This chapter is legit 10-15 pages. I got carried away with the editing process and added chunks and chunks and it went from 3,000 words to nearly 6800. I stayed up from like 8pm to just around 6am editing it. Sooooooo, vote and comment please! I love how interactive you guys are. It's truly special to me to read your comments and of course I love when you support me by voting on my stories.
Reece's POV
"I still don't get why you had to come, mother," I said, huffing as we stepped out of the limousine and in front of Ashley's house.
"It's good for appearances," she said, trailing out after me. "You were invited by The Kings to dinner tonight and it's imperative that Liza and I come."
"What are Anna and I?" Dec snorted, leaping out the other side "chopped liver?"
"I could really care less about your presence," Mother offered him. "But Reece insisted since you two seem to be conjoined at the tip, so here you are."
"Aw," Dec cooed, "I get insulted like I'm family."
"Shut it," Anna blurted as we walked up to the house of The Kings. I wasn't sure I would have even still be asked to come, considering the party, but Ashley still invited me to the dinner, in which I was supposed to get him to come and live with me.
Ask his parents.
I mean.
I don't get being black and I probably never will, not really. But, I don't understand asking your parents for permission to do anything, period.
I never asked my mother to do jackshit. I just did it without thinking of the consequences. That probably explains the hiv scares, though.
Mom, dressed in a black glittery dress and black gloves, rang the doorbell.
"Is that Barba Streisand playing?" Declan asked. There was faint music coming from under the door.
"That's literally Aretha Franklin," Anna blurted. "Jesus, even I know that."
"Excuse me for listening to the twentyonepilots and literally nothing else," Declan scoffed. "I never liked this kind of music."
"This should be fun," Liza mumbled beside me with as much sarcasm as she could muster up, as I looked around outside for a minute.
I was kind of surprised by the amount of cars parked. I had an intimate family gathering in mind. It looked like they invited the whole tapestry.
Like a Cosby show level amount of people. Speaking of. "Am I allowed to joke about Bill Cosby?" I asked. "I need to joke about him once at every party."
Mother turned around and looked at each of us individually, almost sneering. And just outright ignoring my question. "Do I even have to say it?"
We all sighed. "No," Liza spoke up.
"Say it," Mom said.
"No black jokes," we all droned.
The door opened and Kenzie, a free man, was standing there in what looked like it should have been a suit, but he was wearing jeans, a pair of black sneakers and just the jacket of a tuxedo. I'm pretty certain the shirt underneath the black suit jacket he was wearing had Tupac's face on it.
"Good Evening, my Caucasian brethren," he spoke, almost mockingly.
He opened the door wider, smiling, showing off that gold tooth that he had stuck in his mouth. As we climbed inside, he closed the door behind us. "You can leave your coats on the rack labeled 'strange white folk who aren't to be trusted' next to the other one labeled 'black people who ain't afraid to put a cap in a white folk head', after which time I will seat you at our table. "
I couldn't have been the only one to be having second thoughts about this.
After we rested our coats down, Kenzie decided to give us a tour of the living room.
"This is where we gather to watch Family Feud, Love and Hip Hop and occasionally Breaking Bad since the white people at work swear it's the greatest thing ever."
"How...riveting," Mother said.
"Thank you," Kenzie smiled and showed his gold tooth.
I knew Mother had to be squirming inside. I could practically hear the worms crawling underneath her flesh. This was definitely not her element, or arena. It might actually be fun to watch her be so uncomfortable tonight.
Kenzie led us into the kitchen where Mrs. King greeted us for a few moments, before he lead us to the backyard, where two long, wooden tables dressed in a polka-dotted picnic cloth were setup in the middle of the yard.
"It's outside?" Anna asked. She almost sound like she wanted to vomit.
"I've never attended an outside dinner," Liza said. "This should be fun." She was the first to step down into the backyard, where the blue-sy music played and people were chatting, eating, dancing to the music.
At one point, a group of the older crowd started to a synchronized dance.
"It's the black version of the electric slide," Dec said. "I've only heard legends about this." He took out his phone and started recording. "Reading about it on the internet." He stepped up. "I've written research on this phenomenon of how so in tune and well synchronized they are while doing it."
