4 | Dangerous games

"Sixty degrees from your right!" The chirpy voice of Logan booms through the microphone in my ear and I grit my teeth. He gets this excited every Thursday night when it's time to play the midnight game and honestly, it is exasperating. 

But then who wouldn't be excited when you are buying weeds.

I go over the faces of the people on my right that is being illuminated by the blue and green lights of the club. It is difficult to recognize someone and the club's atmosphere is completely different on a Thursday night too. 

People are actually talking in light whispers instead of loud discussions and arguments. Slow electronic music is playing in the background instead of blaring rap songs. There isn't any hot and sexy and almost naked woman dancing in the middle, but, wait.

There is a hot and sexy but not dancing girl sitting at the corner all by herself.

Her eyes meet mine once they feel my stare. They are dark, dark like the midnight sky, and I almost drown in those huge orbs. They reflect the blue and green lights of the club and look back at me with such an intensity that it is hard to look away.

She doesn't even blink once. Slowly she brings the glass of red wine near her plump glossy lips and sips. The red liquid drops down her chin but she licks it clean with her tongue.

Instinctively, I gulp and blink at which she smiles and flicks her jet black hair over her shoulder. I notice two bodyguards standing by both of her sides. Rich daddy's girls are always trouble. I bring my attention back to the task at hand.

After five more minutes of searching, I finally find the four men I was looking for.

"Found them," I whisper through the mic to Logan.

He gives me the basic instructions for my behavior which he tells me every time I come for this 'other' job of mine.

I walk towards them with my chin held high. As I get closer to them, their appearance becomes more conspicuous. I have dealt with them two months ago and they are still as burly as ever. I see them laugh over something and not surprisingly though, but their teeth are as yellow as they've ever been.

I know how much Logan pays them for weed. The least these f*ckers can do is get a dental appointment. Their breath must be stinking as always too. No wonder why Logan makes me do all of his dirty work. Especially this fourth one.

The soberest man out of those four, Adam, is the first to notice me. He alerts his partners and they give up drinking. Except for Clay.

Clay, or Cranky Clay as I like to refer him, is that boy whom Charlie saw me beating once. He's in his early twenties judging by his absurd behavior and nonsensical attitude and shitty body build.

"Look who's here," the mentioned cranky person drawls as he pours some more whiskey in his glass.

"Take the money, give the weed. I'll be gone before you know it," I dictate rather sternly and forward the money towards Adam.

Adam is the only one of these four who doesn't irritate me and doesn't stray from the task. He asks me to sit with them and have a drink but I politely decline with a curt nod.

"Mind your attitude, mister shirt, and tie." Cranky Clay drawls once again and I see a spray of golden strewing out of his mouth.

I'm glad I'm not too close to him.

I clench my fist and grit my teeth at his audacity to talk to me like that but I remember the instructions of Logan and ignore him. Clay should be grateful I didn't break his jaw permanently.

"This isn't enough," Brent, the man sitting next to Adam, tells me and grabs the wad of cash from his hands, and begins counting once again.

"This is what you get after that stunt your partner," I glare at Clay the Crank, "Clay pulled last time by spilling the entire glass of wine over the money."

"The f*ck did you just say?" Clay slams his glass on the wooden table. "The nerve of you, asshole!"

Within a second, the cranky drunk f*cker jumps from the other side of the table over to me. But he, owing to his drunk state, lands flat on his face. His nose was to be smashed by me anyways.

I snatched the packets of weed from Adam's hand and dash out of the club at my full speed. The midnight girl once again comes into my view. She looks at me and shakes her head with .... disappointment? 

What did I do to her?

However, I reach the exit and suddenly a glass gets thrown at me from behind but due to the wrong aim, I assume it must be from that f***ing Clay, it hits the wall on my left instead of me and shatters. One of its pieces hits my forehead but I run straight to the blue Ferrari outside.

"Filius canis," (son of a bitch) I swear in Latin out of habit and hop inside the car, and Logan dashes down the road. 

"Well that was easy," Logan chuckles.

