“Girl, I wish I could take you home with me.” My client Whitney sighed as I walked her to the front to get checked out.
“Don’t be so selfish. Other ladies need me too.” I chuckled as she playfully rolled her eyes.
My spa had grown from day one. I had a receptionist, a plush lounge area, and a big ass security dude named Avery, thanks to Tony. Because he was famous, and I guess I was too now, unfortunately, he didn’t want people just having access to me.
“Dana, who is that?” I asked my receptionist about the young girl seated on one of my blue lounge couches. I knew for sure Whitney was my last client.
“Oh, she said she was here to speak with the owner. I’m sorry. I can ask her to leave.”
“No, it’s fine.” I waved the suggestion off. “You can clean up my station and then go home.”
“Okay. Thank you, Camarih!” She hugged me and then rushed to the back. Dana was sweet, too sweet, which was a lot coming from me.
“Hi, may I help you?” I moved closer to the girl. She was very pretty with deep chocolate skin, perfect brows and lips, and her hair was freshly braided up into individuals. She was extremely skinny though.
“Yes, sorry. I wanted to speak to someone about an internship here?” The girl shot up, smiling. She was tall, about five feet ten, so she hovered over my five-foot-four stature.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t do internships.”
“Oh.” Her previously chipper tone was now nowhere in sight. “Are you sure? I really need an internship, and this was where I wanted to do it. I love all of your products and have been trying to get a facial here, but you’re too expensive and never have any openings that aren’t four months out.”
“What kind of degree are you trying to get to where an internship at a facial spa would suffice?”
“I’m in cosmetology school, well, to be an esthetician; I want to do waxing. However, my instructor said we need to find an internship at a beauty parlor of some sort.”
“I see. Well I’m sorry…”
“Kai.” She stuck her hand out.
Shaking it, I continued. “Well I apologize, Kai, but I don’t need any help around here.”
“Okay. Well if you change your mind, I can do whatever. I will clean, run errands, anything. I truly admire you, not just how you handle business but your personal life as well. Your husband is sexy.”
“I was liking you until that last part.”
She laughed, and I gave only a subtle chuckle because I wasn’t joking.
“Oh, don’t worry about me. He wouldn’t even look my way.” She smirked. “Well since you can’t offer me an internship, do you have any products I can buy off of you?”
“I do.” I walked her to the pretty blue see-through fridge I kept the ones for sale in.
I stood there watching as she picked out the ones she wanted to buy, then I walked her over to the counter to ring them up. I gave her a fifteen percent discount since I felt bad.
“Thank you so much, Camarih. Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I bought these directly from you. This was my last, but it was worth it.”
“Oh wow.” I laughed.
“Can I have a photo?”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t take photos with people I don’t know, babe. I’m nobody anyway.”
“Alright,” she responded sadly.
“You know what, okay.” I came around the corner to take the picture with her. “Come back here next Wednesday. You can be my assistant.”
I realized sometimes I did need someone to run and get me lunch or stop at the store to get something for my baby. Yeah, I could ask Dana, but occasionally, the lounge area would be full of patrons that she needed to tend to, and at the same time, I would have an hour facial to do. So it’d be nice to have that third person to do all that and maybe help Dana when needed.
“Are you serious!” Kai exclaimed.
“I am. Just be sure to bring two forms of I.D. and have your social security card so we can run a background check, as well as some documentation from your class.”
“Of course! Thank you so much, Camarih! I swear I will work my ass off, even though I won’t be getting paid! Just write me a glowing review!”
“I got you. Bye.” I chuckled.
I nodded for Avery to escort Kai out, and by that time, Dana was done. I went to my office to collect my things and baby, then locked up my shop.
2
Houston “Tony Wacko” Terranova
One week later…
I was in the lounge room of my office building, getting high as shit with the homies. Nah, we wasn’t doing that blunt sharing shit; everybody had their own smoke. I ain’t play that, and the way these muthafuckas be crying over females and bullshit these days, I wouldn’t be too surprised if they were out here sucking dick. So I damn sure wasn’t about to have their asses toking on my blunt.
