Lotus
“Happy birthday!”
Billie blows out all twenty-seven candles on the huge chocolate espresso cake. With laughing eyes and her hair even redder than usual from the glow of candles, she looks ironically younger as she celebrates another year.
“I hope you made a wish,” Yari says, aiming her phone at the cake and the birthday girl for a photo.
Billie’s smile slips so quickly, I doubt the camera caught it, but I did. We all cheer, and I’m glad the people who care about her most are here celebrating. Paul wouldn’t be here with us peons.
Makes me sick.
How an otherwise bright, ambitious, honest-to-a-fault woman like Billie can let Paul have her birthday cake and eat it, too, astounds and depresses me. She has ceded everything to him—all the control, all the leverage. She thinks Yari and I don’t understand, that we’re too hard on her, but I’ve seen firsthand and more than once how dangerous it is to trust someone unworthy with your heart. It’s why everything I’ve ever shared with a man was below the belt.
Lately, I haven’t even shared that.
Right on cue, Chase leans over and blows in my ear. Is that shit supposed to be sexy?
I swat at him like he’s an annoying fly.
“Chase, when you gonna give up?” Yari shakes her head and passes around plates with slices of cake.
“I’m not.” He squeezes my thigh under the table. “We’re on a break, but she’ll be back.”
“No, she won’t.” I force a smile and push his hand away. “You are firmly in the former fuck category, and there you shall remain.”
Amanda, who is still in my personal doghouse for feeling Kenan up on the low, leans forward, affording us a glimpse of her plastic surgeon’s handiwork overflowing the dress’s plunging neckline.
“I hope you’re not holding out for our watch model,” she says, her eyes bright with spite and liquor.
“I think you were the one trying to hold him last I checked.” I blink at her, all innocence and don’t test me, bitch. “That didn’t work out exactly as you hoped, though, did it?”
Her smile vaporizes, her mouth falling into a thin, flat line.
“Who are you guys talking about?” Chase asks, a frown hanging between his dirty blond brows.
“No one,” I say as Amanda says, “Kenan Ross.”
Chase sneers and takes a deep gulp of his beer. “You’re both out of luck since I heard he and his wife might be getting back together.”
I know it’s a lie, and I know I shouldn’t care, but my hand freezes midway to my mouth, and my Negroni feels too heavy. I set it down on the table, keeping my movements smooth and my face blank.
“Free to do what he wants to do,” I say and shrug.
“So it wouldn’t bother you if he went back to his wife?” Chase asks.
“Not one little bit,” I lie.
When did it become a lie? When did I lower my guard long enough for Kenan Ross to become a possibility? For him to become an exception to the rules that govern my life and keep my heart intact?
I’m not mentioning my heart in the same sentence as Kenan Ross.
Even as I assure myself of that fact, I remember watching him at the Rucker last week, admiring his confidence and ease with the crowd. He doesn’t try to command every space he’s in. It just happens. And it’s not just his height. There were other ballers there that day—taller, broader, but he stood out. All eyes were drawn to him.
At least mine were.
And I’ve mentally replayed our fascinating and disconcerting conversation at Sylvia’s so many times. He came right out and asked me about voodoo, and I spoke more freely with him about my heritage and MiMi than I ever do.
“Good thing you aren’t hung up on Ross,” Chase drawls, slicing his fork into a gargantuan slice of cake. “Your feelings might be hurt seeing him with his wife at that table over there.”