her assistant to button and zip. Being half-naked and touched by others doesn’t even faze me at this point in my life. It’s taken years, but with therapy and a few tongue lashings from Elle Hunter when I first signed with her and she promised to make me the most recognized female boxing name in the world, I’ve gotten over it. It doesn’t help that I’ve got a gang of crap on my mind and can’t feel much.
ShawnNicole comes over with hot metal irons for my hair. I wait patiently as her assistant from her New York City salon switches up my makeup.
“Look at the BSU crew!” I open my eyes to Jade, returning with a pair of mustard suede booties, likely Ase Garbs.
“Proud home of the Panthers!” ShawnNicole rasps.
“So, y’all still get together for homecoming?” Jade asks, handing the booties to Drea. “I wish I went the college route when I had the chance. But my heart was in them streets with a knucklehead.” The rolling of her eyes and silly face combo has us all laughing as I try to keep still. “Chileeeee, I wanted that hood peen, until I learned it was for everybody but me.” Jade is a clown—until you piss her off. She makes these shoots interesting with her sense of humor. “Did y’all graduate together?”
“Nah,” ShawnNicole answers, flipping her wrist to create tighter waves in my custom wig. “Andrea and I did, though.”
“Oh, Drea,” she gasps. “You guys have been friends that long?”
“Yup. Met our freshman year.” Drea nods at my feet, arranging the legs of the pants. Drea is what I call her now, making it impossible for me to remember she was part of the “brat pack” when I met her. “Two thousand-three feels like forever ago, too.”
“Did you ever go back home?” ShawnNicole asks Drea from behind me. “Like from when you left for college. Did you ever go back?”
“For like six months,” Drea answers. “That was a stressful time. So much had changed at home. Shit. I’d changed.”
“You from the East Coast, Andrea?” Jade asks. She grimaces again, palming just above her thigh on her pelvis.
“No. Sonoma County, California,” Andrea answers. “Wine country.”
“Oh, shit. You from money, too,” Jade observes.
“Like you,” I add, knowing Jade hates that reminder.
“Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s cool how you guys have remained tight since the early two-thousands.”
ShawnNicole guffaws at the side of my head. “You mean we got cool after the early two-thousands. Girl, no one would have ever thought the three of us would end up as friends.”
“Not Tori with us,” Drea corrects.
I roll my eyes, wanting to do more.
Jade’s face folds. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s say Tori wasn’t the popular kid back then,” ShawnNicole tries to explain.
I cut to the chase. “They bullied me. Their whole crew bullied me the entire single year I was at their stuck up ass school.”
Drea laughs as she glances up to me with a threaded needle in her hands, sewing the hem of my pants. “That’s half true and such old news, T. Knock it off.”
The BSU dynamic does feel old now. I’ve been working with ShawnNicole and Andrea since I signed with Love is Action. I pulled them on as contractors. ShawnNicole has been busy dressing the heads of celebrities. And Andrea’s been a personal stylist to many of the same people.
“You guys go to homecoming? I heard BSU’s one of the best!”
“I’ve only been to one, Jade,” I answer with my eyes closed as my lids are being painted. “When I was there.”
“I went like three years ago. Those kids still got that Blakewood energy!” ShawnNicole rasps, singing her exclamation. “It was a little sad that my crew wasn’t there, though.”
“You said you saw Dre,” Drea corrects her.
“Who’s Dre?” Jade inquires, finally taking a seat at the vanity station.
“An old friend of ours,” Drea answers. “You know televangelist, Dr. Erickson.”
“Yeah.” Jade rubs her belly. “I think he spoke at our men’s conference last spring.” She stands from the director’s chair. “I need the bathroom. Excuse me.”
Seconds after she takes off, things are quiet as they work on me. That’s until ShawnNicole’s rasp announces, “Did Tori tell you she met with Ashton Spencer a couple of days ago?”
Drea’s stunned gaze rises from my ankles. “Holy shit. You’re going through with the Sports Illustrated piece,” she states rather than asks.
My eyes raise, then close. I hate this topic and they know it. One of the clear verbal terms of our relationship, when my life