Slammed (10 page)

LUCY

I press hard into Nate’s back, take in the scent of worn leather. He’s a teddy bear—a sexy, definitely-wouldn’t-bring-home-to-mama teddy bear.

I start to get a little concerned when he takes a left off the highway and drives us towards what is generally referred to as the socio-economic slum of the southwest, a giant estate gone wrong.

Developers got greedy out here. They jammed what used to a flood plain full of high-rise apartment blocks that even today twenty years on look like something from Soviet Russia. The population around here is decidedly African-American, a ghetto of the neighboring city’s poorest.

I tap Nate on the shoulder. Surely he’s lost, but he just nods and continues to drive on right into the high-rise heart of it. Even the air’s a little colder here, the concrete all around us seeming to permeate nothing but depression.

The sun’s getting low. It will be dark in another hour. The thought of being out here then isn’t my idea of the perfect date. I do want to go home with Nate—just not in a body bag.

Nate takes another left and I see people emerge from the shadows all around us like apparitions. They just stand there and stare, some giving a little jerk of the head, kids pointing at us.

I squeeze Nate tight around the waist, but he seems oblivious to where we are. He pulls up to what looks like a village square of some sort surrounded by these concrete giants. There’s not a single plant in sight, no sign of greenery. It could be a war zone if it wasn’t for everyone gathered at the basketball court in the center.

As soon as Nate shuts the ignition off and steps off the bike, a crowd starts to form around us.

Not like this, please.

There must be twenty, thirty males surrounding the bike. None of them look pleased to see us.

I step behind Nate. “Nate?”

He turns around and whispers. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

I sure hope so.

One of the men, probably Nate’s age, steps up to us. He nods to me. “’Sup, Blondie. You lost?”

Nate puts his hands up, leather groaning around his biceps. “Hey, we don’t want any trouble.”

This really pisses off our friend. He jumps back like he’s just been slapped in the face. “Was I talking to you, Adam Sandler?”

The others jeer and heckle, but Nate doesn’t seem concerned. No, he takes a step closer.

Uh oh.

“You got a big mouth, my friend.”

Don’t do it.

The two come chest to chest and I’m sure there’s going to be fight. Someone’s going to pull a knife and I’m going to be left weeping over my boyfriend’s body until the cops arrive.

The guy’s smiling, a foot at least shorter than Nate but looking twice as dangerous. “Look here, Kentucky, you’re about to get fucked up.”

The others close in and I step behind the bike trying to look for a weapon.

It’s Nate that’s smiling now. “Let’s take it to the court then. I’ll wipe it clean with that bucktooth grill of yours.”

There’s a lot of ‘Yew, boi!’, ‘No, he didn’’ from the assembled crowd. I’m about to explode when Nate and this guy suddenly smile wide and embrace each other.

What the…?

Nate’s patting him on the back as they break apart and stare at each other. “Johnson ‘Jordan’ Jones.”

“Nate ‘Crackerjack’ Compton, as I live and breathe. What brings you back to the ‘hood?”

The two come over, arms around their shoulders. It would seem they know each other. I relax just fractionally.

Nate points to me. “Just wanted to show my girl here what real ball looks like.”

Johnson pushes him away and laughs. “Oh, and you think you still got game after playing in the fluff league over there at Manning?”

Nate shrugs. “Keeps me entertained.”

Johnson comes over and extends his hand. “Johnson.”

I take it. “Lucy.”

“Well, Lucy Lu, nice to have you.” He points to a bench by the court. “Why don’t you take a seat over there and watch us school your boy for a bit.”

Nate winks.

“Sure.”

I take a seat on the bench. People come and introduce themselves to me. Nate pulls off his shirt and the others follow. There’s back-slapping—hell, even
ass
-slapping on the court and smiles all around. Whoever these guys are, Nate knows them well. We’re the only Caucasians here, but you’d never know it. Above us people hang out from apartment balconies, watching. I flinch at the sound of a gunshot in the distance.

Soon the sidelines are busy with observers. Kids push to the front pointing at Nate as someone throws in a ball from the side. It’s so weathered it looks like it’s spent time with Wilson on a desert island.

“Your boy?”

I turn to find a girl my age, her hair in lines of corn rows but her eyes such a striking cerulean it’s hard to look away.

“Ah, yeah,” I reply, still not sure as to exactly what Nate and I have in terms of a relationship.

She’s chewing gum. “Lucretia.”

“Lucy,” I reply. “Do these guys know Nate?”

She cracks up. “Do they
know
him? They practically raised him.”

This is news to me. “Raised him?”

“Yeah, after he fucked up his foster father and all that.”

“Sorry, I’m not following.”

Lucretia gives me the “Oh, you don’t know?”

I don’t want to seem like the clueless party. “He told me about the home, that he had problem.”

“Stuck the bastard in the side of a neck with a broken bottle, killed him. Six months in juvie and then shipped here a week later. There.” She points up at one of the apartments looming above the court. It looks tiny.

“Nate lived
there
?”

Lucretia nods. “Seven years before the scholarship call came through. Seems like someone was looking out for him.”

“I don’t understand. He killed his foster parent and they sent him
here
.”

Lucretia sees the panic. “Trust me, from what I’ve heard the asshole deserved it, really deserved it. State should have thanked Nate, not sent him off to detention.”

“But why did they send him here afterwards?”

She shrugs. “Fuck-up in the system. Was supposed to be sent upstate but ended up here. Wasn’t easy at first. He tried to run away, got beat… but Old Man Willy up there,” she points at the window, “he did right by him. Put him on the straight and narrow.”

