Scandalous Heroes Box Set (68 page)

Scotty closed his eyes and inhaled her clean fragrance. His arms went around her and he held her as close as he could. Vanessa was hope and promises and everything that he had nearly forgotten that he had wanted to achieve.

The tears finally spilled from her eyes and she kissed him. Not her first kiss, not even her second, but the only one that had ever made her dissolve into a puddle of raw emotions. When Scotty’s tongue swept across her lips she screamed internally, although only a whimper escaped her. She pulled his head to hers and then parted her lips hoping that his tongue would slip between hers…and it did!

Scotty shuddered and then pulled back slowly, breaking the kiss. “Vanessa…” He placed his hands on her shoulders and urged her back. He had never wanted to take a woman as much as he wanted to in this very second and he didn’t know if he could control that. Vanessa didn’t need to think that his interest in her was only about fulfilling a sexual need. True, he needed her, but on so many more levels than just sex.

Vanessa felt drunk from that kiss. It was the only way that she could describe it because she had never felt anything like it. She could not have imagined that placing her lips on someone would send sensations spiraling through her body like electrical jolts. If Scotty’s hands weren’t firmly on her shoulders then she thought that she just might have slipped to the ground in a boneless mass of nerve endings.

He loved the look on her face; hooded eyes, parted lips. He wanted to see such a look on her face each and every morning. When he felt calm enough to do so, he placed his arm around her shoulders and they walked back to the party.

She looked at him, needing to ask one last question but afraid to do so.

“What about Tino?”

Scotty took a long time to answer. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen him since the last night that I saw you.” He looked at her and there was a chill to his grey blue eyes. Every person had a certain expression that you never wanted to see cross his face and this was Scotty’s look. “We fought. I won. He was told to leave and to never come back.”

She relaxed again, knowing that she would probably not ever have to see him again. And then she smiled to herself because she was here with Scotty and for a moment everything was perfect.

He felt the tension leave her body, which caused it to leave his own. “Let’s go back and tell your friends that we’re going to split. We can get some dinner because I haven’t eaten yet,” he smiled at her, “plus I’m dying to see your hair flying in my convertible.”

She suddenly remembered something and gave him a pointed look, which caught him off guard.
Uh oh
… “Oh yeah, who was that girl riding in your car yesterday?”

He suppressed a chuckle. She was cute as hell when she was trying not to look jealous. “You saw that?” She tried not to frown but couldn’t help it. If he thought that she was going to take a number in line behind any other girl then he had another thing coming! “That was just Erica.”

Who in the hell was Erica, she wondered hotly.

“My sister, Erica. She was visiting some friends and I picked her up to take her back home.”

“Oh,” she said feeling foolish. But she would have to let him know that she wasn’t wired like that and-

“Vanessa,” he said, his voice low but firm. “Let me make something very clear. I want you—and only you, as my girlfriend, my woman, my partner…my lover. Okay?” He waited tensely for her to agree.

She bit her bottom lip lightly. There was no choice in the matter. This was everything that she had always wanted and she could only go forward. “Okay.” She grinned. “Okay.”

Chapter 23

~2 months later~

“What are you waiting for?!” Jalissa hollered.

“Him.” Vanessa replied. The girls were in Jalissa’s bedroom, sitting Indian style on the bed. Aunt Callista was grocery shopping and they had the apartment to themselves.

“Just tell him that you want to do it!”

“Shhh!”

“Nobody’s here.”

Vanessa sighed tensely. “I’m not going to tell him that I want to do it. He already knows.”

Jalissa smirked and leaned forward. “Ooo! Y’all be messing, don’t y’all?!”

Vanessa blushed. Jalissa always wanted to talk about sex…well fucking. But for Vanessa, what her cousin described was far from what she experienced with Scotty. They hadn’t made love—well not really. But sometimes her body would explode when they kissed. And whenever he pushed against her she felt him—it. She wanted to touch
it
but she was scared. She wanted to see it although she knew what one looked like. She’d seen Mr. Johnny’s, of course his was more than likely a different color than Scotty’s…Vanessa blushed again.