I decided right there, that maybe I'll ignore Declan tonight.
Liza went over to Kenzie, who was drinking from a cup and started chatting it up with him. The way he looked her up and down, hitting her shoulder lightly and biting his lip, I'd say they were about to flirt it up.
"Those are Liza's sexual innuendo shoulders," I commented.
I heard Mom huff and stepped down into the yard. "Does every member of my immediate family have to fall in love with a black man?" she asked.
"You were in love with a black man?" Dec asked.
Mom sighed. "It's a titanic situation, in which I met my husband years after my one, true love. We weren't meant to be together and as fate would have it, he was ripped out of my arms."
"He drowned?" I asked. "You never told me about this."
"No," Mom answered. "That wasn't a metaphor. Fate - the local kkk leader in my town - literally ripped him out my arms. I haven't heard anything from him since."
"Your southern is showing, mother," I chided, rolling my eyes and stepping into the yard.
"Stay close," Mother said.
I ignored that of course and brushed passed her, evading the dancing people – who acted like they never saw a white person before – and went to the cooler for bottled water.
But, beer. Beer was all I found. Beer the size of my arm. The fabled Colts. I thought they only existed in late 90s rap videos.
And, look. I'm not one to perpetuate stereotypes – I'm a gay party boy and that's just as streotyp-y as this – but come on? No water?
"What's an anxious white man in the ghettos of Brooklyn supposed to do to get some water around here?" I said to myself, or I thought I was saying it to myself.
But the lid on the cooler shut, almost ripping my hand off if I hadn't developed cat like reflexes from climbing out of windows of married men, and Ashley appeared from the side of me, holding a can of his own.
"He can ask for one," he said.
"I," I laughed/snorted/yelped. "I didn't mean it like that."
He nodded. "I know – water's inside in the refrigerator by the way – and what's with the outfit?" he asked, also laughing/snorting/yelping. "This isn't an auction, or a Phantom of the Opera show."
I looked down and my suit. Maybe I should have asked for the dress code. "I was expecting something a bit more...formal."
Ashley smiled. "Reece's Pieces, if you have any chance of dating me, you're going to have to learn that black parties are almost literally the opposite of your arties. Especially at family gatherings."
I shifted as Ashley sat on top of the cooler. "Like what?"
"Like nothing is off topic when we're eating dinner – so have a list of your former sexual partners ready – you had better be praising Jesus on Sundays since that's all grandmothers want to talk about also just take the mint and the dollar she hands you it's not an insult. Prepare to be subject to grandfather's rant on today's music and how Drake is destroying rap. Tupac references, Madea jokes, a long ass prayer before the meal, basketball arguments and gay jokes galore."
I blinked. "I think I should have come prepared for this."
He waved me off. "You'll be fine." He paused. "Just don't mention that you're a republican."
"But I am a republican," I commented. "Am I not supposed to mention my political affiliation?"
"That depends," he said. "Do you want to be shot in the mouth?"
I shivered. "The only thing I like shot in my mouth is hot, wet, cu-"
"DINNER!"
Ashley's mother, hair puffed up in a sloppy bun, glasses on, an apron over a yellow dress, sat a basket of buns on the table. "Everyone take a seat at the table."
Ashley rested the can down and offered me one of his hands.
"Uh," was all that came out of my mouth. I just stared at the open palm. Trailing it up his arm, until I made it to his eyes. Brown and blue had a baby in them, I swear. "You want me to take your hand?"
He nodded slowly. "You're my fiancé, remember?" He didn't drop it. "If it's one thing black people do better than another race, it's pretending to be cool with something and then reading you for filth when you're out of the room," he finished. "So, they're gonna smile at you, then talk about you when you go to restroom, and then greet you when you come back. Get used to it."
I gulped. Like literally gulped something that tasted like fear and it went down as good as about as swallowing a wrench.
But I took it. I took his hand.
And, Ashley lead me over to the table, taking the first seat , where his mother sat at the helm after putting the last of the food on the table. The seat next to her was empty.
She at least had the decency to smile at me. "You must be Reece."
