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yaachtynoboat711 · 12 days ago

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*kicks feet and squeals* they been so down bad for each other and I LOVE IT

Hot

Summary: Patrice thinks Terry looks...different when he returns from a Summer in New Orleans.

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Black!OC (Patrice Ellis)

Word Count: 3.2K

Warnings: None

The summer before senior year was a scorcher. Every inch of Fayetteville felt blanketed in stifling, burning heat and humidity so thick that walking through six feet of pool water was easier than going outside to the mailbox.

For four weeks, Patrice spent the dog days lounging beneath her ceiling fan rotating at full speed, enjoying a good book and spirited hours-long phone conversations with her best friend to beat the heat. Not out of necessity, despite the breath-stealing grip of sweltering heat greeting her each time she got too close to the front door, but because her right-hand man had gone further south for the season.

No amount of late-evening phone calls taken in his grandmother's upstairs guest bedroom or Facebook pokes sent back and forth could make up for Terry's absence. Typically, he'd board a short flight to New Orleans, live like a local for ten days, then hustle back up the southeast to return in enough time for pre-season conditioning. Maman and a host of cousins looking to brighten the matriarch's day were convincing enough to pull Terry away from the comforts of homes one and two for longer than he wanted. Sure, Granny was happy, but the young lady eagerly awaiting the loud trill of her cell phone every night after 6:00 pm local time was difficult not to miss.

Patrice might say the same if she weren't still denying her feelings to anyone bold enough to ask prying questions. Everyone except Napheesa Garland. She got the brunt of all Patrice's pining, whether she wanted to hear love-sick sentiments or not.

On the other end of a phone call already running well past an hour, Napheesa chuckled at her friend's third deep sigh of the evening. "Girl, you have got to get it together. He's literally just Terry. You know how long I've known Terry? His head was big in middle school, and he looked like he was two grades younger than us. That's how long I've known Terry."

"I bet he was so cute," Patrice sighed, the smile in her voice evident through the receiver. She turned on her back to look up at the ceiling and admire her fresh bubblegum pink pedicure. "I can just imagine a smaller Terry and that cute little smile."

"The more you talk, the less I'm convinced you don't like him," Napheesa accused.

"I don't," Patrice corrected, her voice climbing guiltily. "I just wanna see what he was like!"

Napheesa kissed her teeth. "Well, today's your lucky day. Check your phone."

A soft vibration against Patrice's face sent her into a tizzy. Her fingers rushed to transfer Napheesa to speaker so she could view her friend's message and keep the conversation going simultaneously. Her thumb eagerly tapped at the unread message before a cheery smile morphed into a confused front.

"Yeesh," she vocalized as she turned the phone upside down, searching for any angle to turn the unsightly yearbook photo into something worth seeing.

Against a blue background, Terry of yore posed, almost grimacing at the camera. He looked caught between a wince and a frown, his brows knitted in the same muted anger often etched into his facial expressions when he didn't feel entirely comfortable in his surroundings. Small, raised red bumps peppered his cheeks and forehead. A long stripe of hair in desperate need of loving hands and hot argan oil curled amid sides cut to highlight his curled mohawk. She'd seen Terry with crust in his eyes and ashy from whipping winds after a late fall football game. This Terry, young and awkwardly grimacing at the camera, was as much a stranger as random patrons in a grocery store.

Patrice zoomed closer. "Wow. A mohawk, huh?"

"That he barely kept cut," Phee laughed. "All the boys had one. And all the boys looked dumb as hell."

"I think it's kind of cute. Look at that attempt at a smile." Clear and present flaws slowly transformed into a host of adorable, unique features she would search for on his face the next time she saw him.

Those bushy brows and hazel-green eyes hadn't changed a bit. Patrice chalked the rest up to puberty working overtime to match the internal with the external.

"You're sick, P. Like really out of your mind." Phee's accusation came with a deep sigh as if she was disappointed in her friend's inability to say a bad word about her half-best friend/half-boyfriend.

Patrice giggled. "I'm a hopeless romantic! Is it not my job to see the best in my man."

