and foremost I would like to thank the Heavenly Father, who has once again provided me with a chance to sow. Gardening is what I was born to do. Where would I be if I could not plant seeds? I would like to thank my friend, Danna Mckay-Jones, it was she who first gave me the courage to dream. I would also like to thank my husband and my children for learning how to live around my crazy. I would like to thank my team, who has also learned how to coexist with my swings. Crystal girl...you’ve become my necessity. And last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my fans. Y'all keep the fire lit under me lest I become negligent in my responsibility. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Prologue
Free
It was almost over. I was almost free from this hell known as high school. No…I take that back. I was almost free from this hell known as Aldshore, Michigan, my house, my so-called family, high school, and most importantly, Naphtali Tucker Pelletier, who was a real-life sociopath who everybody called Tucker, but I called Mean Tuck.
I looked up the name Tucker once because that's what I did. I stayed hidden in the library most times with my nose stuck in a book. It was the only safe place, the only place the Beautiful Ones will never travel.
Anyway, I looked up the name Tucker and would you guys believe it is derived from an old English word in the 7th century that meant tormenter?
What’s the irony? That’s exactly what he was, my tormenter.
And no matter what I did to try and avoid him, he always found me because he was psychotic and tormented me to the cheers and encouragement of his posse that the whole school referred to as the Beautiful Ones, because there was not an unattractive one to be found in their midst. And he, the most beautiful of them all was their king.
He was not only their king, he was king of the whole damn school, the golden boy of the small beach town, captain of the football team, adopted son of the Mayor, and if you let everybody in this town tell it, the next best thing from the Second Coming.
Now me…
Well, I was nobody. I was born in Detroit. My mom was a black hippie, who loved life. She loved it so much she named me Free, but she also loved drugs and ended up overdosing when I was in eighth grade. Her death almost killed me. She was the best mom in the whole world and now she was gone.
Anyway, my estranged father, who I hadn’t seen since I was a baby, showed up to the funeral and informed me that I was moving to Aldshore, a small beach town off Lake Michigan, known for its wealth, to live with him and his new wife, who had twin daughters from a previous marriage that were my age. Apparently, my dad had married up. Neither he nor my mom was from money, but my dad’s new wife surely was.
Although they lived in a huge mansion, they’d given me a small room in the basement. Angie, my dad’s wife was not happy with the fact that he’d shown up with a strange kid to tarnish her pristine reputation.
I was her charity case and she never let me forget it. And because my dad in all sense and purpose was also a charity case, there wasn’t much he could do to help me.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was a well-known psychiatrist in the area, in fact, that was how he and Angie met. He was her doctor, but his notoriety was nothing compared to hers. She was what was known as Black royalty. She came from old money.
This whole town was full of Black royalty. And like I told you, sitting at the very top was the Pelletier family. Word is, Mayor Pelletier and his wife had tried to have a baby for many years, but couldn’t. So they’d sent a scout out to find them the very best specimen to adopt and they’d found Tucker.
LOL… I don’t know how true that is, but Tucker is a very fine specimen. Every girl at school fancied themselves in love with him. And for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why someone so gorgeous and so popular always went out of their way to hunt me down and then torture me.
You know what…scratch that. I do know why. It’s because he’s a psychotic sociopath, who I was sure suffered from multiple personality disorder. Something about me had triggered something in his brain and now he didn’t feel complete unless he was causing me misery. And although I’ve spent many hours wondering what I could have possibly done to gain the attention of someone like him, I’m still at a complete loss.
It’s not that I thought I was ugly, I wasn’t. It’s just that I wasn’t perfect like the Beautiful Ones. I wore glasses that I had to tape up because I didn’t have the funds to replace them. Angie won’t buy me another pair and she won't let me get a job so that I can buy myself another pair, because God forbid anybody sees any of her daughters, including her little charity case working a real job.
So, I walked around with thick duct tape holding the left side of my frames together. I didn’t have long straight hair like my stepsisters. Both Layla and Laureen spent hours at the beauty salon every week.
Not me, Angie was already paying a fortune to house me and send me to this fancy school. There was nothing left for amenities like clothes and beauty salon appointments. All my clothes were Layla and Laureen’s hand-me-downs.
But I didn’t mind not going to the beauty salon, because I actually loved my hair. In fact, I thought it was my best feature. It was my mama’s hair, thick and curly. I fought with it each morning to get it in a ponytail. And by noon each day, most of it was escaping my ponytail to frame my face, making me look like my mom.
