Rapture (19 page)

“Fine. I’ll be back, babe,” he told me, before descending the stairs.

~
20
~

Rush

There was about an hour or so left before the club’s doors would close, but the crowd didn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. By all accounts, everything was still in full swing. There were still people on the dance floor, at the bar, and surprisingly, there were still people trickling in with the little bit of time left.

I decided to check in with Quinton who happened to be nearby, and was the center of attention inside of a group of women. I chuckled to myself because I could always count on Quinton being surrounded by women. It was something about the long wavy hair and his strong resemblance to the WWE wrestler, Jon Uso. Let him tell it, The Rock and the Uso’s, were distant cousins of his.

I took a seat on the stool next to him, and he signaled for the women to disperse. “You are something else, man,” I laughed. “How’s it going?”

“You know they can’t stay away, man! And who am I to turn them away? I’m trying to narrow it down to the two I’m gonna leave with when the doors close.”

“Two?”

“Yep. But you wouldn’t know nothin’ about that, would ya?”

We joined together in laughter. “Man, you don’t know what I know! But I’ll tell you what; I don’t need two. I’m good these days.”

“Oh okay. My cousin said that when she went to do Alika’s hair, all she talked about was Rush this and Rush that. So, I guess I know why you’re ‘good these days’,” he teased.

“Whatever. This ain’t about me.”

“Of course it’s not,” he guffawed, before chugging the last of his clear beverage. “What’s up?”

“I came so you could tell me. Anything out of the ordinary so far?”

“Not really. The guys haven’t reported anything either. Everything seems to be going smoothly.”

“Alright, that’s cool. I’m glad it was quiet. That’s a good thing. Maybe the threat isn’t as great anymore. But we’ll see. If it’s just exclusive to Chaos—”

“It might just be Chaos that we need to focus on because Mike mentioned earlier that he
thought
there may be a few women patrolling who
might
be paid. But we haven’t confirmed that yet. Thing about that though is that I don’t think we can really stop that, man. If these dudes wanna get their dicks wet—”

“Then they can do that shit somewhere else. No bullshit, Quinton. I’m no fucking pimp, and I don’t run a whorehouse. Shut it down. I don’t give a fuck about what these dudes aren’t getting at home, that’s not my problem. Fuck that. And if these hoes are high-priced, then why the fuck are they coming into a
sports bar
for clientele. They should have rich dick on speed dial.”

“That’s just it, man. They know the caliber of dudes you have coming around. It’s gonna be like that anywhere. And shit, even the dudes that ain’t rich will give up their life savings for pussy. It’s pretty rough out there, dude!” he laughed.

But I didn’t laugh along with him because not a single damn part of the shit was funny to me. I just kept reflecting back to the report my father sent me. For the time being he had managed to use his power to back them off, but that wouldn’t be for long, and I didn’t want to be calling in any favors from him.

“So…” I started, rising from my seat. “We good?”

“All good, man,” Quinton agreed, extending his fist to bump with mine. Before I walked off, I asked Quinton, “Have you seen Bart? I need to talk to him and we got interrupted earlier.”

“Yeah, I saw Bart and his wife leave a short while ago.”

Fuck
.

“Okay. Thanks.”

When I got ready to walk off from Quinton, I spotted Jacob across the club. What the fuck? Of all people to run into and he was in my club, and hadn’t even thought about speaking. Initially I was going to head over, but decided to watch from a distance for a few minutes to see what I could see. I wanted to see why he was around when he hadn’t been around in a long ass time.

“I’m proud of you, Rush,” Alika said, her arms around my waist, from behind. She walked around to stand in front of me. My eyes were still trained in the direction that they previously were.

“Thanks, babe,” I said, momentarily releasing my focus on Jacob and his crew of friends. Then as I hugged Alika, I looked over to the area again, and saw something that didn’t sit right with me. I bent down and kissed her forehead. “Babe, I’ll be right back. I just saw…someone.” Really I had seen some
thing
, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Things were starting to add up just a little, but I had to be sure.

“Okay baby. I’ll go chat Gigi and Marco up since I see they’re still here. I’ll see you in a bit.”

After Alika left, I immediately took off in Jacob’s direction. My palms were sweating, and I could feel my anger building. I didn’t exactly know why yet, but something was tugging at me. In my haste, I didn’t even signal for Quinton or anybody else, I just went on autopilot. As I neared the table, Jacob and I locked eyes and I could see him motion to one of the guys in his small entourage. Then he stood from the table, in preparation of a greeting.

“Rush! My boy! I was gonna come look for you to tell you that you kicked ass with this joint, man! It’s kosher up in here. What’s good wit’ you?” he yelled out, giving me the bro shake. “These are friends of mine: Roderick, Chase, and Jay.”

I gave Jacob a once over. He had on a tailor-made suit, designer shoes, and had been a bit too generous with the cologne. But then again, he always had. He used to joke that it was his own scented mating call; said it lured pussy from miles away. And I personally knew there was something to it because last I heard, he was on his 5
th
child with baby mama number five.

“Hey, how’s it going tonight, gentlemen?” I casually asked, addressing the entire group. I already smelled bullshit. All of a sudden Jacob wants to jump up and greet me, saying that he was gonna come look for me. Yeah, bullshit. Not once mentioning that he had been inside my shit already with Bart. Some shit just wasn’t adding up in the way that it should. I began to wonder if it was why Bart had left without letting me know.

“Good, cool,” was the response from one of them.

“Sweet! Glad to hear it,” I said, stepping away from Jacob and closer to the table so that I could keep my voice below the music that was playing. I wanted to keep the attention away from what was going on. “I’m gonna have to ask that whatever that is in that little baggie that you’re passing around, that you don’t do it here.”

