2. Josiah Brooks #5
A wineglass sat on the coffee table with lipstick on the rim.
Kacey’s watch sat beside it. The same stainless-steel watch he bragged about buying after I helped him get that subcontractor gig he swore he needed.
Domonique’s heels were near the sofa, one upright, one tipped over on its side like it had tried to run and changed its mind.
She came from the hallway, clutching a throw blanket around herself.
Her silk press was no longer sleek. The middle part had blurred, loose strands sticking to the side of her face where sweat or guilt had gathered.
Her eyes were wet before the tears came, but I knew Domonique well enough to know the difference between sorrow and strategy.
Kacey stepped out behind her with his shirt half-buttoned, belt loose, and fear trying to decide whether it wanted to be arrogance. He looked at me. Then at the door. Then back at me.
That was what almost did it.
Not her blanket. Not his shirt. The calculation.
“Siah,” Kacey said.
He shouldn’t have said my name.
I crossed the room before either of them finished breathing.
My fist caught him clean. Pops had taught me too well for the punch to be messy.
Kacey’s head snapped to the side, his shoulder hit the wall, and one of Domonique’s framed pictures swung crooked above him.
He stumbled, tried to catch himself on the console table, and knocked over a candle that rolled across the floor. Domonique screamed. I barely heard her.
Kacey lifted one hand, blinking hard, blood shining at the corner of his mouth. “Man, wait. Wait, Siah.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt and drove him back against the wall.
The picture frame rattled. He grabbed my wrist with both hands, but there wasn’t enough strength in him to move me.
I wasn’t swinging anymore. That was worse for him.
A punch was quick. My stillness made him see the whole inventory of what could happen next.
His eyes went wide.
Not tough.
Not calculating.
Wide.
“Please, man,” Kacey said, voice cracking. “Siah, please. I messed up. I messed up, bro.”
“You were never my brother.”
Domonique sobbed behind me. “Josiah, stop.”
I didn’t look at her.
Kacey’s knees bent slightly, his body folding before I even decided what to do with him. “Please. On everything, please. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”
He clawed at my wrist again, not fighting now, bargaining with fingers that kept slipping against my hand.
I shifted my weight, and he flinched so hard his head bumped the wall.
The sound did something to the room. Took the air out of it.
Took the performance out of him. He was trembling beneath my hand, all that envy and slick talk reduced to breath, blood, and begging.
I leaned close enough for him to feel my breath and low enough for Domonique to stop crying so she could hear me.
“I did three years behind somebody else’s choices,” I said. “You won’t get another day out of me.”
He swallowed so hard I saw his throat move.
My fist was still curled in his shirt.
My other hand was open.
That was the hand that saved me.
Pops stood in that open hand. Mama’s face stood there too. County glass. The phone cord twisted around my fingers. Pops saying, “Hear me with your life.”
I released Kacey so suddenly he slid down the wall and caught himself on one knee. He stayed there, breathing like the floor had mercy in it. Domonique whispered my name again, but it came out small, a pretty thing with no power left.
I stepped back.
The room smelled like rain, perfume, candle wax, and betrayal trying to dress itself.
The second punch had been ready. My body had already built it. My shoulder knew the route. My rage had drawn the map. But a man didn’t survive what I survived to let a coward send him back into a cage.
I took one more breath, then another.
“You two can keep the lie,” I said. “I’m taking my peace.”
Kacey didn’t get up until I turned away.
Domonique followed me toward the door, blanket clutched to her chest, voice breaking into pieces. “Josiah, please. I love you. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
I stopped with my hand on the knob and finally looked at her.
Her gloss was gone from the center of her bottom lip.
Mascara had gathered beneath one eye. She still looked beautiful.
That irritated me for one foolish second, how betrayal had not made her ugly, how the outside of a person could remain polished while their choices left glass all over your floor.
“You meant every step that brought you here,” I said.
Then I left.
Juice was the one who came over after. He didn’t ask too many questions.
He walked in, saw the watch on the table, saw the picture crooked on the wall, saw the candle on the floor, saw my hands washed clean but still shaking, and started packing my things without a word.
That was love too. Not speeches. Not pity.
Just a man finding boxes while your life burned behind you.
A few weeks later, Domonique called crying.
By then, I’d blocked her once and unblocked her only because Mama said closure was cheaper than bitterness. Domonique said she was pregnant. Said she didn’t know who the father was. Said the timeline was confusing.
