UNIQUE LOVE (G X G) Completed

CHAPTER: 7

Zeenia did not look forward to using her Sunday for apartment hunting.

As she placed her wine glass back on the table, she caught a glimpse of someone standing a few meters away.

It took her a moment to realize who it was. A woman short in stature but carrying a large personality as she walked in slowly, wearing blue jeans, a black fitted T-shirt, and a black jacket accentuating her curves. She had a rounded face, thin lips, and short black hair. Zeenia caught her breath in her throat.

"Can I help you?" she asked the young woman, who had a fight earlier in the day with one of the chefs. Zeenia hoped she was not going to sue them.

The young woman glided towards the table, hands dipped into her back pockets. "You are that manager lady from earlier?"

When she wasn't screaming, this woman had a soft voice. Zeenia checked her dropping mouth and tried to wipe the shock off her face.

"Yes. Are you all right?" Zeenia asked her.

To Zeenia's surprise, the woman pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down as if she belonged there. "I wanted to thank you for earlier. I didn't think anyone would actually believe me."

Zeenia blinked. "That was a serious accusation. I always err on the side of the accuser until there is more information." She then tilted her head. "I am sorry, is there something else, Miss..."

"You can call me Shanaya."

"Miss Shanaya. Is there something else I can help you with? I am sorry that you lost your job, but I cannot do anything about that besides writing you up an explanation for your agency." Zeenia could send temps back to their agencies, but she had little to do with hiring them.

"f**k it." Shanaya crossed her arms. The longer she sat there, the more Zeenia thought she looked like one of those models from the fashion magazines. She had hair and cheekbones for it. Give her a few extra ear piercings and she would be ready to go. "I am done with that s**t anyway. A temp is temporary for a reason," Shanaya said.

Zeenia did not say anything. She thought that the young woman has got a point.

"I wanted to thank you. I have never had someone defend me like that before. That is not the first time something has happened like that on a job," Shanaya said.

Zeenia snapped up from staring at her dinner plate. "Did someone else here do something?"

"No, no, I meant elsewhere. I had only been here for a week." Shanaya shrugged. "Did that guy get fired?"

Although Zeenia knew she shouldn't divulge that information, she made a gesture suggesting Shanaya was on to something.

"No way! Seriously? A temporary got some repercussions? You are some tough s**t!" she replied.

Zeenia laughed very hard, she thought her sides would burst. She tried stifling her laughter. To her pleasant surprise, Shanaya maintained a perfectly controlled facial expression, on the other side of the table. "Thanks, I guess?"

"I am serious." Shanaya began to show a bit of her bite again. "I was surprised when they said the new manager was a woman, but I can see how you got to this position."

"Oh?" Zeenia said.

"What, you need me to say it?" Shanaya leaned forward as if she were coming for Zeenia like a bee to a flower. "I can tell you are a woman who doesn't take s**t from anyone, male or female, and you give it as well as you can take it." Her voice fell into the growl Zeenia heard earlier when Shanaya was screaming to the heavens about being molested. 

Zeenia thought she could safely say she had met few women like Shanaya. Even her friend Imara, for all her bluntness, would be too shell-shocked to talk about it immediately.

Shanaya continued, "You are no-nonsense and get your job done, but you don't s**t on other people in the process."

Zeenia snorted. "You can tell that from meeting me once?"

"I can tell a lot of things about you," Shanaya said.

"Is that so? What else can you tell about me?" Zeenia asked her.

The chair was moved back, as Shanaya got up from the chair. Her eyes relaxed and her lips pouted in a way that stilled Zeenia's heart for a second. 

Zeenia was tired. It was wine. She was used to her Fridays being full of revelry.

"I can tell that you work hard, projecting the image of friendly authority. It is how you make the people beneath you love you and defend you. Clearly, it's working for you," Shanaya said.

The wine glass hardened in Zeenia's hand. "What are you?" she asked, evenly. "A shrink?"  

"No. Just observant," Shanaya said.

"You make me sound sad," Zeenia added.

"Are you sad?"

Zeenia's mouth twitched. Shanaya was starting to unnerve her now, not that there was anything to do about it besides telling her to get out. Maybe this was why she didn't socialize with people this much younger than her. "I am wondering if you make it a hobby to psychoanalyze adults  you have just met?"

"Adults?" It was Shanaya's turn to wrinkle her nose. "What are you implying? How old do you think I am?"

"I figured you were in high school. Or thereabouts."

"High school! Ha!" A smile returned to Shanaya's face like a bird in the springtime. "That's precious." She slapped the table. "I am twenty. Been a while since I last did high school." 

These twenty-somethings were starting to look the same to Zeenia. When she was in her twenties, she swore women looked her age or older. She had no idea where these teenaged looking young women were coming from. Was it the fashion? God damn, she thought she was getting older. 

"Sorry. I guess you look younger to me," Zeenia said.

Shanaya swiped her arm across the table, catching Zeenia's hand as she tried to grab her wine glass. Without a word, Zeenia stared at the small, soft hand gripping hers so hard that knuckles turned white. It electrified something in her gut, no in her chest, no in her gut again. Although that touch was unnerving, she found it desirable the moment Shanaya uncurled her fingers and went to move away.

She then pushed her fingers up the sleeve of Zeenia's blazer instead. 

"Just a moment..." Zeenia couldn't finish her sentence. She caught a wink from Shanaya's long eyelashes before the young woman pushed herself across the table, lips passing over Zeenia's cheek and lingering on her ear.

"I didn't say any of those things to insult you. I like that in a woman." Shanaya hovered her nose near Zeenia's eye and backed away like a cat slinking from its plaything. "See you." 

Shanaya disappeared into the blooming dinner crowd, leaving Zeenia to sit and blush. What was that about? She exhaled a deep breath, brain crashing back to reality. She needed to get laid, probably. She then relaxed with the rest of her wine and a book on her phone. Without her personal library currently packed up in boxes waiting to be moved, Zeenia was left with a digitized version of her favorite books. For a woman who lived for the present, and splurged on the latest gadgets, she found comfort in books on ancient artwork.

After finishing her wine, she put her phone away and told the waiter she was returning to her room. First, she went back into her office to make sure everything was organized for Monday, and then she went to the front desk to check on Catherine. The night auditor expressed her gratitude when a sudden late party of twenty people, each pair with their own separate room, came to check-in and Zeenia jumped up to take care of it alongside Catherine. When they were processed and on their way upstairs, to their rooms, Zeenia took a leave from work one last time and finally retreated to her room.