Page 57 of The Biker and the Baker

Onyx flips his keys around his finger, looking at me as if nothing else in the world exists.

"You're gonna stare the skin off my face, dude," I tell him as I turn and start for my apartment.

In response to that, he slaps my ass. I yelp and snap my widened eyes to the house. If my father saw that, he’d have a conniption. Luckily, the curtains have fallen back in place.

When I throw a glare over my shoulder to Onyx, he just lifts his brow at me.

Deviant.

My nieces, along with two of their neighborhood friends, are playing jump rope on their upper porch next door. Not wanting them to catch wind of us, I whisper “hurry” over my shoulder to Onyx and quicken my steps to the apartment, swiftly keying us inside.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” I ask Onyx, tossing my keys on the side table. “And no, I don't have beer.”

He’s distracted, touching the flesh of his forefinger to the prickly exterior of my cactus house plant. “What you got then?”

“Wine. Whiskey. Water.”

“Water’s fine.”

I get him a bottled water from the fridge. "Just give me a few minutes to pack some things."

"No rush." He looks around as he twists the cap off the bottle. "We can chill for a bit."

"Chill?"

"Yeah. It's alive and…colorfulin here," he says. “Like Disney for grown-ups.”

"Oh, um. Okay."

I glance around my apartment, trying to see it through his eyes. My home decor taste is boho chic, and that calls for loud colors, bold art, living plants, and wacky household items, which all represent how I am on the inside. Plus the colors work wonders for my mood, especially after a stressful day at work.

Onyx throws himself down on my mustard couch and gulps water. “Come kick it with me.”

“Uh-uh. Once my family finds out I’m home, they’re gonna be barging in and out of here like gnats.”

He shrugs. “Cool with that.”

“Well…your call.”

From my snack bucket in the kitchen, I fetch a pack of cashews before padding to the couch and crashing down beside him.

He snatches the remote from the coffee table before I can and points it at the TV.

“I have an android box,” I tell him. “No cable.”

“Cool. Then we can binge something,” he says. “Vikings, Ray Donovan, Shameless?”

“Frank Gallagher for sure.”

He snorts. “Fucking Gallaghers.”

~

As I suspected, my family figured out I was home and came a-knocking.

First, my father, who claims he just wants to see for himself that I’m alive and kicking. Then he scowls at Onyx and berates him for encouraging me to sleep out before marriage. To which Onyx laughs and tells him he agrees.

Next, my brother Rishi, who wants to borrow fifty bucks with the promise that he'll pay me back with interest “real, real soon.” Spoiler alert: He never, ever pays me back. He owes me about sixteen hundred bucks so far.