Falling for Colton (Falling #5) (17 page)

“He’s taken care of me, so…” I shrug, figuring the rest is self-evident.
 

“Split’s got a good heart, he just hides it.” Callie leads the way into the apartment unit.
 

It smells like food and cigarettes. Low ceilings, peeling paint, scuffed, scratched hardwood floor with a threadbare knitted oval rug in the middle of the floor. A twenty-year-old big-screen TV, massive speakers, a coffee table and ashtrays and cartons of Newports complete the decor. The kitchen is just off the living room, and Callie leads us there. A woman who could be Callie’s twin except twenty years older stands at the stove, stirring something in a pot. A big square table takes up most of the kitchen, and my attention is immediately seized by the young woman sitting at the table.

I forget my name. I forget my wounded shoulder.

She’s…stunningly beautiful. Breathtaking.

Even sitting down I can tell she’s tall, maybe close to six feet, and close to my own age, early twenties. She has long curly hair hanging in tight spirals exploding in a halo around her thin, sharp-featured face. Her dark eyes are deep set between high angular cheekbones. She looks like she’s part Asian, part black, all beautiful. God, so beautiful. Her eyes meet mine, and I swear the air sparks between us.

Callie sees it and steps between us, snapping her fingers. “Oh,
hell
no. You, white boy, sit your ass down. Mama? Can you look at his shoulder?”

Callie’s mother puts the wooden spoon across the top of the pot, wipes her hands on her apron, unties it and sets it on the counter. She washes her hands thoroughly, then rummages in a cabinet under the sink, pulling out a wide white ceramic dish full of boxes of medical supplies. She pulls out a chair from the table and gently pushes on my shoulders until I sit down. I can’t take my eyes off the girl. I’m sucked in.
 

Split and T-Shawn have vanished somewhere in the apartment, leaving me alone with three women I’ve never met before, one of whom I can’t seem to stop staring at.
 

“I need your shirt off,” Callie’s mother says. I try, but I can’t get my arm over my head. Hurts too bad to even try to tough through it. She brandishes a pair of scissors. “Shirt’s ruined anyway. I’ll cut it off.”
 

A couple of snips, and the bloodstained cotton is gone, and I’m naked from the waist up. The girl’s eyes are immediately drawn to my upper body. Which, admittedly, is pretty beefed up. She can’t look away from me, and I can’t look away from her. Callie sees it, and isn’t having any of it.
 

“Don’t you have something to do, India?” Callie snaps.

India shrugs, a small, shy, sweet smile on her face. “Nope. I’m good.”
 

Callie glares at me, and then turns back to the girl. India; god, even her name is gorgeous. Callie huffs. “He’s
white
, India.”
 

“And I’m half Korean. What’s your point?”
 

“My point is…,” she lets out a frustrated sigh. “He’s
white
,” she repeats, eventually.

“He could be blue as a fuckin’ Smurf for all I care,” India says, “he’s fine as hell.”
 

“You know I’m sitting right here?” I have to suck in a breath and try to clench my teeth around a groan of pain as Callie’s mother digs in my shoulder with something sharp. “Fuck, that hurts.”
 

“Well, if you wouldn’t’a gone and got your stupid ass shot, I wouldn’t have to dig the bullet out, would I? Stupid kids, shootin’ each other and they selves. Over what? Drugs? Pride? All’a y’all a bunch of dumbasses.”
 

“He was backin’ me up,” Split says, from the doorway of the kitchen, where he’s leaning against the doorpost. T-Shawn isn’t anywhere to be seen. “A car rolled up and ran into Lil B. He was just crossin’ the street, and they just ran him over. Killed him. No reason. I had to take care of it.”

“Lil B is dead?” Callie’s mother says, her voice sad.

“Yeah.”
 

“Who was it?” Callie asks.

“Nobody you got to worry about anymore.” Split’s voice is cold and hard. No regrets there. “How’s it comin’, Cleo?”
 

I’m thankful I have the pain to distract me from the knowledge of what I just did—I killed another person.

Callie’s mother, Cleo, doesn’t answer, leaning in close to my shoulder and squinting as she carefully withdraws the big medical tweezers—forceps maybe—out of the hole in my arm. She drops a hunk of reddened metal into a ceramic bowl and then grabs a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a thick handful of paper towels.
 

