My Destiny

by Adrianne Byrd

  “Ooh, manners. Who would have thought?”

  “You’re doing it again,” she warned.

  He rolled his eyes and went to the sofa. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  Destiny forgot she was sitting next to the phone and jumped at its unexpected ring.

  Miles laughed again. “I’m glad to see that you’re not scared.”

  She fought her urge to throw the damn thing at him.

  “Hello,” he answered, standing up and maneuvering around the long cord.

  Destiny leaned back in her chair and once again took in her surroundings while he headed toward the kitchen for some privacy.

  “Hey, Wes. Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry I bailed out on you, but you know you were dead wrong for that stunt you pulled on me tonight.”

  Destiny frowned with curiosity, but continued to pretend that she wasn’t listening.

  “Does it sound like I’m laughing?” Miles said into the phone. “You know I’ll get you back.” He listened, and then said, “No, no. I was the perfect gentleman. I drove her back home, said hello to her three Bebe kids, and came home.”

  Taking another sip of water, Destiny’s curiosity waned into disinterest. She continued to look around and was more than impressed with the décor. An extraordinary assembly of bold paintings graced one side of the living room while on the other were more gentle, spiritual paintings. The furniture was bold and masculine while everything else was soft and feminine.

  She shook her head and decided that he must have hired a professional decorator because if he had done this; it would imply there was a side to him that she preferred to believe didn’t exist.

  “Sorry about that,” Miles said, rejoining her in the living room. He reclaimed his seat on the sofa, and then asked, “Now where were we?”

  “Nowhere.” She extended her hand for the phone. “May I try Wendell again?”

  “Sure.” He handed it to her.

  She quickly dialed the number only to be disappointed when there was still no answer. “I think I’m going to cry,” she said, hanging up.

  “Oh, come on. I thought I was doing a good job of keeping you company.” He leaned back with a confident smile.

  Destiny couldn’t figure out what it was about him that put her on edge, but she did have enough common sense to realize that her behavior toward him was bordering on rude, so she made another attempt to adjust her attitude. “I guess I can’t complain.”

  “Then I guess you were right, there’s a first time for everything.”

  They laughed.

  Miles swept a hand toward her. “Since Halloween is a little ways off, what on earth possessed you to roam the halls looking like that?”

  Self-consciously, she reached up to touch her hair. She gave him an embarrassed look. “It’s a long story.”

  “I don’t have anything planned.” He took another gulp from his bottle and added, “And it doesn’t appear that you’re going anywhere any time soon, either.”

  “Good point.” She drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “I was trying to catch someone before they left the building.”

  “Altman?”

  She frowned. “How did you know that?”

  “You said so earlier, plus I saw him before I left.” He shrugged. “So, what did you do—scare the devil out of him looking like that?”

  “You’re being an ass again.”

  “I’m just being me.”

  He flashed her with another smile and damn if she couldn’t help but return the gesture. “To answer your question—no. I didn’t scare him.” She paused. “At least not too badly.”

  They shared another laugh, but Miles’s curiosity didn’t fade.

  “Then I take it, you two had an argument?”

  All traces of Destiny’s joviality vanished as a jolt of remorse returned. “Not exactly.”

  Her answer hung in the air while she was suddenly barraged with uncertainty again. When her moment of reflection was over, she was startled to find Miles studying her.

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “That didn’t look like a nothing.”

  Miles shrugged again, but continued to look like he wanted to say something.

  “Come on. What is it?” she goaded.

  “Well, it’s not like it’s any of my business...”

  “But?” She rolled her hands as a gesture for him to just spit it out.

  “But I was just wondering what on earth you see in Jefferson Altman—boring Jefferson Altman.”

  Destiny fell back against the chair with a boisterous laugh. Then, she couldn’t seem to stop. Tears trickled down her face and soon she heard him join in with her. Suddenly, Destiny could feel something was happening between them. When she wiped at her eyes, she knew what it was—they were becoming friends.

  Chapter 10

  As the night rolled on, Miles and Destiny laughed and swapped stories as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

  For Miles, he never thought the day would come when he’d consider Destiny Brockman a friend, and he was pleased to have been wrong. Throughout the night, he smiled at her funky hairdo and wrinkled pajamas, but her ethereal beauty fascinated him.

  A few times she caught him staring and they would go through a small vignette of her asking, “What?” and him responding, “Nothing.”

  While she talked, he felt there was a wall guarding certain areas of her life and he became equally interested in what she said as well as what she didn’t.

  To make her feel more at ease, he’d turned on an old battery-

  operated radio and they listened to the Quiet Storm program on the city’s popular R & B station.

  Had it been another night with a different woman, one could easily mistake the intimate setting as a romantic interlude equipped with soft music and candlelight.

