her jaw flexed. She hated me. Point blank hated me. Aivery possibly hated me as much as Paul’s daughters, Tangi and Raquel, from back at home. This was fucked up.
“Where’d ya go, Tori?” Karmen asked, twirling a lock of her hair around her index finger.
I shook my head. “None of your business.”
“Knock it off, Karm,” ShawnNicole warned her. “Did he like your look?”
While doing my hair, ShawnNicole asked me about my birthday outfit. It was an easy answer, considering Ashton Spencer had picked it out for me. So, I told her. She asked questions, but didn’t probe like Karmen.
I managed to nod and shrug at the same time, answering ShawnNicole and trying to ignore how Ashton stared at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes low. He was tired, had to be. We fell out at around three this morning. He’d gotten up for a six o’clock run. I understood how tiring that could be. I’d pay my price this evening in training.
“Maybe he liked it too much,” ShawnNicole cheered, doing a dance in her seat.
I don’t know about all that, ShawnNicole. But my hair got messed up when the guy squirted his cum in my face before I caught it in my hands while I gave him a hand job. That’s because he doesn’t like for me to give him blowjobs, the only thing I’m good at. Oh, and by the way, that guy? Well, he’s celebrating his girlfriend at your table right now. Yeah, him. I basically threw my virginity at him, all for him to turn me down on my birthday. But today he’s celebrating his girlfriend’s…
Of course, I didn’t say all of that. I tried for a smile, waved goodbye, and was followed out by the science crew. I moved fast, not breathing until we were outside.
“Tori, you work out with Ashton in the mornings, right?” Lyricah asked.
I shook my head. “We only run.”
“Oh, okay,” she chirped. “You think I can tag along sometimes? This belly is getting out of control.”
I couldn’t help how tight my face was when I finally looked her way. “Sure?”
How did I find myself in this awkward place? Lyricah running with Ashton and me in the mornings? That would never work. It would mess up…everything. She could learn…how weird of humans we are together now. That couldn’t happen. No way!
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear the girls saying goodbye. To who? I didn’t know and didn’t care. All I could think of was my life and how strange it had become here at BSU. This had to stop.
I was not Dorothy McNabb. I swear I wasn’t.
“Hey, Dad! Yeah. Just getting back from an early dinner,” Aivery’s call had just been passed from her mother to father. Before then, as we left the restaurant, it was her sister, Sherell. It was the “birthday call from home” event. “Just an American cuisine, nothing fancy,” she answered him. “It’s been a great day, Daddy. Thanks for asking…”
As she rambled on about her “perfect” day, I drove quietly with a wrestled mind. Last night—or this morning—I fell asleep blissfully with a tomboy in my arms, but was awakened just before five by Brick. At first, it was a dream replay of us being on my mother’s roof in Newark after outrunning her security. Word for word, that exchange about me marrying Aivery unfurled in the dream.
“The way you hauled ass up here is how you should with that girl.”
I shook my head internally as he exhaled the hemp. “Fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Your Hillman chick. I’m surprised she ain’t come home with you—oh, that’s right!” He clowned, snapping his fingers as though suddenly remembering. “Aunt Wanda ain’t with that roping you shit!”
“Where Tricey at, Deshawn? That’s right! At home with all the Michael Kors bags and watches, and Ugg boots you bought her for Christmas to make her temporarily forget that you ain’t wifin’ her like she wanna be.”
“That’s because,” he continued in a playful falsetto. “she ain’t NormaJean’s fine ass. She don’t give head on her head and eat ass with class,” he rhymed.
“Fuck outta here!” I cried laughing.
“Word up, yo!” He took another pull of the dro. “If it was me, there wouldn’t be no college chick if I had NormaJean bustin’ it wide open for me like she do for you.”
“You play the game you understand,” I murmured.
“What you mean, ock?”
“I mean, you fuck with chicks who move a way you understand and can almost