27. Red Riding Hood
Red Riding Hood
Romi
The light in my bathroom was the color of cold milk, and for once it made me look worse, not better. I kept catching my reflection in the edge of the medicine cabinet and wincing. Even after a double cleanse and five minutes under a steam towel, my face was still giving fatigue.
Instead, I closed my eyes and let the shower run until steam pooled at the ceiling.
The air smelled of eucalyptus and coconut oil, the only two scents I allowed in my bathroom.
I peeled off the towel, caught sight of the marks she'd sucked and bit into my thighs, and forced a laugh.
"Fucking menace," I said, but it sounded like a compliment.
Only Cam would bite the insides of your thighs to remind you: you don't hate her at all if you just spread them for her.
I was towel-wrapped and in the middle of twirling my braids into a bun when I heard the beep of the front door. Zaniyah had the only other key, which meant she was either letting herself in or staging an intervention. Either way, I had exactly two minutes to get my shit together.
I threw on my robe and padded down the hall, bonnet on my head. Found Zaniyah already in the kitchen. She had her head in the fridge and her purse on the center island, scattering its contents in a one-foot radius—lip gloss, car keys, at least two vape pens, and a designer sunglasses case.
She didn't look up. "Girl, you look tired AF. Who kept you up all night, because I know your ass didn't stay at no industry party willingly."
I rolled my eyes, which was wasted since she had her back to me. "Good morning to you, too, Z."
She pulled out a cold-pressed juice, popped the cap, and chugged half before turning around. "You know I'm right." She waved the bottle in my face. "The eye bags are bagging, sis. What were you doing, fighting demons in your sleep?"
The images came in flashes: her hips driving into mine, us kissing, how she whispered encouragement and straight up filth into my skin until I clung to her.
Tugging at my braids with my face between her legs.
The way I got wet for her immediately for round three, or whatever the morning after was.
I bit my lip, hard. Somewhere in this room was a woman who had done all of that.
I did not know that woman. Had never met her. Would not be accepting questions about her at this time.
"None of your business."
Zaniyah smirked.
"Whatever." I started to snap back, but the words froze in my throat. I did not need her clocking me this early.
Zaniyah gave me a knowing look and grinned. "Uh huh. That's what I thought."
I turned away and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows, pretending to be fascinated by the view. The city was a mess of late-morning haze and glass buildings reflecting each other in a loop. From up here, everything looked clean and bright, even if you knew better.
Zaniyah moved into the living room, dropped onto the sofa, and started scrolling her phone, thumb moving at warp speed. I went back down the hall toward my bedroom.
For a minute, she sat in near silence. Only the hum of the fridge and the tap of her acrylics against the glass.
I tried to keep my mind blank, but it was no use.
My body ached in the specific way that reminded you of every bad—or in this case, excellent—decision you'd made the night before.
I hoped she'd get bored before she started asking real questions.
No such luck. "You remember we have brunch with Jamel at noon, right? Don't you think we should get going?"
"I'll be ready in a few," I said.
She raised her eyebrows. "You sure? Last time you showed up to a label thing on two hours of sleep, you cussed out a whole A&R team and got yourself blacklisted from Capitol's summer party."
"That was not my fault," I said. "Don't start none, won't be none."
Zaniyah grinned, satisfied. "Just saying. I think you need to chug some electrolytes and eat real food before we leave. You need to be on point."
I let the subject drop. She went back to her phone, scrolling with an intensity that was either world news or a meme account dedicated to bad celebrity tattoos. Probably both.
She made a show of looking at the clock. "You have forty minutes. If you're not ready by then, I'm telling Mommy you were out getting fresh with a Fizzr star."
"Which one?" I asked, eyebrows raised. She'd had to pry that one out of my hands. With a crowbar.
She put her hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. "Probably the same one who doesn't turn your head."
The threat was real. I bolted down the hall, hearing her cackle echo behind me.
In the bedroom, I threw open the closet and went for the first thing that wouldn't show sweat or scandal.
plaid summer dress and espadrilles. I pulled my braids into a low pony, tossed the bonnet, and dabbed concealer on the worst of the marks.
