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Chapter 4
Quintessa
I’m no fool. I knowEssex is probably not going to pass this test, so I keep my expectations low. I don’t usually see him during the workday under normal circumstances, and I won’t see him today unless he lets himself be seen. I hope I don’t see him. Since ‘the kiss’, I’ve been feeling disconnected from the job, like kissing him has somehow taken my mind off my daily duties. Today, my goal is to get back on track.
“Hey, Tez,” Zahara says.
“Hey, Zee.”
“How was your weekend?”
I think about Saturday – how I spent it relaxing. I must admit – even after Essex showed up, I was still relaxed, listening to him talk. I wouldn’t admit this to him, but his voice – his presence – is starting to become an addiction. I shouldn’t let it because I know what I’m dealing with. It’s not like he hasn’t shown me who he was, but he’s also showing me that he’s willing to change.
“It was pretty good. I didn’t do much of nothing—just hung around the house. What about you?”
“Same. It was a pretty boring weekend for me.” She looks over at Ian and asks, “What about you, Glasses? How was your weekend?”
“I was at the beach checkin’ out the ladies,” Ian responds, pointing to us with both index fingers and making some weird clicking noise with his mouth.
“You’re at the beach like every weekend,” Zahara says. “You and Bieber, both, and ain’t neither one of y’all got no woman.” She chuckles.
Jake turns around and says, “Why are you always trying to find out what everybody did over the weekend, but you don’t be telling us nothing about what you did?”
“Aw, did Biebs wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Zahara taunts.
“Bite me,” he tells her, threading his fingers through his blonde hair.
“Don’t tempt me,” she retorts, glaring at him.
I pause and look at the two of them locking eyes. Don’t tell me white-boy Jake got a hankering for some chocolate. I’ll have to talk to Zahara about that later.
Greta comes in with three bags – a purse, a laptop bag and a backpack. She should have plenty of muscles after carrying all that around. She also has a new hairstyle – corn rolls done up into a ponytail of curls.
“Oh, snap. Somebody went to the salon this weekend,” Zahara says.
“I had to do something to this mess,” Greta says huffing, trying to remove her backpack. When she’s finally able to do so, she lowers the bag to her desk. “Why are y’all just standing around? We got a quota to meet unless you want Mr. DePaul spinning around here like a tornado.”
The visual…
I grin to myself at that one.
Zahara says, “We just got here, Mrs. Greta.”
“Mmm…hmm,” she says. “And where’s Mauve?”
“She went to get coffee,” I answer.
“And wewereworking before Zahara interrupted us,” Jake says.
Zahara crosses her arms. “Boy, stop lying.”
“Boy, stop lying,” he says, imitating her voice.
“Anyway,” Zahara says, “Let me get back to my desk becausesomebodygetting on my nerves already.”
Jake smirks.
Greta shakes her head then asks, “How are you doing, Quintessa?”
