https://youtu.be/fGx6K90TmCI

chapter 14. Oh No He Didn't 

before you move onto the chapter that follows please vote and comment. This heavy. So, stay civil in the comment section. 

Reece 

"What is this, Dec?" I asked, him, pulling him into Mom's study that was next to the ballroom. The music was still seeping in from under the door and the cracks in the wall, but at least the chatter was muffled enough that I could hear myself internally shriek. "Why is everyone in black face!?" I externally shrieked.

"Declan, not wearing paint on his face, was sweating a bit. "Dude, I've got no idea."

I slapped myself. "I knew this was a bad ass idea." I grumbled words even I couldn't understand. "smedheget," I said.

"Speak English, brah," Declan said. "When I got here, everyone was wearing paint on their faces."

"And Preston? Edward? Kingsley?" I asked. "Which one of them is u to this?"

"I don't know," he said. "I was too shocked to even ask any questions." He ran his hands through his own hair. "I may seem like a bigot bu-"

"Seem?"

Declan rolled his eyes. "It's a character flaw – but I'm not a stupid bigot," he said. "This isn't college where this was in a frat house. This is at one of the most photographed houses in the US."

"Who sent out the invites?" I asked.

"Preston was in charge of planning it," he said. "Preston always took charge of our parties at the frat."

I sighed, pinching my nose. "Ashley is going to break u with me."

"You know who else is going to break up with you?" Dec asked, hands folded over his chest. I waited for him to answer. "Your money. Your money and your company if this got out into the new media."

Mom was going to eat me alive and then poop me out later, if this got out. "Is anyone snapping? Facebook or Instagram....living? I guess?"

"He shook his head. "From the copy of the invite that I saw when I got here, it was made pretty clear that this was a closed party and filming wasn't allowed."

"Yeah," I snorted, "signs stop everyone from doing stuff."

"Look, we're fine," he said. "We just wait for them to go home, and no one will ever have to know about this."

I sighed. "What am I supposed to do about Ashley?" I asked.

"He's a job, isn't he?" Dec asked. "Say you're sorry. Say you had nothing to do with it. Tell him you like him. Repair your image, the company's, and then let him go play in the sewage of his neighborhood."

"What..." I blew out hot air. "What if I was starting to like-like him?" I asked. Declan's face lit up red. "What if I might marry him for real at the end of all of this?"

"Then you better get ready to be saying sorry a lot, brah," Dec said. "Because your life is very very white, brother. And he's as pro-black as they come."

"I can change," I said. "And so can he."

Declan snorted. "Easier said than done."

Back inside the party, I found myself at a stunning loss. I had no idea how to end this party without pissing off about a hundred trust fund babies, and consequently their powerful families.

I had no idea why they mixed the elegance of a ballroom social event with the ludicrousness of a college black face arty.

I was in the middle, faintly smiling at them, swallowing balls of fire, sweating so much that I felt I might drown in my own sweat.

"Where's Ashley?" I said to myself, and the voice that answered my question, wasn't his.

"He's with Lola," Ashley's friend – the white one – said. He had a note pad stuck between his hands and a pen behind his ears. "Mind if I get a few of your thoughts on the party?"

I sighed, for the billionth time tonight. "Thoughts on what?"

"On how white people like you, make it hard for white people like me?" he asked. "He took the en from behind his ear.

I gawked. He was serious. "You can't seriously be blaming me for the race problem."

"Actually I am serious and seriously am blaming you for the race problem," he responded. "I have worked my entire life to try and bridge the divide between black and whites. I have had seminars, I have written pieces, I have started rallys, invited my fellow white people to have healthy discussions. And every time it seems that we make progress, something like this happens."

"I'm not responsible for this party," I barked. "I wasn't even here."

He raised a brow and wrote something down. "So, you weren't aware that a party was taking place in your mansion?" he queried. "That might not slide when I post this article later tonight."

I went to answer the question, but at the very corner of my eyes, I spot Ashley on the last step of the stairs, talking with...Anna? "Look, take your white guilt and go pester someone else would you?"

"Is that your official response?" he asked.

"No fuck you is," I grumbled. "Ashley!" I started making my way through the crowd.

Both he and Anna snapped their head over to me. I kept my eyes on him. I started walking over some more, pushing people out of the way with faint apologies.

"They're filming," Anna said. When she got to me I didn't know.

I still didn't move my eyes off of Ashley. Even as Anna placed her hands on my shoulders.

"They are filming this, recording us and you better get it together, Reece because if you don't we lose everything."

I finally looked at her and my hands slowly fell to my sides. "I-"

A woman screamed.

Me, Anna and the entire ballroom looked over to see Kingsley on the floor and Ashley's thug brother standing over him.

That Kenzie boy looked down, then up at us, before he stormed outside the ballroom.

