The girl beside me is laughing and crying at the same time, as she tells a story about our boy to the group that stands around us in a wobbly semi-circle. One time, Charlie got her and her friend wasted on expensive tequila and even more expensive cocaine, then took them on a high ride through some back-ass swamp road. They woke up two days later in the same king-sized bed in a hotel room in Mississippi.
“It was the scariest fucking experience of my life,” she says. “But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.”
She's not talking to me, but I can't help the forlorn smile her words coax from me. I know the story's true because I was there. He bought the coke from her. The hotel had been in a casino, and the casino had been in Biloxi. Tastefully, she has left me out of her narrative, but the images of bouncing headlights cutting through crushing vegetation flash through my mind's eye.
I can almost feel the bugs biting my sweaty skin as she and I fucked with reckless abandon against a moss-covered tree trunk. I hear phantom moans as Charlie fucked her friend in the back seat of the Caddy. Then she falls to tears.
My smile drops and the memories fade.
I'm forced back to the present. Watching the scenes play in this room is like bearing witness to some underground alliance coming to fruition. I see customers old and new, friends, suppliers of every sort of vice. It's startling, actually, the array of villains we've managed to attract. I see notorious faces that have previously turned away our better offers, based on some crude sense of loyalty and already-formed business arrangements. It seems some ethics are being redefined.
When Noah said they could double the weight of their distribution, I couldn't grasp the larger picture that he saw. I'm starting to understand as the night wears on that they mean to take the city absolutely. I had no idea how many enemies the Reapers actually have. Everything is about to get bigger. And I know now what Jack meant. I'm the small fry, the inexperienced one.
The danger level is escalating as each player sizes up opportunity, as they assess the potential in working together under a new flag. This is the part of the night when everyone pays their respects. They make their rounds and they are civil, even if their thoughts are all business. There will be a point, soon I'd imagine, when the mourners will dwindle, and those who remain will be those who have decided it wise to hear what Maria has to say.
The ceiling fans are really just taunting me at this point. I see them spinning, but the air in here is not moving. The restaurant is a mass of sweat, alcohol, and pheromones. I can't escape the memories that return to the surface, so I try to let them run together until they are unrecognizable. I feel like I've been forced off the plank into a deadly undercurrent. It's either swim or get dragged down to a beautiful and tragic end.
I'm gasping for my last breath just as salvation arrives. Maria. Her presence soothes my suffocation. I attempt a stony facade, try to confront her as impersonally as she has done with me since that night. I try, but I know all she can see is me drowning.
She hands me what must be at least a double shot of brown liquid with a little lime wedge hooked onto the side of it. I can smell the liquor like a post-traumatic stress trigger. It's tequila, old stuff by the looks of it. The good stuff. This is our ritual, how fitting that we should perform it now.
I know she can see the fear in my eyes, because she smirks. She's already a little drunk, I can tell. With false valor, I take the shot from her and we cock our limes. Slowly, cruelly, she licks the back of her hand, holding my eyes the whole time. I follow, a slave to her command, just as she knew I would be. The salt on my skin is enough. Then we slam the shots.
I bite down on the lime, bitter like my pride, and force the liquid to remain in my stomach. Tequila has always been the only liquor to really give my gag reflex a fight. I make the fight now, trying my damnedest not to let it show, but I know that she will see my bluff. She knows my weakness to the cactus, that's what started this whole mess. It was the way she wasn't afraid to challenge me that hooked me my first night on the scene. She's never been easy on me.
She drops the lime into her glass and slips it past me onto the bar. She brushes so close, so hot and surreal. I can feel her in the space around me. Just by moving through the air she is physically touching me. My head reels from the intoxication she brings on, deeper than alcohol could ever manage. What kind of waves would it cause just to grab her by the arms and kiss her right now?
She must sense the desperation growing in me because she pulls away at that moment. Her loose hair whispers along my arm as she goes and I grunt. Her eyes flash at me, shadows of sex swirling between us. Her body is mere inches from mine, and her expression is dangerous. She wants me, too. I can see it and it's so hard to make myself be still.
I've never had to fight my desire
