Page 4 of Blind Spot
My father may have procured the wealth and made sure that we wanted for nothing, but it was my mother who managed his investments and grew his wealth. She also had come from nothing, but she was smart as a whip. She’d gone to college on a scholarship and became an investment banker. That proved to be a lucrative decision, not only for her but for our father as well.
Whereas she had a legitimate, demanding career, my mother always made time to be a mother. She hired a house manager to oversee things like cleaning, repairs, grocery shopping, running errands, and hiring for services like landscaping, gardening, and other stuff we needed. But when it came to helping us with our homework, packing our lunches, checking in on us, or seeing how our day went, it was our mama who did that.
Gabriela Garcia-Strong didn’t believe in hiring anyone to do what she’d been blessed to do. We talked to our mother about everything, and she gave us sound advice whenever our father wasn’t around to do so. She loved and nurtured us and made sure we had a loving home, not only for us three boys, but even our friends. Our mother was the rock for all the fellows in the house.
With all that my parents did for us and provided us with, I admired them, but I wanted to prove that I could do the samething. I didn’t want to get anywhere because my parents had paved the way and made things easy for me.
I studied my father’s business model and paid attention to the things he didn’t know that I did. I stepped into the streets to do my own thing on a low level, but quickly took his skills, my mother’s intellect, and my charm, and created a business model of my own.
At twenty-three, I was relatively wealthy, and I could step out of the streets if I wanted to. The problem with that was the shit was low-key addictive. Even now, as I stood facing two years locked away, I wasn’t worried about how my business would still run. I shut that shit down, stashed my money, and began mentally preparing for my return.
I wasn’t going away because I’d been caught slipping in my business. I was going away because of loyalty to my family. Getting caught with weed on me and a gun had me going away, and the weed I had was for pleasure, not for business.
Yet, there was no way that I could let my brother go down for the dumb shit he’d done. He was following in my mother’s footsteps, and for that, she was proud of him. I couldn’t let him disappoint her. Yet, while I couldn’t let my mother down, I was ultimately letting someone down, the person who perhaps meant more to me in this world than anyone, but it couldn’t be helped. It was only temporary, and I knew that I would make it up to her.
“Why don’t you listen?” Charly asked, hitting me in the chest as she cried.
“Calm down, Shortcake,” I growled and grasped her forearms.
She tried to pull back, and I jerked her back toward me. “It’s two years. I need you to chill the hell out and keep your head up. There’s so much that you need to accomplish, and you can do itwithout me as a distraction. Now you don’t have to sit around worrying about me.”
She looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and poked out her bottom lip. “How can you say that? I’m going to worry about you even more now. I know that you’ll be fighting and getting in trouble in there. I can’t protect you.”
“What do you mean? Ya li’l ass don’t protect me anyway.”
“I do protect you. It’s me who looks out for you. It’s me who is always praying for you and calming you down. You’re a hothead, but you listen to me. How can I get through to you and keep you out of trouble if you’re locked away from me?” She sobbed so hard that it was breaking me.
I loved this girl with everything in me. I’d loved her since I knew what love was, and that love had transitioned from a sibling-type love to something much more in middle school. It was long before she confessed her feelings for me. With the way she was breaking down now, it was weakening me, and I couldn’t take it.
I made up my mind what I was going to do, what I needed to do. I jerked my chin to my older brother, Ramon. He walked over to us.
“Listen, bruh. I’ma need you to hold her down while I’m on the inside. Shortcake has a short fuse, and I’m worried as hell about her while she’s worried about me.”
Her arms squeezed tighter around me as she pressed her wet face into my shirt.
“Time’s almost up,” Jacob Griggs, my attorney, stated.
“What do you want me to do?” Ramon asked, ignoring him.
“I need you to watch over her. You see how she’s always hanging around me. I look out for her and don’t let nobody step to her wrong, no grimy ass hood niggas, no fuckboys, or anybody in her circle. I give her sage counsel on life decisions, and if anybody comes at her wrong, I beat their ass into the ground.Do whatever the fuck you feel you need to do to take care of her. She’s my best friend and my world,” I explained before I kissed Charly on the top of her head.
“Aye, can I holler at you for a sec?” he asked, jerking his head sideways to indicate he wanted to leave Charly out of the conversation.
I pulled her head back and looked down into her tear-stained face. “Give me a sec, Shortcake.”
She bobbed her head but still acted like she didn’t want to release me. Charlyse and I had been best friends since we were eight years old. She had ridden into the street, looking over her shoulder at my cousin and her friend, Avriella Strong.
My cousin had spent the night at my house and told me that the girl moving in across the street was in her class at school. She was on our side of the street, riding her bike. She’d looked back at something Avriella had said and was laughing. I’d seen her about to get hit by that car, and I’d instantly run into the street and snatched her ass back.
She’d fallen onto the ground and gotten scraped up, and her bike had been run over and had to be replaced, but she was safe. At first, she was angry as hell at me until she’d seen the damage her bike had suffered. When her mama ran out of the house, thanking me for saving her baby, because she’d seen it all from the front window, Charlyse had chilled her ass out too. She followed me everywhere from that point on, and I made sure I always looked out for her.
“Wassup?” I asked when I stood alone with my brother.
“Why haven’t you ever made that girl your woman?”
“’Cause, Ramon. You see the shit I get into. I don’t wanna drag her into my world, man.”
“Or is she just not feeling you like that?” he asked, snickering.