Cleo glances up at me as she presses the paper towels to my skin just beneath the entrance wound. “This is gonna hurt like a bitch, son.”
 

She gets me to lean backward in the chair and I barely have time to clench my teeth and inhale before Cleo pours the alcohol into the wound.
 

There aren’t words to describe the ripping, burning, searing agony. I’m conscious of India, watching me. I don’t dare scream; pride won’t let me. She’s not showing the slightest hint of squeamishness, so I’m guessing this is nothing new. I try to breathe through it, only the breaths come out as grunts and groans as Cleo pours more alcohol on the wound. Finally, she puts the bottle down. Thank god. I breathe a sigh of relief.
 

“Don’t get too excited, honey,” Cleo says. “We ain’t done yet. Still gotta pack the wound, and that hurts worse than cleaning it.”

Fuck.

She’s not kidding, either. She wads gauze into a tight ball and forces it into the wound, and I can’t help a growl as she does this. Packs it in, and then more. It burns so bad. Fuck, it hurts. I want to cry it hurts so bad, but India’s watching and Split is watching and Callie is watching. So I blink and breathe and curse. A bandage gets taped in a large square over the wound, and then finally Cleo stands up and washes her hands at the sink.

“You best take it easy on that shoulder for a while,” Cleo says. “It’s gonna take a few weeks, couple months maybe, before it’s healed. Move it too much, it’ll start bleeding again. You’ll have to change that dressing a couple of times a day, too. Split, make sure you bring him by so I can check on him.”

“A’ight,” Split says. “Thanks, Cleo.”
 

“Yep. Now ya’ll git. I got to make dinner.”
 

I rise to my feet, and stand behind Cleo. “Thank you, Cleo. For real, I—”

She spins, stares up at me, her eyes hard and angry, but there’s compassion buried down deep. “Thank me by not making me do that again. Stay out of trouble.”

“I’ll try.”
 

She sighs and shakes her head. “I been tellin’ Split to stay out of trouble since he was knee high to a grasshopper, but fat lot of good it’s done me. I lost count of the number of times I’ve patched up his fool ass. Same for T-Shawn. You’ll be back, believe me.”

Her words rattle me a bit and I sure as fuck hope she’s wrong about that.

Callie, India, and Split head out the door and down to the sidewalk running in front of the apartment buildings, waiting for me. I don’t know what else to say to Cleo, so I just turn and leave, taking the ruins of my shirt with me. My head is spinning, my shoulder aches like a motherfucker, and I feel sick inside. I barely make it down to the front entrance of the building and out onto the street.

Split nudges me toward his car. “Come on.”
 

I surprise myself by saying, “Nah, man. I don’t feel so good. I just wanna go home.” There’s too much going on in my head, in my heart. I just shot someone, and the reality of it is hitting me hard.

Split raises his eyebrows, and I can see him wondering what my deal is. “Come on man, I got some good shit in the car. All you need is a few hits and you won’t even remember what happened.”
 

I’ve always manned up, no matter what the situation, but somehow this is different. This isn’t just the pain of having just been shot, it’s a goddamn existential crisis, is what it is.
 

I can see India and Callie get out of the car and head over to us. Shit, I just want to go lie down—I don’t need a fuckin’ audience.

India steps close to me, almost but not quite putting herself between Split and me. “Can’t you see he’s done in, Split? Leave him be. If he wants to go home, let him go home.”
 

I’m not the macho sort, but having a girl stick up for me is weird. I’m dizzy, woozy. Pain is hitting me in wave after wave, making me nauseous. I’m swaying on my feet, blinking hard, trying to keep it together. But shit, I just need to sit my ass down. I can’t summon the words to say any of this, though. I just sway, fighting unconsciousness.

India wraps an arm around my waist. “Come on, you’re coming with me.”

I should argue, but I don’t. I let her guide me back into the building, up to the fourth floor once more, past Callie and Cleo’s to the unit two doors down. She digs a key out of her hip pocket, lets us in. There’s no one here, the apartment is dark, silent, and has that feel of emptiness. India has to prop one hand against the opposite wall of the hallway to support my sagging weight. Through a door, into a girly bedroom, white walls with band posters and model photos and fashion magazine cutouts, a soft pink comforter on the bed, a bra hanging off the handle of the closet door, another on the back of a chair, panties and T-shirts and jeans and skirts on the floor. Messy, but lived in, smelling of femininity and softness.
 

