“Oh, hey! Your best friend is losing his shit. You should probably call him. He thinks you died,” she replied.
“Do you think you can let him know I’m okay?” Deon turned the camera, bringing me into the frame. “I’m a little busy.”
Despite what I was expecting, Annika developed a bright smile on her face. “Hey! It’s Cherri! Is this a date?”
“It is,” Deon replied. “Our picnic we were robbed of four years ago.”
Annika cooed. “How romantic. Actually.” She shifted the camera a little bit and revealed the head of a man asleep in her lap. “Looks like they both got a little jealous.”
“Nice,” Deon responded, and it all clicked into place. They became friends with benefits to make their true interests jealous. I did not enjoy knowing that I’d been baited, but regardless, it made me feel better. “Well, you two have fun. Please tell Sicily I’m fine. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
She giggled. “You two have fun too. Oh, Cherri?”
“Yeah?” I said.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you.” She rolled her eyes. “I guess I kind of care about this big idiot.”
“No worries. I get it,” I replied.
“Bye, Annika,” Deon said and then ended the call. He shoved his phone away and looked back at me. “Feel better?”
“Yeah,” I responded, slightly embarrassed but also unbelievably happy.
“Next question?” Deon prompted, finishing his sandwich and pushing his chips off to the side.
“Just one more. The big one,” I said. “Why did you go to prison?”
He nodded. “Ah. Right. We never got the chance to talk about it.” He looked into my eyes. “After that cop caught us, it was clear he was gonna try and stick us with that body. I had no idea how that was going to unfold, but needless to say, I knew what it looked like for a couple of kids from the hood standing over a dead body in South Postings.”
“Yeah. Not good,” Cherri said.
“When I sent you off to head home, I circled back and let myself get caught by the cop.”
My whole body vibrated with shock. “What? Why?”
“He needed someone to blame,” Deon said, “and I didn’t want it to be you.”
I brought my hands up to my mouth and covered it. “You…took the fall? To protect me?”
“I didn’t want that shit ruining your future, Cherri. You were so much smarter than me, and nicer, and more promising. If it was going to be one of us, it needed to be me. Once I was in custody, I told him you had nothing to do with it and pled guilty so it didn’t go to trial. My mom used Connor’s child support money to hire me a good lawyer, so he was able to get me pled down to four years, and that was that.”
“Oh my god.”
What came over my body at that moment, I wasn’t sure, but I shoved all of the food aside, crawled over the center console, and threw myself on Deon. He caught me and pulled me close to him just as my lips found his. There was thankfully enough room to maneuver in my car because, after all the time that we’d spent floating around the subject, attaching ourselves to one another finally, without anything standing in our way, there was no way we were going to stop now. Deon’s large hands were cool as they slipped under my shirt and up my back, and I pushed my tongue forward to swirl along with his inside his mouth. My hands clawed at his shirt, dragging it down over his shoulders and off. I imagined how prepared I was the first time he came over, and I thought about how much of a departure we’d had from that day, but somehow, where we were felt like a more appropriate culmination.
Deon’s hands continued to pull my shirt upward, and I took over, lifting it over my head and tossing it to the back seat with not enough brainpower to consider the fact that we could technically be seen. I’d wanted Deon too long to care. He used a hand to pop open the front clasp of my bra and dropped it down. Then he pulled himself against me and latched his mouth over one of my breasts, overly sensitive from the cold outside and the heat inside. I threw my head back and moaned, and the heat burning up inside my body was almost too hot. I couldn’t control it. It was like a wildfire, and Deon was the only thing that could put it out.
My hands dropped to the button of my pants to undo them before going to Deon’s to undo his. In any other circumstance, I’d want more foreplay or something to ease us in, but it felt like I was literally engulfed in flames, and I knew getting Deon inside of me was the only thing that would ease the pain. Deon’s hands entangled with mine as we shifted and moved to get our pants down. I grabbed his hard member, lined it up with my entrance, and dropped down on it in one fell swoop.
“Fuck!” we screamed at the same time.
I started to move, but Deon grabbed my hips and stopped me. “What?” I asked, struggling to catch my breath.
“Just give me a fucking second, or I’m gonna bust, like, right away,” he replied.
“I know what you mean,” I said.
Deon took several breaths in and out, kissing along my collarbone and breasts as he did. Finally, his grip on my hips loosened, though his hands stayed firm, and I started to lift myself up and down.
He hissed. “Slow, baby. Slow. I don’t wanna go too fast.”
I put my hands on his face and looked down into his eyes. “You don’t have to worry. This isn’t the last time.”
He looked back at me, briefly
