No One in the World (16 page)

Blac turned around, stepped back in, and pulled his shirt back down. “Who was it?”

“A couple of guys, said they was old friends of yours.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“They said they would be back.”

“When?”

Just then three loud knocks came at the front door, startling Blac. Worry covered his face.

“You okay?” Theresa said.

“Fine. Just stay right here.”

Blac nervously walked to the front door, pressed his ear against it, and listened. When the knocking came again, it panicked him so much he stumbled backward and almost fell. “Who is it?”

“Open the door, Blac. You know who the hell it is.”

Blac reluctantly did as he was told.

Standing on the stoop outside was Bones, the thin, muscular man who had pressed the gun to his head four years ago. Beside him stood another, shorter man, wearing a long white T-shirt and a black patch over his left eye. Blac saw the bulges in the waists of both men's jeans and didn't have to be told they were carrying.

“Come on,” Bones said. “Somebody needs to talk to you.”

“Let me just tell my girl—”

“You don't gotta tell your girl shit,” the shorter, one-eyed man said. His name was Rondo. “You just gonna be out here in the truck. Bring yo' ass on.”

Blac stepped out of the house and pulled the door softly closed.

The two men walked on either side of Blac to the Cadillac Escalade parked at the curb.

Bones opened the back passenger side door for Blac.

On the backseat was Cutty, looking as he had looked four years ago: short and evil and pissed off. His hair was longer. Some of it stuck out from under a baseball cap, the bill cocked to the side.

Cutty's jeans were pushed down just below his hips. A scantily clad woman had her face in his lap, giving him a skillful blowjob. Blac noticed how the fake, bright pink fingernails of her hand slid rapidly up and down his erect penis.

“What the fuck you lookin' at?” Cutty said, as calmly as if he were reading a newspaper. “Ain't never seen a nigga get his dick sucked? Get in the fucking truck.”

Blac got in on the other side of the woman and stared toward the front seat.

“You remember the little deal we made, right?” Cutty said.

“Yeah,” Blac said, his eyes still forward.

“Look at me when I'm talking to you.”

Blac turned to Cutty, trying not to follow that errant eye of his.

“I said, you remember our deal?” Cutty said, his right hand buried deep into the woman's weave, guiding her head as she continued sucking and stroking him.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Good. Just needed to make sure you did, cause if I don't get my 150K in . . .” Cutty held up his left wrist, glanced at his heavily jeweled watch. “Midnight will make nine days, bad things gonna happen. You clear on that?”

“Yeah.”

“'Preciate you keepin' your mouth shut, but business is business. You owe me, and law of the street say I gotta collect or make an example of your ass. I let you slide, then I'm the punk, and young fools be gunnin' for me. Can't let that happen. You understand?”

“Yeah,” Blac said.

“Good. Now get out my truck so I can give this bitch what she been workin' so hard for.”

Her mouth full, Blac heard the woman giggle.

“Yeah, okay,” Blac said. He opened the door of the truck and started toward the house. He heard the truck door open and shut behind him again, then footsteps moving toward him.

“Hey.”

Blac turned to find the man wearing the eye patch behind him, holding out a cell phone. “Cutty wants you to take this for when we need to contact you.”

Blac took the phone.

“Number is taped to the back. Whenever that bitch ring, you better be picking it up.”

I
had told Tyler everything about what Sissy had planned for me. I told him the reasons behind the plan and how the family would supposedly benefit from the marriage. I then told him about my skepticism and my fear about going ahead with the whole thing.

“So what do you think I should do?” I said.

He was looking in my eyes, a sly smile on his face. “I know what I want to do to you.”

“I just asked you a serious question,” I said, pushing down his hand as he tried to undo the top button on my shirt. “I really want to know what you think.”

Tyler grabbed the remote from beside his thigh and clicked off the game we had been watching. He stood and held out a hand. “Come on. Let's go to your room. There's something I want to show you.”

