Dearly Beloved, page 5
She didn’t appreciate the insinuation behind Ashley’s grin.
I knew I shouldn’t have told her about last night—shit! “What?” she asked, pretending she didn’t know what that stupid grin meant.
“Don’t play dumb with me, bitch, you know what.”
Renée narrowed her eyes at Ashley.
Ashley’s grin turned into a full-fledged “Hey, Kool-Aid” smile.
“Shut up,” she snapped. This was why she didn’t tell Ashley about this stuff. Since Christina was at work, and she needed to talk, she’d buckled and called her. When would she ever learn? She knew what the strawberry blonde was getting at. “I was thirteen,” she reminded her.
“Mm-hm…” Ashley nodded. “You could still be carrying a torch for him.”
“Uh… No. There’s a lot of stuff I liked then that I don’t like now. Come to think of it. There’s a person I liked a second ago. That I won’t like too much longer if she doesn’t stop talking about the thing she vowed never to speak of again in mixed company.”
Ashley flinched, wrinkling her nose. “Mixed company? We’re the only two people out here,” she pointed out. “Who is there to hear me mention the enormous crush you had on Chris that made you cut his picture out of Drew’s yearbook? And who could hear me say that when Drew asked what happened, you told him he did it in his sleep?”
Mouth pinched tight, Renée gave Ashley a wide-eyed, murderous glare.
“What?” Ashley asked. “Have I said too much? You worried Chris’ll come out here, and what… spank you?”
Renée was about to tell Ashley where she could stick her bullshit opinion when she heard a voice she hadn’t heard in eons, come from behind Drew’s closed bedroom door. She stepped closer to listen.
“What are you—?” Ashley whispered, joining her.
“Shh…” she mouthed, putting a finger to her lips.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Dude, when did you get back?” Drew asked, bouncing his miniature orange basketball, preparing to shoot it into the mini basketball hoop mounted on the back of his bedroom door.
His parents had months to do anything they wanted with his room. Most would’ve turned it into a den or a sewing room, but not his parents. They left it just as he had. The walls were still indigo. His cherry wood, executive-style desk remained in the corner, making his childhood room seem smaller. They hadn’t so much as touched a paper clip since he’d moved out.
The only exceptions were his king-size bed sheets. When he’d left his Ace Ventura, sheets covered the bed. Now, a thick, black, goose-down feather comforter was in their place and matching black with white sheets. It stunned him that his mom would go through the trouble of changing the sheets—it wasn’t like he was an actual guest. Of course, that wasn’t the only surprise he’d gotten in the last two weeks of being back in his parents’ home.
The second shock showed up unannounced, about an hour ago. A twenty-six-year-old, six-foot-tall, dark brown-haired, rich brown-eyed, light caramel-skinned, Latino man with a lean body that was muscled more than he remembered. It’d been a little over three years since he’d seen the man. It felt like some weird lucid dream when he saw him standing on his front porch.
Shooting the ball—and missing the basket he wasn’t even a foot away from—he looked at his friend expectantly. Alejandro “Alex or Lex” Gutierrez lay kicked back on his bed dressed in gray and blue Ballin shorts, gray muscle shirt, and a backward black hat. Hands behind his head, he leaned against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankles. White sneakers hung over the edge like he owned the place. Or better yet, like he’d never left.
“Today,” he answered, yawning. “The parents and I agreed it was time. Three years is long enough—don’t you think?” He shrugged. “So, I jumped in the car, and six hours later… heeeeere’s Alex!”
“Man, I think your sister’s gonna try to kill me in my sleep.” Chris, sitting at the desk, chimed in off-topic.
The off-topic part wasn’t shocking. Self-centered Chris rarely paid much attention to conversations or anything not about him. While Alex had been updating them on his life in California, Chris had been where he loved to be, a world of his own. Here and there, he contributed an “oh, really,” and “uh-huh,” or a “no way,” or nod to the conversation, but nothing else.
“Did you see how she looked at me earlier this morning? Shit, the last couple weeks I’ve been here…?” Chris continued.
