"No, Heaven, I know for sure that's not your truth!" Cindy had a glass of wine in her hand, the third that's she's had tonight. She was carelessly waving it around, the crimson liquid sloshing around inside.
"Cin," Heaven giggled out, also on her third glass of wine, "I promise you it is."
Heaven, Cindy, Hannah, Adrienne, Desiree, Sienna, and I were all sitting around on Adrienne's couch. A long-abandoned card game sat in front of us as we argued over lies in the game two lies and a truth.
Heaven sat back and sunk into the couch. "Maybe I need to tell the whole thing." A chorus of agreement met her ears, and a smile began to slowly stretch her lips. "Okay, so there was a bunch of maintenance going on in the hotel that we used to live at." She turned to me. "You know the one, the penthouse. But anyway, because of the maintenance, something with the elevator messed up and made it stop sometimes. So, one time Latrell and I get stuck in there for hours, so to kill time, we decided to have sex."
"There were so many other steps to have taken before deciding to have sex," Sienna laughed with a shake of her head. "Y'all get stuck in an elevator with your boo, is the first thing you're gonna do have sex?" She posed this question to the rest of us, just begging us to agree with her.
Desiree, Adrienne, and I all shared a sheepish look before bursting into laughter, a scoff sounding from who I could only assume was Sienna. We all sputtered out an "I mean" before falling into another fit of laughter.
"I'm with you, Si," Hannah backed. Sienna stuck her hand up over the coffee table, Hannah doing the same and meeting her palm for a high-five. "There are cameras, and it could start moving at any minute," she listed.
"So, let 'em watch," Desiree easily spoke with the shrug of her shoulder. Adrienne elbowed her conspiratorially, the two falling into a small laughing fit.
"I'm not with all that," I denied as I circled my hand towards the two, my wine glass finding my lips. "But when ya man got it?" I cocked my head to the side as my lips pulled to one side suggestively, my eyes finding Sienna. "He got it."
"You telling me that your man's "got it?"" Sienna asked with a roll of her eyes.
Heaven took a quick sip of her wine before a small hum left her, pulling everyone's attention towards her. "That is a question I got for you, though." She pointed her wine glass in my direction. "How is the sex with Jeremiah?"
I blew air out of my mouth before downing the rest of my glass and placing it on the table. "Best sex of my life."
Desiree grabbed the near-empty wine bottle from the table and poured what was left into my glass, granting me my fourth glass of wine that night. "Best of your life?" She inquired both curiously and almost unbelievingly over the pouring of the burgundy liquid.
"Right," Adrienne chimed in. "What about that one guy who did the tongue thing?" She took a large gulp of the drink in her hand, attempting to catch up to the rest of us who have had at least three glasses while she's still working on her second.
"Mm, I think that was the best head of her life," Cindy chimed in knowingly. "Remember how she said that he-" She stopped suddenly before glancing around the room, a blush slowly creeping up her cheeks. "Que él utiliza hielo en su boca?"
"Cin, you know the only person who knows what you said is Ri!" Desiree threw her hand up in exasperation.
"I'm sorry! I was too embarrassed to say it in English!" She defended.
"Really not important," Heaven butt in. "What I wanna know is why Jeremiah is supposedly the "best sex of your life", Ara." She crossed her legs at the knee and leaned back in her seat, eyebrows raised in anticipation as she sipped her drink.
Exclamations of agreement sounded all around me as my friends' eyes fell on me. I heaved a deep sigh. "Because every time we have sex, it's like he's making love to me," I sheepishly revealed.
Talking about my sex life with my girls was nothing new, but something this time around made it feel different. Back in college, I was never messing with anybody heavy, meaning the sex wasn't necessarily something meaningful, but instead just casual hookups when I was bored. There are genuine feelings involved with Jeremiah, and the sex is much more intimate than hooking up in someone's car because there was nothing better to do.
The girls surrounding me all cooed, and I stuck up my middle finger, waving it around for all of them to see. My sister even started singing Signs of Love Makin' by Tyrese, causing me to pick up a pillow and fling it in her direction.
"You almost made me spill my wine, Ara!" She placed her glass down on the table and flung the pillow back at me. "I told you earlier that if we needed to throw hands, we could." She wrapped one of her faux locs around the rest and tied them back into a loose ponytail.
"Okay, so what's up with it then?" I stood up and tucked my hair into my sweatshirt, settled my hood onto my head, and pulled the drawstrings. "You know Mama ain't raise me to be a bitch, but I don't know about you."
Heaven stood up and began working her way around the coffee table, so I decided to meet her at the head. Heaven shook out her arms as I rolled my neck, working out any kinks so I could have full movement.
