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Seventeen
“Your boyfriend?” Bhavna leaned in, taking a break from snatching my eyebrow hairs from my face just long enough to subtly cast a glance in Wick’s direction before she continued.
“No,” I told her. “Just… um… a special friend.”
She lifted a perfectly groomed brow at me, and smiled. “My dear, I have never seen a woman’s “special friend” come and sit in the room while she got heryoniwaxed. Only lovers.”
“Okay but can you mind your business, Mrs. Patel?” I asked, even though I laughed before I had to go still again for her to finish. This was yet another trip out of the house I’d had to negotiate for, but it was necessary. My monthly grooming kept me feeling human, and now that I had someone actually looking at me again, it was even more important.
“Do not get angry with me, Monica, I am just asking questions. You are so much more radiant now than the last time I see you, I have to ask. I want to know the secret, even though I already knowyoursecret?” she teased.
“And what’s that Bhavna? What do you think you know?”
“I know that tall, handsome man is the reason you are glowing. Specifically, hislingham.”
“Could you not?!” I asked, in a whisper-yell-laugh that made the subject of our conversation look up from whatever he was occupied with on his tablet.
“I have to tell the truth, Monica. You are done now.”
Still giggling at our exchange, I sat up straight, looking in the mirror at my flawlessly shaped brows. “There is magic in that thread of yours Bhavna,” I told her, then reached into my purse for enough crisp bills to pay for my services and a hefty tip. “As always, thank you my love.”
“You are welcome. I see you again for brows inthreeweeks – not four.Three.”
“Is that shade, B? You trying to say I’m too much work when I wait the extra week?”
She grinned. “I have to tell the truth, Monica.”
“Mmmhmm. I’ll see you next time!”
With Wick in tow, I left the salon, feeling refreshed, and relaxed, and… way too cute for Wick to be blocking like he was. He was all over me, obviously feeling extra-protective since that thing with Asher two days ago, because his eyes wouldn’t stop moving.
“This is a disaster waiting to happen,” he muttered, repeating his ill feelings about coming to the luxury mall for what had to be the tenth time since we’d ventured out.
I stopped walking to face him. “Well, lucky for you, I’m done. I just need to pee before we get back in the car for that long ass drive back to your house. I’ll be right back.”
“Whoa,hold up,” he insisted. He stepped in way before I could reach for the door of the bathroom we’d stopped in front of. “A public bathroom? You can’t be serious.”
“Well, my bladder sure is,” I told him. “I’ll just a be a second. And I don’t want to hear about you coming in theladies’room. There’s no assassin waiting to get me while I pee.”
“You don’t know that.”
Sucking my teeth, I stepped around him to open the door. “I guess I’ll just have to take that chance.”
He must’ve agreed about the lack of danger, because after a harsh sigh, he let me into the bathroom unimpeded. At first glance, the bathroom seemed empty – which wasn’t uncommon at such a random time of the day, on a weekday. But I’d just reached for the door to one of the stalls when I heard a familiar voice, from a different one.
“Girl, Iknowwwwah!I cannot wait to drop this fucking baby. Since his damn granny wants him so bad, she can have him.”
Crystal.
I quickly surmised that she must be on the phone, since I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. But what Icouldhear was enough to confirm what I already knew – the girl was trash.
“Bitch, you think I’m playing, and I’m not. I only got pregnant because I thought the nigga had money. But I guess I’m the one looking like boo boo the fool, getting pregnant by a mark.”
A mark…?
“Hellllll no! Nigga didn’t have shit but a debit card linked to his wife’s account. She was the one with money. Hell, I should’ve letherget me pregnant. She deserved better than his corny ass. Can’t believe I faked it as long as I did, but at least I got paid.”
Paid?