"Today, he's your man, but as soon as he's standing directly in your face, you act like you can't speak up. A lie don't care who tell it," Napheesa rebutted.

It didn't matter how close the words crept to the tip of her tongue when they spent the end of their nights together talking about nothing and everything at the same time or how many times she'd started a text message spilling her guts only to delete every word to share some meaningless tidbit for his prompt response. Patrice couldn't say how she felt yet. One day. Just not now.

As she prepared to explain herself for the thousandth time, stilted beeps on her line alerted her to an incoming call. The contact name, TJ :), lit the screen beneath a digital clock reading just after 6:00 pm. "Oh, hold on, Terry's calling. Don't hang up."

Ruckus receded into a low hum after a shutting door sealed Terry into his shared room for the summer. "What's up, Treece," he greeted, his speech carrying more drawl than Patrice remembered at the end of the school year. A bed creaked under his weight in the background. "My bad for not texting back earlier. I was fishin' and guess I lost track of time."

"It's alright. Hey, hold on. Phee's on the other line." Deft maneuvers patched Terry and Napheesa into a joint call bound to start and end with an argument. "Phee, Terry's on. Y'all should be nice to each other."

Napheesa groaned. "I'm always nice to Terry when he's not startin' shit."

"Yeah, she nice to me but be playing my boy Kendall like he not trynna see what's up. Why you actin' like that, PheePhee?"

"It's Napheesa to you since you wanna play, Terrence. And don't be worrying about me and Kendall. Worry about you and your girl," Napheesa countered.

Terry chuckled. "And who is my girl, hm?" He paused for an answer, a toothy grin spreading across his face as he got comfortable on one of two twin beds in the room.

Patrice silently prayed to the Lord above, hoping her friend wouldn't pick a moment like this to open a can of worms she couldn't close once the slithering creatures were out and about. They both listened to Napheesa grunt in defeat.

"Forget it," she huffed. Patrice took a deep breath, silently thankful for Phee's loyalty. "I gotta go. Call me when you want to go to the mall on Saturday, P. I'll pick you up. Bye, Knucklehead."

"Bye, PheePhee. Tell Kendall I said hey!" Terry teased.

"Shut up!"

As quickly as they'd gone back and forth over trivial matters, Napheesa was gone with a quick click, leaving Terry and Patrice alone as they usually were when golden hour light filled the evening sky. They sat silently for a moment, both listening to the other breathe in the happiness they thought they could only find in person.

A soft laugh broke through the stillness. "You still there," Terry questioned. He listened to Patrice giggle back with his eyes closed, allowing the sound to wrap him in a warm embrace. "How was your day? Do anything fun?"

"Not really. It's so hot outside I thought I saw the devil climbing into the bird bath out back." They laughed at another one of Patrice's patented grandma-isms, which Terry deemed silly but endearing. She continued. "What about you? How was fishing? Catch anything?"

Terry sighed, the nonchalant shrug evident in his tone. "Just some catfish. Nothin' crazy. Couldn't get Mike to shut up long enough for anything to bite."

"I don't blame him. Fishing is so boring. I don't know how you do it."

"I like the quiet on the water. It's good for my brain with all the…stuff goin' on at home," he answered.

Patrice fiddled with the fringe on her throw pillow, searching for words of comfort. "She'll get better. You'll see when you get back."

"Maybe." The heaviness in his response temporarily paused their discussion, leaving room for the quiet whoost of Patrice's ceiling fan in the background. Terry scratched at his stubble-covered chin and tried to add an extra lilt to his voice to preserve Patrice's happiness. "I got something to tell you." A small excited squeal preceded Patrice's urging for more. He laughed and shook his head. "I'll be home tomorrow night. Probably not in time to stop by or anything, but I could come to the mall with you and Phee on Saturday. If it's cool and all."

A glossed bottom lip found itself trapped beneath Patrice's top row of teeth, struggling against the confines to break into a smile. "I'll ask her. We could do a movie or something, too."

"Yeah. Me and you. We got a lot to catch up on."

