“Hey!” Phat hisses, slapping her fingers against my cheek. “I said I’ll do—”
“Close your mouth,” I mutter, twisting her braids between my fingers.
Sometimes my fingers are just like alcohol—arrogant, dizzying, and irrational. They don’t know any other way to exist. So, when Phat’s braids whirl between them, they feel at ease.
The skin on her forehead tightens as I yank her braids back and stare at her lips like I did that hive I had to cure. They’re full, wet, and dying to show me how far we are past the point of no return and, most importantly, theyclose.
I press my nose against hers and drag it until her soft breaths turn into hard ones. “Those the thoughts you have when I fuck around and let you control the vibe?”
She nods her head.
“Now you see what happens when I let you leave home?”
My mouth hovers over hers and our lips scrape.
“Tell me you’ll come back home,” I breathe into her mouth. “Tell me you’ll come back home and act right.”
“But Ason...” she gasps out, closing her mouth again.
It’s not Hollywood, Cali, Ace, orThe Kid—it’smyname that she took and made hers on the hood of Pops’ truck that night.
“No...no.” I shake my head. “I don’t think you understand. I’m not negotiating with you, baby.”
Her eyes flutter like she’s satisfied even though our tongues haven’t touched. I can’t front and call her “kid” right now—not when she’s gasping out my name like I’m inside of her. So baby it is.
“That’sthe problem with me and you.” I flick my tongue against her bottom lip. “I let you get away with too much...like you think I’m actually here to go back and forth with you about this shit.”
She opens her mouth and claws her fingers against my head.
It doesn’t matter that I have her hair tangled in my hand or that I never gave her the satisfaction of letting LA creep its way between us—she still wants me.
“I’m not goi—going back and forth with you. I’ll stay off Twitter. I won’t drink—”
“You telling me everything I don’t want to hear right now.”
Therealproblem with us is that Phat’s a lot like alcohol and my problematic fingers. She’s a double shot of dopamine and she makes me do shit I shouldn’t.
The rumbling stall door blends in with the music playing and the girls’ loud mouths as I push her against it. I can’t hear them comparing me to a big dick Sag or calling meHollywoodwith disgusted curiosity because sometime between the DJ’s last transition, the double shot of Phat I took to the head has me hoisting her legs around my waist and pressing her back against the door. I don’t even remember how our tongues got tangled together, but they collided as soon as she pressed her lips against mine.
“I’ll act right.” She groans around my tongue. “I’ll—I’ll come back home and act right for you.”
Her tone is exactly what home should taste like—sweet and satisfying. She doesn’t know how to kiss, but that makes it better. All she wants is to taste all of me and CeCe was right, just like Pops was. Addiction is so selfish that I can’t help but spoil her.
“I can’t believe I let him bring you here,” I mutter as her lips latch onto my bottom one. “Why I let him do that, baby?”
There it was again—baby.
She sucks hard like she wants to leave proof that she turns me into a bitch when we’re home and even simple things like her being a shitty kisser makes my dick push against my briefs.
“Hm? I should’ve made you stay with Mom, huh?”
She nods like any of the shit I’m saying is rational or healthy, but nothing about me is either of those things, and I think she knows that because she’s my little lady. She doesn’t know to stay away from men like me.
“Tell me I was hella stupid for this shit.” I wrap my fingers around her cheeks, pulling her lips from my bottom one. “Tell me I’m dumb for letting other niggas see how good you look in Dior.”
She smiles and squeezes her legs around my waist like we haven’t been beefing for the past hour because the last party of the summer tested us.
“Youhellastupid.” She sighs, closing her eyes and hiccupping a breath full of alcohol.
