Masked Thunder

CHAPTER 3

MARILYN GREEN’S POV

“A few months now. I also get swollen ankles when I stand for too long. I urinate all the time and I'm always hungry… It's exhausting!” I said, letting my mouth loose like a torn bag and spilling all the ways I felt my body had been betraying me.

“I know you have added a little bit of weight, but I thought it was because you're grieving the end of the relationship with that fool, and that you'd be fine soon… But no. I was wrong…” Barbs said, throwing her arms in the air and sighing a little deeply.

“What are you saying? What do you guys think is wrong with me…” I started to ask, but Patty shut me up by putting up her index finger in front of me.

“What is your current bra size, Marilyn?” She dropped the million-dollar question and all my friends and I gasped in shock. It was a sworn secret between us as girlfriends, a fact we used randomly in chat rooms online and at physical parties, to know if we were in fact talking to each other or a catfish digging for secrets to use for blackmail.

I guess my life as a young female adult was the absolute gutter. I shifted on the sofa, suddenly feeling claustrophobic and crowded by how closely they stared at me. I stood up from the sofa and stood at the center of the sitting room so everyone could see me as I hesitated and thought strongly about lying to my best friends at that particular moment.

“38C,” I said in a near whisper. There was confusion as my girls were not sure if they'd heard me properly.

“I sure as hell didn't hear s**t! What'd you say, girl?” Danica asked dramatically, displaying more of the black woman in her.

“Thirty… Thirty-eight Ceee!” I said loudly with my eyes tightly shut. I heard the collective gasp and absolute silence that followed it. The silence was deafening. I could hear every single sound my heart made when she beat, and it was very unsettling.

“Something’s burning, Azalea!” Barbs said, and Azalea hurriedly turned the electric flat-top stove off at the socket. She reached up and placed her right hand on her chest and the left on her belly.

“Sorry, babes. This information is definitely a shocker to us all,” Danica said, walking over to hold Azalea in the kitchen.

“I still don't think it's anything though. Just some post-breakup weight gain… Right?” I said in a forced cheerful voice, but nobody smiled back at me.

“What happened between you and that blue-eyed fella at the club after we left that night, Marilyn?” Patty asked firmly but kindly.

“That was almost five months ago. Why are you asking me this again? I said we parted ways after he paid for my room at the Landmark Hotel. That's all.” I said, watching my left hand twitch in that tell-tale way that always accompanied my lying.

They stared pointedly at me until I had to sit and start narrating the story of how my boobs had gone from 32C to 38C in a little over five months.

Frederick Hofstadter's POV

CBGB, New York City, 1999

I was young, and it was possible for me to be delusional about one day making it big in sports. I had never been allowed out on the soccer field except as a last minute substitute in order to buy time for the match to end favorably for the Silver Wolves of Tristan High. And somehow, I would still mess that up.

I think that it was easier for me to be able to be so bad at soccer because I knew that I'd take over CRIMCO as the CEO once I graduated from college and got my Masters.

Aaron was better though. My best friend of all time. He was African-American, and had his head in the game. He was made captain of the soccer team from first-year student year after tryouts. He was one of the reasons that most of the others were nice to me. Well, that, and the fact that I was the son of a multi-billion dollar company, CRIMCO, a marketing firm built by my fourth great granddad.

My dad basically funded the school, so I had it easy. Maybe a little too easy, because we walked in through the doors laughing loudly and sharing disgusting man jokes. Why did it feel an electric shock when my eyes picked up the most gorgeous woman that I'd ever seen?

Her hair was a beautiful brown with golden highlights that looked very stylish, and the eye-lined wings on the corners of her eyes gave her face more lift, so she looked like a sexy tiger on the prowl. Her lips were wet and puckered while she danced. Full, pink lips that were definitely smoke-darkened so that they were a fierce pinkish purple. But she didn't seem to even have noticed me.

My guys talked and downed several bottles of alcohol. Then the weed plug came over to the VIP section with grams of m*******a, and I rolled a blunt because I wanted to feel calm enough to watch the goddess, which made me question my damn reality.

There were all five of them, but she shone brightest to me. Her aura alone made me feel sucked into another universe. A time that was tangible but also as unreal as the concept of time itself. I watched every move, every dance step.

After a while, the darker friend, with a great smile, noticed how intensely I stared at her friend, and called her attention to me. She turned immediately, and I felt my heart beat accelerate as she seemed to briefly capture my features with her soulful eyes. It was a brief, yet delicious moment for me.

I sat comfortably, completely ignoring my teammates as my eyes followed the way her dress clung to the upper part of her body. I noticed every single thing about her. She was a little far from me, but I felt like I could smell her if I inhaled deeply enough.

It was apparent to me that she just really wanted to forget something or someone. She downed shot after shot of Tequila, and then Vodka and limes. Her drinking started to make me worry. But I waited patiently with bated breath like a predator lying in plain sight but under camouflage.

When her eyes met mine again, I felt like she wanted me but could never bring herself around to accepting it. I stayed patient though; watchful too.

“Where's your head at, bro? Why aren't you here with us? We freaking won, my gee! Stop sitting on the sidelines and enjoy yourself, my gee,” Aaron pulled me aside to say.

“But that's where I am always though…” I started to say, deeply in my feelings.

“Hell no, bro! I'm sorry, but you can't say that. You and I both know that you are an amazing player. Coach Sanders always just has it out for you because he thinks you're on the team because of nepotism issues. He's a d**k!” Aaron promptly interrupted me to say. I looked at him with warm eyes.

Aaron and I both knew that he always blamed Coach Sanders to me as a ploy to make me feel better about myself. He and I both knew that I was trash when it came to soccer. I was so grateful for my best friend, that I gave him a deep hug.