Old Friends (Janet and Toni Fanfic)

Chapter 57

Toni

It was nearly 10 pm and we'd finally finished getting everything out of my house and into hers. I was ridiculously exhausted, but thankfully after a good meal and talking to Jan, the fatigue was mostly physical. Now, as I haphazardly threw some of my clothes into a suitcase for Hawaii, I could finally be excited about it. She wanted us to leave as soon as we could, meaning tomorrow afternoon, and since she'd recently purchased a cute little bungalow in Maui, the trip took little to no planning on our end. That was a perk of being with Janet Jackson.

As I sat scrolling through my phone, I had not until then noticed that my social media was swarmed with questions as to why I didn't go on tour with Face. Everything had happened so fast that I didn't even realize that the show was in full swing now, and he was out there putting it all on by himself. He seemed to be doing okay, from what I could see online, but people were not happy about my absence. If only they knew.

"Whatcha doing?" Janet asked as she emerged from the bathroom in her pajamas, fresh-faced and smelling like lavender a little. She got on her side of the bed and scooched close enough to look at my screen.

"This tour I was supposed to be on... I wanted to see how it was going. Not bad."

"Oh."

"What?" I glanced over at her for a second, then looked back at the headline plastered on my screen:

Toni Braxton Calls It Quits on International Tour with BabyFace.

"That picture of me is so bad. They always choose the worst pictures," I muttered.

"Toni Michele, don't start," she warned. "It's a tabloid."

"But for once, it's correct, and that's me, alright. Looking like I just saw a ghost."

"Toni," she called.

"Yes?" I kept scrolling.

"Look at me."

I turned my neck to the side to meet Janet's disapproving face.

"You can't say that's a flattering shot, Jan!"

She pursed her lips and didn't say anything else. I sighed and went back to what I was doing.

"Give me your phone," she finally said.

"Why?"

"You can't seem to stop worrying about what the press is doing, so—"

"No. I'm on it. Haven't checked it all day."

Janet crawled onto my lap and held onto my wrists. "I know how to make you give it up, but I don't want to resort to that." She eyed me carefully.

"Where do you get all these little numbers from?" I checked out her body clad in a scanty sleep short set that was tight and low-riding. I enjoyed it very much.

"Don't worry about it."

I gave her my phone and she set it on the nightstand before pulling my glasses gently off of my face.

I sighed and ran my hands up her body.

"What?" She asked, grabbing them in hers and interlacing our fingers.

"Nothing."

I kept thinking about the call with Tamar about my mother, the fact that she thought I was so spiteful I couldn't even answer her, when we clearly had some things to talk about. I wanted to return the call, but then thought maybe it would be better to address it after our trip when my mind might be clearer. And frankly, I was out of time now. Our flight was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. It was too late to call tonight. So all of it would just have to wait, like Janet initially told me almost a week ago. It was crazy how she was always right.