  “A few minutes ago you said your brother was a lawyer. Is he no longer practicing?” He handed her a half-filled glass of wine, and then returned to the sofa. When he sat down and looked up at her, he was moved by her profound look of sadness. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

  One side of her mouth lifted in a poor attempt at a smile. She cleared her throat and lowered her gaze to the blush-

  colored wine. “My twin brother passed away quite some time ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Miles heard and read so much in her simple statement, but he practiced restraint and didn’t voice any of the questions that filled his head.

  She sipped at her wine. “You know I’ve been thinking a lot about him lately,” she went on to confess.

  “Were you two close?” He felt safe in asking.

  She nodded and a genuine smile came into focus. “Actually, he was my mentor, my hero and my best friend. I can’t begin to tell you how much I miss him.”

  He smiled. “I think you just did.”

  When she laughed, Miles could tell by her expression that she was still reminiscing about another time, but there was something else—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Then, just as suddenly, she pulled out of her deep reverie and looked at him. “How about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No,” he said with a tinge of regret. “I would’ve liked one though—maybe an older brother or a younger sister.”

  “Really? Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Growing up, I remember a lot of my friends having siblings. Of course, they would all complain about them in some shape or fashion, but I always envied them.” He shrugged again. “But I do have Wes. We’re sort of like brothers, if you take away the fact that my mother hasn’t exactly taken a shine to him.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Wes loves wild parties, wild women and just flat out having a wild time.”

  “Excuse me, but has your mother actually met you?”

  Miles laughed. “Well, she thinks he’s the bad influence on me.”

  “When you’re really the bad app
le, right?”

  “I plead the Fifth.”

  “Good idea. Are you close with your parents?” she asked, taking another sip of wine.

  “It’s just me and my mom now.” He lowered his gaze to his drink. He tried to conjure up an image of his father from memory and was saddened by how difficult it became with each year that passed.

  “I’m sorry,” Destiny said, and then grew silent.

  “It’s okay. The years we had together were pretty terrific.” He finished off his wine, and then asked. “What about you and your parents?”

  “Just me and Mom. My dad passed shortly after my brother.”

  “Sorry,” he said, frowning.

  She shook her head and gave a half laugh. “Boy, are we two pathetic people or what?”

  He laughed. “It certainly sounds that way.” And for no reason at all, Miles found his thoughts drifting toward his coming birthday. He could almost hear the loud ticking of the clock. He didn’t have much time left.

  “Hello, hello?” Destiny snapped her fingers.

  Miles blinked, and then apologized for his wandering brain.

  “It’s okay. I was just asking you what made you want to become a lawyer?”

  “Money,” he answered honestly. “Problem is that you don’t learn until after graduation how much of a joke that notion is.”

  Destiny held up her glass. “Amen.”

  “What about you?”

  Destiny tucked her legs under her. “I don’t really think I had a choice in the matter. Lady Justice has bewitched just about everyone in my family for generations. To this day, my mother swears my first word was objection instead of mommy.”

  Miles laughed. “For some reason, I don’t doubt that.”

  Her laugh deepened. “I don’t, either.”

  Soon their laughter faded and both parties fell into their own private thoughts before Miles looked up and asked, “Any regrets?”

  She drew in a deep breath and met his leveled gaze. “Plenty.” At his surprised stare, she went on. “As you know, this isn’t the easiest job in the world. A lot of times you get attached to the people you represent—you believe their stories of innocence and, more times than not, you end up being played a fool. Then there are cases where you don’t know how you can stand to look at yourself in the mirror because you’re defending someone you’re convinced is guilty. And let’s not discuss the problems with venality throughout the courts in recent years.” She paused and shook her head. “But every once in a while, you stumble over a case that validates all that you believe in and forces you to step up to the plate. If you’re up to the challenge, you deliver a home run.” She shrugged as if she had trouble making sense of her own words.

  “I can definitely relate,” he said, but wondered at what had happened to inspire such an interesting soliloquy.

  Destiny crossed her arms and remained reflective. “I had this one case where every fiber of my being screamed that my client wasn’t a murderer. I fought like hell to save him, but...”

  She closed her eyes and Miles was surprised by her struggle for control of her emotions. The anguish in her expression touched something within him and still he didn’t know what to say. Answers like “We all have to deal with such cases” or “Hey, don’t let the job get you down” seemed too crass and unsympathetic. So instead, he said nothing.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I need to take a break. I’ve yet to take a vacation since I’ve been with Phillips, Anderson and Brown.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, astonished.

  “I wish I was.” She shrugged again and emitted a low laugh. “What can I say? I’m your typical workaholic.”

  “Workaholic?” He held his fingers up in shape of a cross and shuddered. “Sounds like a horrible disease. It’s not contagious, is it?”

  Destiny laughed. “I think you’re safe. Besides, you have quite a level of discipline yourself.”

  Perplexed, he asked, “Me?”

  “Yes, you. What are you—some kind of health freak?” She laughed, but noticed that he didn’t.

