6. Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle
A nything I may have rehearsed to say after so much time apart escaped me as soon as I saw them. Being my best friends, I could tell the same thing happened to them as we all shouted upon seeing each other.
“OH MY GODS!”
There stood Simone and Marceline, my best friends since I was fifteen. In the over twelve years since, our friendship had been forged in the fires of drama and trauma between high school, undergrad, most of grad school, jobs, partners, family, and more together. We had supported each other through every tear, laugh, late night poor decision, and success. Time, distance, significant others, nothing would ever truly separate us.
Before me on my left, Simone Everly Thalassa stood with her ever-present smile that always glowed warmly with or without makeup. She had dark sepia skin with black freckles making constellations all over. She was thicker and fatter than me, as well as taller than me at five-foot-three. Her usually evergreen kinky curls were straightened and curled in large beach waves tonight. Her lips weren’t yet glossy, her stormy blue-gray eyes not yet shaded in vibrant color, and her cheeks not glittering and blushing, but I was sure she was going to do a similar look for tonight. Peeking under her Janet Jackson t-shirt and short shorts, royal purple and sunshine yellow scales shimmered in patches like tattoos on her large, dimpled thighs, with other patches on her knees, ankles, and feet. They were the only hint of her true nature when she was on land, as if her mermaidness was like sand after a long beach day that refused to wash away.
On my right, there was Marceline Repond. Maisie was at least six feet tall, and she constantly and hilariously reminded me that I was the shortest one in our friend group at a little under five-foot-one. She was Japanese-American, with her mom being white and her dad being a third-generation Japanese-American. Maisie was slim-thick, like an Insta-model, with a slim waist, wide hips, thick thighs, and a nice ass and boobs. And she never shied away from showing her body off and how much more tatted she was than me from neck to toe. Her dark brown shoulder-length hair was full of feathered layers and bleached silver ends. Her eyes were a shade of brown so dark they were almost black. She had a singular Marilyn Monroe piercing on her face, but her ears were pierced to high heaven with every piercing possible. Her long coffin-shaped nails were a shiny chrome silver tonight with a raised chain link pattern going across them, but she could snap her fingers at any moment and change the colors and designs. Perks of being a witch.
Simone, Maisie, and I embraced tightly. I could feel the love that I had missed from them from over a month apart. It felt like it lasted forever in a good way until Simone made all of us pull back, bouncing gleefully on the balls of her feet.
“Ohmigods, ohmigods, ohmigods! I missed you both so much! Let’s promise to never be apart for that long ever again!” Simone exclaimed. Maisie often joked that Simone talked in exclamation points. Twinged with a slight Southern accent, Simone’s voice was welcoming and warm like the ocean waves on a beach when you first arrive on vacation.
“And it wasn’t even worth it. I don’t even know why I went.” Maisie rolled her eyes, her voice deep and husky as always.
“Trust me, things haven’t been much better back here.” I shook my head.
“Well, well, well, hi, strangers,” Everett greeted as he leaned away from the counter and embraced both Simone and Maisie. He hugged them tight like a dad being reunited with his kids. My smile grew at the sight. Their bags floated in on a misty, sparkling purple cloud behind them before the door closed.
“The house was so quiet without y’all! How have you been? How were the trips?” Everett asked.
“Uh, are we just going to skip over how you can’t respond to texts all day?” Simone asked.
Everett looked at me above their heads. “What’d you do? Put out an APB on me?”
I laughed. Then Simone’s eyes widened as she noticed Thompson standing at the counter.
“Oh, I see what you were up to.”
Maisie looked around Everett, and I could feel her smirk without seeing her face. ”Climbing a tree, huh?”
“You two are as bad as Byrd.” Everett pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, this is my boyfriend, Thompson. Yes, we did what boyfriends do today. Yes, I lost my phone in the process. Now, he was kind enough to make y’all pasta before your little party, so can we please stop talking about me and start gushing about your trips instead?”
“We’ll let you off the hook only because I know Byrdie is going to joke about this for the rest of your life,” Simone said.
“Oh, at least into his afterlife. You don’t even know how I found out?—”
“So, who do I owe the pleasure, ladies?” Thompson interrupted me with a blush across his face. It made me laugh again.
Everett gave Thompson a smile of pride that also made Thompson wink at him. It was my first time seeing them interact together in person—I had read some of their texts at Everett’s behest, so I could check that what he was saying was okay—but they were so cute together. It made me smile like a lovesick goofball.
