Dannika Dark: Seven Years

A woman screamed downstairs and laughter followed. I wondered what Wes would have thought about my life. I still saw him as the cool guy and he might have gone downstairs to join them. But he would be thirty and who knows… maybe married. It was hard to imagine him as anything but the young man I once knew.

I could still remember the last time I saw him, two nights before the accident. I was living at home and he stopped by to have a talk with Dad. He walked me into my bedroom and told me I needed to get a full-time job and move out. I’d been slacking off at my job because I hated flipping burgers. Wes shared his concern with me and wanted to know if Dad had been giving me a hard time. He told me about a job at Sweet Treats and suggested I could move in with him until I found a place. “ Call me tomorrow and we’ll go to a movie ,” he said.

God, why didn’t I call him? I ended up blowing him off and it had become one of the biggest regrets of my life. A last chance to see him, or maybe that could have changed his fate and he would never have gone out on the night he died.

Suddenly, a knock sounded at my front door. I catapulted off the sofa and grabbed the fireplace poker—my weapon of choice.

Through the peephole, I watched Naya impatiently pacing in circles with her arms folded.

I opened the door.

“This is the last straw. I called the police this time,” she announced, rushing past me and going straight for the can of Spanish peanuts in the kitchen.

“The party girl called the cops?” I smirked.

Naya strutted into the living room and plopped down on the floor, leaning against one of my chairs with her long legs crossed.

“Lexi, on more than one occasion I’ve invited them to my parties, but they’ve never once returned the courtesy.”

I flopped onto the couch and grabbed a magazine from the coffee table. “Do you really want to party with a bunch of college kids?” My gaze flicked up. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

She popped a peanut into her mouth and brushed the salt from her fingers onto her tight shorts.

“Crash it,” I suggested.

Naya rolled her eyes. The root of her irritation wasn’t the noise but that she wasn’t a part of it. Naya hated exclusion. “I have more class than that, chickypoo. So are you going to tell me what’s been bothering you?”

I slowly turned the page, glancing at an article about the top twenty ways to turn on your man. “Nope.”

She set the peanuts down and hopped on the sofa beside me, lifting my legs onto her lap. “Ooo, it’s a man, isn’t it?”

“Naya, it’s—”

“A man .”

I snorted. “Drop it.”

“Dish, Lexi. I can tell it’s not about Beckett because you have a totally different look on your face when you’re stewing over him. So who has your feathers all ruffled up?”

I hurled the fashion magazine to the floor. “A ghost from my past. Just someone who took off years ago and never once contacted me.” Now I was irritated all over again and sat up with my knees against my chest. “He just showed up out of the blue and now he wants to talk.”

“Someone you dated?”

“No. Just an old family friend.”

“Hmm,” she pondered, setting her feet on the coffee table. A silver anklet slithered down to her foot and a tiny heart dangled from her toe ring. “Maybe he was in trouble.”

Something I’d considered. “Maybe he was in prison.”

“That’s kind of sexy.”

“That’s kind of not,” I said. “I have no desire to graduate from a cheating bastard to an ex-convict.”

“So talk to him. Either that or sit here night after night, wondering what happened while wearing your bitchy face.”

“I don’t have a bitchy face,” I argued, trying to conceal my smile.

An unexpected knock at the door startled the both of us. I glanced around but forgot where I’d set down the fireplace poker.

“Shhh.” Naya tiptoed over to the door and peered through the peephole with her index finger pointing up.

“Who is it?” I whispered over her shoulder.

“I can’t tell. Oh, shit.”

“What?”

Naya looked at me and winked. “It’s a cop. He flipped a badge.”

After using her pinky finger to pick a peanut skin from her teeth, she casually opened the door. “It’s about time!”

The man raked his gaze up and down Naya before looking in my direction. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but his stature was tall and he had a short buzz cut many of the cops sported. When he held up his badge and folded it back into his pocket, Naya leaned comfortably against the doorframe.

“That’s been going on for two hours,” she pointed out.

Cops turned Naya on. Period. If there was a reason she could call them, she would. Even at her own parties. I tried not to laugh when her right leg rubbed against the other, as if she were scratching her left thigh with her right knee and beckoning her panties to drop.

“I’m Officer McNeal, responding to a report of a noise disturbance. Are you the one who made the call?” he asked.

“Guilty,” she purred.

“I’ll need your names for my report.” He took out a tiny notebook and I backed up, folding my arms. I didn’t want to get involved in this shit.

“Naya.” She spelled it out. “Naya James.”

“And?” he said, locking eyes with mine. It made me nervous. More nervous than it should have since he was the good guy.

“Um, is this necessary? I didn’t call.”

The tip of his pen remained firmly pressed against his little notepad. “Name?”

My stomach knotted. “Alexia.”

He didn’t move his pen. “Alexia what?”

Why was he making me so nervous? “Alexia Knight.”

“Do you live alone?” he asked.

I glanced at Naya.

“Ma’am, if there’s anyone else on the premises, I need it for my report. If we come back for more information, we’ll need to know the names of all residents within the building.”

“I’m alone, she’s alone,” Naya quickly said, smiling with her ruby lips. She stepped a little closer to him. “Were you on your way home? Sorry if we pulled you back on duty, officer. Can I make it up to you?”

She batted her lashes and I gave her the look . Not that she noticed since her eyes were eating up Mr. Undercover Cop.

Without writing down my name or any additional information, he tucked his little notepad in his back pocket. “I’ll go down and have a talk with them. If they bother you again, give us a call and you can come down to the station and file a formal complaint. Have a good evening.” He tipped his head and walked off.

“Damn,” Naya said, slamming the door. “He was kind of hot, and so not into me.” She put her arm around me. “But he sure had his eyes all over you.”

“Yeah. In a creepy way.”

“I’m going to have to put in a personal request for Officer McNeal next time,” she said with a giggle. “I’d love to rub my hands all over his head.”

“Which one?”

She slapped my arm and feigned a shocked expression. “A little seasoned by the look of salt and pepper in his hair, but I bet I could crack a smile on that stern face of his. Try to get some sleep, and don’t forget about my party on Tuesday.”

Naya shut the front door behind her. “Lock it!”

I turned the bolt and wondered how I could possibly forget about the party she reminded me of at every opportunity. That night, I slept with a pillow over my head.

The music downstairs went on until four in the morning.

The next day, I found Naya’s cell phone on the floor by the sofa . I decided to swing by the strip club and drop it off since she had tiny conniptions whenever she misplaced it. I never understood how a man could walk into a strip club on a Sunday and not turn into a puff of smoke as soon as he crossed the threshold of the establishment.