A million things came to mind: drama between classmates erupting on MySpace and late-night ooVoo video chats, new storylines in their favorite show, tales of haunted houses and alleged voodoo ladies, and Patrice's brand new haircut. She hoped he'd like the drastic change from her shoulder-length press and curl to the sleek bob she'd begged her mother to sign off on.

Miles apart, they allowed thoughts of the other to consume their every waking moment. Some were in their slumber until two nights passed, and Saturday morning placed them only a neighborhood away.

Most of Patrice's energy had gone into picking the right top to show a sliver of midriff when a text message caused her phone to buzz against her dresser. She paused the music blaring from her radio to peek at the phone screen.

Phee: scratch wat I said about Terry the other day. he at the prk looking GOOD! u ready 2 go yet?

Flutters carrying nervousness and excitement in a revolving cycle filled Patrice's chest and belly. For Napheesa, the proud president and founding member of the 'Terry is Just Alright Club,' to compliment Terry meant she'd seen beauty not yet known to man. She'd finally seen the light at the end of a crush tunnel only meant to carry one to the promised land.

Patrice couldn't think beyond a quick misspelled confirmation that she was ready to go despite having not yet laid eyes on her shoes, purse, or the earrings her mother required she wear any time she stepped out of the house. She spent the better part of a 10-minute drive to the park adjusting and readjusting the feathered bang in her bob and the right amount of hair to tuck behind her ear while Napheesa rattled off all the info she knew about Terry's whereabouts.

He was at the big, empty field at the far end of Elton Hayes Memorial Park playing touch football with a group of boys, both of them only kind of knew from surrounding high schools. A rumor from a mutual friend alleged a tattoo on his right shoulder – a rose or a bulldog or something to that effect. Patrice started hearing every other word as the bright red Kia, acting as her chariot for the afternoon, pulled into the parking lot and slowed to a stop.

Sure enough, Terry was in the area. His green Ford Explorer, full of dents and scratches as a hand me down from his paternal uncle, sat across the way as a sign that he was not just a beautiful mirage in the heat wave but an actual walking, talking person back in her world again.

Fear quietly gripped Patrice, closing her throat and sending her lungs into overdrive to pull in vital oxygen. She frantically searched her face for imperfections in the mirror. "Phee, do I look okay," she croaked while slathering more lip gloss on her lips. "I don't look weird, right? You think he'll recognize me."

"Girl, you look fine." Napheesa's eyes slowly pulled away from the group of boys running to and fro across patches of dry grass and light-colored sand to focus on her friend in need of reassurance. She tucked hair behind Patrice's ear and smiled. "I wasn't gonna say anything because he told me not to, but Terry asked me to bring you here. He wants to see you. So don't go gettin' all shy on me. Go talk to him!"

Most of Patrice believed Napheesa. The rational side with a brain capable of processing coherent thoughts knew Terry well enough to discern when he was sincere and when he was bating her into a silly tale for his own amusement. She'd heard about an alleged crush from Corey and felt sparks of what might be when they shared the same space in comfortable silence. There was something there. Be it the first flashes of burgeoning romance, scary and tingly on her skin like a curious caterpillar finding respite on her arm in Spring, or some internal hoping requited love, Patrice didn't know.

All she could discern was the quiet pop from the door handle, giving the heat access to the inside of Napheesa's air-conditioned, bright red Kia before she stuck one moisturized leg and the other outside.

Any fear of intruding on Terry's ambition to turn a desolate patch of grass into Lambeau Field during the playoffs slowly melted away once he caught wind of her presence. Had Patrice been paying attention to her surroundings and not the hunk of new muscle and peanut butter skin basking in early afternoon sun rays, she may have noticed how he eyed her simple cut-off skirt and white graphic tee ensemble. But she couldn't take her eyes off Terry long enough to tell up from down or left from white.

When he left four weeks prior, she remembered him as more lean, more pale, more boyish than the version of Terry standing a few yards away. He'd gained muscle on his arms and back that rippled beneath slick skin like Usher's muscles in the U Don't Have To Call video. Terry hadn't reached those heights, but he was damn close. And were those abs? The question pinged around Patrice's nearly empty brain as she eyed his naked torso. Those were abs. She whipped her head back around to look at Napheesa in the front seat but found her shock unreciprocated when she noticed Phee laughing at something on her phone. Patrice was in this one alone.