I was a hopeless romantic, after all. I had been dreaming of my wedding since I was two. The first board I ever made on Pinterest was a wedding board with sections dedicated to rings, dresses, and themes. I almost exclusively consumed romantic everything: books, rom-coms, fairy tales, whatever, unless I was watching anime or video game playthroughs like a total nerd. Often, I scrolled through dating apps into the wee hours of the morning, hoping my love story would start soon. I had been on so many dates that my friends came to me for love advice while saying I had a Second Date Curse from being ghosted or broken up with after the second date. Maisie had tried to cleanse my love life, but nothing quailed the longing and ache I felt when I came home alone. Or right now, looking at the way Everett watched Thompson. I guess I would have to settle on living vicariously through my guncle for a while, even if he refused to admit he had found the real deal.
The five of us made our way to the counter to eat, drink some wine Everett uncorked, and play catch-up. Between bits of conversation, the food transported us all to nirvana, proving to be as ridiculously delicious as it looked and smelled. Still, we settled into our usual comfort as we dove into everything we missed that we didn’t want to discuss on the phone. Thompson proved to be a welcome addition to our flow with his occasional jokes and input. I would say we picked up right where we dropped off, but we never dropped anything. My friendship with my girls was this: a stream of love and fun that never took a break. It continued alongside the flow of time and maybe grew more powerful because of it.
As always, I went first. My life was bland without my girls, with only work, books, nerd shit, and Uncle Everett’s love life to occupy my time. I was a homebody by nature, preferring playing Animal Crossing to being a party animal. So, I just let everyone know about my shit day with the commute, where my knee got bit by a rogue shifter toddler, to my shift full of the patrons from hell, to almost missing the train. Hearing the laughter fill the condo warmed my heart in a way I hadn’t realized I missed.
Maisie went next. She was getting her doctorate in modern witch studies with a focus on folk witchcraft. She went back home to California to do some research for her dissertation, discussing motherhood and its connections to a witch’s power. Unfortunately, her research had been a dead-end with her mother and grandmother.
Normally, a witch received her powers—fire, earth, wind, water, light, shadow, or shifter—from the maternal side. Maisie was different. Her mom was so weak Maisie didn’t even know what kind of witch she was. She could read tarot decently enough and cast very basic spells to bring good tidings for a few hours, but it was nothing compared to Maisie’s abilities to teleport, use telekinesis, or cast major spells like shifting the weather or changing someone’s appearance. Powerful witchery rarely skipped two generations, like it did in Maisie’s family. That meant her dad was a powerful witch. But her mom and grandmother refused to talk about him. So, Maisie was at an impasse and unable to keep going with her research, despite her professor begging for an update. She ran her hands through her hair, her eyes flashing purple in frustration. I immediately got up from my barstool and hugged her, feeling her tension disappear instantly. She squeezed and returned the hug with a smile.
Finally, it was Simone’s turn. She could barely contain her excitement as she gushed about her trip—the faucet started to leak at her joy. Simone had gone undersea to see her family after her mother had been begging her for months. Simone’s father was the king of Atlantis, ruling over the Western Hemisphere, and her mother was his, well, wife. She had no real power except being the royal baby producer, but she was the First Lady of the Ocean, setting an example for how mermaids should dress, speak, behave, everything—the ocean was very fifties, minus the racism. So, Simone’s mother valued appearances and what the clams had to say over the happiness of her sixteen merchildren. Simone’s father only valued the first three children as heirs to the empire. You can only imagine the gaslighting, manipulation, narcissism, and abuse that Simone has had to endure as the ninth born in all this. As one last try, though, she went down to be the “guest of honor” at a party to celebrate her return. She should have known when her four younger siblings didn’t attend—the ones she saw on holidays on land but never went back undersea—that it was all a lie. Bored and over her mom’s lies, Simone snuck out and went to the surface to catch her breath.
“When I surfaced, I was in the Everglades, I think, or nearby. Y’all, I was so freaking tired from the swim and from all the emotional turmoil. I literally just wanted to float and figure out what to do next. But I never got the chance because a freaking harpoon came toward me. I dove back under and swam a little further to surface a ways. When I surfaced, I saw a, like, pontoon thing with—no joke—the hottest guy on there.”
“What on earth was he doing out there?” I asked.
“He had gotten reports of some river monster and had been out to investigate it.”
“Hot,” Maisie said, making us all laugh.
“That’s some kind of meet-cute! What a cute little romantasy your life is!” I caught Everett raising his eyebrow at me over his glass of wine. “What? Simone never tells a story about a guy unless she ends up dating him!”
