Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (17 page)

I squeezed her hand and she squeezed my leg.  I hadn’t realized we’d been looking into each other’s eyes the entire time…

I had always loved gazing into those eyes.

“Estefan?” she murmured.

“Yes?” I mimicked her intonation.

“I think… well, I can feel - ,” she began, but never got to finish.  Over on the other side of my bed, my fucking iPhone vibrated and chirped, startling us both and shattered the moment.

I didn’t break eye contact with her, but my face melted into angst as I mouthed, “Sorry.”  She nodded as I got up, ran around the bed.  I answered the phone with such haste I forgot to look at the Caller ID.  I answered the call “blind”.

“Hello?”  This was me into the receiver of the phone.

“What up Deeeeck?”
said the deliberately obnoxious voice on the other end.  This told me, in an instant, who was speaking.  It was Jacob, my cousin from biological father’s side of the family.  Jacob, who just happened to be the same age as me and went to the same high school I attended.

“Not much, what’s going on, where are you?” I asked surprised, because he was the last person I was expecting to call.

“Where am I at?  Where am I at?  Fool, I’m here at school with your girlfriend, both of us wondering where the fuck you’re at, that’s where
I’m
at,”
he answered in a huff.  This let me know instantly - because I knew him well enough to catch the little nuisances in his words - that Ramona, my girlfriend, had probably been all up his ass all morning trying to find out where I was.  She could be tenacious at times, so I knew why he was so frustrated with me.

“Ah man, I forgot to text her last night about the…,” I paused to glance at Katie to see if she was listening.  She was gone from the bed and was in the bathroom, most likely, out of earshot, “…situation here at the house.  She did get all crazy on you?”

“Naw, man, well… nothing I couldn’t handle, because I’ve known the crazy chick for about as long as you have.”
  I could her Ramona talking loud in the background, not liking the way Jacob was talking about her.  Her displeasure was vocal - loud. 
“But, hey, why didn’t you come to school today?  I thought we were going to fuck around, get high and shit.”
 

No, dickhead, you were gonna get high, while I was going to sit back and watch your ass stumble around and make a fool of yourself.

“Jake, man, I told you the deal with Katie, remember?”  I was whispering hoarsely at this point, wanting talk of Katie to remain private.

“Oh shit, you mean that fine ass hottie showed up?
”  He had said that much too loud and Ramona had heard it.  I could hear her yelling in the background that I “better not have some skank-ass bitch up at my house” - or something along those lines.

“Jake, fuck dude, will you calm down!” I demanded into the phone, still lower than I normally would have spoken, but just barely.  There was no immediately reply only a slew of garbled words and loud electronic rattling noises coming from his end.  I could hear my cousin.  I could hear Ramona.  I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  It was as if a hurricane had suddenly leaped into existence over their heads.  “Jake, you there?  Jake - !” I called into the phone.

“This is not Jake, Steven.”

When Ramona used the English version of my name, I knew I was in trouble.  It meant she was on the verge of getting pissed off
, royally.

Fuck!

“Oh, hey Mona, what happened to Jacob?” asking a ridiculously obvious question in order to distract her.

“Who’s at the house?”

Well, so much for that…

Her voice was slow and measured, but definitely carried an edge to it.  I could tell she was talking through clenched teeth.

“Katie,” I replied simply, knowing she knew who the girl was, that she’d been associated with our family for a long time.

She sighed into the phone heavily, making static resound in my ears. 
“Oh, god dammit, Eff, I fucking thought you had some hoochie² up in your bed!  Jesus Christ, don’t fucking scare me like that!  Ever, ok?!?”
  She was waiting for a reply.

“Yeah, no problem.  Things got a little busier than I expected last night – “,
did they ever with Katie sleeping in my lap!
“ – And my mom sprung the whole ‘why don’t you stay with Katie tomorrow thing instead of going to school’, super last minute.  I just forgot to call or text.  So, I apologize, babe.”  I had meant it, because it was true.  The entire situation had grown with such complexity I was having a hard time keeping up.

