by B. Love
KAILANI & BISHOP:
A CASE OF THE EXES
B. LOVE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For more information, please contact the publisher.
Copyright © 2015 B. Love
Published by
Ambiance Books
Sacramento, California
www.moreambiancebooks.com
Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: TSPUBCREATIVE
Editor: ELITE Editing Services
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m sitting here in my office right… trying to will myself to work these few hours and I keep telling myself, ‘The day will come when you will be able to live off of your passion. Your books.” And, thanks to Niyah Moore and Ambiance Books, I am one step closer to making that happen!
To my family, I appreciate all the love and support. Sissy, I know I’m all over the place with my life; but I just can’t be satisfied doing anything but writing! Thanks for everything you’ve done to help me. Granny, you will never read this book because I know you’ll have a fit. Ha, but you and Ma raised me right and I’ll never stray from your love and wisdom. ShaBreiya, my boo thang, I love you girl. You’re more than my niece. You’re like my daughter that I had at a really young age by my sister. Ew, okay, it’s getting weird now. lol. But, I love you, boo. Keep chasing your passion and your dreams and don’t wait until you’re my age to stand firm on what YOU want out of life! Carpe diem!
Marcus Scott, my nigga my nigga! I appreciate you a lot! I appreciate you everything that my other friends are not! You’re real, loyal, compassionate, wise and you put up with my petty emotional ways! Thank you best friend! Our time is coming!
Kevin Marshall, you came back into my life at just the right time! Thank you for following me down the street and forcing me to talk to you! Hearing you gave me the boost that I needed to submit my urban fiction novel to publishers and pray for the best! Thank you for the motivation!
To everyone that has pushed me to write and publish, thank you so much! For years, I’ve allowed fear and time to consume me but no more! This is the start of something bigger than me and I will no longer allow my past to get the best of me!
Thank you to everyone who purchased this book! Trust me when I say, there is so much more to come!!
Kailani
I didn’t know why I even agreed to go out tonight. I guess because I was tired of my best friend nagging me about not having a life. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a life. I just didn’t live her type of life anymore. I wasn’t the “get dressed up just to go to the club and ignore niggas all night” type. I’d much rather be at the house — straight chilling or eating or in the studio. I wasn’t doing much of that these days, though. Honestly, I wasn’t doing much of anything at all. Maybe my best friend, Layyah, was right. When we were in high school, I was going out every weekend and I was always having people over throughout the week, but when my high school sweetheart, Courtney, got locked up, something broke inside of me. I just didn’t want to go through the motions no more. Didn’t want to get attached. Didn’t want to go out. Didn’t want to feel. Didn’t want to love — just didn’t. I just wanted to be. Be with myself, the one person that I knew on Earth who would never let me down.
I tried to rock with Courtney when he was locked up. I even offered to hide the nigga, run away with the nigga. Whatever he wanted to do, I was down and it wasn’t no puppy love either. The bond that nigga and I shared was something special. I met him my first year of high school. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I saw him walking down the hall with his niggas. He was in the middle like he was that nigga and I wanted him. Then, we started taking a class together and started playing around. Lay started dating his cousin. We met them niggas at the mall one night. We kissed and I was hooked after that. He kept telling me that he didn’t want to commit, but that didn’t stop him from talking to me whenever he wasn’t in the streets. That didn’t stop him from taking my stuff just to get me to chase him into the hallway so he could tongue me down. That didn’t stop him from popping up at my crib, meeting me at the same spot every day after school to give me a kiss goodbye. Title or not, he was my nigga. So, eventually, I got my way and we became a couple.
By the start of our sophomore year, we’d broken up, but we were working on getting back together. We were writing each other letters, pouring our souls out to each other. Mane, to be honest, I didn’t even remember why we split in the first place. Probably over something petty. I was probably sick of his lil’ female friends. He was spending more time with them on the streets than I was. Yes, he made the effort to call me every night, but since we were a couple, that just wasn’t enough anymore. I messed up and started expecting something from the nigga and expectations and feelings always lead to disappointment.
So, yeah, the nigga met up with me and let me know that the police were looking for him and that he was going to head for Mississippi after school. I said okay and he walked me to my class. That was the last time I’d seen him. After my last class, Lay met me in the hall with this scary look on her face. I knew something was up because she never waited for me after school. We rode different buses so whatever we had to talk about had to wait ‘til we got home and talked on the phone.
She came up to me and she was like, “They got him. They got Courtney.”
I could hear those words spilling from her mouth as if she was saying it right now, right next to me.
