"I hope this meets your standards," he mentioned.
"Why does meeting my standards matter to you so bad, Dose?" I asked him.
I propped my head in my hands, with my elbows rubbing the tablecloth, waiting for him to respond.
He shrugged. "You and I both know, you ain't an easy fish to catch. You bite back. Niggas would be lucky enough to get you to say bless you if they sneezed, you're so fuckin' mean and bitter."
My brows piqued in curiosity. "Mean and bitter? You think I'm bitter?"
"Something made you that way. I can see right through you. It's good you're not optimistic, but you have a chip on your shoulder too and I can tell you love hard which is why you keep your feelings bottled up and protected."
"No one made me this way, I just have enough experience with men to know that y'all?—"
"Y'all," his bushy brows raised with a questionable tone.
"Y'all!" I retorted, mocking him. "As a collectible. You're part of Adam's rib and he was the first liar to exist."
"Mane," he blew a raspberry as he waved me off.
Our waiter returned with our wine and appetizers. Dose waited until he left and thanked him before doing so.
"That's the thing with women. Y'all blame every nigga after the one who hurt you for a fuck nigga's wrong doing."
"Ain't that what y'all do? A bitch does y'all wrong one time, mainly y'all mama or being born in a one-parent household and now every woman has to suffer for that."
He shook his head as he took a sip of his wine. "That speaks for most men, but not me. If that's the case, then what's wrong wit' you. What's your story? I saw the pictures on your bookshelf. You grew up in a two-parent household. You got daddy issues or something?"
I pursed my lips and took a huge sip of my wine.
"I didn't, but I do now. He doesn't approve of my well-being. It's been that way for a while now, sadly."
"It ain't his choice to approve of how you get your bread. That's always been weird to me and those type of expectations set on you as an adult shouldn't be a choice of his to make."
I nodded in agreement. "Tell me about it," I uttered sarcastically. "I grew up with parents who demanded that after high school it's imperative to attend college. I chose culinary school."
"I noticed that degree on your bookshelf too."
"I had this really big opportunity. She was a local celebrity in Memphis at the time. It was for her wedding. During this era, word-of-mouth was huge. Of course the bride and groom were hesitant about me catering to them, because I was new, but myfather put in a good word for me. Long story short, they got food poisoning and my chances at being a chef were tainted. I gave up after that, because she blasted me all over social media and she went viral."
"Oh shit," his hand covered his mouth in a lowercase o. "I think I remember that. Damn that's fucked up. Why'd you just give up like that though?"
I saw our waiter with our entrees, so I sat my wine glass to the side and made room for our plates. Everything looked and smelled so good. The steak that Dose ordered was still sizzling on his plate and steam was rising from my lobster tail.
"Does everything look okay?" The waiter asked.
"Yeah," Dose responded. "Bring out a whole bottle of wine."
I bit into my food before continuing our conversation. "Because I was harassed for weeks. I wasn't getting booked for gigs, unless my family asked me to cook for the holidays. My father scolded me for the longest time for it. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I did wrong. I thought about pursuing other things, but cooking is my baby, so anything I did would feel forced."
"So where did porn come from?"
I took a deep breath as I traveled down a time machine. "I saw this girl talking about how men pay for feet-pics online, so I looked into it. I made my first $5,000. At the time I was young and still staying with my parents, and I was ready for my own car and my own place."
"I feel you on that."
Our waiter appeared with our wine as I spoke.
"I did that for a while, then I was on social media and I saw a girl talking about how much money she makes on After Dark and I looked into it. Here I am, years later making millions. For a long time, I didn't tell anyone in my family. Luckily, I didn't doany promoting so I didn't have to rat myself out, but one of my father's golfing buddies ratted me out."
