I remembered the very moment her smile took my breath away.
And I remembered the day one brush of her arm against mine changed everything.
At five years old, my sole focus was getting to The Lion King Parade at Disneyland. She accidentally bumped into me, then apologized with an innocent touch of her hand to my cheek. My little ass thought my dick had turned into a stick and I ran away screaming at the top of my lungs. And because I’d been fully engrossed in a bunch of crazy-ass cartoons, I thought I was going to blow up or some shit. Fall off a cliff. Melt into a puddle. Grow branches like a tree. Something dramatic and entirely within the realm of possibility in my elementary mind.
I couldn’t figure out why it had happened. Shit, I had four sisters. None of them had ever elicited that type of reaction. Not even the girls in my class had caused the sickness. I was depressed the whole day, even after my dick reverted to its natural form. At dinner that night, I announced to my whole family that I was going to die because my “wee wee” had turned into a hard statue.
The laughter that had ensued should’ve destroyed my self-confidence. It was fucked up. But I held my head high and made my case. Even back then, I instinctively knew to keep some shit to myself. I didn’t say her name or what happened to seal my fate.
That day, I learned four very important things. One, Larissa Reid was a witch with the power to turn my penis a deadly weapon, but two, she was also an angel who’d made me feel things I’d never felt before. And three, Rissa couldn’t have been my sister because she was too nice to be a Young. Finally, four, to keep my shit to myself.
Feeling a hand on my back, I turned to find Gemma staring at me curiously. I smiled at her. “What’s up?”
“Are you okay?” she asked with a wide grin. “You missed it. Your dad and Jax did a cute little rap battle on the dance floor.”
Chuckling, I peered over her shoulder at my father and his best friend happily doing to the robot to a familiar Jackson 5 song. “I’m glad I didn’t see that.”
“Funny as hell.” She frowned. “What are you doing over here in the corner?” She followed my line of sight to the bar, where Rissa was sipping a drink. “Still, Asa?”
My unrequited crush had followed me into high school. Every time Rissa visited Paityn, I couldn’t help myself. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a monk. I fucked plenty. But damn … She was still the most beautiful woman in any room. At one point, it bothered me so much that I’d confessed my feelings to Gemma during a frustrating game ofMadden 2005.
“I thought we agreed to never talk about that shit again,” I said, raising a brow.
My best friend cracked up. “I’m just sayin’. I got over my crush on Blake the moment she cussed my ass out for drinking her juice on the hottest day of the summer.”
I barked out a laugh. Gemma was Jax and his wife Ana’s goddaughter. She was my first friend, the onlypersonwho knew most of my secrets.
“I’m telling you,” she continued, “your sister has always been mean as fuck. But I’m glad she counts me among the people she loves.”
Shaking my head, I agreed with her. Blake had her bitchy ways, but she was solid, loyal. “Yeah, she definitely stands ten toes down for us.”
“Anyway, I can’t believe you’re still enamored with Rissa after all these years.”
I glanced at Rissa again. “She’s sad,” I mused.
Gemma nodded. “She just finalized her divorce.”
My eyes flashed to her. “What? She left Rick?”
“Where have you been?”
I shrugged. “Minding my business.”
“They split up late last year. I overheard Jax and Ana talking about it with her mother, Regine.”
“What happened?”
“Okay, sonowyou want to get into somebody else’s business?”
I let my gaze travel over Rissa, from her high-heeled sandals, up to her the toned leg peeking out of the slit in her black dress to her face. Her brown skin glowed in the dim lighting of the hotel ballroom. Nearly thirty years later, and she still made me feel things I’d never felt before.
“You could go talk to her,” Gemma muttered. “You look like you want to.”
I turned to face my friend. “Why do you sound jealous? I thought we decided a long time ago that we’re not it for each other.” I smirked. “But I’m always down to test it out again.”
She bumped me with her hip. “Man, you already know that’s not going to work.”
A long time ago, Gemma suggested we try to date each other. Since I wasn’t with anyone else at the time, I agreed. That was my first mistake. The second one was our first kiss. The moment I made my move, I knew it would never work. Not because she wasn’t attractive. Gemma was fly in a natural, never-needed-makeup way. Clear skin, beautiful eyes, soft hair, banging body. But she really was like a sister. Correction, astep-sister. Clearly, we weren’t related because I definitely appreciated her beauty. At the same time, it felt like I was kissing a sister. Which made it impossible to get my head in the game with her. So we decided to let our ten-minute relationship die a quick, painless death.
