Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Karim Ortega
You’re just a heartbreaker; won’t let you break mine. The moment I laid eyes on him I wanted to scream. Because how in the hell did he always know where I was when he was here? How did he know where to find me when my own family didn’t half of the time?
“You good, Karim?” Danial asked, pulling my attention back to the table where we were having breakfast.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just got distracted.” I blinked several times, praying to God he wasn’t on his way over here, but in true Reminisce fashion, he was at my table in less than ten seconds.
My prayer didn’t even have time to make it past the ceiling.
Then, to make matters worse, he knocked on the fucking table when I didn’t look in his direction.
“You ’boutta act like you don’t see me even though I’m standing right here, Rim?”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, then glared up at him. Shit he looked good, perfect chocolate skin with those moisturized tattoos on the side of his face. “Yes, I was. What do you want?”
He laughed, then looked in Danial’s direction. “I need to talk to you for a minute. Tell your friend to give us a minute.”
“Uhh, sure,” Danial responded like a straight bitch, not even giving me the chance to tell Reminisce to fuck off. That fast I was turned off and decided not to blur the line between him being my personal trainer and someone I allowed into my bed.
“You fucking with niggas who wear leggings now, Rim?” Reminisce asked, taking a seat across from me with a pleased expression on his face.
“Even though it’s none of your concern, I’m not fucking him.”
“Good for him.” The way he looked at me had me wondering what the hell he was thinking. He had one of those poker faces like my brother’s, if not worse. Their expression was never truly blank, but extremely unreadable.
“Why are you here, Reminisce?”
“Just wanted to see you.” His eyes held sincerity and something else. I couldn’t figure that out if somebody paid me, because he was so emotionally unavailable he should have walked around with a fucking sign and not the graphic T-shirts he designed.
I sighed. “Now you’ve seen me. Can you g—”
“Come take a ride with me.”
I shook my head. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”
“You think I give a fuck about you being in the middle of wasting some nigga’s time?
Yeah, okay. I’m in the Wagon.” He was on his feet and reaching into his pocket.
He threw a few bills on the table and moved toward the exit without even an inkling to look back.
And the one thing I hated was that without a second thought I was about to follow him.
What the fuck are you doing, Karim? I asked myself as soon as I was on my feet, throwing my coat on to follow him.
“Hey, Karim, what’s up? Where are you going?” Danial asked, reaching the table before I could dash.
“That was my cousin. Family emergency. I’ll call you.” Everything I said was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, okay,” he muttered behind me because of course I was already out of the door behind Reminisce.
As soon as I reached the passenger side of his truck, where he stood with the door open for me to get in, I hauled off and stole on him with everything in me. He didn’t get to go missing on me for months then come back and demand my time.
He gripped his jaw with a smirk. Fucking psychopath.
“You still putting too much behind that punch, fucking yourself up in the process.”
“Doesn’t matter. Why are you here, Reminisce?” I stood in front of him irritated.
“Damn, you don’t miss me, Rim?” He looked so good I could scream.
“Nah, I don’t. Why are you here?”
He chuckled. “Get your lying ass in the car.”
I sucked my teeth. “Why would I get in the car with you? What do you nee—”
“Get in the car, Karim.” The way he said that had me looking at him. He never called me Karim and never took a serious tone with me, no matter how serious I was with him.
I didn’t push. I got my ass in the car, lowkey not knowing what to expect. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t give a little push back though. “Don’t be calling me by my government and demanding that I get in the fucking car either.”
He didn’t respond. He closed the door and moved around to the driver side. The moment he was in the car, his heavy ass energy was felt. He was brooding, but in true Reminisce fashion, he wasn’t gonna tell me why until he was ready. Either way, he had just hijacked my morning to do such.
He drove silently while the annoying ass voices of the loud people on the radio filled the car.
“Okay, why are we here?” I turned his radio down and shifted all my energy to the door so I could face him.
He backed into a park and glared at the building. “We friends, right?”
I blinked a few times. “Uh yeah, why? What’s wrong?” Now he was scaring me.
“’Cause I really fucking need that right now.” The way he looked at that building let me know if he had the ability, he would have blown that motherfucker down.
“Okay, so what’s the problem? What happened?”