We talked for the first year of him being locked up. We didn’t commit to each other because he didn’t want to hold me back, but I wasn’t dating anyone else. I didn’t want anyone but him. If it wasn’t him, it wasn’t love and the love that I had for him caused me so much pain that I really didn’t want to love him either. After he had found out that he was looking at seven to fifteen, he cut me off, told me that this wasn’t the type of life for me and that he didn’t want to hold me back. Nigga just shut down on me, stopped calling, stopped writing, and stopped all contact. That hurt me to my core. Not so much because I loved him, but because I felt like he didn’t appreciate me and my love — my loyalty. I’d given him my virginity. I just felt like it all was in vain. So, I vowed from that point forward to never catch feelings for a nigga again, especially a street nigga.
Y’all can keep love. Love feels too much like pain for me.
Now, I ain’t gone front, I got the occasional head from a nigga that thought he could turn me out, but that was it. I hadn’t been in a relationship ever since Court went away and I didn’t plan on that changing no time soon.
I wasn’t saying I didn’t want love, marriage, and all that. I was just saying a nigga was gone have to come hard to get me and the attraction and interest was gone have to be off the Richter scale from the jump. I refused to waste my time or my feelings on a nigga that wouldn’t appreciate or return it.
Bishop
I’d just finished doing a six-year bid and it wasn’t even for me. It was for my best friend, my nigga, Terrell. When we graduated high scho
ol, he wanted to go to college, leave the game behind and make something of himself. That wasn’t what I wanted at the time. I was just glad a nigga made it out of high school, to be honest, but during his second year of college, he lost one of his scholarships and came to me to get back in the game. I gave him some dope to push on campus just to make ends meet. I offered to cover his tuition, but he declined, and said he wanted to work for it. That was the pride and the man in him. I couldn’t help but respect it so I gave him some weight to hold on to. Apparently, they did a room check and found the drugs. They called the police and he was arrested. I knew the nigga was gone be done for if he would’ve gotten locked up for drugs, so I took the charge, bailed him out, turned myself in, and said I hid the drugs in his dorm because I thought I could get away with it.
He begged me not to, but apparently, I didn’t listen. He was the closest thing I had to a brother and his father was the closest thing I had to one of those. I knew it would break his mother’s heart to see him locked up, ruining his life over a couple pounds of weed, so I took the bid and did it for him. I didn’t have no loving family looking out for me. Hell, the streets raised me. They’d be waiting when I got out, but when I got out, I didn’t have to. I still had niggas working under me reporting to Rell. He took the money and flipped it for me. He opened a club, lounge and restaurant for a nigga.
When I got out, I was legit. I didn’t have to sell drugs no more. He understood one thing that most niggas, myself included, couldn’t grasp… the hustle ain’t meant to be a lifetime thing. The hustle was supposed to fund you and elevate you to something legal and long lasting and that was what he’d started for me while I was locked down. Since I was out now, I planned on capitalizing on it and building my empire legally, starting first in my hometown of Memphis, and then across the world!
After doing six years, a nigga ain’t have time to be tryna meet somebody new. I called up the chick I was messing with before I was locked up, Ashley. She met me in the lounge and I was ready to head out and get inside her until I saw my future wife walk in. Ion believe in love at first sight, but when I saw Shawty, I wanted her. She had my dick on hard and my heart palpitating. I’d say it was lust cause a nigga ain’t had none in six years, but it was more than that. I mean, I had Ashley right next to me and she was ready and willing to do anything for a nigga, but I wanted the shawty in the red dress. Not only was she beautiful, but she was bold. The party was invite-only and it was strictly an all-black affair. I was surprised Rell let her in, but when I saw him kiss the light-skinned chick she was with, I knew why.
When I felt Ashley’s eye’s burning a hole in the side of my face, I realized I was staring at the beauty, but at that point, I ain’t even care. She was gorgeous, but she ain’t have that average beauty. She ain’t look like nobody else in the lounge. Nobody. Every other woman in the spot had in a weave. If they were wearing their real hair, like her friend, it was long and curly. Her friend’s hair was jet black and natural, though, I could tell. So, I gave her credit for that, but my baby’s hair was cut into this curly Mohawk. She had it dyed in layers. Her roots were black, but it got lighter. It was in like three different shades of gold, complemented her peanut butter skin tone really well. She was short; I could tell that even with them high heels she had on. At least they were black. She had the prettiest full lips I’d ever seen. She didn’t wanna smile. Probably because her friend dragged her out, but I could tell by her high cheekbones and the dimple in her chin that when she did smile, it was beautiful. Her dark brown almond shaped eyes scanned the crowd and I could tell she was ready to go already.
I watched them walk to their booth in the VIP section and that was when I got a glimpse of that ass. She was petite so she didn’t have a big one, but what she did have was nice and round. She had the type of small shape that made a nigga wanna die protecting her. The kind of small shape that made a nigga wanna cuddle just to hold her. I had my fair share of thick women, especially with this little waist and big ass trend they had going on now, but truth be told, ain’t nothing like a small woman. I’d pick a beautiful brown-skinned size three wearing woman any day. I could see she was tatted too, a pretty innocent one with a wild side. Yeah, she was going to be the wife one day.
