Page 39 of Aftertaste

Draw attention away from the pup on the leash and onto me where it would rightfully belong.

A boom of raucous laughter greets us both when we walk by a seemingly vacant house. On the porch and broken stairs sits a group of young men watching us with amusement in their eyes.

I grin at them and nod as I give the leash a tug and we continue on our way.

One of them yells after us that it’s the first time he’s ever seen something like this. Another claps and asks if walking her like this makes fucking her from behind better.

Both are valid, in statement and inquiry, but neither deserving of any kind of acknowledgement besides the one already given.

I can see the end of the street in sight and the intersection looming under the flickering streetlight.

Snow stops moving for a moment and I give the leash a hard tug, causing her to pitch forward and damn near land on her face. When she looks up at me and sees the stern look in my eyes, she takes a deep breath and keeps moving.

I know she must be tired by now because it’s the first time I’ve ever walked her, however, all lessons are learned with some kind of pain and she’s been training for this moment for longer than she knows.

Crenshaw Boulevard.

The sign is above us now and it’s time for another test.

“Go to fifteen sixty-seven and knock on the door. Sariah lives there. I want you to bring her back to this intersection. I’ll explain when we get back to the house, okay?”

I lean down and unclip the leash and smack Snow on the ass to send her on her way.

Hopefully, she’ll make it to Sariah and back again.

And if she doesn’t, then I’ll find a way to forgive myself for the danger I sent her into for someone that really shouldn’t even matter.

Chapter Eleven

I’m sitting on the porch with the guys from earlier. After thirty minutes had gone by and neither Sariah nor Snow had come back to the intersection, I decided to cut my losses and at least have a somewhat decent night out.

The thing is that I won’t just leave Snow here. I’ll go retrieve her if I have to, but I want to give her the opportunity to come back to me herself.

“So, what’s your name?” one of the guys asks me.

“Kenji,” I reply, taking his hand and giving it a quick shake.

“What neighborhood are you from?” another asks, also extending his hand toward me.

“Baldwin Hills,” I reply with a sly smile and he chuckles.

It’s just outside of the Crenshaw district limits and that’s why I know this is a bad place to be, but after World War Two, it became a predominately Japanese-American neighborhood, so I kind of felt right at home when I settled here.

Granted, it’s not that way anymore but I tend to keep to myself, so my neighbors don’t seem to mind my presence.

“Why were you walking that girl like that?”

I glance up at the one young kid that’s teetering on the railing of the porch and shrug, “How else are you gonna teach ‘em?”

That response evokes a round of laughter from all of my newfound pals, and I force a smile onto my face. I don’t like talking about Snow this way but I kind of want to keep them in my good graces in the event that I ever find trouble here.

That’s not to say that everyone from this side of town is a hoodlum; hell, they’re probably some of the most upstanding citizens this side of Los Angeles just having a guys’ night out, but I doubt it.

The same way they would doubt me if they ever came to Baldwin Hills.

Not that I have a bad reputation where I live. I just happen to know that there are more whispers and whatnots about who I am and why I’ve decided to live in their self-proclaimed glorious little neighborhood.

It’s a shame too considering that most of the people that live around me are Japanese; born and bred on the island that came here for a better life.

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