Chapter 5 #2
Casper walked over to Grant with a wagging tail.
After a head rub and pat, Casper was behind me to get into my SUV.
My main man Casper loved to ride out with me.
Some days when Bruq, as I nicknamed her, was at work, I picked Casper up from day care, and he chilled with me.
His mama had an attitude when I paid his day care bill ahead.
That was crazy to me because she had no issue when I added her to my gym membership.
There were still a few hours before my baby got off, so I went home to chill for a little while longer.
While I sat on my couch, I couldn’t stop watching the social media video.
Based on the comments, it had the opposite results of what Cece’s dumb ass anticipated.
Ninety-eight percent of the comments talked about how beautiful my girl was.
A skin disorder that Cece intended for people to tease, they actually found alluring and gorgeous. So fucking gorgeous.
It saddened me that Bruqlyn felt she had to cover her skin with makeup.
She must have spent a lot of money on her makeup because it was the perfect shade and didn’t transfer.
She’d laid her head on my shirt, and I’d touched her face multiple times.
It suddenly dawned on me that she always wore long sleeves.
I never thought anything about it, because of how thin the material was. She claimed she was cold-natured.
I took time to research her condition. I knew the name, but not much about it.
By the time I was ready to leave to go to my baby’s job, Casper was on his back, laid out on the bed I purchased him.
All I could do was shake my damn head. On the drive there, I prepared my spirit for the pushback that I would get when I told Bruq that she would spend the night with me.
Since I felt like I knew the why behind the no, I had a fighting chance.
Back To The Present…
“Is this the reason that you don’t want to spend the night?”
I handed the phone to Bruqlyn. She took the phone from me with her beautiful face twisted into a scowl. When a single tear fell from her eye, I wanted to tear some shit up. “Where did you get this?”
“That dumb bitch Cece posted it on IG and tagged me.” I shifted my body to face her again. “Bruq, be real with me. Is this why you don’t want to spend the night with me?”
Her attention was still on the video. It was a pretty lengthy video that started from the point that she got out of the shower until she was fully dressed. Her eyes closed, and she mumbled, “I’m going to kill that bitch.” She set the phone down on the table. “I can’t deal with this.”
Before I could say anything, she shot up from her seat and took off toward the back of the restaurant.
This girl. I sat there in my thoughts until I saw my baby with her things, headed toward the front door.
I jumped up to run after her. I wouldn’t say that I was a track star, but I was fast as fuck, boy.
I grabbed her van’s driver’s side door just as she was about to close it. “Where you going, Bruq?”
“I just need to go,” she blurted with a trembling voice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears fell down her cheeks freely.
I moved my body to block her from closing the door. “Okay, that’s fine. How about this, you come to my house and we talk? You don’t have to spend the night, but we need to have this conversation, love. I’m your nigga, not just some stranger who doesn’t give a fuck.”
Her stare didn’t break from mine. She sniffled before she dropped her face into her hands. With one hand on her thigh, I used the other to rub her back. After a moment of whimpering, she glanced at me. “We can go to your house.”
My brows knitted together. “Bruqlyn, don’t play with me. I’m going to follow you. If you turn off anywhere, I’m on your ass. Please don’t make me show you that I’m not all the way there.”
“I won’t, Euri. I’m going straight to your house,” she said quietly. She started her van after I moved and closed her door.
My SUV was parked next to her. Bruqlyn waited until I started my SUV before she pulled off. Like a true woman of her word, she went straight to my house. I intentionally blocked her in. I told her that she didn’t have to spend the night, but she was.
“Aye, go ahead and get your night stuff, love.” My hands went up. “I’m not saying that you have to stay here, but if you choose to, I want you to have everything you need.”
She hesitated but walked around to the other side of the van to open the side door. I watched while she grabbed the things she needed. I told her that I didn’t think she would need her shower shoes. That pulled a chuckle out of her.
After she got everything, we went into the house. Casper met us at the door with all of his wagging tail love. She told me that she wasn’t hungry when I asked, but she did want a bottle of water.
“Alright, so what’s up?” I asked her after we settled on the couch. I allowed silence to fill the room. I wanted her to take the lead.
She took a long sip from her bottled water as if it was her personal bottle of courage.
Her sigh was loud. “I have a skin disorder named vitiligo.” Although I already knew about what it was in a general sense, I still asked her what it was.
“Um, the cells that make pigment in your skin are called melanocytes.
Vitiligo is basically when those cells stop working or die.
It causes you to have white blotches on your skin.
“It can also affect your hair. Like having white streaked hair or all-white sometimes, or like white eyelashes or brows. My brows and lashes weren’t affected, but I do have white streaks through my hair.
” When my face tightened, she answered the unasked question.
“I wear sew-ins and wigs. When I get my hair braided, the girl that does it knows how to tuck my hair very well.”
My body was already angled toward her, but I still moved closer to her. “Can I ask you why you hide your condition? I watched the video almost fifty times. Bruq, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
Her expression softened. “Um, it’s easier to hide it and not get the stares. I mean, you see what that bitch did. People look at me like I’m a weirdo. Euri, I already live in a van. I don’t need anything else working against me.”
My lip turned up. “Fuck them people. I know Bruqlyn Jones doesn’t give a fuck about what people think.”
Her expression was unreadable for a split second before her smile rose. “I mean, it’s not that I care about what people think. In the same breath, I can be violent. If someone says or does the wrong thing to me, it could have a catastrophic effect on the method of death of that person.”
I shot her a side-eye before my laughter took over.
“You know, I thought I was a little off, but I see that I’m in good company.
” I pulled her into my chest when she joined in on the laughter.
I kissed her forehead. I waited until she calmed down to speak again.
“I need you to know that I don’t give a fuck about your skin disorder. You’re mine, vitiligo and all.”