Page 11 of B.D.E
“Girl please, don’t start with me. These thighs deserve fresh air.”
“You are so dramatic.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” she said, giving me an exaggerating swirl. “Now, where is my cinnamon roll? My uterus is PMS’ing and I will absolutely cuss somebody out in public today for playing with me.”
I walked back around the counter and handed her the warm pastry that I’d already prepared for her beforehand. She made an actual moaning sound before taking a huge bite. Tori was a certified mess, the good kind though. She was loud, loyal and always ten seconds away from dragging me out of the house for something reckless I had no damn business doing. Tori and I met in college. She was studying cosmetology and was my roommate for two semesters before she moved off-campus and officially launched her “hot girl era,” as she loved to call it, and she loved to remind me that I needed one too. Tori grew up with strict, old school Southern parents who made sure she was in church every Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. She never had sleepovers and boys were out of the question. But the minute she left home, she snapped every rule in half and never looked back.
By the time we were twenty-three, she’d opened her own beauty bar, was booked solid for lashes and facials, and had a waitlist that was two months long. Tori had been there for me through everything since we’d met and became a constant in my life, especially after my parents passed away. She offered to take some time off from her business and help me run the book café, but I refused to let her put her dreams on hold to help make mine. She wasn’t hearing me at all, cause she ended up taking amonth off just to stay here with me while I worked through my grief and helped run the shop. Tori didn’t take shit for nobody and she didn’t allow me to hide from life either. She works my nerves at times with all her wild and crazy shenanigans that she loves dragging me into but at the same time, she protects and respects my innocence and doesn’t judge me for it.
“So, what’s tea? Your still not dating?” She asked, chewing and eyeing me suspiciously.
“Not since you asked me that same question last week,” I responded, rolling my eyes.
“Well, you didn’t text me back yesterday. Did you finally download one of those dating apps I sent you?”
“I didn’t open the store yesterday,” I admitted, hesitantly.
Tori stopped mid-bite. “Wait, what? Ivy Monroe, you never skip work. Not even when you had the flu and could barely fucking breath. What is going on with you?”
I forced a shrug. “I just—wasn’t feeling well.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Girl, you always don’t feel well when your emotions are involved. So, what is it? Are we talking anxiety spiral, random emotional break down, or did a man say something crazy to you and you’re just now processing it? Wait—no it can’t be the last part because that would mean that you would actually have to converse with a man, any man other than bad breath Jesse that comes in here flirting with you every damn day before brushing his damn teeth and I know you fucking lying.”
I smirked at her then looked away.
“Oh my God,” she whispered dramatically. “You’re fucking with Jesse?!”
“What—no! Definitely not him!”
“So, not him but there is a man.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“You’ve always been a bad liar Ivy,” she said, hopping up to sit on the front counter. “Who is he, chile?” Her eyes lit up while she waited for me to spill the tea on Ghost.
I didn’t know what this was with us or even if it was something at all, but I knew I wasn’t ready to tell her about him and what had transpired the past few days. It’s not every day that you tell your best friend that a fine ass stranger broke into your store in the middle of the night bleeding to death with a gun pointed at you and instead of running or calling the cops, you take him in and nurture him back to health while secretly lusting over him while he sleeps in your bed. I busied myself, wiping down a perfectly clean expresso machine.
“Nobody… just a guy from my past that resurfaced. It kind of rattled me, so I wasn’t in the right headspace to be around people, that’s all,” I lied.
Tori eyed me carefully, like she could read right through the lie I’d given her.
“Someone from your past, huh? Anyone I know?” She questioned.
I shook my head. “Not at all. Just some guy from high school.”
“Well, ok. At least he was fine as hell, but what could he have done to have you so ‘rattled’ that you couldn’t open your damn store?”
I knew that she was never going to let this conversation go, which is why I gave her the bullshit lie about a high school ex. Tori always meant well, but she could be very pushy at times, and I wasn’t easily influenced these days, especially to be out dating different guys with no real intentions. If she knew the truth about who was upstairs in my bedroom right now and why, she would really go nuts. Then again, she would probably jump into a split, thinking that I’d finally got my ‘split hit’, as she would say. Whatever that meant.
“I never said he was fine, Tor?—”
“You didn’t have to, boo. That fidgeting you do with your hands, and those rosy cheeks told me all I needed to know about him. He got you hot and bothered, Ivy. Now is the time to use that toy I gave you since you ain’t trying hit a split on the dick,” she chuckled, clearly amused by me being flustered.
“Girl! That thing had me almost going into cardiac arrest in less than 30 seconds. Absolutely not!”
“Sis, that’s all you need to get you right. It will definitely hold you off until you get the real thing,” she shrugged like having heart attack symptoms from a sex toy was normal. Freaky ass!
“For you to be so bothered by this man, you shol’ is glowing.” She gasped. “Ivy Monroe, did you fuck him?! Oh my God, bitch spill it! Tell me everything. Was his dick big? Did it hurt? Do he eat coo?—”
