On-Air Passion

“He’s on TV.” Shaye popped around the corner from the living room, her cocktail in hand, just as Elle turned off the blender.

“What are you talking about?” She poured her margarita into the extra-large glass with a sugar rim and took a sip. Yum. A little too much tequila, but the current situation excused it.

“Ahmed Clark. He’s on the news talking about the Garvey High school closing.” Shaye dumped a fresh bag of tortilla chips into a bowl and, hugging the bowl to her chest and her drink in one hand, made her way back into the living room. Her plush behind, in cutoff shorts, wiggled away from Elle’s sight.

Elle licked a trace of the margarita mixed with sugar crystals from her bottom lip and hummed again with pleasure. Against her will, she thought of Ahmed Clark. The tart and heady flavor of the margarita, potent as hell, was like the effect he had on her senses. Despite his bad manners, despite the not wanting to deal with him one-on-one, she couldn’t deny how much faster her heart beat in his presence, how the way he poked and prodded at her like a kid outside a tiger’s cage made her feel more energized than she had in years. She frowned. Really? Was his teasing really working on her outside of grade school? Apparently so.

Elle took a healthy sip of her drink, groaning out loud at how good the margarita tasted, how perfect for the hot summer day, and made her slow way to the living room and TV where Ahmed Clark dominated the screen.

She dropped down onto the sofa next to Shaye, who had already started on the chips, dipping them into the bowl of guacamole with one hand while lifting her drink to her lips with the other. Her friend was already Friday-afternoon tipsy.

After the flood of new business that had come in from Elle’s appearance on Ahmed’s show, she and Shaye decided to take the afternoon off for a little impromptu celebration.

From this side of the screen, it was easier to like Ahmed Clark. His chiseled and handsome face easily belonged on the big screen. The distance and the cameras amplified the energy that crackled around him when he was in any room while making his otherworldly handsomeness almost expected or commonplace. But that wasn’t exactly the word she wanted to use. The right words always escaped her where he was concerned.

“It’s criminal how he’s actually better looking in person. And sexier, too.”

Elle rolled her eyes. “He’s talking about some serious issues, Shaye. And all you can comment on is his body? You’re a mess.” As if she hadn’t just been thinking about how handsome he looked.

“I can care about educating our youth and how juicy that man is. I have no problems multitasking.”

After their meeting in Clive’s office, Elle had been too furious at her friend to speak to her. It took over twenty-four hours and an invitation to her newly purchased East Point house for Elle to agree to see Shaye. After meeting Elle at the door with the first margarita, Shaye had just kept the drinks coming. So now, at nearly two o’clock in the afternoon, they were both well and truly relaxed, both because of the drinks and because they’d managed to dodge every important topic. Until now, apparently.

“I wish you wouldn’t see him as the enemy, though,” Shaye said, managing to frown, drink her cocktail and scoop more guacamole toward her mouth at the same time.

“I don’t see him as an enemy.” On the TV screen, Ahmed Clark walked away from the cameras, his ever-present bodyguard at his side. “I admire what he’s doing. I think it’s great that he’s using his fame for something other than getting more women and more money. A lot of kids look up to him and the other celebrities talking about social justice issues. I think it’s amazing what he’s doing, getting the discussions about the needs of our community off Facebook and into our living rooms and our kitchens.”

Too bad he was such as an ass. She was dreading her so-called date with him.

“Yeah, he’s doing some amazing work with the community,” Shaye said. “And I like how it’s not all talk. He’s out there meeting with politicians and donating money, even discussing the creation of a fully funded private school for the neighborhoods affected by this latest round of school closures.”

Elle looked at Shaye. “Are you sure you shouldn’t have been the one going out on the date with him?” But even as she said it, her stomach clenched in automatic rejection of the idea. Shaye and Ahmed? No way. She didn’t look too closely at why.

“I already told you why.”

For a second, Elle thought Shaye was reading her mind. Then she remembered what her friend had said a few days before. “Yeah, you said you would just fangirl all over him, but you sound like you would love to go out with him.” Again, her stomach cramped and Elle winced.

It really did make sense for the two of them to be together. Ahmed Clark was an activist. He used his fame for good things. Shaye was also an activist. She had a soft heart and was tireless in her work for the community. Although she wore revealing clothes and had a bubbly attitude that might make some people dismiss her, of anyone Elle knew she was the perfect one for a guy like Ahmed Clark.

She was beautiful, knew how to stun with fashion, loved to party and, from all the stories she loved to tell, she loved sex. And all the things that Elle had read about Ahmed in the tabloids pointed to the fact that he loved sex, too. He certainly loved partying. And if all the stories and pictures were telling a little bit of the truth, he loved the groupies, too.

Shaye was better than any groupie. Prettier and loyal. Ahmed Clark could do worse than be with her best friend.

“Don’t try to pretend you wouldn’t want to beat me up if I ever looked twice in that man’s direction.” Shaye grinned around a mouthful of her margarita. “Open your lying mouth and tell me that you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Liar!”

Shaye fell back into the couch, laughing, and somehow miraculously managed not to spill her drink. After a long time, long enough that it was obvious she was a little tipsy, her face became serious.

“I know you like him, Elle. And it’s okay, even if you’re not ready to admit it to yourself yet. I would never do that to you.”

They didn’t have any kind of girl code. Everyone who knew the two of them knew Shaye was the one who had fun and had men while Elle was the one who stayed home and worked hard and sometimes dated but mostly kept to herself.

Elle blushed, thinking of how desperate she must seem to Shaye, then got over herself. They were more than just friends; they were sisters against the world. Nothing was too intimate, and nothing was off-limits for them. Even when she was mad at Shaye, she loved the damn woman. All the parts of her were open to Shaye—the desperate, the loyal, the petty, plus the good things, too. And she was slowly coming to realize that it wasn’t desperate to lust after a hot guy, even if he was anything but nice. If women only fell for nice guys, 90 percent of the male population would’ve wandered off to die in the desert by now.

Elle shook her head. “You know that’s nothing. Ahmed is nice, but nothing’s happening between us.”