Black Queenz

Ch. 4-Girlfriends

***Osiris***

Only about three weeks had passed since me and Ra had kissed, but it felt like more since we had grown so close and we were together everyday. It also felt like less cuz me and her could spend the entire day together and not even notice the way the hours slipped by. Ra was so comfortable with me and she made me so comfortable with her. I'd never really been with a girl who cared about me at all, so Ra had already earned a special place in my heart.

"Osiris," Rashaa sang from behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist. "You look beautiful today. But you do everyday."

I grinned and continued picking out my fro in the mirror. It'd gotten long enough to braid a long time ago, but I hadn't decided if I wanted to do that with it yet. It'd make me look like a guy even more than I already did, plus Ra had said that she liked it as it was, too.

"Thanks. You look even better, queen," I told her. We kissed and she plopped on my bed. She was looking at the inside cover of an R&B CD I had, but when her face changed and her smile faded, I turned back around to her. "What's wrong, Ra? You need something?"

She shook her head, but the little frown on her face didn't leave. She sighed and said, "I wish we could date."

I had no idea where that had come from, so I took a while to respond. I'd already thought we were dating. We were together. Girlfriends, I'd thought. Maybe she had someone else that she had in mind and she was just thinking out loud. What had we been doing for these past three weeks?

"What?" I answered dumbly.

"I wish," she repeated, looking into my eyes this time, "we could date. Go out together. Alone. Hold hands and kiss and hug and show affection outside of our rooms. I wish we were really girlfriends."

"What's that mean?" I still hadn't found anything intelligent to say.

"Nothing, Osiris. I guess I'm just talking to talk. Don't listen to me." She shook her head and stood up to leave. I didn't follow her because I knew it'd be suspicious for us to always come and go from my room together all the time, without fail. If we didn't want Bobby and Fly to know, we had to give each other some space sometimes, even if we were still basically in the honeymoon stage and we didn't like to be apart.

When I was alone in my room, I replayed my conversation with Ra a hundred times. So were we not girlfriends? So were we not dating? So were we not together? I didn't know anything and I didn't know the stages of it, either. I'd never had a girlfriend, and I didn't know how long the 'talking' phase lasted. I didn't understand how to move from that part to the cuffing. I'd thought me and Ra had just skipped it cuz we liked each other so much and we spent so much time getting to know each other.

I checked the clock and seven minutes had passed since Rashaa had gone downstairs, so I went down, too. She, Fly, and Bobby were watching an old episode of Chappelle's Show, so I sat on the floor nearest to Ra. It was hard to pretend like we weren't as close as we were. We couldn't seem too friendly or too cold to each other. I hated it cuz all I wanted to do was cuddle with her on the couch, not caring about who saw.

"That's my favorite crackhead dance! Yo, I swear Tyrone be on one," Bobby laughed.

"Yeah, he remind me of you," Rashaa quipped with a smile. Bobby shot her a look, but everyone else was laughing so hard we didn't care that Bobby took it hard.

"Forget you, Ra."

"The way you be smoking, I'm pretty sure you will soon." We started to crack up again and Bobby threw a pillow at her. I caught it cuz he wasn't bouta jus disrespect my girl in front of me, and I held it in my lap.