I see this in a cursory glance, but then I’m feeling dizzier than ever, and the throbbing in my shoulder is so bad I can’t see for the pain. India lowers me as gently as she can to the bed—not an easy task considering my size.
 

I flop my arm over my eyes, try to breathe through the ache. “I just need to rest a minute. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can.”

“You ain’t going nowhere,” India says. “My mom works at the hospital, I’m gonna see if she can get you some antibiotics. You’ll need them. And some dressing so I can repack that wound.”

“You don’t need to help me.”
 

“I want to.”

“Why?”

“I like you. You’re cute.”
 

“Cute?”

She laughs, a musical sound. “I mean tough. And rugged. And handsome.”

“That’s better.”

She drapes the comforter over my legs. “Relax a minute. You don’t gotta be tough all the damn time.”
 

I’m already asleep.
 

The next thing I know I’m waking up, still in India’s bedroom, on her bed. The room is dark, the door left ajar. The bluish-white light of a TV flickers and flashes from the living room, and I can hear other nondescript sounds in the apartment, voices murmuring, dishes rattling. I lever myself to my feet, wincing at the throb in my shoulder. I try a tentative roll, but that’s a no-go, the pain that shoots through me tells me I won’t be using this arm any time soon. I shuffle out into the living room, find India on the couch, watching some reality show or another, a hand-made afghan on her lap. When she sees me, she lifts a corner of the blanket in invitation, a shy smile on her lips. I take a seat beside her. A little too close, maybe—thighs brushing, elbows bumping, hips touching. But India doesn’t move away, even though she’s got plenty of room on the other side if she wanted to. If anything, she wiggles a little closer to me.
 

I close my eyes, let the sounds of the TV wash over me. Everything comes flooding back; my first thought is that I killed a man. I got shot in the process, but…I shot someone. Ended his life.
 

“Quit thinking about it.” India doesn’t look at me. “What’s done is done.”
 

“I can’t
not
think about it.”
 

“Wasn’t some innocent person you shot by accident,” she says, offering me a smile. “He had it coming. He killed a kid. I knew Lil B. He was a nice kid. And they ran him over for no reason.”

“Not sure that excuses it, but…thank you.” I let my head fall back against the back of the couch, feeling dizzy all over again.

We watch TV together for a while, and I start to feel hot. Feverish, achy, tingling skin, thirsty. Faint. At some point, I think I passed out, because I start back to awareness, but now I’m horizontal on the couch, my head in India’s lap, a blanket covering me. I’m sweaty, and move to push the blanket off, but immediately I’m freezing, and pull it back up. My shoulder aches, throbs, fiery and impossible to ignore.
 

My mouth is dry, as if I’d tried to eat a jar of cotton balls.
 

Everything hurts.

I pass out again.

This time, I’m woken up by India’s hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Colt, you need to take this.”

I don’t even question her. I sit up, woozy, head thick, fever raging, shoulder on fire. She dumps a handful of pills into my palm—Tylenol, and what looks like antibiotics—and then a sweating glass of ice water. I down the pills, and then slurp the rest of the water greedily.

“Thanks.”

She gestures across the room. “Thank my mom, she brought the antibiotics back from work.”

India’s mother is beautiful, of course, hair pulled back in a frizzy puff-ball at the back of her head, wearing green scrubs and white Keds, eating something from a takeout container.
 

“Thank you,” I say.

“My name’s Maya,” she says, waving at me with her fork.

“Colt.”
 

“You’re a sick man, Colt. Cleo cleaned it out just fine, but sometimes infections are just inevitable, especially with gunshot wounds. You can stay here till you’re better, but I don’t want none of your gang-banger bullshit spilling into my life or my daughter’s, you hear?”

“Yes ma’am.”
 

“Oooh, an’ he’s even got some manners.” She smiles to make it less of an insult. “Best thing you can do is rest. And take those antibiotics on schedule. India, I expect ya’ll to behave. Not that he’s in any shape to be causing any trouble, but I know kids ya’ll’s age.”

“Mama!” India is mortified.