again.

She held her phone above her face as she scrolled through her Instagram feed.

It was pictures of couples, college acceptance letters and people going on vacations that they actually wanted to be on.

Basically all the things that Ayoluwa wanted but couldn't achieve at this point in her life.

Joshua was outside, presumably on a jet ski, Ayoluwa didn't know.

And she didn't care.

She had tried to be cordial, she had tried to compromise but Joshua seemed to be holding steadfast to his grudge.

If it wasn't for the promise of the bed in three days, Ayoluwa would've already told Joshua to fuck off and not to bother her about cooking the rest of the time they were here.

Ayoluwa turned onto her side to look at the songbook resting on the ottoman.

She was so far from the love song she wanted to achieve.

She had no problem writing any other song but this was truly stumping her.

Ayoluwa sat up, throwing the thick blanket off of her.

"The melody's wrong, the lyrics are wrong..." Ayoluwa muttered as she went to the last song she had written.

The page was titled Overgrown and as Ayoluwa started to hum Put That On Everything by Brandy as she prepared to rip it out.

But as she reread the chorus, Ayoluwa sighed.

"I'll just give it to Lauryn." Ayoluwa said to herself.

There was a grunt from outside making Ayoluwa turn sharply towards the window.

Joshua was making his way into the home, hopping on one foot, only in a pair of swim shorts and a look of pain on his face.

Part of Ayoluwa wanted to ask what was wrong with his right foot but the bigger part of her told Ayoluwa to ignore him.

You'll get more peace that way.

Joshua's right foot nudged the legs of the table as he sat down and he winced, "Shit!"

"What's wrong with you?" Ayoluwa walked into the kitchen to see Joshua's foot dripping blood from a long semi deep cut on the heel of his foot.

"What happened?" Ayoluwa asks, her eyes still on his foot.

Joshua grit his teeth for a second, "Someone was on the pier yesterday and they left broken beer bottles. I cut the fuck out of my foot."

Ayoluwa nodded then went to collect the first aid kit from the bathroom on the first floor.

When she came back, Joshua's eyes widened, "What are you gonna do with that?"

"To start," Ayoluwa put the first aid kit on the table, "I'm gonna pick out the glass, clean it, then if I'm gonna see if you need me to sew it up, if not I'm gonna bandage it."

"You don't know what you're doing," Joshua said as she extended his foot gently to rest in her lap, "Stop! Ow, fuck, Palmer!"

"Stop yelling so damn much. I've done this a million times," Ayoluwa said as she grabbed a pair of tweezers to begin plucking the small pieces of glass from his foot.

Once Ayoluwa had determined she gotten them all, she cleaned the long cut on the heel of his foot with the antiseptic.

Joshua grew quiet, his face still twitching somewhat from pain.

Ayoluwa could feel Joshua's gaze on her as she looked through the kit for a bandage large enough for his wound.

Ayoluwa silently wrapped the heel and side of his foot tightly with white gauze then slowly put his foot on the ground.

"You didn't cook today," Joshua noted.

Ayoluwa let out a sarcastic laugh, "Yeah, well, I wasn't hungry."

"It's supposed to be for both of us. That's part of the deal." Joshua pointed out.

"Oh is it?" Ayoluwa started to pack up the first aid kit.

"You must not have liked the bed that much then," Joshua let out a sigh making Ayoluwa glance at him then continue what she was doing.

She felt sorry for her past actions, but she was not about to let anyone walk all over her without a fight.

"I know you don't wanna be here with me. You think that I wanna be here with you? We're stuck here together. It wouldn't kill you to show me a little kindness every once in awhile. I'm missing a lot being here. I'm stuck here with you while my sister is probably fucking everything I've built, up," Ayoluwa's eyes grew wet from anger and sadness from missing Lauryn.

"I know you don't care and I'm not asking for you to care. But if you can't be mature enough to cohabitate for two months, the least you could do is be decent enough to leave me the fuck alone. You have a lot of nerve being rude and then asking for some shit."

Ayoluwa wiped her irises then snapped, "Okay?"

Joshua was giving her a surprised look at her outburst, obviously not used to being spoken this way.

"Look, I'm... I'm uh sorry for how I spoke to you." Joshua said after a moment, rubbed the back of his neck, his tone gentler than she had ever heard before, "I was frustrated and I took it out on you. It's my bad."

Ayoluwa peered at him for a second, unsure if the apology is genuine.

"You need to change the cut with gauze every couple of hours so it doesn't become infected. And stay off of it as much as you can." Ayoluwa chose to say instead, snapped the box closed and turned to walk away.

Joshua's hand closing itself around her wrist, "Wait. Wait. Palmer."

Ayoluwa hesitantly turned back towards him, dropped her eyes on the wrist he was holding, then back up to his face.

"Uh, thanks for helping with my foot. I don't know, um, what I've would've done if you weren't here." Joshua's sentence had long pauses in between his words and his tone was low.

"You're welcome." Ayoluwa said.

Joshua released her and Ayoluwa could still feel his eyes on her as she excused herself to the basement.

okay NOW the lovey dovey stuff is coming, I promise lmao

vote & comment, porfa!