"One last hit."
I heard those words too often to know this wouldn't be the last hit. There is always another. I always fall for it. I always enjoy it. Then I continued to fall even more in love with him. That was my mistake and that's how I kept ending up in sticky situations that always involved a chase, sometimes handcuffs...and sex. Every time. However, I do it for him. Did it for him. Always.
"Vanessa, please, just one more." He begged me as we walked past a dark empty liquor store. Even though we weren't old enough to drink in the state of New York, it didn't stop us from drinking whenever we could, however we could. That sometimes involved stealing from a liquor store if we never stole from my foster mom's house and his mom's house. We were in a quiet neighborhood, on a dark and empty street, so I knew this was the perfect opportunity for us to succeed. I came to a slow halt and turned around to face him running up to me. He had a grin on his face and grabbed my hand, "I just checked, they closed about an hour ago. So the owners are long gone.
"Yeah?" I asked as I matched his grin. I dropped his hand and folded my arms. "What about cameras? And I don't have my lock-picking kit. We were supposed to be going to your house." He took two steps, reached down into my hair, and pulled out my bobby pin that allowed for my yellow-colored hair to fall onto my shoulders. My focus dropped onto his hands and I watched as he twirled it in my face.
"Go old school." I looked up at him and grabbed the pin from my face. He grinned and held onto my left hand, "As for cameras, there's just one. It's outside and I can handle that." The look of confidence appeared on his face instantly.
I sighed and looked down the empty street. No cars were around and every store was closed. The only illuminance was from the street lights with very few people walking by us in a rush to get home. I was going to cave in and accept the offer, then remind myself that I shouldn't. It's a cycle I couldn't seem to break with him. "Devin, I'm aging out in a month." His smile dropped a bit but continued to stare at me. "I can't make reckless choices anymore. Sandra won't bail me out."
He dropped his hand and played with a strand of my hair. He leaned down so his lips were inches from my ear, "So we won't be reckless." His deep whispers sent shivers down my neck. I rolled my eyes in blissful agony and met his with a gaze. I could feel myself getting sucked into those brown eyes of his. I couldn't resist saying no to them and he knew this. Those eyes were his weapons to use against me.
I wanted to say no, every ounce of my body was saying no. I never listen. "Fine," I mouthed to him. His smile returned bigger and pulled me towards the liquor shop. He stopped me a few feet away from the store so he could examine the camera again. He watched it for a few seconds as it scanned the area. I walked up behind him and folded my arms again, "So how are you handling this? It's recording and if we break it it'll go offline, I'm sure they'll call the cops once they see it." He stood up straight and faced me with a smirk. He tosses his attention back onto the camera and removes his black leather jacket which exposes his nicely toned arms and tattoos.
He had 3 on his left arm: a ship, a sunflower, and some birds flying around. Those were cool looking but my favorite was the one on his right wrist. We had matching tattoos, that we decided to get from a party. Luckily the host of that party had hired a tattoo artist so even though we weren't legal yet to get it, that didn't stop us from paying them. While my tattoo says "You Keep Me Wild" he says "You Keep Me Safe".
Devin always brought me along to do some adventurous shenanigan with him but I made sure that he didn't do anything totally stupid that would get us either killed or arrested. It hasn't worked out all that great since we both got arrested about 5 times together. Luckily our parents continued to bail us out but since I'm turning 18 soon, that isn't going to happen for much longer. My luck is going to end sooner or later. We got those tattoos as a reminder as to why we needed each other and that we wouldn't let anything or anyone take that away from us. Ever.
