“Sorry?” London asked. “Sorry about what?”
“Yeah, what are you sorry for? You better get it where you can, girl! Gimme some!” Taylor held her hand up for a high five.
“Wait, wait, wait. What’s going on here? What about the boyfriend project?” She pointed to Taylor. “You laid the ground rules. No dating for six months while we all work on ourselves so that when we are ready to find a man, we really are ready. I feel like I’m breaking the sisterhood pact or something.”
Taylor waved that off. “Let me find someone who’s worth my time. I’m leaving both you bitches in the dust. Just kidding,” Taylor tacked on the end. “So, this kiss? Was it the ‘oh, that was nice, now let me get back to watchingFriendsreruns’ kind, or the ‘oh, shit, this dude wrecked me. Let me fix my hair and makeup’ kind?”
“It was the ‘let me run to the drugstore and buy a pregnancy test’ kind.”
“Hell yes!” Taylor whooped.
“It’s been too damn long since I had one of those,” London said. “All right, tell us about him. And when did this even start? We all just gave Craig the boot a few weeks ago.”
“His name is Daniel and he started at my job the Monday after the video went viral.” She nervously tucked her hair behind her ears. “I had absolutely no intentions of dating, I promise. It kinda just happened.” She smiled. “I like him. He’s sweet.”
“And he can get you pregnant with a simple kiss. I’m jealous,” Taylor said.
“So, you guys aren’t upset that I’ve already broken the rules?”
“The whole point of this thing is finding joy,” Taylor said. “And when I look at your face right now all I see is joy.” With a teasing grin, she asked, “My only question is, does he have friends?”
Her lungs expanded with gratitude.
“So what does this mean for the boyfriend project?” she asked.
“It means that you’re way ahead of us.” London looked at Taylor. “I’m not sure we can call ourselves Hashtag Squad Goals if there’s only one person in the squad reaching her goals. We’d better get our asses in gear.”
Chapter Seventeen
Samiah’s heart started breakdancing like the people in those eighties hip hop videos she’d caught herself watching on VH1 as she approached the nondescript gray door. The excited flutter in her chest had become a common occurrence. She’d texted Daniel a couple of minutes ago to let him know that she’d arrived. Before she could knock, the door opened and he greeted her with the kind of smile one reserved for opening presents on Christmas morning, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
She held up a pink-and-brown paper sack. “I brought cupcakes. I figured if we use them as incentive, we’ll get more work done.”
His brow arched as he leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on her lips. “I can think of a better incentive, but I guess cupcakes will work.”
She couldn’t decide if it was his voice or his words that had her panties on the verge of evaporating. Probably both.
He relieved her of her laptop case and the bag of cupcakes and moved to the side so she could enter. “Come in. I was just fixing us lunch.”
She entered the apartment, more curious than she dared to admit. It was the first time he’d invited her to his place since they began seeing each other in earnest, a fact that had started to bug her. Samiah understood his explanation of not wanting to expose her to his mercurial roommate, but after either hanging out at her place or going out to restaurants, it was nice to finally get this tiny peek into his world.
It wasn’t much.
The apartment, with its gray walls and drab carpet, was as sterile as a dentist’s office. Actually, there were framed cross-stitched Bible verses hanging on the walls at her dentist’s office, courtesy of his wife. This place didn’t have a single thing, not even a picture of his family, displayed. Was it the roommate? Did the guy have something against clutter or sentiment or basic human emotion?
“No TV?” Samiah asked.
“I stream on my laptop,” Daniel said from the kitchen. It was separated from the sparse living room by a counter that held a single fruit bowl and nothing else.
She caught a whiff of the aroma flowing from the kitchen and her mouth started to water.
“What are you doing in there?” She made her way to the kitchen.
“I wanted to treat you to a taste of home,” he said, glancing up from the cheese he’d been grating into a bowl.
Next to the stove sat a plate with julienned onions and green bell peppers. Red meat, sliced so thin it was nearly see-through, rested on a cutting board, with a long loaf of bread wrapped in cellophane just to the right of it.
“I couldn’t find proper hoagie rolls, but this will do in a pinch,” Daniel said, gesturing to the bread.