As I blew smoke out, my phone started buzzing, and I saw it was Jilly. Taking another hit, I tapped the green answer button and put the phone to my ear as these niggas conversed about bullshit.
“What?” I asked.
“Did you see or hear?”
“See or hear what, Jilly?”
“Nala’s interview with RapTown?”
RapTown was a huge ass radio station out here in Los Angeles. I fucked with the owner because he played Eitan’s shit first and fucked with us before anybody else. Nala had done an interview with them a week ago, and I guess they’d finally uploaded it.
“Nah, I haven’t peeped it yet. Why?” I leaned back, sinking into the comfortable ass couch in here. “Aye, y’all quiet the fuck down!” I barked at Eitan and Abel who were yelling like some muthafuckin hyenas. When high, they were two of the most annoying niggas in the universe.
“I’m gonna send it to you so you can see for yourself.” Jilly quickly hung up before I could protest, and seconds later, it seemed, she’d texted me the YouTube link.
I clicked it then turned the volume up, causing Abel and Eitan to completely stop their stupid ass conversation finally.
“So you know what everyone wants to know right, Nala?” The female host Marie grinned at Nala in a conniving manner.
“No, what’s up?”
“What’s up with you and your boss? I know y’all have been working together for a long while now, but it can’t just be business.”
“It is just business, and he’s married now. He loves Camarih.”
“See she said now?” The male host Zane chimed in with his big husky ass. Turning more her way, he asked, “Now Nala, any man with even a smidgen of eyesight can see how fine you are, including married ass Wacko, so you’re telling me y’all ain’t never smashed?”
There was silence, too much fucking silence, making everybody sitting in the room with Nala roar with laughter and comments.
“Wait, no!” Nala tried to defuse things, but her ass was grinning like a fucking clown.
“No girl, you hesitated too long. It’s obvious you and him are fucking,” Marie giggled like she’d found a gold mine.
“No, we’re not still fucking; that’s done and over with. I have a boyfriend,” Nala’s dumb ass replied.
“Oh shit!” Abel put his fist to his mouth, as Eitan stared with his eyes wide and mouth hung open.
“Close yo’ fucking mouth, gay ass. And Abel, get yo’ Yogi bear ass up and get to the fucking studio.” I ashed my blunt.
I was pissed as fuck with Nala, Rubie’s supposed PR ass, and them fucking radio hosts. I was praying like fuck Camarih didn’t see that shit before I got a chance to get to the crib and holla at her ass. I knew it seemed far-fetched that Camarih wouldn’t catch wind before I got home, but she wasn’t one of them females that stayed on social media all day. It was rare as fuck to catch Camarih just surfing Instagram or whatever the fuck else.
Abel, Eitan, and I bounced, and about forty-five minutes later, we were all at the studio. Abel needed to be here to help Rahim with recording Nala, but Eitan’s ass had no reason to be aroun
d; his ass was just nosy.
“What?” Eitan looked to me as we entered the studio off King Boulevard.
“Fuck you come for?”
“I wanna see you rip this bitch up for her response.” He laughed.
“And what about yo’ bitch? She’s supposed to be coaching Nala’s ass on how to handle them types of fucking questions, but her bubba gump shrimp lip ass dropped the fucking ball.” I whipped my phone out. “Matter fact, call her ass and let her know to be in my office tomorrow morning for a chat.” I started to go into the studio room Nala, Rahim, and now Abel were in, working.
“Come on, man, she’s pregnant and—” Eitan stopped when I halted my steps to stare him down. “Aight, I got you. I’ll catch you later.” He shook his head before leaving. Nigga knew damn well the last thing I gave a fuck about was a pregnant bitch that wasn’t mine.
“Sup.” Rahim turned in his chair to slap hands with me when I entered the room.
I nodded my head to him then locked eyes with Nala, who was in the booth.
Pressing the talk button so she could hear me in there, I said, “Bring yo’ ass out. I wanna chop it up with you.”
Looking like she was about to shit herself, she nodded and replied, “Okay.”