I crossed my arms. “Can't you do any better than that? Seriously, I need to know what you think about this.”

“Okay, okay,” Tyler said, grabbing my arm and pulling me off the sofa. “We'll go to your room. You give me what I want, and afterward I'll tell you exactly what I think about your sister's little plan.”

“Fine,” I said, taking Tyler's hand and leading him toward the stairs. I glanced down at my watch, and saw that it wasn't even eight o'clock. Eric
said he wouldn't be home until late. I would make sure Tyler was long gone by nine-thirty at the latest.

We had made love for almost forty-five minutes, taking our time like we always did.

Now, just finishing, we lay naked beside each other in bed, both of us breathing heavily, a light coat of sweat covering our bodies.

I was happy in that moment. Tyler had only been here, in my room, in my bed like this on a few other occasions when my parents were away on trips. But now I could have him over whenever I wanted, and I knew, soon, I would want him over all the time.

I wanted to ask him when, if ever, it would just be the two of us, but I knew he would avoid the conversation. Besides, I truly did need guidance about the situation with the woman I was set to marry.

“What are you thinking?” Tyler asked me, leaning up on an elbow and rubbing a hand over the shaved stubble on my chest.

“I want you to tell me how you think I should play this.”

“Okay,” Tyler said, lying on his back, crossing his arms behind his head. “You told me earlier, Sissy said the business might be in trouble, that P&G might be attempting a hostile takeover, and the shares that you'd receive once you marry might help you hold on to the company.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think even with the additional shares, that she'll be able to save it?”

“Tyler, you don't know Sissy like I do. If you did, you wouldn't even have asked me that question.”

“Then you answered your question. The shares are important, and you need to get them,” Tyler said. “I would seriously consider this, Cobi. But even if you aren't sold yet, there is a benefit that you might not have thought of.”

“What is that?” I said, disappointed, hoping Tyler would say marrying this woman was the last thing I should do.

“Do this, and you'll be married, a family man,” Tyler said, sitting up in bed, looking at me very seriously now. “I know one day you want to
be attorney general, and I even believe you made mention of political aspirations. This will help you be the man people want to see.”

“You mean, lie some more? I don't want—”

“Cobi,” Tyler said, laying a hand on my wrist. “I hate to say it, but what do you think you'll be doing when you marry this woman? You're lying then, you might as well take advantage of all the benefits. Also, it will help deflect any suspicion as to whether you and I have something going on.”

“Are you worrying about being found out? You know how careful we are. Why would you even think—”

“Never think that we can't be found out. Do you know what kind of news that would make? A state's attorney and an Illinois state senator having a lurid, gay relationship—that would sell a lot of papers and make a lot of money for some people, and there are folks out there who know that.”

“We're fine,” I said, turned off by the direction of the conversation. “I would never put you in that kind of jeopardy. I don't appreciate you insinuating that.”

Tyler laid back down and stared up at me. “You know you're so handsome when you're angry.”

“Shut up,” I said, trying to push him out of bed. But he was all muscle and wouldn't budge.

“Come here and give me a kiss,” he said, trying to pull me on top of him.

I climbed him and gazed down in his eyes. “So I'm going to go through with this, not just because you think I should, but for all the reasons I mentioned before you gave your opinion.”

“I think it's a good idea.”

“Me being married won't mess things up between us?” I asked, concerned.

“Does
me
being married mess things up for us?”

“You're lying in my bed, right.” I laughed. “So it hasn't messed things up too bad.”

“Once you get getting married, we'll share the same situation. Things will be even better.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, not knowing if that would really be the case.

“There you have it. Now where's that kiss?”

I lowered my face and kissed Tyler. I wished he could just stay here the night. As I kissed him, I considered making that request, when I thought I heard a sound in the hallway.

“Hey Cobi, you in there?” It was Eric. He was just outside my door.