Alex laughed and caught the ball. “Why wait ‘till you’re asleep?” he muttered.
Chris glared at Alex. Flipped him the bird. He picked something up off his desk and extended it to him.
Drew felt the blood rush out of his face as he saw what his friend held. Shit!
“What’s up with the bling? You got a side hustle as part of Drake’s entourage?” Chris smiled before doing a little dance—a rhythmically challenged head bob and shimmy, shake, bounce combo—and singing, “Twenty-one can you do somethin’ for me?”
Alex leaned forward to look at the object.
Drew snatched the decent-sized diamond stud—obviously a woman’s—earring and pocketed it. “I don’t think it’s you,” he said, in answer to his friend’s earlier question and ignoring his faux pas. His little secret was getting harder and harder to keep, especially with slip-ups of this magnitude. “She treats all guys like that,” he finished, speaking of his sister.
Chris and Alex exchanged curious looks but said nothing about his change of topic, which was weird for his friends. They all got immense joy out of giving each other shit.
Alex chucked the ball at Chris without shooting it. Chris caught the ball and took the shot. He made it without so much as a glance at the hoop.
“Whatever.” Chris sighed, exasperated and agitated, which was odd. “I don’t even kind of envy the guy who ends up with her,” he said, tossing the ball back to Drew.
He took the shot, missed, caught the rebound, and pegged a laughing Alex in the head.
Alex rubbed his head, feigning injury. “Maybe she just doesn’t like you,” he suggested to Chris. “Ever think of that?”
With a fake-out pretending to throw the ball at him, Alex changed up at the last second and threw the ball at Chris, hitting him square in the junk—hard.
He had to give his friend props; he didn’t wince, cough, or cry. Chris didn’t show that it hurt at all, but he and Alex didn’t miss the fire in Chris’s eyes as they narrowed.
Okay, so maybe they were acting juvenile. They were all well into their twenties, but it was like being stupid boys again when they got together. Boys who defined their relationship by how shitty they treated each other. They knew, without a doubt, that any of them would give their life for the other and have the other’s back in a minute if necessary. All they were missing was Rand to complete their quartet of merry idiots—as Renée and his mother called them. It was their play on Robinhood and his merry men.
“I was watching this thing on TV the other day,” Chris said after taking a minute to regroup, “about praying mantises… that’s what Renée is.”
Now, he and Alex exchanged eye-tightening, brow-furrowing quizzical looks.
“What the hell are you talking about?!” he exclaimed, voice rising an octave.
“Praying mantises,” Chris repeated as if that should explain it. “They trap their mates,” he elaborated off their blank stares, speaking in a tone that suggested they were the stupid ones, “with their beauty, then after they mate, they bite their heads off.”
No words could suffice in this situation. Alex and Drew stared at their friend, deadpan and mouths agape.
Alex recovered from his stupor first. “That’s what you think about when you see Renée?” he asked. “Do me a favor? Let me be there when you tell her that.” He chuckled.
He didn’t know how his sister fit into this conversation, but he needed to clarify one thing. “Never talk about my sister’s mating habits again,” he snapped. “My sister doesn’t mate!” His bedroom door slammed open, knocked off balance, Andrew tripped into the wall. “Ow! What the hell, Née?”
Of course, she didn’t hear his complaint. Not over the eardrum-piercing squeal she let rip as she barged in. Ashley strolled in much slower, but just as unwelcome, behind her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Alex! Oh. My. Gosh. I missed you,” Renée squealed then, much to Chris’s dismay, launched herself onto the bed, on top of Lex, and into his waiting arms.
What the fuck?
She’d never treated him like that. She often acted as if he weren’t even in the room, like now. When he’d tried to help her last night, she’d treated him like he had the Ebola virus or some other infectious disease. He’d just got done hearing how she hated all men, but there was one man she liked. And by the way, her petite, barely dressed body draped over his alleged best friend with her breasts—sans bra—smashed against his chest? She more than liked him and Lex more than liked her. His arms wrapped around her said it all.
