Hidden Desire

Chapter 3

"We need to get ready," Jade said.

"It's two in the afternoon. Dinner isn't until seven."

It was finally my twenty-first birthday. Jade and I were taking it easy in order to save energy for tonight. She'd made me breakfast, and we'd ordered sushi for lunch. We were going to dinner with my parents, Val and Reggie, before we went to the club. I'd given a guest list to Reggie, and he'd rented out the VIP section of Addiction. It was one of the newer clubs in town and was highly exclusive.

"And it's going to take hours to turn you into a birthday princess."

"Rude. I could go just like I am and still be a princess." Jade rolled her eyes at me.

"What are you doing with your hair?"

"It needs to be washed." I had three c curls, which meant they needed a lot of management and care. "It'll take me about an hour and a half to do everything I need to do to it. I'll shower first, shave and exfoliate- that'll take thirty minutes. Thirty minutes for my makeup and ten to get dressed. Means I need less than three hours to get ready."

"And we need to order a car at six to get to the other side of town on time for your dinner reservation."

"Thirty more minutes," I whined, not wanting to get out of bed. We'd been binging true crime stories on streaming services all day. It was our guilty pleasure.

"One more episode," she said.

"Hit play."

Jade and I lost ourselves in the newest mystery, which wasn't actually all that different from the other ones. No wonder more and more women were choosing to stay single; men could be terrifying. It was always the husband or boyfriend- aways.

As the credits rolled, reminding us that actors had been portraying the crime, which I never understood why they did. Of course it was actors. Who would actually believe that film crew followed a husband into the woods as he was trying to dispose of his wife's body? As they were rolling, Jade ordered me into the shower.

"Yes, mom," I rolled my eyes at her.

"Don't sass me," she said.

"It's my birthday. I'll do whatever I want." She laughed at me but didn't counter.

Walking into the bathroom, I grabbed my shower cap. I couldn't wash my hair in the shower; the humidity was too damaging, and excess water wasn't good for it.

I took my time shaving and washing my body. Climbing out, I moisturised from head to toe and wrapped myself in a soft robe.

Taking my sower cap off, I let the water run on the sink and made it lukewarm. Bending over at the sink, I washed it and conditioned it, letting the conditioning mask sink in a little while. Once it was rinsed, I wrapped it in a microfiber towel so that it wouldn't have too much frizz. Managing my hair was such hard work, but I absolutely loved my curls. I'd hated them when I was younger. I was the only one at school with curls like mine, and they'd always made me feel different. It was only in the last few years that I realised how beautiful they were. My mama always told me they were, but it had taken me years to believe her.

Once my hair was still mostly damp, but no longer dripping, I added an array of products- a natural oil that was infused with lavender, a curl defining mousse and last, a whipped butter gel. All the products were lightweight and wouldn't weigh my curls down. Once I'd had the products added, I grabbed the blow dryer and the diffuser attachments and started blow-drying it with cool air. It took so long because I had so much hair. It fell to my shoulders in its curly form, but on the extremely rare occasions I had it relaxed, it fell nearly to my waist. I liked the way I looked with it relaxed too, but it was so easy to damage it like that. It wasn't worth the risk, especially when it took so long to grow.