  “What?” she asked baffled. When he didn’t readily respond, she laughed. “You are, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged and tried not to laugh at her amused expression. “Well, let’s just say it’s a long story.”

  “Like you said earlier, I’m not about to go anywhere anytime soon.”

  Miles shook his head. “You’ll laugh.”

  “Probably—but try me anyway.”

  He hesitated. The last thing he needed was for someone else telling him how silly it was to believe in curses. He drained what was left in his glass and looked at her. “Odds are, I don’t have much time left to live.”

  A long silence stretched between them before Destiny reared her head back and released a hearty laugh.

  Miles rolled his eyes. “I told you you would laugh.”

  Destiny couldn’t respond. She was too busy wiping her eyes and trying to catch her breath.

  Miles clenched his jaw and regretted his confession. Hell, he wasn’t quite sure why he told her.

  “So, is this the story you tell your girlfriends, the old ‘make love to me because I only have six months to live’ routine?”

  Insulted, he snapped, “No.”

  It took a moment for her laughter to die, but when it did, she paused and studied him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said, maintaining eye contact. He then watched a sudden cloud of concern come over her.

  “Are you sick?”

  His uneasiness ebbed away as he read genuine interest in her face. “No. I’m not sick, per se.”

  Concern morphed into doubt again. “If you’re not sick then how to you know that you’re going to die? You haven’t been calling Warwick’s Psychic Hotline, have you?”

  He smiled. “Let’s just say that it’s a family curse.”

  “A curse?”

  “For seven generations no man in my family has lived to see his forty-six birthday. And on Wednesday, I’ll turn forty.”

  She said nothing as he watched her teeter on whether to believe him.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said guilelessly. “Are you sure? Well, of course you’re sure, but...”

  He nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. There are people, like my mother, who think the curse is utter nonsense, but it’s hard to overlook the facts.”

  “Seven generations?”

  “That I’m aware of.”

  She shook her head, seeming to be fascinated. “What do they do—just drop dead on their forty-fifth birthday?” When he flinched, she added apologetically, “I mean, is it a case of heart problems or something like that?”

  “Most of them were heart-related problems—but my father died in a car accident a week before turning forty-six.”

  “No,” she drew back in a startled surprised.

  “I know it sounds weird to believe in such things in this day and age, but it’s hard to put a label like ‘coincidence’ on something like this.”

  She fell silent again with her reservations clearly written in her expression. But he was used to getting that reaction from most of his friends.

  “It’s got to be hard for you,” she finally said, lost in thought. “I mean, it’s one thing to go through life with everything being unknown, trying to find one’s purpose or searching for your soul mate, but to go through all that with an expected time limit...” She shook her head. “Knowing something like that would drive most people crazy.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He shrugged. “My take on it is that I have to get as much life in as I possibly can. I try to enjoy and appreciate each day as it comes. It’s not always easy, especially lately,” he said, frowning.

  He piqued her curiosity. “What’s changed recently?”

  “The number forty,” he answered in a low tone. He paused and looked down at his empty glass. “It has such a final ring to it.”

  She covered his hand that lay on t
he arm of the sofa. “You could be wrong about this, you know.”

  His gaze lowered to her delicate hand and its warmth surprised and comforted him. “I’ve considered it. My father told me once not to put too much stock in curses.” His chest tightened at the memory.

  “He didn’t believe in the curse?”

  Miles shook his head. “For a time he actually had me convinced.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  Miles slid his hand from beneath hers. “Can I get you something else to drink?”

  The lights flickered on and suddenly the room was flooded with light.

  Destiny smiled awkwardly. “No, thanks. I think I’ve had enough.” She stretched lazily as Miles stood and reached for her empty glass.

  “It’s getting late. What time is it?” she asked.

  He glanced at his watch and was startled to see just how right she was. “Four-thirty.”

  “A.M.?”

  He smiled. “And you thought that you would never spend the night with me. Ha!”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re incorrigible.” She unfolded herself from the wing chair and cringed slightly at the sound of her joints popping. “I’m sure someone has to be working the front desk by now.”

  “Yeah. George usually works the graveyard shift. We probably could have called a few hours ago to get a key.”

  She nodded and covered her mouth as she yawned.

  Miles placed the dishes in the dishwasher while Destiny used the phone. His eyelids grew heavy as he experienced a hefty dose of drowsiness. When he returned to the living room, she informed him that George was on his way up.

  “Turns out there was a bad accident that damaged an electrical pole not too far from here,” she said. “I didn’t bother to ask George about Wendell. I don’t want to get the boy in any kind of trouble.”

  Miles simply smiled. “Well,” he said. “I hate to see this pleasant evening come to an end.”

  She smiled. “It was pleasant, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “I hate that it took so long to get to know each another. I can always use a good friend.”

  “Me, too,” she affirmed with a smile.

  The doorbell rang. Miles and Destiny started at its sudden sound.

  “My, that was fast,” Miles commented, heading toward the door.