She's All Mine(10)

“I mean, the favor must’ve been an important one because you keep coming over whenever he calls.”

“No. Why? What’s he been saying?” I scowl. Audley’s a decent guy, but if he’s been talking trash to Erika about me, I’m going to make his face look like it’s been through a meat grinder. No one will have a problem telling the twins apart after I’m done with Zeke.

“Nothing. He never talks to me. Neither of the twins really do, not that I mind that because I want to be left alone.”

“And you’re not into football players, right?” I was fucking giddy when I heard that. Not gonna lie. I worried about her being in close quarters with the Audleys. I don’t think those boys are attractive, but I know when they’ve shown up at my boxing match a time or two, panties were always on the floor.

At the door of the condo, I enter my pin code and wait for the lock to release.

“You heard that?”

I heard everything, I think, but know better than to admit it. “Olivia isn’t a quiet girl.”

The buzzer sounds and we walk through. I opt for the stairs instead of the elevator because that way it takes longer. Once we get into the condo, I won’t have much excuse to carry her around anymore.

“No. She isn’t, but I think it's because she's always felt very comfortable in her life. Having those twins always around her probably helps. No one's gonna look at her funny unless they want one of those boys in their business.”

There’s another note of…longing…in Erika’s voice. I glance down to see a small, almost sad smile playing around the corners of her mouth. My girl might not be interested in football players, but there's something about the connection between the Audley twins and Olivia that makes Erika envious.

If she hadn’t admitted that football players do nothing for her, I’d think she had the hots for the twins, but I believe her when she says she’s not interested. So the desire for what Olivia has comes from somewhere else.

Maybe it’s because when a person is secure, they don't have to be looking over their shoulder all the time and therefore, life's a hell of a lot easier. I know that from my own experience. Before I met my foster mom, Patty, and she introduced me to Morry, I tried to keep real quiet. It didn’t do any good to have people notice me—not my deadbeat dad, not my drug-addled mom, not the cops who kept dragging me back home where I’d get beat or have drugs shoved up my nose or worse.

It wasn’t until I learned how to box that I felt comfortable standing up straight, saying stuff that I meant, and generally not giving a shit about what people thought.

So maybe that’s what Erika is feeling jealous about. If that’s the case, if she’s got people in her life making her feel low, then we’ve got more than rocks on the ground to be concerned about. I’ve been following her around for a week, and while I know her class schedule, her workout routine, and ordinary shit like that, I don’t know the important stuff. I don’t know what makes her happy, what makes her sad, what puts that little wistful note in her voice. I want to so I ask.

“What kind of dance do you do?”

“I’m classically trained in ballet, but I broke my leg when I was fifteen and that was the end of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I healed, but it was never the same. I didn’t have the same strength and couldn’t do the moves as precisely and perfectly as I could before.”

I’ve seen this girl dance through the windows of the campus gym she worked out at and she moves like a dream. If that isn’t perfect and precise, I don’t know what is. I can’t say that, though, because that would be revealing information that I shouldn’t have. Stalking someone’s not a good thing. If Patty or Morry knew I was doing it, they’d slice my balls off. They wouldn’t even listen to my explanation that I was doing it for Erika’s own good before the knife would come out.

I have this feeling that Erika wouldn’t take too kindly to my following her around either. She always gets real irritated when I show up, asking if Audley was behind it.

No. It’s me. It’s always going to be me because I’m a sick fuck that is totally attached to this girl and I can’t stop thinking about her, and when I don’t have her in my sight, I lose it.

“You don't sound super broken up about the fact that you can't do it professionally.”

“It was never my dream. It was my mother’s. She had been a dancer when she was younger, but never quite succeeded at the level she wanted to. I think she had hopes that I would be able to have the success that she didn't.”

Stuff was starting to click into place. I’ve seen those types at the gym. Morry didn’t much like them, but she accepted them anyway because she said that she knew that the parents wouldn’t stop pushing the kids if she said no. The only thing she could do was be a buffer.

“Some parents are like that.”

I shove the door to the hallway open and then walk until we reach my door. She looks at me expectantly, thinking I’m going to put her down. I don’t, though. I just hug her tight against me with one arm and grab my keycard with my free hand. I’m dexterous like that.

I pop open the door. My cat greets me with a hungry glare.

“Oh, there’s your cat,” Erika says.