Co-Workers With Benefits

V E N I C E

I laugh at his certainty as he says no.

"Why?" Trinity asks.

"It just ain't happening." He answers.

I laugh harder. "It's because we have a coworker called Devon and Dion hates his ass."

"Oh him!" Trinity remembers, laughing too. "That guy's obsessed with you."

I nod and take another bite of my breakfast. "That's why Dion doesn't like him."

She laughs harder before standing up and picking her bag up from the floor.

"Okay, well imma leave now. I just came to see my bestie and drop off the things for my baby."

I drop my plate on the table and get up to walk her out.

"Bye boo." I hug her.

"See you later bae." She touches my still flat stomach. "Make sure you eat a lot. I want my baby to be fat and chubby."

"Girl hush." I laugh and she turns to walk down the driveway, waving backwards at me.

I shut the door and return to the living room to eat the rest of my bagel.

"That was good, thank you." I tell Dion.

"You welcome ma." He smiles. "Whatchu feel like doing today?"

I walk to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water out the fridge. "I'm gonna wash my hair. This wig is starting to bother me."

"Oh okay, you want me to help?"

"Really? You want to?" I walk back at the couch.

"Yeah, why not?"

"Okay. Oh! Can I use one of the rooms to keep all my hair stuff in it?" I ask. "I'm talking my wig stand, my wig heads, my wigs, bands, scarves and things like that."

"Yeah of course. I got three rooms that ain't being used for nothing but storage. Go right ahead."

"Thanks baby. Imma use the smallest one, it ain't gotta be that big."

I close up the water, reaching my palm out to him.

"Let's go. You finna help me take down the braids first."

"Okay, but where we going?"

"Upstairs. Everything I need is up there and there's no point in bringing them down if we can do it there."

He gets off the couch and I hold onto his hand as we head up to the upstairs bathroom.
I grab a towel from the rack and wet it with warm water under the faucet. I dab it on my lace and Dion watches through the mirror.

I drop the towel on the counter and I start trying to carefully pull my lace up. I get it started and look over at him.

"Okay baby, you see what I just did?"

He hums.

"Imma need you to do that as carefully as possible. Don't go ripping it off cause that'll hurt and it'll rip off all my edges. Just slowly lift it off."

"So I'm just gonna pull it?" He tries to understand.

"Yeah. Carefully."

"Okay." He moves up closer to me and touches at the part of the lace I've already removed. He starts slowly pulling it up off my head and I watch him through the mirror.

"Am I doin it right?" He asks.

"Yeah you doing good."

He continues lifting it until he reaches the end and I remove the last bit by myself. I take off the wig and place it down next to the towel.