“The vibes are immaculate.”
“Danessa?” When he spoke my name, it felt weighted like my moniker was a sacred vow.
“Yes.”
“I think I’m going to need heated floors. It’s a nonnegotiable.”
“I’ll add it to your file.” He stepped back suddenly, and a tingling sweeped up my back and across my face, my stomach dropping at the sense I was exposed. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and I was now fully aware I was sans shoes in some stranger’s bathroom.
“Can you believe this? If you told me when I was sixteen my basketball dream would have me standing on heated marble floors in a bathroom as big as my childhood home, I would never have believed it.”
“You really came up with a plan and executed it. You deserve all the good things.”
“We, we deserve all the good things.”
“I’m still trying to figure my shit out.” I stepped back into my shoes.
“You own a condo, a business you started, and don’t act like the bottoms of your shoes aren’t red. You’re doing great.”
“I’m doing okay.”
“Don’t play with me. I will not accept any Danessa Irwin slander. You deserve the world and it’s clear you’re claiming it for yourself.”
One thing about Aldridge, he’d always been my biggest supporter. If I told him I wanted to pull the moon from thesky, he wouldn’t tell me it was impossible, he’d ask if I wanted company. Growing up I didn’t have that kind of support. My mother’s love always came with conditions. I was a straight A student, class president, on the debate club, prom queen and my mother didn’t care. Correction when I told her I was crowned prom queen you’d have thought I’d told her I’d won Miss America or something. I don’t think I’d ever seen her prouder.
Second correction, I think she was beaming when I brought Aldridge home for the first time. Aldridge didn’t notice, but I could distinctly make out dollar signs behind her eyes. For my mom he was our meal ticket. Which is one of the reasons I ended things. Aldridge had enough people to support within his family. He didn’t need three more grown adults leeching off him.
“Do you want to see the wine cellar?”
“I don’t drink wine, it gives me headaches. While I like the house, I don’t love the location.”
“You don’t know diddly squat about this area.”
“It’s far as hell.”
“Allow me to change your perspective.”
“I’m a stubborn man who isn’t easily persuaded.”
“Grab your shoes and follow me.”
Danessa decidedshe was prepared to play tour guide. Seeing how I was perpetually down on this city, I was game to have my perspective shifted. I know I just got here but the results were already in. Vegas was hot and there was nothing interesting to look at, just desert landscaping and various shades of browns and orange, Turkish coffee, coriander seed, rustic pottery, and the nightlife was a bit too balls to the wall for me.
Vegas was a place that celebrated vices, the freakier the better. And seeing how I was keeping my vices PG-13, I didn’t exactly fit in. Don’t get me wrong, I loved a good party but most of them always spiraled out of control with too many strangers, random beautiful women, and drugs … tons of fucking drugs.
Once my recreational use switched to a morning bump, my life started to circle the drain. I was fucking up at work, avoiding my mother’s calls for fear she’d be able to hear the desperation and need for a hit in my voice. Anger was my new default temperament. I’d forget things, appointments, birthdays. It was easier to push my old friends away while replacing them with new ones who shared my destructive hobbies. I knew better, Ilived through this shit with my dad. And yet, I let it happen anyway.
“First stop.” Danessa pointed to a fragrance store called The Scent Lounge.
“Really?” My lips pressed together as I fanned my face.Why the fuck was it so hot?
“Yes.”
Holding the door open, I then followed her inside. The cool breeze helped but not by much. How did people live in warm weather cities like this? I just wanted to be inside a dark room with nothing but my boxers on and an insulated tumbler filled with ice and crisp water.
The clerk welcomed us in with a wave. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”
“Hello, I think you can. We’re interested in making our own fragrances.”