"You are too drunk to be fighting in my living room right now," Adrienne spoke in defeat. "Please, someone who is sober enough to grab Heaven, please do."
As if she appeared out of thin air, Adrienne pulled down my hood, knowing I would never fight with my hair out. She took me by the crook in my elbow and sat me back down on the couch. Once I had stood up, the four glasses of wine I had consumed crashed down on my body, leaving me discombobulated and not in the place to fight her guidance.
"You're lucky Han got me, but next time it's on sight, baby boo." She bucked at me as Hannah successfully pulled her towards a different corner of the room.
"You know where I stay, Venna," I shouted out in response as Hannah decided to remove her from the room entirely.
"Ustedes son molestos." A sigh exited Adrienne as she dragged a hand down her face tiredly. "You two can never be in a room together without trying to box." I opened my mouth in protest, but she stopped me. "Please lay down and take your ass to bed."
I did as instructed and laid my head on one of the pillows resting up against the arm of the couch, my eyes slowly fluttering closed. I believe the night ended pretty soon after that, Desiree, Hannah, and Sienna catching a collective Lyft. Cindy crashed in the room upstairs that her cousin had set up for her. At the same time, Heaven and I cuddled up on the couch.
The next morning, Heaven and I woke at the same time and decided to head out almost immediately. There was a blanket of fresh snow on the ground as we stepped out, a flurry of snowflakes still falling from the sky. I pulled up my hood and pulled the drawstrings in a vain attempt to keep the cold out. It took a few minutes for the car to defrost and for Heaven to rid it of snow, but soon afterward, we pulled off to my apartment.
"You know," Heaven began, briefly taking her eyes off the paved roads littered with salt. "I was with you all day yesterday, and after we ran into King, you barely mentioned Jeremiah." I shifted in my seat and clicked off my phone, placing it in my lap. "You good with all that?"
"Nah, I'm not good with all this." I ran a stressed hand over my forehead. "He's actively lying to me about what he's doing. And I don't know what to do with this or how to react." I sucked in a breath. "I thought we were going strong, and I didn't think he would ever lie to me, but now we're here, and I don't know."
A few minutes of silence passed between Heaven and I as we both thought about the situation. The questions surging through my mind right now were endless and impossible for me to come up with answers to on my own. All I knew for sure was that he actually was in Baltimore because he was always sharing his location with me. Whatever he was doing, he clearly didn't want me to know about.
"I honestly don't know what to tell you, Ara," Heaven spoke after a few minutes of contemplative silence. "I don't want to tell you he's not doing this or that because I don't know him, and I don't know y'all together and what your dynamic is. What I do know is that you're gonna have to confront him about this and figure out what's going on."
"Why do you never wanna put your two sense in when I need it?" I lamely chuckled. "I need you to tell me what to do like you always do, not mind your business."
"Because I know how private you are when it actually comes to how your relationships work." She stopped at a red light and took this time to look at me. "I'm about to tell you about yourself for a second, so don't get mad." I glanced at her cautiously yet urged her to continue. "You'll spill about how the relationship starts, how the relationship ends, and how the sex is. But other than that? You don't tell me the first thing about your business when you're actually in the relationship. How am I supposed to help you when you only show me the parts of the relationship that you want me to see?"
"That's not true, Venna."
"It is, Ara," she swiftly countered. We pulled onto my street, and I gathered my things in my hands. "The only reason I know about what's happening now is because I was there when it happened! If it wasn't true, you would have at least told Adrienne or Sienna what was up, but nah, you stayed quiet all night."
Heaven pulled up to the curb outside my apartment, opting to take herself back to her hotel room so she could rest up properly in some pajamas. She also wanted to give me some time alone to call Jeremiah and sort this whole mess out.
And, after showering, changing into my pajamas, and taking my ass back to sleep, I did just that.
I FaceTimed Jeremiah on my laptop, my leg bouncing up and down, my teeth nibbling at my top lip as it rang. After the fifth ring, I moved to end the call, but the sound signaling the call connected stopped me in my tracks.
"Hey, Baby," Jeremiah greeted once he saw my face, his pearly whites on display. I noticed he looked rougher than usual, both dark circles and bags decorating his eyes. His beard had grown out from being barely shaved to the hairs having some length to them, although not much. His voice sounded both tired and an octave deeper, though he still tried to add some pep to it to show he was excited to talk to me.
"Hey, J. How's the casino coming?"
I was hoping that he wasn't going to lie straight to my face, that he would come to his senses and let me know what was really up.
"The numbers are fluctuating right now, so I might need to be here for the full time that they asked me for, but it's all good. As long as I'm making money."
