Inferno Anthology (118 page)

Baya

“You’re an asshole!” I scream at my brother at the top of my lungs.

More pounding ensues from the apartment next door, but I really don’t give a shit if the entire building crumbles because of my outburst. I scan the area for something solid to throw and spot a beer bottle off in the corner.

“Baya,
no
,” he shouts as I wield it like a machete.

“Well, I say,
yes
, for once.”

He steps toward the television, and I hurl it, missing his face and hitting the screen instead. A large spider web of a crack stares back at me in its place, and I’m damned impressed.

“You fucking
broke
it.” He straightens, pulling himself out of the moment. “Baya, come here.” His voice softens. He’s back to being his sweet self, and, to be honest, not a single part of me wants to be mad at this version of my brother. “Baya, I care about you. Trust me, the last person you want to be with is Bryson Edwards. The guy’s a slime.”

“No, he’s not.” I pull my hands over my hips. “Take it back. I really care about him, Cole. And, if you cared about me like you say you do, you would let me be with whoever I please.”

“What the hell?” He says it mostly to himself, obviously shocked at the idea of me having my own opinion. “Baya, the guy is a jerk. He beds girls for fun. Look”—he walks me over to the scoreboard—“he keeps track of them on the wall like its some kind of game.” His eyes bulge when he says it. He’s so convincing, it frightens me.

“And whose score sheet is this?” I point to my brother’s side of the wall, who, by the way, is blowing smoke in the face of the competition.

“He told you?” A guilty look crosses his face.

“Yes, he told me. We don’t have any secrets.”

“Really?” His brows pinch. His dimples depress. “So I suppose he told you all about Stephanie.” His head ticks back a notch as if daring me to say it was true.

An entire dam of words gets locked in my throat.

“No.” It comes from me in defeat. “He will though. When he’s ready.”

“So you don’t know what’s been eating at this guy for the last five years, turning him into some kind of sperm dispenser, but you’re willing to get on your knees for him?”

I try to say something to defend Bryson—to defend
me
, but it feels as if an ex-girlfriend-shaped boulder has lodged in my throat. Tears start to come, and I snatch my bag off the floor and run out the door.

“Baya wait.” Cole follows me down the stairwell, but my feet don’t stop moving. We hit the cool night air, and I run all the way across the street back to Whitney Briggs where I should’ve been in the first place. “I’m not leaving you alone. It’s four in the morning.” The haze blows out of his mouth like steam as he pants alongside me. “You know I love you, right?”

I stop in my tracks and just stare at my brother a very long time as the sky brightens a pale shade of lavender. He has the same dark wavy hair, piercing green eyes as my father, same dimples, too and my heart breaks because not only do I miss my father, but I miss the old Cole, the one I thought I knew.

“No, I guess I don’t know that you love me.” I swallow hard. “I mean you always told me how to act, and who to spend my time with, but you’ve never used those words.”

Cole pulls me in and sniffs hard into my hair. His chest rattles with grief. “I do love you, Baya.” He pulls back, and the street lamp picks up the moisture in his eyes. “You’re my baby sister, and I only want what’s best for you.” His voice cracks with grief. “You deserve some nice kid who’s never even made it around the block, let alone entire neighborhoods. You’re amazing, and I want you to have a safe, and wonderful life.”

“You mean that?” I pull back as tears flood my vision.

“Of course, I mean that.” He warms my shoulder with his hand. “Now come back to the apartment with me before we both freeze to death.”

I hadn’t even noticed he was standing here in nothing but his boxers. I glance back at the tall, glittering building with lights peppered throughout the facility.

“It’s going to be awkward,” I whisper.

“I’ll leave him the hell alone, I swear. I just need to know you’re not wandering around campus at this insane hour.” He takes up my hand, and I let him. Cole walks me across the street and back into the warmth of the Briggs Apartment building.

“You know what I just realized?” I ask.

“What’s that?” He holds open the elevator for me.

“That you haven’t held my hand since I was nine.”

Cole brings my hand up to his lips and presses a gentle kiss to the back.

“I guess what really guts me is I won’t be the most important guy in your life.”

“Cole.” I pull him into a tight embrace as the elevator doors whoosh open. “You’ll always be my favorite brother.”

“I’m your only brother.”

“Yeah, well”—I give a little smile—“that explains a lot.”

We get out, and the door to the apartment sits ajar from our abrupt departure. We step in, and I stare toward Bryson’s room. I’m dying to go over to him. For all I know he could be bleeding to death no thanks to Cole and the foot loose moves he shoved into his gut.

“Will you check on him for me?” It comes out a whimper, and I lower my gaze because I have a feeling that might actually seal Bryson’s death warrant.

Cole blows out a breath before glancing back down the hall.

“Nah.” He flexes a short-lived smile. “Why don’t you do it? I’m tapped.”

“Really? You’re okay with that?”

“Just don’t do anything with him, please.” His hands fly near his temples. “I’m not ready to go there. Not tonight.”

“Got it.”

“Baya?” He scratches at the back of his neck. “Where were you this weekend?”

Tears pool in my eyes once again because it kills me that I lied to him.

“I was with Bryson.”

He gives a quick nod. “I never want you to feel like you can’t tell me the truth again. You mean the world to me, Baya, and I was worried sick.”

I pull Cole into another embrace. “You really are the world’s best big brother, you know that?”

“I know.”

