“You stole Jason Bell from me freshman year, bitch.”
“Oh shit, you remember that?”
“Uh-huh,” I laughed. “And I’m still mad about it. He was fine.”
“Operative word, was. He lost all his hair in the top, cornrows the rest.”
“Liar!” I gasped.
Riley giggled. “If I’m lying, I’m dying. But we’ll talk about that later–right now, I need to go get some rearranging of my own done.”
“Ew.”
“Don’t hate, Ry… tomorrow night, you’ll finally be getting some dick of your own.”
“Good. Fucking. Bye,” I said, tossing a pillow at her as she ducked out of my room, closing the door behind her.
I did pop a few of the saltines from the package to put something on my stomach, but instead of the soda, I opted for a bottled water from the mini-fridge I kept stocked in my room for my late-night study sessions.
One of which I was about to embark on now.
Yeah, thinking about the date was cool and all, but first and foremost–I had work to do.
Three
January
I really, really needed this.
This only vaguely referring to the date I was headed out for, but more specifically… what might come after.
I’d been joking with Riley about the whole hoe phase thing, but seriously - everybody was bumping uglies except me.
I should have just gone to dinner with NotCarlos.
Sure, I had no business thinking about the cutie who was definitely not my date, but… I couldn’t front.
I was a little worried about Riley’s choice of date for me.
She typically used BLKLV to find men to laugh at, but her last words against that argument had been, “Just cause I be laughing at those funny looking herbs doesn’t mean your soulmate ain’t on there waiting for his boo.”
Not exactly a great selling point, but… whatever.
My phone was woefully dry, and so was… another of my possessions, sadly.
Since the–permanent–breakup with Preston, I’d been so super busy between work, and coursework, that I hadn’t had to think much about it. But now that I was thinking about it, I thought it might be nice to entertain some dick-wielding company between my love affairs with bottles of wine.
The issue was now that even my standby dick options had gotten themselves elevated to more permanent statuses… in the lives of other people.
Not me.
Sigh.
Anyway.
My date was in Blackwood, so when my ride I ordered arrived, I climbed into the backseat of a car that smelled a little herbaceous, but that was fine, I guess.
My date had gotten us reservations at 81st & Clarke, which were hard to come by, so I was too excited about that - and the potential of him - to be too bothered.
The car was clean, and the driver had a good rating, so I saw no reason to complain.
Until the music started.
If you could call it that.
My nose wrinkled, lips curled as some odd, electronic bassline started pumping through the car, followed by what seemed to be randomly ad-libbed… sound effects.
“Um, excuse me,” I called out, over the too-loud music.
My driver, a white man with pink-tipped dreads, met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
“This music, can you—”
“Ahh, the music, it’s hot, right?” he asked, nodding enthusiastically as what I could only assume was the verse started–“rapped” by someone who could use a lesson in enunciation.
“Actually, it’s awfu—”
“It’s me and my homeboy, we’re a group, Blanc-Slash-Negra.”
“-ully awesome,” I quickly switched gears, forcing a smile to my face. “And what an interesting name.”
“Right?” he asked, turning all the way around as we came to a red light. “It’s a play on Ebony and Ivory, since—”
“You’re white, and he’s Black?”
His face scrunched in confusion. “Nah, Queen. Mikey is Italian. We rap about our struggles against racial bias in hip-hop, white privilege, tackling the idea that—”
“The light is green.”
“Huh?” I pointed behind him, to the traffic light, hoping the interruption would take his attention back to the road, and the hell off of me.
Luckily–so, so luckily–I wasn’t going far, just too far to walk in the heels I’d picked for dinner.
I managed to get out of the car without having to hear the rest of my driver’s elevator pitch for his oppressed white boy hip-hop, and I was on time.
Winning.
Or… so I thought.
“So. How about we head back to my place?”
An immediate frown took over my face at those words, delivered toward the end of our date–I’d long tuned this man out, but that made me perk up and pay attention, and not in a good way.
The food had been good, the drinks plentiful, the service excellent… if someone asked me about tonight, I’d really have no complaints.
If it weren’t for my date.
Eric Ericson–his legal name, according to the driver’s license he showed me, but you could never really tell these days–was the perfect package.
On the outside, at least.
Good job, no kids, no telltale markings on that one finger.
Tall.
Fine.
Understood that Red Lobster was not a high-end restaurant, no matter how damned good those cheddar biscuits were.
But then he opened his goddamn mouth.
“I just think women should leave the politics to the more logical gender. Can’t have some chick blowing up the Taj Mahal cause it’s a heavy flow day, right?”
Ugh.
Only the delivery of my elevated chicken and dumplings had stopped me from jamming one of my four-inch heels down his throat.
I wanted to curse Riley out for this shit, but I doubt she’d known or even guessed just how distasteful I’d find the ideas that spewed from his lips.
The chicken and dumplings were bomb though.
As was the bacon braised kale, and green tomato chutney, and the pecan tart for dessert.
Hell, the good ass food had me forgetting all about my tummy troubles from the day before and tuning his bullshit out.
I know.
I know.
I should have got up and left before all that, or at least corrected the grossest of his terrible, ignorant, idiotic beliefs.
But...
Did I mention the honey-butter shrimp appetizer?
Or the fact that I wasn’t teaching some ignorant motherfucker a damn thing he hadn’t endeavored to learn on his own?
Some women enjoyed turning Neanderthals into renaissance men, and hey–more power to them, it takes all types.
But I, January Somers, preferred a man with his views on women already planted firmly in the progressive parts of the twenty-first century.
“Now Eric, you’re…” I sighed, struggling with telling the truth as inoffensively as possible.
Smart, or any variation of it, certainly wouldn’t work here.
“An… opinionated man. In your opinion… do you really think this date has gone in a way that would lead to me wanting to go home with you?”
His eyebrow lifted. “Well… it’s a nice restaurant.”