Chapter Two

Eight years later………………..

I rolled over to my side and looked at the person right next to him. Judging from how he snored, his chest rising in tide with his breath, he was still in a deep state of slumber. That meant that I could leave the room without him noticing. I looked at the wall clock and the long clock hand immediately merged with the short clock hand - it was 12:00 AM, I had to get out of there.

Hold on, I know what you're thinking, Dante you're such a slut, well, guess what? I deserve it.

I had come a long way since high school. I was no longer the thin, soft, bony, nerd who looked like he could get blown away by the wind. I worked so hard to change that image of mine, to change from the old Dante to the Dante I was; the new Dante. I constantly worked out to give myself that physique I wanted, and I locked myself away from ever falling in love with anyone. If love was in the air, I would hold my breath and rather suffocate than breath in the stupid love that was in the air.

The new Dante was stoic and cool, with a law degree from Harvard, and a first class honors from Harvard law school, with a cool job waiting at Lawsa law firm. With all the accomplishments, I felt invincible.

“ Are you leaving?” The deep voice said as I was gently tiptoeing, startling me.

“ ummm…… yeah, I have to go. I have to get up early tomorrow. First day at my new job, you know”, I said, grinning, “ but I had a really good time”, I quickly added, stretching my lips into an insincere smile.

The young man who was about my age smiled, “ me too. I had a great time. We should do this more often”, he said, pulling the sheets away from his body to reveal the snake in-between his legs.

I laughed lightly, the kind of laugh that always snucked out whenever I was nervous. Yeah, he was sexy and all that, definitely my type, with broad shoulders and abs, and a dick that I could spend all year sucking, but nah, that wasn't happening. It was a one-night stand, and it had to remain that way. But he didn't have to know, did he?

“ Sure…… um……. bye”, I said and immediately swung the door open.

“ Bye Dante”, he waved at me cheerfully, looking like an overgrown naked baby sitting there on the bed. I felt bad that I couldn't remember his name while he remembered mine. Was it Bryan? Or Basil? I just couldn't tell. But I was sure his name started with a B. Not that it was important anyway. We had exchanged numbers, and I had given him a wrong number, and I definitely wasn't planning on calling him.

I left the hotel as fast as possible, driving my way through the scantly populated streets and enjoying the midnight breeze. I wasn't lying about my new job, and if there was anything I needed, it was my beauty sleep. I wouldn't want to get to the office with bags under my eyes.

“ Hold it right there!”

I yelped and almost fainted from a heart attack.

“ Sasha! What is your problem?” I said, placing my hand on my chest and feeling grateful that my heart didn't skip out of my mouth while Sasha laughed uncontrollably on the other side of the sitting room.

We went to the same high school, Northwest High. But we were never really close back then, just acquaintances who casually said hello to each other. She was the only one who kept saying “ hello” after I became a punching bag for Hakim and his friends. We met again a couple of years ago at Boston where she had come to attend a fellowship. One thing led to the other and ta-da, we became roommates.

She was sitting on a couch in the dark, her legs crossed like a mother waiting for her drunk son to get back home.

“ Gosh, why do you always do that? I almost had a heart attack”, I said, taking a seat to try and reduce my blood pressure which had been hiked.

“ Don't be such a drama queen. Where have you been?”

“ What are you? My mother? I'm a young man in New York with every hormone working just fine, especially the sexual ones”.

“ Oh please. You were supposed to take me bowling”, she said, feigning annoyance.

“ Oh my God, I totally forgot. I'm so sorry, I just got carried away. Please forgive me”, I said, tilting my neck and making my sympathetic puppy eyes.

“ It's alright, I just hope it was worth it”.

“ Of course it was, and I'm going to spend the next few days dreaming about his emerald green eyes and sexy lips”.

“ Emerald green eyes? Really?” She asked, her eyebrows raised, making waves to suddenly appear on her forehead.

“ What is it?” I asked, totally confused about what she was trying to get at.

“ Emerald green eyes, Dante, everyone you've ever been with always has emerald green eyes, and it doesn't ring a bell to you?”

I then conceived what she was trying to say.

“ You know that I personally loathe him, so please don't bring him up”.

“ You do loathe him, but you still love him even though you wouldn't admit that to yourself, and that is why you've only been able to get intimate with only guys with green eyes even though they don't even amount to a percentage of the world's eye colour population”.

“ Oh please, Sasha, that's not true, and who said I only do guys with green eyes? Cole had hazael eyes”, I said with a smug and she paused. She knew that Cole, an acquaintance at Boston, was the closest thing I had to a relationship.

“ Yes, and his hazael eyes were almost green”.

“ Can we please stop with the eyes thing? I'm really tired, and I need to sleep. Big day tomorrow”, I said, getting up and heading to my room.

I went to bed smelling of cum, and eventually had a dream of Hakim strangling me.

The next day, I breathed in success in and out of my lungs as I made my way into the building of Lawsa law firm. It's logo; Justice For The Common Man, boldly inscribed next to it's name. I was excited to meet everyone, my new colleagues, and especially my boss, the CEO. I had heard that even though he didn't attend Harvard law school, he had never lost a case, and the fact that I was going to train under him made me all the more excited, and I was excited to be excited.

“ Mr Davids, so nice to see you again”, the secretary who was part of the panel that had held my interview said as she joined me in the elevator. I think her name was Glinda or something.

“ Nice to see you too, please call me Dante”, I said and we kind of kept the chat going while she led me to the CEO’s office, a spacious room bounded with glasses, making it seem so inhabitable.

“ Oh, it seems like Mr Mali is not yet here, but please do take a seat”, she said.

Wait, Mr Mali? That name sounded so familiar, I was so sure.

I took a seat, wondering where I had heard the name before, then it struck me - Hakim Mali - that was his full name.

“ Calm down Dante, he can't possibly be the only one who has the name”, I said to myself, trying to deceive my panicking heart even though I knew that Mali was such an uncommon name to come across in New York city.

“ And who do we have here?” I heard a voice. It was deeper than I remembered, but I could still recognize it, and as I turned around, my unimaginable nightmare became real.

There was Hakim, in all his glory, and he was my boss.