I shrug and throw his treasured prize in the back seat. Loosening my tie, I sit back and try to relax for a while. Whenever I'm extremely angry, Latin curses come flying out of my mouth as if it were my first language, which it technically is and is not.

When I finally feel light, my stomach growls with hunger since I haven't eaten anything since morning. Logan laughs once again.

"Wanna eat somewhere?" He asks giving me the money I earned today for bearing that f*cking Clay and his partners.

"Just drop me at Grandé. Sierra's there. I'll grab a takeaway on my way to the apartment." I shove the wads of cash in my pocket and rest my head on the window. The money still sticks out because of its quantity.

"And that reminds me that Mom was asking of you and so was Aunt Mary. Do meet her sometime. You know how much she cares for you." He tells me, focusing on the road in front.

I just nod in reply. Logan's mother doesn't like me much for some reason unknown. Maybe because I spent three years at her castle. But it shouldn't have been a problem for a rich lady when feeding a poor. So I moved out of her castle the second day I turned eighteen.

However, the sister of Mrs. Sofia Thompson, Aunt Mary genuinely likes me as her own son. She doesn't have kids of her own and runs a boutique and is frequently found at Logan's home. For another reason unknown, I also see a motherly figure in her.

Once I reach my own apartment, I shut the door behind me with one hand and hold the pizza in the other. Everything is just as I left it in the morning. Dirty dishes in the sink, clothes lying on the floor waiting for laundry, blankets falling from the bed, and the open window from where cold air is rushing inside.

I close the window and settle comfortably on the couch, ready to devour the extra cheese pizza.

The white blank walls of my one-room apartment stare at me. I have grown used to them in the past nine months. Now I feel like peeking inside my soul.

Blank, hollow, nothing.

In this one-room apartment, there's a kitchen-like open place on the left, a king-sized bed in the middle of the right wall, television and couch in the center of the room, a fireplace beside the window, and a spacious bathroom.

Logan has hung a frame on one of these empty walls right beside the kitchen. It was taken on his birthday. There is seventeen years old me standing with him, his parents, and Aunt Mary. It isn't really bad so I decided to let it stay there. 

I pick up the second last slice of pizza when the doorbell rings. I swear I hate Logan more than any kid we've ever beaten for disturbing me even at midnight. When I open the door, I am shocked to the core.

It is midnight. 

I mean that rich girl from the club.

She's still in the same attire. And now that she's standing right in front of me, I check her out quite shamelessly. My eyes travel down her petite figure, the black mini dress hugs her at all the right places like a second skin. Then, down to her long, bare, and shiny legs that are on full display. I look back at her makeup plastered face. Her plump lips curl in a seducing smile as she watches me take her in. I bet she enjoyed every second of it.

"I'm Loraine."

She lets herself inside and scans the apartment for a second then settles on the couch, right at the spot where I was sitting earlier.

"You can shut the door and come in," she commands and her tone is so bossy yet so sexy.

I shut the door, not because she ordered so, but because I was about to do it anyway. I bite the inside of my cheek and look at her pensively.

Who is she and who the f*** she thinks she is?

"I saw you at the club tonight," she began just before I was going to ask her. "Clearly you were bored and just when I thought you're going to create some excitement, you ran out of the place. I was so disappointed."

She clicks her tongue and shakes her head as if I actually care. What the f*ck does she wants from me?

"So I thought that maybe," she grabs the last slice of pizza and bites and moans. "Maybe the two of us could do something exciting tonight."

First, I scoff. Then I laugh. I laugh so hard that tears spring into my eyes. I wait for her to say that she pulled a prank or dare. But she just sits there, without any care, and eats my pizza.

"Aren't you scared of me?" I walk towards her, unbuttoning my shirt.

"My guards are standing right outside that door. I scream once and they barge in and kill you." She looks at me with a sudden temptation.

"You'll be screaming my name yourself," I tell her stepping closer to her.

"But first, clean that blood on your forehead. It looks horrible."

My brows reach my hairline with surprise but I clean it and put on a band-aid. Then I play the midnight games once again. This time with the Midnight.