Love Notes (Equilibrium Book 1)

by Christina C Jones

  “First of all, she’s not a bitch, and you need to watch out calling her that. Second, how the fuck do you know my goddamn business? I didn’t talk about that shit with you.”

  She smirked. “Your homeboy Monty. All he needed was a couple of drinks, and he called himself trying to comfort me by giving me this information when I asked him what the hell was wrong with you.”

  “Why does it matter to you, Mia? Your ass swore up and down you didn’t want anything serious, but you’re still acting pressed about it! It was a year ago! Are you really on this “if I can’t have you nobody can” shit? That’s really what you’re about?”

  “Maybe so,” she hissed, eyes narrowed. “I know you took her home the night Dani sang at UG, I saw her all in your face sharing pastries, and I saw you coming out of her little dumb ass “studio” last week, grinning like you won the fucking lottery. What does she have that I don’t? She isn’t even that cute, Troy.”

  “See now you’re just lying,” I chuckled, stepping around her to continue on my way. Whatever her reasons were for this bullshit, I honestly didn’t even care. I didn’t have time for it.

  “Troy,” Mia pleaded behind me, sounding just pitiful enough that I stopped one last time. “You know this is messed up, right? I really liked your ass. When I thought you were really looking for a wife or something, it was whatever. I wasn’t tripping about it. But now you’re all over this chick that just got here? It’s… whatever. Screw you, Troy.”

  I let her have the last word.

  Partly because I didn’t feel like arguing anyway, and partly because… it seemed like she needed it. She probably wanted me to say it wasn’t her, that it was me. But it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t her.

  Shit between us just… wasn’t.

  There wasn’t anybody to blame, and I wasn’t about to shoulder it just to make her feel better. Especially when she’d been getting along just fine until I gave Jules some attention. That was her shit to bear, not mine.

  Still, when I made it to the barbershop I was annoyed. So annoyed that as soon as Monty popped his gossiping ass up, I pulled him aside to fill him in on Mia’s little street confrontation.

  “Hey man, that was months ago,” he told me, trying to defend himself from my annoyance at him telling business I knew better than to share with him anyway. “She approached me, all teary and shit, asking what was up with you, talking all kinds of craziness about why you ain’t want her. So I cleared it up, and it was cool. I ain’t know it was supposed to be a secret, bruh, my bad. Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, we rooting for you!”

  I scoffed. “Dude – Mia was not rooting for me outside on the street this morning when she called Jules out of her name. She’s using it as ammo, dummy.”

  “I said my bad,” he shrugged. Then, a grin spread across his face. “No lie though – Mia ain’t a bad problem to have. You think she’ll fight Jules over you?”

  “It’s not a problem I want – this is the drama and shit I wanted left behind me. I’m not checking for Mia, and nothing is even happening with me and Jules. I think she’s dope, that’s it. There’s not about to be a girl fight.”

  “Well just kill my dreams why don’t you?” Monty shook his head, moving past me to the door of the office. “That’s what you on now, dream killing?”

  “Man, just get out there and cut some hair, and don’t tell Mia shit else about me. Matter of fact, don’t tell anybody anything about me. They wanna know, they can ask me.”

  “I got you man, lips sealed.”

  Yeah, whatever.

  Once he was gone, I blew out a sigh. When it came down to it, it was still my bad for sharing those thoughts with my immature ass friends anyway. Of course they thought it was funny – they found women they wanted to have their children, women they would hurt somebody over, and still took the shit for granted, like it was promised.

  It wasn’t.

  But, I wasn’t trying to be on this moody stuff right now, so I pushed it from my mind in favor of getting ready for the day instead. By the time I joined the main area of the shop, I was in a better headspace, and able to fall right into the normal groove. Because of the weather, it was a little quieter than usual, but not enough that we didn’t still have a steady flow of activity from people coming in and going out.

  Jules stepped in during a lull in the afternoon.