I smiled as much as I could. I just felt the eyes of so many people on me. Even if half the seats were empty, and I assumed more were coming. The eight people that were already sitting at these double bench-tables were still enough to make me squirm in my seat. "I'm doing pretty great, Mrs. King."
Mother took a seat across from me, "I wonder what's under these trays? Will there be tea?" she asked, with her polite grin, pointing to the food. Smiling at Mrs. King, she spoke again. "Charmed to meet you, my dear."
Ashley's mother nodded, as Declan, Anna and Liza took a seat next to her.
"Well, we would have had to at some point to discuss our children deciding to get married." Mrs. King commented.
"Well, you can't really stop your children from doing what you want them to," Mother responded.
"Have you tried the belt?" Ashley's mother asked. "Works wonders." She looked at Ashley, who was also shifting in his seat like he was sitting on a couple of rocks. "I beat Beautiful ass so good one time he snuck out this house to go to some rap concert, he was dreaming of belt monsters for a month."
Mother let out a laugh. "Well, that's child abuse."
I snorted. Mother shot me a glare.
"You try raising two black teenage boys while your husband is in prison, working a teaching job and then call it child abuse," Ashley's mother muttered. "It's akin to raising two wild hyenas with even less control over their urges."
Mother huffed. "You don't have to tell me about out of control children," she grumbled, eyes racing to me. "Reece might've as well come out my womb smoking weed and getting girls almost-pregnant."
Ashley snorted next to me and I went to jab him in the side, but he somehow sensed it, dodged it, and jabbed me. How?
"That's the last trey," Kenzie said. "The others are coming outside now." He looked around and when he spotted Liza, he smirked, picked something out of his gold tooth and was going to make his way over, before his mother stopped him.
"Gorgeous," she said and he turned to face her.
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"Could you give Mrs. Red here some tea?" she asked her son.
"Okay," Kenzie said, resting his hands on the table, leaning against his elbows and turning his body to face mother. "You know Janelle who live down the corner?"
Mom looked up at him. "Who?"
Kenzie shook his head. "Janelle is the girl with this phat ass. Well, she dating one of my homies and I heard that she has been giving head to all his other homies when he to work. Well, I just had to see if that shit was true you know? So I go up to the homie crib and act like I ran out of butter or some shit and she let me in while he wasn't there." He raised his head to the sky before howling. "Let's just say that girl she should learn to speak different languages cause her tongue is talented."
Um.
"I meant Lipton," Mrs. King said, eyeing her son and pinching her nose. "From inside."
Kenzie started nodding slowly. "Oh you meant the liquid tea." He cleared his throat. "Coming right up."
As Kenzie jogged inside, the rest of Ashley's friends appeared at the door and filtered into the back yard. the Erika girl and Lola of course. That muscular guy with the braids, the white boy and Competition.
"Goodnight, everyone," Competition greeted, stopping by Mrs. King and placing a kiss on her cheek, who smiled against his lips and patted his head. "Sorry we're late." His eyes ran over to Ashley who he winked at and then over to me where they narrowed. "We can eat now."
"Do black people even know the meaning of time?" Mrs. King asked, laughing.
"Time is an abstract, manmade concept and I will not be held down by it," Lola answered. "Y'all think this contouring just happens?" she asked, going over to her seat at the other end of the table. "This level of fleekness and slay-atude don't happen in under an hour."
Kenzie came back out, handed mother a glass of tea and scooted over to where Liza was seated on her phone. Liza smiled, rested it down and turned her body towards him.
I looked back at Ashley, who had distracted himself by staring at the empty seat next to his mother.
"Your dad?" I whispered in his ear.
He nodded without looking back at me. "I don't think his ankle monitor allows him outside the house."
"You never told me what happened with your Dad," I muttered. "You never said why he's in prison."
Ashley turned to me. And you know that thing people did where their lips trembled because they weren't sure if they should tell you what they are about to tell you? Yeah.
