Hear My Heart

19. Creed

Chapter 19

Creed

I leaned on the wall listening to Dylan as he vented about him and Camilla. It wasn’t too often he voiced their issues out loud so it must be taking a toll on him now. He was messing with something under his hood so I couldn’t see his face, but his voice dripped of stress. We were at the shop his crew owned and operated out of.

“She’s been on me about marriage lately. Whenever we argue that’s what it eventually circles back around to,” he complained.

“Is that so wrong? You don’t want to marry her?” I asked, studying him as his body tensed.

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry her.” He lifted his head and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “I just don’t want to be pressured into the shit. When the time comes, then of course I’ma give her my last name, but she wants it for all the wrong reasons right now.”

I squinted and crossed my arms over my chest. “What’s that?”

He clenched his jaw and looked off to the side. Facing his car he planted his hands on it and dropped his head. I’d never seen my friend look so stressed.

“She had a miscarriage a few months back. It’s been taking a toll on her and now she’s obsessed with marriage. Before then she wasn’t pressing the issue.”

“Damn, man.” I sighed. “Sorry to hear that.”

Grabbing the towel on the car, he wiped his hands and turned so his back was facing the car and he leaned on it, facing me.

“It fucked me up, but I wasn’t the one who went through it physically, so I know it was harder on her. I tried being there for her, but she gets emotional then angry eventually and that’s when an argument breaks out. The shit’s draining as fuck.” He shook his head.

I’d never been through a miscarriage or that kind of situation before so I couldn’t say I knew what he was dealing with. While I would love to be a father one day, I hadn’t been blessed with the opportunity yet.

“You gon’ leave her?”

His brows furrowed. “What? Hell nah. I just want shit to go back like it used to be.” Stressed was plastered all over Dylan’s face.

“She probably just needs some time. A miscarriage is a heavy thing for a woman to deal with.”

Again, his jaw clicked. “Yeah… maybe.” He pushed off the car. “I’ll be back.” He turned and tossed the towel on the car then headed toward the back of the shop.

My phone vibrated, gaining my attention. Digging in my hoodie pocket, I checked the screen, surprised to see it was Nakyra. It surprised me that she even reached out. I had been staying out of her way so I wouldn’t crowd her space after she turned me down. It wasn’t the news I wanted, but it was something I expected. Nakyra wasn’t the type to cheat. So she didn’t feel uncomfortable or pressured, I’d been finding more reasons to stay out of the house and away from her.

Nakyra

Hey, I was wondering if you were free tomorrow afternoon?

Slowly sliding my tongue over my bottom lip, I thought for a second. I was supposed to meet up with Dee. It was a shock to me to learn she was Nakyra’s wedding planner. When we were together we didn’t discuss anything personal. Everything was physical then we went our separate ways. I didn’t even know her real name until that day. I had visited the club the day after Nakyra shut me down, just to play, then made plans with Dee later that evening. It had been a while since I had a consistent play partner and sometimes it was better than multiple.

Reading over the text again, my fingers began moving before I could think about it.

Me

I had a couple things to handle, but what’s up?

Dragging my hand down my mouth, I walked over to the metal stool a few feet away and took a seat.

I wanted to hang out and thought we could talk. If you’re busy then we can do it another time.

I shouldn’t feel guilty or obligated to make myself free for her. I didn’t owe Nakyra anything. Curiosity did fill me, wondering what she wanted to talk about.

What time were you thinking?

I thought it would take her a little to respond but she must have been waiting for me because she texted right back.

If you’re busy then it’s fine.

We make time for things that matter. What time, Nakyra?

Four o clock.

She responded again with an address. After agreeing to meet up, I locked my phone and slid it back into my hoodie pocket. I played different things over in my head, trying to figure out what Nakyra could want. In the end, I came up blank. Part of me wondered if she wanted me to leave her house because I’d overstepped when I asked her out. Quickly, I ruled that out. If she wanted me to leave, I believed she would speak up and just tell me.

Eventually Dylan came back, he still looked stressed but his body was less tense. We began talking about the next race coming up. This one was hosted by another crew who raced, and by the way Dylan spoke about it, it was going to be one of the biggest races yet.

