Chapter 27—Junior
Everything was quiet for a moment. I dropped my hand from my cheek, surprised.
The minute after Duke had left, Liam and I had gotten into an argument about how I had treated Duke. And then he had left, telling me was going to go home and get dressed to meet him at the park later. I felt weird about the whole thing, so I texted my friends and told them to be on the look-out. When I got there, Liam was high, and Dante and Chris were on their way. Then Liam said something about hurting Duke, and he had hit me. By the time I had recovered to hit him back, I was being held back by Dante, and Chris had a grip on Liam.
Duke had gone pale. “Excuse me?” he demanded, dropping his fist. He removed himself quickly from Liam, looking surprised.
Liam pulled himself into a sitting position, looking pitiful with a broken nose and tears. “I did this because of you,” he stated, motioning towards me. “I knew she had hurt you, so I thought you’d like me more if I hurt her for you, since you couldn’t.” He wiped his face.
Anger went through me. “Oh you bastard,” I growled, going to step back to him and finish what I had started. Honey and Rena put their arms in front of me. I took a deep breath and settled down.
Duke looked confused. “You… like me?” he questioned, looking shocked. He took another unconscious step back.
“Love you,” Liam corrected, standing up. His eyes were bright, burning with passion. “And after our conversation this morning, I knew you were hurting over her, so I thought I’d do all this for you.” He motioned towards me.
I glared at him.
Duke shook his head. “I don’t like boys, Liam.” His tone was patient and guarded.
“That’s because you haven’t tried one before!” Liam took a step toward him, reaching for his hands. “Duke, I—I’ve been in love with you for years now. I was there for you when you had Laila. I’m the one the baby was for. I was going to go for my move when you found out, but she was fucking Junior’s brother, too, and you were too busy being mad at him to pay me any attention.”
Duke just stared at him. “This. Will. Not. Work. Out. I am straight, Liam.”
“You—you just haven’t met the right one,” he pleaded, grabbing Duke’s hands. “I’m willing to forgive you for hurting me, just please don’t… don’t do this to me.”
Rena nudged me. “He’s crazy,” she whispered.
I nodded.
Duke yanked his hands back. “Don’t fucking touch me, Liam,” he growled.
“No, no, no,” Liam cried, still reaching. “You can’t. Not after this time. Please. Give me a chance. I’m better than any girl you’ll ever have, Duke. I promise.”
I felt kind of bad for him. He sounded like a kicked dog. I wanted to hug him…. But then I kind of wanted to bash his head into the ground at the same time.
“I will not give you a fucking chance, Liam!” Duke yelled, stepping closer to him. “I told you I’m straight!”
Honey shook her head, looking worried. “I know his brother—crazy runs in this family. I’m going call the cops before this gets way out of hand. I got a real bad feeling about this.” She nibbled on her bottom lip and went into the car.
Nobody was between Rena and Chris now, so she left, too.
Chris watched her with a stricken look on his face, but then he caught me looking and turned away quickly. I wanted to talk to him but now was not the time. I wondered if he knew what he was doing to my best friend, who was eating less and sleeping more. She had been losing weight, not gaining. I was worried about her, but every time I tried to bring it up, she brushed it off and told me she was “fine.”
Liam was sobbing in earnest now. “After all this, all I tried—you won’t give me a chance? Why, Duke? Why?”
Duke’s face was red with anger. I went over to him, placing my hand on his back. I wanted to slip my hand underneath his shirt, but I knew better. He didn’t love me anymore. Not when he sat there patiently, watching me and Liam like it didn’t even affect him.
Liam’s eyes were glossy and red, but now the kind that came from crying. I thought back to this morning, remembered he popped two white pills before eating. At first, I thought it was pain pills, but it seemed to be something more now. “He’s high,” I murmured into Duke’s back.
Duke looked back at me. “I know.”
Liam turned angry. “Is she why you won’t love me? This bitch right here?” He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him, holding me tightly. “What if I killed her, Duke? Who would you love then?”
I tried pulling away, but his grip on me was strong. I could see Dante and Chris moving at him from either corner. Kyle was coming up behind him.
“I’d find a new girl, Liam. It has nothing to do with Junior.”
“Lies.”
Duke shrugged. “It’s true. If something happened to Junior, I’d move on. Just like I did with Laila.” I could see in his eyes he was lying. He still wasn’t over Laila.
“So I could kill her right now, and you’d say nothing?” Liam asked.
