Chapter 15 Darius
Darius
Counting the cash from last night’s drop off, I lose count when Clare stumbles down the stairs. Ignoring her sombre mood, I start again and pretend she isn’t here.
Dropping a grand on the coffee table, I pick up the joint in the ashtray and take a long hit and put it back down.
Picking up another wad of bills, I flick through them counting to a grand and drop it beside the other piles.
Clare drops onto her knees opposite me and snorts a line of coke and the sound goes straight through me. There isn’t anything she does that doesn’t annoy the shit out of me.
“You paying for that?” I grunt.
“My ass still hurts from last night, Tar can pay, he owes me.”
Curling my top lip in disgust, I snap, “Fuck off with that shit, I don’t need to know the lengths you go to get high.”
She looks up at me and I watch on as she widens her eyes to focus on me.
“You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you? But I wouldn’t talk to me like that if I were you, not with what I know.”
Rolling my eyes, I carry on counting the cash. I’m not playing her games for her entertainment.
Tariq plods down the stairs, dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else.
Clare’s eyes eat him up and the disgust I feel toward her rapidly returns.
He drops down on the armchair, leaning forward to grab at her and hauls her up onto his lap.
He licks at her neck and sucks on her earlobe.
His need to have constant contact with her is tiring to watch and repulsive.
“I thought you were going to see Amelia this morning.”
I can’t help but tense at the mention of her name. Keeping my eyes on the cash, I keep my ears open and listen in on their conversation.
“I was until I chickened out.”
“You still haven’t told me what you fought about. It couldn’t have been that serious.”
“I don’t agree with the choices she’s making. She’s ruining her life and she can’t see it.”
I finally look at her, giving her what she wants. My reaction.
“What choices?”
“Like I’d tell you,” she spits.
“You might like his dick up your ass, but I doubt you’ll enjoy my gun up there.”
To prove my threat, I pick up my shooter and click the safety off. Now I’m the one who gets the reaction I need.
She gulps and shuffles deeper back on Tariq’s lap.
“Amelia’s pregnant and she’s keeping the baby.”
The world fucking stops. A baby.
“Mine?”
“Who else would it be?”
“You’re lying.”
“Nope, I saw the scan and everything.”
She doesn’t waver and I believe her.
“She wasn’t going to tell me?”
“No. And if she had her way, you’d never know.”
Was that why she showed up here last week? Gripping the edge of the coffee table for something to remind me this shit is real, I lose it. Tipping the lot as I jump up to my feet, Clare leaps forward, shrieking, “The coke!”
“Get the fuck out of here!” I bellow.
Amelia was right to be concerned about her friend with the white shit. She’s taken to it much more than anyone I know, and she has a habit.
“How long have you known?”
“A week.”
A fucking week?
“You didn’t think to tell me sooner?”
“You’re not exactly the type to hold down conversations and she’s my best friend.”
Yeah right, some best friend she is. I wouldn’t say she’s any type of friend to her, let alone the best one.
Digging my car keys out of my pocket, I’m at my car before I can blink. I pushed Amelia away to protect her from this life, from me, and now we’re tied together for the rest of our lives anyway.
It barely registers driving across the city, or when I park up across the street from Amelia’s house. Peering through her gates, her father’s car isn’t on the drive, only her blood red Porsche.
I don’t give her the opportunity to keep me locked out, jumping up, I climb the gates easily enough and dart across the front lawn. Standing below her window, I shoot her a text.
I’m outside. Let me in.
Her window lights up, but no reply comes through, nor does she come down to let me in.
I text her a second time and still, I get nothing back.
Fuck this. She’s talking to me tonight.
Giving the trellis up to her a window a pull, it’s sturdy and I climb up, no doubt fucking up the roses as I go.
Opening her window is too easy and I slip inside without any trouble, finding her stood in the middle of her room with her phone in her hand looking even more beautiful knowing a part of me is growing inside of her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snaps.
“When I said to let me in, I wasn’t asking.”
“What do you want?”
She has no idea I know, and it’s not like Clare could’ve called ahead and gave her a heads up. Tariq knows better.
“I want to hear it from you.”
“What?” she shrugs.
“That you’re having my baby, and you weren’t going to tell me.”
My hands are shaking, and I shove them in my pockets.
“I tried to tell you but you’re the one who didn’t want to talk to me. You can’t have forgotten, it wasn’t that long ago. What I was supposed to do, blurt my business out for all to hear. I don’t think so.”
“So you didn’t think to come around to my house when it was quiet, or fuck, even send me the news in a fucking text?”
“You made it real clear I should stay away. You can’t have it all your way.”
“Not when it comes down to a fucking baby, Amelia!”
She looks down at the carpet and refuses to look back up at me.
