Not A Second Time

Chapter 10

Cleo’s POV:

It was Allen.

He opened his mouth and I said “It’s too early for your shit,” and slammed the door on him. Shyla comes out of the bathroom with her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.

“Who was it?” she asked. There were more knocks at the door.

“A bitch.”

The knocks turn into pounding followed by Allen yelling “Cleo, let me in! I just want to talk!”

Shyla now understanding yells at him “Did Riplee dump your sorry ass? Is that why your back?”

Tessa comes out of the other bathroom asking “Why are you two yelling I have a killer headache.”

“Allen’s here,” I tell her with no emotion. Her expression turns hard.

“Open that motherfucking door,” she says, pushing her way past me and Shyla. She opens the door and he has a confused look when he sees her. “She doesn’t want you here,” she says.

“I just want to…”

She was not taking his shit. She showed that pretty well to.

She punched him across the face. As he recovers and grabs his jaw, she slams the door on his face. “Hopefully he gets the memo.” We high-five her and we sit on the couch.

“Now what?” Shyla asks.

“Now we watch TV,” I told her, turning on the TV and putting my feet up on the coffee table.

Ringo’s POV:

When we got into the taxi to go to Cleo’s place, for the first time I realized that one of the billboard ads we pass everyday on our way to go see her, she’s on. How did she become so popular so fast? But with looks like that, I guess it’s not hard to get work as a model.

When we got to her apartment complex, I paid the cabbie and we got out. We ran up the stairs and found some guy laying against her door outside her apartment. “Hello?” I ask him as I near him.

He looks up at me. Man, this guy must’ve been beat up. His nose was bleeding pretty badly and he was holding onto his jaw which I was guessing was out of place. “Who are you?” he asks (and I’m surprised I can understand him, he had a thick accent and his misplaced jaw didn’t help) us, looking from me to George.

“I’m Richard and this is George, and who are you?”

“I’m Allen. Allen Banning.”

My eyes widen. This is Allen? Well – I see Cleo’s over him. “You’re Allen?!” I exclaim.

“You’ve heard of me? Are you a friend of Cleo’s?”

I don’t even answer him, I just move him out of the way and knock on her door. “Cleo, will you let me in, it’s Richard.”

The door opens with the lock still in place. It’s Tessa actually. “I’ll let you in once Allen is at least fifty feet away from the door,” she says, shutting the door. George and I turn to Allen at the same time. He looks scared and just gives a cheap smile.

That’s not going to help him.

George and I each take one of his arms and start pulling him away. “Get off me!” he yells. Not very loud, once again, his jaw.

“Nope,” George replies simply.

We go into an elevator and go to the bottom floor, then pushed him out. As he starts to get back in, I wave bye and push the “close doors” bottom and the floor we were once on. “Hopefully we can get there before he climbs the stairs.” I tell George. He only nods.

We get there and look around. No Allen. We knock on the door and Tessa looks out the door to make sure. It closes and reopens, lock gone. “Hurry in,” she orders. George pushes me in and follows.

“Where’s Cleo?” I ask after realizing she isn’t in the living room.

“She’s taking care of the stuff in Allen’s old room.” She replied. “Her and Shyla,” she added, looking at George. All he did was smile a bright smile.

We go down the hall, following Tessa to his room where Shyla and Cleo are going through his stuff and throwing it onto his bed. “What are you guys doing?” I ask as the start going through his drawers.

“We’re going to burn his stuff,” Shyla said. My eyes widen.

“Won’t this entire apartment burn? Along with Cleo’s stuff? Hell, this entire building will burn!”

“Just this part. We made sure of that,” she said, pointing to the fire extinguishers by the door. “We’re just going to burn it enough so that it’s ruined, not so that it’s a crisp. We’ll let it burn for about, a minute or two. Then we’ll put it out. Now, if you don’t mind, can you get stuff and throw it on?”

I shrug and start going through his stuff and throwing it on. We pretty much have it all cleared out except one drawer.

I go to pull it open and it’s locked. “Hey, can someone open this?” I ask, turning to the rest. They all try it and it’s no use.

“Let me try something,” George states. We all clear the way and he picks up a metal box from the bed and smash it against the drawer. It cracks and he pulls it open.

A ton of photos of some blonde girl.

Cleo covers her mouth and whispers “That’s Riplee…” I pick the photos up and go through them, some of them she isn’t modest in. I make a face and throw them on the bed. “He’s a pig.”

Tessa pulls a matchbox out of her pocket. “Bye,” she tells the stuff as she lights it and throws it on. As it begins to burn, they all grab the extinguishers by the door. One is extra, so I grab it to. We count to a few minutes.

A framed picture of him and Cleo is the last to burn. We wait one more minute after that and put it out. Cleo throws hers to the ground and goes to the front door. We all follow her.

She opens the door and Allen is waiting. “Go get your stuff,” she tells him. He opens his mouth to say something else when he smells the smoke.

His eyes go wide. “You didn’t,” he says.

“I did. We did.”

He runs past her and goes to his room.  Hear an angry scream after that and we all laugh.

That is, until he came out furious and heading towards Cleo.

“BITCH,” he yells, going up to her. He slaps her across the face. Hard. She looks back and we all see a red handprint left on her face.

This was enough commotion to get Calvyn out of his apartment. He heads to Allen, but I’m already charging at him, and have him pinned against the wall. He is taller and bigger than me and he can’t even fend me off.

“What did you just do?” I ask him angrily. He actually looks scared for a second when he gets a smirk and pushes me off. That’s when Calvyn came in.

He punched Allen in the face and he falls to the ground. He puts a shoe on his chest and says “Touch her again, and next time, you won’t leave here with all your limbs intact.” He kicks him, drags him out and closes the door, locking it.

He goes to hug Cleo. “Are you okay?” he asks as he pulls her in for a hug.

“I’m fine.” She replies. He smiles and lets go, but I know that tone in her voice.

She’s far from fine.