Getting up from her chair so abruptly it screeched on the floor, Mom said brightly, “I’ll order pizzas.”
We were all glaring at Dad as we swished our drinks around in our mouths to clear it of the taste and memory of what we’d just eaten.
“Dad, do me a favor,” Aariyah mumbled between mouthfuls of water. “Next time, don’t lie when you taste something first. Or maybe don’t bring home shit that this one,” she gestured at me with her thumb, “can compare to stuff that makes us all feel sick.”
I hated to break it to her, and it was a shame she hadn’t figured it out in all these years, but that’d never happen. I could probably even ruin pizza for her. I was just blessed with that type of brain.
“You’re right,” he sighed. “Why the hell do people pay so much for it?”
That was likely going to be one of those unanswered questions. Well, it would have been if Dariah wasn’t such a geek, who went online to look up caviar and gave us a mini-history lesson about it.
“Fascinating,” Asia said dryly, then turned and began studying me.
“What?” I swiped at my mouth with the back of my hand and checked it to see if there was anything on it afterward. “Is there something on my face?”
“No, I’m just wondering what’s going on. You have this slump in your shoulders, and the corners of your mouth are turned down like they do when you’re upset about something.”
“That’s just her natural look,” Tara waved her hand at my face. “It’s not even her resting bitch face. Jacinda has a bitch face naturally.”
Giving her the finger, I avoided making eye contact with Asia as she continued. “Everything’s screaming that you’re upset or pissed, but you’re walking like you had a night on Brokeback Mountain without the lube. What’s that all about?”
Dad, used to us talking like this, stayed quiet and used his inbuilt man/father superpower of selective hearing. How men could do that, I didn’t know. I’d tried to master it so many times over the years, but the best I’d been able to do it had been while I was with John.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Looking at Giselle, I smiled and asked, “How’s work going? Have you had any ex—”
“Don’t you dare,” Asia growled, leaning over the table, and pointing her finger in my face. Literally in it because her nail was pressed lightly on the skin between my eyebrows.
Slapping it away from my head, I snapped, “Don’t try and intimidate me by digging your nail into my third eye. I told you years ago it doesn’t work on me.”
Raising her hand, Tara smiled bashfully. “It’s me that works on.”
Unfazed, Asia changed tactics and pressed her fingertip where her nail had just been. “I’m not trying to intimidate you. I’m making sure you know we’re not dropping this. Now, what’s going on?”
“Girl, did you sprain your vagina?” Aariyah whispered, knowing any hint of us having sex would snap Dad out of his selective hearing moment, and we’d get the lecture again.
There were only so many times we could stomach, not just the safe sex lecture, but the one about saving yourself for marriage. I was thirty years old… Surely he knew that day had come and gone a long time ago?
“Why do people keep asking me that? No, I didn’t sprain it, I got something pierced.” I didn’t say what it was out loud, but I pointed down at my crotch.
“Oo,” Giselle snickered. “How does it feel? My friend had hers done and said it was the best it’d felt, evah!”
“I’m not at that stage yet.” I grimaced and shifted in my seat. “More like, it feels like it’s going to explode, while also feeling like someone’s electrocuting me down there, too.”
“So, none of this is down to Canon Klein?” Asia pouted, sitting back down in her chair, and looking disappointed.
I could tell them my shitty mood was partly due to the man, but then I’d have to tell them what had happened that night, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that. So, I lied.
“Nope, sorry!”
“When you said it wasn’t down to Canon, I thought you’d used that intimate oil I sent you. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer to hear what it’s like if you’ve just gotten a piercing there,” Dariah pouted.
Ah, yes, the intimate oil. That’s what Tony had been talking about that day at the salon when he’d said he knew what Dariah was sending me. It’d turned out to be CBD oil for the cooch. She was always using me as a guinea pig for shit.
I had an evil secret, though. Canon had found it that night, and we’d tried it. I wasn’t going to tell her how amazing it’d been and how I was going to use it again once my cooter healed from the piercing, though.