“I mean…we mess around, but he stops when it starts getting really…intense.” She twisted a strand of hair nervously and tried to control the heat rising in her cheeks. Once Scotty knew that she was a virgin, it had pretty much sealed her virginal fate.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you what I think. I’m pretty sure that he wants to wait until my eighteenth birthday so that he can make it like this romantic celebration. You know he has all of these secret plans for my birthday that he won’t tell me about, but I’m pretty positive
that’s
on the list.” She gnawed her lip as her eyes lit up. “I also think that he has something else planned. I think he’s going to propose to me on my birthday…”

Jalissa jumped up off the bed and squealed happily.

“Stop!” Vanessa laughed. “He hasn’t asked me yet! What I’m thinking is that he wants to make it into a romantic encounter where he takes my virginity as I become promised to him.” Her voice had taken on a dreamy tone.

Jalissa bounced back down on the bed. “But did he do or say something that made you think it? Because he could just ask you now—ugh! Why does he have to wait?!”

She laughed at her cousin. “What do you mean wait?! Girl we’ve only been dating for two months!”

Jalissa rolled her eyes. If you counted the years that they had been crushing on each other then technically they already had years invested in their relationship. Jalissa’s new big desire was to be a part of a big beautiful wedding where she was the maid of honor. She was already mentally planning it. She wanted an all white wedding with Vanessa in a big white dress. She wanted the ladies in waiting—their gang of course, all wearing black catsuits—that part she would have to probably talk Vanessa into, but it would be like a fairy tale. They could do The Hustle down the aisle! She just hoped that they could wait until after she had her baby.

In the past Jalissa had often times been jealous of Vanessa, but not any longer. Her cousin was a little on the jive side. Long hair was something that she could weave onto her head and she preferred her thick body to Vanessa’s any day. Besides, even though she was happy that Vanessa and Scotty had finally hooked up, he was still a simple-ass white boy.

“He did kind of make some hints,” Vanessa continued, leaning in close to Jalissa. “One day we were just sitting on his couch watching television; hugged all up on each other,” she smiled to herself. “And he started talking about how nice it was going to be when we could do this every single day. And then he just kind of stopped. I said, ‘Everyday?’ and he said, ‘That’s the plan.’” Jalissa clasped her hands in excitement.

“Oh my God…you are getting engaged on your birthday!” Jalissa concurred and then her smile fell away as reality set in. “You’re about to marry a drug dealer. Cuz…you sure about this?”

Vanessa fell back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. It was one thing when she was Scotty’s girlfriend, but she wouldn’t be the wife of a drug dealer. For that she already had an idea, but she couldn’t share it with Jalissa just yet. It involved her trust fund and that is something that she had never even told Jalissa about.

“Don’t worry J, I don’t plan on marrying a drug dealer.”

Jalissa was just about to ask her if she was going to make him get out of the business when they heard the front door open and aunt Callista yelled up the stairs for them to help her with the groceries. They went downstairs and helped put everything away while Callista began a familiar complaint about how much money it cost for hamburger meat, and how broke she was, and how she didn’t know what she was going to do when the baby came.

Vanessa decided that she would tell her aunt what her plans were with some of her money, without telling her directly about the trust fund. “Aunt Callista, I can help out some. My mama left me some money that I can get when I turn eighteen.”

Callista gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look and suddenly Vanessa knew without a shadow of a doubt that her aunt had already known about the trust.

Jalissa just smiled at Vanessa in appreciation but shook her head. “I just want you to be my baby’s godmother. We don’t need anything else-“

Callista quickly began talking over her daughter. “Oh honey, that would help out so much! You don’t know what a relief it is not to have to worry about these things.” Her eyes swung to Jalissa as if they could throw darts at her. “This girl has no idea how expensive a baby can be. That little bit of a check that Jalissa gets ain’t good for nothing! And the baby daddy ain’t shit.” Jalissa was staring at her mother like she was crazier than normal. “I just don’t want my grandbaby going without like the rest of these little babies in the projects.”