Simone giggled. “It’s funny you mention that! He was so worried he hurt me. After I showed him I was okay by getting on the boat, we sat together and talked for hours. It really was like something straight from the movies! We just clicked immediately. He’s so stinking cute and funny and sweet.”
“I love a romance as much as the next guncle charged with looking after a romance fiend, but are we going to skip over him hunting a river monster ?”
“Hey now, babe, there are folks who hunt invasive species like pythons and shit for a quick buck in Florida. My students do it all the time to blow off their Bio homework I assign. I give them extra credit if they can explain why they are invasive and why the government pays for their capture.” Thompson took one of the last bites of his pasta.
“So adorable that you’re a teacher! Mad respect for you because kids suck, and you do not get paid nearly enough,” Simone remarked.
“Also, that sounds very Florida,” Maisie joked. “So, is this guy human or a shifter or what to be hunting like that? It’s giving big Swipe Left Energy, like he’s one of those profile pictures dressed in camo and posed with a dead animal.”
Simone waved her off. “Not everyone is Garrett and Bethany or whoever you had that threesome with in Alabama last year.”
“I have one Long Island too many on the way to the beach, and you refuse to let me live it down.” Maisie rolled her eyes, but there was mirth in her smile she couldn’t contain.
“Well, to answer your rude ass question,” Simone said, focusing the conversation back. This always happened when the three of us got together, and it only got worse with Everett around. “Cole is a human. His family owns a real estate business for both supers and humans. One of their lots for sale is near where I surfaced, and it has a really bad gator problem, and there was a rumor of a river monster, too. Cole was trying to help fix it to make the place sell. And before any of you ask, they had exhausted animal control and all other options before he was asked to take care of it by the boss so they could finally sell the property. Cole certainly knows his way in the water, so he was perfect for the job!”
“The sex was bomb, huh?” I laughed.
“Cole’s such a sweetie pie and an absolute gentleman?—”
Maisie and I both gave her the same look.
“Okay, it was bomb .”
I pointed at her with my fork. “I know you too well.”
She rolled her eyes but laughed. “We met every day we could. He invited me to stay with him at the property. And y’all! It was so gorgeous and huge. It’s this stunning riverfront property straight out of, like, a reality TV episode. I felt so spoiled. We talked, hung out, went on dates and stuff—and yes, we did bang a bunch, shut up. It was amazing ! There wasn’t a real river monster, but I did manage to get the gators to move elsewhere by calling a favor in from an ex?—”
“That gator-shifter with the tour boat and the dick tilted to the right?” Maisie interrupted. “Or that weird swamp fairy with the chode, who literally became obsessed with you because he liked how ‘smart’ you were?”
“Ew, gods.” Simone scrunched her nose up. “I haven’t spoken to Mike since I blocked him. He had some weird black girl fetish.”
“So, it was Right-Dick John?”
“I can always count on you, Byrdie.” Simone gave me a finger gun with a click of her tongue.
“It’s astounding how much you girls know about each other,” Thompson said.
“Girls talk. Why do you think girls and gays get along so well, honey?” Everett joked, making us all laugh.
Simone continued, “Cole managed to find a buyer for the property with the gators gone, so he had to leave and I had to swim back to the dock to teleport home. We traded numbers, though. And he asked me to be his girlfriend . So, we are dating and so obviously in love. We have been literally talking nonstop since! Today has been the least we have talked, because he’s been getting the party ready. I miss him!”
“Well, maybe the straights are okay, after all,” Thompson said.
“Highly unlikely,” I said. “Simone is just a magical Disney Princess.”
“Hey! Is that a reference to me being Ariel? You know I can’t stand her. Even one of the Bailey’s couldn’t improve how horrible that representation is for mers.” Simone wrinkled her nose again.
“Is this the same party that you girls are going to? It’s at this guy’s house that you just met?” Uncle Everett asked, always thinking about logistics and safety.
Simone shook her head. “Not exactly. When he called to invite me, we only talked briefly about it. Cole called it a mansion party, and he said his brother was throwing it. He said his older brother looked for any reason to throw a party. He always goes all out.”
“Well, color me jealous,” Everett said as Thompson whistled in appreciation. “It sounds like fun and almost like you should trap this man. I’m totally kidding. Please do not follow that advice.”
While Simone and I were chuckling from behind the last of our glasses of wine, Maisie checked her phone. “Well, the party will be fun if we make it. We need to get dressed, like, right now, if we hope to be any trace of on-time.”