"A few years ago, my Dad had gotten suspended from his job. He was tired of being treated like garbage by his employer. When he snapped, he punched the manager in the face. The guy came here looking for my dad with two police officers." He paused. Then he sighed. "They tried to arrest him, but Dad resisted arrest, which is always stupid. A white officer pulled a gun on him and screamed for him to get on the ground. Dad, moved too quickly for the cop and he thought he was going to attack him, ended up getting shot."
"He didn't die?" I asked, I couldn't help myself.
"No," Ashley answered. "He survived, and woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed. He was charged with assault, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Eight years in minimum security prison."
"What happened to the cop?" I asked.
Ashley shrugged. "He was friends with some very powerful people that pressured the prosecution to drop the charges," he said. "A jury basically deemed him innocent, anyway."
"Yeah, but he shot him at point blank range," I said. I sat up straight in my seat. "That should have at least gotten him fired."
"Yeah, but justice isn't blind for those with money and," he pinched my cheek, "this creamy, milky, smooth skin." Then, hands trailed and down my lap and rested on top of my pants. He massaged it. I gulped. "And this is between your legs."
He grabbed.
"Let's eat!" I yelped.
Everyone threw me weird looks and I sunk as far into this chair that my body would physically allow me to.
"Let us pray first," Mrs. King said and ushered to an elderly lady seated at the other end of the table.
She rocked herself up from her seat. "Dear most gracious, merciful, wrathful yet peaceful, just, beautiful, heavenly father in heaven, we come before you your humble servants here on the planet of earth..."
"This could take a while," Ashley said, as his eyes slipped closed.
I followed suit.
Ashley's POV
When Reece's eye slipped closed, I reopened mine.
Getting away from the table wasn't usually hard during prayer, but it was especially easy since he was so intent on impressing my family, or at least assimilating, that he would actually sit there, eyes closed and hands clasped until she was pretty much done.
The others got up first and I followed suit, when I was sure Reece was so deep in his thoughts, he wouldn't feel me move.
"So?" I said, as I stepped into the kitchen where Erika, Pete, Lola and Niko were already hanging. "We have about three hours before grandma finishes this prayer to do what we have to do."
Erika took out the jump drive. "Since we're all here, why don't we see what the The Reds have been hiding?" She looked behind me. "Kenzie, get your laptop?"
Kenzie stepped through the threshold and nodded, with Dennis coming inside closing the door to the backyard behind him, shielding the glass with the curtains.
"What part of the prayer is grandma on?" I asked.
Dennis laughed. "She's praying for the communities ravaged by war and famine and A.I.D.S."
"Good," Lola commented. "She has hasn't gotten to the praying for the souls of the youths today from that booty shaking demonic music."
"Or bathing the homosexuals in the blood of the Jesus," Niko added.
"It's a good thing prefer showers then," I threw. "Pete can you keep an eye on the others, make sure they are still victims to the barrage that is an elderly black woman praying?"
I don't know what Hell was like, but my guess is it was just a God fearing black 80 year old woman who was given a Bible, a megaphone and time.
"Let us know when she's arrived at the trashing the other religions, that usually means she's winding down," Dennis added on.
"Do you blame her?" Lola snorted. "Christianity won."
"Lola," I chided.
She shot her hands up. "Look, all I'm saying is it's officially the year 2016 In The Year Of Our Lord. That's officially what year it is."
Kenzie came back down into the kitchen and rested the laptop on top kitchen counter. He slid it over to Erika, who barely stopped it from tumbling to the ground "So, stay away from the folders labeled tax returns."
"Is that where the porn is?" Lola asked him.
Kenzie, leaning against the counter and removing the cigarette from behind is ear, stared at Lola for a moment. "No the porn is in the folder labeled porn. That tax return folder is for the tax returns for the legitimate business that covers up my massive weed empire."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that just in case we're dragged in front of a court of law," Lola responded, rolling her eyes.
"Can you all huddle over here," Erika, voice strict and tense, asked. "I have a problem."
We huddled around at the laptop's screen.
E N T E R P A S S W O R D
"You're fucking me?" Lola grumbled. "Reece King has raw sex all the time and he password protects his drive?"
"As delicious as that irony does taste," I joked, "it's his mother's jump drive. I doubt he know what's on it."
