Chapter 6
The sound of a door slamming open and closed had Soraya’s eyes popping open. Sitting straight up in bed, she swung her gaze wildly around the room.
Her room.
She was back in her shared apartment with Ahvi and Jesmine— the one falling apart at the seams and located a few blocks away from their university’s main campus.
Clutching her head as a sudden pounding headache hit, she wondered what the hell was going on.
“Soraya! You better not be in there!”
Soraya only had a split second to peel her hands away from her face when her door was promptly kicked in.
Standing in her doorway with her hands on her hips was the one and only Jesmine, scowling beneath her make-up-smeared face. She looked like an angry raccoon.
“What the hell, Jesmine? It’s too early in the morning for this,” Soraya groaned.
“Uh-uh. Don’t you give me no lip, you’re supposed to be waking up in some four-star hotel room with your back blown out and a sore cunt. What is the meaning of this, young lady?” Jesmine gestured at Soraya’s slouched-over form with disgust.
At the mention of a sore cunt, Soraya’s delicate inner walls started to throb—not entirely unpleasantly.
Soraya gave her the stink eye, and before Jesmine could make another quip, the sound of her savior came from the other room. “Knock it off, Jesmine,” Ahvi laughed. “She came in earlier this morning, Bambie legged and all. I’m sure our girl has some stories to tell us.”
Just like a storm blowing over, Jesmine’s raccoon face lit up with pure joy and pride. “Ooh, Betty Boo, you finally did it! Evi would be so proud of you!” Before Soraya could object, Jesmine launched herself from the door directly on top of her.
Soraya promptly started fighting for her life, trying to escape Jesmine’s clutches. “Jesmine! Get off! Aw! Hey! Stop it, you maniac!”
“DON’T MAKE ME COME IN THERE!” Ahvi yelled from their shared living space.
Jesmine, with her nonsensical blabbering, only threw her head back to laugh wickedly, which made Soraya break out in a smile despite herself.
“If we have to move again because of you two, I will make you pay for all my expenses!” Ahvi shouted. “Keep it down!”
“Look who’s being the loud one now!” Soraya yelled back as she wrestled around with Jesmine.
When they met Ahvi less than a year ago, she was subletting the bedroom that belonged to Evie, their childhood friend who had left to join the military for better opportunities.
Unfortunately, after only living together for a short time, they got kicked out of their apartment and now live in this new shitty one.
And it may or may not have been Jesmine and Soraya’s fault.
Pounding feet on the rickety floorboards thundered throughout the apartment until Ahvi’s form materialized in her doorway.
“You’ve both done it now.” Soraya and Jesmine both screamed when Ahvi’s body descended on them.
There was hair-pulling, kicking, and a couple of ass slaps before they fell apart in a fit of giggles.
Trying to catch her breath, Soraya slid off her bed and thudded onto the floor. She examined her ceiling when she noticed her friend’s laughter had tapered off.
“Now that I’ve gotten a good look at you—” she heard Jesmine begin, “You really do have that after-sex glow.”
Soraya looked up from her spot on the floor to see her friends relaxed on her bed, both staring down at her.
Ahvi sagely nodded her head. “Absolutely radiant.”
Without breaking eye contact, Soraya reached for the pillow she spotted out of the corner of her eye and hurled it directly into Jesmine’s face. At least, she tried to.
Jesmine snatched the pillow before it could hit her. “Too slow, loser. Now, spill. We want all the grimy details—right down to the size of his package and how he snored when he got his brains fucked out by you.”
Soraya shook her head, a smile spreading across her face despite herself. “Okay, okay. Just give me a second to clean up. I just woke up and need to energize.”
Jesmine opened her mouth, most likely to tell her to hurry up with it, but Ahvi bumped her shoulder. “We can make a date of it. Let’s go to brunch at The Pantry. I’ve been hankering for some pancakes.”
Jesmine shrugged her shoulders. “I’m down.”
They both walked around Soraya and headed for the door to get themselves ready for the day.
“Oh, and I put your clutch on the kitchen counter. You left it at the bar last night,” Ahvi informed her.
Soraya smiled. “Thanks,” she yelled after Ahvi as she closed the door.
Turning her head to the side, she spotted her floral, dusky pink bunny plushie, which she’d had ever since she could remember.
The smile she had on her face slowly melted off her lips.
She couldn’t remember anything about last night or how she came home.
~
At The Pantry in downtown L.A., they managed to snag one of the booths by the window.
College kids and families alike filled every inch of the restaurant.
After they gave their orders to the waiter, Jesmine finally pounced.