I left the studio room, and by the time I got to the end of the hall near the back, I saw Nala coming my way. I slipped into another room, and she was right there behind me.
“You think you funny?” I got in her space. If I were shorter, we’d be nose to muthafuckin nose. I wanted to put hands on this hoe, but she was one of my top artists that I needed to sell.
“N-no. I told them it was old news, Tony!”
“Nah hoe, what you should’ve said was that it never fucking happened! You took yo’ monkey ass on that fucking show, talking like we had some real shit going on! I fucked you and yo’ throat, nothing else!” I barked, making her jump as she stared up at me, on the verge of crying them same old side hoe tears. “Got it looking like I was cheating on my bitch to fuck on you.” I turned my lip up in disgust at the thought. “Swear to God I could choke you the fuck out right now, Nala.”
I was fuming.
“Tony, I’m sorry. Whatever you want me to do to fix it, I will.” She put her hands in prayer mode. “I just don’t want you to be mad at me. I lov—” She stopped herself because if she continued that sentence, I was gon’ knock her head between this wall and the back of this old ass couch.
“Make this the last muthafuckin time I have to step to you about this bullshit, Nala. If you in love, get over the shit quick, fast, and in a fucking hurry. Because if my wife tries to leave me over yo’ stupid ass stunts, I’m killing you, yo’ nigga, yo’ son, yo’ stork shaped ass baby daddy, and that fat ass cat you love so much.”
“Okay.” She nodded repeatedly, tears flowing down her face in abundance.
“Clean yo’self up and get back to work. If I hear one damn voice crack on that beat, I’m slapping you the fuck up, on my mama.”
Nala quickly left out and tread to the bathroom to fix herself, while I went back to the studio and waited. I chopped it up with the homies until she returned, and by the time it was 11 p.m., she was done recording, so we all left.
She was lucky that damn track was perfect, because my hand was itching to backhand a bitch. And if her nigga had an issue with it, I was slapping his ass the fuck up too.
When I got home, it was midnight, but I heard my son’s voice, along with Camarih’s, as I neared our bedroom. I made sure to wash my hands in the bathroom next door before entering.
“Look, you made it, baby.” Camarih sat up, holding our baby. “I think he wanted to stay up for you.” She half smiled.
“Thank you, cuz, I appreciate it.” I quickly took him, hugging his small body tightly before kissing his fat cheeks. “You was good for ya mama today?”
“Yes, he was, but he messed up three onesies with his food.” Camarih grinned as she looked up, watching me hold him.
“Come on, cuz. You can’t be walking around with my face and name, pulling that baby shit. You’s a real nigga, baby. You gotta move different.” I talked to him as I carried him to his bedroom. I could hear Camarih chuckling in the distance.
Sitting in the chair in Baby Cuz’s room, I told him about the time I did my first drive-by, and like clockwork, he was knocked by the time I finished. I put him down in his fly ass crib, cut on that little spinning light up shit he liked, and then went to shower and brush my teeth.
“I saw the interview,” Camarih let me know as soon as I hugged her body from behind in our humongous ass bed.
Fuck.
“I don’t know why she said that shit on there. Yo’ dick sucking lip ass homegirl is supposed to make sure shit like that don’t happen.”
“Houston.” Camarih turned to face me. “I’m not mad about what she said, because it’s true kind of, but I don’t like that she’s basically in love with you and around you so much.”
“It’s work, Camarih, you know that shit. And it wasn’t true what she said. If she wanted to be honest, she would’ve said ‘yeah, I used to be one of his hoes’. Make shit clearer. She made it sound like I wasn’t busting on her face and leaving her to clean the shit up her muthafuckin self.”
“Houston!”
“I’m being honest.”
“I know, but I think that you need to cut back on the time you spend with her. She likes you a lot, and the more time you hang with her, the more—”
“I don’t hang with her ass. I be in the studio with a bunch of other muthafuckas, Camarih.”
“So it’s never just you and her?”
