Scandalous Heroes Box Set (58 page)

“Haha,” her cousin laughed. “Stop acting like you don’t want those boys looking.” Jalissa’s short hair was in cute braids and she wore gold looped earrings. Her t-shirt was tight but it did indeed show off her little curves. She was cute while Vanessa felt tall and gawky next to her. However anybody looking at the cousins saw two very different but very cute girls.

~***~

“Check that out…” G lifted his sunglasses and stared across the street. Scotty followed where his friend was staring and stopped walking. Vanessa and her cousin were heading out of the corner store and for a moment Scotty was unsure if it was even her. The last time he’d seen her she was wearing two long pigtails and her gangly form was hidden beneath sweatshirts and jeans.

Today she wore shorts that had probably fit her well last year—but not this year, however her loose fitting blouse didn’t cling to her like her cousin’s shirt did, and the thin billowy fabric enhanced her soft curves—curves that he had never even imagined she possessed.

He’d thought about her over the last few months—mostly thoughts about the loss of calmness in his life. He supposed that he connected Vanessa with that peace that he could no longer find. There had been a time when he thought Walnut Hills High School would give him a place that he felt he could belong. But not any longer. The only friends he had at school were the druggies, and the people that he actually liked thought he was a waste of space. There were times when he would have to agree with them. He wasn’t a druggy but because of his reputation for dealing in drugs that’s all people saw.

“Damn…” G said and whistled. Scotty, who was bouncing a basketball, lost in his own thoughts nearly allowed the ball to get away at the way his buddy was looking at the girls. He frowned a G, silently warning him that the two girls were off limits. He knew what his friend did with girls—something he himself had yet to do. And it bothered him that G’s eyes were on Vanessa and thinking of her in that way.

G laughed at Scotty’s expression. “Easy, young blood. I’m just enjoying the wrapper. I actually like my women to be...well—not kids.”

“You had me scared there for a minute.” Scotty said while studying Vanessa. Had she gotten taller? “I figured your dating pool was no longer elementary school.”

“We aren’t the only ones looking,” G said, the playfulness leaving his voice. Scotty broke his gaze on Vanessa enough to take in their surroundings. Three teens had turned from the direction in which they were walking and were now following the girls—three much older teens.

The boys began calling out to the girls and Scotty saw that Vanessa’s cousin was eating up the attention. However, Vanessa looked very uncomfortable. As she should, he thought. What in the hell was she thinking coming down to Winton Terrace dressed like that? One very aggressive boy kept asking Vanessa for her phone number and the girl shyly shook her head no even though he kept asking like a broken record.

As the girls continued to walk, ignoring the calls of the boys, Scotty’s eyes suddenly narrowed when he saw the more aggressive teen pantomime touching her butt. Vanessa jumped out of his reach eliciting laughter from the teen’s two friends who were now also becoming more aggressive. Even Jalissa now looked uncomfortable at the attention. 

“Hell no!” Scotty tucked the ball against his hip and stormed across the street.

Vanessa didn’t even notice Scotty’s approach. Three older boys were following them and hollering out—what they considered to be compliments, but the attention scared Vanessa. Jalissa kept switching and looking over her shoulders, hoping the boys were looking at her while Vanessa hoped they would leave them alone. But when the boys began trying to touch their butts and boobs even Jalissa got scared. She wanted to tell her cousin; See what you started?!

Suddenly she saw Scotty and another boy crossing the street and relief filled her as they approached. Even though Scotty and his friend were outnumbered she knew that Scotty wouldn’t back down. She knew this without a shred of a doubt.

“Vanessa.” Scotty said. But he was looking at the three teens trailing the girls. They were older than even him. It annoyed him when he saw ‘predators’ like the sharped dressed teens trying to get the attention of girls that were obviously of an illegal age.

“Who’s this?” The ringleader asked angrily while glaring at Scotty. They were the same height and about the same build but Scotty knew that more than one kid had made the mistake of thinking that just because he was a white kid in a predominately black neighborhood that he would back down in fear. Their mistake was not realizing that he’d had to learn how to fight in order to survive the streets as well as his home. He never backed down from a fight.