Filled with panic, I called loudly, “Eric don't—”

“We finished up early and—”

Eric must not have heard me, because there were two quick knocks on the door, and then it swung open.

A
fter busting in on Cobi, Eric froze, unable to process what his eyes were seeing. His brother, naked, lying on top of another naked man.

Not until Cobi said, “Eric, please!” Did he snap out of his trance and pull the door shut.

He hurried to his room, feeling as though he had blown it, as though he had given Cobi reason to take back everything he had given him and to put him out on the street.

Eric stood, his door partially closed, until he heard Cobi's door open and the footsteps of the men move through the hall and down the stairs.

Eric stepped out after them and stood by the top of the stairs listening to the hushed voices of his brother and the other man. He felt so sick to his stomach that he pressed his hand against his belly, trying to settle it. What he had just witnessed was so very disturbing to him, but worse, it brought back those images, the ones he had worked so desperately all those years to forget. He pressed his hand harder into his belly, fought the horrific memories out of his mind, and listened to what was being said downstairs.

He wasn't able to make out everything, but he did hear Cobi say, “Everything will be all right, I promise. He won't tell.”

He heard them say their good-byes. Eric quickly headed back to his bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

A minute later, there was a soft knock.

Eric stood. “Yeah. Come in.”

The door opened, and Cobi stepped in, wearing slippers, his work slacks, and an unbuttoned, collared shirt.

Eric looked at his brother with both sadness and disgust.

Reading his brother's expression, Cobi said, “What, Eric?”

Angrily, Eric said, “You talk that garbage to me about honesty and not keeping secrets, and you're doing that.”

“I'm sorry you had to find out that way, but this is my house and I didn't have to tell—”

“Then you're a hypocrite,” Eric said, stabbing a finger at him. “My past is my past, and I shouldn't have had to tell you, but you say you weren't going to let me come back here so I had to . . . but you're hiding that.” Eric turned away from his brother. Under his breath, he said, “You're a nasty motherfucker.”

“What?” Cobi said. “What did you just say?”

“I said, what you were doing, what you let him do to you is some sick shit.”

“There is nothing sick about it. We were making love, and if you haven't realized yet, I'm gay. That's how we do it.”

“Can you just get out?”

“I can't, not without us talking first.”

“Just get out the room! I don't wanna talk!” Eric yelled and could not stop himself from being transported back to that little dark room twenty-three years ago.

It was his second foster home. His foster mother's name was Ms. Mosley. She was a loud, rude, hateful, uncaring, squat little woman. She told Eric several times that the only reason he was there was so that she could collect a check from the state.

Ms. Mosley had a boyfriend, a beady-eyed, mousey-looking man, named Calvin. Eric feared the man from the first time Calvin looked at him with those shiny, ratty eyes of his. Those eyes said he was a predator, that he had plans for Eric, and that it was just a matter of time before he executed them.

Ms. Mosley worked at the fish-packing plant. She'd leave at four-thirty
in the morning when it was still dark outside, leaving Calvin asleep in her bed.

The first early morning Calvin entered Eric's room, Eric had suddenly woken up to the full weight of the heavy, grown man on top of him. Eric was on his stomach. His pajama bottoms had been yanked down to his calves. Calvin was fully erect, and was trying to enter Eric at the moment he was snatched from his sleep.

Eric yelled and squirmed, trying to flip his little body to get out from under the man, but he was too heavy, too strong.

Calvin was harshly whispering something over and over in Eric's ear, as he wrestled to spread Eric's little legs apart.

“Don't fight it, little boy, you gonna love it,” he kept saying, his voice rough.

Eric continued to struggle with every ounce of his strength until the man pushed into him.

Eric screamed, never feeling a pain so extreme. He yelled and cried louder, until he couldn't cry anymore.

Afterward, there were the warnings from Calvin. “Don't you ever think about telling anyone about this.” Then the threats. “If you do, I'll kill you.”