"We have to find out what the password is," Erika mumbled.
"Mrs. Red would know," Lola said. "She's basically the guardian of all the family secrets."
"Well, then this is as useless as earlobes then," I grumbled. "We aren't getting passwords out of Mama Red. She's got balls of steel. And I'm not sure if that's hyperbole or not. She could actually have balls of steel."
"Someone else has to know," Erika said from below us. "Reece is the CEO."
I ughed, almost immediately. "Look, I'm getting tired of using Reece for everything," I said. "If not because it's annoying, then for the fact that a group of black people need a white man to solve their problems. I mean...irony has it's limits.
"There's no way on earth Mrs. Red would tell Reece these passwords anyway," Lola added. "She'd sooner go back in time and gives Hitler a heads up before she does that."
"Well, then what would be the last thing she would put as a password?" Niko asked. "That no one would ever guess Mrs. Red would have as a password?"
"blacksrule999?" Lola offered.
Erika typed.
INCORRECT
"westolethiscountry12345?" Niko tried.
INCORRECT
"Reece?" I said.
They all looked at me for a moment. I stared right on back. "I mean. I'm just saying."
Erika typed.
CORRECT
Kenzie coughed on his cig. "You're fucking me."
"We're in," Erika said, clasping her fingers, cracking them and started scrolling down the list of folders.
"Hey guys?" Kenzie said, peering out behind the blinds. "Grandma is lifting her arms to the sky, which means she's on the last part of her rebuke of the Pope for being the False Prophet."
"She's ending early tonight, shit," Dee shot. "We have to get back to our seats."
"There are like six of us," Erika said. "They'll confuse Lola with me like eight times before they realize I'm missing. You guys go."
She picked up the laptop and sprinted to the living room. "I'm heading to your bedroom, Ashley."
"I'll meet you there," I murmured after her.
After she disappeared, the rest of us scooted back outside and into our seats as Grandma, standing in her chair, arms stretched to the sky thanked God for Martin Luther King, Marvin Gaye and Life Alert before she finally said the word, literally everyone was waiting on.
"Amen."
"AMEN" everyone said, sighing, gasping for air. Uncle Jackson had to get up to stretch his legs. Aunt Ennis sprinted to take some pressure pills before grandma started up again.
"I need to stretch my legs," Reece huffed. "Come keep me company?"
"Sure," I answered and we got up and trotted over to the big tree at the center backyard that I used to climb when I was smaller.
Reece leaned against it, watching every one talk and continue to dance as the music started back up. "It's crazy how many colors you guys are."
"I'm sorry?" I offered, tying my arms very tightly and very neatly over my chest.
The stars that Reece had twinkling in his eyes fell out and crashed to the ground like comets. "I was just admiring how diverse you guys are." He touched the skin on the back of his right hand. "You're all different shades and colors, but are still one people. I think it's beautiful is all."
"We're not animals, you know?" I said. he looked slightly taken aback by it. "I'm just saying. When you watch us like that and say we're beautiful, it comes across as if we're zoo animals a and you're admiring watching the zebras fuck one another."
"I didn't mean it that," he said. "I'm just trying to ...I....can we...sorry...maybe..." H sighed, head falling down, hands falling against his pants. "I really don't know, Ashley. I'm really trying."
"Reece," I said, moving in front of him, taking his hands into mine. "Stop trying. That's the whole point. Treat me like you'd treat any other person. Stop trying to overcompensate. It's like treating the kid with Down Syndrome like he's some magical unicorn – he's going to know you're treating him differently."
He nodded. "Okay. No more commenting on how beautiful you are."
"Oh no," I said, quaffing my hair, "You can still do that."
He snorted. "And they say my ego knows no bounds."
I laughed. like actually laughed this time, and I didn't try to stop it when it flowed out of my mouth.
"Here comes Lola," Reece said, looking over my shoulder. "Should we pretend as if we're fighting?" he asked, smirking. "Give me your best, most imaginative insult about my whiteness and privilege."
I cracked my fingers. "You're like a dancing cist full of shit on the ass of the American justice system and if you keep doing your special-ed swan lake dance routine I'm going to point the sharpest needle that I can find, drive it into your boiled ass and smite you from literal existence."