  She didn’t seek me out immediately. She stood in the door for a second, observing, looking sunny enough to alter the weather in a yellow jacket and gray floral rain boots.

  “Heyyy, there’s that pretty face again,” one of the old heads called out, bringing that beautiful smile to her face. “You come to take some more pictures? I just got fresh for you baby girl, I’m ready!”

  “Not today Mr. Edgar,” she purred, undoubtedly making his day. “Actually…” she turned her attention for him to where I was standing, meeting my eyes. “I was hoping your chair was free.”

  Considering the fact that I was sitting in it, not doing shit… “Yeah,” I told her, getting up. “You really trust me like that, to let me touch your hair?”

  “Gotta trust someone eventually, right?” she asked as she approached, stopping right in front of the chair I’d moved to stand behind. “Can’t be out here looking scruffy.”

  I laughed as she took a seat, for me to put a strip around her neck and wrap her in a cape. “I’m not sure “scruffy” is even possible for you.”

  “Uhh, you see this, don’t play,” she laughed as I turned her toward the mirror, reaching up to run her fingers through the short coils at the side of her head – coils that replaced the detailed fade that had first drawn my attention to her that night at the coffee house. It definitely wasn’t the same look as before, but I wouldn’t call it “scruffy” at all.

  “I got you. You need a wash first?”

  She moaned a little as she angled her head in my direction instead of looking at me in the mirror. “Oooh, as good as it sounds to have you massaging my scalp, I already tackled that last night. Maybe next time though?”

  “Oh, shit, you’re confident enough in my clippers to be planning for next time, huh?” I asked, pulling out a hair pick to slide through her coils.

  “Just trying to give you a little confidence boost, you know?

  “Okay gas me up then,” I chuckled. “You have a particular design or anything in mind?”

  “Nah, just do your thing, barber man. Whatever you think suits me.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Well damn, that’s a lot of pressure.”

  “You can handle it though. Come on. Let’s go. I have a shoot in like two hours, don’t make me late.”

  “Nah,” I picked up my trimmers to start with a clean canvas by shaping around her hairline first. “I’ll have you out much quicker than that. Tell me about your shoot though, what you got going on?”

  “I will be shooting the lovely ladies over at Mane Event. I had to schedule around patrons who were willing to be photographed while their hair wasn’t completely laid yet,” she laughed. “Not even gonna lie – I probably would’ve been one of those who didn’t want to be in the pictures. I just hope they turn out okay with the weather. I won’t be able to get the light I wanted to get, but rescheduling would be a nightmare.”

  “Uh… yeah. I can imagine.”

  I kept my eyes focused on her hair while I wondered about the practicality of giving her a little warning about Mia, since she was apparently on some bullshit. The problem was, I didn’t want to give Jules the wrong impression – that I thought something was going on between us, or that I was the type of man to stir up drama between women. “Warning” her could definitely go left, when I wasn’t even sure it was worth it. Just because Mia was being cagey with me, didn’t mean it would extend to Jules.

  So I kept my damn mouth shut about it.

  “That’s dope though,” I told her, picking up my much smaller detail trimmer to draw out the design I was doing. “This still part of your “Home” series?”

&
nbsp; “Yep. And points to you for remembering that.”

  “Why would I forget?” I asked, and then looked up to find her staring at me in the mirror, wearing an expression I couldn’t read.

  “I don’t know. Just wasn’t expecting it. Something being important to me doesn’t make it important to anyone else. People have their own shit.”

  I shrugged, then put the trimmers back to her head. “True, but… it’s a little self-centered to just not remember things about people. Not everything obviously, but come on – nobody has that much going on that they can’t absorb shit. Unless they just don’t care, which is a whole other thing.”

  “Are you saying that you care, Troy?”

  “Huh?”

  Jules burst into giggles while I switched trimmers again, giving myself the perfect excuse to delay answering that question – or just ignoring it, period. I couldn’t believe I’d walked myself right into that shit.

