Jason & Darius |Craving Yours| ✔

6. Influences & Brothers

Darius Dixon

I spent the whole night thinking about the fact that Jason kissed me. It was wrong and yet it felt right. It also felt very different from kissing Mason. Yet I kissed him like I was kissing Mason's ghost. By the time sleep finally enveloped me I had gone over every possible reason this was bad.

I cursed as a heavy steel wrench fell from the open hood of the BMW I was under. It hit my knee resulting in a sharp painful sensation crawling up my body. I tried to look up and hit my head against the car because I misjudged the distance. My day was not going well.

I had built this garage from nothing to the recognised brand that it was today. Growing up moving homes from foster home to foster I learnt to save my money for rainy days. And after I turned eighteen I had invested in a money loop that seemed awfully shady. Everyone I knew at that time said my money would get stolen but I played it by ear. And now six years later I had my own garage a subsidiary garage in a different state and two hundred and fifty employees all taken care of.

I was a long way from my horrible childhood. Having Egyptian roots meant I didn't exactly look like everyone else so no one ever really wanted to adopt me when I was a kid. But when I finally grew up and the world was more accepting I was now too old to be adopted. No one wanted to adopt a teenage boy so I carved a path of my own. In the hopes that I would create a family of my own. And adopt or have a surrogate child I would love and never abandon.

I looked at the car I was fixing. It was a smooth old beast. The owner was ready to strip it for parts but instead I offered to restore it to its former glory for him. Even as the owner of my own company I still loved to work under the car. There was something about doing something you love that fueled me to do better. And that's what I felt whenever I was under a car. But unfortunately for this old thing, I was having a really bad day.  Filled with a lot of doubts questions and guilt. So the fix was turning out to be more complicated than it should have been.

I was about to go back to under when the loud generic ringtone of my phone pulled my focus. I wiped my hands on my dirty overalls and answered the phone.

"Darius."

"Uh, Hey Dee. So I uh, we have a situation and I um was hoping you could help." Olivia's voice said sounding unsure over the phone.

"Sure Ollie what's up," I said immediately forgetting about the bad thoughts that plagued my mind.

"So can you come to Ami hospital? The one at the corner of Third Street and Herbert Chitepo road?" She said sounding too calm for someone at a hospital.

"Did you say hospital? Are you okay? Ollie, what's going?" I asked heart hammering in my chest.

"it's not me. Its Carol just come over." She said before hanging up.

My heart was now hammering loudly in my chest. I couldn't lose someone else I had already lost someone this year. That was enough loss for one year. It wasn't even May yet. I was not ready to lose anyone. Especially Carol or Olivia.

Carol and Olivia were like sisters to me. We were in the same foster home when I was fifteen and I had taken care of them until they were adopted when I was sixteen. But I still considered them my sisters. The only people I had managed to bond with, in this world. I lost touch with them and finally tracked them down when I was fully emancipated. But by then they had lives and parents who took care of them. So I stayed in touch and we hung out. Here we were six years later, I was driving on the highway speeding to the hospital praying my little sister was fine.

"Carol was hanging out with the wrong crowd and she accidentally set herself on fire trying to smoke," Olivia said the moment I walked in.

"Smoke? She is thirteen."