“Clare said you’re keeping it, seen a doctor and had a scan and everything. Is it fucking true?”
“If you’re worried I’ll come after you for money or beg you to be with me, don’t be. My dad and I have it all worked out.”
Shocked, I clarify, “You told your father you got knocked up by a Dog’s Blood gangbanger?”
“Of course I did, it’s the truth. In fact, you should be hearing from his lawyer soon enough.”
There’s only one reason someone like her father would hire a lawyer to track me down.
“He’s going to try and pay me off to hand over my rights, isn’t he?”
When she nods, I cross the room and force her to look at me. She needs to hear what I’m about to say loud and fucking clear.
“There’s no price high enough for me to give up on my own blood. You tell your dad not to waste his time or money.”
“You haven’t heard his offer, it could set you and your family up for life.”
“The kid you’re carrying is my family. If you try and keep me away, you best be ready for a fight money can’t win.”
I’ve never fought with money. I have fought over money, but never with it. Walking back to the window, I stop and turn to face her.
“Don’t confuse us not being together with me being a good dad. It’s not what I ever planned but it’s happening, and I’ll always be there for my kid.”
“Trust me, I’m not thinking of us being together. It’s the farthest thing on my mind.”
“What is on your mind, Amelia?”
“Looking out for me and my baby. I have a plan and we don’t need you.”
She doesn’t need me. I’ve never believed she did, I was addicted to her because she wanted me.
Slipping out of the window, it’s harder climbing down than it was climbing up, but I jump the last few feet and land with a thud.
Strolling across the lawn, it’s no work climbing the gate and once I get back to Dog City, I sit in the car out front of Tariq’s long enough, Jermaine notices and comes and sits with me.
“What’s going on?”
“Amelia’s pregnant.”
Fuck, just saying it out loud has my gut wrenching. I ended it between us because I could see her being the most important part of my life and now she is anyway.
“I want two of our guys watching her at all times. I want to know every step she takes.”
“What are you going to do? I mean, you fucked her off. The kid could have everything we only dreamed of. You’re far from stupid, Dar, our lives are dangerous and crazy, and that’s just us trying to survive.”
He has a point but even in our worst times, having someone who loves you and would protect you is priceless.
“I don’t doubt the kid would have everything, but it wouldn’t have a dad, would it.”
I know personally what it’s like not to have a dad around, even though he was an asshole of the highest degree, it didn’t stop the jealousy knowing other kids had dads that came home every night, worked jobs so they could eat and have nice things.
They had men in their lives that would die to protect them.
I’m not entirely happy having a kid under these circumstances but I sure as shit know I’m going to be the dad other kids would kill to have.
“In time she’d meet someone, the kid would have someone to call dad.”
A deeper anger than when Clare told me Amelia was pregnant gnaws at me and I know right now, that’ll never happen. My kid will never call anyone else dad.
“I don’t know how it’s going to work, but I’m not bailing on my kid.”
“What about the lamb? Does it change anything between you two?”
Inhaling deeply, I reply, “I told her we don’t need to be together to have this baby and that’s the way it’s got to be.”
I’ll only end up hurting her one way or another and I can’t live with that.
“I’m out. I’ll catch up with you in the morning.”
Pounding my fist to his, I make my way up the street to my house. The night is quiet, but my thoughts are loud.
Most people my age have a kid or two, some they take care of and some they bail on. Some don’t see having kids as a life-changing event in their lives, but I always have. Having a kid is your sole priority and now my responsibilities have shifted.
Ma is the only one still up and I fall onto the couch beside her. There’s no point prolonging sharing the news with her.
“Amelia’s pregnant.”
She doesn’t speak and her hands still as she matches socks from the laundry basket between her feet.
“Ma? You hear me?”
“I wish I couldn’t.”
Biting the tip of my tongue, I don’t want to say something I may come to regret later.
“I bet that’s why she was here last week.”
Sitting forward, she has my full attention.
“She came to the house?”
“Yeah, she wanted to see you, but you weren’t here.”
I have no right to be angry with Amelia for not telling me, she fucking tried. Twice.
“Is she keeping it?”
“Yeah.”
“And you? How do you feel about it?”
“No point in looking back, it is what it is, and I’ve gotta deal with it.”
“So what’s the plan? You and her going to make it work? What?”
“We got seven months to work it out.”
“I’d say I’m happy for you but right this minute, I can’t.”
And we leave it at that. Having kids in our world isn’t something most people get excited about, babies are seen as drains on income, and your time.
My ma has made no secret how she was too young and naive having me.
That if she knew then what she knows now, she wouldn’t have had me and my brothers.
When I first heard it I was eleven and it hurt.
Now I’m older, I get where she’s coming from.