Jalissa looked confused. “Mom, we don’t really need any-“

“We need a better place to live!” Jalissa rolled her eyes and put the cereal in the pantry. “Vanessa…I hate to ask,” aunt Callista said, “but do you think you could help us out with a bit of money so that we can move out of here? Girl this area has gotten so dangerous! This is no place for the baby, and we really should move out before the baby comes-“

Vanessa’s mouth parted as she tried to find the words to explain. “I can’t touch the money until I turn eighteen. Only my grandmother can because she’s my guardian. And well…you know how she can be…”

“Do you think you can ask her?” Callista asked using her sweetest telephone only voice.

“I already did and my grandmother said,”
…not over my dead body.
“…uh no.”

Jalissa placed her hands on her hips and stared at her mother. “Mama we are already on the section 8 waiting list. It won’t be that long-“

Aunt Callista scowled. “Section 8 is just more ghetto mess! My grandbaby don’t need to grow up in this environment. All that comes out of this is garbage!”

Vanessa was not fooled by her aunt’s sudden concern over living conditions that had been good enough for Jalissa but suddenly wasn’t good for Jalissa’s baby. Also, section 8 housing wasn’t the ghetto, but housing that was located all over the city, in houses where the resident only had to pay a portion of the rent and the rest was supplemented by the state. Besides, there was one sure fire way to get up out of the ghetto and to her knowledge her auntie had never done it; and that was giving up the welfare check and working for a living.

As a matter of fact Vanessa seemed to remember that her aunt had thought herself pretty lucky not to have to go out every night working two jobs the way her mother did--and had said it more than once.

Vanessa said no more, deciding that she would have no part of supplementing aunt Callista’s income.

~***~

Vanessa and her grandmother had just gotten off the bus from church and were walking the two blocks to their house. It was only mid-summer and she was enjoying her stay with Jalissa. Aunt Callista had graciously invited her to stay until she turned eighteen while she decided what she wanted to do with her (money) life. She had weighed the pros and cons and decided that she had more freedom by staying with Jalissa then she would have if she returned home to live. Her grandmother had been far from pleased but Vanessa returned each Sunday to go to church with her, which helped to appease her. 

Usually a church member drove them to or from church but when they couldn’t then they had to take the bus. It was hot and Vanessa’s blouse was sticking to her underarms.

“Grandma, I wish you would just buy a car.” She hated the idea of grandma doing this all alone once she left home permanently.

“Why would I buy a car? The store is close and we live on the busline-“

“Because there’s thousands of dollars sitting in the bank-”

Grandma flashed her a disapproving look. “That is not my money, child.”

Here we go again, Vanessa thought. “You’re supposed to use that money to help raise me-“

“I didn’t need no trust fund to raise your Mama and I don’t need a trust fund to raise you. That’s your money, Vanessa.”

Vanessa didn’t say another word on the matter. It was a lost cause. Grandma had dipped into the money before, but each time it happened she had come to Vanessa and explained. “I had to borrow fifty dollars from your trust to pay the gas bill. I’ll put it back at the first of the month.” And she always replaced whatever she took.

Her grandmother’s stubbornness on the matter annoyed her. Sometimes she would let Vanessa take some of the money out so that she could buy something she really wanted—like the stereo that she just had to have because it made all of the songs sound like she was standing right there with the singers. That had been a rare indulgences that grandma gave into because the microphone that came with the stereo did help her with her singing.

Now that she was so close to turning eighteen her trust fund had been on her mind a lot. Not too long ago she had thought part of the money would help fund her journey to New York City while she became a star. But how quickly plans changed. She had put a great deal of thought into it and hadn’t made the decision lightly, but she had decided that she was going to use her money to help out Scotty’s family—not all of it, but there was more than enough to help get his family set.

She hadn’t told him about any of it, the trust nor her plans to help him out. What was she supposed to say, ‘Hey baby…in case you ever want to marry me I come with a sixty thousand dollar trust fund…’

She would tell him when he asked her to marry him—if he asked. And she would inform him that she would only agree to marriage if he got out of the drug business. He would no longer be able to say that he didn’t have a way, because now they did.