Page 3 of A Little Kissing Between Friends

She blew out a breath as if she were winded and shook her head. “Who is that singing?”

“A lil shorty named WundaGirl Ray. I found her on YouTube.” As I talked, I fiddled with the knobs on the board to queue up the next track. “Well, actually, she found me. She commented on a video of me creating a track from start to finish and said she’d love to work with me and lay some vocals down. And you know me.”

Tossing her head back, Xeno laughed. “Yeah, I know you. Extra friendly ass.” She cut me a knowing look. “She pretty?”

“Yeah, man,” I chuckled. “She cute or whatever.”

“Mmhm. Or whatever. Right.”

Her tone and the way she dragged that “right” were clear evidence that she thought I was downplaying it, and I got it. I had a firm rule about not sleeping with anyone who came into the studio to work with me, but I had eyes. There were so many fine-ass women in the music industry that I could kick it with a different one every day for a year and still never touch one of the dozens I’d worked with over the years. But this situation wasn’t like those others.

“Nah, it really is whatever. Baby girl is straight.”

Xeno lifted an eyebrow. “How you know that? I know damn well your mum’s-the-word ass ain’t discuss sexuality with a woman you’d just met! Hell, you barely discuss it with the women you hook up with. Got these women out here just goin’ off vibes and that lil backpack you be carrying.”

Dragging a hand down over my head, all I could do was laugh at the facts she was spittin’. Since the moment I realized that I was a lesbian—long after having that first conversation with my father—I pointedly did everything I could to avoid having “the talk.” The way I saw it, if the straights didn’t have to announce themselves, then why the fuck did I?

The simple answer was that I didn’t. I mean, I got why so many queer people chose to do so but, personally, I was good on all of that. I also had the benefit of looking gay, so it wasn’t too hard to go off “vibes,” as Xeno put it. And the lil backpack was a bonus as far as I was concerned. When people saw me, a five-foot-ten, dark-skinned, three-hundred-pound, masculine-presenting woman with a taper-fade and a bottom grill, the assumption was almost always that I was a carpet-muncher and not just a fat tomboy. And the assumption was one hundred percent correct. I mean...genetics made me fat, but I did indeed love to eat.

Turning to Xeno, I shook my head.

“Nah, I didn’t have to say a word. Shorty showed up with her dude in tow, but I wasn’t trippin’ ’cause he was mad cool. He kept quiet while me and Ray worked, and when we took a break he would talk music. The problem is that when he went to the bathroom, Ray got super flirty with me, talmbout she ain’t never been with a girl before but had always wondered what it was like.” I rolled my eyes and shot Xeno a look. Her lips were pursed and she looked disgusted. Thankfully, she got the point.

“So, ole girl was—”

I nodded. “Yup. Bicurious George.”

“Damn,” muttered my friend, echoing my sentiments. “And not just that, but a fucking cheater.”

“Hmph. I can tell you right now that she def thinks it doesn’t count ’cause I’m a woman.”

Xeno groaned. “That’s that bullshit!”

“That’s what I’m saying, man. So, yeah.”

Nodding, Xeno shrugged. “Or whatever.”

There was nothing left to say on the matter. This was unfortunately something I’d experienced multiple times over the course of my life. Apparently, hooking up with a lesbian—especially a stud—was like a bucket list item for many a straight woman, and that was a lesson I learned the hard way. One too many times had I thought I was dealing with a bisexual woman, only to get burned by a het shorty who “don’t really do that” when it was time to Uno reverse some head or pop out for a little date situation in public.

“So, what you doing with this?” she asked, swiftly changing the subject and thankfully keeping me from going down a long mental road that led to a painful memory. “You sending it to the radio stations or throwing it up on streaming sites?”

“Eventually. My daddy already said it was impressive, so now I wanna see how it goes over at Sanity. I sent it to Jucee a couple of days ago, and she’s gonna dance to it tonight, which will give me the opportunity to watch the crowd.”

Xeno grinned, swiveling around in her chair to face me. I could already tell from the mirth in her eyes that some nonsense was about to spew forth from her mouth.

“Ah, I shoulda known you’d send it to your bestie first.”

And there went the nonsense. Groaning, I rubbed my forehead.

“Technically, I sent it to my—”

Xeno waved her hand. “Aht aht! That don’t count. Sending it to your pops is like sending it to an extension of yourself. That’s basically a part of your creation process. This though? That’s different and you know that.” Her grin was silly as fuck and mildly annoying.

“You gotta chill, man. It’s not even like that.” It was pointless to explain why I needed to see first-time reactions to the song, because Xeno knew better than anyone. This moment was simply about her giving me a hard time.

“Nah,” Xeno teased, shaking her head, her pencil-thin locs swaying from left to right. “That’s exactly what it’s like. But it’s all good. I’m not offended.”

Xeno and Jucee were my homies and I regarded them both as my best friend, but that didn’t go over well with either of them. They claimed it was all in good fun, but neither of them missed an opportunity to tease me about my “other best friend.” The two were my closest friends for completely different reasons. Xeno was my day one. I’d known her since before I even knew what it meant to be a stud and I just thought I was tomboy.