Page 62 of Whiskey and Regret

FOURTEEN

“Hey, Xari.” Navy greeted me with a hug then she looked me over. I didn’t have time to freshen up or hide that goddamn hickey Evander gave me. I knew I still looked like I’d just climbed off of a dick.

“Hey, Navy.” I moved into the kitchen quickly and grabbed a bottle of water. “Give me a second. I gotta go to the bathroom.” I didn’t give her a chance to say anything else. I dashed toward the steps like I couldn’t use the lower level bathroom. I needed my bathroom though.

I washed up in the sink and looked at my neck in the mirror. The hickey wasn’t huge but it was an exclamation point against my honey skin. I sighed heavily and pressed the cold water bottle to my neck. It did little to nothing. I even tried to get my fluffy curls to cover it but my hair wouldn’t stay put. After a few minutes, I gave up and went to find a pair of panties and a bra to put on.

When I returned to the kitchen, Navy looked up from her phone and let her brown eyes flit over me like she was reading through my browser history. “I can’t stay for long because I have to re-work Senator Freeman’s schedule for this coming week. A few new meetings popped up and I have to move some appointments around.”

“Oh…is he going to be busy this week?” I asked, tugging on a springy lock of curls.

“Yeah. Lots of late nights.” My stomach clenched. Would I be able to see him in the evenings like I’d grown accustomed to doing? I’d miss eating dinner with him and Frankie. I bit my bottom lip and tried to figure out dinner ideas that traveled well. Maybe Frankie and I could take him dinner on the nights he worked late.

“You okay, Xari?” Navy waved her hand in front of my face and I blinked away the haze.

“Yeah. I’m good. Did you bring weed?”

“Oh my god, girl. No. Let’s look through your DM’s and see if Damon reached out to you yet. Everyone has been tagging you like crazy.”

“I know.” I checked my phone and in just that little bit of time I’d been away from it, my notifications piled sky-high again.

“Xari, are you okay? You look different.” She narrowed her eyes and I tried to turn away from her so she couldn’t see the burgundy bruise on my neck.

“Cuter?” I smiled.

“No. You do look…relaxed though.” Navy lifted her eyebrow and walked around me in a circle.

“Stop doing that,” I fussed, bunching my brows together. “We’re supposed to be combing through these DM’s.”

“Uh-huh…what have you been doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. Let me rephrase it.Whohave you been doing? I’ve seen you come home after fucking god knows who enough to know when you’ve been throwing your vagina around.”

“Oh my god. You make me sound like such a ho. Throwing my vagina around?” I laughed a little and shook my head while I looked through my messages on Instagram.

“Does Senator Freeman know you have men coming in his house?”

“I don’t have men coming into his house. I’d never bring men in and out of here knowing Frankie could see.”

Navy regarded me for a moment then said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I adore that little girl. I don’t want her to see random men coming and going. She looks up to me. If she saw that she might think it was okay to…” My words trailed off and I realized in that space of silence that I wanted Frankie to be better than me.

I was fine with casual sex and hookups when I needed to fuck away my stress but I didn’t want her to do the same thing. I wanted her to be selective.

“Be like you?” Navy asked, knowingly. I shrugged my shoulders and nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with being sexually liberated, Xari but you gotta examine the root of it. If you’re like that because you’re trying to fill a void, then there’s a problem.”

“I’m not trying to fill a void.”

“But you are fucking someone, aren’t you? I heard how nervous and jittery you were on the phone before I came over. Now you’re relaxed and glowing.” She laughed a little then honed in on my hickey.

Dammit.

“And if you haven’t had any men running through here then you must be fucking Senator Freeman because he’s the only other man…in…here. Xari!” She slapped my shoulder repeatedly while she screamed at me at a rate much faster than I could decipher.

Goddammit, Navy. Always figuring shit out when nobody asked you!