My stomach twisted painfully. I shook my head at Duke. This conversation was not going where it needed to. I needed him to shut up and tell him to let me go.
But boys were stupid. Duke nodded. “I’d care for a few days, but, by then, I’d have another girl.”
“Or boy,” Liam said, hope in his tone.
“Another girl, Liam.”
There was a brief moment of silence. “You will love me, Duke.” He took a step towards him, eyes narrowed and dark. “You can’t not love me back, baby.”
“Don’t call me baby.” Duke reached around me, nudging me away from him. I didn’t go. I didn’t want Liam to hurt him. You didn’t mess around with crazy people. “It will never happen between us.”
He looked heart-broken. “No, please, Duke, don’t do this to me. Not after all this time. I—I’ve always had your back. Your freshmen year when they got did that illegal hit that broke your ankle? I hired the people to kick his ass. For you. I love you.” He was crying again, the tears running down his face and washing away the blood.
Duke looked disgusted. “Don’t say that. You can’t love someone you’ve never dated or talked to. I’ve been an ass to you all your life. Why would you want to be around me?”
“You don’t mean all that, though! You didn’t know. I understand that. I forgive you.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Liam! I. Don’t. Like you. And I never will.” His voice was barely above a growl.
And then Liam was on his knees in front of Duke, grabbing him around the waist and trying to rest his head against Duke’s torso. “Please, Duke. Please. One kiss.”
“Fuck that.” Duke tried to pull back, but Liam’s grip was tight, way too tight. He kneed Liam in the chest to get him off of me. “Pick your pathetic ass up off the ground before I beat the fuck outta you.”
“As long as you touch me, I’ll be fine. If you hurt me, it’s okay. It’s okay. You don’t mean it.”
“Oh, if I beat you up, I mean every single punch. I won’t regret hurting you at all.”
“Do it,” he challenged, staring Duke down. “Punch me. Use me. Love me.”
I wanted to throw myself in front of Duke and protect him. Duke was mine. Nobody else’s. A part of me was still angry at Liam, but the other part felt really bad for him. He had no chance. You could date someone outside your class, race, and in a different part of the world—but dating someone that was straight and your gender offered up basically no chance. So I tried to placate him. “Liam, maybe you should find someone—“
He turned his look on me, eyes changing to fire almost immediately. “Shut up, bitch. I don’t wanna hear a word from you. Not after what you did to my precious Duke.”
I bit back a sarcastic laugh. “Your precious Duke? Please, the only reason we’re here right now is because you never had him. He’s wrapped around the nail of my pinky finger, and you can’t even get him to touch you.”
Duke pulled me back. “Stop. I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said softly.
“Her hurt?” Liam shook his head, trying to get closer to Duke, who stepped back again. “What about me? Look what you’re doing to me, Duke?”
I couldn’t stand it. He was making Duke angry, and I didn’t like it. “You are literally hurtin’ yourself, Liam. Everybody in this area has come to the conclusion that you will never date Duke—everybody but you. You don’t wanna be hurt? Go find someone else that loves you. You’re not ugly!”
He glared at me. “Of course I’m not. Which is why I don’t understand why Duke doesn’t love me back.”
Duke took a deep breath. “Because you have a di—male genitalia. I do not like boys. I will never like boys. There is nothing on you I want to touch. Not your hair, face, lips, ears, nose, or clothes.”
“You rhymed! I guess it is true that loves makes poets of us all.”
Was he delusional? Or what?
“I am not in love with you, Liam. I will never be in love with you. And, if one day, I do decide I like men, you will be the last one I go to.”
Liam’s adoring expression fell from his face. His smile turned into a frown, and his happy eyes turned wounded. “You can’t mean that.”
“I can and I do.”
I knew something was about to happen because of the way he looked. I was in front of Duke in a flash, covering as much of him as I could.
A flash of silver caught the sun. I gasped, throwing my arms around Duke and burying my face into his chest as Liam made the move.
A few seconds later, he made a gurgling noise and sirens sounded.
*
An hour later, I laid out in my bed, surrounded by my friends. Duke wasn’t staying by me, just pacing up and down in front of my door, occasionally peeking his head in. He was wasted, but nobody had tried to stop him from drinking, especially since he had seen Liam commit near suicide by shoving a knife in his chest only two months after his mother had committed suicide. The other Homeboys had wanted him to take it like a man, but I had opened up the liquor cabinet for him. But had had downed three shots and decided that was it.