“Nope,” I lied. “And even if it was, shit wouldn’t happen.” Sitting up, Camarih shook her head while looking off. I sat upright as well before making her straddle my lap as I adjusted myself up against our headboard. “Buttascotch, I am not gon’ fuck that bitch, I swear.”
“I know that, Houston. How would you feel if I worked with some nigga I used to have sex with?”
“That’s why every nigga who has fucked you is dead.”
Slapping my shoulder, she replied, “I’m serious, and don’t say that.”
“Shit is true. But to answer you, I wouldn’t like it, and the bullshit wouldn’t happen. If it did, I would kill cuz.”
“Exactly, yet I’m supposed to be okay with you working with Nala? What if you get drunk? Or too high? Or are out of state?”
“No fucking circumstance would make me cheat on yo’ ass, for one, and secondly, nothing would make me fuck that hoe again.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re not going to slow up on the time you spend with her? You have to be at every studio session she has? All her video shoots? All—”
“I don’t go to them all, and you know that shit. I go to a few, just to check up on shit, same way I do with all my artists. Just like you be at that warehouse checking on yo’ stock, I gotta do the same fucking thing, Camarih.”
“All I hear is that you don’t give a fuck about what I’m saying.” She tried to get up from my lap, but I stopped her ass, bear hugging her body.
She kept fighting, so I eventually had to pin her ass on her back, keeping her wrists in my grasp.
Hovering over her, I growled through clenched teeth. “Calm yo’ crazy ass down ’fore I nut the fuck up on you. If you want me to pull back from that bitch, I’m gon’ do it, but I can’t completely stay away from her. I gotta see her muthafuckin ass sometimes, to work with her ass. But on my son, you don’t got shit to worry about, not with her ass and not any other bitch. When I’m drunk, I’m gon’ come fuck you. When I’m high, I’m gon’ come fuck you, and when I’m far away from yo’ ass, I swear to God I’ll fly to you before I fuck another female.”
“What about when I’m full term, fat, and immobile?” She pouted, making me chuckle before kissing her.
“I’m gon’ roll yo’ big ass over and fuck you.”
Giggling, she nodded and said, “Okay.”
“Aight
?”
“Aight.”
I let her wrists go then wrapped my arms around her body, kissing her lips while saying, “You don’t be fat when you pregnant, Buttascotch. You be fine as shit, just with a belly; a pretty ass belly at that.”
Caressing the side of my face and spreading her legs more for me, she whispered, “I truly believe you wouldn’t cheat on me, Houston, but if you do anything with her, I don’t care how small, I will never be able to forgive you. And if I can’t forgive you, I can’t be with you. I won’t care if I’m pregnant, lost my business, or whatever else, I will be gone.”
“I know that. That’s why I love you. But understand some shit. I would never lose you, that little nigga in the next room, or this one inside you over anybody or anything.”
“I believe that.”
“Also, understand that if you did try to leave me, I’m gon’ stalk you and make yo’ life miserable as hell until you realize you love my ass. And any muthafucka that looks yo’ way is as good as dead. That’s if a nigga is even bold enough to try.”
“Some will try.”
“’Cause you fine as fuck.”
“We both know you’d rather be with me than stalk me though.”
“Always.”
“Stay home with us tomorrow.”
I had a bunch of shit lined up, but instead, I just replied, “I got you.”
Her beautiful ass, corny smile was bright as fuck at my response, so clearing my schedule and shit would be worth it.
3
Joy Brixton
“Ms. Brixton, how are you feeling today? You look great!” my therapist, Joanie, inquired as she sat across from me in her decked-out office. It had a bright color scheme, I guess to keep the atmosphere from coming off as depressing.
“I’m doing great,” I half lied. I’d been here for two months, and I only felt slightly okay because I was cut off from the world.
It all came to a head a few months ago, when I broke down over Tony marrying Camarih. When it first happened, I was doing fine, and I guess because it just seemed so unreal to me. It wasn’t like I attended the wedding or anything, and their private asses didn’t post photos, so out of sight, out of mind.
She Gave Her All to the Hood's Finest 5 Page 3
