Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) (6 page)

His pupils are not cooked, which means he’s
either at the bottom of his downer, or he never rolled in the first
place. I’m hoping it’s the latter. The former would be a
deal-breaker for me. Completely. I just can’t go that route with
anyone.

Not after Savva...

We get outside and the cold wind is a blast
of relief on my skin. Maybe in ten minutes it’ll be too much, but
not now.

Before Xavier told me Declan’s name, I’d
already
named him in my
mind: Mr.
I’m-So-Inked-and-Hard-and-Hot-I-Drop-Babes’-Panties-All-Over-Town.

M
y eyelids are too heavy to even try and start up a
conversation with him. And it’s been so long since I’ve been with a
guy that I wouldn’t trust my ice-breaker topic choices in my
current state of mind either. The only thing on my mind now is a
bed. Or any surface for that matter. Even this icy sidewalk or the
lumberyard next door would do.

I see his two friends: The
Huge-as-a-Mountain black dude
and the Snake-On-The-Neck skinhead dude. Huge-as-a-Mountain Black
Dude’s eyes go wide when he sees me, like he’s looking at
Brooklyn’s very own socialite. The skinhead’s reaction is typical
of someone who’s been rolling all night. That is: “Hey, whoa,
awesome! You rock!” And then he hugs me. Like, truly
hugs
me as if this were a sixties
Free Love party.

Declan
starts with the intros: “DJ Heaven—”

“
Blaze,” I interrupt.

“
Sorry, Blaze...what was the last name
again?”

“
Ryleigh.”

“
Ryleigh, that’s right. Damn, I’m tired,”
he says.

You’re telling me, dude.

He continues: “Blaze Ryleigh. This monster
here is my best friend, Trevor Perkins—everyone calls him Trev. And
this skinhead here is Skate. We promise he’s not a member of the
Aryan Nation, although he’s really got that look going for
him”

Trev’s
one bad looking emm-eff. Shorter than Declan by a little,
but wider. Seriously wider. At one stage during the party, he had
his shirt off, and I saw a sick tribal tat spanning his left pec. I
shake his hand and, even in my bleary state, can’t help but stare
at that same massive chest.

“
You’re incredible,” he says.
“
So
good.”

“
Thank you.” I don’t even have an emotion
about the statement. Maybe it will all sink in after a few hours of
Zs.

Declan:
“So, we’re giving
Blaze
here a ride home.”

Trev’s
eyes bulge. Skate says, “Awesome! Right on!”

Skate here looks pretty buzzed up, and
someone who’s not part of the scene might mistake him for
something dangerous with his
own solid build and shaved hair, snake tattoo curling all around
his neck. But his gray—just
slightly
blue—eyes are warm.
Just another dude rolling his problems away on a
weekend
, I
think.

“
So, we parked a little way away. Ten
minute walk.” Declan points up the road. “I can get the car so you
can rest, or you can walk with us.”

I ponder both options. The thought of
anyone else coming over to me in what is already too bright a day
(it’s cloudy as hell, but my eyes can’t take it), and then telling
me I was so “Awesome!” is too grueling to ponder. More grueling
than a ten minute walk. Then, of course, there’s the stench from
Newton Creek currently making me feel ill... “I’ll walk. The smell
from the creek might just make me puke.”

“
It is pretty skanky,” says
Declan.

Trev
says, “Skate, c’mon.” He flicks his head back. Then he
steals a glance at Declan. Skate doesn’t move. Trev grabs his arm
and pulls him. Skate almost trips over, then starts walking. Before
Declan and I even get going, they’re already ten or fifteen yards
ahead of us.

The intention is clear.

“
Want me to take your backpack?”

For a moment I clutch the bag
instinctively. Then I give myself an internal laugh. The bag feels
like it has rocks in it. Now that the adrenal rush is slowing down,
my whole body is aching. “Uhm, actually, yeah, if you don’t
mind.”

I hand him my backpack and we start
walking.

My eyes blink in rhythm to my footfalls.
Music plays in my ear. I remember what it used to be like, coming
home tripping or rolling after a night like this, music slamming so
hard in my
cranium that
I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until three in the afternoon. And
even though the sound is as loud in my head now as it had been
then, I know that when I hit the sack I’ll be out like a blown
speaker.

“
So,
seven hour
set,” Declan says, “that’s...wow. That’s freaking unheard
of.”

“
Did I really mix for seven
hours?”

He clutches the strap of my backpack,
turns to look at me. “Yes,
seven
unbelievable hours of
unbelievable
music!”

“
Th—thanks.”

“
No, I freaking mean it.
Hot
—HOT!—music.”
He looks up at another gutted warehouse, on our right.

I s
neak a look at his ripped bicep, his chest popping out
under his tank. Trev is pure size, smoothed out and even. But
Declan is ripped and solid. Unadulterated strength.

I decide to change the subject about the
music, because
praise
makes me uncomfortable. “So when did you start getting your sleeve
done?”

He stretches out his right arm, looks at
the top of his forearm, then the bottom. I see some of the
images
close-up now. The
gaping mouth of a tiger, bright orange, on the forearm. The
voluptuous nude on its head. Riding it like she’s in charge. Higher
up are vines, so that the tiger’s head and its rider are riding
through the vines, surrounded by them.

There’s a name in between all of that. I
don’t quite make it out.

“
Well, it all started out with this
one—
Priscilla
—that
was my mom’s name.” He pauses, looks at it for a bit. “That was
almost four years ago.”

Was
her name, I note...

