Chapter 9 Carmen Royal #2
“She be working ma.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Where my ol’ boy?”
“She pregnant,” Candy D shot back while leading me toward the kitchen with one hand on my back. “She needs to be sitting down somewhere, eating, relaxing… your daddy is in there watching TV.”
“Thank you,” Dom mumbled behind us. “That’s what I keep telling her.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “I hate y’all.”
Candy D laughed. “You gone hate us all the way through this pregnancy.”
The kitchen smelled like fried chicken, cornbread, and baked macaroni, along with the many air fresheners she always kept plugged into the wall.
Dom’s daddy was in the living room with the television up too loud watching sports, and the second he saw us, he pointed at Dom without even saying hello first.
“You see what they saying about the Dolphins?”
Dom shook his head before walking toward the living room. “Dam pops, you can at least say hey first.”
“I know you there,” his daddy replied. “Come here and look at this.”
I laughed softly to myself because men really were all the same.
By the time we left his parents’ house, his mama had packed us enough food to feed six people, gave me another baby blanket, and made Dom promise to bring me back next week.
Then we went over to Tone and Shona’s house and my God, he was a beautiful baby.
Tone looked tired as hell too but between being a new father and still handling shit in the streets I could imagine why. “Boy, you look rough,” I told him when he opened the door.
Tone stepped aside so we could come in. “Yeah, aight. Wait till y’all baby get here sis.”
Dom looked around the house and dapped him up. “Where Shona at?”
“Upstairs changing him. He just threw up all over her shirt.”
“Damn,” I chuckled.
“Exactly.”
A few minutes later Shona came downstairs with the baby in her arms, and she looked beautiful too, just tired. She had on one of Tone’s oversized t-shirts on with her hair pulled up, with no makeup, but still pretty.
“You want to hold him?” she asked me once we all sat down.
“Awe, yes. Absolutely.” I cooed. I retrieved the hand sanitizer from my purse and put about three drops in my hands before rubbing them together.
The second she placed him in my arms, everything inside me softened.
He was so little. His skin was soft, his little face was all scrunched up, and one of his tiny hands wrapped around my finger so tight it almost made me emotional.
I looked up at Dom, and he was sitting back in the chair, but his eyes stayed on me and the baby the whole time.
There was something in his face too like something soft.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothin.”
“You got that look.” I smiled wondering if he was truly ready for this.
“What look?”
“The one where you acting like you not emotional, but you are.”
He sucked his teeth and looked away for a second. “I ain’t emotional.”
Tone laughed from the couch. “That nigga emotional as hell.”
“Man, shut the fuck up.” Dom shot back.
Shona smiled and leaned back against Tone while she looked at us. “He gone be so wrapped around that baby.”
“He already is,” I snitched.
Dom looked over at me. “I’m sitting right here.”
“And?” I asked.
“And stop tellin’ my business like I ain’t. I’m tryna enjoy my god child. ”
We all laughed and talked like normal people.
I couldn’t believe we were creating our own families.
Years ago, I would’ve never imagined this.
By the time we left Tone and Shona’s house, my feet were killing me and that usually came from siting too long or standing too long cause when you were pregnant it didn’t even matter…
your damn feet were going to hurt. The second I got in the truck; I kicked my sandals off and pulled one leg up under me with a groan before I could stop it. Dom looked over at me immediately.
“What’s wrong ma?”
I winced. “My feet hurt.”
“You was cute all day though.”
I playfully glared my eyes at him. “That’s supposed to help?”
He leaned down, picked my foot up without another word, and placed it in his lap like it belonged there. He wrapped his hands around my ankle first and then started pressing his thumb into the bottom of my foot slow enough that I felt my whole body loosen up.
I let my head fall back against the seat and closed my eyes for a second. “That feels good.”
“I know. I’m real good at everything I do. That’s why you knocked up now.”
That made me smile in spite of myself, but before I could say anything slick back, my phone started ringing.
I looked at the screen, sighed, and answered.
It was one of my clients, already speaking too fast before I could even get a proper hello out.
I gave him five minutes, calmed him down, promised to review what his cousin had dropped off, and hung up.
