Chapter 11 Harbor
Chapter eleven
Harbor
The ride to the lawyer’s office was thick with a heat that had nothing to do with the Mobile humidity. Dex had one hand on the wheel navigating the downtown streets, while his other hand reached over and caressed my thigh.
My body betrayed me instantly, softening under his touch, but I forced my arm to swat him away. “Don’t, Dex.”
“You back to being mean already?” he asked, his voice low and edged with a frustration I hadn’t heard from him earlier.
“That never should have happened. None of it. I’m stressed, I’m tired, and I don’t need you adding to it.”
“Yeah, but you wanted it,” he said, eyes dark as midnight. “That’s why you was in there, playing with that pussy. Don’t even try to front, Nique… I tasted how bad you needed it.”
My face heated up, the embarrassment stinging more than the words. I kept my eyes on the old brick buildings of Royal Street. “I was just bored. My phone was dead and wasn’t nothing on TV. It didn’t mean anything.”
Dex let out a sharp dry laugh that sounded more like a bark. He pulled the truck over to the curb and threw it in park. He turned in his seat, his frame filling every inch of the cabin.
“Bored?” He leaned in, his shadow falling over me. “When are we gonna stop playing this game Nique? I want you. I know you want me too. You just too stubborn to forgive me.”
“I’ll never forgive you Dex,” I snapped, the old hurt rising up like acid in my throat. I finally looked at him, my eyes stinging. “You put my life at risk. You played with my health, my heart, everything.”
He looked at me like I’d said something that didn’t make sense. “Put your life at risk? What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t stutter,” I said, my voice shaking.
“I trusted you enough to have unprotected sex with you in Jamaica and you didn’t respect me enough to tell me you had been with somebody else not even twenty-four hours before.
You think I forgot that? I spent weeks terrified wondering if you had brought something back to me! ”
“I was wrong,” Dex said, his voice dropping, raw and heavy. “I’ll forever regret the day I touched Amina. I was young and I was stupid and I fumbled. But I used a condom with her Nique. I might have been a dog but I was never reckless with you. Never.”
“People who really regret something don’t keep going back to the same person years later and get them pregnant,” I shot back, the Miami memories flooding in.
“I’m the stupid one because even after Jamaica I let you touch me again in Miami for Paris’s birthday two years later like I hadn’t learned anything.
You can’t tell me you were using protection then because that’s exactly when I found out she was pregnant.
I saw the texts Dex. I saw the picture of that positive test on your phone while you were in the shower. ”
“You came to my room in Miami,” Dex said, his jaw tight. “And you’re still wrong, because I never touched Amina without a condom. You are the only one I have ever been that close to. The only one I ever wanted to be.”
“Then how did she end up pregnant Dex? Tell me that.”
“There had to be a hole in it or something. Why do you think I denied Demi her whole pregnancy? I’m not that cold hearted Nique. I genuinely believed she wasn’t mine because I knew I was covered every single time I touched her.”
I went quiet at that. The rawness in his voice made it hard to dismiss. I had spent years building a story where he just didn’t care about me, but the look on his face right now said he had been carrying this just as long as I had.
The silence in the truck settled heavy between us. Dex took a slow breath and reached out, this time just brushing a stray curl away from my face.
“I love you Nique,” he said, and the simplicity of it made my chest ache.
“I’ve been in love with you since you almost smoked me in that race back in the day.
I was too shy to say it then and I let you slip away.
I’ve fumbled you more than once and I’m sorry for that.
I’ll spend however long it takes making that right.
But you have got to stop pushing me away. ”
I looked out the window, my throat tight.
“I’m trying to marry you,” he continued, his voice steady and certain.
“I want to build a real life with you. I even built my house with you in mind. I remember you told me you wanted a beach home. Finding land by the beach wasn’t cheap and the insurance is something else.
On top of that your ass don’t even live there.
I’m out here building something for a woman who won’t even look me in the eye. ”
I looked at him, feeling the cracks in my wall spreading whether I wanted them to or not. “Nigga, you are delusional.”
“Yeah, over you. That’s why I’m about to walk into a lawyer’s office with my beard still smelling like you, dropping a bag to keep you out of jail. Because that’s what you do for your person.”
I glanced over at him. He hadn’t even bothered to wash up before we left. My cheeks went hot. He was carrying the evidence of the whole morning on him and didn’t care who noticed.
He put the truck back in gear. Trey Songz came through the speakers singing about fumbling somebody’s heart. The song hit uncomfortably close to home and neither one of us said a word until we were pulling into a spot on Saint Francis Street.