"Imaginative," Lola muttered, almost looking proud. She offered me wine, but I didn't take it. Reece tried to take the glass, but she smacked his hands away. "Reece you have a call from your mother."
We looked over and his mother was in fact, on her phone, waiting for him to take the phone call. "She's literally sitting right over there."
"That doesn't seem to matter," Lola coughed, waving him off. "Take it before she actually murders you here."
Reece ripped the phone from Lola's hand. "Well my mother can suck the cheese that's been accumulating under my left nut and she can grate it off of her tongue and-"
"-she's on speaker."
"Oh, mother-fu-"
"-Reece!" Mrs. Red screeched into the receiver. "I don't know what you and Ashley are discussing over there, but I'm going to assume the word anal has been uttered a few times."
"To what do I owe this monumental displeasure, mother," Reece muttered, leaning so far back, he looked like he was morphing with the tree.
"You are forgetting why we're here, young man?" she asked, voice sky high. "You're here to ask for Ashley to move in with you. The last time I checked his mother was over here regaling me with stories before she went to check on the pie. I've been regaled enough in my life Reece and I will literally brush my teeth with your blood if you don't hurry up and get this show moving."
She hung up.
Reece handed the phone back to Lola who was smiling as wide as her cheeks would allow her to without tearing. "I think Mrs. Red is the greatest person to have ever lived," she said, smirking.
"You're dismissed, Lola," Reece grumbled.
"This isn't the office," Anna (of course) responded, sauntering over with that smile. "You can't tell Lola here what to do outside of work hours from her little desk."
Lola stared at Anna for a moment, possibly wondering how many years she'd do if she just karate chopped her head off of her body. "Have I ever said how much I dislike you?" Lola asked her instead, eyebrow raised, tapping on her wine glass.
Anna, who didn't flinch, tapping her own glass. "Numerous tim-"
"I dislike you," Lola interjected slicing through Anna's voice like a buzz saw through wood. "You never know what's behind that smile and you're always egging Reece on to do stupid things."
"I take that as a compliment," Anna replied.
"It's like if Lady Macbeth and Mona Lisa had a baby that had epileptic seizures as a child and now it must live with half of its brain melted into whatever shit melts into and the other half is made of bitchiness, a misplaced sense of entitlement, and the delusion she's an 10, when she's realistically hovering around a 7. "
Si-lence.
"Good Lord," Reece whispered and I shared the sentiment.
Lola shrugged her shoulders and Anna chuckled, sipping the wine. "Reece, can I borrow you for a few minutes?"
He looked over to me, biting his lip. "Can she borrow me, babe?"
I smiled a bit. Jesus. I smiled. "Sure."
Lola clicked here glass as they walked away. "Was I a bit too harsh?" she asked.
I looked over to her. Head cocked, swaying her glass in between her fingers that created a tsunami with the wine. "Just a tad."
"Good," she answered. "Now that she's no longer Reece's girlfriend, Anna Elise needs to be taken down a few pegs." She waited. "And then taken to a plastic surgeon to get those boobs redone, they're starting to lean at a 76 degree angle."
I snorted. "You're mean tonight, what's going on?"
"That blackface party," Lola snarled. "It's still in the back of my mind that people would actually go there."
I frowned. "I know, but...Anna wasn't in blackface."
"She sure did enjoy the music, though," Lola responded. "She also enjoyed seeing black people there participating too. Anything to make us look like hypocrites and idiots."
"Well, our cause isn't exactly against whites," I offered. "It's for justice and racial equality and that means not exclusively being angry at just the white people there."
"Tell that to my sister," Lola said. "Erika has been on a mission to end the so called white blight since she was able to open a tumblr blog."
"Well...that's sort of racist, don't you think? And sort of...Holocaust-y with the whole...removing an entire race aspect?" I asked Lola, who, to her credit, did seem to think about it for a moment before shaking the question off of her shoulders.
"Erika is determined," she offered. "She's all about the blacklivesmatter movement."
