Page 23 of Blind Spot
His jaw clenched as he removed my legs from his lap. He got up and headed toward his bedroom. I jumped up to follow him.
“Dominic, don’t walk away from me. Answer my question.”
“I told ya nosy li’l ass to leave shit alone. It ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
“It’s got everything to do with me. I’m the one you left behind. I’m the one who didn’t have you here to protect me and to guide me anymore. You were my best friend, and you left me in the dust. And for what? Why did you do something so stupid, Dom? How could you throw away your freedom like that?”
“I did what I needed to do!” he shouted.
I hit him in the chest repeatedly and screamed at him. “That was the dumbest shit you could’ve ever done. And now look at you. You can’t get the jobs that you’re qualified for or even adamn loan because you threw it away on his ass. And he doesn’t give a shit. He went on with his merry little life. How could you do it? And why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth!” The tears flew from my eyes as I continued hitting him.
Dominic grabbed my arms and pushed me against the hall wall. He pinned my hands above my head and glared down at me. His jaw was clenched, eyes narrowed, and lips pinched together. Anger radiated from every fiber of his being, and fire shot from his eyes, penetrating my soul.
My heart ached for him, for all the sacrifices he had made, the disappointment he had endured, and the lost opportunities. I wanted to hold and kiss him, but I knew that he wouldn’t receive it. I wanted to lavish all the love on him that I had always held in my heart. But the dominant feeling that I experienced was shame. I was ashamed at how I’d allowed myself to be pulled into his brother’s lure and make myself believe that I needed Ramon when I hadn’t. The only thing I needed was to wait for my friend’s return. No matter how lonely I had been back then, I now knew that it paled in comparison to Dominic’s loneliness through the years.
“I did what the fuck I needed to do for my family! I ain’t got a single ounce of regret. I’m a loyal ass muthafucka, and the rest of y’all need to figure out how to be the same!”
The way that he screamed at me shook me to my core. I trembled underneath his fury until he finally released me. It reminded me of the way things had gone down between Ramon and me, but I knew that I was safe with Dominic. We’d had arguments in the past, but he had never raised a hand at me to harm me.
I knew he would protect me with his last breath before he harmed me. My body shook as tears continued to pour from my eyes. Dominic shook his head with a look of disgust before he walked away and into his bedroom. He slammed the door sohard that the apartment shook, and I hugged myself, searching for a measure of comfort.
Chapter 8
Dominic
Ifelt bad about letting things go down the way they had last night. I needed to get away from Charly, though, because if I didn’t, I was about to tell her exactly how I felt about her. Every time I was around her little short ass, she made me want to spill my heart to her, but I knew that would be devastating at best.
I didn’t want to put her in a position where she would have to choose to be with me or protect her reputation. Whereas I didn’t give a shit what folks thought, I knew that she did. And as much as I loved her and wanted her, and as much as I knew she loved me and would be with me in a second, I didn’t want to add that pressure to her life.
I stretched and yawned as I looked out the window and saw that it was overcast outside. I’d planned to wash my car today, but that was out. I grabbed my wood and tugged at it as I climbed out of bed and headed to my bathroom. Stretching and yawning in the mirror, I noticed that it was time for another haircut and shape-up.
I would have to call my barber and set up an appointment to flow through later. My mind returned to Charly as I showered,and I thought about ways that I could make up to her for the way I snapped at her last night.
In all the years we’d known each other, I had never raised my voice at her. Charly’s heart was precious to me, and I vowed a long time ago never to be the one who broke it. However, I’d done just that at sixteen when she shared her feelings with me. It was the day after her birthday, and while I had known that she had feelings for a brother, I’d chosen to overlook them.
It was safer that she remained nothing more than a friend. And while I lied and told her that I didn’t have those types of feelings for her, nothing could have been further from the truth. I told others that I didn’t want to hurt her and bring her down the wrong path. That was true, too, but it wasn’t the reason that I’d broken her heart the day after her sixteenth birthday.
She called me earlier that morning and asked if she could drop by. I told her that I was about to run out, but I’d be available after two. Two hours before Charly arrived at my house, I had just returned from visiting Ariana, a girl with who I had been kicking it. Ariana had told me she was pregnant and that her parents didn’t know yet. She wanted to know what I was gonna do, and I had no answers. The only thing I wanted to do was go back in time to the day that we met and keep walking past her fine ass at the mall.
She really wanted to keep the baby, but she knew her daddy would be angry and want to kill me. My daddy would beat my ass because he had drilled into us the importance of using protection. My hardheaded ass had to try it once, just to see if it really felt any different without a rubber than with one. So, while Charlyse was spilling her heart, those things were flowing through my mind. I was trying to figure out how to avoid marriage and a kid, because that was what type of time shorty was on. The last thing I needed was drama between my baby mama and a new girlfriend slash best friend.
When Ariana finally told her parents about the pregnancy, luckily, they both agreed with me. Neither of us was ready for a child, and they wanted their daughter to have a better future than that of having a YN for a baby daddy. They insisted that she had to give it up for adoption, but my father insisted that he wanted to know more. If it were my child, he wanted to keep the baby in the family. He didn’t believe in his seeds having seeds scattered across the world. When the baby was born, he made us get a DNA test. The baby wasn’t mine.
I’d narrowly escaped that bullet at a young age, and I learned my lesson. From that day forward, I wrapped it up. I didn’t give a shit who I was rocking with. I never took a chance with my seed or my health again.
I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off before I threw on a pair of basketball shorts, a T-shirt, and some Nikaj slides. The apartment was quiet when I left my bedroom, but I could hear the shower running in Charly’s room.
Knowing her little ass, she would probably stay holed up in there until she thought I was gone. I headed to the kitchen and fried some ham slices and made cheese grits, cheese eggs, and biscuits. By the time I finished, she still hadn’t come out of her room.
I plated our food and placed both of them on a platter before heading to her room and knocking on the door.
“Come in,” she called out.
“My hands are full. Can you open up?”
I waited for a couple of minutes before I heard her making her way to the door. She slowly pulled the door open, and my heart constricted in my throat to see her in nothing but a bath towel with her hair pulled up on top of her head in a messy bun.
“You good?”