Dex killed the engine and sat for a second letting everything he said hang in the air. He checked his reflection in the rearview, smoothed his beard, and checked his watch.
“Logan is waiting,” he said, his voice shifting back to business. “Let’s go.”
We walked into an old, restored building.
The lobby was all dark wood and smelled like old money and leather.
Logan Vaughn wasn’t just any lawyer. He handled contracts and land acquisitions for Dex’s firm and he was the kind of man you called when you needed something handled quietly and correctly.When we were buzzed into Logan’s private office he stood and shook Dex’s hand before nodding at me.
“Ms. Simmons,” he said, his voice smooth and measured. “Please sit down.”
We settled into the leather chairs across from his desk. Logan already had a folder open.
“Dex gave me the broad strokes on the phone, but I want to hear it from you,” he said, looking at me over his glasses. “The report says you initiated the physical contact at the salon. Is that accurate?”
“Not exactly,” I said and started from the top.
“I had been trying to reach my girlfriend, but she wasn’t answering,” I said, keeping my voice steady.
“We share locations for safety reasons and when I saw she was at her ex’s shop I got concerned.
The shop is closed on Sundays so I went to check on her.
When I got there I overheard an inappropriate conversation between the two of them. ”
Logan leaned back, pen poised. “Did you become physical after hearing it?”
“No. I confronted them verbally. Trisha is her ex, so I let them both know how disrespectful the conversation was.”
“What was the nature of the conversation?”
“They were reminiscing about how they met. Kel made a comment about how Trisha’s body looked and that’s when I stepped in.”
“Verbally or physically at that point?”
“Verbally. It didn’t get physical until Kel tried to physically remove me from the premises. That’s when Trisha started making remarks about my relationship, saying Kel kept coming back to her because I was lacking. After that, things escalated.”
Logan nodded, writing steadily. “So, the physical contact began when your girlfriend put hands on you to remove you, and Trisha escalated with targeted verbal provocation about your relationship.”
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s a much stronger angle. It frames your reaction as a response to both physical and emotional provocation rather than an unprovoked attack.”
Logan wasn’t a criminal defense attorney by trade. He spent his days looking at blueprints and tax codes, but in a city like Mobile who you know is just as important as what you know. He tapped his pen against the mahogany desk, looking between me and Dex.
“I’ll be honest with you Nique. My firm lives in corporate litigation and land use. For a criminal domestic matter like this you need somebody who has breakfast with the DA on a regular basis.”
My stomach dropped.
“However,” he continued, catching my expression.
“I’m not sending you out there alone. I’m handing this file personally to Henry Thorne.
He’s the sharpest criminal defense mind in South Alabama and he knows exactly how to work the provocation angle we just outlined.
I’ll stay on as a consultant to make sure your interests are covered on every side, but Henry is the one who is going to make these charges disappear. ”
Dex leaned back looking satisfied. “Thorne was your connection that helped handle that zoning situation with the city last year, right?”
“The very same. He has the temperament for this kind of case.” Logan stood and extended his hand across the desk. “Don’t worry about the retainer Dex. We’ll handle the administrative side between our offices. Nique, expect a call from Henry’s assistant within the hour. And stay away from Kelly.”
“I have no plans of ever seeing her again,” I said, and I meant every word of it. We walked back out into the midday heat. Dex waited until we were in the truck with the AC going before he said anything.
“You good?” he asked, his eyes moving over my face looking for the cracks.
“I think so,” I muttered, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. “I just can’t believe I’m in this position. Over her. I don’t even have a place to go Dex. I’m homeless right now.”
“I just told you I built a whole house for you,” he said, pulling out into traffic.
I looked at him, the morning still hovering in the back of my mind. I wanted to hold onto every reason I had not to trust him but watching him move through my mess without hesitation was wearing my defenses down faster than I could stack them back up.
“Why are you doing all of this?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Dex didn’t hesitate. He kept his eyes on the road but that slow knowing pull at the corner of his mouth gave him away.
“Because you’re my person Nique,” he said. “Always have been. I got a lot of years' worth of fumbles to make up for.”
I didn’t have a rebuttal for that. I turned back toward the window and watched the city blur past. I wanted to trust him again.
I wanted my friend back more than anything.
I could line up a hundred good memories of us without even trying.
The problem wasn’t whether I still loved him.
I knew the answer to that. The problem was whether love was ever going to be enough to outweigh everything that had happened in between.