Page 25 of Yours Truly

“Yep,” she nods, finishing off her wine as she empties the rest of the first bottle into her glass. “So show me. If he loves your work, I’ll probably be obsessed.”

Dolly mimics her fingers walking as she pops a piece of asparagus into her mouth. “Trot back and get your sketches. I’m dying to see your current WIP anyway.” She winks and I cast her the eyes. You know the kind. The eyes that say shut up or I’ll kill you in just a singular flare.

Dolly laughs, then buries her smile in sparkling cider.

“Fine,” I groan playfully, as if getting my sketches to get complimented and doted on isn’t the literal best thing in the world. It is. Don’t get me wrong, as an artist, getting lost in the process of creating is beautiful.

But getting atta girls for my hard work? I’m here for it, since all I get from Trace are comments like “if your clients like slop” and “if the goal is an ironic tattoo then that’s great.”

Yeah, kudos from the girls might turn this girls’ night from great to epic.

“Then you just… strain it,” Juni calls from her spot on the couch, her third glass of wine in hand, bare feet stacked on the coffee table.

At some point during bottle number three (which is worse than it sounds since Dolly has her own bottle of sparkling cider) we decided we’d make our own butter to go with the bread for dinner. Juni, already tipsy, decided she’d teach us from the couch.

“We don’t have cheesecloth,” Dolly hiccups from the bubbles of her sparkling cider, staring into the appliance drawer. She gently closes it so as to not wake a sleeping Honey. “I’ll go get one from your place, can you keep your ears perked if Honey wakes?” she says to me, and though I only know her as Hudson’s girl, it still sounds weird every so often for her to refer to our home as my home, or Juni’s home.

I nod and she rushes out, tearing through the distance between our houses.

A few minutes later she returns with a grocery sack full of stuff. Pulling one item out, she asks, “Can we use this?”

Juni, one eye squeezed shut, peers at us across the home. “That’s an organic coffee filter, not cheesecloth.”

Confusion knits my brows. “They both just strain though, right?”

“Sieve size,” she says. “It won’t work.”

Dolly digs around in her bag like Santa looking for the perfect gift. “How about this?” she laughs, pulling a metal cage from the bag, balancing it in the center of her palm for us to see.

Juni sits up, lowering her glass to the table next to a Field & Stream copy. “What the hell is that?”

Ev takes it from Dolly, turning the device over in her hand time after time. I press my palm to my lips to smother the smirk growing.

I literally cannot wait to tell them what that is.

“Does it do something with a banana? Or like…” I watch as Ev presses her fingers into the wide metal slit at the tip. “Does it, like, strain the egg white from the yolk or something?” She hiccups.

Clearing my throat, I take in Ev’s, Juni’s and Dolly’s interested faces. Ev moves the item around between two hands now, her glass of wine taking a back seat to her curiosity. “It could be–”

“It’s a male chastity cage,” I deadpan.

Juni actually physically startles back.

Ev brings the cage closer to her eyes, inspecting it further.

Dolly moves around the counter, standing next to her sister-in-law, and smooths one fingertip down the metal. “Wow,” she says, as if she’s staring at the Grand Canyon.

Ev’s nose wrinkles. “I love you, Dahlia, but please take one step back if you’re thinking of my brother while touching this.”

We pause, and a moment later, Dolly steps back, causing all of us to erupt into laughter.

“Where’d you get it?” Juni asks, coming to study the metal device with the others.

“Why’d you get it is the better question,” Ev says, wiping beneath her eye as she sets the chastity cage between the soft cheeses and roasted asparagus. A strange charcuterie.

“You know how my first official solo session is coming up, right?” I ask rhetorically because of course everyone in this room knows. This room is full of my people.

It’s why I wanted to apprentice and work in Bluebell. Because my people are here. My sisters—and now Dolly’s extended family—are everything to me. Family is everything.

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