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14

electric relaxation

"i like 'em brown, yellow, puerto rican or haitian. my name is phife dawg from the zulu nation." lana rapped along to the recently deceased rapper malik taylor. we both had a profound respect for the artist and the group that changed the rap game. carved it into what it is today.

we were having a tribe day. we concocted it ourselves. our day was going to consist of songs made by the famous group while we went on various adventures through the land.

our first stop was the melrose trading post, rose bowl flea market since it was the second sunday of the month, olvera street and a secret surprise. she was getting dressed and doing

her makeup which was taking an absolutely long time, but it was such an art that i became caught up in watching her perform magic. the blends of warm brown tones and red tones with some dark color seemed really risky. but the way she put her blending brush to work; i learned some things as i bothered her, made it all come together. i'm not even going to get into how she made her black eyeliner hella sharp without using something to help her carve it out. she also traced over top of the black liner with green liner. just magnificent.

after curling her hair that she recently died a light lilac color that was well transitioned with her natural black hair, she was finally ready. i really had to appreciate how much time she spent dolling herself up, even if it wasn't for me. she looked damn good.

we exited her loft with a quick bye to her roommates and made our way to the parking garage. i slithered my arm over her shoulders to pull her body closer to mine so that i could place a kiss to her temple.

"i would be irritated that you spent the whole day getting ready, but you look absolutely beautiful. and that is something i will never complain about. with that highlight putting the sun to shame, you go girl."

she laughed before squeezing my hand and gently touching where i kissed her head.

"thank you baby. you better hope you didn't mess up the highlight i put there." she gave me and evil glare that i took half-serious. i opened her car door once we reached it and let her slide into the passenger seat before i went around to the drivers side.

the drive to melrose took twice as long as it should've due to traffic. we entertained ourselves with the anthology and a heavy debate about the best track on the album. no answer was quite wrong but there were answers that weren't quite right. we agreed to disagree since the discrepancy relied on personal choice versus the best all around composition. i took anfa's advice and decided to squash the issue with lana.

the door to the florist shop closed behind me with a ding as i exited with a whopping $80 bouquet of 100 roses and a card. grateful wasn't a good enough word when the shop owner slid me a discount. the soles of my grey van sk8-hi's slapped against the warm concrete as i made my way to the bus. lana's place was a cool 15 min ride and i'm on a mission to dead the attitude we both caught towards each other. the problems we had were nothing that couldn't be fixed and she was worth sucking up my pride.

i reached her door and used the callbox so she could buzz me in.

"who is it?" her voice sounded scratchy and as if she'd been sleeping. i texted her shortly after leaving anfa that i was going to stop by. with no response i figured she was holding onto her attitude and trying to ignore me. she didn't tell me not come so i said fuck it and carried on with my plan. now knowing that she was sleep a prayer went up hoping she's too groggy to keep the attitude up.

"baby, it's me, chai."

there was a pause before the door clicked, signaling that she had unlocked it for me. i made my way in, passing by holland in the lobby. she didn't notice me, i could tell her mind was preoccupied with something heavy. i decided to use my manners and speak anyways.