“That’s her brother,” Jalissa responded flippantly, no longer afraid of the boys that had moments before made her momentarily regret her decision to wear tight shorts and shirt.

At the declaration, Vanessa’s eyes widened and her face burned bright red. If she could have, she would have socked her cousin in the eye. She and Scotty had never talked about their relationship. She wasn’t even sure if he even knew that she was aware of it.

She eyed Scotty who grabbed her upper arm possessively. “Yeah. And it’s time for you to go home.” His eyes were on the three boys and not on her.

The teen, who had been struck by Vanessa’s exotic beauty gave Scotty a critical look. He sure enough was a white guy and the girl was obviously mixed so…

He raised his hands and backed down. “Hey man, no problem.”

Scotty dragged her across the street after him while G chuckled and Jalissa tried to keep up. Vanessa looked at Scotty in surprise thinking that he was playing the roll of a concerned brother a little too realistically. Once they were safely on the other side of the street she pulled her arm free, her brow furrowing in disapproval.

“What was that all about?” She asked while rubbing the place where his hand had been. He hadn’t hurt her but his grip had been pretty firm.

“Don’t you girls have any better sense than to be walking around down here wearing booty-shorts and showing off your…” He gestured to her chest and then averted his eyes as two bright red spots appeared on his cheeks. Vanessa folded her arms in front of her in embarrassment upon realizing that Scotty had noticed her boobs.

“We didn’t do anything wrong!” Jalissa snapped.

“Gal, you don’t know what to do with what you got.” Garry said with a snicker.

“How do you know what I can do?” Jalissa sassed back.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Jalissa!” Again she remembered that this was all her fault! She then looked at Garry and Scotty in embarrassment. “Thanks. We appreciate the help-”

“We’ll walk you back home.” Scotty interrupted. Vanessa’s attention was taken by the three teens watching them suspiciously.

“Yeah, okay.”

As they headed back to the court, Scotty was quietly fuming and not sure why. He glanced at Vanessa who was eating sunflower seeds. She absently pushed her loose hair behind her ears. When did she start wearing her hair down?

His brow furrowed and he cleared his throat. “How have you been?”

“Oh, I’m good.” Vanessa blushed. “How about you?”

“It’s nice being out of school for a while.” His brain needed a rest.

Garry took the basketball from Scotty and began bouncing it and Jalissa’s eyes brightened.

“Are y’all getting ready to go up to the basketball court? Can we come and watch?”

Garry scowled but Scotty interrupted before he could respond.

“Yeah, if you want.”

“Whatever,” G spoke. “But I’m not babysitting these two.” The older boy gave Jalissa a pointed look. “If you get a bunch of guys coming after you because you want to shake your ass, then I’m going to let you see what happens.”

Vanessa grew cold despite the heat of summer when she thought about another little girl that had found herself in dire circumstances right where the basketball court was located.

Mistaking her change of expression Scotty shook his head in denial. “No, we won’t let that happen. But if you come up you’re going to have to control that.” He pointed to Jalissa’s butt to the young girl’s delight. She promised to control her booty shaking and the four of them headed up the hill to the basketball court.

The girls sat on the stoop and watched the boys playing one on one. Before too long Anthony and Donald showed up and joined the game and then some older guys wanted to play too. They split up into shirts and skins and the game became fierce! They played like it was more than a game—they played as if their lives depended on it. Vanessa routed for the younger boys; Scotty, Anthony, G and even Donald. But seeing Scotty with his shirt off was bittersweet, especially when some other females joined them on the sidelines and a few of them began admiring ‘the white boy’.

“Well,” Jalissa said after Scotty dunked and nearly broke the rim, “I can’t say that your brother’s not fi-i-i-i-ne…”

“Stop saying that!” She hissed. “I can’t believe you called him my brother right in front of him!”

Jalissa looked at her. “You don’t still like him, do you?”

“Of course not!” She said quickly. She blinked at her cousin. “Check out Anthony Johnson. Now he is fine.” She turned to look at the big boy that used to be her classmate—that had stolen her first kiss.

