Page 24

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

DEMI

Luna and I decided to have a mani/pedi day, and headed out shortly after Xavier did. Our favorite place to hit is a less popular one so there’s never a full house when we come for services, but the lady who works on my nails at this salon always manages to get the shape I want to perfection.

I laugh my ass off when Kimmi asks me, “You got man?” The only reason I find this comical is because she asks me the same thing every time I sit at her station.

“Yes, Kimmi. I’ve got a man.”

“You do? You didn’t last time,” she harrumphs. “He good man?”

“Yes, he’s a good man,” I answer her.

“What he do? He got to take care of you, so he has to be good,” she continues her line of questioning.

“He takes care of her,” Luna answers around a giggle. “Really good.”

“Alright, you two, that’ll be enough of that,” I playfully scold.

The two busybodies glance at each other and begin snickering.

A little bit later, Kimmi leans over the table, her eyes squinting before she says, “You have chin hair, lots of it, like a man. Don’t worry, I’ll wax for you.”

My head goes back and my eyes enlarge, this is a first and I’m not sure how to handle it.

I’ve never in my life had my face waxed but I have my legs and my lady bits, therefore, I know how that feels to have your hair ripped out by the root, so I can’t imagine having my face done and it not making me squeal like a little girl.

“Luna? I have hair on my face, like a man,” I say, beginning to hyperventilate. “Xavier kisses this face and I have enough hair to rival a man!”

“It’s more like peach fuzz,” Luna swears, “it’s soft so he hasn’t noticed, I promise.”

“I have peach fuzz on my face, like a man?” I repeat their words, mixing them together, panic still ever-present in my tone.

“Your eyebrows like a caterpillar, meet together in the middle, we fix them too,” Kimmi adds. “Make you sexy so you keep your man.”

“Caterpillar eyebrows,” I recite, deciphering her words, my brows drawn together. “Like a unibrow? Luna! I have a unibrow too!”

Kimmi reaches up and pats my hand, “I take care of for you.”

I stare at myself every morning in the mirror and these are things I’ve never noticed.

Luna gets a facial done every six to eight weeks, and she’s tried to get me to make an appointment with her esthetician, but to me, it was throwing money away.

I can wash and moisturize my face without having to drop a hundred dollar bill in another person’s pocket.

So, it seemed inconsequential and unnecessary, but apparently, I was wrong.

Very, very wrong seeing as I need a full facial wax!

This is what happens when a girl doesn’t have a mother who sticks around and cares to teach her what’s needed and what’s not. Once again, I find myself cursing the selfish mother who deserted me to go off and live her best, kid-free life.

I’m still in a daze as Kimmi leads me to the pedicure chair and sits me down, adding water to the tub. As is my habit, I reach over and hit the remote that’ll have it massaging my back. When I watch Kimmi scuttle to the door and disappear through it, I look over at Luna, and ask, “Is this normal?”

“Getting your chin waxed and plucked?” she inquires.

“Yeah,” I confirm.

“Unfortunately, it’s a necessary evil for some,” she remarks. “Demi, she’s doing her job and trying to bring in money for the salon. You know they don’t see much traffic here. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? You’re perfectly imperfect, just like the rest of us.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a true compliment, or a backhanded one,” I chuff, peering at her with doubt. “Are you gaslighting me, Luna?”

“I would never,” she gasps, mocking me.

“Yes you would,” I contend. “Nobody’s ever told me that facial fuzz was a bad thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing, unless you sweat and clog your pores,” she tells me.

“I sweat a lot, Luna! I’m a fighter and work hard to keep in shape in case I ever make a comeback,” I argue. “You should’ve told me.”

“I have!” she whisper-shouts, berating me underneath her breath so the staff doesn’t hear us. “I told you to make an appointment with Amanda, but you refused.”

“You didn’t tell me it was because I have man hair crawling all over my face, Luna.”

“You’re being dramatic again, Demi,” she accuses. “If you’d pay attention to my advice we wouldn’t be having this discussion now.”

“I don’t read between the lines well, Luna, and you know that about me. You have to be straight up and say it how it is. Don’t beat around the bush from here on out, okay?”

