Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) Read online

  KNOW ME

  TRUTHFUL LIES - BOOK ONE

  BY RACHEL DUNNING

  Copyright © 2014 Rachel Dunning.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2014 Rachel Dunning.

  Cover Photo of Female Model - Copyright © 2014 Inga Dudkina.

  Cover Photo of Male Model - Copyright © 2014 InnervisionArt

  Smashwords Edition.

  ISBN: 9781310482410

  All photos obtained from Shutterstock and used with permission.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Rachel Dunning:

  Finding North, #1 Naïve Mistakes Trilogy

  East Rising, #2 Naïve Mistakes Trilogy

  West-End Boys, #3 Naïve Mistakes Trilogy

  Like You, #1 Perfectly Flawed Series

  Christmas Comfort, #1 Hot Holidays Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Harder, #1 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl Nerds Like it Faster, #2 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Deeper, #3 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Longer, #4 Girl-Nerd Series

  To the good ol’ days, and everyone in them.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TO KNOW...

  PROLOGUE ONE - THE BASTID

  PROLOGUE TWO - THE OTHAH BASTID

  ONE - HOUSE MARKET

  TWO - HEAVEN-LEIGH

  THREE - RYAN GOSLING DREAMBOY

  FOUR - DELICIOUS HOOK-UP

  FIVE - LOGIC LOSES

  SIX - DECLAN STARTED IT

  SEVEN - THE WOLVES

  EIGHT - HATERS GONNA HATE

  NINE - TEETH AND CLAWS

  TEN - QUARTERBACK

  ELEVEN - WHEN IT HITS THE FAN, IT SPLATTERS

  TWELVE - ANGIE, BERNICE, AND CHARLIE

  LUCKY THIRTEEN - OR IS IT?

  FOURTEEN - A WHOLE NEW CHEMICAL

  FIFTEEN - WE DO. WE REALLY DO.

  SIXTEEN IS SWEET - SNAP

  SEVENTEEN - REAL BEAUTY

  EPILOGUE ONE - TRUTHFUL LIES

  EPILOGUE TWO - AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

  BOOK TWO - THE STORY CONTINUES...

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  TO KNOW...

  To know (transitive verb):

  To perceive or apprehend clearly and certainly; to understand; to have full information of; to be convinced of the truth of; to be fully assured of; to be acquainted with; to be no stranger to; to be more or less familiar with the person, character, etc., of; to possess experience of; to recognize; to distinguish; to discern the character of;

  Archaic: To have sexual intercourse with.

  Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary - 1913

  PROLOGUE ONE

  THE BASTID

  Love is a rift. It is a break in the fabric of whatever substance makes this universe.

  Love is not your friend. Love is not the gentle green slopes of Prospect Park. It is not the condo being built down in Brooklyn Heights looking across at The City’s breathtaking skyline.

  Love is your enemy.

  Love is an earthquake.

  It rolls in like a Tsunami.

  Love is black smoke.

  Love swallows you whole and takes you with it.

  Those that find happiness in love are those who ride its waves wildly, knowing the trip will be short, always destined to fail. Painfully.

  Love is a bastard. Or, as they say in here Brooklyn, a bastid!

  Love is the electric surge which blows your speakers, it’s the feedback that ruins your gig. It’s the crackle of lightning and high-wattage static before you’re finally struck down.

  It’s your Molly—E, The Doctor, Adam. It’s your Crack Cocaine, your rocks, the Devil’s Dandruff you smoke in a pipe. It’s the sweet poison in your blood, the taste of honey in a frenzied beehive.

  It’s your H. Your Heroin. Your Smack.

  But Love is also the hot touch of velvet over your sweat-glistened skin. It’s melting chocolate on your lips, the taste of human salt on your tongue, the feel of slick perspiration on your body...

  Love is a rift—in the fabric of this universe. An anomaly. A Not-Meant-to-Be.

  And also a necessity.

  Love is the Mike Tyson we all must face. Love is that fist to your face. A slave-driver, a whip-cracker. Love will kick you to the ground and watch you spit out a bloody tooth. Then it will laugh at you.

  And you? What are you?

  Or...what am I?

  I’m the idiot.

  Because I stood up again. And I let it hit me again.

  And again.

  Love—now hear me on this one, hear me; please for the love of god, hear me!—Love—is a traitor! Love will make you cry. It will make you scream. It will twist your heart in its gnarly hands and laugh an echoing cackle in your ear while it beats you down on a sidewalk behind an abandoned warehouse.

  Love will hurt you.

  But Love—maybe because it gets more pleasure out of it this way, I don’t know—will also offer you a way out of its grasp... With a smile. It’ll say, Leave me. Don’t love anymore, and the pain will go away...

  Love—The Liar. That Truthful Liar.

  Because the pain might go away indeed—replaced by a thudding dullness no man or woman could possibly bear after having tasted of its Meth.

  But so will the joy go away.

  Love buries itself deep in your vital fluids until, eventually, you cannot live without it.

  Without him.

  Love is riding a rollercoaster with no lap bar.

  Love...is something I thought I would never find, something I didn’t care for, something I didn’t even believe existed.