“Ok, ok, I’m not freaking out anymore.  Sorry I was acting like a bitch, but I was just defending what is mine, you know right?”
she asked the question using her baby voice, which at times was cute.  At others, like now, it was just a little bit over the top.

“I understand.”

“Really, you do?”

“Yes, I do,” I reaffirmed, hoping the whole misunderstanding had passed us.

“Good!  So, umm, how about me and Jacob ditch after nutrition and come out and hang with you guys?”

I breathed easy.  She genuinely sounded like she’d gotten over the entire thing.  Then
, I caught the gist of the rest of what she had said and stopped short. 
Shit, did I really want them out at the house after Katie had been through the ringer?  She was just how recovering from being an emotional wreck.  Would visitors be a good idea?
  Which, when translated from the bullshit I was telling myself, meant - did I want my overly-jealous girlfriend hovering over Katie and me with each passing moment?  Did I want my horn-dog cousin dropping every pickup line imaginable in vain attempt after vain attempt to get into Katie’s panties?

Katie came out of the bathroom and we exchanged a quick looks, hers questioning, mine a bit muddled.

“Hold on, Mona,” I spoke into the cell phone, not waiting for her response.  I nodded toward Katie.

She motioned the ubiquitous “what?” gesture with her
hands.

I put my hand over the phone’s receiver.  “Ramona and Jacob want to come over during nutrition, you up for some company?”

She shrugged in a noncommittal fashion, tilting her head to side.  “How long until they’d get here?” she asked crossing her arms under her breasts.

“I don’t know, what time is it?” I asked aloud to no one in particular, letting my hand drop.

Ramona quickly replied in my ear. 
“It’s a little after nine o’clock, Eff.”

Wow, I hadn
’t realized we’d slept in
that
late!

To Katie I replied, “They said they’d ditch during nutrition, so that about an hour from now and it’ll take them about forty-five minutes to get here, if they’re walking, which, most likely, they are.”

“I guess that’s ok, I just wanted to make sure we had enough time to clean up and get ready,” she reposted quietly.

Clean up? What the hell did she mean by that?

However, I forced myself to ignore the question for the moment, and said to Ramona, “Sounds good, but are you guys gonna be ok?  I mean I live like two miles from the school and you’ll be dodging every fucking random NIA stool pigeon on the lookout for anything ‘unusual’”

Ramona smirked through the handset. 
“Baby doll, I’ve been skirting Truant Officers, the po-po and the random-wanna-be-government enforcers since the day I was born!”

I shrugged to myself, Ramona could be very dramatic when she wanted to be, and that was about half of the time.  “Ok… so we should expect you around eleven then?”

“Yeah that sounds about right… So, I guess I will see you soon then.  I can’t wait!”
she said it with a little predatory growl underlying her words.  Her signal to me that she wanted to fuck once she got to the house.  That made me sigh with resignation, because, after everything I had been through the night before, I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for intimacy on that level with anyone other than Katie… at least not yet.

“Ok, Babe, see you soon.”  I tried to mirror her enthusiasm, but wasn’t sure if I matched it all that well.

I hadn’t.  She paused for a second, and then must’ve thought better of responding to my lack of excitement.  All she said was, “
Bye, I’mma hand the phone back to Jake, k?”

“Sure.”  I heard the phone passing between them, and then heard them talking to one another in the background and agree to something.  They were probably figuring out where they were going to meet up later on.

I heard my cousin say good-bye to her and he was back on the cell.
“So, cuz, we good for later then, huh?”
he asked with ardent chuckle.

I shook my head at that, hearing Katie
wrestle with the suitcase of stuff her parents’ had “same-day ’ed” to her yesterday.  She had placed it on her bed and began to unzip it from the far side of the Loft.  Jacob was definitely going to try and fuck Katie, probably hoping to do so when Ramona was having her way with me.  He would wait until he and she had a modicum of privacy, but he would make a move all the same. 
The fucker!

