Page 12 of So This Is Love

“Got it, I’ll handle it after I get everything stocked up.”

Tristan nods and then looks over at me. “Sonny, this is one of the bar managers, Rico.”

I hold out my fist to Rico and he bumps mine with his own. “Good to meet you Rico.”

“You too,” Rico replies with a nod and then starts to unload the bottles from the dolly.

“Let me show you around,” Tristan says.

The last time I was here to see the space in person had been right after the drywall had been installed, very much still in the thick of construction. To say that it looks completely different is an understatement. When Tristan first showed me the locationit was just an empty building in an area of Rosewood that had previously had a lot of warehouses and storage spaces that were now transitioning to being used for new ventures. I have seen the space go from an empty warehouse, to new framing and walls, to drywall and flooring to now.

We walk through the whole building, from the main floor and upstairs to the bathrooms and the stock rooms, Tristan shows me everything, which I appreciate. I wanted my investment in Oasis to be more than money. The money was absolutely a factor, but I wanted to have more involvement in it and make sure that it was something I was proud to be a part of.

Now, it's a beautiful two story lounge. The main bar sits directly in the middle of the first floor, a perfect square with space for bartenders to work each of the four sides. Booths line the perimeter of the room and couches, loveseats and accent chairs fill in the rest of the space with small side tables as well.

The interior designers went for a moody aesthetic, the main colors of the space being blacks and greens with pops of gold throughout. The DJ booth is in the far back corner across from the stairs to go up to the second floor. The second floor is exclusive to members of Oasis only, those who pay a premium for a more secluded space. The upper level has a balcony that allows you to see from upstairs to the lower level below.

“So,” Tristan says, gesturing out to the room. “What do you think of the place?”

“It's come a long way and it looks fantastic. Your team did a great job.”

“I had no doubt that they would,” he replies. “But it’s still amazing to see it come to life.”

I nod in agreement and decide then that this won’t be the last time that I invest in a project like this. Watching the journey of building Oasis feels like the start of a whole new venture for me.

Tristan and I say our goodbyes and go our separate ways. I leave through the back door and go back to my car where Xavier is waiting for me. Xavier is my friend, but he’s also my right hand man, an extra set of eyes and ears to keep me safe. I hired him officially to be my bodyguard shortly after I became well known enough to need one. A lot of the time wherever I go, X goes too. He stayed in the car for this meeting with Tristan because I knew it wouldn’t take long and I wasn’t worried about any trouble.

Xavier is in the driver’s seat and I slide into the passenger seat of the blacked out SUV.

“All good?” Xavier asks.

“Yeah I’m good.”

Xavier puts the car in drive and pulls out of the parking spot and I relax back in my seat, getting comfortable for the drive ahead of us.

One of the things about X that I appreciate the most, is that he never feels the need to fill the natural silence that falls between us, he just lets it be. He’s playing music from his phone that’s connected to the car, but neither of us feels the need to fill the space with filler conversation. The silence is comfortable and speaks to X’s chill demeanor, but also the familiarity between us because we were friends way before me ‘making it big’ was anything more than something I daydreamed about instead of paying attention in math class. And even now, when my life has changed drastically, X has remained solid, never switching up on me unlike a lot of other people who I thought were my friends but didn’t have good intentions. The ones who saw our relationship as transactional and were only looking for what I could do for them instead of caring about me as a person.

My phone buzzes and I reach into my pocket to grab it. It’s a picture from Morgan of the orange Louis Vuitton shopping bag and the purse I had delivered to her, sitting on her desk. The simple words, ‘I could get used to this’ follow the picture.

Morgan handled a lot of the details of my transition from living in LA to Chicago. Within two days of me telling her that I wanted to move back here, she had tours of condos set up for me to go view, transport for my cars established and a bunch of other things that I hadn’t even thought of needing to do, done for me. Though she had been joking about me buying her shoes or a handbag, I actually did want to buy something for her as a thank you.

After I reply to Morgan with a laughing emoji, I close out of my messages and open Instagram instead to pass the time during this drive. I scroll for a little while, dropping a few likes on my friends’ pictures until I get bored. Before I leave the app I tap on my notifications. Something about the little icon next to the notifications always bothers me and I have to open it any time I’m on the app to clear it. Thankfully, I have it set to only notify me when someone I follow back has interacted so the amount of notifications I receive is drastically less than what it could be. I do a few quick swipes through the notifications, most of them for the last few things that I have posted until I see one that isn’t. A picture that I posted was liked 16 hours ago by withlove.laila. A smirk crosses my face knowing that there was absolutely no way she liked that picture intentionally. It had been over a week since I ran into Laila and though we had exchanged social media and I had given her my number, she hadn’t reached out. I had been following her lead on not communicating because though I wanted to, I wanted to respect her space especially since she was so hesitant to share information in the first place. However, this was a golden opportunity dropped straight into my lap, I wasn’t gonna pass it up.

I take a screenshot of the notification list and crop the picture until it shows just the one and tap on Laila’s name to go to her profile. Her page is perfectly curated, a mix of pictures of her alone or with friends, one girl in particular showing up morethan others, and pictures of the world. Sunsets and the lake and flowers amongst other things that somehow all go together perfectly. I go to her messages, type out my message, and hit send before I can think too much about it.

sonny

you stalking me laila?

My hands are clammy, actually my whole body is warm. I set my phone down and pull on the collar of my shirt trying to get some reprieve from the sudden influx of heat in my body. When the hell had it gotten so hot in here? Heat pours from the vents of the car and I decide that that must be the cause. I reach over and turn the dial that controls the heat to my side of the car down. I pick my phone up again and see that she’s replied.

withlove.laila

no. what makes you think that?

I send her the screenshot of the notification.

sonny

---