Page 46 of Blind Spot
“I love you, Dom.”
“I love you more, Charly.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“For what?”
“Being with your brother.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I didn’t give you anything to hold on to. I was the one who told you there was no chance of us ever being a thing. I mean, I didn’t think that something would happen between you two, but I damn sure didn’t give you hope about us, and I never said he was off-limits. I was the fool.”
“You know what?”
“No. Tell me.”
“I realized a long time ago that I was wrong about being with him. It took a while before I would admit it to myself, but aside from him being there for me through the loss of you and my mom, I realized that I welcomed your brother’s advances because he was the closest thing to you. I used him, Dom, and I was wrong for that.”
“No more wrong than he was to use you to say screw me. You can’t hold onto that shit. Let it go, baby,” I stated firmly but in a low voice as I caressed her face.
“Okay. I will.”
She kissed me, and I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I was to have her in my life.
Chapter 15
Dominic
The minute that she got the call, she started screaming. Chopper called her around four thirty that afternoon and asked if she could step in for Novocain to take a race. Although she wanted to make him grovel when he told her that she was his last resort, she was too appreciative to do that.
My ass was dead wrong, but I had been working on this master plan for weeks. Everyone knew Charly was good as hell, but Chopper had an issue with her temper. I’d approached the rest of the team one by one and asked them if they would turn this particular race down for one reason or another. There was a lot on the line in terms of money and street cred, and I knew that Chopper didn’t want our team to miss the opportunity.
He and Butter, the other team captain, had beef; therefore, they wouldn’t be racing against each other. Their issue stemmed from a woman and had nothing to do with racing cars. But he desperately wanted to race our team, and he upped the pot to four grand just to race a member of our team. So when everyone turned down the offer to step in for Novocain, Chopper called me and asked if I thought Charly might want to race. I’d told him that morning that I didn’t know; he would have to call her and ask.
Butter’s team was notorious for cheating, and we rarely raced against them. But they really wanted to race someone on our team, because we were the ones to beat. She texted me before I got home from work with the good news. I had beelined home to help her prepare for the race and make sure that her car was ready. We went over a few things before we headed out to the meet-up spot.
My nerves were on edge, not because I didn’t think Charly could pull it off; I knew that she could. It was because I didn’t want her to get in her head and screw this opportunity up for herself. And I definitely didn’t want her getting pissed about people talking shit and ending up in a fight.
“Look at your big ass. You all geeked and shit to watch her,” my cousin, Avriella, teased.
“I’m just happy that she’s getting her shot. She’s wanted this for a long time, and Chopper’s mean ass wouldn’t give it to her.”
“Why didn’t she just get with another team or race independently?”
“She wanted to race with the best and to have the protection of a team.”
“Or, she wanted to be close to her boo thang,” Avriella remarked slyly, nudging me in the side.
“Girl, get outta here with that shit,” I replied, chuckling.
“All I’m saying is that no matter what anyone else says, everyone knows that she and Ramon were never meant to be. When he first started telling the family that she was his girl, we all knew that it was a load of crap. We knew that he did that to get at you.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“Your brother’s always been jealous of you. He looked up to Joaquin, but you’re the baby of the family. All attention has always been on you, not to mention constantly getting in trouble kept attention coming your way. He resented that fora while, because your parents were stressed about you. That’s what my mom and dad said anyway. But Dom, everything came effortlessly your way: grades, friends, and girls. It all came easy to you.”
“Ramon’s smart as hell. He’s always had all A’s.”
“Yeah, but he had to study to make it happen. You didn’t. It’s like you just know things, and you seem to take them all for granted. I know that you don’t. But you didn’t want to go to some Ivy League college or HBCU. Hell, you didn’t want to go to college at all after you graduated.”