  “Okay, so I’m not even gonna leave you on the spot by repeating that question,” she said, amusement lighting her eyes as she caught my gaze in the mirror. “I’ll ask a different invasive question instead – did you decide what you were going to do about the ancestry test?”

  “Well shit, that’s easy,” I told her. “Sent it off two days ago. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “Yesss! I’m so glad you did it! How long are the results supposed to take? It’s really just like, your ethnic breakdown right? Unless you have matches that signed up for the service too?”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m looking at. Fingers crossed.”

  “Definitely. I’m really excited for you. You’d better let me know about those results too, don’t try to get shy and secretive on me. That pretty ass dark skin, I just know you’re eighty-five percent German, or Italian, or French, Spanish, something. One of the spicy whites, not just regular.”

  “Yo – what is wrong with you?” I laughed, pulling the trimmers away so I wouldn’t mess up her hair while I was cracking up.

  “Whaaat?” she giggled. “I’m serious about you letting me know your results though.”

  “Oh, bet. Already planned on it.”

  “Good. Don’t make me have to come looking for you.”

  I gave her a smirk in response to that as I stepped back, giving her a slight turn so she could see her hair in the mirror. “Oh you’ll be looking for me aiight, but it won’t be about that. It’ll be cause can’t nobody else touch your hair.”

  “Oh my God,” she burst out, loud enough that the whole shop looked in our direction. And I didn’t mind being under that spotlight one bit, because I knew I’d hooked her up. Her mouth stayed open as she ran her fingers over the flower and leaves I’d outlined and then used varying hair lengths to essentially “color” it in, using fading to get a gradient effect. “Are you serious?” she whispered, angling her head back and forth to see, until I held up a second mirror for her to see how the design wrapped around the back.

  “You thought it was gonna be wack?” I asked, laughing as I brushed the stray hair from her head and face.

  She shook her head, still staring at herself in the mirror. “I knew it wouldn’t be wack, but I didn’t know it would be like this. Wow. How much do I owe you?”

  “Not a thing,” I said, waving her off after I’d removed the cape, and she reached into her bag for her wallet. “I owed you, remember?”

  Jules sucked her teeth. “Troy, no. I can’t not pay for this.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t really have a choice, mama. Don’t you have a shoot to go get ready for? Why you sitting here arguing?”

  “You’re right – and that’s the only reason I’m letting this go. For now.”

  “If you say so,” I shot back, as she stood, rounding the chair to approach me.

  “Thank you,” she said, after she’d stared at me for a few seconds – so long that I wondered what she was doing. “I’ll see you later. Have a good one.”

  “You do the same.”

  She bit down on her lip before she finally turned away, leaving the distinct impression that the exchange hadn’t quite gone how she wanted. I watched her leave, not realizing until after the door closed behind her that half the shop was looking in my direction.

  “What?” I asked, and was answered with a round of laughter and shaking heads that I ignored while I cleaned up my station. I didn’t know how that exchange looked to outside eyes, but it had felt… shit.

  So damn comfortable.

  And I wasn’t sure I minded.

  Seven.

  It was raining again.

  For the last two weeks, the weather had been hurting my feelings with the on-again/off-again approach to sunny days. I thrived in warmth and sun – was way more affected than I wanted to be by dreary skies and wet sidewalks. But, all I could do was hope that once this system passed, all the rain would give new things the energy they needed to bloom.

  I had to be optimistic about something.

  If only pessimism weren’t so damn easy. It was honestly difficult to feel anything else as I clicked through the not-so-great pictures on my screen. Mostly, they were fine, but I didn’t operate on “fine”, preferring instead to set my sights on Troy’s descriptor of choice – brilliant.

  These pictures, the ones from the salon, weren’t that.

  I’d been staring at them for days now, trying to figure out where exactly things had gone wrong. Sure, the lighting could’ve been better, but that was one thing I’d actually just made the best of, by letting the cloudy day be part of the setting, instead of fighting against it. The rain on the windows became a backdrop, and a shot of one of the stylists taking extra care to protect her client with a rain bonnet before she left was one of my absolute favorite shots.