Anthony was just as tall as Scotty but thick like a football player. Once upon a time he would have been called fat but his weight and muscles were now well distributed on his large frame. Vanessa could appreciate how good-looking Anthony was but people in their neighborhood still capped on him for being too black.

Jalissa shook her head. “He’d be okay if he wasn’t so black. What do you think about Donald Miller?”

Vanessa swung her head at her in disbelief. “Are you crazy? He is a hoodlum!”

Jalissa just shrugged, but she had a slight smile on her face. Vanessa looked at Donald seeing a brown skinned boy that wasn’t very remarkable in the looks department. He was older than her, even though he was in her grade; exactly how old was something that she didn’t know. All she knew is that he looked much older than any of the other boys in her class, despite being shorter. He was well muscled and had a perpetual angry scowl on a face that had been hardened by the streets. Vanessa thought that some people tried to play at being bad, some people were bad because they had no choice, but people like Donald were bad by choice and wanted everyone to know it.

When the skins finally lost, the boys came over and dropped in the grass next to them. Some of the girls present began prancing and acting fast in order to attract the attention of one boy or another. One girl even began flirting with Scotty and Vanessa’s chest tightened.

She looked at poor Anthony who had played very well but no one was paying much attention to him. She got up and sat next to him. “That was a good game. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play before.”

He smiled shyly at her. “Thanks. What have you been up to Vanessa? I don’t see you that much anymore.”

She shrugged and smiled shyly. “Nothing. Just hanging out at the bottom of the hill until school starts again. Do you like going to Walnut Hills?”

He nodded. “It’s cool.” They grew quiet.

She decided that it was time to let him know something. “Do you…remember that time you kissed me?”

Anthony quickly looked away, becoming very uncomfortable. “Yeah. I’m sorry-“

“I wasn’t mad at you.”

He stared at her. “Your…I made you bleed-“

She smiled. “I had a lose tooth and you just knocked it out.”

His eyes grew wide. “I thought I’d hurt you!”

She chuckled. “No but the look on your face was priceless.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Are you for real? All this time I thought I’d really hurt you.”

Scotty was watching Vanessa and Anthony laughing and talking and his eyes narrowed in annoyance. Why did people always find it necessary to laugh at every single thing said? It ticked him off at how fake people were. Why was Vanessa acting like everything Anthony said was like stand-up comedy?! And did he hear them right? Were they talking about kissing? Feeling a protectiveness surge through him, Scotty jumped up and walked over to them.

“Vanessa, I guess I should walk you back down the hill now.”

She shielded her eyes and looked up at him. “No thank you. I’ll go down a little later.”

He looked at Anthony and frowned and then a moment later sat on the other side of her. “Alright.”

Anthony looked back and forth from the two wondering if his suspicions were correct and that there was something going on between them.

“How do you two know each other?” He asked.

Vanessa looked down at her fingers when Scotty didn’t respond. “Well, I found out that Scotty is my half-brother.”

Donald chuckled and then lightly nudged Vanessa. “Good one, Vanessa.”

Vanessa drew in a brave breath and said the words that had been so difficult for her to accept. “Scotty’s my brother. We have the same father.”

Scotty nudged her in the arm. When she met his eyes she saw that he was looking at her in confusion.

“We don’t have the same father, Vanessa. My father is some…whatever. It’s you and Tino that have the same father. You’re his sister, not mine.

Chapter 16

“What?” Her voice sounded like a puff of air.

Scotty frowned. “Have you been thinking that all this time?”

“I—I thought that’s the reason you were being nice to me-”

Scotty’s mouth parted but he didn’t speak. Suddenly, Jalissa’s loud voice could be heard and everyone’s attention turned to her.

“I said stop it!” She was pushing Donald Miller away from her and the boy was laughing maniacally while he smacked her butt.

Vanessa leaped to her feet in outrage that he would dare touch her cousin in such a disrespectful way. She darted forward and stepped in front of Jalissa, shielding her with her taller body.

“Don’t you dare touch her like that!”

Donald smirked at her, his eyes lighting with something that caused Vanessa’s blood to run cold.

“That’s fine, Vanessa.” Donald said. “I’d rather touch yours anyway.”