Page 18 of Saint Baptiste 2

Emerald was quiet for a while. We sat in silence for a good fifteen seconds before she finally said something. “I really can’t believe you’re doing me like this. After everything?—”

“How am I doing you Em? I haven’t done anything to you. Don’t make this personal. Keep emotions out?—”

“Oh, but you can huh? You can bring emotions?—”

“That’s not what?—”

“That’s exactly what you did!” She yelled and jumped up from her seat. It was cute. Watching her explode. Little ass was barely taller than the desk. A smile slowly crept up on my face. I tried to hide it because I knew it’d add insult to injury, and I honestly didn’t want to do that. I just couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t... Shit, I couldn’t take her serious. Not because she was a woman. She was just so got damn little.

Her frown deepened. “And now you laugh in my face?” She snatched her bag off the desk, preparing to leave. “I thought we were better than this. I thought we had a mutual respect. But shit,” she huffed and angrily tossed the gold strap over her shoulder. However, it wouldn’t cooperate; kept sliding down her arm. “I was wrong. Last night must’ve been your way of getting back at me for not takin her ass off the list huh? It’s never simple with you Baptiste niggas?—”

“Emerald—”

“I just can’t believe you did this to?—”

“Emer—”

“To me! Of all people! For?—”

“Emerald!” I yelled, finally getting through to her.

She flinched and the tears I saw building behind her eyes grew. Ate at me. Viciously. The minute I noticed them in the middle of her rant, I stopped smiling. I didn’t find her anger funny anymore. It wasn’t cute. Something was wrong. And it wasn’t the shit I did. Not fully any way. Emerald was a fuckin’ soldier. One of the realest, treacherous bitches I knew. She wouldn’t shed tears over that shit. We’d bumped heads before. This shit was just a little different. However, not enough to pull tears out of her.

“I apologize,” I sincerely apologized, before reaching across the desk to grab her trembling hand. “Aight? Please sit the fuck down.”

Her faced softened.

Just a little before she was frowning again.

Snatching her hand back, she took her purse off, slammed it on the desk, and sat back down. She looked off, ran her hand down the back of her neck and lightly chuckled. “I just… damn I never thought you would do me like this. I’m just fucked up because I expected better.”

“You keep saying I did something to you. The story I saw didn’t say shit about that building, baby. So, tell me, what did I do to you, Em? Exactly?”

Pandora’s was a private club. The building we operated out of was unmarked. The only way to know it was there, would be to actually know it was there. The media talked about them bodies like they talked about every other fuckin’ body in the city. Whatever it was that had Emerald tripping, didn’t have shit to do with the news. I was sure of that.

She snatched her purse off the desk and rummaged around in it before pulling a matte black envelope from it. Slamming it on the desk, she slid it across to me. Lifting her hand, she revealed a bumblebee wax seal on the ripped envelope flap. Flipping it over, I ran my thumb over the embossed lettering of her name. Everything but the bumblebee seal reminded me of Pandora’s’ stationery. The elegance was top quality.

I shifted my eyes up at her with raised brows. “Fuck is this?”

She crossed her leg over the other and hooked her finger under her chin. “Open it.”

I lifted the flap and sat back against my chair, pulled the thick card out and read it in silence: ‘Hi. You should be excited. You should be very excited. You’ve been invited. Exclusively. You’re one of forty...’. It was an invitation to ‘The Honeycomb’; whatever the fuck that was. Who are you in a room full of strangers? what are some of your deepest, darkest fantasies? what do you desire?

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“Found it on my windshield the other night?—”

With a frown, I interrupted her. “And you’re just telling me about it?”

“I didn’t want to come to you with a problem without a solution.”

“I am the solution,” I sternly told her.

Cocking her head to the side, she huffed. “Are you though?”

“That was different. Something that won’t happen again. I can assure you that.”

I shifted my focus back to the envelope. I understood now. Why Emerald was so upset. The tears in her eyes, the pacing, the constant calling... she was worried about competition. She’d been on top for years, with zero competition. She was the only one in her community who’d elevated. Who’d taken the house parties to an actual business. Pandora’s was huge. However, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

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