I checked my smartwatch. We had a little over an hour to get ready, and I still had so much to do. I slid from the barstool and grabbed my dishes from the counter.
“No, ma’am,” Thompson said, his bright green magic tendrils taking my plate and glass from my hands. “You have a party of a lifetime to get ready for that I need to vicariously experience through you.”
“But the cook never does the dishes—” Thompson interrupted me with a look. “Even if he is a witch!”
“Well, now, that’s what Everett is for, obviously.” He patted Everett’s shoulder as Ever shook his head. “Now, skedaddle.”
“He is right. We will take care of all of this, kiddo. Go get ready. Plus, Teddy will want to see the outfits.”
“I would, I will, and I’m going to want seconds, absolutely.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Crazy that you two are rushing me like this. I honestly would have thought y’all would be too exhausted for more after going all day, but I guess gays are just like rabbits.”
“ Go , you fucking menace to my sobriety,” Everett said as Thompson’s face turned a deep red again.
The girls and I cackled on our way to my bedroom at the end of the hallway. Simone’s and Maisie’s bags followed behind us on a cloud of purple magic. I opened the cracked door wide for us to enter, Dinah scurrying in after us.
My eclectic and cluttered room was very Bohemian compared to the luxurious modernity of the rest of the penthouse. Most of my room was taken up by my king bed, and the colorful rug underneath in the far corner. My bed was drowned with pillows and blankets to make it beyond cozy. An egg chair hung in front of my bed with even more pillows and blankets. Plants outnumbered my pillows and blankets, sitting on my shelves above my bed and bathing in my string lights. More were on the windowsills of the massive, always- open windows taking up the far wall. Bookshelves full of books, manga, comics, and journals stood between two barn doors leading to my bathroom and walk-in closet. A desk with a chair was positioned next to my bed and to the left of my door. The gray walls were covered in pictures, string lights, and paintings of mushrooms, dragonflies, and cacti. The only thing that outnumbered my plants, blankets, and pillows were my crystals, charging on every free space: on my windowsills, on my desk, among my books, and even in the soil of my plants.
Within my room, the girls’ bags softly landed beside where they normally sat. Maisie’s settled near my full-length mirror right next to my closet, and Simone’s was deposited next to my desk. Maisie and Simone went over to their respective spots and started laying out their makeup tools.
“Cleo,” I called to the large smart crystal ball on my nightstand. Cleo could tell me everything from the weather to answering questions. She was bespelled to read my mood, and she could kick off all sorts of spells on objects with the appropriate runes on them. Her clear crystal lit up and filled with white smoke as she listened for my request. “Play the Getting Ready to Go Out Playlist, please?”
Her smoke cleared as she said, “Of course! Playing Getting Ready to Go Out now. Enjoy!”
The beginning chords of “Pour It Up” by Rihanna filled the room as I made my way to my closet to consider my options, singing and bobbing along.
Flipping the lights on in my closet, I was confronted with a closet straight from a celebrity’s house or HGTV show full of possibilities—a dangerous spot for a Libra. I adored clothes, especially those that fit me, were comfortable, and made me look hot as fuck. Anything that did all three was hard to find, so I collected them like they were gold. With the bright lights and amount of clothes, it felt more like I was shopping than grabbing an outfit from my personal wardrobe.
“What are you girls wearing?” I asked, leaning against the dresser in the center.
“Lingerie and leather pants, the usual,” Maisie replied.
“Oooh, I’m doing something similar! Mine is a leather corset thing with lace! Instead of pants, I’m wearing a silky mini skirt.”
I nodded to myself as I finally decided. I had an inkling what I wanted to wear when I stepped into the closet, but their outfits made me sure. I pulled out the leather and lace pieces needed for my outfit and laid them across the bed. I returned to my closet to grab my duffel bag, along with a quick outfit for my overnight bag. My travel makeup, chargers, e-reader, and toiletries were still inside from my last trip, and I thanked my past self for being so helpful for once.
After dropping my overnight bag next to the door, I gathered the tools I would need for my makeup along with a mirror from the bathroom and dumped it all over a blanket on my bed. Dinah had curled up on my clothes while I was gathering everything, falling asleep immediately. I rolled my eyes, knowing she wasn’t going to be happy when I needed to get dressed, but let her be for now.
Before I got started, I stepped toward Maisie, who was still taking things out of her bag. “Hey, Maze? Do you mind fixing my nails before we really get started? If I style my hair with these, they will snag on my locs.”