“I was afraid it’d hurt your feelings, plus, your facial hair is so light that nobody can see it,” she asserts.

“According to Kimmi’s observations, you can see it,” I remind her, then point out the obvious, “also, since you brought up me making an appointment with Amanda, so can you, so your argument isn’t valid.”

The wheels on the cart capture my attention and I scan the contents and notice that Kimmi hasn’t only come prepared for my pedicure, but she has an over-sized mobile wax kit—my mind begins to wonder why she needs such a large container.

Is my face that hairy? Then my path continues scanning the top shelf of her pushcart and I see she also has a handful of tongue suppressants, tweezers, and a hand mirror onboard as well.

Then everything clicks and I begin to pant.

She’s going to do it out here where everyone can witness me crying like a baby? Has she lost her mind? I’m humiliated enough as it is!

“Son of a licker!” I shout as Kimmi rips the strip from my upper lip, tears streaming down my face. I don’t think she only took my hair, I think she has some skin attached to the wax as well. “Dammit. That shit hurts,” I express.

“Almost done,” Kimmi sympathetically says. “Next time, won’t be so much.”

“Next time,” I squawk as she hits the side of my lips.

“Six weeks,” she affirms. “You get used to it.”

“I don’t think I want to ever get used to this,” I mumble, my face stinging. The first thing she did was hit my eyebrows, and that wasn’t too bad so I wasn’t prepared for my lip and chin. I had a false sense of security, and that’s jacked up. “I’ll shave from now on.”

“No!” Luna shouts as Kimmi shakes her head and says, “Oh, no.”

“Is that bad?” I ask, unsure of why they both look as if I stated I was going to bathe myself in a tub of acid.

“If you shave, it thickens the hair,” Luna informs me. “You start doing that, and you’ll have to do it twice a week instead of going this route to where it’s every other month.”

“No shaving my lip or chin, got it,” I sustain.

“We do your legs next, you have long stubs,” Kimmi announces.

By this time, I’m over it and just wave my hand at her to do whatever it is she thinks I need done.

Her eyes glaze over as she shakes her hips in glee.

I hope I didn’t just open myself up to a full body wax, that thought shoots shivers up and down my spine.

Luna is having the time of her life at my expense. As we climb into her SUV, I pull down the visor and glance at myself in the mirror. My upper lip still stings, and there are tiny bumps on the surface of the skin directly above them, but both Kimmi and Luna swore they’d go away in no time.

“You sure these will go away, Luna?”

“Yes, we’ll put some aloe on it when we get home. It’s like a skin burn, so the healing properties in it will make them go away quicker.”

As we head toward the less rural part of town, heading back to the clubhouse, the rundown suite of rooms catches my attention, not because of its peeling paint nor its sagging roof, it’s the three motorcycles parked in front that have me sitting up straighter in my seat.

“That’s Xavier’s bike,” I announce.

“Marcum’s too,” Luna mutters. “Wonder what they’re doing here?”

“I don’t know, but I say we find out,” I tell her.

“They could be on club business though, Demi.”

“At a motel? Don’t you find that suspicious, Luna?”

“It’s odd, I’ll give you that. Marcum will flip his lid and spank my ass if whatever they’re doing is dangerous and I pop in.”

“Sounds like a fun time,” I tease her. “You can stay in the car, but I want to know why they’re here and what they’re doing.”

“You aren’t leaving me behind, missy,” she scolds. “Hell to the no! What if they’re with girls?”

“Luna, don’t be ridiculous, they’d never cheat on us. They know I’d chop off their manhood and put it through the blender if they did. Your pregnancy is showing.”

“True. These hormones are a bitch and she loves to put ideas in my head,” Luna admits.

“Ludicrous ones,” I agree as she puts the lever in park. When I look through the windshield, I notice them in a room that has the door open, which I point out. “If this was dangerous or anything bad, they’d have the door shut so there weren’t any witnesses.”

“You’re right, Demi, and I’m convinced we’ll be safe. Let’s go see what they’re up to.”