Chatter exploded in the hall and I heard Declan shout that it was under control to the goers, as I made my way over to my frat bro. "Kingsley!" I said, bowing next to him. His nose was raining blood, and it was trickling down his chin. "You okay dude?"

"He nailed me, yo." He wiped at his nose. 'I'm going to kill that mother-"

"-I think it would be the other way around," I interrupted, helping him to his feet.

Dec came over and I gave him a 'just ill me' look. "Dec will take you to get cleaned up."

"Any statements now?" Ashley's other friend – the black one with the dreads – asked. He had a camera in my face. Soon, his white friend was next to him.

"You know the best thing about things like this?" Anna asked them both, creeping up beside me.

"What's that?" the black one asked, lowering the camera a bit.

"It's not nearly as black and white as everyone wants to make it out as," she told him, tilting her lips to one side.

She pointed behind us. And standing there was a group of men, two of them black, the other three white. All chatting and laughing away, all with drinks in their hands.

The only problem was, the black men were obviously enjoying their company.

"You run this story of yours, about how white people are awful and are having a black face party, then you better run how not only white people were enjoying themselves," Anna said. "And something tells me that Erika is as hypocritical as she seems, and will not run a story that highlights black-on-black racism."

Pete clenched his jaw. "Enjoy the rest of your racist party." Then he slipped away through the crowd.

Anna looked behind me, her eye trailing upward, like she was tracing the ceiling. "I'll be back," she said. 'in the meantime, maybe try and get all these people out of here, without causing a scene."

She trailed off, and I stared outside at Kenzie, who was pacing back and forth on the porch.

I know I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't go out and talk to him, but my feet didn't listen and began walking toward him.

And when I approached, he stopped the acing, and the nail biting, and stared at me through his locks. "Is there a problem?" he asked in an air tight voice.

"You sorta just punched a friend of mine," I said.

"He in blackface," he said, incredulous. "And you defending him?"

"I'm not defending him, I'm just saying," I replied. "I don't know what this feels like bi-."

"Cut the white guilt, white boy, he said, slicing through my words. "I'm not as gullible as my little brother. All of you the same."

"No we're not," I said. "All of us aren't the same. We aren't bees or ants, this isn't a collective hive mind that dictates to us how to act and forces us to see black people all the same way. You shouldn't see us all the same way either."

Kenzie snorted. "You really wanna argue over race with me, right now while these people partying in your house with black face, my man?" he warned. "Don't get me more upset than I already am. The only reason I ain't start throwing no punches and knocking Caucasian fools back to the Civil War period is because Ashley told me not to."

"Okay, just keep the anger under wraps for hi then?" I asked. "Just until I can end this thing without anyone being hurt.

Kenzie's jaw clenched. "You got thirty minutes," he said. "After that I'm not sure which way the Holy Ghost will lead me."

I almost chuckled at that. "Okay." "I'm sure I can keep you calm for thirty minutes," I said.

How hard could that be?

"Reece." That was Preston's voice. I turned to him. His face was still black. He looked over at Kenzie and sneered. "Of course you're out here with one of them."

"What you say, brother?" Kenzie asked, stepping forward.

Oh, boy.

Ashley 

"I'm confused."

"It's been a long night," Erika said, taking a seat on the night stand.

Lola had unlocked the doors to a room and it had lead into a bedroom with an incredibly huge photo of Mrs. Red adorned in furs and jewelry hanging over a king sized bed.

"So," I said leaning against the door. "What's going on?"

"I'm the one responsible for the black face party," Erika said.

Lola, hands folded, standing next to Erika, did not flinch. So, I flinched for her, by bouncing off of the door, and snail-trailing my way over to them both. "I'm sorry?"

Lola raised her hand up, wiggling her fingers to get my attention. "When Reece gave his friends the authority to have a party at his place, they came to me to plan it. After a few ideas were thrown around, they settled for a black tie event, but the blonde one – Presto – or whatever, thought it would be hilarious if they pranked Reece one last time by making the party a blackface party, since he's engaged to a black guy."

I folded my arms. "That doesn't explain how Erika is involved."

"I, initially, wanted to part in it," Lola continued. "I told Preston as much, and phoned Erika to - as us black women do – discuss how disgusted we are with the male sex."

Erika raised her hand this time. "Then I got an idea. If they did have the blackface arty, they'd have to turn off the mansion cameras, just to be secure that there wasn't any leaked footage of a bunch of white people being blatantly racist."

"So," Lola took off, taking off the block jacket and revealing her arms, "I allowed the party to go on. I didn't change the theme, I sent out the invites, I came, I acted outraged that they went through with it, I got Kenzie to punch a guy to incite a diversion to get you u here, where Erika was waiting."

"Been here all night," she said. "I didn't even trust explaining anything over the phone, in the rare case someone was listening in on the call."

