27. Blair
Blair
I told this man that I loved him and had never been inside his home. It felt like a sensitive subject, asking to visit his home. Meer had told me that this was the home that he shared with Cherie and their daughter.
When we first pulled down the block, I was confused about where we were. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, and it didn’t seem like a place that Quasim would live. Not that I ever counted his money, however, I knew he could afford to live in something the same as Meer had.
The pipe in my kitchen burst, and instead of staying at my house, he offered to bring me to his house before we went back to the lake house. I had classes all week and couldn’t stay at the lake house, so he and Elijah drove to the city to come get me, since my last class was tonight. The studio was closed for the next week, so me and Synthia could have a vacation.
Mostly Syn, because she had been working around the clock at the studio. Elijah yawned as he looked at the house that we passed, as if he was trying to look inside and see if someone was home. When he couldn’t, he gave up and leaned his head back on the seat.
The one-story craftsman house with worn white siding and one missing shutter in the front came into view, and I watched as Sim hit the garage opener and pulled the car inside, killing the engine, and making sure it closed behind us. Elijah took his seatbelt off as Quasim walked around and opened the door for me. I was nervous to enter his space.
He had been in my place plenty of times, but this felt different. This was truly his domain, the place where I’m sure he had sat in his darkness, and it scared me. I didn’t know my place within his home.
“Are you sure?”
He cocked his head to the side confused. “Sure, about what, Anjo?”
“Me staying the night over here… I can sleep over Aimee’s house, baby.”
Sim kissed my lips and pulled me behind him. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure. What you nervous about?” He paused before we entered the house.
“I don’t want to mess anything up.” I looked up at him, scared that I would touch a dish, and it would be Cherie’s dish, or I would wipe something, and it was a stain left by Harley. I really didn’t want to mess anything up.
Quasim kissed my cheek. “You can’t mess up anything even if you tried. I want you here, Anjo… I promise, I wouldn’t have brought you here if I wasn’t ready for you to come.”
“Okay.” He kissed my lips before bringing me in.
The outside of the house didn’t match the inside. Everything was neat, and in order. The kitchen was updated, and it smelled like coconut and mahogany teakwood.
“Go shower and get those pits, too,” Quasim yelled behind Eli as he took off down the hall.
I laughed and followed him into the kitchen. The kitchen was small, still, it was beautifully decorated. Matte black cabinets, exposed wood shelves instead of top cabinets, and white quartz countertops. His sink looked out the window, and I watched as he looked out the window, before going into the bottom cabinet and pulling out cat food.
“You have a cat?”
“The little slut out back is kind of like mine,” he nonchalantly replied, like he didn’t call the cat a slut.
“Um, what?”
“She stay getting knocked up… letting them all fuck on her. I feed her and make sure she stays warm in the winter.”
“Simmy, I am learning so much about you… you’re a cat dad.”
“That little slut don’t need no parent… ass don’t even say thank you when I’m back there enjoying my coffee.”
I shook my head, because he was dead serious as he measured out the food and put it into a glass bowl before sitting it out the back door.
“What are we going to eat for dinner? I am starving.”
“We could have had dinner; you couldn’t decide on what you wanted.”
I laughed. “I don’t have a taste for anything; however, I am hungry for something… I hate when I get in these moods.”
Quasim opened the wine fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. “I want you to soak in the tub and relax. You been doing classes all week and I know you haven’t taken a breath. Been taking your medicine?”
“Yes. Every morning and night.”
“Then that means I need to find something for you to eat.” He looked at his watch, and then back at me. “I’m about to put you onto this small diner I go to sometimes.”
“What kind of food do they have?”
“I get the smothered chicken with greens and baked mac and cheese… shit be bussing. Elijah gets the BBQ chicken with rice.”
“Can we share like old times?”
He smirked. “Baby, you be putting that food away now… I want my food.”
I rolled my eyes. “I do not even eat that much… just cause I can finish a plate doesn’t mean I can eat a lot again.”
“Until you finish my plate. I got you, though… It’s like ten minutes away, I’ll call it in on my way there… Havoc at Fern, so I’ll have him come until I’m back.”
“Okay.”
He kissed me on the lips and pointed to the bathroom. “Go soak in the bath… not trying to eat salty pussy cause you been sweating all day.”
I squeaked. “Quasim!”
He laughed as he headed out the door, and I grabbed the bottle of wine and looked for a wine glass before checking in on Elijah and going to find his bathroom. On the way toward where I assumed his room was, I bypassed a door with little flowers on it, and it was slightly cracked open.
My hand hovered over the doorknob as I peered inside the room. It hurt my heart that his angel left behind her room and would never return back to it. Her room was pale pink and white with a white wooden bed in the center of the room, stuffed animals all lined up on the bed, and a water bottle that remained on the side table next to her bed.
It was half empty and it looked like it had been there for a while. On the wall above her bed, she had pictures of her favorite princesses, and a picture of Quasim, Harley, and Cherie. They were both kissing her cheeks as she smiled with a toothless grin in the middle of them.
There were a few Chuckie Cheese photos that you got when you used their photobooth. One of Quasim smiling at the camera while holding his baby girl up. I quickly closed the door slightly and headed further down the hall to his bedroom.