  It was the shit I hadn’t considered that tanked the whole experience.

  Like, the fact that half the shop was giving me this weird vibe from the time I walked in, as if I’d done something to them. I brushed it off, thinking maybe it was just nerves about having a camera put in their face. Everybody reacted differently, so I opted not to take it personally.

  Until Mia walked in.

  Obviously, I hadn’t known her name at first, but I recognized the face. Skin a few shades lighter than mine, high cheekbones, pretty features complimented by a sleek bob – this was the same woman who’d given me a sour look that day I’d run into Troy at f.w.b., and she was giving me the same sour ass attitude now, cutting her eyes, huffing and puffing every time I got near her or turned the camera remotely in her direction.

  I didn’t even know this girl, but it was clear she had a problem with me that I didn’t understand – a problem she’d evidently shared with her little posse in the back corner of the shop. They whispered and giggled and rolled eyes, but couldn’t seem to simply ignore me, if my presence was that much of a bother. I wasn’t fazed by it in a “hurt feelings” kinda way, but more like a “why are you bitches ruining the vibe” kinda way, that made it hard to just get lost in the atmosphere and capture it with my lens.

  So annoying.

  “I wonder what Troy is doing right now,” Mia said, her voice suddenly way louder than it needed to be, making it clear she wanted to be heard. “Probably somewhere with Mia on the brain, like always.”

  She wanted me to react – a satisfaction I would never give her based on any passive-aggressive bullshit. I kept snapping away, like I didn’t even hear her silly ass, because I wasn’t trying to. Troy was a grown, single man, who could do what he wanted to do.

  Sucked for her that I was what he wanted to do.

  When I didn’t give her any attention, she got louder, launching into a graphic retelling of the last time she and Troy had been together, at his place. I kept it cool on the outside, but on the inside, I couldn’t front – it irritated me to hear her telling the whole shop the things he’d done to her. Not because I cared about him screwing her – because he hadn’t done those things to me…

  Yet.

  “Okay Mi
a, we get it, damn,” one of the other stylists, Andrea, said. She was friends with Anika, and had been the one I approached about coming in to do this in the first place. Nik was no blabbermouth, so I doubted defending me was anywhere on Andrea’s agenda – she was just sick of Mia. Her face was wrinkled in obvious irritation. “This overly-detailed ass story sounds like some shit you found in the erotica section on Amazon, and don’t front like your little Kindle don’t be poppin’, because that would be a lie.”

  Mia rolled her eyes. “Girl, whatever. No need to read about it when you can actually get a man to do it. What, has it been a while for you?”

  Andrea stopped what she was doing as the shop went quiet, everybody wondering what was next. “First of all, men aren’t exactly discerning when it comes to ass, so please don’t act like getting one to screw you is some special skill. Second, I get plenty of sex and I read plenty of sex too. I like to keep up with the trends, bitch. And third – didn’t Troy quit your little silly ass like a year ago, and you’re still telling stories about him? That’s sad, huh?”

  I almost choked on my own tongue trying not to laugh – a sound that was luckily swallowed by the reactions of the others in the salon as Mia’s face flushed red. For a second, I felt bad for her, but then I remembered that she’d embarrassed herself trying to make me uncomfortable.

  And for what?

  There technically wasn’t even anything going on between me and Troy, at least nothing for her to be pissy about. Sure, we’d slept together, but that was almost a month ago at this point. Since then, our interactions had been friendly – sexually charged, but still. As far as she could possibly know, Troy and I were friends. And not to mention, I wasn’t one to compete over a man – if she wanted to have a pissing contest, she would have it alone.

  I left shortly after that, with Andrea laughing in Mia’s face while another stylist tried to calm the situation down. I found myself fighting off an unfair level of annoyance at Troy, even though I knew it wasn’t his fault. I’d told him I was going to the salon though – he could’ve warned me about his crazy ex.