The one guy looked me square in the eye with a smirk, and seemingly puffed his chest out in a combative stance. Then he looked to and from his buddies, and almost simultaneously, laughter erupted around the table. That pissed me off.

“What the fuck is so funny?” I asked. I was trying my best to keep calm, but I could tell that shit was gonna escalate quickly. Suddenly, the guy who Jacob had identified as Jay stood up, walked over to me, and put his arm on my shoulder. “Come on, Rush. It’s all good. No harm no foul,” he stated while attempting to walk me away from the table.

“Nah, it’s not as simple as that,” I retorted, using my hand to remove his hand.

“
Rush
,
it’s cool, man
,” Jacob interjected. “Real talk. It’s all good.”

I looked at Jacob, the anger broadcasted all over my face. I glared at him for a few long seconds, before walking toward the guy who I had seen with what I already knew to be pills. “Look dude, it’s a problem that you’re in my shit passin’ around drugs. You guys need to leave…
now
. My club isn’t the place for this shit. You wanna do drug deals? You’re well within your right. But take that shit away from here.”

I looked over and caught a glimpse of Roland and Quinton headed in my direction. All the while, I noticed that other clubbers were starting to take notice of the activity.

“The fuck is it with you, white boy?” the Roderick person charged. “You out here on some hater shit. Just run ya fuckin’ club, and let us do what we do. You see anybody in here laid the fuck out, or foaming at the damn mouth? Nah, you don’t, so back the fuck up.”

“
This white boy
don’t have a problem with layin’ your black ass the fuck out on this floor. Don’t let the smooth taste fool you,” I shot, through gritted teeth.

“Problem over here, Rush? Roland asked, stepping to the side of me. “Because you know I don’t like those. This is a place for motherfuckers to be classy, shake asses and drink. We don’t do drama,” he said, directing his attention to Jacob and his group. “I suggest that if you want that shit, you take your asses across the bridge.” I smiled inside knowing that I was in good company. I could tell that although he was licensed to carry, Roland didn’t need his piece to back him up.

“Exactly,” Quinton cosigned. “Y’all ain’t gotta go home, but you gotta get the fuck up outta here.”

Their little group stood to leave, and not one of them had shit to say. They saw that while they did outnumber us by one, we weren’t to be fucked with. I knew that Jacob knew that. He had been around during a few of my altercations—some that we partnered on. Jacob was the first to speak up. “Alright, Rush. You want us out? We can go, but do me a favor and have Bart give me a call,” he stated, cryptically.

“What the fuck do I need to have him call you for, Jacob? Call him yourself. Don’t you have his number?”

He smirked and walked past me and headed towards the club’s exit. Both Roland and Quinton followed behind them to make sure they actually left. On their heel a few other clubbers had began to disperse. There were only a few minutes until 2AM, and it was time to shut things down.

I instructed the guys to walk my sister and her party out to their cars. I even tried to get Alika to leave with them, but she insisted on waiting for me. “I prefer if you went home, baby,” I had told her.

“I wanna stay with you,” she’d responded with those eyes, and I couldn’t resist her. I knew that she would be safe with me, but I really didn’t want her to ever have a front row seat to anything confrontational…with potentially violent behavior, involving me. And if for some reason Jacob and his friends suddenly started feeling brave, she might have to see bodies dropping.

“I’m gonna let you stay because I know you’re safe, but don’t fight me on this stuff again. Okay, babe? It’s all for a reason.”

“Okay,” she finally succumbed. “I won’t.”

After everyone was walked out and safely in their cars, Quinton and Roland came back in, and we all left at the same time and headed into our various directions.

True to his word, Quinton had two of his women on his arm when he hopped into his car.

~*~*~

“So, baby…are you gonna tell me what happened between you and that dude who was with Bart the other day? That shady looking ass Jacob person.”

I turned to look at her. I could only smile. I was surprised that she had paid attention to any of it.

“You’re surprised, huh?” she asked, as we walked inside the house. “Don’t be,” she said, smiling. “When you told me that you just uh…‘saw someone’, I left you to it, but best believe I was gonna see who this ‘someone’ was. Yep, I’m territorial. Ain’t
nobody
getting any of what’s behind those slacks. You said it’s mine and so it’s mine. So, if I would’ve had to come and make my presence known, I was prepared for that.”

As she walked ahead of me, I got an instant hard-on. It never failed. This girl had gotten the best of me and I craved her now. As distracted as I was, and as desperate as I was to find out what this newfound, renewed connection between Jacob and Bart was, I was so turned on in that moment that all I wanted was to be between Alika’s legs, marking up territory of my own. So the moment the front door closed and I pulled off her single garment, I kissed her up and down that beautiful body, and then carried her upstairs where at three-thirty in the morning we were in a steaming hot shower fucking up against the granite shower wall, then on the countertop in the master bathroom, and then finally underneath the sheets.

I was wide awake and high off of Alika, but I wanted to get a little bit of sleep because I had early morning business to tend to. I had already sent him a text before leaving Temptation telling him that we needed to meet and where at nine in the morning.

I was laying on my back looking up toward the ceiling, with Alika in the curve of my arm, when she blurted out, through labored breaths: “I’m gonna need my hair done everyday messing around with you, Rush. That, or get it braided.”

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked her, feigning innocence, and rubbing my hand over her hair.

“Don’t play. You know exactly what I mean. We have a
lot
of sex. And
trust me baby
,
I am not complaining
. I wouldn’t give up all that good lovin’ for nothing in the world.
But
, look at the post-war hair, compared to pre-war hair. It’s sticking up every which way! I never have time to wrap my hair and put on my silk scarf. But then again, you may not wanna see your girl in a scarf. It’s not the cutest way to make love to your man.”