Virgin (The Henchmen MC 16)

Since I had never worn a kimono in my life, I couldn't quite agree with the necessity of it in general, let alone for romantic encounters. But, hey, what the hell did I even know about anything anymore?

"Okay. If you say so."

"Oh, and there is a package of hair products on the vanity. You use them as instructed, you hear? Otherwise, I won't be able to do a damn thing with that dried out mess you have going on."

I snorted at that, shaking my head. "I love you too, Thad."

"Girl, you know how we show love in this family," he countered, shrugging.

"With food."

"With food. That's right. Now go get your scrub and shave on. Some private self-loving if you so require. I will be out here with my fine ass, cooking you a four-course meal."

My stomach rumbled in response as I gave him a smile before making my way toward the hall where I found the bathroom behind the first door on the left.

There were some strange things you forgot about when you were on the inside. Fluffy, not stiff blankets. Real glass mirrors. Pretty shower curtains. Shelves where you could put - and keep - personal care products. Of which Thad had about two dozen. Shaving foam, powder, exfoliator, body lotion, facial moisturizer, face masks, eye cream, toner. The list was endless.

I turned on the water to get warm as I read the instructions on the bottles of my specialty hair products before setting them on the edge, sliding off my clothes, then slipping under the hot spray. Without the worry of other women seeing me. Without concern about guards yelling at me.

It was just me.

In a shower.

What a small, yet monumental, luxury.

I was in there until the steam tufted up thick in the room, making the air hard to breathe, until the water ran cool, until every inch had been scrubbed, exfoliated, shaved if it needed it, and pumiced when it came to my feet, knees, elbows.

It wasn't for another half an hour of adding in the products Thad had given me and covering myself in lotion, then sliding in the admittedly amazing feeling of the guest kimono that I emerged from the bathroom to the sounds of Prince coming from the speakers, Thad swaying his hips to a song that talked about titties bouncing while he mixed something in a pan.

The air was full of too many smells to place any one dish. Onions danced with garlic who lightly kissed the starchy smell of cooking pasta. Underneath that, a smell I knew only from my aunt who always had a bottle open and breathing on the counter after work, not from any personal experience with it.

Red wine.

Sweet, yet vinegar-like somehow at the same time.

On the long list of things I had never done, tasting alcohol was right there in the middle. Not a taste of wine at Church. Not a vodka cran sucked down at a house party. Not a foul-smelling beer some friend's brother picked up.

Nothing.

Not a sip.

Don't bother. She's a goodie-goodie.

If I had a dime for every time I heard that growing up, well, I'd have had enough money to hire a decent attorney and maybe avoid incarceration as a whole.

"Alright, girl. I didn't know what to make you. So I made you everything. We got mac n' cheese noodles cooking. Creamy tomato soup bubbling. Breaded chicken in the oven with some potatoes, carrots, and onions. Brownie batter just waiting for the chicken to finish. I got all the comfort foods, boo. And if you want takeout later, I got a drawer full of menus."

There was something pulling me across the floor, a string situated in my chest, dragging me toward the one attached to his, making me move up behind him, wrapping my arms around his comfortingly strong frame, resting my head on the jut of his shoulder blade, taking a deep breath of him, and squeezing hard.

"I'm happy to have you here too, boo," he told me, closing his giant hand over my finer boned one.

"I didn't know how to ride a bus," I admitted to his back as though there was anything to be ashamed of in the first place.

"Honey babe, that is because people as fine as us shouldn't be taking public transportation," Thad told me, his voice funeral serious, something that made a laugh bubble up and burst out until I could feel something long-buried, something almost foreign, move through my body.

Happiness.

And it was warm. Hot even.

That was why I had been so unbearably cold for so long. Because there was nothing even akin to joy in the world I had been in for so long.

Feeling it there in my brother's kitchen while he made me dinner and talked about how he was planning to chop off most of my hair, I realized that maybe things wouldn't be as easy as I thought.