Page 17 of Grown Folks Confessions: Black Lush

“T, did you miss the part where I said I’m in too deep?” I sighed. “It doesn’t matter where the money went, just the fact that it’s gone.”

“Like all of it?”

I nodded. “All of it. Not a penny left.”

“Girl, I can lend you some money. How much debt do you have?”

This godsend.Seriously, I was too good for a friend like her. I started picking at my coral fingernail polish, which luckily didn’t do much damage since I was wearing no chip. “I’m about twenty thousand in debt and that’s not including my student loans or my car note.”

“Oh, easy solution,” Tysha said, waving me off. “Go back to corporate for a little while and do what you gotta do to get paid, then work for Black Lush on the weekends. Double paycheck. Plus, I’ll still lend you some money. And, girl, ain’t nothing wrong with public transportation, so maybe sell your car, too, so you can stash some money in savings.”

I fake-coughed. “I may or may not have under-exaggerated how much debt I have.”

Tysha raised an eyebrow. “By how much?”

“Um, give or take eighty thousand more.”

“Layla!” Tysha yelled. “So you didn’t just blow threw one-hundred thousand, but you’re in debt by that much too? How the hell are you gonna pay all that off?”

“Now you see my problem,” I indicated. “I do have a plan, but I need Ares’ help.”

She squinted in confusion. “What does he have to do with it though?”

Before I could answer, Ares arrived, and I buzzed him through the first door of my townhouse. Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell Tysha the truth anyway. Besides me and my therapist—aka, the owner of the Chinese food restaurant down the street who was nice enough to listen to me on days when the place was slow—no one knew my situation.

I cracked open my second door, already feeling his presence in the room before I even turned around. Goosebumps arose all over my skin, and I briefly closed my eyes to slow my heart rate. It was always that way with Ares.

Me pretending to be unaffected by him.

Him never hiding how much he wanted me.

Both of us seconds away from either cursing each other out, or ripping each other’s clothes off. Just a regular day in the life of the Layla and Ares chronicles.

“Well if it isn’t the woman who started the trend that had us changing the branding of our tattoo business,” he said, looking right at Tysha. “I didn’t know you were in town. Had Layla told me, we could have gone on IG live and given you a tattoo as a thank you.”

Tysha grinned as she accepted Ares’ hug. “You so silly. I didn’t know when I started hashtagging #GreekGawdsInk y’all would like the shit so much.”

Ares shrugged. “I mean, ‘Gawds’ is better than ‘Gods’ anyway, and with all the women coming to our shops for new tats after your tweets went viral, Greek Gawds Ink took on a mind of its own. I mean, forget only working for TSA, you should start your own marketing agency.”

Tysha laughed him off, but I’d been telling her that shit for years. My girl was good at a lot of things, but she was fucking phenomenal at calling dudes on their shit and creating bomb hashtags that always seemed to start trending. An influencer in her own right, she had thousands of followers who went on her social pages to see what crazy things Tysha of the TSmuthafuckin’A was going to post next.

“Well, I think I’m gonna head to Brewed Awakening down the street and grab me a pastry or something so y’all can talk.” Tysha gave me a thumbs-up before she grabbed her purse and left.

It took a full minute before I lifted my eyes to Ares, my nerves causing me to act squeamish.

“Damn, it must be bad,” he teased, taking a seat on the couch in the same spot Tysha had just vacated. “You can’t even look me in the eye.”

My eyes strayed to his muscular thighs that were pressing against his jeans. I’d always admired the way he could rock a pair of jeans, and today was no different.

“Thanks for coming.” I leaned over to give him a quick hug.Oh my damn.He smelled too delicious for words. My nerves were already in my throat. I didn’t need his scent and thighs getting me choked up on my own desire.

“You always know when you need me, I got you.” He spoke with so much conviction, I often wondered if there was anything this man wasn’t confident in.

I nodded, deciding to dive right in. “Do you remember that one time we were all hanging out after Ivy and Theseus started dating and Ivy was teasing me about not knowing what my social experiment was for that initiative The Social Experiment Network had?”

Ares nodded. “Of course. Pretty sure I asked you a lot about it, too. Your segment never aired, and for a while, they were showing folks on their channel that I know were selected after you were.”

I worried my bottom lip. The Social Experiment Network was owned by this mysterious woman who went by the name Madame Social. My girl, Meeka, worked for SEN and a few of us in our friend group had gotten roped into this crazy social experiment that forced you to challenge yourself to do something you never have before and document your experience with videos.

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