“Do that, then.”
“You heard Dani. Ri will be looking for us soon to run more errands.”
“Tell her no.”
She sighs. “I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She pauses. “She’s my sister. I just want her to have a good time, no stress.”
“So, you’ll just take all the stress on yourself?”
She bumps her leg against mine. “That’s why I have a new stress toy, isn’t that what you said?”
I snicker at her joke, but I wish I could make her put herself first sometimes when it comes to her sister. Just because it’s her wedding doesn’t mean she gets to take advantage of Janelle.
“That is true. Stress relief reporting for duty.” I give her a tiny salute and she throws her head back in laughter.
“You about to get me in trouble.” Her eyes travel the length of my body, biting her bottom lip as she does.
“Why is that, J?”
“Because if I had more time, I would squeeze you right now.”
We look at each other intently then burst out laughing.
“Ayo, what?”
She forces her words out between her chortles. “I swear that sounded better in my head. I was trying to make a joke like squeeze you like a stress toy. Get it?”
“Ohh okay, so you want to squeeze my stress balls. Got it.”
“Oh God, now it’s getting worse.”
“You started it. Talking about squeezing me like I’m the Pillsbury Doughboy or something.”
“Please. I can’t breathe.” Her laughs turn into a wheeze. “You don’t squeeze the Pillsbury Doughboy; you poke him in the belly. Like this.” She demonstrates by poking me straight in my belly button.
I swat her hand. “You’re on thin ice.”
She puts her hands up in surrender, humor still lighting up her features. “Okay, okay. My bad. Thank you, though.”
“For what?”
“For this arrangement. Being with you really is helping my stress levels. I just don’t want to put all my shit on your plate, so you have to tell me if you want to cut it early. I won’t be offended.”
But I would be. Hell, we’re already cutting it early by limiting ourselves to one week. She really has no idea the effect she’s had on me in such a short period of time.
“J, I wouldn’t be doing this with you if I didn’t want to. Believe me, I am enjoying the hell out of this and you. So, load my plate. I can handle it.”
She giggles. “I can do that.”
We start talking about how the spa treatments went after I left when we hear a voice.
“Nelle.” Janelle jumps away from me like she was just caught doing something inappropriate. We turn to find Dani waving in our direction. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” She stands up and puts a respectable amount of distance between us before meeting my eyes again. “I’ll see you later?”