“Yeah, it would seem so, but you’re - ,” I never got the chance to finish.

“You think Katie’s gonna want to hook-up?”
he asked in a rush
.

Damn, this dude was so predictable he was stupid!  Wait hadn’t Clubber Lang
³ said that?  Oh well, whatever.

“I really don’t know, Jake.  She’s been through a lot over the last few days, and had a tough time last night.  I’m not sure she’d be up to some dude trying to rub up on her right now,” I replied as honestly as I could without
my
emotions getting in the way.

“Oh, well, do you think I should try anyway?”

Dude let it go!

“Naw, man, just be extra nice to her instead.  Let things play out slowly.  I mean, shit Jake, she’s going to be here for the entire summer, so you have time.  You don’t have to fuck
her today.”  I said the last part in a hoarse whisper, so Katie wouldn’t hear.  I didn’t want her to know we were talking about her like a piece of meat.  I grimaced at the thought, feeling even worse inside.  I turned quickly to glance back at Katie glad to see she was busy going through the motions of choosing her outfit for the day.  She wasn’t paying me or my conversation any mind.

“I know, I know, it’s just that I’ve been after her for so long and she lives all the way in buttfuck Egypt, Eff!  But damn, cuz, you gotta admit, she’s fucking fine.  I mean who wouldn’t want to get at her.  Urgh!  Just thinking about digging her out is making me hard!”
he was speaking through clenched teeth and the visual was about to make me upchuck all over my bed.

“Just be cool, Jake, and don’t make a fool of yourself… again.”

Then, I heard a monotone bell toll in the background through the phone.  Jacob blurted out so loud I had to pull back from the cell,
“Ah, fuck that was the tardy bell!  Shit, cuz, I gotta go!”
  There was an audible click and he was gone.

I disengaged the call from my end and put the cell back on the nightstand next to my bed, beneath the small lamp I had positioned there. 
What a tool
, I was thinking when I heard Katie approaching.  I looked up at her.

She had a sarcastic cast to her face.  “Don’t tell me, your cousin wants to fuck me today?”

I never said Katie was stupid.

I just exhaled slowly and nodded apprehensively, knowing this could go either good or very, very bad.

She laughed and turned partially to the side with her hand on her hip, shaking her head as she peered at the walls of the loft.  “I guess I never should’ve scammed with the boy,” she muttered to herself, but loud enough for me to hear.

I inclined my head in agreement, suddenly rankling at the thought of her and Jacob macking each other down.
 
Whoa, homeboy, calm down!  Why was I suddenly so possessive?
  “Yup, ever since then, he asks about you every time I come close to mentioning you, telling me over and over how good of kisser you were, how adroit you were with your hands, on and on, until my head hurts.  I just stopped bringing you up after a while.”  I paused to consider a thought that had just popped into my mind.  I gazed at her through an inquisitive squint.  “Did you really give him a tug-job in the tree-house out back?”

She whipped her head in my direction in shock.  “He told you that?!?”

“Of course, he did, we’re talking about Jacob remember,” I answered, my challenging tone overpowering her incredulous reaction.

She brought her hand to her mouth in consternation.  “Estefan, I didn’t jerk him off up in that tree.  I made out with him, yes, but nothing more than that.  Although,” she began and I raised my eyebrows morbidly curious. 
Did I want to know this? 
“He did whip out his cock and ask for a blowjob, but I told him no when I saw he wasn’t circumcised.  You know how uncut guys kinda make me woozy anyway, right?  Seeing it right there in front of me kinda just killed the moment for me, so I told him no.”  She shrugged.  “His response to that was to ask for a handjob, which I refused as well, because he was beginning to gross me out on general principle.  I got up and said that was enough for now.”  She giggled.  “He totally ignored me and just started whacking off real fast, right there in front of me.  So, I just left.”  Her eyes refocused on me and she came back from that afternoon two years a gone.  “I think he came before I even reached the ground.”  Now, she laughed.