Page 8 of Effortless
Her brother just didn’t entertain the attention.
August groaned again and rolled over in the bed. “I hate your stupid, pretty face, Cross.”
“Pretty is kind of insulting. I’m not a boy.”
“Want me to call it ugly?”
“Yeah, but it’s not,” Cross replied. “Cam, get out of bed. You’re late for breakfast. Ma and Cal sent me over to yank your ass up.”
Camilla grabbed the blanket from the floor, and tossed it over herself once more. “Tell them I’ll be around.”
“You partied last night, didn’t you?”
“New club in Coney,” August answered. “It was the shit.”
“Cam, you’re not even legal age to drink,” her brother muttered. “And August is two years younger—”
“Almost two years younger,” August jumped in. “I turned eighteen in August, thanks.”
“Nice to know you’re legal for something else, now, but that’s not the point.”
Camilla peeked over at her friend to see August’s dark chestnut skin had flushed with a heated crimson hue at the surface of her cheeks. August took after her Nigerian mother in her features, while her Italian, lawyer father had taught his daughter to take no shit.
August had something akin to a crush on Camilla’s older brother since the two girls met in high school. Cross treated August with the same annoying affection he gave to Camilla—like a little sister he was paid to bother. Besides, Camilla figured her brother was still too caught up on somebody from his past to notice anyone else.
“Get out of my room,” Camilla told her brother. “Better yet, get out of my apartment.”
“Can’t. Promised Ma and Cal, I would bring you to breakfast.”
At the thought of food, Camilla’s stomach threatened to revolt. She should not have taken those extra three Jell-O shots the night before.
“August can come, too.”
Her brother said it as though he was dangling an offer Camilla couldn’t refuse. She knew better.
“Internship starts today with the Bared Brands,” August said as she climbed over Camilla in the bed. “I’m … Shit, get up, Cam. I’m going to be late.”
“Why does that mean I have to get up?”
“Because your stupid cotton pillowcases are a bitch on my hair when it’s not in a protective style, and I like the way you fixed it up the last time.”
Camilla grumbled, but forced her way out of the bed.
Cross headed for the door with a wave over his shoulder. “Thirty minutes, Cam.”
“Make me coffee, Cross!”
“I’ll think about it,” her brother shot back.
He would make her coffee.
She knew it.
Camilla had two best friends in the world.
One was August—the Brooklyn native with the crazy curls. The other had always been her big brother.
August passed over the conditioning pomade she kept at Camilla’s place—considering the two might as well be roommates a lot of the time—and took a seat in front of the vanity. Camilla gathered August’s thick, coarse hair with a practiced hand.
