Page 1 of Only One Bed: Anthology Vol. 1
One Bed of a Pick Up Truck
Lucy Eden
One
“Hey big head,pass me my phone.” Julian slid his hand across the console, his large palm was outstretched, the backs of his fingertips grazing my thigh, making my breath catch in my throat.
I held the phone out of his reach. “No. You shouldn’t be using your phone while you’re driving and don’t call me ‘big head’.” He didn’t grab for it, but his hand lingered on my thigh for a second before pulling away. I was glad I was wearing shorts and very glad that I shaved above the knee for a change.
“My deepest apologies, Dee Dee,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all.
I rolled my eyes and pursed my lips. No one called me Dee Dee anymore except family. Julian was my brother’s oldest friend and we all grew up together, sort of. They were three years older than me, but it might as well have been a decade separating us. We’d only been in high school for one year together. I’d been a freshman while they were seniors. Julian and Marcus were popular athletes and I was the nerdy little sister.
I don’t mean to make it sound rude. Marcus is a great big brother and Julian was always nice to me, but we always had different interests.
We grew up in the same small town in the mountains of upstate New York. By some chance we both ended up based in New York City. He was a “kind of a big deal” photographer and I was a grad student at NYU. My brother suggested we ride together to his wedding this weekend. I was planning to take the bus so this was a much better plan.
“Hey, what are you over there daydreaming about?” Julian’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “If you’re not going to let me use my phone, you at least have to talk to me.”
I looked over to see him grinning at me with two rows of perfect teeth, glittering brown eyes and dimples carved into his perfect deep brown complexion.
I cleared my throat when I’d just realized I was staring at him and dragged my eyes away from him to stare at his phone in my lap.
* * *
“Wereyou really gonna scroll through Twitter while we’re on the highway?”
“No, I was going to change the music, Dee Dee. Do you think I would endanger my life like that?” He shot me a sarcastic grin.
“Nice, Jules.” I shook my head at him. “And would it kill you to call me Nadirah.”
“No, it wouldn’t kill me, but it would be weird as hell.” He glanced at me again and huffed out a chuckle. “Is that what your friends call you in graduate school?” He put a weird emphasis on the word “graduate” pronouncing every syllable.
“Well, it is my name.” I shrugged and narrowed my eyes at him playfully. Honestly, I didn’t mind him calling me by my childhood nickname but I also liked teasing him.
“So, you ready for this wedding?” he asked. My brother was marrying his college sweetheart, Wendy. She was a Spelman grad and they waited for her to finish law school to set a date. Between Wendy, her mother and my mother, this was shaping up to be the wedding from hell and it wasn’t even mine.
“I’ve been ready for this wedding for months.” I shook my head and chuckled. My soon to be sister in law was beautiful, funny, intelligent and usually one of my favorite people in the world. However, studying for the NYS bar exam while trying to plan a wedding might have pushed her over the edge.
“Wendy’s been driving you up the wall too?” He chuckled.
I snapped my head to look at him.
“Yes! Has she been torturing the groomsmen too?”
“Oh yes. You can’t tell anybody this, but your brother and Wendy have been fighting about Rob’s dreads.” Rob was one of Marcus’ fraternity brothers from Morehouse.
“Rob’s dreads? Why?” I furrowed my brow.
“She wants him to cut them for the ceremony. She wants everyone to look the same in the pictures.” He shrugged and shook his head.
Wendy has been a bit of a bridezilla but I didn’t know it was that bad. Although, she did make one of her cousins cry at our last dress fitting.
“So what did Rob say?”
“Rob didn’t say nothing. He doesn’t know. You know Marc is not going ask one of his brothers to cut his locs. He’s been growing them for five years.”
“Wow, that is a lot. All we have to worry about is Wendy’s diet.”