That should be me. Friend or no friend, I’ll rip his motherfuckin’ heart out if he’s touched her, Chris thought, mouth clenched so tight he thought his teeth might shatter.
After what seemed like an eternity, watching his woman embrace another man—his best friend no less—her best friend voiced the words he couldn’t without also committing homicide. “Should we leave you two alone?”
With a light-heartedness he’d never heard come from her before, Renée giggled—fuckin’ giggled. She rolled off Lex but stayed lying on the bed as close as possible to him and held his hand.
“When did you get back?” she asked the traitor, gazing at him as if he were some sort of celebrity.
He guessed Lex could be considered good-looking if you liked that whole tall, dark, and handsome, mysterious bullshit. To him, he reminded him too much of that guy who played Fez on That ’70s Show. Last Chris knew, the ever-unpleasant Ashley was the object of Lex’s infatuation.
If he was furious with this PDA, Drew must be ready to draw blood. Chris turned and was struck speechless. The bastard stood there smiling—smiling!—accepting this open display of… Shit, he didn’t even know. Guess the hands-off oath their friends forcibly took regarding Renée didn’t apply to Lex. The double standard had him ready to spit fire. He gripped the chair he sat in to keep himself from beating his childhood friend to death.
“Today,” Lex answered Renée. “How are you?” he asked, bringing their intertwined hands up and kissing the back of hers.
“Still alive,” she smiled at him with a frustrating, dreamy grin.
In a gut-tightening, sickening exchange, Lex kissed his other index finger, tapped Renée on the nose with said finger, then turned a flirtatious eye and smile toward Ashley, who stood in the doorway. “What’s up, Ash?” His voice dropped to a seductive level.
What the hell? What’d Rico Suave think he could do—have every woman? Three unexplained years in California seemed to have inflated his ego.
Ashley’s eyebrows rose, the corners of her mouth turned up in their familiar, uncomfortable, yet disgusted way they did when Lex flirted with her.
At that moment, he found a secret ally in Ashley. At least he could count on her for the correct response, unlike his woman, who he wanted to grab off the bed, throw over his shoulder caveman-style, smack on the ass and carry out of the room.
Ashley averted her gaze and shrugged in response to Lex.
“How long are you in town?” Renée asked, bringing everyone’s attention back to her.
“Indefinitely,” Lex answered, not taking his eyes off Ashley.
“We need to celebrate. Let’s go out tonight,” Drew suggested.
“I’m so down,” his sister agreed with more enthusiasm than Chris had ever seen her display in the twelve years he’d known her. “Let’s go to Big D’s.”
“I’m not in the karaoke bar mood,” he grumbled, pissed and aggravated by this new cockblock to getting Renée to accept him.
Ghosts of all her hang-ups and her preconceived notions about him were one thing to fight. Fighting his visible, and if he were being honest, better-man-than-he’d-been-in-the-recent-past friend was quite another.
Since he’d spent the year with his grandparents and only came back to town a day before Lex left for California, it’d been more like four years since he’d seen his friend. But time couldn’t damage their bond or the vow they’d made to never let women come between them. However, Renée wasn’t just any woman. She was his woman, his soulmate. He couldn’t let her go; wouldn’t let go of her. He’d fight for her and ruin his friendship, whether or not he wanted to.
His friends were his brothers, and he couldn’t imagine his life without them. They were all impressive—him being most impressive. Together, their personalities melded to form the perfect man. He couldn’t dream of having better men in his corner, one day standing up for him at his wedding—to Renée.
“Fine. Whatever. You don’t have to be in the mood,” Renée said, breaking into his thoughts. “Nobody asked you to come.”
Damn, praying mantis Renée replaced happy-go-lucky Renée just like that. Ready to bite his head off without the courtesy of a fuck first. What would change her perception of him? Make her stop treating him like old gum or like the tenderhearted chubby kid nobody wanted around and the girls ran from.
He raised a brow at Drew. “Told you.”
Drew looked confused, then comprehension spread across his face. “Shut up!”
“Come on, Née,” Ashley said. “We should tell Christina. She’s never met Alejandro.”
