CONVICTED (Completed)

-16-

ZAHRIAH CRUZ

"Although It's always been fuck 12, you're making it hard for me to not want to fuck 12." Dominic said before wrapping his arm around my waist and pressing me up against him from behind. I threw my head back and laughed, meanwhile still focusing on buttoning up my uniform shirt.

"Was that the best you could come up with?" I laughed as he placed kissed against the side of my face. Once I was done with my buttons, I turned to face him and stuck out my lips in order to get a kiss.

"Something like that," he chuckled then placed a couple against my lips.

"How did it go?" I pointed at the laptop he had under his arm, referring to his online phone interview with my mother's friend. I had done as much as I could over the last couple of days to create him a well written resume and give him interview pointers. Dominic however had so much charm that I was far from worried about him, he also had a lot of unmentioned experience that I was pretty shocked to hear about when writing up his resume. In fact, I had to cut some out so it wouldn't be too long. Dominic was filled with a skill set in the streets and off.

Withing his many years of being in jail, he continued his education and graduated highschool. Dominic joined many skill development programs and became very familiar with the technical side of how things ran, he was well acquainted with IT and even went on to read up on whatever business books he could get his hands on in there. Dominic had been on house arrest for one of his releases and during that time he did online courses on a few other subjects like science and biology. I was very thrown off guard as he began to really open up about his education growth, but then again; never for a moment did I ever doubt his intelligence. In fact, some of the smartest people I met; I had met in prison. It was the worlds stereotypes that caused others to think that they were nothing but a set of ignorant, intelligible people when in reality they were far from it.

I was thankful that news hadn't travelled over to Bakersville as yet, because it was nice to see someone finally giving him a chance. I knew if it had anything to do with Atlanta, Dominic would've been packed up and in the back of a cruiser by now. My mom's suggestion was smart and very strategic; she knew that this would open doors for him as opposed to getting him arrested. I was glad that I had someone else on my side, believing that Dominic didn't do anything.

"It went well." He walked back into the room and placed my laptop onto the bed.

"Okay and what does well mean?" I finished up the last button and followed him over to where he grabbed a seat at the edge of the bed.

"Well as in, it went well." He shrugged, "her name is Lisa and she was very friendly. She asked me a lot of questions which you know I hate..."

"But I prepared you for."

"Yes," he nodded, "you prepared me for it, so I wasn't all too surprised. It was just wrapping my head around the fact that this was normal interview protocol. We did a lot of questions based on my past and things I've handled that were similar."

"How did that go?"

"Surprisingly well, I used most of my prison experiences but switched it up a bit for her not to know." He smirked, "she seemed very intrigued."

"I mean, you do have a way with words." He reached out and pulled me over to sit on his lap. "Tell me more."

"Yeah, after the questions she gave me just the run down of what the job would entail. I'd have to move out to Bakersville as I'm sure you know." I nodded, "uh, for the time being until the center is complete; she has launched and online program just to recruit participants and get them familiar with the center employees. It'll include panel discussions and breakout rooms for the youth to come in and meet us, hear our take on things, all that..."