“
Then I figured she should be remembered
with beauty, so that’s when I got the leaves and the vines and the
tiger’s head done. The naked woman”—he laughs—“well, that’s the
male in me coming out. That’s like Superwoman or something. I don’t
know. It just looked cool. Or maybe it’s symbolic. Who cares. It
just seemed bad-ass. And, well, I kinda wanted to be a bad-ass in
those days. Fuck the world and all that shit, you know? The
tiger—it’s a
Fuck the World
kind of thing. Charge against it no matter what. Something
like that.” He turns to show me the inside of his arm.
LIVE IN THE
NOW
, it says, surrounded
by intricate tribal lines of different colors, wrapping up all the
way to the top and around his shoulder.

Did I really say that his tats
didn’t
turn
me on?

“
They’re...beautiful.”

I don’t ask him how his mom passed.

He stops and takes my left wrist and
starts turning it. It makes me feel naked. All the ink on there has
a meaning, starting from the joy I felt when getting my first one
with Savannah, on my shoulder—the one Patryk had designed for
me—and then the ones I got later. After she was gone.

Declan looks at the red rose covering my
shoulder, surrounded by glowing green leaves. Blood falls in a
single line from its stem. I added that later.
After Savva.

He lingers on the intricate lace bracelet
underneath it, around my
lame excuse of a bicep. When he looks at the darker,
deadlier pieces lower down, he says, “This must’ve been a heavy
time in your life...”

He’s looking at the skull surrounded
in
bright red and orange
flames, a knife going through its head. I think of
Savva...

He turns the arm over, sees the leafless
tree, the wolf behind it. The wolf which, when I got it done, I
took as being death and failure. Always lurking, always watching,
inevitably there.
So, make the best of your time. Because you can’t outrun
the wolf.

In my discomposure from the
all-
night exertion, and
maybe because of hunger and dehydration as well, the emotions
burgeoning within me are too strong to fight down. Savva’s lifeless
body and blue lips stare at me now, a dirty needle in her arm, dark
and blackened eyes looking up at me.

I twist my arm away, as gently as I can,
but he notices the discomfort.

“
Sorry, I didn’t mean to
intrude.”

I say nothing, only turn my head so he
doesn’t see the tear almost breaking out from me.

Silence follows us as we walk. Trev and
Skate have since disappeared. My pace picks up and soon I’m a foot
or two ahead of him.

The rift in the air between us is solid. I
didn’t ask for it. He didn’t mean to pry. It’s bullshit that my lip
is trembling. It’s bullshit that I can’t talk to him now because
I’m afraid I’ll break down in tears.

And I know it’s because of my physical
state—that I’m dead-tired, and famished. I know I’m not like this
usually, that I have it mostly under control on good
days.

Savva
. Patryk.

I try to
explain this, but my lips are frozen by terrible
memories. Wind sings across my ears like a banshee howling the
approach of death.

The bitch of it all—the absolute
crummer
of it—is that I actually wanted
to give him my number. I wanted to tell him to come by and maybe we
could drink coffee or a beer or something. I saw him checking me
out all night.
All
night. He’d
be worth at least one good hook-up.

Maybe more?
I’m not so good with boys, but, yeah,
probably more.

Damn it!

“
We’re here,” I hear him say from behind
me.

I see Trev and Skate inside a desolate
parking lot which is surrounded by a chain fence.

It’s now or never. I have to tell him it’s OK
while we’re still alone.

I have to—

I can’t talk. Somehow I have to fix
this
—

I stop. I turn and snatch his forearm. I
look over at
Trev. He
seems to have a sixth sense about something happening here. He
grabs Skate by the nape of the neck and starts wrestling him down
like little boys at a schoolyard, effectively giving me and Declan
some “privacy.” Or as good as it can get.

My chin
trembles.

Oh god I can’t believe I’m
about to do this...
But
I can’t talk now. All I could do is...

I stretch my hand up to behind Declan’s
neck—
damn
he’s tall!
—and pull him
down.

He goes with it. His arms wrap around the
small of my back.

O
ur lips meet.

Our tongues touch.

Before I know it, he’s dragged me
left—away from any possible
view of his friends—and rams me up against a concrete
wall.

H
e pushes up against me, pressing at me with his
crotch.

And suddenly I’m awake.

The wind picks up, rushes at me
from
the left. My hair
swings all over my face and gets in between our lips. It also wraps
itself around his head. My eyes flutter back. My skin freezes up
and I shiver, but inside...a fire burns.

I try pull him closer, which is just not
possible. My head’s up against a concrete slab of a wall and he’s
pushing harder and harder so that even the back of my ass
hurts.

My eyes are half open, his are
closed.
The way he
kisses me is passionate.
Needful
.

He wants me
, I think.
He wants me more than air.

A million thoughts howl through my mind.
Buffalos on a stampede. It’s the J train rattling the rafters on
Broadway Junction. It’s TNT. Hard House. This had meant to be just
a sign to let him know,
Hey, it’s cool, I saw you checking me out. This is
just to let you know I’m interested...maybe
. And what it turned out to be—

He bites my lower lip, licks it. His hands
are all over my tank, side and back. And then they’re on my
head—his left hand on the shaved side, the other weaving through
the long side.

His eyes are closed. Shut
tight.

He pecks my lips. His tongue eases out,
just licks me once, then he buries
his tongue in me again.

Me? I’m lost. I’m in an ocean. I’m wrapped
in a Leddra Chapman song or Kate McGill singing indie rock at a
café with only fifty true die-hard fans, swaying and sipping
Bourbon, carried off in a cloud of intoxicating music.