A second look had her zeroing in on the fabled black and white ink covering the upper portion of his strong right shoulder. She couldn't make out the figure taking up fresh real estate, but she knew she wanted to get her hand on it – squeeze for dear life while he wrapped her body in an embrace so firm and intentional it made her head spin.

Patrice watched him jog in her direction with teeth gleaming in a dashing smile, fresh-shaven facial hair leaving the ghost of a shadow on his young face, and a fresh haircut glistening from a mix of wave pomade and sweat. His quad muscles define his long legs flexed with each heel stroke against dry earth. Her breath caught in her throat as he drew closer, calling her name like a child excited to see their parents after a long day in school.

Terry's deepening voice spoke her name once more. "Treece! What's up!?" Wet, sticky skin collided with Patrice's front, wrapping her into a tight embrace that nearly lifted her off the ground as he spoke into the top of her head. He inhaled the scent of strawberries and cream on her skin, then exhaled in goofy bliss before speaking again. "Damn, girl. You don't talk no more? Couldn't get you to quiet down the other day."

Sweet symphonies made of words coated in a fleeting, down-home New Orleans drawl tried to lull Patrice into an unshakeable haze. The only thing keeping her mind, body, and soul planted to her side of Heaven was the harsh mix of musk and cologne wafting from Terry's body. Recollection of all the time she'd spent layering Victoria's Secret body mist and lotion for her signature scent shocked her back into reality.

"Gross, TJ! You stink," she complained, only half-serious as she extended her arms to create some separation. He chuckled at her insult while he backed away to give his friend some space. They eyed each other shamelessly, neither bold enough to say the potentially inappropriate thoughts running through their minds. "Welcome back," Patrice finally coughed up when a front room view of large hands scratching at his bare chest became too much to handle. "I thought we were goin' to the mall. You can't go anywhere with me lookin' like that."

Terry shook his head and adjusted the waistband of his shorts, just missing Patrice's eyes following his hand's motions. "My fault. Mike and Rob needed somebody to fill out the team, and I could use the run. You and Phee wanna meet me there? I can leave and get dressed right now."

"If you want to." The meek, sweet voice emanating from her vocal cords startled Patrice into a fight to recover. She stammered through an overcorrection. "B-but, like, hurry up. We still wanna see a movie too."

"Wait, can we see Transformers? I had to leave before I could go with my cousins."

His childlike pleading came with green eyes rounded into saucers for extra appeal. Patrice rolled her eyes, purporting annoyance when a swell of abnormal flutters overtook her chest. "Alright," she relented. "But you're getting the popcorn."

Terry pinched her cheek and smiled. "I'll do popcorn and the tickets. Maman sent me back with a little bit of cash."

"TJ," Patrice started to protest, only to be met with opposition.

"Stop it, Treece," Terry warned. "It's fine. Tell me what times they have, and I'll get there before then."

It was settled. A little playful back and forth and plans to call as soon as new information became available turned an unofficial hangout into more concrete plans to reacquaint with Corey added to round out the foursome.

Patrice practically floated back to Napheesa's small Spectra, the biting chill of her air conditioning on full blast finally cueing her brain to the stinging, painful skin covering her sweating body.

Phee watched her fuss with hair swelling at the roots in the mirror, anxiously awaiting an update. When none came, she forced the issue.

She started in a slow, calm voice that resembled one her mother used when she and her two brothers had really messed up. "Patrice Nicole, you better tell me what just happened, and you better tell me quick." A slow smile spread across her best friend's face, further exacerbating the situation. "P! Come on! I'm dying!"

After allowing the overhead mirror to slam shut against worn interior upholstery, Patrice turned in the passenger seat to face Napheese. A flash of genuine concern flashed across her eyes as reality crashed into her at full speed. She took a deep breath and then allowed a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips.

"Remember what you said the other day," Patrice questioned, waiting for a nod to continue. "You were right. I think…I know that I like Terry now. As more than a friend."

-------

Sincere apologies for any errors! I'll do a sweep tomorrow but really wanted to get this out.

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