Page 149 of Save Room for Us

“Just came out.” She shrugged. “He was talking shit, so I had to humble him.”

“Or you wanted to make him upset with me.”

Dropping her hands, Bianni spat, “Look, don’t nobody give a fuck about you and that nigga enough to be coming up with plans to break y’all up. That nigga tried to fuck me, okay? You wanna be mad at somebody, be mad with him. Oh, but you’re not because you don’t want him dropping your ass. Oops, he already did.”

“I don’t wanna talk about him or his brothers or anybody in his circle anymore.”

It got quiet, Bianni resuming working on my nails before she paused.

“I will be right back. I got a new gel topcoat in my bedroom.” Bianni got up hurriedly as I sat here waiting for my nails to be designed.

Her phone lit up with a text message, and my eyes were like magnets to it. I saw it was from some nigga named John, most likely one of her many low-level tricks. Bianni could never get a man who was actually caked up.

Realizing she would be gone, and I was curious, I scooped up her iPhone 11 and typed in her code that I’d witnessed her put in hundreds of times. I’d never cared what this phone possessed in the past to use it, however.

Venturing to her texts, I started to scroll through and look for Asif then stopped. She would never be able to get his number, making me feel even dumber for confronting him about trying to fuck her, when I knew Asif would never. Not only was he too big on code and loyalty to fuck my cousin, but like I said, Bianni wasn’t up to snuff enough to nab a nigga like Asif.

Going into her social media app, I went right to the direct messages, seeing Bianni took thirsty to a whole new level. She was messaging all types of niggas, only the bums pretending for social media being the ones who responded and fucked, according to these messages.

I finally located Asif, seeing she barraged him with messages that he never responded to, and because I could unsend them, I noticed he hadn’t read them either. Asif wasn’t a social media guy, so reaching out to him via DM was shooting blindly in the dark.

When I landed on the latest message of her telling him I’d fucked Grady, so it was cool for him to smash her, my stomach bottomed out. Not only did I feel betrayed by my cousin, who I’d stupidly trusted all these years, but she’d told Asif.

Remembering he hadn’t read it, I quickly unsent the message, feeling some sort of relief. If Asif knew I let Grady fuck, it wouldn’t matter if Anastazia was gone; he wouldn’t touch me.

Bianni walked back into the room, freezing in place once she spotted me holding her phone. I didn’t care to conceal the shit from her at this point because I was livid.

“Bitch, you told Asif I fucked Grady!” I threw her phone at her, knocking her on the shoulder as I rose to my feet.

“Why the fuck are you even in my phone!” she hollered.

“That don’t fucking matter! You supposed to be my bitch! Not only that, my fucking cousin, and you telling this nigga about mommy issues and how I fucked another nigga!”

“So what! He don’t want your ass anyway!”

“He don’t want you either, bitch! If he did, he would’ve fucked you the first night we saw him, but he didn’t! You will never be able to get the caliber of niggas I get, Bianni! No matter what you say or do, no man who fucks me will ever fuck with you!”

That clearly pissed her ass off because she charged toward me, and though I wasn’t much of a fighter, I had to defend myself. She rained blows down on my head while holding me in a headlock with the opposite arm, and I repeatedly punched upward as hard as I could, landing hits on her face.

This continued, us whirling in circles while grunting, punching, yanking at hair, and calling each other bitches until she fell to the floor, hands still in my hair, and I grabbed her gel nail dryer to hit her with.

“Stop, Milan!” she screamed, nose and lip leaking.

I wasn’t aware of how I looked, but my face was in pain, so I was sure I didn’t look much different than her.

Dropping the dryer, I stepped over her and stormed to the door.

“I’m done with you, Bianni.” I yanked the door open, not giving a fuck about my snapped off nails as I grabbed my purse from her dusty ass couch.

“Wait, Milan, I am sorry!” She called after me.

People outside of her apartment probably thought she gave a fuck, but she only wanted to make up because she liked the potential connections I brought her and Jalia. Because of my association with Asif and my looks, I often got into rooms with many eligible hood bachelors, so Jalia and my cousin used that to their advantage.

Jalia not as much as Bianni, because she was cute and put together, but Bianni used my name constantly to get in places and around certain niggas. She’d even pretended to be me on social media before in order to fuck with some ball player, all for it to fall through when he requested a FaceTime before he paid to fly her out.

As I hopped into my car, Asif crossed my mind like normal, but mainly his words, telling me constantly that Bianni was jealous of me and how I shouldn’t trust her. I always laughed it off, feeling like he just didn’t understand or like her and was suspicious of everyone. But he was right. Asif was always right about people.

I made it home and cleaned myself up, only having a split lip and a fucked-up hairstyle but not much else. I took a shower then pried these half-done nails from my fingers before putting on a knit dress from Savage X Fenty and pulling out my phone.

---