“Hey,” I blow it out in less than a whisper as I make my way back into Bryson’s room. His head is buried under a pillow, and the lights are still on, so I turn them off and crawl into bed with him. “You okay?” I ride my hand carefully over his stomach.

“I’ll live.” He groans as he gets up on his elbow. The moonlight washes through the room and bleaches all the color out of our world. “Everything go okay?” He brushes the hair from my eyes, and the ghost of a smile plays on his lips. It would figure that he gets his boys handed to him on a stick, but it’s me he’s worried about. Bryson is just that sweet.

“Better than okay,” I whisper. “By the way, I’m pretty sure he’s taken killing you off his shortlist of things to do.”

“My balls are glad to hear it.” He dots my forehead with a kiss. “Come here.” Bryson adjusts his pillow and covers us with a blanket from off the floor. “Does he know you’re in here?” His strong hand traces along my thigh, and I lean further into him, encouraging him to trace out every nuance if he wanted.

“Yes, but he asked me not to do anything with you.” I shrug.

“That’s all right. He sort of disabled those services in me for a while anyway. I’m afraid he wiped out any children we might have wanted in the future.”

“We’ll always have Lucy.” I snuggle into him giddy just thinking about a future with Bryson.

“We’ll always have Lucy.” He presses his lips to my forehead.

“Bryson?”

“Yeah?” He pulls me in until we’re spooning, and his warm arm lies over my waist.

“Whatever happened to Stephanie?”

“I cost her everything.”

“Will you ever tell me the whole story?”

“Yes, Baya,” he says it sleepy with undertones of grief. His arm wraps tighter around my waist as if I were about to fly away. “I promise I will.”

Bryson

I spend all day Saturday working my ass off at Capwell Inc. trying to get from under the plethora of files Aubree buried me in. I was going to drill her a new one for ratting Baya out to her brother, but since the shit already hit the fan, I thought why make things difficult for myself.

Aubree has made it a practice to accost me routinely ever since we were in high school. I’m sure she can’t understand why I’ve bagged and tagged at least a dozen of her own sorority sisters, and yet I seem to be allergic to her blonde eminence every time she struts in the room. The problem with Aubree is that she would have never understood that she was just another get. She’s the kind of girl who would want to stick around and be “the one,” but I wasn’t feeling it before, and now that I have Baya, for sure, I want nothing to do with Aubree. The truth is, before Baya I wasn’t feeling it for anyone—not even Steph and that’s the reason things went down in flames. But I’m feeling it now for sweet, beautiful Baya. I hope to God she doesn’t hate me one day for trying to make it work with her.

“You’re here bright eyed and bushy tailed.” Aubree saunters into the office with her tits thrust forward, ass out. I swear, half the time she looks like a cartoon character. She comes in for a closer inspection of my scrapes and bruises. “Holy shit.” She gives a little laugh. “Someone had a rough night. Care to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Your little girlfriend show you who’s boss?” It titters from her like the juiciest piece of gossip.

“Nope.” I lean in my chair and throw my hands behind my neck, affording her the bird’s eye view. “It was her brother.”

Her mouth drops to her feet. “He really did a number on you.” She sits on the edge of my desk, and I avert my eyes at the thought of her getting comfy. “So what happened? Dump the little slut so soon?”

“She’s not a slut, don’t call her that. And, no, I didn’t dump her. We’re still very much together.”

“Hmm.” She makes a face. “I talked to her last week, she still wants in at Alpha Chi.”

I shake my head stymied by this. “She probably likes the idea of having girls around once in a while.”

“You used to like that idea.” Aubree bears into me with a razor sharp stare that threatens to finish the job Cole started.

“People change.”

“Not usually.” She walks out of the room with nothing but the clatter of heels.

Late that afternoon I get home and find Baya sprawled on the couch, reading a magazine. Her dark hair floats around her like beautiful, exotic leaves. The rosy glow in her cheeks makes her look like an angel that just had the orgasm of a lifetime, and suddenly I want to be the one to give it to her, right here, right now.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I say at the peril of my own balls. I have no clue where Cole is. “You want to go for a quick bike ride?”

Baya and I change and head out to our place, the Witch’s Cauldron. I try to race her uphill, but she’s panting pretty bad and struggling. I encourage her to get off the bike, and we walk them the rest of the way.

“You really are a nice guy.” Her dimples press in, and it drives me wild. “Most people would have taken off and waved their victory in my face but not you. You’re a perfect gentleman. I think you’re a rare breed. Any girl would be lucky to have you in her life.”

A pang of grief hits me when she says those last words. I know one girl who probably wishes she never knew me, but, then again, she’s not alive to think or breathe or wish, and that dark cloud of grief settles over me again.

We hit the boulders then climb over into the small clearing where the water bubbles and brews.

“Tomorrow is Halloween.” Baya licks her lips as if she were simply using the holiday as a means of seduction.

Baya could seduce me just by breathing the same air. Come to think of it, there’s nothing about her that doesn’t hold the ability to drive me insane.

She wraps both her arms around my waist. “Do you know what you’re going to be?”

“I was thinking about a pencil, and maybe you could be the eraser.” I give her ribs a quick squeeze, and she bucks beneath me.

“I’d never erase you.” She holds back a smile while taking off her shoes and rolling up her jeans. “How about Bonnie and Clyde?” Baya sits on the lip of the spring and dips her feet into the water.