Connors P.O.V
"No bloody way!" Tom howled throwing a handfull of popcorn at the flat screen T.V
"That was a fricking foul!" I shouted, baffled at the refferee's decision to not give Wayne Rooney a red card.
"Suck my balls you shitty referee!" Aaron screeched, flipping the bird at his own T.V as the whistle blew indicating the end of the first half.
"Wooo! Suckers" Slim celebrated, twerking his arse in my face. "Bitch we totally got this in the bag" He hollered belting out the Man UTD theme tune.
We were currently sprawled on Aaron's sofa watching the first match of the Premiere League, Manchester United vs Swansea. It was 1-0, much to my dissapointment. His house was huge, with its own games room where the guys relax almost everyday and an indoor swimming pool , he is definitely living the dream. Ive discovered his parents are CEO's of a family business thus they are rarely around, leaving it all for him. We had ordered several pizza boxes and bottles of coke to binge on whilst watching the match intensely. Excluding AJ, who was on the loveseat in the corner of the room, hadphones plugged in and sketching something on an A3 sheet of paper. It came as a surprise, something I would not have associated with AJ. But he was the apparent 'badboy' of the group.
"Get your junk out of my face, Slim" I moaned chucking my ice pack at him that Aaron had kindly offered for my busted lip.
Unfazed, Slim began doing the dance move, the worm on the floor " GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED!" he sang at the top of his lungs.
" Dude theres 45 minutes to the game left so sit yo' cocky arse back down down!" Aaron muttered, whilst ordering a fried chicken bucket from KFC on the phone.
"So Connor, how come you moved here?" Tom asked, diverting his attention to me his face showed curiosity.
The question completely caught me offguard. My expression turned cold aswell as the atmosphere in the room as my body stiffened. I couldn't tell them I was part of a witness Protection Programme, or that bat shit crazy criminals were targeting me.
"My granparents wanted to move to somewhere more peaceful" I lied.
As much as I hated it, I had to protect my grandparents but more importantly, my secret. Thankfully, I was cut off from answering more questions when my mobile phone ringing.
The caller ID read: Granny Jill. praising the lord above I accepted the call
"Just give me a minute" I mouthed to the boys, before walking into the adjoined kitchen for some privacy.
"Hey gran" I answered.
"Concon baby!" gran cheerfully squealed from the opposite end "I just wanted to check up on you"
Rolling my eyes, I sighed "gran, its literally been under an hour since I last texted you"
"I know concon but after what has happened the past few days, im just a tad nervous about your safety, and I have a right to be mister! Plus I wanted to talk to your new buddies"
"But- no its totally fine, theyre kinda busy now" I replied, chuckling nervously.
"Oh dont be daft and put me on loud speaker"
Facepalming I waked back to the group including AJ who were animatedly talking about which girl at college was greater in bed. I clicked the loudspeaker button, hoping my gran would not embarrass me in any way.
"Concon? Am I on loudspeaker? Why are you not replying? Helloooo" gran exasperatedly yelled into the reciever, stretching out the 'o' in hello.
All four boys turned their bodies towards me startled at the new unfamillier voice.
"Guys, my grandm Jill wants to meet you's" I said, scratching the back of my head in embarrasment.
"Hello Boys! Its Concon's bestest granny here"
From the corner of my eyes I saw slim stifle his laugh at the sound of my nickname, glaring at him I made the universal sign that I was going to kill him later- dragging my index finger along my neck, slowly. He smirked, before flipping me the bird.
"Hey grandma Freeman!" they all chimed in.
" I think concon here" Slim started, glancing at me, "is embarrased to introduce you to us grandma Freeman."
The whole room collapsed into laughter.
"Im not surprised dear! Trust me, he was the same when introducing girls to me! Maybe hes secretly gay" grandma Jill chortled.
"Grandma!" I warned, but it was too late.
" I mean, growing up he would always wear my heels, a right ol diva, my Concon was, strutting his stuff" she began, " or what he thought he had, mind you I preferred our dogs show."
The boys guffawed, Tom, was clapping his hand like a retarded seal. I facepalmed, there goes my street rep along with my dignity.
"Ey Connor, do you want some water for that burn!?" AJ smirked.
I flipped him the bird, ready to retort with a sassy comeback but was cut off by gran screaming down the phone.
"WHAT? IS MY BABY HURT? WHO BURNED YOU CONCON?" she frantically gushed "LISTEN BOYS, WHEN I FIND OUT WHICH ONE OF YOU BURNED CONCON, ILL RIP OFF YOUR MAN PARTS AND FEED THEM TO THE DUCKS"She seethed, cluttering could be heard in thd background.
"Im getting my whip, you hold on Connor, im coming" she breathlesly replied.
"Ooh kinky "Aaron blurted.
We all stood there stunned at grans outburst before coming to our senses and understood why she had freaked out. It was because of what AJ had said, she assumed it was real due to her lack of knowledge in the street language today. As if on cue, we fell into a fit of laughter.
"Nothing-happened grandma, im safe- I promise" I replied in between laughs. "The second half of the match is starting in a few minutes, im cutting off bye gran" shutting the phone off I stared at the boys.
" I swear shes normal" I assured "she bakes cookies and knits like every other normal grandmother"
Slim threw a hand around my shoulder, " Yo sparks, your gran is a legend, I wanna meet her in person!" The others nodded in agreement before the doorbell rang, indicating the chicken bucket had arrived, just in time for the last 45 minutss of the match. I made myself comfortable of the sofa as kickoff started.