I smiled when I entered his room because it smelled like him. A little dark, but I guess that was his thing. A regular bed sat in the middle of the floor with side tables and a big fluffy duvet. He had a few pictures hanging up, nothing crazy. The room was very plain and looked like he just slept in here. There wasn’t a television in here, or side lamps in case he wanted to read in bed.
Folded in the middle of the bed was the blanket he let me use when we were traveling to Bali. I smiled as I sat the bottle of wine down and went into the bathroom to run a bath. His bathroom was perfect. His and her sinks were on opposite sides of the bathroom. You had to walk through them to get to the shower and tub combo.
I looked at his toothbrush and all his face care stuff that he used. Sim didn’t take me as a man that did skincare, then again, his skin was amazing. On the other sink, there was perfume and a bunch of women’s products. Some had the label off of them because they were that old.
Pushing it out of my head, I figured out how to run the bath and used some of his shower gel to give me some bubbles. I sat on the toilet and looked at the other side of the sink and my heart broke for him.
Every day, he had to come in here and see the sink that used to be hers. He had to brush his teeth in here alone, a home that was supposed to be for his family. Tears fell down my face as I looked in the bathroom, seeing a pink, fluffy towel that looked like it hadn’t been touched in a long time.
In a basket on the side of her sink, there were a bunch of curling irons and flat irons wrapped up. It was one thing knowing what he had gone through, and knowing how hard it was for him to get through it.
It was different experiencing it.
This home was a museum of his old life, and he had been living in his past and grief for years. How could he truly move on, when every part of his home reminded him of his past life with them?
I had a sweatshirt from my mom that I took with me to all the different foster homes I stayed in. It still smelled like her and reminded me of her. Every time I was scared, stressed, or worried, I would smell the shirt because it reminded me of home.
Home was a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. The last time I felt like home was when my mother was alive. With Quasim, I felt like home. I felt protected, loved, and respected. When he stared down into my eyes, I knew he would rather die before he ever caused any pain to me.
A loud crash caused me to jump, and I heard Elijah screaming. I jumped up and ran out the room and went down to where he was in the bathroom. He popped his head out of the room before the second bathroom with wide eyes.
“Fire, Ms. Blair… there’s fire!” He hollered.
I looked behind him and there were flames on his bed. My eyes damn near popped out of my head while I grabbed him and rushed to the front door. Another crash caused us both to look and a bottle crashed through the window on fire.
“Elijah, come on!” I ran to the garage door and swung it open, only for it to be filled with smoke.
My heart was about to come out my chest as we kept hearing glass break. I ran into the bedroom, pulling Elijah behind me and looked for my phone. I snatched it from next to the wine bottle, and as I was about to go toward the bathroom, the glass in the bedroom broke, and another bottle on fire entered the room.
“What the fuck is going on?” I screamed.
Running to the second window, I paused while my thoughts raced everywhere. “Ms. Blair the window.”
“Elijah, open the windows… I’ll be back!” I screamed and opened the door.
Smoke hit me in the face as I ran down the hall, using muscle memory until I made it to Harley’s room. I grabbed whatever I could and ran back down the hall. The bedroom window was stuck, it only opened a little bit.
I shoved the blankets and a picture book out through the small slits. “My phone!” I screamed, remembering I had my phone in my hand.
I called Quasim. “Yes, my love?”
He sounded so at peace that I hated to disturb that peace. “Sim, the fucking house is on fire, and we cannot get out!” I screamed.
“What? Where’s Havoc?”
“Baby, I don’t know,” I choked. “It’s getting hard to breathe and the window isn’t opening for us.”
“I’m coming now, baby, use something to break the window.” His voice was laced in malice as I heard the engine in the background.
“Elijah, go in the bathroom until I get this open, please,” I said in a shaky voice. “It’s going to be alright.” I pushed him into the bathroom, noticing he had wet himself in the process.
He was scared.
I was scared.
I grabbed some hard statue that was on his side table, and pushed his bed against the window, since the windows were a little higher. When I looked out the window, there was a white woman with wild blonde hair, holding a bottle in her hand.
“Help us! Help! Call the police!” I screamed, as if she was going to help. She tossed the bottle into the other window, sending even more flames on the other side of the room.
I pushed the bed closer to the window, holding my chest because the smoke was becoming too much. I extended my arm, and tossed the statue through the window, breaking it. I grabbed his boot and hit the excess glass while becoming lightheaded and choking.
“El…Eli,” I huffed out while calling for him. “Baby, please scream… you here.” I held onto the end of the bed.
“Ms. Blair… Ms. Blair.”
“Baby, clim…climb up here on the bed and out the window… jump down and grab that stuff I tossed and find help, please.”
My vision was blurred as I continued to help him climb out. He hopped down and did exactly what I said, and then stopped. I tried to climb the bed to exit, and my legs gave out, resulting in me collapsing on the bed, with my hand on my chest.
“Ms. Blair! Ms. Blair, please wake up! Please!” I heard his screams, as I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get the words out. It felt like I was choking on sandpaper and smoke as the smoke continued to consume me.
To Be Continued
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