Page 49 of The HalloQueen

I couldn’t hide the smile that swept across my face that I quickly tried to school.

ANNABEL:WTF is Bouillabaisse, Frenchie?

TOMMY:Fish stew. I’m going to head to the market in a bit and I thought it looked interesting.

ANNABEL:I can literally eat cereal, you don’t have to try so hard.

TOMMY:Bels.

ANNABEL:Tommy.

TOMMY:See you at home for some supposedly delicious French fish stew.

I laughed and shook my head and then reread his last message. See me at home? Home. Like our home? It wasmyhome, notourhome. It was little things like that that as soon as we were separated for the day caused my anxiety to spike and I began to feel insecure about our arrangement. I furrowed my brow and answered.

ANNABEL:Sure, I’ll meet you back at my place.

I stepped back out into the lobby, “Are you and Trae serious?” I asked Shannon with no warning.

Her head shot up from her phone, “Uh, what?”

I nodded at her phone, “The dude you’re sexting on the clock - are you guys serious? How long are you with someone before you start deciding things are serious?”

She looked at me bewilderedly, “What the fuck are you talking about, Bels?” Her phone dinged again in her head, “Also, this is my ex bitching about the girls’ quantity and quality of socks, as if he is incapable of purchasing socks on his own, so I’m definitely not experiencing any sexual pleasure from this exchange. But I can totally let Trae know you’re cool with it if you want?”

I sighed, leaning against the door jam, “How long after you and Jake got together did you guys move in together?”

“I mean, we were in college. I basically moved into his room the first night we had sex.”

“Okay, so it’s not totally weird-”

“I didn’t say that,” she spoke slowly, navigating the minefield of a conversation, “we were 18, not 30. We were not making any decisions past ‘Human pretty. Sex good. Bang bang long time. It was entirely a caveman kind of thing. There was some obvious lack of frontal cortex development happening.”

I grunted and nodded, “Okay. Good talk.”

“What did Thomas do? Two hours ago you were all ‘this is fine!’” She yelled after me.

“Nothing. Everything’s fine.” I shot her a smug grin and headed into the filming room with another lingerie set.

“What are you doing?” She jumped up and came towards the filming room where I was already removing my clothing to slip on the rich purple body suit.

“I’m filming, what’s it look like?”

“And you making a thirst trap right now, in this very moment, with zero relation at all to the French man we were previously discussing?”

Shrugging, I lifted my breasts into place in the cups, making sure the snake heads were over my nipples, “It’s my body. It’s not like he owns it. We aren’t in a relationship of any kind.”

She crossed her arms, “are you proving a point about something or trying to sabotage a good thing?”

I shook out my hair, “I can’t suddenly stop posting thirst traps. It’s part of my brand. Big is sexy. I am sexy. Buy my clothes and you can be sexy too. It’s a whole thing. Confidence!”

“Mmmhmmm, and while I usually support that 100%, you don’t typically interrupt Jake yelling at me about socks to question my relationship experience looking like you’ve seen the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come.”

“Dude, how often are you and Jake fighting about socks?” She and her ex had been divorced for a long time and he seemed to become more of a pain in her ass instead of less as time went on.

Shannon snarled, “that man could fight about anything.”

I moved to zip up the black pleated mini skirt and attached a snake chain at the hip. “Thigh highs?” I asked.

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