Boost by Vi Summers

 

Chapter 23

-Raf-

 

 

I woke the next morning to a message pinging on my phone. Rolling onto my stomach, I reached for the bedside table.

Where did you get to last night?

I snorted and replied to Colton. Doing shit. And I have a bone to pick with you.

Three dots jumped while he typed. Have at it, then.

I decided to ring, because what I had to say wouldn’t be punchy enough over text.

Colton picked up immediately. “Mornin’,” he drawled, in a gritty voice.

“Couldn’t you have found someone who looked like the ass end of a fucking muskox or some shit?”

A punchy burst of laughter came through the phone. “She got you with her voodoo pussy, didn’t she?”

“The fuck is a voodoo pussy, man?”

His laughter increased. I raked my fingers across my scalp. “Have you spoken with Greer today?”

Colton sobered. “Fuckin’ A, I have. She thought I was going to fire her. What the hell did you do?”

I scoffed. “Barely crossed some kind of bullshit line. Not that she complained at the time.”

“And?” Colton pressed.

“And what, brother?”

He sighed heavily and grumbled under his breath. “I’m way too fucking hungover for this shit. Look, I’m not a mediator and I’m certainly not some fucking love guru. I can’t tell you who not to fuck, but if you guys are fucking, then don’t let it affect business.”

“We aren’t fucking,” I snapped, not welcoming the reminder of that fact.

Colton sniggered. “Disappointed much?”

“Fuck you.”

“See. Voodoo pussy,” he stated, as if it explained everything.

“What the fuck ever. Raf Ortiz doesn’t get tied to one pussy.”

“Neither did Colton Donavan, but here we are,” he countered, without missing a beat.

I scrubbed a hand over my head again, then got serious. “So, you’re not firing her, right?”

“No, Raffie. I’m not.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, not really sure what I was thanking him for.

“Besides,” he added. “I’d be firing your ass before hers.”

“Might make life simpler.”

I swung my legs over and sat on the edge of my bed. “It’s not too late to pull my contract, Colt. I mean, I don’t wanna fuck this up for you.”

It had been years since he and I used to roll. After he found his lucky break and turned pro, our paths forked in opposite directions. His aiming skyward, while mine veered down the same road I still travelled. The streets were what I knew, what I loved… what I lived for.

I heard his muffled, irritated huff. “You’re the only fucker for the job.”

“Surely you don’t believe that. You could have sent your own man, or asked anyone else. Why me?”

A beat of silence pulsed, and it sounded as if he was on the move. In the background I heard the distant crash of waves on a shoreline and figured he’d stepped outside.

“I needed someone loyal, who knows the streets inside and out. I’ve been out of that game far too long.”

“Like you said, brother, it’s been a long fucking time. I’m not the same kid I used to be back then.”

Colton scoffed. “Neither am I, yet I am at the same time.” He released another agitated breath and then muttered a curse. “Fuck. I remember years ago some skinny-ass kid saying to me brothers on the street, brothers for life. You telling me that shit only sticks when it’s convenient for you?”

I stood and paced to the window. “That’s fucking rich coming from you. Haven’t heard from you in fuck knows how long, then all of a sudden you’re back because you want shit. Is that how we roll now, Donavan?”

“Quit whining like a bitch, Ortiz. I recall you wanting an out; this is your fucking out,” he bit back.

The glacial undertones in his voice fueled my frustration. “I’m not fucking eighteen anymore, and I was doing real fucking good until you breezed in handing me a fucking gold ticket on a platter made of shit,” I yelled.

“Never took you to be an ungrateful son-of-a-bitch, Rafael.”

“I’m not ungrateful! I just… Fuck!”

I turned to lean my ass against the windowsill. The morning sun coming through the glass warmed my bare back and quelled some of the storm within.

I needed a damn moment to get a grip, and by the sound of the harsh breathing coming through the phone, so did Colton.

When he eventually spoke, his voice was even and carefully masked. “If you didn’t want to be onboard, you should have said right at the start.”

“It’s not the fucking foundation,” I exclaimed, my tone whip-lashing between us.

“Then what the fuck, dude? I sure as fuck ain’t dumb, but I need you to spell it out for me.”

This was the Colton I remembered. Head so far up his own goddamn ass that he couldn’t see anything but himself.

How could I tell him that it was Greer causing me to act and think like a damn chick? I simply couldn’t allow myself to feel, especially for her. She was too good, and I… well, I was possessed by demons that simmered under the surface. They were constantly there, waiting to tear special things away from me. I was, after all, my father’s son.

It was Greer that had started to chip away at the iron casing around my heart the moment I first locked eyes on her. And the worst part? She didn’t even fucking know she was doing it. No matter how hard I tried to repair the tiny fractures she created in my armor, she was breaking me down faster than I could keep her out.

