Les Be Honest, page 18
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I pushed at the wrinkles on the flared linen pants I was wearing, trying to get them to straighten out. No dice. I was wearing a dark yellow crop top and adjusted the edges to lay flat against my stomach. There was no mirror around, so I quickly used my phone’s front-facing camera to scan my face. It was fine. I looked fine. Everything is absolutely fine.
Ding.
The elevator moved up to the next floor. Three floors left until it got to me.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket, looping my small purse over my shoulder and pushing it behind me. Why was I even wearing a purse? I never used purses. I was a wallet person at best, but most of the time just had a small compartment magnetically attached to my phone for a few cards. But, no, today I had a whole ass purse with me. Tyler was going to ask me why I had a purse with me. She knows I don’t use purses.
Oh my God, why am I here? Calm your tits, Yas.
The elevator dinged that she was on my floor.
I should not be here. This is a mistake.
I immediately began looking for places to hide—the property manager’s door was locked. I yanked on that door handle like it was a negotiation but the fucker didn’t budge.
The door to the elevator opened, and I whirled around, quickly smoothing out my clothes and leaning against the wall like I’d been casually chilling there this whole time.
I leaned like this all the time. This was normal.
I was normal.
“Yasmeen?” Tyler stepped off the elevator with a giant cardboard box in her hands and looked at me like I’ve never leaned like this in my life.
“I lean.” That was all I could come up with in response.
She furrowed her brow and walked toward the penthouse door. Balancing the box on one knee, she put her key in the door to unlock it. “Okaaaay….do you want to lean inside?”
“That would be preferable.” Please, God. Strike me with lightning now.
Tyler was unconvinced, her gaze narrowing. “Okay…yeah. Come on in.”
I did. I followed after her like a compliant puppy dog and I hated every second of it until I saw what was inside.
Nothing.
Nothing was inside. I mean, aside from some moving boxes and a stray piece of furniture here or there. The entire penthouse was cleared out and devoid of any life. If you’d have told me someone lived here once, I would have said absolutely not. That’s how desolate the place looked without Tyler’s touch.
“Uh…did you get robbed?” I spun around, trying to take in every empty corner of the space I’d come to know as her home. “Where the hell is all your furniture?”
“Some of it I moved to my new apartment,” Tyler replied as she set the box she was carrying down on the marble kitchen countertop. “The rest my father put in his other properties.”
“He…he…wait, what?” Slow the heck down, because someone needed to explain this to me like I was five years old. “This is…this is news.”
She didn’t respond, but just nodded her head.
I watched her for a few moments before I finally had the guts to ask what I really wanted to know. “Ty, did you mean what you said at the Ambies?”
She looked surprised, taking half a step back and leaning against the countertop. “You watched the Ambies?”
I nodded. “Congratulations. You deserved that win. I don’t know why you thought you didn’t.”
Tyler looked down at her feet, shuffling them slightly as she repositioned herself. “Who says I thought that? I had a winner’s speech ready.”
I walked over to the counter she was leaning against and matched her body position, but left several feet between us. “I don’t know. I saw your face. You looked surprised, and I’ve never seen you doubt yourself like that before.”
“It was a big moment for my career. A lot of hope,” Tyler said, her gaze still not quite meeting mine. “But it seemed like a far-reaching hope.”
I shook my head. “You deserved the win.”
“How do you even know that? You don’t listen to my podcast,” Tyler countered. It wasn’t as accusatory as it sounded, but rather her tone was kind of vulnerable and there was a hint of sadness to it.
I was like a dog with a bone. “Yes, I do. I’ve listened to the entire last season just in the past week, and already started on the one before that.”
Her eyes perked up and the corners of her lips lifted into the tiniest hint of a smile. “You listened to me?”
“I told you I would.”
She swallowed hard, looking back at her box.
“I don’t understand what’s going on here. Where’s all your stuff?” I continued, now motioning around me to the empty space we were standing in. “Why do you have that box? What is happening here, Tyler?”
She looked nonplussed. “I moved out.”
“To where?” Also, how? Why? Seriously, why? This penthouse was amazing. “I didn’t know you were moving.”
The smallest of smirks hit the corner of Tyler’s lips. “Now you look like the worried one.”
I cleared my throat and took half a step back. “Worried about what?”
“Me leaving,” she clarified. “If what I said in my speech was true. All of it.”
I shrugged my shoulders feeling the vulnerability rising up in me. “They are reasonable questions to ask. A lot has happened. We haven’t talked.”
“I know,” Tyler replied. “I’m sorry I wasn’t ready when you wanted to. I did need some time to figure out how I feel, and how I want to move forward with my life.”
I blew out a low steady breath and looked away from her, focusing on a vent on the ceiling in the corner of the room. “And so…what did you figure out?”
“I meant what I said in my speech,” Tyler finally answered. “My dad is my biggest supporter. That’s what I have believed my whole life. Now I just decided to hold him to it publicly. That…well, that caused a lot of tension between him and me.”