Before the screen even went dark, another call came through and then another and then from my assistant.
Then somebody from the office with a question about a filing.
Dom kept rubbing my feet through all of it, but the more my phone rang, the quieter he got as he ignored his own phones.
By the fourth call, he looked down at my phone and then up at me. “You serious?”
I glanced at him while I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’m a lawyer.”
“You off today.”
“My clients don’t care.”
“They should. You the Boss.”
I laughed and declined the next call before it could ring too long. “That’s not how this works.”
He moved his hand from the arch of my foot to my ankle, massaging up a little slower now, and I could tell by his face he was trying not to say too much too fast. “You need to stay workin’ from the house for a little while longer,” he told me.
I opened my eyes and turned my head so I could really look at him. “Dom. I have been working from the house.”
“That ain’t enough?”
“No.”
He stared at me for a second, then looked out the window while the truck rolled through traffic. “Why not,” he asked.
“Because I need to be in my office.”
“You got a whole office in the mansion.”
“That’s not the same.”
“How.”
“Because it’s not.”
He looked back at me then, and there it was again, that same look he got every time this conversation came up. “You really miss that office that much?” he asked.
I shrugged a little and looked down at my phone. “I miss feeling normal.”
He got quiet like he was thinking about it. The truck stopped at the light, and I could still feel his hand on my ankle, but now it had stopped moving because he was contemplating on what he wanted to do… I knew him so well.
“I just need a few hours,” I said assured him. “I’m not saying I’m going back full time tomorrow. I just need to get in there, look over some things myself, make some calls from my own desk, remind people I still exist outside of the house.”
He watched me for a second, then finally looked down and started rubbing my foot again. “You don’t disappear because you at home. Power is power and you got it.”
“I know that, but that’s not how clients think, and it’s not how the office works either. They need to see me. I need to see them. I got cases piling up.”
He cocked his head, “You got people for that.”
“I also have my own name.”
He leaned back into the seat and exhaled through his nose. “You really not gone let this go. I hate the idea of you somewhere I can’t get to in under five minutes and that’s my problem. I don’t care how many shadows I keep on you.”
“You can get to me,” I said in a softer tone.
“You know what I mean.”
Of course I did. I leaned over and rested my hand on his wrist. “I’m not trying to fight you. I just need a little room to breathe.”
He looked down at my hand on him and something in his face told me I was about to have my way. Then he lifted my foot and kissed the side of my ankle before setting it back in his lap.
“You get a couple hours,” he let me know. “That’s it.”
A smile crept on my face. “So, I won.”
“You ain’t win shit. I just got tired of hearing you talk.”
“That’s still winning.”
Instead of going straight back to the mansion, the trucks rerouted toward my office.
By the time we pulled up, the building was quieter than it usually was because it was late enough that most people had gone home.
A few lights were still on upstairs, though, and the security guard downstairs straightened up so fast when he saw Dom step out first that I almost laughed.
Dom came around to my side like always, opened the door, and reached his hand out to help me down.
“I can get out by myself.” I teased sticking out my tongue.
“And yet here I am.”
I took his hand anyway. He didn’t let go once my feet hit the ground either.
He kept his hand at the small of my back while we walked inside and up to the elevator.
Two shadows stayed downstairs, two came upstairs with us, and when the doors opened to my floor, I felt ,myself in my chest relax a little.
It smelled so familiar and welcoming because it was my home in a different way.
One of my assistants, Nia, was still there at the front desk, and the second she saw me, her eyes got big.
“Oh my God,” she said, standing up so fast her chair rolled back into the wall. “You really came in.”
I smiled. “Clearly.”
She rushed around the desk toward me with a stack of files already in her hands.
“I wasn’t sure if you were coming today or tomorrow or next week, but I got everything organized.
I put the urgent stuff in your office and the rest on your conference table.
Also, two clients called again, and one of them is trying to act like you personally owe him the world because his hearing got moved. ”
I blinked a few times. “That sounds right.”
Nia looked over my shoulder and finally really noticed Dom standing there. “Hey, Mr. Royal.”
He gave her one of those small chin nods. “You good?”
She nodded fast. “Yes, sir.”