The Not-Outcast by Tijan

Author:Tijan
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2020-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

26

Cheyenne

The calmness I felt standing in that hallway with Cut was gone the second we entered his private box.

I heard the yelling, then a wave of everything else hit me. And it hit me hard. The smells of the club rose up swiftly. The techno music, the hard bass, the neon lights flashing flooded me. Sweat. Grime. Beer. Perfume. Cologne. And other smells that I didn’t want to identify. It was jarring, and I sucked in my breath, remembering to fortify my walls.

It was a whole imagery-coping mechanism I learned. Sometimes it helped, other times it didn’t.

I took a moment, imagining all the music in a bubble, then I moved it aside. I did the same with the smells. After that I could focus a bit better. Sasha’s voice carried to me, along with Melanie’s and Cassie’s. The last two were sitting on one side of the box, giggling and wrapped around each other. I looked around, and Sasha and Chad were on the other side. Sasha was standing, arms crossed, head tilted up and away from Chad.

My Not-Brother was standing in front of her, his arms out and his head down. He was speaking to her.

“Come on, Sasha. Be reasonable.”

I sucked my breath in at that one. Not the right words to use with Sasha.

Melanie’s head lifted, her laugh fading, but then she saw me, and her smile came back. “Shy!” She was up and heading for me when Sasha heard and turned, too.

I stepped free from Cut, and the three of us merged in the middle. We’d done this so many times. Our arms came up around each other, our foreheads next to each other, and we formed our own huddle.

“Hey.” Me.

“Heya.” Sasha.

“Holla.” Melanie.

And squeeze. We all moved in, closer together. That was just the greeting.

“Sash,” from me. “What do you need?”

“You came with Cut?” Her eyes were big, ignoring my question.

Melanie’s grin turned secretive. “I already knew.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“You were fighting with Not-Brother. I wasn’t going to interrupt that.”

“Nice. I could’ve used the distraction.”

I told them what Maisie called Chad.

Melanie’s smile was almost off her face. “I want to meet this woman and I want to kiss her feet. Not literally, though. The feet. I’d like to meet her.”

I asked Sasha, “Distraction enough?”

She closed her eyes, a soft smile there and she nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

Melanie snorted. “Nut-Brother. That’s awesome.”

Sasha released us and pressed into her forehead, rubbing her temples. “He makes me so crazy.” She dropped her hands, found her place around our shoulders again and said to me, “We’re on and off, and I haven’t said anything because every time, I swear, every time I promise myself that I won’t let him in. And then he calls or texts and he’s all nice and charming, and the next hour I’m pretending to do Juna’s ankle-slide move on him.”

“Didn’t need that information.”

Sasha ignored Melanie. “And tonight, we came and he was dancing with another girl. That’s fine and all, but he was blowing smoke up my ass just last week.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.