I woke up looking up at the living room ceiling as we were supposed to be watching reruns of "Back to 1989" on Viki. Meanwhile, Fei is across from me stretched out on the couch in a deep slumber, what can I say the woman is absolutely determined. The dream shows me that I have to make a decision on whether to tell him or not, Aquila worked hard for this moment to come when his brother has to pay for his sins. I take my phone out of my pocket and I see that it's nine thirty in the evening. As soon as his name comes up on my screen, my hand clicks on his name and the phone begins to ring until he picks up the phone saying, "Hello, who is this?"
"Hello. It's Kemille."
"Oooh, really? To what do I owe the pleasure?"
A small chuckle escapes from my lips, "I have something important to tell you, so I was wondering if you are available to meet with me at the Fruit Republique on Stuyvestant Ave in Union, NJ."
"Union, why so far?"
"Because, I need to tell you in a place where I know that Quinton cannot interfere."
"Where Quinton cannot interfere? What do you mean by this?"
"Are you going to come or not?" I said, getting impatient.
"Okay, I'll be there, don't bite my head off."
"Great, so then I'll see you there— around lunch time. That's good for you?"
"It's good so I'll meet you there around twelve thirty in the afternoon."
"Awesome. So I'll see you then Lucas. Good night." Just as I'm about to hang up the phone he then says, "That's it? Just make a call for an appointment, nothing else?"
"Not really. Nothing I can really think of right now, but I am feeling kind of drowsy, so I'm gonna call it night."
"Alright, sweet dreams can't wait for tomorrow. I kinda have something to say to you too."
A small yawn escapes from my mouth, "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow twelve thirty."
He says with what I imagine to be a smile on his face, "Yeah, I remember." Removing the phone from my ear and hanging up the phone.
I turn to face Fei who is looking at me with her eyes open and she says, "Who was that just now?"
"I was setting up a smoothie date with Lucas."
She sits up quickly, "Oh my gosh, are you serious? Things are progressing quite nicely between you two."
Looking down and then looking up as a small chuckle escapes from lips, "Not exactly, Just going to go talk to Lucas about six months ago."
"Making strides, I'm proud of you, especially since you decided to finally stand up to that crazy bastard and his goone–" she shifts on the couch, "oh my gosh, what's his name again?" The room fills up with laughter and I say "Ansel."
"What the fuck, kind of name is that?" Fei says while smiling.
A chuckle escapes from my mouth, "I don't know, his parents named him that,'' Changing the subject, "since I'm off tomorrow I have to find a way to tell him this information without Quinton finding out that I've decided to tell Lucas everything. So I've arranged for us to meet at Fruit Republique in the afternoon." She cuts me off saying while sitting on the edge of the couch leaning forward, "Oh the one on Stuyvesant Avenue in Union?"
"Yeah. It's one of my favorite smoothie spots around."
"Yeah, I love that spot, but then again that's not a bad place to take a date to."
A smile forms on my face, "Oh okay, sis got herself a hot date, who is she?"
"Well— her name is Artemis and she lives here, just moved into the apartment upstairs from us."
A small gasp escapes from my mouth, "Wow, so I take it that you guys met— where on the elevator?"
"Actually we met while she was unloading her boxes onto the elevator. As you know I came in from work and when I saw her I felt the need to at least take a chance and shoot my shot. When we were talking we had a lot of chemistry, which I thought was something so I asked her out on a date."
"I'm happy that you took your chance, did you guys exchange phone numbers?"
"Yes we did, but just so you know I'm not the only one who shot their shot today."
"In all fairness, he offered his phone number to me, and I just made a phone call tonight to meet with him. Plus it's for the good of my sanity and that I wanna talk to him."
"True. But looking at you guys, y'all have good chemistry."
"We do, but I don't wanna get my hopes up too much. Now we kind of have some buds growing. Why don't we get out a tub of ice cream and watch our favorite show, "Fall in Love with me." Oh, I just love Aaron Yang in that show." She laughs and nods her head, I get up from off the couch and walk over to the refrigerator to get the ice cream as Fei looks through Viki to put on "Fall in love with me". For the rest of the night Fei and I spent the entire night laughing and talking until we tired ourselves to sleep.
I walk up to the cash register of Fruit Republique and order an Acai energy smoothie, which I have to say is my favorite. Although I should take the time to try some other smoothies from this place another day– another time. Staring at my phone looking for a text message from Lucas, the barista says, "Excuse me Miss, your drink is ready." Looking up from my phone, "Thank you," I say while grabbing my drink and I find a place to sit down in the corner of the store to wait.
The doorbell chimes to announce that someone has arrived into the store. I grab my drink to take a small sip and look up— there is Lucas standing in front of the door, taking off his sunglasses as if he's an actor in an action pack movie. I take a small sip of my smoothie and I say, "I never took you for being overly dramatic."
