Love In the Red Zone (Connecticut Kings Book 1) (32 page)

He said he may be in love with me!

My face collapsed into my palms as I let go of a wailing exhale. Again, I didn’t regret the intensity I was compelled to approach Trent with. There was something so appealing and alluring about him. He was like this big treasure box that I wanted access to. Maybe the fact that no one else could penetrate that secured box was what thrilled me. I shook my head, frustrated by not knowing. But I didn’t care. I loved him and wasn’t ashamed of it. I wanted Trenton Bailey…all of him…just as he was. We could leave this mansion and I’d still walk away with my treasure.

Where does this put us now? Will he continue to let down his guard around me? Or will he believe now that he’s finally slept with me and it wasn’t good enough for the hassle, he’ll want to call it quits.
My eyes opened wide and spine lengthened on the toilet.
What if Trent changed his mind after going to church? What if he talked to Ezra and is convinced that I’m some Jezebel? What if he decided in that very moment the chemistry we were building toward turned out to be a dud?

“And why is this song so long?” I hissed, eyes rolling to the portable iPod deck on the expansive marble vanity.

I listened to the lyrics that had been looping since I hobbled in here. “
Don’t go changing on me… Don’t go breaking my heart. If you don’t mean it, don’t tell me that you love me
…”  

“Oh, my god!” I sucked in a breath, tears sprouting.

I rolled tissue on my hand, wiped myself, flushed the toilet and took long lunges to the sink to wash my hands. Rushing through a quick rubbing of my hands on a face towel, I grabbed the iPod to check the song. The title was
Don’t Do It
by Cameron J.  I didn’t know him and wasn’t familiar with his work, but apparently it resonated with Trent. I chewed on my bottom lip while gazing contemplatively at the device.

Trent was scared. He had to be. I felt, with this song, he was sending a message. A warning. Felt like he’d opened up to me in a manner he wasn’t comfortable with.
He thinks I’ll hurt him?
Was he that fragile with his heart? He had this song play on repeat knowing I’d come in here eventually and would hear it. It was clear to me that Trent was sending a message in the corniest cutest fashion.

But wait
…

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” my quivering vocals echoed in the bathroom.

“You’re a smart one, I see,” Shank smiled down at Kyree playing an old model Nintendo he’d kept for years.

Ky nodded, his attention rapt in the screen in my uncle’s living room. The gray console was discolored and stained, but after a few minutes of instructions, KyKy was playing Super Mario Bros. and apparently loving it.

“Thanks, Uncle Shank,” Jade beamed with those hazels sparkling at my uncle.

I knew what she was doing. Jade wanted my family to like her. She was trying to fit in when there was no need, really. We were cool and my uncle didn’t sweat much else. I brought them down to meet Shank and April, figuring it was the right thing to do, but scared as hell at the same time because bringing women home usually meant more to them than it did to me. But Jade was slowly turning into something different.

Shank strained to stand from his seat in the recliner. My first instinct was to jump up and assist him, but that would’ve gotten me cussed out. The rule was when he needed help, he’d ask. When he was good, he’d do for himself. It took a few moments and two tries, but Shank was on his feet, out of breath and reaching for his oxygen mask.

“Come back here,” he mumbled to me. “I need to kick it with you for a minute.”

I took to my feet and followed back to the kitchen. I brushed eyes with April, who communicated with hers to stay close to him as he wobbled back on a walker. The sight of his narrow frame that was once robust with pronounced muscle would’ve crumbled me to tears if I hadn’t decided to focus on the blessing of his life instead. Shank entered the small kitchen and turned so he could rest back on the counter. He checked the time on his loosened wrist watch then brought his hand up to his mouth and stroked his chin.

“She something else, huhn,” he commented on Jade, I knew.

I took a deep breath and backed up on the adjacent counter, pushing my palms down inside the front of my sweats, widened my legs.

“Yeah.” I snorted, nodding. “She’s trouble.”

“The type of trouble you have to strap up for or the type you gotta strap a ring on her finger?” His eyes pierced me.

My face held, but my eyes fell in humility. Jade and I had been sexing for a month now and not once did we use a condom. It had been something that occasionally crossed my mind, but I’d yet to bring it up to her. A man like the one standing five feet across from me, battling complications of AIDS wouldn’t view that as a viable excuse, so my response had to be strategic.

