[𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐍]

𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐄, 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐀

really good job. I even invited her into my room to pay her for it.

"Here." I went inside my wallet and pulled out two fifties.

"Nah, I can't take that," she said, holding her hand up.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow, not quite believing her.

"Nope!" She snatched the two fifties and put them in her sweatpants pocket.

I went in my drawer and got a durag that went with what I was wearing, and tied it on my head, tucking in the flap.

"Thank you," Paris expressed.

"No problem."

As I got my things ready for school, which was the next day, Paris took the opportunity to roam around my room and started asking questions, most of which she knew the answer to.

"What's this?"

"A heating pad."

"What's this?"

"My chain."

She picked up a picture of me when I was five.

"Who's this?"

"Me."

"No way," she gasped theatrically.

"Way," I pressed.

She then went in the drawer the picture was on top of. Paris pulled out a brown box with a lock on it,

where I kept all my personal, sentimental things.

"Can you not?" I asked and approached her to take the box.

"Not what? What's in here? Gold? Just know, if there's gold, I'm willing to be a sugar baby."

"Funny," I muttered, taking the box, then walking away to my closet.

"What's in there, rudeness?" Paris probed.

"Nothing of your concern," I replied, putting the box on a closet shelf.

She gasped. "Ohhh, I see. You're one of those," she said quietly.

"What?" I asked her, curious to know her theory.

"Nothing, I'm just going to go." She stalked past me with a smug smile. "Bye, your highness."

"Your highness?" I muttered to myself and then realized. "No, no, no, no, no. It's not what you think! You're way far off." I went into the hallway to stop Paris before her thoughts got the best of her. It seemed too late for that, though.

Paris leaned the side of her body in the doorway of her room, her arms crossed. "London, it's okay, I get it." She touched my shoulder lightly. "Seriously, I do. People need a smoke now and then. It's understandable."

"No, Paris, I don't smoke. Cigarettes, vapes, weed, marijuana, whatever you want to call it — I don't smoke."

"Mm-hm, right." I sighed. "Just tell me what's in the box." Why did she have to be so damn difficult?! "Are you trying to hit it or what?"

"There's no weed."

"Anyways, are you sharing?"

"There. Is. No. Weed." I had to put every word in their own sentence, though for Paris, they would go in one ear and out the other.

"So what's in there?" Damn her relentlessness.

"Paris–"

She began walking past me. "I'll just look by myself," she said by the time she was in my room.

Quickly, I went after her and grabbed her by her arm, a little too roughly. I was surprised that Paris didn't really move, though. And so, I had to pick her up by her legs, put her over my shoulder, and carry her out of my room to her.

She kept hitting my back, yelling at me to put her down, while also laughing.

"If you wanted to show me your ass, you could've just said that!"

I bowed to put Paris down on the floor of her room, lying her on her back. I saw the challenge in her eyes, she tried to get up and I pinned her down, sitting on top of her stomach, while also trying not to hurt her.

"Get off!" Her laughing did not stop. I shook my head no. "Please! I won't go or ask what's in the box!"

"Promise?" I checked.

"Promise, now get off!" I removed myself so Paris could get up. "Now what if I was pregnant and you didn't know? You could've killed my baby, sitting on my stomach and all."

"First of all, why is this said baby in your stomach?"

"Where else is the baby supposed to be?" She asked this as if she wasn't the one who sounded daft.

"Your uterus." I was honestly genuinely concerned. "If this said baby was in your stomach, it'd be dead already, whether I sit on you or not. You know that, right? It's important to me that you know that."

"I knew that," she lied. I would pretend she was telling the truth, though.

"M'Kay," I concluded and turned to walk out.

"One day I will find out what's in that box, London," was the last thing Paris said.