“Nigga, who the hell you looking at? I been talking to you for the past five minutes and you ain’t heard nothing I said,” Ashley said.
She was right too. I ain’t hear nothing she said. I was too busy watching my wife look over the menu.
“Gone on, Ashley. I ain’t got time for your nagging.”
Especially right now, the way a nigga was feeling, she was gone be heading home alone anyway. With this attitude, she was gone make it be sooner than later.
“You so disrespectful. It’s yo first night out and you already finna get some hoe beat up because you can’t be faithful.”
I shot her a look that made her sit deeper in her seat. That was her problem back then. She was always tryna make a nigga settle down and be faithful. Back then, the streets were who I gave my loyalty to. I just wasn’t feeling like the chicks I was messing with deserved it.
“Kill all that, Ashley. We weren’t in a committed relationship then and we ain’t in one now and that’s part of the reason. You always tryna lock a nigga down. Let a nigga be. Maybe he wouldn’t mind coming home to ya if you just let a nigga be.” I stood and left her, heading for the bar.
She was saying some smart shit under her breath, but I ain’t care enough to listen. She wasn’t brave enough to say it louder.
Kailani
Lay and I never fit in when we went out. We weren’t like these basic females these days, spending hundreds of dollars on weave and clothes just to look like everybody else. I never understood the concept of following trends. I was always my own individual and Lay was too. Guess that was why we stuck around each other for all these years. I met her in the eighth grade. She was a cool chick, still was. She was crazy like me. We both were little, but people should never underestimate us because of our size. Her hips and thighs were bigger than mine.
At one point, we both had pretty long hair, but I cut all mine off and went natural. That was one of the things I admired about her. She never colored her hair. Me, on the other hand, I colored mine about twice a year if not more. Since I got it cut so much, it didn’t damage my hair. I was letting it grow now, though. I had it cut into this bad Mohawk with ombre gold highlights. Yeah, my best friend was bad. That was why we stayed having beef in high school because we were smart and quiet. Females thought they could test us, but you know what they say, the quiet ones be the most violent ones. She was light skinned and I was brown, so we had all types of niggas approaching us. It was always some kind of drama. I got out of it, though, when I stopped dating.
Lay, on the other hand, didn’t. She was always getting into it with somebody over her nigga. Because she was my best friend, I was getting into it with them too, but this new nigga she had, Terrell. He seemed cool. He was into music and business. He had his own recording studio and hoped one day to have his own label. He was a good dude with a rough side. I liked that.
That was what we needed, a good man with a hood nigga attitude. He had to have the mind of Kendrick Lamar, the hustle of 50 Cent, heart and looks of Tupac, and the soul of Bob Marley. Was that too much to ask for? Well, if it was, oh well. I think she found hers in Terrell and I was happy for her, which was the only reason I agreed to come out with her tonight. He was throwing one of his friends a welcome home party and he invited us. Otherwise, I would’ve been at home in my sweats, watching reruns with a sack full of snacks.
We hadn’t been in the place for five minutes before I saw this fine nigga walking over to our table with a bottle of champagne. He was built but not too built. Built like I could trust him to protect me, but it wasn’t excessive. He had the prettiest smooth milk chocolate skin. I could see a few of his tattoos that covered the top of his chest and his arms. His hair was cut in a low fade. The nigga was looking good and he w
as dressed so simply, which made him even sexier. He had on a white tee, some dark colored jeans, and a pair of custom Nike Roshes. I must have been staring hard because he blushed and showed off a set of pearly whites that made me cry between my thighs. All I needed was a milk chocolate nigga with a set of lovely white teeth. Lord, have mercy.
Not wanting to get too deep, I quickly regrouped by grabbing my phone and going through my apps for a game to play while I waited for our food. Best friend or not, after I ate, I was gone dip. He even smelled good. He was wearing my favorite men’s cologne, Bleu de Chanel. I didn’t want to look up at him. I couldn’t look up, so I just stared at my phone as he sat the bottle down and rested his palms on top of the table. I could feel him staring at me, but I couldn’t look up.
Sensing my apprehension, he threw some conversation to Lay, but his eyes never left me.
“I’m glad you came out, Lay. I’ve been waiting to meet the woman who got my nigga’s mind gone.”
God, he sounded so good. Chocolate, white teeth, my favorite cologne, and he sounded good. Lord, help.
“It’s cool. He’s been talking about you since we met, so I’m glad I could come out,” Lay replied.
“Who is this you got with you?” he asked her.
“This is my best friend, Kailani, but everyone calls her Kai.”
“Kai and Lay. That’s cute. It’s nice to meet you, Kai.”
That voice of his was going to get me in trouble. He had the type of voice that sounded like he could sing. The kind of voice that made me wanna sing to him and I don’t even sing! Trying to act cool, I dryly looked up at him and put my hand into his, which was a mistake because he closed it and acted as if he didn’t want to let it go.
