Tormented

“And paying me double, girl? You get a bonus from work or an early Christmas gift?”

“Something like that.”

“Or maybe she got herself a sugar daddy?” Tara teased.

“What? I’d never—”

“You got yourself somebody,” Keisha said.

“I don’t have anybody.”

“You can’t fool us. You might be busy, but you’re resourceful. You have options. You don’t have to get microbraids.”

Shit. Keisha was right. She had booked this appointment partially so that she wouldn’t have to worry about her hair for the next two months, but also out of vanity. Did she want to look good for Ben?

“It’s for business,” Kimani explained. “Sort of. I need this guy for a scoop I’m working on. I gotta keep on his good side.”

“Un-hunh. Business. Who you think you foolin’?”

Kimani bit her lip. This was worse than she’d thought. Bad enough that she was screwing around with him. But falling for him? That was ten times worse. It would be disastrous.

There was no potential for them. The guy had bought her for sex. No way could he be relationship material. Not that he would choose her even if he was. Aside from basketball and Stanford, they didn’t have much in common. And while she understood that opposites attracted, she believed that there had to be enough common ground for a relationship to succeed in the long term.

“Maybe we can skip the color,” Kimani said.

“We’re doing color. I already envisioned it,” Keisha said.

Since there was no use arguing with Keisha, who was so stubborn she’d give mules a run for their money, Kimani tried to steer the conversation to other subjects, to no avail.

“I don’t think he even lives here,” she said, trying to put an end to their inquiries. “I’m sure his home is in Hong Kong or Beijing.”

“But if business brings him to the Bay Area,” Tara said, “who’s to say he can’t move?”

“I’ve known the guy for all of three days. If he moves across the world for someone he’s known less than a week, I’d have a problem with that.”

“You don’t believe in love at first sight?”

“I don’t, and even if I did, this is not about love or anything romantic! It’s business.”

“Un-hunh. ‘Business,’” Keisha said again, exchanging a look with Tara. “So if it’s not about romance, you looking to get laid?”

Kimani felt her face turn into a furnace.

“I never been with an Asian guy before,” Tara mused aloud as she wove a dark gold extension into one of the braids. “They any good?”

“I’m not an expert,” Kimani objected to the question. “And I bet just like all other men, some of them are good, some aren’t...”

“But...?” Keisha prompted.

It was as if she could read Kimani’s mind and see the mind-blowing orgasms Ben had pulled out of her, the times he had made her gush so much she’d thought she had peed.

“Girl, you going to braid my hair or what?” Kimani demanded.

Keisha chuckled and turned to Tara. “I think someone’s got the hots bad.”

“I do not!” Kimani wanted to reply, feeling like she was back in elementary school with her girlfriends taunting her with the “sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g” chant.

By the time her hair was done, she wondered at the wisdom of having come, but when she saw the finished weave in the mirror, she reconsidered.