I shuffled my feet, looking down at the toes of my shoe rubbing up against the other. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not. He lost some of his funding after my speech at the Ambies, and his current organization is trying to figure out how to crisis spin it all.” She lifted open the box she’d been carrying and started putting the few miscellaneous items inside that were still sitting around the room—a tchotchke from Hershey’s Park, two candles from Pottery Barn, and a row of books that I’m pretty sure she never read. Not that I’m judging.
I mean, a little bit.
“I’d imagine it’s a lot to figure out for his staff.” I finally met her gaze. “So, that’s why you’re leaving? They’re making you move?”
“No one makes me do anything,” she reminded me. “I was going to move out either way. I knew what I set into motion by saying what I did and I knew the potential ramifications of that.”
I exhaled loudly. “You said a lot.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
I inhaled slowly, just trying to feel the breath in my lungs as I looked at her. “When I was listening to your speech, it felt like a sign. Like you were giving me a sign.”
“I didn’t say those things for you, Yasmeen,” she clarified. “I said them because it was the right thing to do. Because it aligned with my beliefs and who I want to be when I look back at my life. I need to make more choices like that. I need to feel like I’m being more authentic to myself.”
“Completely. Makes sense.” I nodded along like I wasn’t breathing solely based on whatever she was about to say. “I’m glad you did, honestly.”
She didn’t look directly at me. “That’s not the same thing as saying I know what I want between us.”
A few months ago, I hadn’t even known this woman, and here I was feeling like my heart was being ripped open by her. When had that even happened? The moment I’d given her that level of power over me, over my heart?
“Okay…it’s been a whole week, though. That’s a lot of time,” I countered. Jesus, why was I arguing how time worked with anyone, let alone the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about? I’d dated so many women in the past, but never once had I felt like I was the one begging to keep things together. “Can we talk soon?”
I really was begging, and I felt that unfamiliar sinking feeling in my stomach as the pause lengthened between us.
“I don’t know if I’m in a position to think about us just yet,” Tyler admitted after a few quiet moments. “The award show, coming out, the podcast, the bar opening…life is really in flux right now, Yas.”
“Yeah,” I agreed because the hell if I wasn’t along for the roller coaster, too. “I mean, I definitely feel that, too.”
“The only reason I’m still involved in the bar is because I’m not living in my dad’s property anymore,” Tyler continued. “It was move out or leave the business.”
“What do you mean?” I’d assumed she must have figured out her father’s ultimatum, but I wasn’t sure how much I should say out loud.
“I know what my father did. I know you were right, Yasmeen. You called it from the start.” It was unmistakable grief in her eyes as she spoke, and my chest felt tight. “I was just too naive to admit how he was yielding his authority over me—over my entire life, really. I needed to be free of it, and…well, he gave me no choice.”
I waited for her to say more, feeling like I couldn’t let a single breath out of my lungs.
“I’m starting over on my own,” she continued. “I need to. But I’m also not saying goodbye to my father. I’m not cutting him out—even after what he did.”
“Oh.” I blinked slowly, trying to process what that meant. “Right. I mean, of course. He’s your dad.”
“He is.” She sighed. “He’s the only family I have.”
It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest, and guilt swarmed in my stomach. I had wanted her to see who her father was, but the grief I was seeing now made me realize just how painful that sight was for her. No part of this moment or this version of Tyler felt like what I had wanted. It just felt sad and hollow and full of a history between Tyler and her father that I couldn’t ever begin to understand. I’d been the spark to ignite the fire, even though I suspected it had been simmering for decades.
“Tyler, I’m…” I let out a slow exhale. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t do anything. Don’t apologize. I just need some time, okay? I’ll see you at the live recording.”
I let a few quiet moments pass between us as Tyler returned to packing the last of her things in the boxes. “Isa said she told you about the new location?”
“It’s a great idea, honestly,” Tyler replied with a nod. “Much better than this location would have been.”
I hated to agree in that moment, because it felt like rubbing salt in the wound. But she wasn’t wrong. The new diner location was a windfall none of us had expected, and while I would never say it out loud, I was grateful for the shitstorm we’d gone through because of the opportunity it was giving us. We wouldn’t open on time, and things weren’t going to be as smooth of a start as I’d hoped, but the end result would be infinitely better.
“Okay, well…” I looked around the empty room, trying not to remember the times we’d spent together here, or the moments we’d been wrapped up in one another. “I’m going to go home. If you need help moving or anything, let me know. My brother is my go-to for moving help. I can call Demetrius any time if you want.”
She shook her head. “I hired movers and packers already. These are just the last few items. I’ll see you next week, okay?”
“Sure.” I headed for the front door of the penthouse and didn’t turn around to look back at her.
I couldn’t afford her to see the tears brimming in my eyes. I didn’t cry over women.
And I wasn’t crying over Tyler.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It wasn’t even four o’clock in the afternoon and Rachel had straight up ordered a shot of tequila with a lime wedge.
“I admire the hustle, but since when do you pound hard liquor at happy hour?” I asked her as I slid onto the stool at the high-top table she was seated at.
Rachel glanced across the table at me and grinned. “I’m celebrating.”
“Oh, Lord. Do I even want to know?”