The game ended 2-1 at fulltime. Hell yeah Swansea won! Though im not a supporter of the team, it was satisfying to see Manchester UTD getting their arse beaten, plus I could taunt Slim. He was devastated at the loss, his mouth hanging open, still unable to accept the fact that Man U had lost. I couldnt help myself, we copied his previous actions and twereked in his face whilst belting out our remixed version of man u's theme tune;
" Shitty, shityy man united,
shitty shitty, man united
Shitty shitty man united
flush shit like man u down the loo!"
We went dowmstairs into the basement after a few games of foosball, me and Slim vs Tom and Aaron, they won us 5-7. AJ had left after the match had ended, saying he had something important come up, yet the look on his faced showed fear and annoyance, I disregarded it as we proceeded with the game.
I was next to leave at aroud 5:30 pm as I had to pick the shopping for gran, knowing her, shes most likely forgotton about it and would be lying on the couch watching re runs of strictly come dancing whilst grandpa Joe massaged her legs. Thankfully Aaron dropped me off to a mini Tesco store that was near my house, bidding him farewell, I went in, trying to remember what gran wanted me to buy.
Whilst feeling tomatoes to find the most juiciest ones on the fruit and veg aisle, I bumped into a familiar face. It was Karen from next door, whom I met yesterday evening. She was with her daughter, a short curvy girl with wavy brown hair litening to her ipod. she was wearing a white tank top, grey jean shorts and a floral pink kimono that came up to mid thigh.
"Connor!" she exclaimed embracing me into a hug "fancy seeing you here, feeling up tomatos" she chuckled.
Heat rushed to my ears at her statement. when she puts it that way it sounds a tad bit sexual.
"Hello, Karen!"I smiled at her "the juiciest ones are always the tastiest" I winked.
She chuckled, "this is my daughter Erin" poking her daughter to grab her attention.
Erin looked up at her mother, before focusing her mesmarising grey eyes on me. She grunted at me before retuurning to her phone. Bitch much? someone must be pmsing.
Karen rolled her eyes, "forgive her lousey attitutde, shes been very moody lately, im not sure why, anyway I have to go, ive left my oldest son, Jasper to look after my youngest, gotta get back before they burn the housedown!" she muttered, before hugging me one last time. Im having a guess here, that shes the hugging type. Clearly.
***
After gathering the rest of the food and paying for it at the till, I made my way back to our house. Placing the carrier bags in the kitchen, "Gran?" I called "Grandpa?
No one replied, the house was deadly silent. Sighing I pulled out a microwaveable lasagne from the freezer, peircing it with holes before putting it in for 20 minutes. Whilst that cooked, I ran upstairs unbuttoning my jeans and ripping my top off, good lord, that felt nice, before grabbing a light blue superman onsie out of my wardrobe. What? A badass street kid bought up in South London wearing a onsie? Yeah, im different than the rest plus its cosy, its like squishing a marshmallow.
I began unpacking a box I had left from yesterday, ripping the brown sticky tape off it before looking inside. It was a box full of pictures. I picked up a brown leaterbound photoalbum and skimmed through the pages. A faint smile playing on my lips as Isaw multiple family pictures of me, my mother and father. To anyone else, we looked like a normal happy family enjoying eachothers company.
One picture that stood out for me was taken 8 years ago when we went to a beach in Cornwall. I could remember the day like the back of my hand. In the picture, my dad was staring at my mom with adoration. My mother, her beautiful blonde locks everywhere due to the strong wind, was sticking her tongue out at my dad, yet her eyes mirrored the emotions my dad was feeling. I was on my dads shoulders, grinning toothlessly at the camera an icelolly I had earlier, had stained my lips blue. It was perfect, we were perfect. Yet he walked out on us, without no explanation, no warning, he was out of our lives like a gust of wind, never contacting us again.
I was shattered, heartbroken, to see my male rolemodel just leave at such a young age. After that, I didnt care, I began acting out at school, refusing to do work and gaining multiple detentions. I met Tyde, he had gone through the same trauma as me, he acted like my rolemodel, looked out for me, gave me knowledge on self defense, it was like he took the empty void that imfelt inside me after my father and fixed it by taking his place. But most of all he was that older brother I never had, as he was five years older than me.
I put the album to the side and rummaged through the box, where I stopped when I found a picture of me and Tyde, our arms wrapped around eachother, with bandanas covering our mouth, Tyde was flipping his middle finger at the camera whilst I had two fingers up in the shape of a gun, smirking at the camera. It was the day I had done my first task to be part of the SL Thugs, selling drugs. Im still not memebr yet, that day February 26th, the day of the accident was my day to become a member, by showing I was worthy of joining them. But it had backfired on me.
I glared at the picture before ripping it into shreds and dumping it in the dustbin. A way to show myself that I have moved on from the past, from that life and that I was starting a new chapter.
My eyes found its way back to the photo album on the floor, where a loose paper was poking out that I had overlooked before. Picking it up I pulled up the stray piece of paper from the album and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw something in black ink, at the top of the page.
A black skull and two upturned pitchforks.
It was the marking of The SL Thugs.
***
Im in no way whatsoever am I dissing any Manchester United Fans through this chapter, dont take it offensivly or to heart! Sorry, I just support Liverpool, since the beginning #YNWA!