“It’s not the foundation,” I repeated, this time as a murmur.

Pressing a finger and thumb into my eye sockets did little to alleviate the tension building in my head, and neither did Colton’s snigger.

“And, we’re back to the voodoo pussy.”

I growled; the vibrations of frustration reverberated throughout my chest. “It’s not fucking funny!”

“She’s really sent you into that much of a tailspin, huh?” Amusement and disbelief colored his words.

I tsked. I didn’t want to fall into another one of his looped traps that always seemed to lead back to voodoo pussy.

“Fuck you,” I snapped.

“You wish, Ortiz, but I don’t share my dick with anyone aside from Ryles nowadays.”

I hissed through my teeth instead of spitting more tacks at him. They’d bounce off his asshole exterior, anyway. He welcomed that sort of shit and thrived off it, so I may as well save my breath and the effort of arguing.

It took a long few seconds before he spoke. “Take it from me; anything’s possible.”

“This can’t be,” I replied.

“I know.”

Those two simple words were loaded with far more than just an acknowledgement. He knew what it meant to deem some things—some people—unattainable, no matter how hard you craved them. He got lucky with Rylee. Not everyone got that chance to find their person. Even if I could get Greer, my chances of keeping her, not corrupting her and tainting her with my darkness, were almost impossible.

“You done pissing and whinging?”

Colton’s wry comment snapped me from my thoughts. I pushed off the window ledge and wandered into the bathroom.

“I wasn’t whinging, but I’m about to piss. Do you want to stick around and listen, or fuck off so I can get on with my day?”

His bark of laughter curled my lips into a smile. “Fuck that, I’m out.”

I sniggered. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Have a good one.”

“You too, Raffie. And remember; voodoo pussy!”

I hung up on his deranged laughter and slid my phone onto the vanity. “Voodoo pussy, my ass,” I muttered to myself. “Voodoo entire woman, more like.”

After washing my hands, I balled them on the vanity and looked myself over in the mirror.

Staring back at me was the man I’d grown to recognize. The one whose past actions would forever hold him back in invisible ways. Last night, I had taken a little bit of happiness for myself. The outing I’d hustled Greer into gave me a taste of what I craved, but was also the sharp reminder of everything I could never have. Our worlds were like oil and water. That shit didn’t mix no matter how much it was shaken; the fusion was always destined to separate.

With those deflating thoughts running a mile a minute through my head, I flicked on the shower and kicked out of my boxers.

Today I had a date with the most important woman by far in my life—my mamá. I killed for her, and guilt consumed me even all these years later that I hadn’t done it sooner. She gave me life, and he nearly took hers before I manned up to stop him.

Although it was my father that broke her—broke us—I still carried those demons as if they were solely mine to shoulder. Jesus fuck, I was just a kid. A kid that was forced to grow up too soon.

Shaking off the layer of revulsion that accompanied the haunting memories, I stepped into the shower and allowed my head to hang. Hot water streamed across my shoulders and down my back, bringing relief to my coiled muscles.

The itch to drive hard made me restless. I raced to forget the pain and my shortcomings. On the streets, I was King and my name was gold. Here though, in my shower, I was catapulted back to being the wayward child that fell through the gaps in the system. The system that failed me the day I had to take my own father’s life.

I forcefully exhaled the breath that lodged in my throat. I hadn’t been this debilitated by those memories in years, and they hit hard.

I never understood why my father did what he did, and now that I harbored feelings for Greer, it shook my entire world to think how my father could destroy what he was meant to love. To cherish.

Although I didn’t love Greer, attraction toward her was inescapable. It scared the shit out of me. What if, after everything I’d endured, deep down I was just like him? What if I ended up taking that from her? Extinguishing her light?

A bitter taste entered my mouth as I bit down on my cheek. Blood. I clenched my jaw harder while working my tongue around to rid the taste.

I fought to get my head straight. I couldn’t visit Mamá like this; she would see straight through the mask. The difference now was that she couldn’t call me out on it.

Shutting off the shower and grabbing a towel, I dried off while organizing my thoughts. I needed them tamed before going in.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Pulling into the nursing center parking lot an hour later, I took one last grounding breath before pushing out of the car. The orderly at the front desk looked up and smiled as I entered through the automatic glass doors.

“Morning, Raf.”

“Morning, Darlene,” I replied, briefly stopping to fill in the visitor's form.

Sometimes we’d chat, but today I didn’t; I was already too off-center. My world tilted further the moment I pushed open Mamá’s door and found her sitting exactly as she normally was—slumped in her chair and staring vacantly out of the window overlooking the garden.