  It found me.

  It grabbed me. Snatched me. Did what it would with me and then tried to get rid of me.

  But I kept coming back, kept taking more, kept getting my jaw knocked out for it. So then it tried to get away from me.

  And I caught it, bloody mouthed and bleary eyed. I caught that sonofabitch.

  And now I’ll never let it go.

  Even if it kills me.

  Blaze Ryleigh

  PROLOGUE TWO

  THE OTHAH BASTID

  Declan Cox

  “Damned if I thought I’d live to see the day when my girlfriend had to pull a gun on my son’s head to get him off o’ me.” Pops’s eyes are glued to the TV, not even taking a moment out to look up at me—his right shiner still bright and swollen from the one I landed on him two days ago.

  And damned if I thought I’d ever live to see all the insane shit you pulled in the last few days.

  I’m standing at the doorway of his tiny, shitty TV room. Pops’s face glows pale white from the flickering TV. My fists clench. My teeth grind.

  I let the “girlfriend” statement go.

  “So, I’m done,” I say, “I got all my stuff.”

  Pops takes a slurpy sip out of the Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand, stares at the screen. Four other crushed cans lie on the ground next to him. Catalina—the squeeze whose neck I’d like to squeeze—sits languidly next to him, beer also in her hand, probably to chill out her Big C buzz.

  Her legs are erotically placed over pops’s lap while she chills in her robe next t
o him on what was once my couch. Our couch.

  Mom’s couch...

  And mom’s body is barely even cold, you bitch.

  I feel myself getting sick.

  Anthony Fortunato of Auto Wars is cursin up a storm on the tube, in a southern Brooklyn accent second only to pops’s own.

  “You see this other bastard?” When Pops says it, it sounds like othah bastid. He points at the TV. “See what he’s done? It’s not right I tellya. That’s his fuckin auto shop!”

  My eyes flick briefly over to the TV, barely noticing it, then back at pops. “Well, I guess I’ll get outta your way then.”

  Pops says nothing.

  Catalina says, “Close da door on jour way out.” I can almost hear the rest of her words: Or the Beretta I pulled on your ass two days ago is gonna be back at your temple!

  I hang back for half a second, just hoping pops turns and says something...

  He stares at the TV. Says nothing.

  So I leave.

  The last thought in my mind when I close the apartment door is:

  Othah bastid indeed.

  ONE

  HOUSE MARKET

  -1-

  Blaze Ryleigh

  A folded yellow note is stuck on my door. I stare at it, paralyzed for a moment. Thoughts of eviction and raised rent and getting thrown out on my ass pummel me. My right hand trembles beside me. I take in a deep breath, smell the moist brick of my hallway. My spine shivers from the cold.

  Maybe my music’s been too loud. But I’ve been careful to keep it down after ten. Besides, none of the other tenants are gonna complain in Bushwick anyway—too afraid of getting on Mr. Bernstein’s bad side. Little do they know he’s just an old Santa in wolf’s clothing. But I hate letting him down.

  I reach for the note and open it quickly, like ripping a Band-Aid.

  Blaze,

  I’m so sorry, the schmucks pushed me into a corner. I’m selling.

  Please keep it quiet until we talk.

  Sorry. It’s the market. It’s all these darn rezoning laws! They been schmoozing me for over a year. Finally, they gave up on the Mr. Nice-Guy act and put the thumbscrews on me. I’ll come by on Sunday so we can chat. Don’t worry, Blaze—I promised your mama I’d look out for you, and I will.

  Mr. B

  Selling. That means I’ll have a new landlord. That means I’ll need to renegotiate my lease. Which basically means the new owners are gonna throw me out on the street and tear the building down for a new expensive condo—or another hotel, like The King & Grove.

  “Shit.” I stare at the note, as if looking at it will burn the words off and miraculously replace them with friendlier ones. A gust of frozen January air rushes in from a broken window down the hall and chills the shaved side of my head. I sneeze. I crumple the note up and take my groceries inside.

  “Shit,” I say again. “Shit shit shit!”

  -2-

  I grab a can of Amp and Rockstar from the fridge and pop it open, drink half of it. I smack my lips and down another quarter. “Shit,” I whisper. “Fucking shit.”

  The note is dated yesterday—Friday. I must’ve missed him or, more likely, not heard him while House Music bore a deafening hole in my ears. And I failed to see it as I stepped out the house today to go and get some groceries.

  I head to my window and look down at the street. I see Patryk’s graffiti tag next to his masterpiece on the bottom right wall: A colossal Rube Goldberg-Jackson Pollock mix of floating heads with wires coming out of their necks. I laugh, and feel a smile bubble up inside me. I remember sitting on that sidewalk at one A.M., so tipsy that I thought the building would fall on my head, watching him paint that one. Patryk the Painter, we used to call him. That was the same night he sketched out a rough draft of some of the tats for the upper half of my sleeve.

  I remember dancing till three A.M. with my girl Savva on this very street, waving my hand in the air, oblivious to rent, to needing to send money over to Mamah.

  Oblivious to loss.

  Good times. Good times.