"Yeah, but, shouldn't she...I don't know, represent it properly? It's not about destroying white people or seeking vengeance, it's about dismantling the system that's in place which exponentially puts blacks and other people of color at a very calculated disadvantage when it comes to the justice system."
Lola stared into my eyes for a quick second. "It sounds like you may need to have a conversation with her," she said. "It's starting to sound like you doubt her."
I shrugged off the assumption. "I don't doubt her, it's just...I don't know."
"You're thinking about it too hard," Lola said. "It's not black vs white, it's justice vs injustice."
"But when does it go from justice and become vengeance?" I asked. "I feel like this is just vengeance now, not about justice."
"Who said the two were mutually exclusive?" Lola asked.
"We should," I replied, pointing to me chest, poking my chest so hard with my index finger that it cracked. "We should say they are mutually exclusive, that they can exist at the same time and that they are not one in the same because if we don't...we're in no way different from them."
"Okay, you really need to have a conversation with her," Lola said, eyes wide, leaning back slightly. "Erika has been a second mother to you. You should feel able to speak freely if you want to her."
"When has any black child ever been able to speak freely with their black mother?" I chided. "You either agree that the sky is green or she'll smack you so hard you'll see it as green after."
Lola nodded. "Good point." Her gaze turned to where Reece and Anna were huddled. "What do you think she's telling him?"
"That we're up to something maybe?" I snorted out. "I doubt it though. There's no way she's on to us." It was my turn to search the backyard. "Have you seen Dennis?"
"He went to the bathroom," she replied. "Declan spilled wine meant for Erika on his shirt."
I huffed. "His dance program is tomorrow night and I have to see if I'm actually still invited to it."
"Of course you are," Lola responded. "I'd think Dennis isn't as petty as that."
"I'm not so sure."
Reece's POV
"They are up to something," Anna told me.
I rolled my eyes at her. "Anna, this fixation of yours is becoming Black Swan levels of obsessive and you saw how that movie ended."
"Ambiguously?" She shook the incredulous look off of her face. "Look. It took me a minute to count them since...well...some of their faces blend, but Erika is missing."
"Okay," I drawled, "one: that's like Sarah Palin levels of racist and two: Erika being missing absolutely means nothing."
"Oh, really?" Anna breathed. "And what if I told you that Erika also pulled a disappearing act when Jasmine was killed at your house?"
I folded my arms. "Are you suggesting that Erika killed Jasmine?"
Anna mocked me, folding hers too. "I'm not suggesting, I'm pretty much telling you she did."
"What evidence could you possibly have?" I asked.
"Lola."
"Lola?"
"Yes," Anna said, smirking again. God, Lola was right about the Mona Lisa smile. "Lola is the one who got Ashley the job interview. Lola is the one who also vanished the night Jasmine died. Lola was with Erika and Ashley upstairs when she obviously knew the cameras were off - who also was in charge of coordinating the party by the way which means she knew it was going to be a blackface party – Lola and Erika are obviously up to something and they are using Ashley to get to you."
I had to soak that in for a minute. All of that. "What are you saying?"
"Fire Lola."
"That's a disaster waiting to happen, Anna," I lashed out at her, almost laughing at the very idea. "My father didn't have the low enough dropped balls to fire Lola."
"Fire Lola," she repeated, eyes as intense as I've ever seen them before. "You fire Lola and replace me with her. I will get to be your eyes and ears. If I'm wrong, you can hire her back."
"Is this really about protecting the company or is this a personal vendetta for that comment she made?" I asked.
"Call it 50/50," Anna spat.
I exhaled as sharp as an axe. "I need a bathroom."
"Think about it Reece," she said. "Before there is nothing left to think about."
"You know, some people say I look Like A$ap Rocky when the light strikes me just right."
I cleared my throat.
Kenzie removed his eyes from Liza's boobs long enough to acknowledge my presence "Can I assist you, white boy?"
"Yes, can we assist you, white boy?" Liza repeated, getting a Kenzie to barely stifle a grin, offering a high five, that she promptly accepted. They had moved into the living room and by the smoke and the smell, were as high as kites.