Chris was on my left side, sneaking glances at Rena, who had passed out curled up next to me. Dante was giving me a foot massage, and Kyle had disappeared downstairs to go get some food. And then Honey was coming upstairs now, hot dogs in her hands and a smile on her face. “So, is it too soon to make Duke the butt of gay jokes now or what?” she asked, trying to ease the tension.
Chris snorted, and I gave her a smile. “Too soon,” I said, watching the glare on Duke’s face. “You know, Duke, it’s totally fine if you come in here and chill with us. I have enough room up here for one more.” I patted on the other side of Rena.
“If I lay down in that bed, I’m taking off all your clothes and doing exactly what I wanna do with you, people in here be damned,” he growled, watching me with those serious, dark eyes.
My cheeks heated up. “I won’t complain.”
Dante coughed. “But we will.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, I need to take a smoke break anyway. Let’s go, y’all.”
Honey frowned. “But you don’t smoke.”
He gave her a look. “Just get Rena up and let’s go downstairs…. Or further away where we can’t hear anything. I have a strong feelin’ we don’t wanna be within hearin’ range of those two.” He slipped through the door, followed by Dante.
Honey shook her head and nudged Rena up. “Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty, our girl is about to get laid.”
Rena looked at me curiously but followed after Honey anyway.
Duke closed the door behind them, advancing towards me. “Let’s talk.”
“Why? So you can tell me what I wanna hear and go back to Laila afterwards?” My tone was angry, but I had my reasons. This was the same old, same old story. Duke telling me sweet things, and then him going back to Laila almost immediately. I didn’t want to be second place. “You know, I’m really tired of boys right now actually. One tries to play my heart, and then the other is actually in love with another boy and tries to kill me for the first boy. I think God wants me to become a nun or somethin’ because—“
As I spoke, he had started to climb in bed with me. And now he was on top of me, straddling my waist and looking down at me. “Shut the fuck up. When I said ‘talk’, I meant you listen, me talk.”
“Now that’s a sexist statement if I ever heard one.”
He rubbed his temples. “For once, just hear me out without a smart comment.”
“What about a dumb one?”
“Junior.”
I laughed. “Fine, talk. I’m listenin’.”
But he didn’t say anything, he just stared at me until the tension in the room became too much to bare. “Shit,” he swore, lowering his face. “I love you.”
I let the words rinse over me. They sent shivers through my spine, butterflies in my stomach, and my toes curled upwards. I clutched at his shirt, not sure if I wanted to push him away or pull him closer. “Oh.”
“Oh? Do you love me back?”
Yes. “Oh.”
He smirked, putting his lips only millimeters from mine. “Do.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “You.” Another one. “Love.” Another one. “Me.” Another one, this time a bit longer and slower. “Back.” This one was long and sweet, pressing and passionate. I curled my body upwards, wanting to take in more of him.
I needed him. Not wanted. Needed. Every motion I made seemed to fit his. We worked well together. We got along. We loved each other.
But I couldn’t be second place to him.
Did he love me as much as I loved him?
“Duke, do you really love me?” I asked, pulling away from him.
His lips moved to my neck, sliding up and down my collarbone. “Yes. Without a doubt,” he swore, running his hands under my shirt, over my breasts.
“Then give up Laila. For me.”
He paused, his face stricken. “Junior, I made a promise.”
Well, there was my answer. “Then get the hell away from me. Forgive me for bein’ unreasonable, Duke, but the only person I want to come second to in your life right now is Jesus. If you love me, then you love me.”
He removed his hands. “I made a promise.”
“Well, Duke, promise me that you won’t crash my weddin’ and try to stop it. I mean, every time I find somebody new, you have no problem stoppin’ it—but God forbid I want to be the first girl in your life! What am I to you, Duke? Your next fuck buddy? Somebody to placate you until you get bored or until you want somebody else?” I demanded, pushing him off of me.
He stood up, looking at me. “Junior, don’t be like this.”
Call me stressed, but I flipped out on him. “I will be exactly how the hell I want to be, Duke! I will not be second to any girl. If you’re gonna be my boyfriend, then it’s only gonna be me and you. Not any other girl. I want you to myself.”
“I made a promise to Laila!”
“Then either break the promise or never talk to me again.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, and then he left.
Too angry to cry, I just threw myself on my bed and covered up.
Love. Who needed it anyway?
Chapter Song: Mine-Beyonce, ft. Drake