She grins, not taking it back.
“Awww,look at lil’ Allie, all sprung and shit.”
I point at her. “You do realize I’ve only been around him for, like, three—maybe four—hours total, right?” I say, clawing at the logic. “Four hours. That’s not even enough time for my hair to air dry.”
The words shock even me,
and they leftmymouth.
“Four hours,” I laugh,
and I laugh,
and I laugh.
“Four hours!
“Nah—that’s not feelings.
“That’s a bad layover at LaGuardia.
“Four hours. That’s?—
“that’s a bodega trip if the line’s bad.”
She grins wider.
I’m fucked.
Her brow peaks. “Say‘four hours’one more time like you wouldn’t drop Teddy Vale mid-orgasm if Six-Point-Five so much as breathed your name.”
My laugh breaks in half,
croaking out of me in pieces.
It sounds like a cough and a cry had an affair.
“Nope. I don’tfallfor people.”
I slap the curtain aside
and stumble out of the tub, betrayed by my bestie.
“I trip. I slip. I spiral.
“Falling is way too graceful for what I do.”
“Still didn’t deny it,” Celie calls out.
I don’t answer. Fuck her.
Because I’m 65 hours in
with only seven left to go.
Watch—he’ll get bored,
decide not to text,