There was no hiding the glow on my skin, though, not unless I went full pancake foundation, and I wasn't about to show up to brunch looking freshly fucked, even if that was the case.
I settled for tinted moisturizer and a swipe of gloss, then checked the mirror for damage control.
The effect was better than I deserved: cool, composed, unbothered. Only the faintest flush in my cheeks, and the lingering ache whenever my thighs brushed each other, betrayed me.
I went back to the living room, keys and bag in hand. Zaniyah was waiting, purse slung over her shoulder, vape tucked behind her ear.
She looked at me and nodded. "Better. Now you look mildly hungover."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
She smirked, already headed for the door.
I followed her into the elevator, heart hammering from the rush.
She started talking about the meeting: how Jamel was prepping the new single, how the label wanted a soft launch and a viral challenge, and three different versions of the artwork.
Her words blurred into white noise as I focused instead on the city outside, the clouds stacked up like scaffolding, sun already burning through the haze.
I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and tried to think about anything but her. Last night. But my body was on its own time, coming down from spending the night next to her.
It was no use. Even with the city spinning under my feet, even with Zaniyah running her mouth, the one and only thing I wanted to do was go back to that hotel bed and see what would've happened if we had stayed in it all day long.
I held that thought, tucked it somewhere safe, and stepped into the day like nothing had changed.
Zaniyah's truck smelled like new leather, weed, and half the Sephora sample bar. The second I buckled in, she paired her phone with the stereo and queued up a playlist called "Heaux Activities." Half the tracks were Stacks's joints. I didn't say a word.
She drove with a lead foot on the gas, one hand on the wheel, the other alternately scrolling, gesturing, and occasionally honking at people who looked at her the wrong way.
Every time she stomped on the gas, my head jerked against the headrest. I gripped the dash and tried to keep my soul inside my body.
"Okay, like, don't panic, but you need to see this," she said, hitting play on a Fizzr video before the car even cleared the ramp to the 101.
I braced for impact, then glanced down. It was a fan edit, already at eighty thousand likes.
Someone had cut our part of the Liora performance, slowed the frame rate, and synced it to a Bardot Soleil song.
The visuals were tight zooms on me and Cam spitting lyrics, circling each other, the tension racked to eleven.
I did not recall looking at her mouth on stage, or her looking me up and down but the evidence was there.
It had text overlays: When the enemies become lovers! with an explosion of heart emojis.
My stomach dropped.
"Y'all got a whole hashtag now," Zaniyah cackled. "The shippers are insane. Some of the memes are wild, too—one girl did a whole breakdown of your eye contact, frame by frame."
I didn't look up. "People have too much time on their hands."
She peeled onto Sunset, swerving around a Prius without so much as a signal. "You love it, though. Don't lie. Remember the last time people cared about a live show this much? Liora and Quill Manifest, 2019, and they made a bag off the streaming numbers. This is bigger."
I put on my sunglasses, even though the tint on her car was dark enough to be illegal in five states. "Not sure you want to encourage it. You know who's watching."
She scoffed. "Girl, if legal had a problem, Jamel would've already called us three times. You're trending in fifteen countries. They're gonna let you ride the high until it's old news."
I said nothing. Truth was, the image of Cam—her sweat, her voice, her fucking grin—had haunted me all morning on the drive back.
But that was the real. Mine. They were all worked up over a fantasy they'd invented, and I'd just left the actual woman in a hotel bed.
Watching a stranger edit her into a meme for a million people to paw at made me want to crawl out the window.
I stared out at the city, watching the palm trees whip by in an endless loop of rich-people landscaping.
Traffic was thick, every intersection choked with cars, everyone pretending to have someplace important to go.
We hit a stoplight on Santa Monica and Zaniyah immediately turned her whole body toward me, phone up, another meme cued.
"You're avoiding," she accused.
"I'm ignoring," I corrected, flicking my eyes to the light, begging it to change.
She put her phone down and drummed the steering wheel. "You know, word is Cam rolled up on you at the afterparty. Talking crazy, ready to square up, right there in front of everybody. The cameras cut out and nobody knows what happened after. Y'all both just…disappeared when they came back on."
"Wasn't my win," I said, feeling the edge creep into my voice. "And I had shit to do."