“Girl, what in the actual hell!” Mya yelped. “Okay, I need all the details because how the hell did that happen?”
I spent the next several minutes explaining everything that had happened from the time Mya and I got to the club until now. Everything had happened so fast, and I was still trying to process it. Growing up with my brothers, I wasn’t like most girls who might have had a crush on their brother’s friends. Leonard never brought anyone around, and Ricky’s friends were younger than me and way too immature. I never thought this type of thing would happen to me, and yet here I was.
“Well, shit,” Amanda said. “I may be the oddball out, but I still say go back and ride that man into tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mya, what do you think since Amanda only has her mind on penises?”
“Yeah,” drawled out. “I say get some. What Ricky doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“Neither one of y’all is helpful, so I’m going to get off the phone. I’ll talk to y’all tomorrow. I love you, bye.”
“Love you too, good night,” Mya sang before hanging up. Amanda said nothing, but instead disconnected the call. Something was off with her, but I was too jumbled to figure it out right now.
After a few moments of silently sitting in my car, I found myself gripping my phone as I scrolled through my contacts. I landed on Ricky’s name and hovered my thumb over his number. A part of me wanted to come clean and tell him what happened. He’s my brother, and I’m sure he’ll understand the honest mistake, right? Shaking my head, I quickly threw my phone down onto my passenger seat. What am I thinking? Why the hell would I tell my little brother that his best friend and I almost…
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I shouted, slapping my hand against the steering wheel.
How could I have done something like that? I mean, it wasn’t like I knew Dexter was my brother’s roommate and best friend, but I should have asked. Hell, as soon as he told me his damn age, I should’ve asked if he knew my brother. I shook my head. Girl, what? That’s stupid. I can’t go around asking everyone if they know either of my brothers based on their age. Turning into a gas station by my condo, I cut the ignition and sighed. The damage was already done. Thankfully, we didn’t get any farther than we did. And we never will.
Flexing my fingers over the steering wheel, I exhaled a breath and grabbed my purse. I walked into the store and headed straight to the chips to grab a bag of Flamin’ Hot Onion Rings. Then, a few feet over, I snatched up a king-size Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar and Cookies & Crème candy bar. I was going to throw the candy in the freezer while I munched on my chips, thenchoose one bar for my dessert. The other one, I’d save for tomorrow.
“Not the best snack choices,” a familiar, whiny voice said behind me. Whipping my head around, I saw the bane of my existence standing before me.
“Sandra,” I said through gritted teeth. Briefly looking over my shoulder, I checked to see if Lawrence was nearby.
“He’s in the restroom.” Sandra smirked. “We only came in to grab some of these.”
She shook a box of Magnum condoms that she held between her fingers and thumb. I rolled my eyes. The fact that she thought I would care about what she and my ex were doing was comical. I was hurt in the past, but I moved on with my life. If anything, I dodged a damn bullet.
Displaying a face of concern, I took a step closer to Sandra. “Oh, honey. You don’t have to pretend with me. You and I both know that Lawrence cannot fit into Magnums.”
Walking over to the condoms, I grabbed a box of Lifestyle “Snug Fit” that was in a size small and tossed it to her. Sandra’s face turned bright red as she glared down at the box.
“That’ll do.” I smirked, walking towards the counter to check out.
“Bitch!” she hissed, but I only burst into laughter. It wasn’t like I was lying. Lawrence was a handsome black man, but he was not blessed in the dick department. The only way you were getting your nut with him was if he was eating or you were riding.
“You’re mad because a) I got the man and b) our store is doing way better than your little shop.” Sandra scoffed. “You’re only making any type of profit because you copied our idea. Not to mention, we paid for it with our money.”
“Hoe, what?”
“You heard me! If Lawrence hadn’t been giving you all the extra money from our shop to keep y’all breakup quiet, then your ass would be working on somebody’s corner or drive-thru window.”
I threw my items down on the counter and walked towards her when Lawrence walked in between us.
“Oh, Natalie! Hey.” His smile faltered as he looked between Sandra and me. “Is everything okay?”
Sandra smirked. “Yup! Natalie and I were catching up.”
I glared at her. “Right. You know, I was letting her know how my “little” shop has made double the profit from last quarter. And that I’m doing better off by myself.”
Sandra snarled before plastering on a sugary smile that made my blood boil. “I was also giving her a heads-up about the upcoming Spring festival that’s coming up in a few months. You know, the one that brings in a lot of tourists? Remember last year and how we got so slammed with customers that we had to extend our hours and order double all the stock?”
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. Shit! How the hell did I forget about the Spring Festival? Every year, our side of town holds a major spring event to escort the winter out and bring in the spring. All the local shops bring out their best decorations and seasonal goodies. Last year alone, the spring festival brought in close to two thousand people to our side of town from eight in the morning until ten in the evening. Every shop had damn near sold out of product, which was amazing but extremely overwhelming. No one was expecting such a huge turnout, and we’re all predicting it’s going to be twice the size as it was last year.
“Oh, yeah!” Lawrence chuckled. “That day was so hectic! Thankfully, we had a good team, because if I had to do everything by myself, I would have called it quits. Or at least,close the store early, which would have sucked because we would have missed a lot of sales.”
I clenched my back teeth together. Why were these two goofy asses going down memory lane like I wasn’t there, busting my ass off? Shit, if I remember correctly, I was the one doing most of the heavy lifting during those two weeks.