Like I told you guys, my clothes were Layla and Laureen’s hand-me-downs and they made sure everybody in school knew it. So yeah, I couldn’t figure out why Tucker made it his mission to seek me out and torture me every day. There was nothing special about me.
And trust me, I did my very best to avoid him.
The two classes he and I had together were the two classes I was doing the worst in
. I always came late, because it wasn’t safe to be early and I always made up an excuse to leave early, because it wasn’t safe to leave late.
I didn’t go into the lunch room…
Goodness, in the four years of me attending this school, I can count on one hand the times I’d eaten lunch in the cafeteria and those times had been the most tortuous.
My freshman year, he’d sat his beautiful chocolate, athletic frame down at my table and then while staring at me with a gaze that held me hypnotized, proceeded to eat my whole lunch. But what made it so bad is that I didn’t realize the whole cafeteria was laughing at me because his gaze had me completely paralyzed. I couldn’t believe that Tucker…the Tucker that was king of this school, even in freshman year, was sitting at my table and not only that, he was looking at me.
It wasn’t until he’d finished eating my lunch, stood and walked away from me that I blinked, coming out of the trance he’d put me under to realize that everybody was laughing at me, including my two stepsisters, who were both one of the Beautiful Ones.
Tears came to my eyes as hot embarrassment washed over me. I got up and ran from the cafeteria and didn’t re-enter it till my sophomore year. This time, I’d gone in with my new friend Rachel. She was a freshman and like me, she wasn’t rich or a part of the in-crowd. Her mom was a well-known prostitute, so she too suffered from bullying.
But her tormenter was Jackson, Tucker's right-hand man and best friend…and a golden boy in his own right. His daddy was the town's sheriff, so he knew all about Rachel's mom and her home life and he teased her about it endlessly. Several times he'd made her cry.
Anyway, on the first day of school, she wanted to go into the cafeteria to eat lunch. I thought enough time had passed since the last debacle, so maybe it was safe. Boy was I wrong. I’d been pointing something out to her as we passed Tucker’s table, not paying attention and right as I passed, he shot up from the table into my path, causing me to crash into him.
It was like hitting a brick wall. I flew to the ground hearing my glasses land somewhere by my head. My books and papers went everywhere. But that wasn’t the horrifying part, I’d been wearing one of my stepsister’s hand-me-down skirts that was slightly too big for me and the skirt flew up to my waist. Chaos erupted. I was on full display from my belly button down.
I could have died when Tucker’s eyes landed on my white underwear. I swear it seemed like time stood still.
I heard my stepsister Layla, the oldest twin yell, “Look, she’s wearing granny panties!” In a state of shock, I scrambled to try and gain control of my skirt and pull it down.
That moment was so unreal. The whole time my hands that were extremely clumsy in my shocked state were trying to gain control of my skirt. The look in Tucker’s gaze as he looked at my dark brown legs and belly button was throwing me for another loop.
I’d never seen hunger in the opposite sex’s eyes towards me before, so seeing it for the first time was a bit of a trip and seeing it in none other than the famous Tucker’s eyes had to be the biggest shock of them all. I had gotten the skirt down, but because I’d pulled too hard, my belly was now exposed.
Nobody was paying attention to him, they were all laughing and pointing at me. But I was watching him, I saw him get an erection. And he didn’t try to hide it from me, which really made it all the more mortifying.
Rachel bent down and pulled down my shirt to cover my belly and then helped me up. Tears of embarrassment were blinding me. With trembling hands, I put my glasses back on so that I could pick up my books and papers. Rachel helped me.
Still on my hands and knees, I'd retrieved every paper but my literature report. I recognized the black Jordan that stood on top of it and dread filled my being. Without looking up, I pulled at the report, but it didn’t budge.
Dear God, why does he have to torment me so? Slowly my gaze rose up the powerful bow-legs encased in the black designer jeans that probably cost more than everything I have in my closet. The bulge was still there in his pants and I wondered if anybody else had noticed. My gaze continued up to a lean waist, farther up to the massive chest and finally to a face too beautiful to belong to such an ugly individual.
I pulled at the paper, letting him know I needed him to move his foot.
“Say please…” Even in his sophomore year, his voice had been extremely deep. Tears came to my eyes. I didn't want to say please to him, I wanted to get a gun and shoot him.