“I got a call Friday from Rennix for me to come back here. Pynk dropped off a kid on me.”
I didn’t know why that crushed me, but it did. We were fucking friends, right? Shit! “And she wants you to be in her lif—”
“Nah, she dropped the kid at Rennix’s spot and went about her business. She told him some shit about her man not wanting to raise another nigga’s kid.”
I nearly choked on the spit in my mouth. “So, she abandoned her baby?” The thought of that pissed me off, because what the fuck?
He nodded. “Yeah. Left her crying on the doorstep with two motherfuckers she didn’t know. My people had her, but I don’t like that.”
I nodded and finally looked up at the building. “This is where she is?”
“Yeah, turns out I didn’t have to get Rennix to track her location, I just had to go through my voicemails. She told me everything in them motherfuckers, except the fact that she was abandoning her kid…my kid.”
“You wanna be with her?” I found myself asking, on the verge of losing my shit.
He turned his face from the direction of the hotel and glared at me. “Nah, the motherfucker I wanna be with doesn’t know how to be with anybody.”
That was a jab, had me swallowing so hard while trying to avoid that eye contact. “Well, what are we doing here?”
“If she doesn’t wanna be a mother, she doesn’t have to be.
I’d never force that on a soul, but I damn sure don’t want her coming around months later trying to play tug of war with my daughter.
Romance deserves better than that.” He reached on the side of him and pulled out a stack of tri-folded papers, then handed them to me.
I opened them and looked the wording over. “You want her to sign over her parental rights?”
“Yup.”
My eyes went from him to the hotel again. “What’s the incentive?”
“The fuck you mean an incentive? She signs these papers or I leave her ass up here like maggot food.”
I didn’t mean to laugh, but I couldn’t hold it back.
I knew Reminisce and I knew for a fact that he didn’t kill women and children, something we’d debated several times.
In my opinion, a bitch could catch this work and I’d drop her kid off at a fire station.
It was just that easy. “So what am I doing here, Rem?”
“To make sure I don’t kill her.” He finally looked at me and I felt the heat emitting from his being.
“Well then, let’s get up here.” I opened my door and got out before he could say anything else. I needed fresh air and not the inside of his car polluted with the scent of him. An aroma I had been obsessed with since the first night he’d found his way between my legs.
The walk into the hotel was quick as I made sure to keep distance between the two of us. When I was around Reminisce, I felt things I struggled to hide. He was emotionally unavailable and I struggled to be such when it came to him.
The ride up to her floor was quiet, me staring straight ahead and him staring at me. With Reminisce, everything was heightened, felt like the strongest drug. Completely lethal if I got a hold of too much of it…of him.
We stepped off the elevator and I followed him as he chanted the same number repeatedly, five-nineteen. The door at the end of the hall was it.
“You got it on you?” he asked when we stepped in front of the door.
“Damn sure wasn’t about to get in the car with you without it. You get us into too many sticky situations.”
“One time, Rim.”
“Twice. The bitch with the blue hair with the heart tattooed on her forehead.”
Laughter escaped his lips while he knocked on the door. “That wasn’t on me. You told her you’d rearrange her facial features.”
I shrugged, glancing down at the papers in my hand. “I wonder why.” All roads lead back to Reminisce, don’t they?
The door opened before he could respond. Truth was, I didn’t want a response, or maybe I did. I’d just been conditioned to not expect too much from him. Even though he said one thing, he always did another. We were friends and should stay that way.
“Reminisce, what are you doing her—” A pink haired woman standing in only a lace bra and panties held the door open. Why did I think he called her Pynk for anything other than her damn hair.
“Open the fucking door, Pynk.” He forced the door open and stood back, motioning for me to enter first.
“First of all, who the fuck you got in my hotel room and what are you doing here?” She slammed the door shut and grabbed a robe from the sofa. Once she had it on and tied tightly, she crossed her arms under her breasts and glared at me. “Who the fuck are you and wh—”
“Yo, watch how you speak to her. Tell me why you dropped my kid off at my brother’s place after three years? Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“How could I, Reminisce? You blocked me out of your life, came here, and made a whole life I didn’t fucking exist.” Her voice elevated.
“You didn’t, but what changed?”
“Everything. I’m engaged and my man don’t wanna take care of your kid.”