Page 26 of Becoming His Muse
“I’d love to. I need to go grab my purse from my car.”
Elion shook his head, opening the passenger side door for her. “You won’t need it.”
She thought about protesting but figured it was just ice cream, so it wouldn’t hurt to let him pay for it. She slid into the car, putting on her seatbelt as he closed the door. When he was behind the wheel, they pulled out of the parking space, heading to a nearby ice cream parlor.
Elion sat across from Olani, sipping his milkshake while she ate her sundae. There were only a few other people in the parlor, and as they sat in a booth in the back corner, it felt like no one else was there.
When he’d said the night was still young, he knew that it technically wasn’t since she had to go to work the next morning, but he’d wanted to spend more time with her. So, asking her out for some dessert would allow him to do that and not keep her out as late as getting dinner would have.
“Have you decided where you want to go next weekend?” Olani questioned after a few minutes.
“I’m fine with wherever you want to go,” he responded. They’d gotten three options sent to them a few days ago, and Elion didn’t have a problem with any of them, so he was fine with allowing her to choose for them.
“No, I want to know that you’re going to have fun when we go, so I want you to tell me which one you’d prefer to go to.”
“I’ll have fun wherever we go. Whatever you choose is fine.”
“Elion,” she whined slightly, and he thought it was cute.
“Seriously, baby. I want you to choose for us.”
Olani said nothing for a moment as she stared at him before she nodded. It took him a few seconds to realize it was because he’d never called her baby before. Typically, his go-to endearment was sweetheart, which he also used interchangeably for her name.
“Fine, but if you don’t have any fun, you only have yourself to blame,” she informed him before taking another bite of her sundae.
Elion chuckled. “I will take full responsibility for my lack of fun if that happens, but I know it won’t.” He leaned back on his side of the booth. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
He watched her think for a moment. “I have a scar from a piece of glass that sits extremely high on the back of my right thigh.”
He tilted his head to the side. “How high are we talking?”
Olani smiled at him, tipping her head from side to side. “High.”
He suspected what she meant when she first said it, but he wanted to make sure it was what she meant and his mind just hadn’t ventured into the gutter. He knew now that it hadn’t.
“How did that happen?”
She chuckled as she told him the story. She was about eight and was jumping on the bed in her bedroom at her grandmother’s house. She’d been told several times to stop, but it’d been raining all day and she was bored with everything else around the house. So, whenever she thought her grandmother wasn’t nearby or would hear her, she’d continue to jump on the bed.
Elion furrowed his brow as he listened. Not at all understanding how a story about jumping on the bed would end with her having a scar in that particular place.
“That last jump must have been my ancestors telling me to listen to my elders because my foot slipped off the side of the bed, and I fell backward through the window,” Olani stated, and Elion’s eyes widened. “A shard of glass punctured through my shorts and skin, and I landed on it. The doctor said had it not been for the denim, it would have been much deeper, but it was enough to leave me a nice scar.”
“Wow,” he stated, for lack of anything better for a moment. “I’m going to bet you never jumped on another bed.”
Olani chuckled. “I did not, but that was also the day I decided I was going to listen the first time and left all other shenanigans to Xola.”
“You and Xola are close,” he commented. He’d noticed that any stories she told about her childhood included the other woman, or she’d come up in other conversations.
“We are. We’re both only children, and our mothers are twins. So, they are extremely close, having the twin bond and all that. Xola and I grew up close, like siblings. We even lived on the same street growing up, two houses down from one another.”
“I can see that happening, being the children of twins. I’ve read that they tend to have an unbreakable bond.”
Olani took a bite of her sundae. “Tell me about it. After Xola’s dad passed a few years ago, my aunt moved in with my parents to be closer to family and have her sister’s support. My mom was all for it. Keep in mind, they still only lived two houses down from each other.” Olani finished with a playful eye roll.
Elion chuckled because he’d been wondering if they still lived in the homes Olani had just told him about. He couldn’t see himself or his sister wanting to move in with one another, and they lived on the same street. Hell, they’d both moved to different states after high school.
“I’m surprised that as close as you and Xola are you don’t live together.”
