To Caress My Day

At this point, Amira had been struggling to get the 8th layer of the cake onto the 7th layer when entire project began to shake. She saw it happening from her position sitting on the island counter and was now hovering her arms around the cake to keep it from falling either which way. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! SOMEBODY HELP ME HERE!”

“Oh hell no!” Seth hoisted himself onto the counter to rescue her, knocking the carton of eggs and the butter off the counter and onto the floor. He used two spatulas to try and keep it from falling towards him while Amira grabbed her another pair to do the same thing so that she wouldn’t contaminate the cake either with her hands. Together they watched with wide eyes as the cake swayed back and forth between them. Simone, Twigs and the rest of Neon Jungle went scurrying to different corners of the kitchen, their backs pressed against the counter and their hands covering their mouth in wide eyed suspense and fear. Everyone was too afraid to say anything in case their breath might be what pushes the tower cake over the edge, and with all the time they spent creating it, they had grown to cherish the tall delicious treat with a kind of prideful success.

“We need to keep it balanced somehow!” Seth told Amira even though he knew they could only keep it up for so long before it would eventually get out of their hands and collapse on one of them. Once the tower began to lean swiftly towards Amira, she let out a squeal of fright. She saw that the time had finally come and that the cake had decided where it would fall, on her. Amira quickly moved out of the way and ditched the idea of protecting the tower altogether to allow it to fall wherever it decided to go…which was right on Jess and Asami, who were huddled together behind Amira before she hopped out of the way. They managed to let out a scream before it came falling down onto them. Seth sat on the counter in horror as his creation fell apart in pieces on the floor.

Amira had a look of guilt on her face and was biting her lip as Jess and Asami sat on the floor with their backs against the lower cupboards, surrounded by chunks of rainbow colored cake. “Oh my god you guys, I’m so fucking sorry! Are…are you okay?”

The rest of the girls rushed over to a silent Jess and Asami, and knelt down beside them to check and make sure they hadn’t been harmed. Amira was the last to join them, and together they fussed over the safety of their friends until a handful of cake came flying right into Amira’s face, forcing her to fall back on her butt. Twigs and Simone let out a gasp of surprise, while Shereen burst out laughing at what Jess and Asami had done to Amira as an act of revenge. She was clutching her stomach when a three chunks of cake came smashing her right in the head and unfortunately got caught up in her massive curly hair.

“Are you guys fucking kidding me!? You got in my hair!” Shereen shouted before she reached over with blind anger to grab as many handfuls of cake as she could and began throwing them like a mad woman at EVERYONE. Seth watched with amusement from a safe distance as the girls began to squeal and laugh throughout a hail storm of a delicious cake food fight before deciding to take taking cover in a separate room entirely.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Long after the food fight, and after getting caught by Mrs. Guadalupe, and being forced to clean up the mess under the watchful eyes of her, they finally got a chance at a long hot shower before they all headed back downstairs to relax in the living room together with glasses of champagne. Seth played a slow jazz song on his piano as the women talked amongst each other. Twigs was surprised that her friends had brought their own pajamas, but was quickly informed that her boyfriend had urged them to stay the night for her, and so they did. Soon enough the conversation changed to their exes.

“You guys won’t believe who I saw yesterday.” Simone told them with a mischievous smile on her face.

Amira raised an eyebrow in question. “Who did you see? An ex-boyfriend?”

Simone was surprised she guessed right, and nodded to confirm. “Yeah, how did you know?”

Amira shrugged confidently. “I don’t know. The atmosphere is just calling for the conversation topic to be centered about our lowlife exes, I guess.”

Simone rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I saw Asami’s ex-boyfriend in a café before I left to visit family.”

Asami gasped and almost choked on her drink. “Are you kidding me!? Why didn’t you tell me that before when we were on vacation?”

Simone shrugged. “I don’t know! I was with my family. I don’t think about your former fuck boys when I’m with my family.”

“Which ex-boyfriend was it?” Jess asked, taking a sip from her glass.