“I’m still trying to figure out the latter.”

Shank’s eyes fell to my
Timbs
as he shook his head, considering my answer, possibly reading between the lines. But that still didn’t explain why he pulled me aside. He wouldn’t sit and that concerned me.

“What’s good, Shank?”

Shank checked his watched again. “Just need a few minutes of your time before you roll out.” His eyes went to the back door off the kitchen. “And here he is.”

I turned to see what “he” was—not who—because he’d never mentioned anyone coming through. The door opened, bringing in a rush of cool crisp winter air and a broad body in all black pushed through. He kept his head low so I couldn’t confirm who I initially believed “he” was.

I swallowed hard, straightening up. My shoulders broadened, a trait ‘he’d’ taught me:
whenever an enemy is in your territory, always post up like you ready if they try some shit.

It was instinctual. I may have lived a privileged life for the better part of my adulthood, but I was still CMD all day and wouldn’t tuck my tail for nobody. Even Trick, my uncle who I thought was my brother after my biological brother, Trevor, died. His eyes scanned over me from head to toe, assessing me. I did the same, gauging his size after being down for ten hard ones. He was thicker, still had his hair cornrowed to the back. There were new scars on his face and his eyes were darker and yellow. I recognized that penal wrecked appearance. Spending hard ones in prison could break the toughest soldiers.

Trick advanced closer, widened his stance, clutched his fist at his pelvis, and cocked his head to the side while staring me dead in the face. I turned to face him, formed the same posture with my hands at my side. For a while, we shot daggers with our eyes. My heart trembled, pumped with the adrenaline felt when it was time to rock a body. Although I didn’t see the purpose, what I couldn’t do was have him come home and think shit was still the same, especially not with Jade and Ky in the living room.
Hell no!
I was a grown ass man now and if he didn’t want to fuck with me that was fine, but he wouldn’t disrespect me anymore.

“Now…now,” Shank tried with his fragile palms yo-yo’ing to the floor as he shook his head. “This is why I told you to come over here. This is exactly why, my nigga.” He wheezed while glaring at Trick. “I won’t keep you long, but I want to be firm in what I’m about to say. Like I was kicking it with Trick last week when he got out the pen, I ain’t got long to go. We never knew…had some close calls, but ain’t no more guaranteed. Mommy is sick herself…aging. We ain’t got time for no old, petty childhood beefs. This family done had its fair share of tragedy”—he turned with his frail shoulders to face Trick—“all of us! We done lost Trey, saw you sent up north, had me lose my health, saw Trent sent up north on some bullshit, and then Mommy had this last stroke that coulda taken her outta here. That is enough!” He swiped his thin arms like a boxing referee.

“Whatever bones y’all got with each other, handle them like men then get back into the ring with your family.” Then his back seemed to have gone out on him and his arms fell to the bars of his waiting walker. Trick and I both jumped to catch him before we realized he’d caught himself, luckily. Shank kept his head to the floor, trying to gain his breath. Things went quiet in the room as we waited on Shank. His head propped up, but not enough to face us. “I swear to God… If you two don’t get this shit straight and carry on like this after I’m gone, I’m gonna haunt you so bad they’re gonna have to put you in the psyche ward. Fuck with me!”

When I chanced a glance over to Trick, his eyes were already on me. After years in therapy, I could empathize with Trick after all this time. To him I was a message of not being good enough. Shank for some reason was drawn to me. He pushed me and Trick to stay off the streets and play ball just the same. But with me he pushed harder, and that caused Trick to rebel and hustle those streets harder. It wasn’t enough that he had been better than me. It was that I was the chosen one over him with his own brother. I could understand that type of rejection, having experienced it with my mother all my life. But I could see no way to explain this to a man like Trick, who had beaten, wrecked, and hardened by a life of adversity.

“Hot dogs, rice, and ketchup all the way,” I initiated my leaving, raising my dap to Shank.

After a few seconds of contemplation, he returned the love. His light weight body pushed into mine and he uttered on little breath, “Blowing in the winds of Macen Beach, baby.”

On the ride home while my mind went over Shank’s warning, Jade sat in silence with her eyes to the road. Kyree was in the back, reading a book on my iPad. Stevie Wonder’s
Music of My Mind
flowed softly throughout the cargo.