Chapter 18
Noah
Iwasn’t surprised that she didn’t wait for me to come around and open her door, but had jumped out to meet me at the front of the truck.
I leaned back against the hood, and in seconds she was right there, standing in front of me.
She looked amazing even in the khaki capri pants that had splatters of something on the right thigh.
Courtesy of some sort of mishap at the restaurant, I’m sure.
The plain white T-shirt tucked into the band of her pants and the white tennis shoes she wore were nothing spectacular but on her, they were like couture fashion.
Even the way she’d pulled her hair back from her face into a short ponytail at the base of her neck was alluring.
But mostly, it was her smile. The way she looked at me when I greeted her at the restaurant, my entire body warmed at the sight.
And in that moment, I realized I wanted that look all to myself every day for the rest of my life.
“The headline said ‘this time with the sexy bad boy stunt legend who left Hollywood for a stint in rehab’. The brothers would debate the sexy part, but other than that, it was accurate.” My attempt to lighten this moment failed dismally since I couldn’t manage to even lift my lips into the slightest smile.
For the remainder of the afternoon after Rock left me in the office and into the evening, I’d thought non-stop about that headline and how she perceived it.
She hadn’t said a word about it since we both stood in my loft reading it together.
I know that was partially because she’d chosen to push that entire episode to the back of her mind.
She mentioned that her publicist and lawyer repeated their requests that she stay off social media and not make any statements should members of the press actually locate her.
I hadn’t seen any new faces at the bar and hadn’t heard about someone new showing up in town specifically looking for her.
Then again, I hadn’t noticed someone who would’ve stuck around the bar to take revealing photos either.
“I didn’t take any of that headline seriously.
” She continued looking at me, her brow raised in confusion.
“And I’ve apologized for dragging you into my mess.
I’ve been posted with Adrian before, and those posts had some wild headlines as well.
I wouldn’t exactly say I’m immune to it by this point because that would be a lie, as you would know since you had a front-row seat to my reaction to the post. But I really do feel bad about involving you.
If I’d known that someone would go so far as to follow me down here to get a picture, I would’ve stayed at the lake house until this was all over. ”
“I don’t give a fuck about being in that picture or on any social media bullshit.
” I bit out those words with heat already swarming in my chest because what I had to tell her was so much worse than any of those printed words.
“I’m no basketball star like your ex, but I’ve had a few pictures on gossip blogs and in print.
And I had to stop giving a fuck about what people thought of me a long time ago.
” I dragged my hands down my face. “But this is different.”
“What’s different? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m trying to tell you that I’m exactly the fuck up they portrayed me to be.
” The words tumbled free, and her eyes widened.
“All my life people talked about me. From my mother, talking about how she’d been forced to have me and be a single parent.
To her boyfriends, who always asked if I were really hers and if she could get rid of me.
To the people in this town who judged my mother and subsequently me.
To everyone who thought it made more sense to put a child in cuffs than figure out what it really was he needed. ” That last word was an almost whisper.
“I know what your childhood was like,” she said, taking a step closer to me.
I stopped her by lifting both my hands and shaking my head.
“There’s more.” I swallowed hard because I knew she was thinking how could there possibly be more than what I’d already told her.
More than the night I walked into the house to find my mother’s boyfriend beating the shit out of her.
I closed my eyes to the memory, my fists clenching at my sides.
I could still see her slumped in the corner between the couch and the entertainment center.
Could smell the blood that gushed from her forehead.
Felt the ache in my limbs at the sight of her left leg twisted in a way that could only mean it was broken.
Hear the sound of his booted feet continually connecting with her head, her chest, her stomach.
What I hadn’t felt in the blurry moments after standing in that doorway was the second I went from being a child to a murderer.
A very present fury, similar to what I felt so long ago, circled that word. The remainder of the memory followed with the comments from the officer who cuffed me that night.
“I been waiting for this day. Knew you wasn’t shit!”
The sound of the door clinking, locks engaging as I—a sixteen-year-old, one hundred-and-thirty-seven-pound, Black boy—sat in a cell, rushed through me with every ounce of intensity it had at the time.
Now, I was glad for the truck right behind me, else my knees would’ve surely buckled, taking me to the ground.
Instead, I leaned all my weight onto the vehicle, willing the tears not to fall and the pain that I harnessed deep inside to calm.
“Noah,” she called softly, and I shook my head, hoping that one movement would keep her still.
I didn’t want her touching me right now, didn’t know if I could survive her pity in the moment I needed to tell her—this woman that I loved from the deepest depths of my soul—yet another horrible thing about me.
“No.” I spoke so softly I wasn’t sure if she heard me. But when I opened my eyes it was to see that she was still standing in that spot, tears ready to spill. I clenched my teeth because there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep this woman from ever having to cry over or about me.
She said she’d cried after our break-up, even though she was the one who orchestrated it. The fact that after being angry as fuck the rest of that day, I shed a few of those same heartbroken tears myself would remain a secret.
“I told you about that night, about my arrest and ending up at the House instead of in juvenile detention.” I forced my gaze to lock in on hers. “I told you how I went to college with the plan to prove everyone in this town wrong.”
“Yes.” She nodded. A tear streamed down her cheek. “And I told you that you were a child forced into an adult position of taking care of your mother. It wasn’t a leap that you would also protect her like a man.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “That’s what you said.
” And her words had melted my heart…then and now.
“After I graduated from Cheyney, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life.
I just knew that it was gonna take more than a college degree to prove all those naysayers wrong.
Last I’d heard from Rock, he was finding success in the wrestling ring out west, so I packed my bags and headed in that direction.
As usual, trouble found me before I could find success.
Got into a bar fight protecting a woman from her bitch ass boyfriend who thought she’d look better with a black eye than the short ass skirt she was wearing.
” But it had felt good as hell breaking that bastard’s jaw.
“Landed my ass in jail again. I didn’t have any money to make bail, and I wasn’t calling any of the guys.
They were all running from their own demons, I wasn’t about to add to their shit.
“The next morning the woman from the bar showed up with her daddy, Osiris Cumberland, a bigtime movie producer. He bailed me out, and later that night, his daughter, Alexis, thanked me with her body. So, I got a new girlfriend and a job coordinating fight scenes and being a stunt double. I got into some heavy steroid use in those early years, but after a while I wised up, got me a real trainer, and stopped using.”
“Smart move,” she said, her voice steadier than it had been before. She had also clasped her hands in front of her now.
“Yeah, strange thing is I don’t make those too often.
” I know I sounded weak with that admission and my ego bristled mightily at the thought.
But it was one of the most honest things I’d ever said.
I could admit that I was born into a bad situation, dealt a hand of cards that were hard as fuck to play when I was too young to really know what was happening.
Beating my mother’s boyfriend until I knocked his funky ass out and he fell, hitting his head on the edge of the entertainment center so that he was lying right next to my mother when the police came, wasn’t a decision I coherently made.
It was a reaction, one of a boy who’d grown tired of watching his mother be abused and who, in the instance of this particular bastard, had been verbally abused himself.
The thirty-three-year-old man understood that, just as I understood that everything I did after that was a conscious decision.
I knew right from wrong, and after sitting in that jail cell alongside real criminals, I had an up-close and personal look at the consequences.
So each time I decided to beat somebody’s ass instead of walking away and protecting my own damn peace, I was making a choice.
I chose to punch that guy in the bar in L.A.
, chose to break his jaw and give him a matching black eye to the one he put on his girl.
I chose to take those steroids, knowing the side effects and addiction possibilities.
There was another word I could do without hearing in my life again.