The waiter walked up and I ordered the house red wine off the happy hour menu and a side of pimento cheese dip and chips.
Rachel held up her shot glass triumphantly. “I just won the case against a sewage company that was using the Anacostia River as a dump site.”
“Wait, didn’t you say if you won that case, you’d be making partner?” My eyes widened because this case had been all Rachel had been working on for the last several years. All of her friends had heard every single detail, and we’d been rooting hardcore for her to win.
“Meet the youngest partner at Davis, Yung, and now…Blumenthal.” Rachel took the shot in a quick gulp then sucked on the lime wedge. She let out a pleased exhale and pumped her fists in the air.
I popped up out of my seat and rounded the table to give her a hug. “That’s so incredible, Rach. You’ve worked so hard for this.”
She grinned, and it was rare that I saw her emotion so fully on display like it was right now. “It’s been a long few years, Yas. You, Mila—hell, even Isa—really pushed me to keep going when I really didn’t think I could stick it through.”
I had returned to my seat just as the waiter dropped off my glass of wine and two glasses of water. “Aw. Look at you being all sentimental and stuff.”
“I know, right?” Rachel laughed and ordered a beer. “It’s not like me at all.”
“Big things seem to be happening for all of us lately,” I mused. “Did you hear Mila’s show was picked up for another season?”
Rachel nodded. “And you’re opening KiKi this weekend.”
I took a long sip of my wine. “Yeah…that’s been a journey.”
“You’ve spent months putting it all together and making it happen.” Rachel picked up the beer the waiter had just dropped off for her and took a sip. “I’m excited to go to the live recording of the podcast this weekend. How are you and Tyler feeling about it?”
“Um…” I took another sip of my wine, avoiding an immediate response.
Rachel sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yas, do not tell me you two already broke up. I thought this one was going to stick.”
“It is! I mean, it might.” I shrugged my shoulders. “We haven’t broken up. I don’t think so. I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. We’re just taking some time to think right now. Well, she’s taking time to think and I’m waiting to hear what she thinks.”
Rachel blinked slowly and then leaned her elbows on the edge of the table. “We’re not getting younger, Yasmeen. We are in our mid-thirties and it’s going to stop being cute real soon if we keep hopping around from person to person like we’ve been doing.”
“So, you’re dating someone?” It was much easier to turn the attention on anyone else, and seriously, Rachel telling me to slow down? The irony. “Because I haven’t seen you in a serious relationship in years.”
There was a devious glint in Rachel’s eyes and I narrowed my gaze at her.
“Oh my god, you are dating someone. Who is she?”
Rachel shook her head. “They use they/them pronouns. And we can talk about them another time. This is about you and Tyler. I really like her.”
I sipped my wine a bit more. “High praise coming from you.”
“So, how are you going to fix it with her?” Rachel didn’t let up as she dug into the pimento cheese plate the waiter had brought. “Is she still partnering with you on the bar?”
“She is,” I replied. “That in and of itself is a whole story. Her father tried to push her out of it, basically didn’t want his name attached to anything gay. We had to move locations, but I was able to get the money back I’d paid him and keep Tyler on.”
Rachel lifted one brow. “He sounds like an asshole.”
“Yeah, he is. But…” I sighed. “I think I put her in a shitty spot. I didn’t say it exactly, but I kind of forced her to choose between her father and me. And she chose neither of us.”
She swallowed the bite she was chewing. “You did what?”
“I know! I didn’t mean to, but I kind of walked her into the situation and gave her no other option.” I finished off the last of my glass of wine and lifted my hand to the waiter to indicate that I wanted a second. “He’s the only family she has, even if he is detestable in like ninety-seven different ways.”
Rachel leaned back against the table and lowered her voice just enough to not be overhead by nearby tables. “Listen, I think it’s amazing that you come from a family that is so open and accepting of your queerness. Seriously. I look at Nia and Demetrius, and even your dad when he actually does talk, and I’m just amazed that you being gay is not even a blip on their radar. They are so completely fine with just embracing you for who you are.”
I felt a lump forming in my throat as I thought of my family. “I know…I’m lucky.”
“You really are,” Rachel continued. “Because the reality is that you are the exception to the rule. The majority of us don’t have familial support like that.”
I thought of what I knew of Rachel’s family, and how her parents had kicked her out in high school once they’d found out she’d asked a girl to go to prom. She’d felt so deeply ashamed of herself and who she was that it would be another ten years before Rachel would come out publicly to the world. Once she finally did, both Mila and I made damn sure that she felt welcomed, accepted, and embraced every step of the way.
But her family still wanted nothing to do with her.
“Do you miss them?” I asked softly, placing a hand on Rachel’s forearm. “Your family?”
“I miss the concept of family. The concept of parents to call or a mother to hug me, or siblings to catch a movie with and laugh with…” Rachel clarified. “But the individual humans who filled those roles for me are not people I miss. Not at all. However, I can understand the desire to not want to let go of them. Walking away from my family entirely was the right choice for me, but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and changed my life in countless ways—good and bad. Doing that might not be the right choice for Tyler.”
