Page 30 of Cruel Promise
“I’m trying to look out for you,” he adds. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You’re looking out for me by calling me someone’s side-chick while attempting slut shaming me?”
“What? Fuck. No. That’s not what I’m doing at all.” He throws his head back, eyes cast up at the ceiling. “I’m not slut shaming you.”
Dropping his head back down, his honey gold eyes meet mine. “I swear, and if you took it that way, I’m sorry. I’m not judging you or your decisions. Okay?”
Teeth pressed together I nod for him to continue but agreeing to hear him out doesn’t mean I’m going to forget what he said.
Deacon scrubs both hands over his face, exhaustion tugging at his features.
“Dominique Price comes from a prominent black family.”
“I’m aware,” I deadpan.
Everyone in Sun Valley knows who the Price family is. They founded one of the largest tech companies in the country. They’re like Bill Gates, but bigger. More prestigious. Hence Dominique’s oversized ego. Though based on this conversation, I’d bet Deacon can give him a run for his money in the arrogance department.
Deacon’s gaze sweeps over me all the way from my bare feet to my unruly hair and freckled nose. He scrutinizes my appearance before exhaling a harsh breath and shaking his head. “I don’t think you are. Because if you were, you’d know there’s a stigma in the black community. One that directly relates to women like you” he says.
“What do you mean women like me?”
“There’s this belief that white women—like yourself—steal all of the quote-unquotegood black men.”
My nose wrinkles at his words. “That’s stupid.”
“No. It’s reality.”
Yeah, no. I’m not buying it. “And you’re telling me all this because—“ Get to the point, Deacon. I don’t have all day and my patience is already thin.
“Price will never date, let alone marry, a white woman. Not publicly and not in any sort of meaningful way. His family and his upbringing would never allow it. He’ll fuck you in secret behind closed doors but you’ll never get anything more than that. He’ll never offer what a girl like you deserves.”
I rear back as if struck. “Wow.” I mean, I’m not trying to be the girl he settles down with, but hearing it said like that, it stings.
Mouth pinched into a tight line, I look away. I’m not so naïve as to believe race doesn’t matter to people. But Dom has not once ever treated me any different because I’m white. And I sure as hell have never treated him differently for being black.
The color of our skin never mattered.
Sun Valley is a melting pot. If anything, it's me who is in the minority. We’re a largely Hispanic community with a decent percentage of Asian and African cultures making Deacon’s words an even harder pill to swallow.
But there’s an echo of truth in what he has to say. I remember years back having a conversation with Monique—Dominique’s sister.
She’d been dating this guy all through her senior year and before graduation, she decided to take him home for one of her family’s weekly Sunday dinners. It was meant to be a surprise because things were getting serious enough between the two of them that she wanted to introduce him to her parents.
She was so excited.
Only, things didn’t go as planned and they wound up breaking things off the very next day. She cried about it. A lot. And despite claims that it was for the better, I never really understood. When I asked her about the break up, she said their cultures were incompatible. Long term, it would never work out and it was better to end things now before it got more complicated.
Only a few weeks earlier she talked about how they planned to make their relationship work when they were away at college. They’d be at different schools but in the same state, and Monique had it all planned out.
They both did.
I didn’t know Yuze well, but the few times I met him, he doted on her. He never shied away from showing his affection or telling her with words how much she mattered. It's one of the things Monique loved most about him. His capacity to love.
When I reminded her of that, she doubled down. She was black and Yuze was Japanese.It could never work.
I let it go.
I’m white and very much Americanized. I can’t claim to understand the type of cultural differences they’d face as a multicultural couple.
