At the same time, another team was pulling my body from the passenger seat. My head lolled back, my arms limp. Blood streaked down my side and across the seat. They shouted numbers and orders I couldn’t understand. I was watching my life end, and my love die in the same breath.
Then the hospital doors slid open, and the light from the lobby swallowed everything. The voices dulled. The world stretched thin, cold, and impossibly quiet.
Please, God, I whispered into the emptiness, the way Grandma Anne taught me when I was small and scared of thunderstorms. Please don’t let me stay here.
A jolt of electricity snapped through me, violent and blinding.
“Dominique Simmons?”
My eyes flew open. No hospital. No Prez. Just the fluorescent lights of the Mobile County Metro Jail and the stale smell of a cell that had seen too much misery.
The nightmare was over, but the headache was just beginning.
“You got bonded out,” the officer said, the jingle of her keys seeming to rattle through my head. “Come on.”
I followed her, my legs feeling like lead. My head throbbed with every step; a reminder of the vase Kel’s ex had used to sideline me. After signing for my property, a plastic bag containing a dead phone and my keys, I pushed through the heavy doors into the lobby.
Dex was there.
He was sitting in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, head tilted back against the wall, eyes closed. His ebony skin was smooth as velvet even under those harsh flickering lights, his beard lined up crisp despite the fact that he’d been up all night dealing with my mess. He was easily the sexiest man I’d ever known and seeing him here made my throat tight. I’d been giving him my ass to kiss for years and he still showed up when I needed him most.
The second the door clicked his eyes snapped open. He stood in one fluid motion and even with the exhaustion written all over him he commanded every inch of that lobby.
“You straight?” he asked, stepping into my space.
His eyes did a slow clinical sweep of me from head to toe. He wasn’t checking me out, he was taking inventory, making sure everything was still where it was supposed to be. His gazelingered on the side of my head and I knew he saw the dried blood.
“Yeah,” I muttered, shifting the plastic bag in my hand. “I’m alright.”
He didn’t look convinced. His jaw tightened and that protective heat flared in his eyes, chasing away the exhaustion for a split second. He reached out, his hand hovering near my shoulder before he pulled it back, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch me yet.
“What happened, Nique?” he asked, his voice quiet in a way that meant business.
I looked away for a second, focusing on the scuff marks on the floor. “Kel.”
His expression didn’t change but I saw it register behind his eyes. “What she do?”
I swallowed hard, the humiliation of the whole night finally settling into my bones. “I found out she was cheating with her ex who does hair. We got into it and then her ex jumped in and hit me from behind with a vase.”
The air around Dex shifted without him saying a word. He took a slow breath, reached out, and took the plastic bag from my hand like carrying it was just his job now.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
The car ride was quiet at first. The kind of quiet that sits between two people who know too much about each other’s past to pretend the present is normal. I leaned my head back against the leather seat and watched the streetlights of downtown pass in slow golden streaks. The hum of the engine and the cool blast of the AC were the only things filling the space between us.
I stole a glance at Dex. His eyes were heavy. I wondered for a second if he was high. He didn’t smoke often, but on a good night when we were having real fun he liked to indulge. My mindflashed back to getting high with him in Jamaica and I shut that thought down fast.
I had to get away from this nigga.
“Dex,” I said, my voice coming out smaller than I meant it to.
“Yeah.”
“Can you just drop me off at a hotel?”
He let out a short dry laugh. “All the family you got in this city, and you want me to drop you at a hotel?”
“I don’t want my aunt and uncle knowing I spent the night in Metro. Me and London and Nel aren’t really speaking right now, and Paris lives too far out.” I paused, the weight of the night pressing into my chest. “I’m just ready to shower and lay down.”