She scoffed. “Please don’t pretend that you lied on my behalf,” she replied as she walked over to swipe her keys off the kitchen island.
“Liv, wait—” Lex called out.
“Ain’t this some bullshit! I need time to process whatever the fuck is going on here, and there’s nowhere for me to even sit in this mothafucka!”
Lex and I both remained upright and watched as Liv sat on the floor and folded her legs underneath her. “Well, sit y’all asses down and tell me what’s been going on behind my back,” she demanded. “And start from the very beginning.”
We sat down, forming a triangle between the three of us in the middle of the living room floor.
Lex drew in a deep breath. “The truth is, I’ve had a crush on your brother since I was like fourteen.”
Liv frowned. “Okay, gross, but keep going.”
“And the night we graduated, I decided to act on those feelings, . . . and I asked him to take my virginity, . . . and well, he did.”
A wrinkle cut across her forehead, and she held her hand up to stop Lex from going into any explicit details. “Yuck, I got it. Let’s fast forward through all that shit, shall we?”
“Then I left for basic training,” I finally added.
Her eyebrows jumped up her forehead as if a lightbulb had gone off in her head. “Oh my God! Is that why you were so sad when he left?”
Lex nodded, face rumpled with guilt.
“I think what pisses me off the most is the fact that I always knew there was something going on . . . I mean, I never had concrete proof until now, but it was just a feeling, y’know? Especially with that vow shit. Seeing your reaction over the phone and then talking to him about it after the fact, I knew he didn’t come up with that shit off the top of his head. He ain’t that smooth, and apparently neither are you.”
“I thought I’d buried all those feelings for him, especially since he was never around. It was like out of sight, out of mind.”
“Until I came home,” I said.
“And you two just decided to pick up where you left off?”
“Not exactly, but sort of,” Lex declared. “It was more complicated than that.”
“Complicated or not, you’re supposed to be my best friend, Lex! We tell each other everything.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t think things were going to go this far, and I never meant for you to find out like this.”
Liv rolled her eyes. “That’s a lie. That’s what you say to make yourself feel better after the first time you slipped up. But apparently, you two kept finding your way back to each other, which means you niggas absolutely wanted this to happen. You practically manifested it.”
My shoulders rose and fell. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we did.”
A look of uncertainty passed over her features. “Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, what happens next?”
Lex and I traded glances, and I saw a host of emotions crisscrossing her face. I reached out to grab her hand. “When she’s ready, I wanna give us a real shot.”
“And what happens if you two break up and I’m caught in the middle?”
“That’s not going to happen,” I assured my sister, hoping to put her skepticism to rest.
Liv made a face that said she wasn’t convinced before sitting with her thoughts for a few seconds.
“Are you sure you’re not mad at us?” Lex asked. “Because ten minutes ago it looked like you wanted to knock our heads clean off our bodies.”
Her chest rose and fell with a hard sigh. “I was only mad because I was in shock, but after hearing the backstory, who am I to stand in your way? At the end of the day, I want the two people I love to be happy, and if that means choosing each other, then that’s what needs to happen. You’re both grown, and have apparently been bumping uglies since the beginning of time anyway.”
Lines pulled at the corners of my mouth as I scooted over to give my sister a hug before kissing her forehead. “Thanks, Sis.”
Lex’s lips twitched with a smile. “Your blessing really means a lot.”