"Babe," I sighed out tiredly. My teeth continued to hold my top lip in their grasp. "I ran into King yesterday, and he told me that he doesn't have a casino in Baltimore."
I watched as his expression instantly dropped into one of guilt, his eyes down casting towards his lap where his hands probably sat, wringing each other as he thought of what to say. He dragged a hand across his forehead, his eyes closing as his chest rose with a deep breath.
"So, what are you really doing out there, Jeremiah?" I looked at him through the screen expectantly.
"I can explain all this, Kiara-"
"Please do," I humorlessly chuckled. I clasped my hands together, and they came to rest on my forehead. "Because I've been trying to work through this for the past day, and I'm at a loss."
Jeremiah's hands danced around his chin as a deep breath left him, his head dropping.
"Why are you taking so long, Jeremiah? You tryna figure out another lie to tell me?" I spoke up once I realized he was taking his sweet time to answer.
"Don't do that, Kiara. I'm not the type to be out here just lying for no reason-"
"Then what is the reason?" I immediately responded, cutting off the latter part of his sentence. "Because all I see is a big ass lie in my face with no type of reason given."
"Let me collect my thoughts, Ki, then maybe you'll get a reason." He muttered what I could only assume were a few choice words under his breath. "I'm just trying to figure out how to say this because I don't wanna argue with you, okay?"
"Okay, so then let's not argue," I agreed. "I'll sit here, be quiet, and let you speak until you've finished your piece."
Every bone in my body was screaming at me to throw all logic out the window and to react the way I was feeling inside. My heart was the home for a jumble of emotions—hurt, anger, confusion, insult—and all I wanted to do was let that spill out. I wanted them to be seen and heard, like an artist splashing random globs of paint onto a canvas to get the emotion out, no matter what the final piece ends up looking like.
However, I knew as I looked over my boyfriend that I didn't want to throw caution to the wind and let my heart and emotions speak for me. I knew that if my feelings did tell their truth in such a heedless manner, our relationship's dynamic would tilt from the perfect place it was at now.
"I lied to you about being in Baltimore to help King with a casino, but you already know that. I'm actually out here because the old company I used to intern for back in my senior year of college asked if I could come and help out for a few weeks since I did so well in my internship. They even said if all went well, a job would be waiting at the end of the road." He sat back and let his elbows sit on his knees, his hands forming a fist for his chin to rest on.
"Okay," I trailed, my eyes narrowing as I looked him over. "Why not tell me that you impressed whatever company you interned for so much that they thought of you when a job opened up years later?" My teeth grasped for my top lip. "I don't see why you had to lie. I thought that you knew I'd be happy for you no matter what job came your way."
"I knew you'd be happy for me, but I also knew you wouldn't be happy about the job at the same time, K." I opened my mouth to object, deciding to close it immediately to let him finish before jumping in. "Your family business was ruined because of this world, and you've told me your complicated relationship with it. I didn't want to drop a bomb on you that I'm leaving the state to jump right into the world that you don't know your feelings on. I thought if I told you I was working with King, it would make it easier."
"I love that you thought of my feelings, J, but I would have rather you complicated my feelings even more than for you to have lied to me about it," I began when it was my turn to speak. "You lying complicated it far further than you telling the truth ever would have. Because now I have to sit back and wonder if that MBA did you real well to the point where you lying to me is like the blink of an eye to you."
"Baby, I promise you this is the first time I've lied to you, and I can promise it's going to be the last. I know that you've got me like no one else does, and it was wrong of me not to trust that you were gonna have me regardless of your feelings. I'm sorry."
"And I accept your apology." Weight was lifted off my shoulders as the words flowed past my lips, a wave of relief washing over my body as the situation came to a resolution. "I don't want you to ever think that you can't tell me something because of what happened in my past. I know you wanna have your own company and build something, so I accepted a long time ago that my boyfriend is a businessman."
A grin graced his face that showed off his blindingly white, perfectly straight teeth. Even through the grainy FaceTime quality, I could tell a little bit more life seeped into his body. His eyes were wider with a faint sparkle, probably relieved that he didn't have to hold on to his lie anymore.
"Now that it's out in the open, though, tell me all about what you've really been doing at work." I settled back into the couch, my legs out in front of me and crossed at the ankle.
"Baby, I think they're in love with me over here." Jeremiah whispered this into his microphone, his hands cupped around his mouth to shield his lips from prying eyes. I quirked a brow at him, an amused smirk pulling my lips. "You gotta save me, every idea I pitch gets a "What would we do without you?" It's getting outta hand."
"My poor baby," I cooed. I felt my chest warm as he frowned at me, glad that our somewhat perfect dynamic is back intact.