“Please…” I told him with trembling lips, so embarrassed I was thanking God for my dark brown skin.
He didn't move his foot right away. Instead, his eyes swept over my face. The muscle ticked in his jaw and I wondered in that moment what he was thinking. My peers still laughed and cracked jokes about my grannie panties behind me, but he didn't seem to notice. It was something else going on in his psychotic mind.
His hand lifted as if it was going to caress my face, but he must have caught himself and lowered it. Then mercifully he moved his foot…
Oh God! That was so humiliating. And I’d like to tell y’all that was the most humiliating thing to happen to me, but then I’d be lying.
Junior year was hard for me. It was the year my father got killed by the brother of the woman he’d been cheating on Angie with. Long story…I’ll fill you guys in on that later. But his death left me at the complete mercy of Angie and my evil stepsisters.
The one good thing about it was that I’d found out he’d left money for me to go to college, which was perfect because Angie had told me more than once that she wasn’t paying for me to go.
Anyway, so my dad died. Although there wasn’t much love lost between us, it was still a little hard. But then junior year also meant I had to take swimming in gym. And as if God was just not in a giving mood, that year I had gym with Tucker, thus beginning my showing up for class late and leaving early.
However, one day, that didn’t work out for me. I’d entered the empty gym, because you had to walk through it to get to the locker rooms and then the pool. But it just so happened that Tucker and a few of his friends were also late and had entered the gym at the same time.
Because my mama didn’t raise no fool, I took off running towards the locker rooms, but I don’t know why I did that because it was like a red flag to a group of bulls.
“Catch her a**!” Tucker yelled and they took off after me.
And as if that day couldn’t get any worse, I had on one of Layla’s old skirts that of course was too big, so when Jackson caught me, my skirt fell down as I went wild in his arms.
No, wait! That isn't the worst of it…
That day, I had on these cute little pair of Hello Kitty underwear that I’d found on a discount rack at Walmart. Jackson, who didn’t know that my skirt had fallen, held onto my arms as I tried to pull them away from him so that I could pull up my skirt.
“Jackson! Let me go!” I cried.
“Okay…” he said before shoving me away from him, causing me to trip over my skirt and into Tucker’s waiting arms. It was then he saw that my skirt had fallen. When his surprised gaze fell to my panties, Tucker’s arms tightened around me as at that point, he was practically holding me. My feet were just barely touching the floor.
“Don’t look at her!” he growled, sounding like he wanted to kill his friend.
Jackson held up his hands and turned and walked out of the gym. It was then when I saw that the other two boys that had been with them were also gone. The danger of being alone with him had registered somewhere in the back of my mind. But his possessiveness had me so confused, I had no idea what was going on. My adrenaline was pumping out of control.
Tucker eased me back down on my feet, in no hurry, pressing my body to his in a way that made me feel…I don’t know, hot?
I instantly reached down to get my skirt, but he beat me to it, snatching it away from me. I stood frozen in horror, because the position he was in was quite scandalous. He was down on one knee in front of me. His face was so close to my center.
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br /> All my limbs had locked as my brain raced to try and process what was happening to me. Mean Tuck, the most popular boy in the world was on his knee in front of me, staring at my Hello Kitty panties. He’d just growled at his friend for looking at me…as if—
All thoughts fled from my mind when I felt his big warm hands gently cupping my butt before he pulled me close, pressing his face into my center.
My mouth opened in utter shock, but when I felt him inhale, something else went through me, something I’d never felt before…
Arousal…
There in that gym Mean Tucker had awakened arousal in me.
“You smell so innocent. Damn, it smells good. I want to taste you…”
What?!
The sound of a door closing in the distance snapped me out of the lust-filled haze he’d so cleverly put me in. I stumbled out of his hands and snatched my skirt from him before scrambling into it. The whole time he stayed on one knee and watched me with his hungry eyes.
When I got back situated, he grabbed the front of my skirt and yanked me till I was back in front of him.
“Stop, Mean Tuck!” I cried trying to push away from him, but he wouldn’t let me. He was so much stronger than me, my little shoves weren’t even causing him to budge.
“Why are you such a f***ing d**k tease?” he growled up at me.
I looked back to see if someone had come in the gym so that I could call for help, but unfortunately they hadn’t.
“Let me go!”
“Answer me…” He was still down on his knee holding me pinned to him.
“I’m not.” My gaze went back to the door.