Page 15 of The Road to You
My brows knitted together. “Bruqlyn, don’t play with me. I’m going to follow you. If you turn off anywhere, I’m on your ass. Please don’t make me show you that I’m not all the way there.”
“I won’t, Euri. I’m going straight to your house,” she said quietly. She started her van after I moved and closed her door.
My SUV was parked next to her. Bruqlyn waited until I started my SUV before she pulled off. Like a true woman of her word, she went straight to my house. I intentionally blocked her in. I told her that she didn’t have to spend the night, but she was.
“Aye, go ahead and get your night stuff, love.” My hands went up. “I’m not saying that you have to stay here, but if you choose to, I want you to have everything you need.”
She hesitated but walked around to the other side of the van to open the side door. I watched while she grabbed the things she needed. I told her that I didn’t think she would need her shower shoes. That pulled a chuckle out of her.
After she got everything, we went into the house. Casper met us at the door with all of his wagging tail love. She told me that she wasn’t hungry when I asked, but she did want a bottle of water.
“Alright, so what’s up?” I asked her after we settled on the couch. I allowed silence to fill the room. I wanted her to take the lead.
She took a long sip from her bottled water as if it was her personal bottle of courage. Her sigh was loud. “I have a skin disorder named vitiligo.” Although I already knew about what it was in a general sense, I still asked her what it was. “Um, the cells that make pigment in your skin are called melanocytes. Vitiligo is basically when those cells stop working or die. It causes you to have white blotches on your skin.
“It can also affect your hair. Like having white streaked hair or all-white sometimes, or like white eyelashes or brows. My brows and lashes weren’t affected, but I do have white streaks through my hair.” When my face tightened, she answered the unasked question. “I wear sew-ins and wigs. When I get my hair braided, the girl that does it knows how to tuck my hair very well.”
My body was already angled toward her, but I still moved closer to her. “Can I ask you why you hide your condition? I watched the video almost fifty times. Bruq, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
Her expression softened. “Um, it’s easier to hide it and not get the stares. I mean, you see what that bitch did. People look at me like I’m a weirdo. Euri, I already live in a van. I don’t need anything else working against me.”
My lip turned up. “Fuck them people. I know Bruqlyn Jones doesn’t give a fuck about what people think.”
Her expression was unreadable for a split second before her smile rose. “I mean, it’s not that I care about what people think. In the same breath, I can be violent. If someone says or does the wrong thing to me, it could have a catastrophic effect on the method of death of that person.”
I shot her a side-eye before my laughter took over. “You know, I thought I was a little off, but I see that I’m in good company.” I pulled her into my chest when she joined in on the laughter. I kissed her forehead. I waited until she calmed down to speak again. “I need you to know that I don’t give a fuck about your skin disorder. You’re mine, vitiligo and all.”
Chapter 6
Bruqlyn
If ‘a dumb bitch taping me in the gym bathroom’ would have been called out, I would not have expected it to be on my bingo card. Her posting it on social media was a separate violation from her having taped me. Cece would see me.
I was diagnosed with vitiligo when I was a baby. My mother said that my great-grandmother had the same disorder. It was always something that I was insecure about because kids were mean. My saving grace was that I was a beautiful girl.
The streaks in my hair didn’t start until I was in elementary school. By the time I was fifteen, it looked like I intentionally dyed my hair. My mother taught me how to do my makeup, what makeup to buy, and just all the skincare stuff. She didn’t want me to cover my skin, but she said if I was, she wanted me to do it right.
The secret was out. I planned to tell Euri eventually. Once we had sex, he would see it. I only put makeup on my neck, face, and hands. Waterproof makeup was not cheap.
“I need you to know that I don’t give a fuck about your skin disorder. You’re mine, vitiligo and all.” Euri’s words hit me hard.
When I first moved to Charlotte and lived in the hotel, I called myself having a little boyfriend. When he saw it, he saidhe was cool with it. I found out after I went through his phone when I thought he was on some funny shit that he wasn’t cool. The only reason he messed with me was that it was a place for him to stay and stash his drugs. I never picked up on it because he didn’t stay with me every day. After I found out what was really up, I packed my shit up and moved to another hotel on the opposite side of the city.
“That means more than you’ll ever know. It’s crazy because I know I’m a beautiful woman, but all people see is my skin condition. People are so superficial, you know,” I told him.
He nodded in understanding. “I get that shit, but we’re talking about us. There’s nothing superficial about this shit we got. Trust me, the people who are and will be important in your life don’t give a fuck. Do Norma, Grant, or Majesty care?”
I giggled when I thought about Majesty’s reaction when I let her see my skin without makeup. “No, they don’t care. Majesty says it makes me a special kind of beautiful. She said God created me to stand out from all the other beautifuls.”
He smiled, leaned forward, and then kissed my lips. “Out of the mouths of babes. When they’re right, they’re right.”
His lips landed on mine again. I deepened the kiss as I moved to straddle his lap. I wanted him so bad. My skin disorder was the only thing that held me back from letting Euri fuck me in any and every way that he wanted to. In my soul, I felt like I could trust his words, that I was his regardless. My neck drew back when he pulled his lips from mine.Did I look too deep into this?No, that couldn’t be right, because this was a deep situation.
His hands cupped my face. “Let’s take a shower, then go to bed.”
It was such a simple yet complex request. I knew why he wanted to take the shower, and there was no reason that I shouldn’t. “Um, alright. We can do that.”
I yelped and wrapped my legs tightly around his waist when he stood without removing me from him. My nigga never missed a leg day, and it showed. He grabbed my bag that was on the couch not too far from us. “Do you have whatever you use to wipe your makeup off in here?” He smiled after I told him that I did. “Good, we’ll do that first.”
