Devoted by Alycia Taylor Page A

A condom?”
    I laughed. “No, why are you always so suspicious? It wasn’t anything bad. I’ll
tell you about it when we get to breakfast, otherwise, we won’t have anything
to talk about when we get there.”
    “Fine, I’ll wait.”
    To Zoe’s credit she did
wait. Instead she chattered about school and a paper that she had due in
sociology.
    “What’s going on with
Mike?” I asked her.
    She shrugged. “I don’t
know, nothing, I guess.”
    “Is this still because
you thought he might be gay?”
    “No, I’m sure I was
wrong about that. We’re just not really clicking, you know? I think neither of
us has the heart to tell the other one, we’re both afraid of hurting feelings.”
    “Aw, I’m sorry, Zoe.”
    She shrugged again and
said, “He’s not the only fish out there. When I work up the gumption to break
up with him, I’ll find me another flounder.”
    When we got to the
Chicken and Waffles place that Zoe loved to have breakfast at, we both knew
exactly what we wanted so we ordered straight away.
    As soon as the waitress
left Zoe insisted, “Okay, I was patient, now spill.”
    I giggled. I had to agree with her. For Zoe, she had
been patient.
    “Okay, last night,
after Braxton’s fight I told him that I loved him too.”
    “I knew you loved him!”
she said with a cheesy grin, pointing her finger at me .
“It’s written all over your face every time you look at him or even talk about
him.”
    “I know, I know, you
told me so,” I said, giving her the credit she
deserved. “The reason I didn’t go to the party with you last night was because
while we were at the house I saw that MMA contract I told you about. It was signed . I’m sorry I lied to you, but I just wasn’t in a
party mood at that point.”
    “Oh
my God! He signed it? He told you he wasn’t going to…didn’t
he?”
    “Yeah, so after you
left, I got myself all worked up and had a full-blown anxiety attack.”
    “Shit, Emmi , I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me ? I would have stayed with you. That
jerk .”
    “I know you would have
stayed. I didn’t want you to miss your party just to
watch me have a meltdown. I would have felt worse. It
worked out okay though. Braxton came home and found me on the floor, crumpled
in a ball having a hard time breathing. I guess his mom
used to have them and he knew just what to do and say in order to calm me
down.”
    “He better have known how to stop them since it was all his fault,” she
said, angrily.
    “Well, that was the
other thing. He told me that he already told them no.
He had just come back from having a beer with Sam and the MMA guy and he had
told them both no, again, that he wasn’t going to do it.”
    “Then why was the
contract signed?”
    “He said that he signed
it for his own…satisfaction, I guess. It was about knowing he was good enough
and all that. But he told them no and assured me that the championship fight
coming up is his last one, no matter what the outcome is.”
    “Whew,” Zoe said.
“Well, that’s good. I thought I was going to have to kick his butt.” I laughed. “What? You don’t think I can take him?”
    “I’m sure you could,” I said just to appease her. “There’s more though.”
    The waitress brought
our food before either one of us could say anything. When she
left we slathered butter and syrup on our waffles.
    “Do you think one of
these days all of these calories will catch up to us and we’ll be fat, old
maids?” she asked and took a bite.
    Just to tease her I said, “Well, I might be fat, but Braxton’s already got a
ring in his pocket that says I don’t have to be an old maid if I don’t want to
be.”
    Zoe choked on her
waffle and started coughing. When she finally got it under control she said, “He’s
got a what, where?”
    “I stepped out of the
shower this morning, onto his jeans. I felt something
hard in the pocket and I got curious. Anyways, it was a ring box with an
engagement ring in it. It was absolutely