"Can you guys tell me where the bathroom with a medicine cabinet so I can contemplate swallowing a bottle of Advil?"
"I know the feeling," Kenzie muttered. He pointed down at their feet, where the biggest cat I may have ever seen was lying down. "Harambe will show you," hesaid, leaving me so confused I don't think my body had enough space in-between my organs to hold it all.
He laughed, wheezing and coughing up smoke. "It's upstairs. Third door on the left."
"Thanks," I said, about to turn, but stopping myself to stare at Liza. "If you love me, you would have his black children and give mother a heart attack."
And with that, I then completed my pivot and headed up the stairs, trudged down the empty hallway until I came the bathroom door. I thought of knocking, but I didn't know where Reece's Dad was in the house and I didn't want to wake him if he was sleeping nearby. So, I just opened it.
The bathroom wasn't empty. He was in here.
"Someone's in here," Dennis said, his back to me, head leaning downward facing the bathtub.
I didn't leave. Instead, I stepped in, closed the door and locked it behind me. "I can see that."
Dennis's head slowly cradled upward and cocked to the side. His shoulder squared and his hands slipped to his side.
"White boy," he sang, lowering his voice. He turned around and I saw that his shirt was draining red over his left side. Wine, I'm guessing.
"Competition," I answered, leaning against the door. "Was wondering when we'd have some special alone time."
"No time like the present," he replied, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. "Round two, macho man?"
There was a knock on the door, but I ignored the voice. I cracked my knuckles. "This is going to be fun."
Ashley's POV
I knocked on the bathroom door, but no one answered. "Dennis are you in there?"
"Ashley."
I turned my head right before I could get an answer. Erika was standing by the door with the laptop in her hands. Her eyes were moon level wide. "We've got it."
I blinked. "Got what?"
"Everything," she said. "We have everything." She opened my bedroom door wider and slinked back inside, probably asking me to come in and see.
I walked in and she was seated on the edge of my bed with the laptop in her hands. "It's lawyer notes. They knew what they were doing to your Dad was wrong...they knew that they were escaping the justice system and according to these, they bribed the judge in his case."
I was frozen by the door. "Wait." I had a full minute before I said anything else. "Wait. This means that ...we could get my dad out of prison?"
Erika nodded. "Or at least have another judge to reverse the decision." Her smile widened. "But more importantly we can tear down a beacon of white power and white establishment. We can get your Dad out of prison and get the Reds locked up. Both of them. We can get that officer off the streets and behind bars."
"G-good," I said. My stomach was lurching like I had swallowed live worms. My hands were warmer than I was used to. I was blinking too much and too fast. "What about your Dad?"
Erika's smile slipped for a moment, but as fast as it was gone, it was back. "There aren't any files on my Dad," she said. "But this is enough."
I frowned. "But...what about justice for him?"
She shook her head. "It's okay, it's okay," she assured me. "He'll still be smiling down on us as we do this."
"Are we going to mention hi-"
"Ashley," she cut in. "Let's celebrate this victory without asking too many questions, okay?" She shut the laptop. "Before something goes wrong."
"What could possibly go-"
Before I could finish the sentence, I was on the ground. Dust and pieces of woof blinded me for a second, getting into my eyes and my nose, my mouth my ears, everywhere.
When the most of the dust had settled on the ground I could see that it was the door from the bathroom that had somehow been broke open, torn from its hinges and snapped in into pieces on the floor and I bathing in the middle of it.
"Motherfucker!"
My head snapped to my feet.
Reece was on top and Dennis was under him and they were throwing wild fists at each other, cursing and shouting and rolling in the hallway like wild animals trying to kill each other, outside of the bathroom door, at my feet.
"Stop it!" I shouted. "Get off of him!"
It went into a pair of their ears and flew out of the others. Reece tried to punch Dennis, but he blocked his fist, grabbed it with his free hand and bit a finger. Reece growled and threw his head down at Dennis, head-butting him until he released his finger.
"I'll kill you," Reece boomed.
"Good luck!" Dennis shouted back into his face.
"Something can always go wrong," Erika said, as they rolled down the hallway with me propping myself up of f of the ground, gaping at them.