Page 28 of Call and Response

“Hm?” Brooke dropped her gaze, lips pressed together.

“Brookie!”

“Fine, damn!” She laughed. “So… yes, there was a point where it was just work, at the first photo shoot I did with him. But then… I knew for sure I wanted to, and I fucked him after work. Like… on purpose.”

“Well, yes, but you didn’t show up for that purpose.”

“Hm?”

“Oh my God!”

“What?!” She giggled. “He was fine as hell! And so is Noble!” she added. “You know you don't have to be embarrassed about this, right? Not to mention, he seems like a good dude, and y'all’s chemistry was damn near about to burn the place down the other night. Nobody is judging you for taking him down.”

“Nobody inthisroom, at least.” Winnie grinned. “You know all about how I had to wear Jonathan's ass down. I had to chase that dick with purpose, so I'm the last person to give you any static. I’m just going to tease you to hell and back about it.”

“Well, your teasing would be a lot easier to take if this shit didn’t have me all confused and discombobulated. I was already stressed enough about the music; the last thing I needed to add to it was a situation like this.”

Winnie stopped distributing resistance bands to stand straight up and look me in the face. “Situations like what? What's wrong?” she asked, switching straight into family protective mode .

“Nothing like that.” I shook my head. “It’s just…okay… we should have been like, a casual hookup between artists who just happened to have this crazy chemistry that needed to be worked through, right? Which, that’s the cliché normal thing. But instead…it didn't feel like that.”

“It wasn't good?” Brooke asked.

“No, it was great, that's not the problem.”

“Oooh. It didn't feel casual?” Winnie guessed, coming to stand closer to me. “You like him.”

“I don't know him to like him.”

“If only that was something that actually mattered.” She laughed and I shook my head.

“Stuff like that matters to me, though,” I argued, which made her shrug.

“Fair enough,” she conceded. “But you still feel like you feel, so you have to explore that in order to figure this out. And it sounds like this is something beyond ‘knowing’ him well enough to like him.”

“Oh God, please don't go implying any weird shit,” I begged.

“Tossing it out there that you guys may have a base level connection that doesn't rely on some arbitrary length of time that you've known each other isn't weird shit,” Brooke said. “It just is what it is. And I could swear you've written songs about that very thing…”

“Yeah, for other people, not me!”

“So you think it works like that for everybody except you?” Brooke questioned.

“It'sbeenworking like that for everybody except me.”

“Wow, so you're out here writing songs about shit you don't even believe it?” Winnie droned.

I sucked my teeth. “Yeah, the same way niggas rap about bitches they’ll never fuck and checks they won't receive.”

“Oop!” Brooke said.

Winnie laughed. “Okay, you ate thetiniestlittle bit with that. Butstill—"

Before she could get that statement out, the door opened and other people started filtering in, and this was definitely not a conversation for the public.

“I’m not done with you,” Winnie warned and I sighed as I moved to take my place for class.

“I didn’t expect you were.”

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