“I got you, boo.” I sat down next to her and showed her my hands. She sucked a breath through her teeth. “Holy hell, Byrd.”
Simone turned and immediately cringed at my nails. “Ouch! I don’t know how you can handle that pain!”
“Honestly, once it stops bleeding, it just becomes a dull sting you only feel if you touch it.”
Maisie held a hand over my own, her silver and black rings from her knuckles to her fingertips shining. A mist of purple glitter rained down from her hand. As her magic hit my nails, my room was filled with the smell of nail polish, like I was at the nail salon. Soon, my cracked nails smoothed over to become one again, and my broken ones grew out to the right length. Maisie finished, and I looked at her fantastic work. Moving my hands, I saw the sparkles against the black dance along my stiletto nails like a galaxy swirling in my fingertips. I beamed.
“You always do the best job, Maisie. These are perfect.”
“I know they are,” She winked. “You are welcome.”
I gave her a quick hug before plopping onto my bed. I took my glasses off and adjusted my headband to push all of my locs away from my face. I lifted the mirror to my face and started wiping off my day look with makeup wipes.
Not long after my mother died, my hair had started to change color. My roots, mids, and ends lightened suddenly, as if I had bleached them. I just woke up one day with my curls no longer jet black. Instead, they were a cotton-candy pink. My hair still grew in almost blue-black, but once my new-growth got longer than a few centimeters, it dyed itself. Now, my vibrant pink curls were long, mature locs that went past my shoulders. I loved it. I honestly would have dyed my hair a crazy color, anyway.
Alongside my pastel hair, I had tattoos and piercings galore. I had a rose gold smiley underneath my upper lip, and my earlobes were quadruple pierced with a gold bar straight through the cartilage of each ear. Everywhere except my face, neck, and vagina were covered with tattoos.
My glasses were different now, too. I was still the same height, but I was curvier, plumper. My skin was the same tawny fawn color. I knew my way around foundation and highlighter now, too, so I looked like a Fenty model and could barely recognize myself most days. Tonight would be no exception with my sparkling purple eye makeup, dazzling highlighter, and glossy painted lips. I was a far-cry from the teenager I was all those years ago.
Would my parents know their baby girl, their only baby Byrd?
I rolled my shoulders to get rid of the strange feeling I felt at the question. Tonight was not the night for this! Tonight was for fun, not nostalgia. I sprayed my setting spray and replaced my glasses. I removed my headband and tried to braid my locs, but I was no good at styling my hair. I had always struggled with it, even when I was natural with an afro. Instead, I took half of my hair, made a bun on top of my head with some locs framing my face, and left the rest down. I added some gold hair jewelry for some extra razzle-dazzle before getting up to get dressed.
I took off my clothes from earlier to put on my chosen outfit. Dinah yowled at me as I picked her up and moved her elsewhere on the bed. Being the diva she was, she leapt down and jumped into the egg chair.
Rolling my eyes, I jumped into my lacy leggings first before wiggling into the leather miniskirt. I pulled my thigh-high boots on next and topped it off with my vintage Paramore shirt that I had cut up and cropped myself. My obsidian pendant rested against my chest, the perfect accessory, as always. My heeled boots clicked and clacked as I made my way over to admire my look in the mirror. There, I saw how the skirt hugged my curves and fupa in all the right places and even managed to slim my stomach down a bit while making my ass look even fatter. A tiny slit in the skirt graced my right thigh, providing even more of a tease. My face was fierce, going wonderfully with the whole outfit, and my boots added a few inches to my height. In essence, the whole look was perfection.
“Girl, that ass looks so juicy I could bite it,” Maisie complimented, applying dark-almost-black red lipstick.
“We all look so fucking ah-maze-ing ! We have to take pictures!” Simone squealed, her half-up and half-down evergreen ponytail and beach-waves bouncing with her like seaweed ricocheting off the ocean waves.
We took some selfies and pictures in my mirror and bathroom before Maisie’s magic grabbed our overnight bags from the room. As soon as Everett and Thompson saw us from where they sat at the cleaned counter, I realized that while I couldn’t be more obsessed with looks, Thompson could, with his mouth agape and excited applause.
Laughing and soaking up his compliments, I was awash with pure excitement. My smile was easy, and I didn’t have to force it. Maybe it was the shitty day or the confidence this sexy outfit gave me or being fueled by my guncle’s and his boyfriend’s praises, but I actually couldn’t wait to see what this night would have in store.