"You know I've lived in New Jersey all my life and I'venever once heard of this place." He says walking over to me.
"Yeah, well in the past when I was going to school I lived here for three years."
He places his hand on the back of the chair, pulling it out, "So, two things: what's good in here and what do you have for me?" Lucas sits down on the chair, slightly leaning over the table clasping his hands on his side.
My eyebrows quickly moved up and down, "Very well then. But I suggest getting your first," he nods his head, "Try the Açaí energy, it's good. I think you'll like it."
He gets up from his chair to place his order, Lucas comes back to his seat. "So, tell me about what happened. How did you get caught up in all this?"
A small breath of air escapes from my lips, "Six months ago, my first love came to pay me a visit; he told me he had a solid plan to trap his twin brother Quinton."
He squints his eyes, "Are you talking about Aquila?" Looking up to see the juice barista handing Lucas his smoothie. He looks up at the barista, "Thank you," The barista nods his head and heads back to the island.
Continuing our conversation, "Yes. You see his plan was sound proof, he was going to use me as bait to distract Quinton from what his true goal was. Aquila's goal was this to get him to admit to all of his sins. Not just his current ones; when we were kids, Aquila told me that he assaulted this girl and sometime later she committed suicide."
His eyebrows furrow, "How does that tie in with him, it's sometime later."
"Lucas, that girl's name was Aimee Weiss, Quinton mangled her face; according to Aquila she didn't look the same there after, thus she killed herself because she couldn't stand to be ugly anymore."
"Okay, now how did Aquila end up dead or even removing you entirely from the case? From what I'm understanding you were questioned once or twice out of the whole investigation."
"Yes, it was his promise to me that he would keep me out of the whole thing whether he died or not."
"Here's two questions: what did he plan to do and what is he to you?"
A small chuckle escapes from my lips, "I see you have a jealous streak in you. He was my first boyfriend, for the last six months I blamed myself for what happened to him. You see Aquila was going to handle the whole thing by telling him that he was going to make a move on me. He was trying to get a rise out of him about me to get his brother to omit his wrongs."
"Hold on, is this guy a cop or an agent because what he did was not even safe."
"Let me ask something Lucas, if he came to you for help and he told you what happened, would you have at least given the case some attention?"
He shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know, I would wonder if there is any truth to his allegation."
"In short you wouldn't help him, because of lack of hardcore evidence. He did it on his own for that reason, Aquila was going to get the hardcore evidence that you guys needed by using me and then telling him that he would leave me alone if Quinton told him about Aimee and his countless other sins."
"Yeah, he got nothing and he's dead." He uncomfortably shifts in his seat, "That was disrespectful of me."
"No, you… you were speaking your mind. But look, I can't do this without you Lucas even if I tried I'll just end up like Aquila and his case will continue to be unsolved."
"You have a point there, it wouldn't be wise of you to address him yourself." He stretches his hand out to place his hand over mine. "I'm happy that you told me and clearly Aquila's death isn't in vain. I'll make sure to get his brother for you, now I need to know one thing; has he threatened you or did you let him know about this meeting?"
"He has threatened me, he told me that if I tell you about six months ago he was going to kill you so that I would feel guilty about Aquila and you. No lie, I was hesitant in the beginning to tell you because of that but then my friend reminded me that you're a cop you've handled things like this before and to let you handle it."
He nods his head saying, "I'm glad you decided to trust me. I will catch Quinton and I can guarantee that I'll catch him even if it's the last thing I'll do."
With my arms propped up on the table I slightly lean in saying, "Are you trying to sound heroic?"
He meets me halfway, "Maybe?— Is it working?"
I lean back into my chair, "Maybe, how do you like your smoothie?"
"It's good, I like it. Since we had this little get together, are we still on for Saturday night?"
"Yes. Wouldn't miss it for the world."
A small chuckle escapes from his lips, "Okay. Thank you for taking me here. It's a spot to remember, the smoothie was really delicious."
I begin to grab my things, and stand up from my seat and begin to head out to catch the bus.
Lucas then lightly grabs my hand and says "Whoa, are you leaving?"
Nodding my head, "Yeah, I've got to the ninety four runs up here and I don't wanna miss my chance to catch the bus."
He stands up from his seat, "Well since I'm here you have no need to catch the bus. I'll drop you off at home."
"So you don't have a big proceeding in court to get to?"
"No, not that I know of."
I nod my head, it wouldn't be bad to catch a ride with him. He breaks my thoughts, "So, are you going to catch a ride with me or catch the bus?"
A small smile creeps its way to my face, "Yes, I'll take the ride back home."
"Well alright follow me."