Well, we did it. After a few days of comparing prices, and going back and forth on dates and times, Hazel and I finally bought Maya a ticket from New York to L.A. for the first week of July. July 4th to be exact, the same week her husband would be heading out of town. We’d also scheduled a town car to pick her up right outside her building, two hours before her flight was set to depart. Now all she had to do was pack essentials and leave when the time came. She assured us slipping past her implanted security would be a breeze, and that Dimitri would be kept in the dark long enough for her to get on the plane and fly across the Nation. Once she made it here, Karley could begin official preparations for her divorce, and she’d be a long ways away from Dimitri and his heavy hand. Everything was good to go.
So why did this all of feel too easy?
As proud as I was of Hazel for initiating anything, after her resistance to speak with Maya in the first place, I had the most unsettling feeling when I thought about this girl coming to stay with us. With Dimitri being violent and the added factor that she was essentially running away from him and their marriage, who knew what this man was truly capable of once he realized what she’d done. This could get ugly very quickly – with Hazel and I stuck in the middle – and I don’t know that she'd had ample time to think this through before offering Maya refuge. In any case, I didn't voice this reservation with her; mostly because I didn't want her worrying, too, especially when there was a chance the imminent shit storm I was imagining could be nothing at all. Plus, she had enough on her plate in terms of preparing herself to meet the woman she'd never thought she'd actually meet.
Albeit the circumstances, I could sense Hazel was somewhat excited, even if she didn’t openly admit it. We had a calendar hung in the kitchen where she’d marked Maya’s arrival date, and steadily crossed off the days as they ticked by one by one. June swiftly carried into July and now, we were just 72 hours from welcoming Maya to L.A, though you'd think the President was coming visit. Hazel’s energy was through the damn roof. She'd cleaned every inch of the condo from top to bottom, prepared the guest room, done an obscene amount of grocery shopping, and bought things any woman who was traveling across the U.S. with almost nothing might need. And of all that was done completely uncaffeinated. Her organizational OCD was at an all-time high and in the span of a day, I learned how nasty the Lioness could be if you poked too hard. I left one tee on the floor and she almost ripped my head off with her bare hands. I could’ve sworn her head spun a little too. Yeah, let's just say I haven't done that again.
“You know what I thought about earlier today?” Hazel asked me as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair.
“What?”
“How the hell are we going to have sex while Maya is here?”
I chuckled at her query and rubbed the soap from my eyes, only to catch her staring at me with a serious expression through a stream of hot water.
Okay then…
“What do you mean? Like we always do.”
“I don't think so. She’ll be right in the next room, and I highly doubt she'd want to hear me moaning your name as the headboard bangs against the wall.”
“You'll have to learn to be quiet then, kitten,” I said, amused, knowing indeed how loud my girl could be.
“With you, impossible.”
“Then buy her noise-cancelling headphones.”
She scoffed, pouring a dollop of body wash onto her shower puff thing. “And tell her what? I got you a present I need you to use at night.”
“If she's watched The Big Bang Theory, she’ll know exactly why you bought them.”
“I don't think she'll be as clueless and understanding as Sheldon.”
“Sheldon isn't understanding, babe. He wears them simply to shield his ears from Leonard and Penny’s sounds of coitus.”
Hazel choked out a laugh and cringed ever so slightly. “God, that word drives me crazy.”
“What, coitus?”
She nodded.
“Coitus, coitus, coitus,” I belted out playfully, shoving my face in hers.
“Ew, stoppp!” she squealed, as I backed her into the tiled wall of the shower.
The water pelted my back as I laced her arms around my neck and swallowed her in my embrace.
“Would you love me if talked like Sheldon?”
“I wouldn't be able to understand you if you sounded like Sheldon.”
“Well, do you understand that all this coitus talk makes me wanna do just that?”
“Coming from you” – her brow quirked – “yes. You're like a teenage boy who just discovered sex. Forever horny.”
“That's your fault, not mine.”
“How is that my fault?”
I pulled my head back and gave her a deliberate onceover that ended with tangled stares. “Have you taken a good look at yourself?”
“I'm a woman, duh. Of course I have.”
“Then you should know what I'm talking about. Perfection is addicting as fuck.”
“Oh, shut up.” She smirked and rolled her eyes, earning her a swift slap to her ass.
“How about you just get over the fact I'm always going to want you, bend over for me, and give me this ass?” I hedged, running a finger from her heat to the sweet spot she’d given only to me.