____

I pulled up to where Nakyra had told me to meet her, noticing it was a park. Cutting my car off, I grabbed my phone and looked around. The smell of leaves filled my nose. A small breeze brushed across my skin and the sound of children playing on the jungle gym across the parking lot filled my ears.

Nakyra had told me to go to the opposite side of the park from the small pond. Following the gravel walkway, I noticed a couple of people walking the nearby trails. It didn’t take me long to locate Nakyra. She was sitting near the water. The closer I got I noticed her sitting on a blanket with a basket alongside Bella next to her.

Bella heard me first. Her head popped up and she released a bark, which gained Nakyra’s attention. When we made eye contact she gave me a nervous smile then waved.

“Hey!” She laid her phone down and stood.

“Hey.” I stepped closer, stopping in front of her.

“Thanks for coming.” Nodding, I looked around. “This is one of my favorite places to come and clear my mind. Watching the water is usually peaceful for me.”

Giving her my attention again, I looked her over. She was dressed in jeans that fit like they were made for her and ripped at the knees, a white tank top that showed off her stomach, and a brown cardigan; I enjoyed what I saw.

“You look good.” I licked my lips, causing her to blush and lower her chin.

“I’m not even dressed up.”

Grabbing her chin, I lifted her head. “You don’t need to be.” I smirked then released her chin. “What’s up, Bella girl?” I leaned down to pet her. “Tell me what we got going on here.”

“Right.” Nakyra turned to face the picnic. “Well… you suggested a date, so I created one for us.” She faced me again with a smile on her face.

I raised a brow and slid my thumbs into my jeans. “I thought you didn’t want to try us out?” It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy about her changing her mind, but it was sudden. Just a week ago she was telling me we couldn’t pursue anything, but now she was surprising me with a date.

The smile on her face fell slowly. “Oh. Yeah, well…” Her hand lifted and she brushed it over her right ear. “I guess I did. If you changed your mind then I get it. We don’t have to call this a date we can?—”

Stepping forward I grabbed her, causing her mouth to snap shut. “That’s not what I’m saying. I just don’t want you to feel pressured into anything.”

“That’s not what this is,” she said confidently, snatching away from me.

“Then tell me what it is.” Patiently, I waited for her to gather her thoughts.

Her eyes traveled to the water. She didn’t speak right away, just watched the small sway the wind created. Eventually she looked back at me and stepped forward so there was barely room between us. “I realized that you were right. There is something forming between us. Neither of us planned for it, but we both feel it. I can’t, with good conscience, move forward without knowing if it’s real or not. I miss you when I don’t see you. And this week, it feels like both of us were purposely avoiding each other and I don’t like that. You made me realize that maybe there’s some things I’ve been missing out on in my relationship. I need to know if I’m imagining things with us or if the chemistry is genuine.”

Her confidence mixed with a bit of nervousness was obvious. It took a lot for her to get out of her head and take this step. Now it was my turn to make sure she wasn’t let down.

One corner of my mouth lifted. “A’right then, let’s get this date going.”

Her smile lifted higher and her shoulders straightened. “Okay. Bella, lay down.” She snapped her fingers. Bella whined and walked to Nakyra, rubbing her nose against her leg.

“Lay down. Go play with your bone.”

Bella listened, going back to where she was when I first got here and laying down.

Nakyra and I took our seats on the blanket across from each other. She handed me a bottle of hand sanitizer then proceeded to unload the basket.

“I kept it simple with everything.” She pulled out a couple wraps, fruit, a bowl that looked like pretzels and cheeses, two glasses, and a bottle of wine. “I hope you like sweets because I went by Sugar Bliss and got cupcakes. I also made Italian wraps.”

“Everything looks good.”

Nakyra then pulled out plates and silverware. While she distributed everything, I watched her silently. She seemed to be concentrating intensely.

“Why are you staring at me?” Nakyra lifted her head, making eye contact with me.

“Just like what I see.” I smirked, reaching for the wine.

Nakyra blushed and handed me a wine opener. The evening was nice, the weather fair. The two of us started off eating. Tonight I planned on letting Nakyra lead. I wanted to see where her head was with everything.

