Lighter Shade of Brown (Urban Fiction) BWHM

Chapter 39

Cleo's jaw dropped. What the hell was Angela doing there?

"Calm down, mam-,"

"Don't tell me to calm down. Especially, when you have yet to remove those handcuffs," Angela snapped.

The dean's door flew open. "What in the land of Dixie is going on out here?" Dean Riley bellowed.

"Gerald, maybe you should remove those cuffs. The child hasn't uttered a sound since you brought her in here," Ms. DeLacy said, frowning at the resource officer from behind her desk.

"This juvenile delinquent almost choked the life out of another student," The resource officer sputtered, while his face turned the exact shade of a boiled lobster. "I'll be damn if I allow her to prance around this office uncuffed and fancy free."

"If you think I'm some uneducated immigrant then that'll be your second mistake, officer. I know my rights." Angela snatched a pen and piece of paper from Ms. DeLacy's desk. "Give me your name and badge number and I'll show you better than I can tell you."

"Oh for the love of cotton, Gerald. Take the handcuffs off the girl. She's all of hundred ten pounds. What exactly do you expect her to do?" Dean Riley barked.

"You wouldn't be so quick to have these cuffs removed if you'd seen her in action," Gerald grumbled as he yanked Cleo up by the arm and uncuffed her.

Once freed, Angela jerked her head to the door. "Go wait for me in the car."

Not needing to be told twice, Cleo left the office and bounded down the hall toward the exit at the front of the school. Outside, she saw the Chevy parked at the curb of the student drop off. Her heart missed a couple beats, and then began to pound. Even though she knew Ant would have a load to say, after everything was whipped and flipped she still needed him to help focus her crazy. Without any more unnecessary hesitation, she trudged over to the car and climbed in the back seat. Once in she raised her gaze to meet Ant's in the rearview mirror. Her jaw dropped, while oxygen chose that moment to stop serving its purpose. The honey tone irises, which usually reflected back at her was nowhere to be found. Instead, a chocolate brown gaze arrested her stunned stare. All thoughts came to a screeching halt in the presence of a name that decimated her mental track. C's. Just like that, all of the emotions she'd hurdled over the past year, rose up and snatched her ass to the bottom of unresolved feelings. Unable to maintain eye contact she dropped her gaze to her lap.

"You ten, Trouble?"

The husky edge to his tone played her ass dumb. Not trusting her voice, she bobbed her head in answer while attempting to ignore the Obsession cologne that clawed at her knees and nostrils.

He turned in the driver seat to stare at her. "The fuck were you fighting about anyway? It's not like you be on that messy shit."

"Yeah?" Her eyes left her lap to drill holes in his too damn perfect face. Of all the emotions running between them, she chose the safest one to latch on to. Anger. "How would you know? It's been a year, C's. For all you know I can be shit starter number one around this spot."

"Don't matter." He shook his head as his chocolate brown gaze devoured every inch of her face. "Ten years could get between us. I'd still know you better than you know yourself, bae."

Memories of better days prompted sadness to dampen the dry burn of her anger. "Don't call me that." She swallowed as she desperately tried to keep her eyes dry and shit together.

"Call you what?" Confusion wrinkled the skin between his brows.

"Bae," she said in a broken whisper. "Like everything is still everything with us. Because it's not. You saw to that when you literally dropped me on the curb."

"Force of habit and shit." His gaze dropped to her lips. "Sorry about how I handled things back then. A shit load of choices I'd made about us had to be rethought, though. Things around me became too grimey to keep you movin back and forth in my zone. Needed a chick who could take hits and return shots." The expression on his face closed shop before he turned in his seat to face forward.

"Didn't take long for you to find a rider and die harder, either huh?" She glared at the back of his head. "Not even four months after we broke up you had the next bitch answering the phone."

"Fuck you talkin' about?" He glared at her from the rearview mirror.

"Doesn't matter," she said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "We've both moved on so what's the point? Old girl can answer your door wearing nothing but a pair of those buttless drawers you love so much and it still wouldn't be any of my damn business."

"With who?" He swung back around in his seat to level her with a glare so hot it must've originated in the darkest part of hell.

"What?"

"You said, we've both moved on." The muscle in his jaw twitched. "So who the fuck have you moved on with? Is dude splittin it too? That why your ass lookin so phat and your titties poppin out of that shirt like it's two sizes too small?"

Before she could tell him to kiss every inch of her ass, the passenger door wrenched open. Angela slid in the car. "Well you're suspended from school for the next three days, and from the bus for seven. Now I'll have to find a way to get you back and forth to school after your home suspension is over. Since Ant will be in school-,"

"Don't sweat that shi...mess, ma. I'll take her," C's said, pulling the car away from the curb.

"You don't have to, C's," she said. "I don't usually ride the bus anyway. My dude normally drops me off and picks me up."

"Say that shit again?" C's growled through clenched teeth.

"Your dude?" Angela gasped. "Is he the same one Ant and I saw you with a while back?"

"What same one?" C's demanded.

"Yes, mam," Cleo said purposefully ignoring the hell out of C's. "He's been driving me since then."

"Isn't he a little old for you?" Angela asked drilling her with a narrowed eyed stare.

"He's the same age as C's." She pressed her lips together to smother a smirk.

"Is dude from the Ninth?" C's questioned, still attempting to find a foot hole in the conversation. He guided the car through the gates of Messalina projects.

"No," she said, making eye contact with him in the rearview mirror. "New Orleans."

The corners of his eyes tightened in thought for a moment, but she saw the exact moment when knowledge bust his head wide. His chocolate brown irises damn near rolled from their sockets.

Vindication stepped in and sided with her against C's and his past wrongs. Retribution skyrocketed her pass cloud nine into the fucking stratosphere. The feeling felt almost good as when Tech had tongue kissed the hell out of her good girl. And if things couldn't get any more justified, Tech waited for her on the steps leading up to her apartment.

"And you said Ant knew about this?" C's asked as he shot hatemakers through the windshield.

Cleo opened the back door, and then slid from the car before she could hear Angela's response. C's still had a big chunk of her soul and heart on lock. The last thing she needed was for him to see the proof behind her forced indifference.

Once outside the car, Cleo released a shaky breath. After she gave herself a second to put everything back in her pocket, she allowed her gaze to swing over the gathering crowd to her apartment steps where Tech waited. When he clamped eyes on her, he stood and descended the stairs two at a time. Once at the bottom he snatched her up in a hug. She buried her face in the crook of his neck.

"Ya al 'ight?" He asked, squeezing her tighter.

She lifted her head to nod. "Now I am."