Page 3 of Blind Spot
The room was so silent that you could hear a penny drop on the thick, plush, Berber carpet on his floor.
Dominic stared at me with his mouth wide open and something in his eyes that I could not read. My heart squeezed in my chest as I tried and failed for the first time in the history of our friendship to read my friend. I couldn’t interpret his closed-off expression, but the silence was condemning.
“Dom, please say something. Don’t be quiet on me like this now.”
“What do you want me to say, Char? You just dropped something like that in my lap,” he replied and dragged his hand down his face.
“Say something. Anything. You’re the one who said I could talk to you about anything.”
“And you can. I just don’t know how to respond tothat.”
“What do you feel, Dom?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “I’on know, man. You threw me for a loop. It’s like Karter coming and telling me he wanna get with me.”
“What?”
“Charly, you know what I mean. You’re you . . . and I’m me,” he stated, waving his hand up and down at me.
My heart squeezed so tightly that I could feel the blood dripping onto the floor. “Oh,” I whispered.
“I mean, man, don’t be mad at me. But we can’t ever be a thing, Char. I’m honored, hell, even humbled that you’d want me to be the one to take your virginity, but I can’t do that shit. I see you like I see Ramon and Joaquin. You’re the fourth sibling in this family. My feelings don’t run like that.”
“You always said you loved me,” I replied softly as tears fell down my cheeks.
“And I do love you, Char, but I love you the way I love my brothers. Baby girl, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but it’slike . . . you’re the little sister we never had,” he explained, reaching out to wipe my tears.
I leaned back. “Don’t.”
“Come on, Char. Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not. I just need a minute,” I declared, bouncing off his bed.
“Charlyse Morr,” he stated firmly, getting up and grabbing my upper arm.
I pulled away from him and then demanded, “Give me some time, Dom. I just need a minute to breathe.”
He took a couple of steps back, and I walked out of his bedroom. I jogged back down the steps, praying that no one was in front of the house.
“Hey, Char!” Mr. Strong greeted me from the living room.
“Hey, Papa Strong!” I called out in a false cheery voice as I plowed through the front door. I jumped into my car and pulled out so fast that no one could catch me if they wanted to. One glance in the rearview mirror, and I could see Dominic standing in the upstairs hallway window watching me.
Once I pulled out of the subdivision, I broke. I sobbed all the way back home, hating that I’d made a fool of myself, and hating that I’d listened to Tunisia. I had no idea that it would be the last time I saw my best friend for a year because he would ghost me.
Chapter 2
Dominic “Reaper” Garcia-Strong
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Ionly ever had one true regret in life, and that was not being honest with my best friend, Charlyse Morr, about the feelings that I held for her. She thought that I was being cruel, but rejecting her in my bedroom the day after her sixteenth birthday had hurt me more than it had hurt her. It was twofold. First, because I had never intentionally done anything to hurt Charly since I had known her. The second part was that I had to deny my own feelings for her to protect her. She was the only thing that I ever denied myself in life.
I was the spoiled baby boy of a family of three boys. Our father ruled his boys with a firm hand, not taking shit off us, but also catering to our whims when we obeyed his rules because he didn’t have shit growing up. My father owned several car dealerships that he’d worked hard to build from nothing, but he also had several chop shops in the background of his life. Selling dope as a teen had helped him and his brother keep his family fed.
Whereas Uncle Chris had only dabbled in it for a minute, my dad had gotten deep into the game. He’d gotten so deep thathe became the man everyone else went to, to re-up. He’d even helped Uncle Chris build a legitimate business that he’d used to wash his money until he got his own car lots. After he had expanded that original used car lot to four new car lots, then he began to showcase his wealth.
I had been four when we moved into our new home, the big mini-mansion that we still live in today. The wealthier he became, the more he carefully managed his wealth. Rather than buying a bigger home, he hired his friend’s construction company to expand our home on the large plot of land that we had. Owning three acres of land made it easy for my father to do.
