When The Sun Rises | ✔

06 | Call the Morgue

     Chapter 06 | Call the Morgue

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        "Xoë, we been walkin' around this mall for ten minutes and yo ass still ain't walked in one of these stores."

        I trail behind her, getting more irritated with every minute that crawls by. My shoulders are sore from the nonstop bumping into eager mall goer's, scampering and desperate to blow their paychecks.

        "That's cause I didn't come here for no shoes. I came to scope out the local talent."

        She peeks back at me with a devious smirk playing at her lips and I stop in my tracks. The couple behind me steps around and both women whip their heads back to glare at me as they strut away, mumbling curses as they go. I suck my teeth at the pair.

        "What?"

        "Ya know the talent. Gray sweats. Imprints."

        While she's talking, her eyes drop to the waistband of the dude walking by us. There's an extra sway in his hips.

        Good luck with that one.

        "You're telling me you brought me to this mall so you could look at penises?" I put a hand on my hip. "You ain't heard of Google? Ma'am, you could do this shit for free from the comfort of your own home."

        Ignoring my attitude once again, she takes out her phone and snaps pictures of niggas that some desperate, sex-deprived housewife would probably pay good money for.

        "Are you dumb? Who the hell wants to see it on a screen when they could have front row seats? Don't act like you don't want to. I mean unless you a vegetarian."

        She sneaks a suggestive glance at me and then drops her eyes back down to her phone screen, zooming in and out of the pictures.

        "Vegetarian? What are you talkin 'bout?" I step aside out of the path of oncoming foot traffic, tired of playing body dodge.

        "I mean you don't like meat. You more of a sushi type girl."

        I think over her words for a second and nearly choke when my slow ass finally catches on.

        "I'm not gay. I like... meat," I respond pathetically.

        "Yeah? Then why weren't you all over the nigga who was riding with us? Like, what's that about? He was a whole ass meal. Best believe if I lived here I would be riding with him, next to him, in the front seat, backseat, on top of him. Just riding all kinds of ways, bitch."

        I grimace. "Not interested."

        Dating ain't my thing. The process of flirting and spending months getting to know somebody just to wind up strangers again is frivolous as hell in the bigger picture. The time I would waste pining after some dude could be spent doing something useful like going down flat-earth rabbit holes on YouTube.

        "Why not? You got a man or somethin?"

        She maneuvers through the scattered bodies over to the only available bench in the vicinity, motioning for me to follow her. I sigh at the relief of being off my feet, my heels screaming like banshees for a moment's rest.

        "Just because. And, no. I don't gotta be with somebody to not be interested in him. I'm just not."

        "Yes, sis. You do. 'Cause that's the only thing that's bouta justify this sin you committing against women everywhere." She clasps her phone between her thighs and drapes an arm over my shoulder. "You sure you ain't a lesbian?"