Cruel Summer

“No, maybe not, but I answered anyway.”

It feels like all the energy has been sucked out of the alleyway and as Amarie and Lucia stare each other down, I want to hide behind the garbage can. It’s like watching a hurricane and tsunami meet.

You don’t know which storm will win, but you know they’re both going to cause serious damage.

Lucia is the first to break their gazes and now it’s her time to look Amarie over. She doesn’t start at head, instead looking right at her feet first and it seems to make the energy shift again. She runs her eyes over Amarie’s heels, looking at each individual toe. Next she moves up her brown legs, pausing at where the hemline of her dresses rest at her thighs. It’s barely visible but there’s black ink sitting just under the line. I know, from catching a glimpse of it before, that it’s a tail. Lucia continues to study it and I have to wonder what she thinks it is from the miniscule view that she’s getting.

Finally, her gaze continues to move upward and I know if I were in Amarie’s shoes, I would have already tucked tail and run. But Amarie holds still, standing tall as Lucia continues to take her in. Lucia doesn’t allow her gaze to linger on Amarie’s breasts, which are practically spilling out the top of her dress.

How did she fit her joint in there?

When Lucia’s eyes finally land back on Amarie’s face, I see the façade go up. The way she pretends to be unimpressed, her lips slanting downward and her nose wrinkling. But she can’t hide that look in her eyes, the one that says she wouldn’t mind fucking Amarie.

I swallow.

I don’t know what I think Lucia is going to say. Maybe ask more questions about our conversation, say that she heard us talking about seven quad, tell Amarie to fuck off…

But instead she just turns on her boots, her jaw tight as she grabs my arm and pulls me along. “Smoke break over.”