“I want us to get to know each other a little better,” Nakyra mentioned, after taking a bite of her wrap. She used a paper towel to wipe her mouth then her tongue to grab the remaining sauce. “On three we’re going to call out our favorite color, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Nakyra counted and on three we called out a color.

“Yellow.”

“Black.”

Her face balled up. “Black? Black isn’t a real color.”

“Says who?”

She rolled her eyes and took a sip of wine. “It’s like a mix of all the colors or something. It’s not a color you can favor.”

I chuckled. “A’right then, green.”

“Okay, now… favorite movie.”

For the next thirty minutes the two of us got to know each other, bouncing questions back and forth.

Nakyra was pouring her second glass of wine and staring at me with a calm, buzzed smile on her face.

“What you looking at me like that for?” I asked with a crooked grin.

She giggled and tilted her head sideways. Her hand brushed over her right ear and her bottom lip tucked into her mouth. “I know I said this before but the more time I spend around you, the more it’s hard to believe you and Rome grew up together.”

“Correction, we grew up in the same house, but I wouldn’t say together. I was raised mostly by nannies, remember. Rome was the one who got the personal, one-on-one time with our parents.”

She snorted. “It shows. The two of you couldn’t be more different.”

My tongue swiped across my lips. “Is that a good thing?”

She swallowed more wine and lowered her eyes. “I think it is. You’re more humble than he is. Easier to talk to. You care about those around you and take others’ feelings into consideration.”

“Rome doesn’t do that? Not even for you?”

Nakyra’s eyes went to the wine glass as she swirled the liquid around before lifting her shoulders and allowing them to fall. She set the glass down and pulled her legs up, folding them under herself.

“Tell me this then. What made you give this a chance? When I first brought it up you turned me down without thought. What changed your mind?”

Nakyra looked off to the water again. The sun was starting to set, causing an ombré of orange, purple, and red to reflect off the water. “When I first met Rome I was in a bad place—freshly estranged from my parents, probably the youngest freshman in my class, deaf, in a new place, and wanting to start over. It was a lot to handle, but I did the best I could. I didn’t think a guy like him would take interest in someone like me. He showered me with gifts and attention. He became the only person besides Summer who cared about me. It was easy to fall for him.”

She twisted her neck and her eyes fell back on me. “The first year of us being together was perfect. He had taken an ASL class as an elective his second year of college so he knew the basics. It felt like he wanted to be a part of my world. As our relationship went on, I don’t know… I guess I just accepted things he did because I thought that was just his personality. I had never been in a real relationship before and Rome would tell me he loved me and I believed him because no one ever had before.”

Nakyra paused and nibbled on her bottom lip again. She inhaled a deep breath then gave me a toothless grin. My heart was like drums pounding inside me as I listened to her. My blood buzzed through my veins.

“Being around you and spending time with you opened my eyes to a lot of things I didn’t realize I had been missing out on.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“For one, in a relationship both parties should be willing to compromise. I like that you care about my interests. You take my feelings into consideration. I enjoy us cooking and eating together. The communication between us is effortless and easy. Being around you just makes me realize it shouldn’t be hard being in love with someone. I tried so hard to fit into Rome’s world. I had to look a certain way, dress a certain way, talk and engage in a certain way. It got exhausting a lot of the time, but I loved him and knew he had a lot of pressure on him from your parents, so I didn’t complain. But sometimes I just want things to be simple. I want to go on a picnic date, go rock climbing, walk on the beach with Bella together, do a paint and sip. Rome rarely wanted to do what I wanted and he thought tossing money my way fixed it. I just didn’t know how unsatisfied and lonely I felt until we started spending time together.”

At first I didn’t respond. I digested everything she said and studied her body language. She didn’t seem upset or even sad. If anything she was content, as if this was something she had been thinking about for a while and finally accepted.

“You grew up in a house where your feelings weren’t taken into consideration. From a young age you basically had to fend for yourself and had no one to show you how to be cared for properly, it makes sense why you fell for Rome. You fell into the same cycle you were accustomed to from your upbringing. I’ve never been around the two of you and I don’t want to say he didn’t love you, but I do know my brother, he doesn’t keep anyone around him who doesn’t serve a purpose. What yours in his life was I don’t know and I won’t pretend to know.”

