6. Amina Sinclair
Amina Sinclair
Iwoke up to the sound of something banging outside of the truck.
I jumped up out of my sleep, moving the blanket off my body, so that I could see what was going on.
I looked on the top bunk, just to see if Gemini was up there, but he wasn’t.
I walked up front, where the cab area was, thinking that Gemini might have been in the driver’s seat, but he wasn’t.
That’s when I saw movement on the passenger side, causing me to look out of the window, and it was Gemini out there. He was outside working out.
The slamming noise that I heard was the weighted ball that he was carrying in his hands.
He was slamming it to the ground, and then he would do a burpee.
God, I tried to turn my head and not look.
I really tried to move my feet, and take my ass back to the sleeper, and get back in bed, but I couldn’t.
I already saw, and now it was impossible to turn around and not continue to look.
His chocolate body was dripping in sweat. This was my first time seeing him without a shirt on. I’ve only seen him in wife beaters, and sleeveless shirts. I knew that he was filled with tattoos on his arms, but God, I didn’t know that he had them all over his chest, and stomach.
When he completed the workout, he turned his body around, putting his hands on his hips, and that’s when I saw the tattoos on his back as well.
I promise I got dizzy seeing that. That back piece was sickening.
In big, bold letters, right at the top of his back, it read, ‘God’s favorite’.
I didn’t know much about tattoos because I didn’t have any of my own, but from all the art that was on his body, you could tell that he went to a professional that knew what the hell they were doing. All the ink on his body was perfect.
I didn’t want him to see me, so I stepped back a little bit, but I still had the perfect view of him.
He turned around, picking up the galloon size water bottle that was on the floor, and he quickly drank from it.
I was in utter shock at the bottoms that he was wearing.
They were Nike shorts, but they weren’t the kind that men would wear down to their knees.
No, they stopped at the middle of his thighs.
You could see how strong his thighs and legs were.
His durag wasn’t on his head, so you saw those fresh waves in his hair.
I don’t know what the hell was going on with me, but I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be looking at my best friend’s brother like this.
When he laid out on the black mat that was down on the ground, and started doing sit ups, I had to get the hell away from the window and make my way back to the sleeper area because there wasn’t anything appropriate coming from the thoughts that I was having.
I straightened up the bed. I propped Bruno against the pillow, and the throw blanket that I’ve been snuggled up with, I folded it, letting it sit at the foot of the bed.
I grabbed the book that I was reading, sitting it on top of the throw blanket.
I had no intentions on falling asleep. The plan was to come back here and read, but I ended up dozing off.
Gemini and I were up at about nine this morning.
We went into the truck stop, so we could shower, and put on clothes to start our day.
It was his off day, and I was curious to find out what an off day looked like for him.
We ended up at Walmart. He had plans to cook dinner tonight, so he purchased everything that he was going to need for dinner.
He stocked up on snacks for the road, and I did the same.
You would think that with the new toiletry items that I picked up, new books, the throw blanket, along with snacks, and other food items for me, that Gemini would have expected me to pay for my own stuff, but he didn’t.
When that man told me that he wouldn’t allow me to pull out my wallet while I was with him, he meant it.
After leaving Walmart, we made our way back to the truck stop, and honestly, we’ve been here all day. I didn’t mind it, either.
I quickly learned today that Gemini was a huge Martin Lawrence fan.
While we were in our own beds earlier, he had on reruns of the Martin show, and the way he recited the words line for line, mixed with him cracking up at all the jokes, you could tell just how much he loved Martin.
After watching a few episodes, I remember him asking me if it was something that I wanted to watch, but I told him that I was fine.
Gemini was a reader too. Imagine my surprise when he went over to his book collection, and he pulled out a book to read.
Seeing him reading is what caused me to pull my book out, but I’d fallen asleep.
Now, I woke up, and he was outside having a full-on workout.
It was a little after five in the evening.
I’m sure whenever he finished with his workout, he was going to start with dinner because he said earlier that he was going to start cooking around six.
As I was standing back here, my phone started ringing.
Since my phone was resting right there on the pillow, I was able to look down and see who was calling me.
It was Olivia. She was one of my bridesmaids.
We met at work a few years ago and became close almost overnight.
She was heartbroken when I sent out the text to everyone, letting them know that the wedding was off.
I know how much she wanted marriage for me.
I know how much she was ready for me to have children, so that she could be a god mother.
She’s been calling and texting me, just like everyone else, but she hasn’t been getting much out of me.
Just dry messages, where I let everyone know that I was okay, but still wasn’t in a position where I was ready to talk about it.
I was in better spirits today, so instead of ignoring her, I picked the phone up, took a seat down on the bed, prepared to answer.
“Hey,” I said, placing the phone to my ear.
“Oh girl, you answered! I was just trying my luck. Amina, how are you? We’re over here worried sick about you!” Olivia said, holding onto that British accent that Gemini thought I would have. Olivia was born and raised in London, which is why her accent was so thick.
“I’m okay. Just taking it one day at a time. How’s everything?” I asked, casually speaking as if I hadn’t been ignoring everyone’s phone calls.
This was the first time that Olivia had heard my voice in a while. All she had been getting out of me was text messages, and that’s only when I decided to respond.
“Everything is good. Amina, I’m so sorry for—”
“Hey. Hey. Let’s not do that, okay? We don’t have to address it. We don’t have to talk about it. We know what happened, but I would like to move on from it, and pretend that it didn’t happen, okay?” I cut her off.
I didn’t want to talk about Jacob and I.
I knew what that could do to my mental health.
I knew what it could do to my emotions. I didn’t want to cry today.
I have cried every day for a month straight.
Gemini thought that I didn’t cry yesterday, but I had a moment yesterday morning in the shower.
If I could get through today without shedding tears, then I would make history.
“You’re right. I won’t bring it up. Where are you? Are you still in Miami?” she wanted to know.
“No. I left Miami a couple of days ago. I’m actually in Georgia right now,” I voiced, and when I said that, you could hear the shrieking sound she made, as if she was shocked to hear me say that.
“Georgia? What are you doing in Georgia? What’s there for you?” she wanted to know.
“Nothing is here for me. I’m just traveling,” I said, keeping it simple.
“Traveling where? Are you alone?” she kept pressing the issue. I sighed, crossing my right leg over my left.
“No, I’m with Gianna’s brother,” I said.
Olivia knew Gianna because Gianna has come to London a few times to visit, and I’ve got the girls together on those occasions.
Plus, we had been planning my wedding, and for one of the events, when I wanted to get my entire bridal party together, we’ve all hung out too.
They weren’t close though. Just casual. They just shared me as a mutual friend.
“Didn’t she say that her brother was a truck driver, right?
Truck drivers sleep on their trucks, don’t they?
Are you traveling with him, and sleeping on the truck with him?
Eww. Amina, what the hell!” Olivia screamed, as if she would be absolutely disgusted if the answer to her questions were yes.
Something that stood out to me with what she said was the fact that even she knew that we were going to have to sleep on the truck, but I didn’t.
“Yeah. I actually am sleeping on the truck with him,” I wanted to hear what she was going to say, and that’s why I was so straightforward with my answer.
When I said that to her, she laughed. The laugh was sarcastic though. The one you do when you’re so caught off guard that you don’t even know what to say. The one you do when you’re trying to be careful over your next few words, so that you don’t offend someone.