Falling into You (Falling #1)(33)

I’m puzzled by this exchange, especially when he slips his hand—the one that isn’t on Nell’s hip—down to openly grope the waitress’ ass. I’m even more confused when Nell swivels in place and watches the entire thing, hints of amusement and disgust playing on her lips and eyes.

Nell turns away, shaking her head, but leaves his hand on her. She meets my eyes, and I lift an eyebrow. Her eyes take on an almost guilty expression for a split second, but then it’s gone. I wave Kelly over and tell her to pour two big shots of Jameson, one for me, and one for Nell.

When Nell has her shot in hand, I lift mine to my lips and tip it back. Nell matches me. Ogre watches this, and his face darkens. He leans down and whispers in her ear. She shrugs. He latches his hand on her bicep, and I see him squeeze, see Nell wince.

Fuck that.

I set my glass down and weave through the crowd toward them. Nell is watching me, shaking her head at me. I ignore her warnings. Ogre straightens as he sees me approaching, and his mouth turns up in a ready smile. He flexes his fist and steps past Nell.

“COLT!” Kelly’s voice snaps out from my left, from behind the bar. “I don’t fucking think so. Not in my bar.”

I turn to Kelly, who is glaring daggers at me. Kelly knows a bit about me, knows some of the people I used to run with. She knows what I can do and she doesn’t want any part of it here. I don’t blame her.

She reaches beneath the bar and lifts a collapsable police baton, flicks her wrist to extend its weighted head. She points it at Ogre and company.

“Get out. All of you. Now.” She also lifts her cell phone from her purse and dials a number, shows the screen to them. “I’ll fuck you all up, and then I’ll call the police and you’ll be arrested, because I have that kind of understanding with them. So get the fuck out.”

You don’t fuck with Kelly. She knows the people I used to run with, because she used to run with them too. What she doesn’t say is that the red bandana tying her dreadlocked hair back isn’t just for fashion. It’s colors. The kind of colors that say she can make one phone call and Ogre and company will vanish. Bloodily.

Nell glances at me one last time, then leads the way out, tossing a bill on the bar. Her vapid friends and asshole boyfriend follow her, but the Ogre stops in the doorway to stare holes in my head. I stare back until he turns away and leaves.

I get back on the stage and fiddle with the tuning on my guitar.

Kelly comes out from behind the bar and faces me. “What the hell was that, Colt?”

I shrug. “Someone I know.”

“You were ready to throw down.”

“He was hurting her.”

“She was letting him.”

“Doesn’t make it right.” I fish my capo out of the case and fit it on the strings.

Kelly eyes me warily. “No, it doesn’t. But if she lets him, it’s her business. I don’t need trouble in my bar. You don’t need trouble, period.” Kelly’s hand touches my arm, a rare moment of contact between us; part of our post-coital friendship contract is no touching. “Colt…you’re doing really good. Don’t fuck it up. Okay?”

“How would I do that?”

Kelly gives me a what are you, stupid? look, hand on her popped-out hip. “I’ve never seen you look that pissed, Colt. You don’t get pissed. Which means she means something.”

“It’s complicated.” I scrape the pick along one of the strings, not looking at Kelly.

“It’s always complicated. My point is…you’ve got a good thing going. You’ve left all that behind,” she waves at the bar, at the street beyond, meaning our shared past of violence, “and you don’t need to make trouble for yourself over a girl.”

“She’s not just a girl.” Well shit. I did not mean to say that.

Kelly narrows her eyes at me. “I ain’t said that.” Her street accent is coming back, which I know how hard she works to disguise. “I’m jus’ sayin’—I’m just saying. Don’t mess it up. Do what you gotta do, but…you know what, whatever. Do whatever you want.”

I sigh and finally look up at her. “I hear what you’re saying, Special K.” I grin at her old nickname.

Kelly does the neck-roll I don’t think so thing. “You did not just call me that.”

“I sure did, sister.” I flash the panty-dropping grin at her, which always works.

Kelly pretends to swoon, then socks me in the arm, hard. Hard enough to make my arm sting. “Shut up and play a song, asshole.” She swaggers away, and I don’t mind watching. We may not hook up anymore, but it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the view.

Immediately after that thought, I feel an odd twinge of guilt. I see Nell’s face in my mind, as if I owe her fidelity. Which I don’t. But I can’t shake the thought. So I play the music and try to forget Nell and her Ogre and Kelly and trouble and memories of old fights.





*





I walk the streets a lot. I always have. When I was an angry, homeless seventeen year-old lost on the mean streets of Harlem, it’s all I had to do. I didn’t know shit about living on the streets, so I walked. I walked to stay out of trouble, to stay awake, to stay warm. Then, when I met T-Shawn and Split and the boys, the streets became our livelihood, our life, our turf. So I walked the streets doing business. Now, I walk the streets because it’s familiar, and comforting. When I have to think through shit, I walk. I slip my guitar into the soft case and tie on my Timberlands and walk. I might start at my apartment above the shop in Queens and end up in Harlem or Astoria or Manhattan. I walk for hours, no iPod, no destination, just mile after mile of crowded sidewalks and cracked blacktop and towering skyscrapers and apartment blocks and back alleys where old friends still sling and smoke and fight. Old friends, old enemies, people I don’t associate with anymore. But they leave me alone, friend or enemy, and let me walk.