  I wipe the stray tear from my eye as I think of her...

  Savva. Only I used to call her that, everyone else called her Savannah.

  Night falls fast. A skateboarder arrives and starts doing flips on the sidewalk. I guess he’ll also be kicked out when the big real estate moves in. When they open Bushwick’s own version of the Wythe Hotel for out-of-towners who don’t know the first thing about art but who “want to experience it firsthand.”

  An acute sadness stings me with its tiny needles. It starts off at my skin but quickly burrows its way into the chambers of my heart.

  And three years have come and gone.

  Three years, and I’m still at the whim and mercy of city zoning laws.

  Three years, and all I have to show for it are two Pioneer CDJ2000 decks, a gazillion MP3s, a Serato Digital DJing license, and endless other DJing gadgets that still haven’t gotten me into the big time.

  Three years, and the dream I had has remained just that: A dream.

  I finish the energy drink, fling it and—score!—three point it into my trash can. I go to the fridge and grab another, sip it slower this time. Then I do what I always do when I’m depressed:

  I slap on my Allen & Heath headphones, crank up the volume to dangerously high levels.

  And I mix.

  -3-

  At some stage I fall asleep...

  Some time past midnight, headphones still on my ears and blaring away, I’m woken up by a buzzing in my jeans pocket. In my half-dream state, I mistake it for a hornet. In a dazed panic I almost throw the iPhone against the brick wall at the other end of my loft, then almost crash my decks by getting up too quickly from the couch behind them.

  The phone buzzes again. I rub my bleary eyes and gingerly ease the expensive headset from my ears.

  Can’t afford a new one, I think. Couldn’t afford a new iPhone either. Who am I kidding? I didn’t even afford the first one! If Patryk hadn’t given it to me—

  Buzz!

  I look at the screen: XAVIER.

  And that just makes me feel sick to my stomach.

  -4-

  “What the fuck?” I whisper to myself. The phone trembles slightly in my hand.

  I almost don’t answer. Almost. “X—Xavier...long time no hear.” I don’t ask him how he is, because I don’t really want to know.

  “You haven’t taken my name off your phone?”

  I don’t comment.

  Judging from the beats I hear in the back, it sounds like he’s at a party. Nothing’s changed. I recognize the song as a Miss Kittin track—Come into my House.

  “Que passa, chiquita?” I hear him sucking on a smoke. “It certainly has been a long time. I wish this was a social call...but I know those days are over.”

  A minor sting. I can live with that.

  “Look, you still mixing up a storm?” he asks.

  “Twenty-four seven.”

  “Still hooking up all that local indie house with Chicago beats and G-Funk Hip Hop and all that eclectic stuff and shit?”

  “Whatever my fingers can touch.”

  “Would you be willing to accept a gig from me...knowing how you feel about the old days? And about us.”

  I could do a gig every night of every week and I still wouldn’t have enough dough to send over to Mamah as well as get a new place. “Business is business. And, Xavier, for the record, I don’t hate you. It just hurts...when I’m with you.”

  “So you still blame me.”

  I sigh out. “Do we really need to do this? No, I don’t blame you. If you must know”—I swallow hard—“I blame myself most of all. Now why did you call?”

  “I hear you. I’m sorry, it’s just been so long since we talked.” his Hispanic accent is coming out stronger now. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you don’t wanna slit my throat before I tell you this next thing. You ready?”

  I sort of feel like a knife’s gonna jump up from behind the door if
I say yes. “Uhm, ready as I can be, I guess.”

  “Now, Blaze, you never gonna believe it, baby, but Xavier got you the gig”—he pauses—“of gigs!”

  That Xavier has called me a year after we last spoke and, of all things, offers me a gig, leaves me slightly confused. “Excuse me?”

  “House Market, chiquita. I got you a chance at House Market! If, of course, you’re interested...”

  I almost see the Pearly Gates themselves open up in front of me and shine their glorious light over my body. “H—House...Market. The House Market? Like, the hottest, baddest, finest underground party in Brooklyn since the Giuliani Dance Party Apocalypse? Randy Dhawan’s baby? That House Market?”

  “Da one and only. Me an’ Randy are like hermanos now. We like brothers, man.”

  So I take it he buys from you. “I see.”

  “Baby, there is so much you don’t know. We really should hang out again sometime”—my throat tightens—“but...yeah...whatever. I know you don’t like my lifestyle choices. So, anyway, there is only problem wit da gig, sugar-pop. Um—”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s kinda running right now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The party, chiquita, like, it’s on...right the fuck now!”

  I listen to the music. The song has changed. I don’t recognize it, which vexes me on a very fundamental level because it sounds like some commercial stuff, and I should know that shit. I should know it backwards if I have any hope of ever making it in this biz.

  Xavier is silent, and I figure it’s probably because he’s letting the news sink in. Three atom bombs: One. He calls after a year. Two. House Market. Three. Tonight. “Xavier, you gonna explain? As far as I know, parties like House Market get booked months in advance.”

  “Tragic story, honey. Tragic story, but in this business, we only look to the love, know what I’m sayin?” He says Love like Lohv.