Reckless Entitlement

Chapter 15: Maya

"Hello," I answered.

"Hey, girl, what's up," Tasha said on the other end of the phone.

"Oh, nothing." Just obsessing over a boy, nothing important. "How about you? How was school?"

"Shitty," she answered honestly. I could hear her fingers tapping on the keys of her laptop. "I hate being alone, but luckily I got to leave early so I wouldn't be late for my internship."

"How is that by the way?" Her internship at Bella Magazine is all she's been able to talk about for weeks. She was so excited to quit her job at Schwarzkopf's department store she walked around with a grin on her face for an entire week.

"It's a dream," she sighed. "I love everything about it. They have a whole office of just make-up. A whole office! And their wardrobe floor is something I would die for."

"I'm glad you like it."

"Like more like love." She laughed. "Hey, do you remember that girl I hooked up with at Nick's party?" As she talked, I walked over to my living window and peeked through the blinds. Underneath the dull street lamps, I could see Nick bent over the open hood of my car.
"Vaguely," I replied quickly closing the blinds when Nick looked up towards the window.
"Well, I saw her again today."

I sat on my couch and pulled my quilt yellow and white over my legs. I might as well get comfortable, once Tasha started talking about her love life it was hard to get her to stop.
"And?" I asked waiting for her to go on.
"She's interning at Bella too," she said not sounding as excited as I expected.
"So are you going to try and ask her out? Or was it just a one night thing?"
"No..." She hesitated. "I think she might be straight."

"Okay, but she's obviously into you. Enough to hook up with you, anyway."

"Yeah, but I don't want to just be someone's experimental phase. I don't want to set myself up to get hurt."
I understand why she wouldn't want to catch feelings for someone just for them to pretend their relationship didn't happen later on. And I would also hate to see my friend get hurt. "What's her name?"
"Crystal," she said. "Isn't that so cute. I wish I had a cute name like that. She goes to East Chapel. "
"Tasha is a cute name," I assured her. "Why don't you ask Nia? Or Lavender? You said she goes to East Chapel right, maybe they would know."
"But what if she is gay, and she's not out yet. I can't risk outing her when she's not ready."
"Then why'd you tell me then?"
"Because who are you going to tell? You don't go there, and you're not a gossip." She was right, now if this were the other way around we might have a slight issue.
I sighed. "You're right, but do you like this girl?"
"I think so, she's nice and we get along. She's a great kisser," she said. "She has amazing style too. But there's just one more thing."
"Is it something worse than her being straight?"
"Yes and no," she answered vaguely. "It's just that....her parents own the magazine."
My jaw dropped. "They what?"
She rushed to say, "I know, I know. I would hook up with the girl whose parents own the magazine I've been obsessed with since I was a child, it's just my luck."
"Tasha, now you can't date her; it's a conflict of interest!" I warned her.
"Oh, calm down," she said. "It's not like that. It only happened one time and it was before I knew any of this."
"Okay, but play it smart. You worked really hard to get this internship."
"I will," she promised. "But Maya please don't tell anyone about this, especially not Nia or Lavender. I really don't want her business to get out there."
"If you don't want me to I won't." It's not like us not to tell Nia things, it made me feel kind of gross actually. But this wasn't my business to tell.

"Enough about me and my straight girl problems tell me about your day."

"It wasn't very exciting," I replied. "I went to work, I got pizza for lunch, and Nick came over to fix my car. He's still here, actually."