Page 77 of So This Is Love

“You’ve clearly misunderstood. It wasn’t a suggestion,” Bryce says.

Xavier comes up behind Devin with another man who must be security. The security guard taps him on the shoulder and says something low in his ear.

“What I’m getting asked to leave over a bitch I was trying to be nice to?” Devin says, his voice exasperated as if I was the one who did something to him.

Before the words have even fully left his mouth, I toss the contents of my glass in Devin’s direction. Most of the liquid hits him square in the chest, soaking his shirt. He jumps up and starts yelling, cursing at me but I’m already walking away, moving as fast as my legs will take me because all of this is just too much.

Instead of heading towards the exit, I find myself down one of the service hallways, the lights dim and the walls black, an area clearly not meant for patrons to be in. I turn on my heel and face Bryce who’s been only a few paces behind me this whole time.

“Are you following me now?”

“You’re in my lounge, but you think I’m the one following you?”

I let out an exasperated sigh, ready to turn around and get out of here when Bryce stops me, grabbing my arm. “To answer your question, no. Tristan had some things that he wanted me to look over tonight. He had some opportunities that he thought I might be interested in investing in. I was headed out when I saw that nigga all in your face. I went over to make sure you were good.”

“You didn’t need to do that.”

“If you think that when I see another nigga, talking crazy in my girl’s face and I’m not gonna step in then you’ve got it all wrong,” Bryce says shaking his head.

“Well I’m sure it gave all the blogs and news outlets even more to talk about.”

“Fuck them and what they have to say,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s so easy for you to say,” I reply. “You’re not the one getting vile shit said about them, getting called a whore and a gold digger for even being associated with you.”

Bryce closes the small distance between us and brings his hands up to hold the sides of my face.

“I’m sorry,” he says, holding the sides of my face. “You don’t deserve to have your privacy violated like that-, or for people to think it’s okay to say horrible things about you. You told me your boundaries and I didn’t do enough to protect them. I won’t make that same mistake again.”

I force myself to take a step back, my mind filled with conflicting emotions because as much as I want to let Bryce in, it all feels like too much, too vulnerable. Bryce’s hands fall from my face and he shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I think we both need to take some time to figure this all out,” I say, looking down at my feet.

“I think that you’re using that as an excuse to push me away.”

I don’t have a response for that, not a good one, anyway. Iampushing him away. It’s easier than facing all the emotions that have been welling up inside of me, the hard parts that are uncomfortable to tackle. It’s easier to simply walk away.

I push past Bryce to walk back the way I came. “I gotta go find Zara.”

I’m almost at the end of the hallway when I hear Bryce’s voice behind me. “I don’t need time to figure anything out. I want you and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that, even your doubts.”

28

Laila

Cass connects her phoneto the speaker inLovely Day’sshipping room. She turns the volume down to background noise level before she joins me at the long table that we use to pack orders.

Packing and managing orders, making sure they go out when they are supposed to is usually handled by Reagan and Stella. Both of them are out on vacation this week, Stella for a bachelorette trip and Reagan for her birthday. Cass and I decided to do some of the packing while they’re gone so the orders don’t pile up.

When I first started working atLovely Daymy senior year of college, it was only me and Cass. At that time I was more of an assistant than anything else and did anything that needed to be done for the business-, and usually one of those things was packing orders. It feels very full circle to be packing orders with her again. I’m even recording some behind the scenes footage to be able to post on our socials, just like I would do back then.

We pack orders, working in tandem with each other, finding a rhythm that works efficiently. She picks the items from theshelves of inventory and places them into a bin with the packing slip and hands them off to me. From there, I pack the boxes, adding tissue paper and the thank you note before taping the box closed.

I reach for the next order bin but immediately stop when a sharp pain occurs in my lower abdomen. I groan and place my hand where the pain is coming from, applying pressure to try to alleviate the pain.

“Are you okay?” Cass asks, a concerned look on her face.

I close my eyes and focus on breathing through the pain until it subsides, turning into a dull ache.

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