Shereen began to giggle with excitement. “Oh my god, was it that weird guy that would fawn over you and tell you he loved you every time he got drunk. Man, that guy was so weird, especially hearing that shit on your first date?”

Twigs nodded as she took a sip from her glass. “He seriously was. I’m so glad you didn’t stay with him after that. He was just too creepy it would make anyone feel uncomfortable being in your situation.”

“Exactly why I left him. I didn’t remember much about what happened the next morning after we all got black out drunk, but judging by your reactions towards him, I just knew something was seriously off and that something must have happened when I was drinking.” Asami recalled with a cringe. The girls couldn’t agree more and continued on sharing stories about regretful relationships they had made in the past. Once the subject of exes began to reach an ending, Jess thought it would be a good idea to include Seth in on their conversation.

“What about you, Mr. MacFarlane?” Seth looked up from the keys and raised an eyebrow in question since he hadn’t been listening in on their girl talk. “Can you share with us one of your exe stories?” Jess asked sweetly.

Immediately the image of Avery Jenkins popped up in his mind, and made his stomach drop with regret. Out of all the women he’d been with Avery was the most complicated, and a manipulative woman that he had ever been associated with. Her past actions left a bad taste in his mouth that forced him to take a sip out of his glass, before returning his fingers back to the piano keys. “Uh yeah sure. There was this woman I…dated before. Everything was nice at first until she…decided to leave me for her dream career, I guess. The end.”

His story wouldn’t have been enough to satisfy the young curious women had not the change in his music turn into a slow sad melody that touched their hearts. The girls all looked at each other with the same look of sympathy for him because he seemed like such a good person to them and didn’t deserve to be mistreated that way. Twigs was the only one that got up off the couch to comfort him. She didn’t like the sad music that he played and the way he avoided saying too much about his past relationships. He was obviously in pain over it still, and she sought to ease that pain. She took a seat on the bench next to him and placed her hand over his. The music stopped playing instantly them moment she touched him as his dark eyes met hers, and immediately softened back up. His hands returned back to the keys to continuing on with the last song he was playing before Avery was brought up and had ruined the song. Twigs smiled at the familiar happy tune and leaned over to press her lips against his jawline lightly so as not to get too much of her lipstick on him, which had become a bad habit of hers. Simone and Neon Jungle all ‘awwed’ as a goofy smile spread across his face.

Everyone went back to enjoying the rest of their evening with Twigs staying by her boyfriend’s side. Simone’s phone vibrated against her leg from deep inside her pajama pocket, and grabbed her attention away from their current conversation about attending future concerts of their favorite artists that they really wanted to see this year. Checking her screen, her eyes widened at the flashing reminder on her phone relating to her friends, Neon Jungle. Simone slapped her hand on her knees with a piercing smack that grabbed her friend’s attention. “Did you guys remember to practice your song, ‘Louder’ for the karaoke night this weekend?”

Shereen’s eyes widened with worry. “Oh shit, I forgot about that!”

Amira threw her head back and let out a frustrated groan. “Godamnit, how can we forget that?!”

Twigs watched her friends grumbled about in defeat for a moment before coming up with an idea to solve their problem. Wrapping an arm around her boyfriend’s waist, and leaning her head on his arm, she addressed the tensed room. “I’m sure Seth wouldn’t mind if you practice right now, do you baby?”

Seth looked down at his beautiful girlfriend and gave her shrug. “Why not? I don’t mind being the one getting entertained from time to time, it’s nice.”

Neon Jungle let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank you so much, Mr. MacFarlane. We promise we’ll get done as quickly as we can to not take up too much of your time with our lame music.”

Seth waved it off as he helped Twigs onto her feet to lead her over to the couch so that they could join them and listen to them sing. He sat down first at one end of the couch and pulled her down onto his lap before trapping her within the tight grip of his arms around her. Twigs snuggled close to him with a smile on her face as she got ready to listen to her friends sing.

Out of nowhere, Simone jumped up out of her seat and ran for the stairs, calling behind her back. “I’ll go grab my guitar first and then we’ll get started!”