It wasn’t confusing.
It was inconvenient.
I met her at a café with cameras, witnesses, and enough daylight for foolishness to feel unwelcome. She sat across from me, wearing the perfume I used to buy her and a face prepared for mercy. Her hair was sleek again. Edges perfect. Nails done. Eyes shining. The presentation had been repaired.
The trust hadn’t.
“Don’t put my name on a child your choices created,” I said.
Domonique cried harder.
I didn’t.
That surprised me at first.
Then I understood.
Grief had already left by the time the truth arrived.
When the baby came, the truth had cheeks, eyes, and Kacey’s whole damn face.
Same narrow chin. Same heavy lids. Same little crease between the brows like he’d entered the world already suspicious of accountability.
I saw one picture and felt no shock. No jealousy.
No wound reopening. Just a tired confirmation in my chest. The child was innocent.
He didn’t owe me anything. He hadn’t betrayed me.
But he wore his father’s face so plainly that every lie Domonique had tried to place in my lap looked foolish beneath hospital lights.
I thought about every time I had protected myself, every barrier I had refused to remove, every moment Domonique mistook for distance when it was really discernment.
I thought about how my spirit had been telling the truth long before my heart stopped arguing.
There are blessings that come wrapped in denial, and sometimes the mercy is not that God keeps you from the fire.
Sometimes the mercy is that He makes sure you don’t smell like smoke when you walk out.
The bag swung back toward me, and I tapped it with my glove.
Juice stood beside me now, close enough that his shoulder almost touched mine.
“I told you Kacey was funny,” Juice said.
“You tell me everybody funny.”
“Because people be funny,” Juice said. I looked at him. He shrugged. “But I especially told you he was funny.”
“You did.”
“I ain’t even saying that to be right.”
“Yes, you are.”
“A little bit,” Juice admitted. I laughed. He smiled, then looked at the old photograph of Pops on the shelf. “Uncle Jeremiah would’ve been proud you walked out.”
“I think about that more than the punch,” I said.
“The punch was beautiful though,” Juice said.
“Justice.”
“I’m just saying. From a technical standpoint,” Juice said.
I shook my head.
Juice picked up the mitts from the shelf and slipped them onto his hands. “Come on.”
I looked at him. “You in loafers.”
“I’m also gifted,” Juice said.
“You’re about to embarrass yourself.”
“Swing, Cuzzo.” I stared at him for a second, then stepped back into stance. Juice lifted the mitts. “Don’t take it easy on me because I’m fine and fertile.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Melody likes it,” Juice said.
“She’s in prayer for you.”
“Daily,” Juice said. “One-two.”
I hit the mitts.
Crack.
Crack.
The sound sharpened the room.
Juice braced himself, nodded once, and brought the mitts up again. “Again.”
I threw the combination. Left jab. Right cross.
Slip. Hook. Juice moved with me better than his mouth suggested.
He’d always had hands, even when his stomach and foolishness tried to hide it.
We circled each other in that cramped room, both of us older than the boys from the rec but still carrying pieces of them in our footwork.
Sweat gathered between my shoulder blades.
My breath steadied. The old grief didn’t disappear, but it found somewhere useful to go.
Pops used to say pain needed a purpose before it started calling itself your personality.
“Again,” Juice said.
I hit the mitt.
Crack.
“Again.”
Crack.
“Breathe, Siah,” Juice said.
“I am.”
“Breathe like you ain’t mad at oxygen,” Juice said. I laughed mid-combination and nearly missed the hook. Juice grinned. “There he go.”
I threw the next punch cleaner.
For ten minutes, we didn’t talk about county, or Domonique, or Kacey, or Pops. We let leather speak for what language couldn’t carry. When we stopped, my shirt clung to my back, Juice’s forehead shined, and the room felt lighter than it had when I walked in.
Juice pulled the mitts off and tossed them onto the shelf. “You good now?”
“I was good before,” I said, peeling the gloves from my hands.
Juice picked up his foil plate and inspected it like he’d left a child unattended. “You were one minor inconvenience away from quoting Proverbs at a subcontractor.”
“That’s growth.”
“That’s a warning sign,” Juice said.
My phone buzzed on the shelf.
Onyx:
Pulling up now.
I stared at the message.
Juice wiped his hands on a towel and grinned. “Officer Friendly has entered the chat.”
“Don’t start.”