“Dirty, dirty boy.”
“Don't act like you haven't loved it every time.”
My answer was her shoving my shoulder to slip out of my grip and exit the shower.
“Exactlyyy,” I cooed, “I better find you on naked the bed when I get out there.”
With the speed of a tornado, I rinsed myself clean and jumped out into the cool surroundings of our bathroom, grabbing my towel off the counter. I dried off in double time and wrapped it around myself as I stalked into the bedroom, expecting to find my naughty little kitten on the bed as instructed. She wasn’t, though. Instead, she stood beside the nightstand with my phone in her hand. Chocolate brown eyes met mine when she noted I was standing in front of her, her expression indiscernible.
“It beeped and I was standing right beside it. I looked out of reflex. That’s Manny’s tone on my phone.”
“Who is it?” I asked indifferently.
“It says unknown, but the sender seems to know you.”
“What does it say?”
“Hey, stranger. How you been?”
“The fuck?” My head flew back. “Ask who it is.”
Hazel’s lips thinned and I caught a glimpse of the eye. You know, that look your girl gives you when she’s not fucking happy. It made me nervous, but really, I had no reason to be. I wasn’t hiding anything from her. Still, my heart beat a little faster as I watched her type a quick response and wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
About two minutes later, another message finally came through. The second I saw Hazel’s eyes flare, I knew something was terribly wrong.
“Baby, who is it?” I asked, rooted to the spot beneath my feet.
“It's Brie…” she gritted out, though I don’t think she’d meant to.
Brie? As in Brie, my ex?
There’s no way. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Brie in months, like since before I got with Hazel, which would make it more like a year. Closing in the short distance between us, I bore into the screen from over my girl’s shoulder and read the text with my own two eyes.
Unknown: Really? You don't have my number saved? It's Brie…
My blood boiled. She had some damn nerve… I snatched the phone from Hazel’s hands and dropped down onto the bed as I typed out my response.
Me: What do you want?
Hazel sighed and I expected her to storm out with a dozen ideas attacking her rationale, but she surprised me, plopping down beside me onto her back. She didn’t say a word, though, which was never a good sign. My phone beeped again, dragging my attention back to the reason why my girl was not amused. I couldn’t blame her, seeing as I wasn’t amused in the slightest either.
Unknown: Well, hello to you too, I guess. Did I catch you at a bad time?
Me: Anytime is a bad time. Lose my number, seriously. Don't text me again.
I flipped the screen toward Hazel and when she nodded, I flung the phone somewhere to the end of the bed without care. Laying beside her, I rested my head on my arm, my fingers running through the semi-wet tresses of her hair that spilled onto the dark burgundy comforter.
“Does she text you often?” she asked after some time.
“Actually, no. This is the first time she's texted me since you and I got together,” I said evenly.
“What the hell does she want then?”
“Who knows. Brie always has a reason though.”
Her expression darkened in a way I'd never seen before. “Think she'll back off, or is she gonna be a problem?”
“Well, she hasn't texted back yet, so that's a good sign. Usually Brie is quick to fire back when shit doesn't go her way.”
“She’ll stay far, far away, if she's smart.”
Oh, Brie was smart alright. A kinky little smartass with a crude mouth and a wicked heart. We’d met at Steel Ink, a tattoo parlor where she was earning her tattooing apprenticeship when I first started inking and piercing my body. The dark hair and light eyes combo snatched my attention, but what really got me was her curvy figure. She was heavily tattooed, too, which was an instant hard-on. As a result, I volunteered to let her tat me because ‘everyone needs to start somewhere’ but really it was because I wanted to spend time with her, alone. She hadn't objected, the reason obvious, and every session we had was some unspoken test to see who would snap first. For the record, it was her, after finishing the tribal on my chest.
A few weeks later, I started working at Steek Ink too, handling mostly piercings and scheduling customers, though I did pick up on the art of inking. We were spending so much time together, our relationship just naturally took off from there, and before I knew it, I was head over heels in love with her. I thought she felt the same for me, but her actions later proved differently. After devoting a few years of my life to her, I caught her cheating on me one of the nights I wasn't working, in her tattoo room with one of her clients. I walked in with a few beers in hand, found her riding him into the sunset, and walked right back out. The next morning, bright and early I might add, I left a box filled with her shit on her doorstep.
Never looked back.
And she never came after me.
We’ve run into each other a few times since then, none of them ending well.
So what the hell did she want?