My face slacked and my body straightened as I lifted my hands. “As for me, I like you. I think your smile is beautiful, you have a pure heart, and you are a strong woman. You should be with someone that…” I paused, drawing a blank. “How do you sign cherish?”

Her eyes were wide with surprise as her mouth parted. Slowly, she raised her hands, showing me the correct gesture.

“Cherish you and makes you feel loved.” I was still new at signing so I couldn’t do it as fluently as I wanted but I was sure she got the point so I started using my voice again. “I didn’t expect to come here and fall for my brother’s fiancée. That’s not even how I move. I’m loyal by default, and regardless of me and my brother’s relationship status, I would never step on his toes like this. At the same time I can’t keep standing by, seeing how undervalued you were treated. I could see you weren’t happy because when you talked about Rome you never smiled with your eyes. You hid parts of yourself to make him comfortable, but what did he do to reciprocate that for you?”

I picked up a grape and tossed it into my mouth. Nakyra was still staring at me in disbelief.

“When did you learn to sign? How did you know to say all that?”

I chuckled, not shocked that she was still stuck on that. “YouTube and Camilla.”

“Camilla?” Her brows shot up.

“I’ve always been a hands-on learner and picked up on things quickly. When I saw Camilla knew sign language, I asked her to teach me. I’ve been meeting her for a few nights a week for the past month. When I’m not with her, I’m on YouTube or reading books.”

She swallowed hard and her bottom lip began to tremble. “Bu-but why?”

I tongued the inside of my cheek and rubbed my knuckles with my thumb. The tenderness and vulnerability in her voice touched me in ways no one had in a long time. My blood fired to a fever pitch. “Because you deserve someone to put you first, for once. Your hearing is a part of you, so learning how to be in your world in any way I can only makes sense.”

Nakyra’s eyes filled with tears. She squeezed them shut and quickly wiped them. “But you didn’t tell me you had feelings for me until last week.”

“So maybe I knew before then that they were starting to form.” I shrugged, popping another grape into my mouth. I moved to the strawberries next.

“I never had anyone… I mean…” She stumbled over her words. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.” I bit into the juicy fruit and the taste exploded in my mouth. “I’m a man who enjoys challenges and learning new things, so it wasn’t something that inconvenienced me. Even if this thing between us doesn’t play out, I still want you to know you have someone on your side in this family. Someone willing to make you feel like you belong. Mhm.” I licked the strawberry juice off my lips.

“How do you say come taste this?” I asked.

Her brows furrowed and she blinked rapidly. “ Come taste this, ” she signed.

I picked up another strawberry and ripped the stem off before putting the wide part into my mouth then lifted my hands, mimicking what she just did.

Her eyes fell on the strawberry and her breathing shook. She swallowed hard and licked her lips.

Slowly, she shifted over to me and balanced on her hands until her face was inches from mine. Again, she watched the strawberry in my mouth. I didn’t move, instead waiting to see if she would make the move. Nakyra moved in and opened her mouth, covering the strawberry and closing her teeth around it. The juices spilled between us. When she didn’t pull away I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her this time. A surge of electricity ran through my veins as we passed the chewed strawberry between us and my tongue traced her lips before plunging inside her mouth.

When she moaned softly against my lips, I took it further and moved my hands to her body, pulling her further into me and leaning back. My hands traveled down her body as she lay on me; the kiss growing hotter and more passionate.

“Let me show you what it feels like for a man to worship a woman without expecting anything in return. Just say yes and I’ll make sure you experience the best night of your life.”

I thought she would be hesitant but there was nothing but burning desire in her eyes when she stared down at me. “Yes,” she breathed.

Her mouth lowered to mine again and the kiss resumed. Blood rushed to my dick, growing harder by the minute.

“I’m going to show you what it feels like to never feel like you don’t matter and how a man should treat the woman he cares about.”

I didn’t know what would happen after tonight, but I did know I wasn’t letting this moment go to waste. If I only had one night to experience and explore Nakyra, then I planned on drawing it out and making it last. I knew this was it; if we crossed this line there was no going back. Nakyra didn’t seem worried about it. By the way she was grinding on me, she looked to be hot and willing for me to take her.