She must be referring to the foster parent Nate has been referring to. “What happened to him, Willy?”

“Gone and died from a heart attack a year ago. Left everything to your boy, even the apartment.”

“He doesn’t live there?”

“You should know better than anyone he lives on campus. Lets Johnson and his two kids stay there—free, I might add. He ain’t so bad, your boy.”

I watch Nate drive a hard dunk right over the top of Johnson, the chain net shaking in approval. He’s already building up a sweat.

Lucretia stands up, brushes her jeans off, her mouth chewing all the while. “You look after him, you hear? He deserves something good in his life.”

“I’ll try my best.”

This Lucretia raises her eyebrows and walks away. I can’t quite work her out. I don’t know whether she wanted to invite me into the sisterhood or pull my hair out.

Nate waves at me just as he’s crash-tackled from the side by a guy who looks like the black Hulk. The two go spinning off in a headlock.

Boys.

I watch the game uninterrupted for the next half hour. It couldn’t be more different than college basketball. I almost call ‘foul!’ when Nate is sent to the ground after a severe shoulder charge, but he simply gets back up. This is street ball. Fouls don’t exist.

It’s violent, raw. One of the other team is getting around with a gash above his eye, but through it all Nate looks like he’s having the time of his life.

In many ways, Johnson is his match, both in returns and points. Nate may have the offensive moves down pat, but Johnson is like a fortress down in the paint. He swats one of Nate’s lay-ups clean over my head, a ruckus rising from the onlookers.

Nate comes down and shakes his head.

“Like I said,” Johnson announces, “you’ve gone soft over there in Barbie land.”

Nate steals the ball from his hands and swings under the ring with a solid double-hander, hanging off the hoop with his legs brought up to his chest. “Can still take your grimy ass any day.”

A three-pointer from the other team seems to bring about some kind of conclusion, Nate and Johnson returning to the bench deep in conversation. One of the guys next to me throws Nate a towel. Watching him wipe down his body, seeing the sweat glisten against his abs, is a little more than I can take.

Johnson takes a seat and gives me a nudge with his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Blondie? Still look like you’ve seen a ghost. What? Thought you’d arrived for the gangbang?” He laughs. “This isn’t Blacked, baby. You ain’t going to see my monster unless you’re paying for it.”

Nate sits on my other side, reaching past me to talk to Johnson. “She’s not interested in your noodle of a dick, J. From what I’ve heard, no one is.”

Johnson turns his attention back to me. “Real funny, ain’t he? But he still got it. I’ll give him that. One of the best I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a few.”

“You’ve lived here long?” I ask.

Johnson towels his head. “My whole life.”

“You’re good. You could play league.”

Johnson laughs, looking up at the sky like his dreams are somehow stashed away up there in the clouds. “Me? Nah. I don’t have a backer like your boy. No, my time’s here, with my people, my family.”

“You could be rich.” Even as I’m saying it I know how stupid it sounds, how condescending.

He takes it gracefully. “Money doesn’t buy you everything, baby girl. I’ve got my friends, my boys… What else do you need?”

“Your boys?”

He pulls out a frayed wallet and takes out a photo, two toddlers grinning up into the frame. “Two and four.”

“They’re cute.”

“They take after their mama,” Nate throws in.

“Yeah,
your
mama, white boy.”

I look up at the apartment blocks. “Where is she, their mom?”

Nate and Johnson exchange a glance. I’ve gone too far.

Johnson takes a deep breath and exhales. “OD’d. Probably for the best.”

Nate reaches around me and pats him on the shoulder. “I was sorry to hear about it, J.”

Johnson stands up, throws the towel back onto the bench. “It is what it is. I’ll see you ’round, hey?”

Nate stands and they engage in a strange handshake-cum-high-five thingy that looks decidedly too hip to be rehearsed. “Keep it real, okay?”

Johnson smiles, teeth white as the clouds above. “Always, my man. Always.”

“Nice guy?”

Nate towels his hair. “Johnson? Yeah, he’s straight, you know. You won’t find guys like him at Manning.”

I don’t want to tell him about Lucretia, but clearly he saw us talking. “You lived here?”

“I did.”

“How was it?”

“Hard at first, but I’m thankful for it now, you know? Here,
this
was an education.”

“All of these guys are solid players.”

“Most won’t make it into their thirties. Half will become gangbangers, the rest one side of the drug coin. Like I said, this ain’t Manning.”

“You miss it, though, don’t you?”

“I do, but I got a good thing going on at Manning. I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“You won’t. Not with me by your side.”

“You think?”

I take him around the arm. “I know.”

“You’ve got real tickets on yourself, huh?”

“I’ve got a brain.”

“You’re saying I don’t?”

I squeeze his bicep. “Seems like it’s all in your arms.” I shift my other hand into his crotch, looking around to make sure we’re not being watched. “Or here.”

He kisses me, pulls my face towards him and presses his tongue between my lips all salty and wet. I return the kiss, nipples turning stiff under my blouse and my core tightening at the thought of him taking me again.

He pulls away, breathing a little quicker, eyes a little brighter. “Ever had a hushpuppy?”

*

As we travel in the dark, I’m surprised by how suddenly my perception of this place has changed. People wave at Nate like he’s the prodigal son. They smile, and it makes me happy, happy to know he has made an impact here, however small.

The game, the opening up—it’s all made me a little hot and bothered. I’m wet. All I really want to do is find a nice, quiet little corner and rip his clothes off.

My, my, aren’t you becoming the little harlot?

But I’ve had enough of being so perfect, always carefully guiding myself through life without taking a risk, a chance.