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Emily takes a gulp of her coffee and holds it inside her mouth for a long moment. Then her eyes widen in panic, and I rush off to the kitchen to grab a bowl for her to spit the coffee into—but it’s too late, and a huge coffee spray jettisons across the room, hitting my terminal, my sofa, everything.
I stand there frozen, jaw slack, holding the bowl in my hands.
“What just happened? Are you okay?” I ask, too stunned to move. “The fuck did you flavor your coffee with?”
After a long moment, Emily swipes the back of her hand across her trembling lips, looking at me in wide-eyed horror. “Dick.”
“I’m sorry, what?” There’s no way she just said that. No, I must’ve heard her wrong.
“Your dick,” she repeats, slower this time. “But because I haven’t tasted yours yet, I must’ve … something went really wrong. Here, try it.”
I back away to place the bowl down on the counter and raise my hands defensively. “Um, are you serious right now? I’m not trying your musty-ass coffee that you flavored with my dick. Do you even realize how gross that is?”
Emily sets her cup down on the coffee table, and I turn to grab a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess. Damn, that shit got everywhere. There’s not a spot in the living room that escaped the carnage.
Behind me, Emily lets out a shrill shriek that damn near makes my ear drums explode. When I turn, she’s rolling around on the carpet, laughing so hard she’s gripping her abs. “Oh my god! I can’t believe it actually worked! I thought it was fake!”
I stand there in the kitchen, clutching the paper towels in my hand, unsure of what to say or how to react.
And she had the audacity to accusemeof being disgusting when she thought I made pizza-flavored coffee? Yeah. No more coffee for Em. This is the last time I do anything nice for this girl.
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Ipour my coffee down the drain, wincing as the caramel brown liquid spills from the cup. With my free hand, I pinch my nose, because apparently this new coffee technology doesn’t just change the flavor, it also changes the smell. Rank. What started off as a joke turned into me apologizing nonstop to my bodyguard, who can’t stop glaring at me from the other side of the room.
“I said I was sorry, like, twenty times, Xav!” I snap, pouring out the last of the ruined coffee. “I’ll pay you back for the coffee, I promise.”
Xavian sighs as he shakes his head for the millionth time, then steps toward me. “I don’t want you to pay me back for the coffee, I told you that. It was only four credits, anyway. It’s the fact that I don’t have a single candle in the apartment to help mask the smell of … that abomination you just created.”
I wince and turn to face him. “Yeah. Sorry about that. How was I supposed to know the four-credit coffee would actually do what it was supposed to do?”
Now I’m picturing all the other coffee mishaps that are probably happening across the country, and I pull up the What’s Happenin’? app on the terminal. Instantly, a bunch of hashtags for the #SleuthCoffeeChallenge pop up. Hundreds of people are coming up with the nastiest flavors they can think of and making their friends drink it.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who thought of this,” I say as I swipe through the videos.
Xavian, on the other hand, doesn’t look amused. He rolls his eyes at me and heads back into his bedroom. I close the app and follow him. Wait, is he mad at me?
“Then let me buy you some candles,” I offer, hoping to lighten the mood. God, I really don’t want him angry with me.
Xav did some laundry late last night, and now he’s folding it by hand and putting it away in his dresser. It’s hard not to stare at him as I lean against the doorframe. The morning sun’s beams burst through the window, illuminating Xav’s wheat-colored hair. He is a very, very handsome man. I wonder how many women in his life have told him so, and how many of those women know how good he is at kissing.
“I’m not mad at you, Em. Why would I be mad about that?” he says, not looking up from his folding.
“I… you just seemed mad that I made your apartment smell bad,” I say quietly.
“I could never get mad at you for something like that, and you never have to buy me anything,” Xavian murmurs. My heart does a little happy dance inside my chest. He probably doesn’t even realize just how much I craved his reassurance at that moment. The tension leaves my body, and I find myself staring at him again. My gaze glide down his neck to where his back muscles flex with each movement he makes.
He looks up at me as he folds a white T-shirt and gives me the strangest, most self-conscious smile. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I shrug. “Dunno. You’re just nice to look at, I guess. Any news from Margot? It’s been a week, and I haven’t heard from her. She’s not avoiding me, is she?”
His smile immediately drops. “Right. I … was going to tell you after you ate.”
Something about his tone puts me on edge, and I brace myself for the inevitable bad news. Because it’s going to be bad news. Lately, it’s all been bad news all the way down. Can’t catch a break, it seems. Except for the hot makeouts, of course.
“She said the executives are postponing your album,” he says quickly, like he’s trying to rip off the band-aid in one go.
I flinch. “Wait, what? Why?”
