“It’s not,” I replied. “So…you guys are a real, actual couple?”
Cherri tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
The cool wind mixing with the warm fire created a delightful temperature against my skin. “I don’t know. I kind of thought from the way you talked about him yesterday that maybe you’re not really into it.”
“Can I be honest with you?” Cherri asked.
“Of course.”
“I’m not. I mean, back when we first started dating, I thought he was really cute. I’d never really been with anyone before, so it pulled me in, but he’s not a good guy.”
Understatement of the year. “Then why are you with him?”
She shrugged. “Because it’s easy, I guess?”
It was time to take a leap. Something about the strained look on Cherri’s face as she spoke about Nathan told me that I had to make a now-or-never move. “Can I be honest with you?” I asked.
She smiled. “Of course.”
“Being with you is…so easy for me.” My heart started to pound faster than I expected. “We liked each other back in the day, and it feels like there’s something between us now. Why couldn’t this be easy?”
When she started to nod, I was relieved. “Being with you is easy. Not just easy, but it feels… I don’t know. It feels right. Like we haven’t been apart these last four years.”
“Yeah. I mean,” I stood up and moved to sit next to her on the couch she was on. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t dreamed of picking up where we left off. Haven’t you?”
She turned to face me, and there was less space than a person could fit in between us. Cherri was wearing some sweet, flowery perfume that made me lightheaded. Mixed with the smell of the fire, the scent was so intoxicating that it would be burned into my brain forever.
“Yeah,” she said, “but I had to get over you. I didn’t know what happened to you, Deon. You were just gone. Your mom said you didn’t want to see me. I couldn’t contact you. No one from the neighborhood knew what happened to you. You just weren’t there anymore. I was crushed.”
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry. I thought about reaching out to you a bunch of times, but then I thought you’d be better off without me.”
“Why would I be better off without you?” she asked. “Is it true what everyone is saying about where you’ve been?”
I wasn’t unaware of the rumors. In fact, I was pretty certain Nathan had started them on purpose. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I was locked up. Two years in juvie. Two in adult.”
“You were in an adult prison?” Cherri asked. “Why?”
That was the million-dollar question. My mind took a whirlwind trip back to that day when Cherri and I were on our date, and a body dropped from the sky. I had no idea where that body came from or why it crossed paths with me. All I knew was, my life diverged onto a totally different path that day, though I couldn’t bring myself to regret the choices I made, not for a second.
I sighed, knowing it wasn’t the time to come totally clean to Cherri about that just yet. “It’s complicated.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I stopped her. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, just…not here.”
She settled, seemingly accepting that for the time being. “Was it that bad that you got sent to an adult prison?”
“Well, no, that was more my fault. The group of friends I picked weren’t the softest, most-liked group at the juvie, and one of the guys tried to kill one of the guards and break out. No one wanted to snitch on anyone for what happened, so they took us all down for it. I was the only one who didn’t get added time, but they did send us all up the river for it.”
She shook her head. “Jesus. I can’t imagine sending a sixteen-year-old to an adult prison. How did you survive?”
Venom’s ever-present smirk splashed across my brain. “I made better friends.”
Cherri chuckled. “Well, in the interest of total honesty?” I shrugged, so she kept going. “I would never be happy about what you had to go through, but prison, Deon.” She looked away as she mumbled, “Pretty sexy.”
My stomach turned over. Suddenly, I was plagued with a new problem—not jumping Cherri in a public place when she had a boyfriend. “Is that right?”
“Oh, yeah.” She locked her eyes on mine. “You got the arms going on, the tatts. You’re all…buff.” Her eyes flared with a hint of excitement, emboldened by the actual flames from the fire reflecting in them. “It’s a good look on you.”
“You like the arms, huh?” I leaned away and flexed. “Well, I didn’t have a lot to do while I was in there, so I worked out a lot.”
She eyed my arms hungrily and pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “I can tell.”
I was right on the precipice of fuck it. Cherri was leaning in, her eyes were wild and intrigued, my lower half was already trying to convince my brain to flip sides, and given that my brain was already half in one camp, the debate wasn’t difficult. After four years of being apart and many more of waiting to kiss Cherri, the fact that it would be as easy as leaning a few centimeters forward to end that wait was difficult to ignore.
Unfortunately, footsteps stomping up the gazebo stairs made the decision for me.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Cherri flung herself away from me as Nathan pounded into the gazebo and rushed over to me. I stood
