Chapter eleven
Harbor
The ride to the lawyer’s office was thick with a heat that had nothing to do with the Mobile humidity. Dex had one hand on the wheel navigating the downtown streets, while his other hand reached over and caressed my thigh.
My body betrayed me instantly, softening under his touch, but I forced my arm to swat him away. “Don’t, Dex.”
“You back to being mean already?” he asked, his voice low and edged with a frustration I hadn’t heard from him earlier.
“That never should have happened. None of it. I’m stressed, I’m tired, and I don’t need you adding to it.”
“Yeah, but you wanted it,” he said, eyes dark as midnight. “That’s why you was in there, playing with that pussy. Don’t even try to front, Nique… I tasted how bad you needed it.”
My face heated up, the embarrassment stinging more than the words. I kept my eyes on the old brick buildings of Royal Street. “I was just bored. My phone was dead and wasn’t nothing on TV. It didn’t mean anything.”
Dex let out a sharp dry laugh that sounded more like a bark. He pulled the truck over to the curb and threw it in park. He turned in his seat, his frame filling every inch of the cabin.
“Bored?” He leaned in, his shadow falling over me. “When are we gonna stop playing this game Nique? I want you. I know you want me too. You just too stubborn to forgive me.”
“I’ll never forgive you Dex,” I snapped, the old hurt rising up like acid in my throat. I finally looked at him, my eyes stinging. “You put my life at risk. You played with my health, my heart, everything.”
He looked at me like I’d said something that didn’t make sense. “Put your life at risk? What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t stutter,” I said, my voice shaking. “I trusted you enough to have unprotected sex with you in Jamaica and you didn’t respect me enough to tell me you had been with somebody else not even twenty-four hours before. You think I forgot that? I spent weeks terrified wondering if you had brought something back to me!”
“I was wrong,” Dex said, his voice dropping, raw and heavy. “I’ll forever regret the day I touched Amina. I was young and I was stupid and I fumbled. But I used a condom with her Nique. I might have been a dog but I was never reckless with you. Never.”
“People who really regret something don’t keep going back to the same person years later and get them pregnant,” I shot back, the Miami memories flooding in. “I’m the stupid one because even after Jamaica I let you touch me again in Miami for Paris’sbirthday two years later like I hadn’t learned anything. You can’t tell me you were using protection then because that’s exactly when I found out she was pregnant. I saw the texts Dex. I saw the picture of that positive test on your phone while you were in the shower.”
“You came to my room in Miami,” Dex said, his jaw tight. “And you’re still wrong, because I never touched Amina without a condom. You are the only one I have ever been that close to. The only one I ever wanted to be.”
“Then how did she end up pregnant Dex? Tell me that.”
“There had to be a hole in it or something. Why do you think I denied Demi her whole pregnancy? I’m not that cold hearted Nique. I genuinely believed she wasn’t mine because I knew I was covered every single time I touched her.”
I went quiet at that. The rawness in his voice made it hard to dismiss. I had spent years building a story where he just didn’t care about me, but the look on his face right now said he had been carrying this just as long as I had.
The silence in the truck settled heavy between us. Dex took a slow breath and reached out, this time just brushing a stray curl away from my face.
“I love you Nique,” he said, and the simplicity of it made my chest ache. “I’ve been in love with you since you almost smoked me in that race back in the day. I was too shy to say it then and I let you slip away. I’ve fumbled you more than once and I’m sorry for that. I’ll spend however long it takes making that right. But you have got to stop pushing me away.”
I looked out the window, my throat tight.
“I’m trying to marry you,” he continued, his voice steady and certain. “I want to build a real life with you. I even built my house with you in mind. I remember you told me you wanted a beach home. Finding land by the beach wasn’t cheap and the insurance is something else. On top of that your ass don’t evenlive there. I’m out here building something for a woman who won’t even look me in the eye.”
I looked at him, feeling the cracks in my wall spreading whether I wanted them to or not. “Nigga, you are delusional.”
“Yeah, over you. That’s why I’m about to walk into a lawyer’s office with my beard still smelling like you, dropping a bag to keep you out of jail. Because that’s what you do for your person.”
I glanced over at him. He hadn’t even bothered to wash up before we left. My cheeks went hot. He was carrying the evidence of the whole morning on him and didn’t care who noticed.
He put the truck back in gear. Trey Songz came through the speakers singing about fumbling somebody’s heart. The song hit uncomfortably close to home and neither one of us said a word until we were pulling into a spot on Saint Francis Street.
Dex killed the engine and sat for a second letting everything he said hang in the air. He checked his reflection in the rearview, smoothed his beard, and checked his watch.
“Logan is waiting,” he said, his voice shifting back to business. “Let’s go.”
We walked into an old, restored building. The lobby was all dark wood and smelled like old money and leather. Logan Vaughn wasn’t just any lawyer. He handled contracts and land acquisitions for Dex’s firm and he was the kind of man you called when you needed something handled quietly and correctly.When we were buzzed into Logan’s private office he stood and shook Dex’s hand before nodding at me.