"That explains the music in the background," I mumbled. "What's the end game?" I asked. "Are we filming them and busting them?"

"No," Erika said. "Somewhere in this house, there has to be letters, a computer maybe, with records of the events surrounding my father's death and your father's arrest." She seemed to levitate off of the night stand "The Reds got there buddy off for killing my father, and they got your father wrongfully arrested for self-defense after that cop tried to use lethal force."

"The house cameras are all deactivated," Lola said. "We can move freely without being detected. In and out."

"Where to begin?" I asked them both, more so Lola. "This place is huge."

"In here," Lola said. "Mrs. Red is smart. She's not going to give that information to anyone but her lawyers, the corrupt police she paid off, and her husband."

"Where is her husband?" I asked. "Reece as yet to mention his Dad."

"She's says he's recovering from his last psychotic break in a disclosed location," Lola told us. "He's been diagnosed with dementia and has been acting erratically."

"So, what are we looking for," I asked. I wasn't in the mood to chase after ghosts.

"Pictures, folders, anything that looks like it might have something to do with the arrests," she said. "And then we give it to Wikileaks, and allow then to expose it to the public, ensuring the dramatic fall of not just Mrs. Red, but the entire Red brand name."

I stood pretty still. "This...is some heavy stuff." Heavier than I imagined it would be. It would be less stressful to put an actual house on my back. "Are we actually going to destroy the Reds?" I asked. I was second-guessing now, after being so sure all night.

"They are having a black face party downstairs and you don't want to destroy them?" Lola asked.

"They are having one because you goaded them," I said.

"To Catch A Predator goads pedophiles into arrests too," Erika replied. "We didn't force them to come to the party; they did by their own free will."

I huffed, "Fine," I grumbled.

I looked over at the desk that Mrs. Red had tucked neatly into a corner of her room, on top of a stunning red rug, fluffy and soft-looking.

Next to it stood a wall that was made up of a shelf of books. It extended from the ground, and went half straight up to the roof.

We started reaching the room, Erika by the bed, Lola by the laptop on a dresser and I, by the stack of books, taking one out, flipping through and putting it back.

"So," I said, as I went to the row I had selected, "Motive, huh."

Erika took a minute to respond. "I'm not afraid of cops, Beautiful," she said. "They were at my house, sure, to ask a few questions, but I don't think they have any substantial other than I was one of the black people at the party, and had written at length about how truly awful Jasmine."

I took out another book and flipped though, pages sounding like a bird taking off. "You should still be careful," I said. "They can still get you."

"I am being careful," she said.

Footsteps tapped lightly on the carpeted floor, and soon, Lola was beside me, staring up at the bookcase. "There are hundreds of books here," she said. "You can't hope to find anything inside of them."

I sighed. "Well, what am I supposed to do then?" I asked. "Besides, maybe one of these books opens up to a secret room."

"Don't be an asshole," Lola mumbled. "These white people crazy, but not that crazy."

I took another book off the shelf and snorted out a laugh.

But then the case squeaked and they caved in backward, parting itself at the middle like the front doors, revealing a room in the back of the Mrs. Red's bookshelf.

And inside the room, there was another, secret, darkly lit bedroom. And Mr. Red was fast asleep inside the bed.

"Crazy ass white people," I mumbled.

Reece 

"Can't believe you're doing this bruh," Preston shouted.

"You better control yo friend," Kenzie warned. "Before I get to spraying bullets."

I swallowed and looked at Preston as seriously as I could. I don't think he knew the danger he was actually in right now. "Pres, you gotta calm down, line brother."

"I don't have to do shit!" he shouted. "That animal punched Kingsley in the noise!"

"He was provoked," I said. "Look, Kingsley is fine, you're fine, we're all fine." I rested a small hand on his shoulder, as light as a feather. Preston brushed it off.

"We aren't fine!" he yelled. "None of this is fine!"

"Shut your mouth, white boy," Kenzie warned. His hands were in his back pocket, he was biting his bottom lips pretty freaking hard.

"I won't shut up!" Preston shouted.

"You will, Pres," I said. "You're gonna be quiet, dude."

Preston looked at me like I had just slapped his mother. "You're choosing that thing over us?" he spat and saliva hit my face, burning my skin like it was corrosive. He looked over at Ashley and then back at me, face burning red. "You choose that....that....."

Don't

you

dare

say

it

Preston's mouth twitched. It was right at the tip of his tongue. And it looked like he would have stopped himself for a moment, but he didn't.

"You disrespect us..."

His lips parted, his eyes, narrowed, his jaws clenched, his fist balled, my heart pounded and my eyes closed shut. I heard Ashley call my name. I reopened them. 

Then time went slowly, before coming to a complete stop. Then it came all at once. 

"Us for that-"