“Alex,” Lex corrected. “Alex or Lex, there’s no Alejandro here.”
“She’s never met Alejandro,” Ashley repeated, as if Lex hadn’t spoken.
“Alex,” he reiterated in a strained voice.
Renée released his hand and got up.
Much to Chris’s dismay, other than her one shot at him, she hadn’t otherwise acknowledged his presence. She exited without a glance in his direction. They’d had a moment last night. By the way, she acted now; it would surprise a person to know they knew each other. Oh, if she thought she would trade him for Lex, she had another thing coming. It was full-court press time, starting tonight.
“See ya tonight, Alejandro!” Ashley called over her shoulder.
CHAPTER NINE
“I'm surprised I was invited to this here shindig.”
Chris rolled his eyes at the snide comment made in a fake twang by the fourth member of their crew. At their usual table in the tiny dive bar, he, Lex, and Drew sipped beers and scrutinized Randolph “Rand” Wallace, kicking back in his chair. If he was the pretty boy jerk of the group, then that made Drew the serious-responsible one, Lex the ultra-relaxed one, and Rand the preppy muscle.
A six-foot-three, light-skinned, green-eyed black man with a black skull-trimmed, fade and a neat goatee. People often mistook Rand for a pushover. Polo shirts, creased khaki pants, and loafers didn’t help his cause. But, hidden under his cool façade was a well-muscled hothead.
Ladies loved his looks, charm, courteous nature, and money. The guy was filthy rich. Nobody knew what his parents did, and no one asked. But everyone speculated that even as nice as Mr. and Mrs. Wallace were, they had mafia ties. Men only tested Rand once before they realized who they were dealing with. They didn’t want that smoke. Step to someone the man cared for, and he’d throw the first punch before they completed their sentence. Rand was the guy you brought when you’d tried everything to deal with a situation, any situation, and got no results. He got results by any means necessary. Confrontation didn’t scare Rand. Good thing, since he was in law school to become a criminal defense lawyer.
Chris scanned the bar. No sign of Renée and her posse. It was packed for a Thursday. They’d had to rely on Rand’s powers of persuasion to get an extra table to push near theirs so the girls would have somewhere to sit. Given how rowdy and drunk the crowd already was, it’d be an exciting night once the DJ got the karaoke set up.
He’d never been here on the same night as Renée. Chances of her doing karaoke were slim. Ashley, he was positive, would. He’d only met Christina a few times. Each time, she stared at the floor as if she were falling in love. She hadn’t said over two words and answered only when spoken to, so her singing was a stretch.
“You’re one of the boys, right?” Drew asked Rand.
Two pairs of thick thighs, long-legs, and denim-encased asses attached to two brunettes passed their table. Held them in thrall.
Once they were out of sight, Rand took a swig of beer. “I couldn’t tell. What’s up with the blow-off, brah? You too good to return phone calls? Your phone don’t make outgoing calls? You’re in town, two, almost three weeks, and I’m just now seeing you.”
“Been busy, man. Got shit going on. Been making big-time adult decisions, you know?”
That got everyone’s attention. Three pairs of suspicious eyes flung toward Drew.
“Adult decisions?” Chris wondered aloud.
“You know,” Lex retorted, kicking his chair, almost making him fall, “those things you avoid.”
Lex didn’t know how close he was to being maimed. He hadn’t forgotten about him touching all over his woman, nor would he.
“Screw you,” he said, fixing his chair and kicking Lex hard in the calf.
“Shit! The fuck, Clark?!”
Drew cleared his throat, recapturing their attention. “Umm… like I was saying. I’ve been making adult decisions—making moves.”
“What’s that you say, Lassie? Timmy fell in well,” Rand said, hand to his ear. “Uh… today, Drew. Shit!”
Drew never beat around the bush, which was what he was doing.
“What does that mean? Adult decisions,” Lex joined in. “You get a prostate exam or something?”
Everyone but Drew laughed.
“Not that adult, dumbass! I said adult decisions, not middle-aged decisions.”
