Chapter 10
Kairo~
I wasn’t sure how long I was still standing by the cherry blossom tree, but I knew that I had to get back to the guys before they got worried. Still, it was going to be hard to get the Hispanic beauty out of my head, and I knew myself well enough to recognize how fucked I was.
Finally turning to head back to the guys, I rubbed my chest where it still ached from how Triana hadn’t viewed me as an immediate danger.
Even though the segregation of our country was supposed to have eliminated prejudice, it hadn’t.
Women still clutched their purses closer when walking alone at night, and if there was one thing that I’d learned over the years, it was that crime wasn’t racist in the least. It was a matter of opportunity and poor character, and the fact that each region still had populated prisons was enough proof of that.
I was also very aware that it didn’t matter how I felt about the woman.
There could never be anything between us, no matter how beautiful she was or what she made me feel.
I also thanked God that it’d been me that had found her and not any of the others.
Had it been Dallas, he would have immediately called the police to have her arrested, and the same could probably be said for Leyden.
Winston probably not, but that was because Winston would have been too entranced by her beauty.
As I thought about her, she had to only be around five-foot-three or somewhere around there, and her dark brown hair had been piled high on her head, but the size of her messy bun would indicate that her hair probably fell to her waist, as was the case with most Hispanic women.
Her chocolate-colored eyes were a shade darker than her hair, and she hadn’t had a ton of makeup on, so it’d been easy to see her clear complexion accentuated by a light blush on both her cheeks.
Thinking about her, she reminded me a bit of Kristina Pimenova, only more...
real. Unlike Kristina, Triana wasn’t a model that was just an image on the screen.
She also looked to be around my age, though that body of hers suggested something else.
While she’d been dressed in a simple green blouse, jeans, and sneakers, the blouse hadn’t been loose or big enough to hide the hourglass figure that she had underneath.
Her chest was more than a handful, and her hips and ass were thick and inviting, and now I was reaching down, slapping my dick to get it to go down.
The last thing that I needed was an erection right now.
I also couldn’t help but think of the conversation that I’d had with my father the other day.
He had asked me if I’d felt free, and my answer had been an automatic yes, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Absolute freedom meant that Triana Medina would be an option, but she wasn’t.
No matter how she made me feel, I could never date her.
I was never going to be able to get to know her, and my father’s point was finally hitting home.
“Hey, where have you been?” Dallas asked when I finally reached the clearing. “Winston was going to go look for you, but he didn’t want to accidently catch you stroking your junk.”
The drunken fools all laughed as I just shook my head. “I thought I heard something, so I went to check it out,” I semi-lied. “I didn’t want to watch your drunk asses getting attacked by a bear.”
“There aren’t any bears around here,” Leyden remarked seriously, and the guy really did need to get out more.
I grabbed my fishing pole as I took my seat next to him. “It was a joke, Ley.”
“Leyden doesn’t know what jokes are,” Winston teased. “He can’t afford to have them in his life.”
“You three need to start drinking some water,” I told them like a disappointed father. “I am not carrying any of you back to the car.”
“Wow, Dad,” Dallas drawled out. “Way to kill our fun.”
I let out a heavy sigh as I cast my fishing line. “I’m not trying to kill your fun; I’m trying to save my back from carrying you fools home.”
Dallas just laughed. “You’re just still sour that Mom was giving you a hard time about your date to the Silver Linings Gala.”
Leyden winced. “Is that why she’s been calling about having lunch with me?”
“Probably,” I informed him.
“Why take sand to the beach is my opinion,” Winston said. “There are plenty of beautiful and single women that attend that thing every year.”
“Mom’s clamoring for grandchildren,” Dallas told him. “She thinks it’s time that we settle down with respectable girls and start our families.”
“Who in the hell has that kind of time?” Leyden grumbled. “I’m busy.”
That actually got a laugh out of me. “Which is why she’s not hounding you as much as me and Dallas, so consider yourself lucky.”
“I think I’m going to send my mother flowers for not butting into my life,” Winston remarked absently. “Or maybe some chocolates.”
I glanced around, the fishing forgotten. “I’m going to ask you guys something, and I want you to answer honestly. Not what you’re supposed to answer, but an honest answer.”
“Shoot,” Winston replied easily.
“If you could date any type of girl, what would she look like?” I asked.
Winston’s brows immediately furrowed. “Well...I mean, I don’t have a type.
I appreciate all women, no matter what they look like, so I don’t have a physical picture of the woman of my dreams. All I ask is that she’s strong enough to put me in my place when I need placing.
Luckily for me, Nadine is that type of woman. ”
I looked over at my brothers. “What about you two?”
Leyden’s eyes slid over Dallas’ way, and that piqued my interest immediately.
However, after a few seconds, he finally said, “Complete honesty?” I nodded.
“I’ve always been partial to Asian women.
I like their exotic features. I like their delicacy.
In truth, it’s their dark eyes that kill me every time. ”
I looked over at Dallas. “And you?”
He grinned. “I prefer Black women. Their knockout curves make me glad that I’m a man.” Then Dallas cocked his head a bit. “Why do you ask?”
Lying through my teeth, I said, “Mom’s just got me thinking about what will happen if I don’t find a woman that does it for me here.”
“Well, you can’t force love,” Dallas remarked sagely. “If you could, then Sheryle and I would probably be married with a shitload of kids by now.”
“What about you?’ Leyden asked. “What’s your idea of the perfect woman?”
“I don’t have one,” I hedged. “I mean, I agree with Winston. It’s all about how they make you feel, not how they look.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Dallas said. “Unless you apply for citizenship elsewhere, your options are limited to Sterling Acres.”
“And citizenship elsewhere takes years to achieve, if at all,” Leyden pointed out.
“Well, I’m perfectly happy with the way things are here,” Dallas remarked. “Life is so much easier for our people these days.”
I looked at my brother, and it was uncanny how much he sounded like our father. “Easier, but not necessarily better.”
Dallas looked genuinely affronted. “How can you say that? Of course, it’s better.”
“Then why are Morning Peaks and Blooming Heights always in the top two spots of the Transparency Reports?” I asked, channeling my father. “Spirit Lands is always resting comfortably in the third spot, and it’s only the rest of the regions that are constantly rotating ranks.”
“Because people aren’t perfect, Kairo,” he answered. “And because people aren’t perfect, the system will never be perfect.”
“You sound just like Dad,” Leyden snorted.
“Okay, I think this conversation is a productive one, but one best suited for dinner at the Booker household,” Winston announced. “You guys are killing my buzz, and the fish are wondering where we ran off to.”
“Amen,” Dallas agreed. “I need another beer.”
As everyone else settled back into drinking and fishing, my mind immediately went back to Triana, and I wasn’t sure if it was the forbidden fruit effect that had me feeling things, or if I’d really just been struck by one of Cupid’s arrows, and if that was the case, then Cupid was an asshole.
It wasn’t until after I’d gotten my drunken brothers and friend home that I’d gone back to my place, then fired up my laptop to see if I could find anything on Triana Medina.
While she had a couple of social media accounts, she didn’t have a whole lot on them, but it appeared as if her best friend, Sonia Torres, loved social media, so there were tons of pictures of them together on her sites, and it was clear that one of them loved rodeos, though I suspected that it was the friend.
Three hours later, I was shutting down my computer, feeling worse than if I had never stalked the woman’s social media to begin with. She was something that I couldn’t have, and I needed to remember that. I needed to remember that and never forget it.