Holding up a saltshaker in one hand and a bottle of hot sauce in another, she asked, “Now share with the table, was his penis this big or this big.”
Ahvi snorted. An older woman behind Jesmine and Ahvi clutched at her neck, and Soraya arched a brow at her until she quickly looked away.
Reaching over, Soraya snatched the bottle of hot sauce out of Jesmine’s hands. She didn’t fail to notice the fiendish smile plastered on her friend’s face.
Soraya examined the hot sauce, setting it down on the table. She proceeded to grip the bottle with a firm hand, then wrapped her other hand on top of the first. Stacking her hands, she made it all six inches to the top and kept going for a couple more stacks.
Ahvi snorted again.
“Oh, shut up!” Jesmine blew the paper wrapper of her straw at a laughing Soraya.
“I can believe it,” Ahvi shrugged. “You should have seen this guy.”
Smiling, Soraya balled up the paper wrapper and threw it back at Jesmine. It bounced off her harmlessly and disappeared below the table. “Yeah, he was bigger than the two men you were dry-humping at the bar for sure.”
“Your…food.”
Turning their heads, they saw a male server about their age standing awkwardly with plates of fluffy pancakes, bacon, and eggs.
After he set down their food, he scurried away; they looked at one another before they burst out in laughter.
They got a couple of looks from nearby tables, but ignored them.
Not wasting any more time, they tucked into their food, passing around the syrup bottle and a butter dish.
“So, he was a big guy, huh?” Jesmine asked around a mouthful of eggs after a moment of silence.
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” Ahvi scolded. “That’s not what ladies do.”
With a deadpan stare, Jesmine turned her head and chewed louder, right in Ahvi’s annoyed face.
Ahvi went to smack her, but Jesmine blocked it with her elbow.
So instead, Ahvi stole a piece of bacon from Jesmine’s plate and shoved it in her mouth.
Jesmine, aghast, dropped her mouth open at the theft, and Soraya could see her half-chewed scrambled eggs on her tongue.
“Yeah, he was,” Soraya answered after swallowing her laughter. “It took him a while to get it in, but once it was in…” She blew out a stream of air.
“Like that?” Jesmine asked, recovering from her bacon loss.
Soraya looked over the rim of her water cup. “Like that,” she answered before taking a sip.
“Damn.” Jesmine looked impressed. Ahvi simply nodded her head with a far-off look. “So, what else?”
“What else?” Soraya mimed.
Jesmine gestured for her to go on. “When I said we wanted all the details, I meant all of them.”
“I don’t remember being a part of this ‘we,’ Gutter-mind,” Ahvi quipped.
“Oh, shut up, like you’re not dying to know,” Jesmine said indignantly, shoveling more eggs into her mouth. Ahvi pursed her lips in response but didn’t deny it.
“Um—” Soraya began, then stopped. She wasn’t a prude; she would share…
if she could remember. There were certain parts she could remember with crystal clarity, but everything in between…
blank. She remembered his general stature and the warmth of his hands.
She remembered taking her clothes off, him on top of her—in her.
But she couldn’t remember any conversation, what the room looked like, or what time she came home.
Nothing. “I actually can’t remember everything. ”
“Whatcha mean?” Jesmine asked while cutting a piece of pancake.
“I might have had too much to drink, I guess. But I can’t remember anything past the sex,” Soraya admitted as she pushed her eggs around her plate.
Jesmine’s fork scraped against her plate—her face became unnaturally severe. “Did you drink more after you left with him?”
Soraya shook her head. “Just the one…” Her words died off when she watched her friend’s face morph into a murderous, simmering rage. One she knew well. “But it wasn’t like that!” Soraya was quick to say. He didn’t seem like the type to use drugs to overpower women.
“What’s his name?” She asked in a deceptively soft voice.
Tariq. The name zipped to the forefront of her mind. Soraya was glad she could recall that much, but she wouldn’t tell them—especially not Jesmine. “I don’t know, actually,” she responded sheepishly, hoping she could sell the lie.
Jesmine sniffed. She wasn’t buying it. Looking over to Ahvi, Soraya hoped to get some help, but instead, she saw a guilty expression weighing on her friend’s face.
Before she could ask Ahvi what was wrong, a head-splitting migraine blotted out Soraya’s vision.
There was a ringing coming from inside the diner, high-pitched and painful, and the voices of the people talking around them dimmed, sounding muffled and far off.
Leaning back in her booth, Soraya squeezed her eyes shut until the ringing in her ears finally subsided, and the restaurant chatter returned to full volume. Blinking open her eyes, she saw Jesmine’s mouth moving and Ahvi listening intently.