God Don't Like Haters 3

by Jordan Belcher

  Makea WorkingWoman Price: You guys could pass for twins!

  Shan Lovingmeandhim Joseph: Wonderful singing at the game, Kirbie! You're rendition of the National Anthem gave me goosebumps! #starinthemaking

  ChiTown Millie Walker: Get away from her, Caylene! She's trying to steal your shine! #snakesinthegrass #kirbiedoesntcompare #rookieversusveteran

  Usef FactsNotHate Booker: This looks like a before and after picture.

  Mellie NoTurningBack Godder: Cute pic! If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two were sisters

  ChromeGat OaklandStyle99: ^^Sisters? They're nowhere close in age. More like mother and daughter or auntie and niece.

  Danny DoDirt: Who the fuck is Kirbie Amor? Caylene, why are you cosigning her?

  One of the comments caught my attention. It was the mother and daughter comparison. It made me think about what my father said a little while ago during a horrible argument with Archie. My father blurted out that my mother was—not had been, but was—one of the most successful women in the music industry. Why did he say that? Was he talking about Caylene Hope? Could she really be my mother? Or was my father just lying to Archie to make himself feel better about running my real mother off?

  The more I thought about Caylene Hope as my mom, the more the idea seemed totally ridiculous.

  I pressed the app's back-arrow, which took me to my newsfeed. At the top was a popular post from someone I should have deleted a long time ago—Monifa Chavis. Her post read:

  Monifa Chavis: I knew he would come back to me! There's nothing like being in a relationship with the man you're meant to be with. I won't let him go this time. No way, no how.

  It seemed as though Monifa had found her an old flame. I was glad for her. Now she could stay out of Coras's life and fuck up somebody else's. The status was sitting at 99 Likes. I clicked Like, giving her 100.

  Good for you, Monifa. Now you can stay the hell away from Coras.

  I started to call Coras, tease him a little bit, ask him if he was jealous that Monifa moved on from him so quick, but La'Renz walked out of the shower in the nude, drying his hair with a big white gold-embroidered bath towel. His penis dangled between his legs, and it was so gigantic all I could do was stare at it in shock. Its girth was unreal. Bigger than anything I'd ever seen in person.

  “One of the best showers I had since I’ve been free,” La’Renz said.

  I couldn’t stop staring.

  Once, when I was watching a porno with Archie, there was an actor who was just as big, but Archie told me that it wasn't real; it was all camera tricks, angles, and lighting.

  "You're up, Kirb," he said to me, as he bent at the knees to dry his balls.

  Did he just call me Kirb? Did he really think we were at this point in our relationship, this comfortable with each other to hand out nicknames and expose body parts, especially in a business relationship?

  He sat down on the bed, his back to me. Then he turned my way, laying a leg on the bed, and there it was again—his private length. "Don't turn the water all the way to the left. It gets scalding hot."

  I grew up in the streets so my instincts were fine-tuned, at least I liked to think so. And right now my instincts were telling me that I was being toyed with. Maybe La'Renz thought I'd be so impressed with his size that I'd automatically jump on top of him. Perhaps this was how he won Jazzmine over. I didn't know his motive, and I didn't care.

  Don't trust him. Don't end up like Jazzmine. Caylene Hope’s words were still fresh on my mind.

  I grabbed my shampoo and soap and stalked toward the shower—without glancing his way. I locked the bathroom door before I undressed.

  After I was done and all dried off, lotioned, and in my tee and mini sleep shorts, I unlocked the door and stepped out, prepared to have a long conversation with La'Renz about the direction of my career.

  But he was laying underneath the covers, sound asleep.

  Chapter 16

  Kirbie Amor

  Kansas City, Missouri

  I was back in Kansas City, at KCI airport, waiting on the carousel to swing my Northface backpack around. All I had was that one bag. I had bought a lot of clothes since I started working with La'Renz, but he wouldn't let me wear the same thing twice, so everything I owned could fit inside the backpack. "Everyday has to be something new," he had said to me. "Wear it and throw it away. Only ordinary people repeat outfits. Ordinary is career suicide."

  Truth was, I rarely ever wore the same thing twice anyway.

  I was home as a "vacay." La'Renz told me to come and spend some time with friends and family because the coming weeks were going to be tough. Nonstop mixtape promotion, interviews, touring, day after day after day. One of the main things he told me to do while I was here was unwind. Soak up all the positive energy from your hometown as you can, he'd said. That energy brought you here. And it's what will keep you sane. Go barbecue with your daddy, watch a baseball game with your fiancé, because your life is about to change and you're never going to get those normal moments again.

  But what La'Renz didn't understand was that my life had never been normal. My daddy once beat me with an iron, and me and Archie never watched baseball—we sold drugs together our entire relationship.

  "Are you Kirbie Amor?"

  I turned and saw a guy that looked a few years older than me standing a few respectful paces back. He was wearing a flat-billed KU ballcap cocked so high I could see the start of his hairline. He had a nice smile and keen brown eyes, as if he was eager to come closer to me.

  "You know me?" I asked.

  "I've been listening to your music since your first song with Coras Bane."

  "Oh okay."

  "Now you're on Revolt and singing National Anthems. You blew up!"

  I smiled. "Not quite."

  "You know, I never liked Mary Moét. I used to tell people all the time that she was biting yo style and not giving you credit for it."

  The mention of Mary Moét just flipped my mood upside down. I hadn't thought of her in a long time, probably because I was experiencing so much good in my life. I regretted murdering her more than ever now. I acted on hatred, shooting her at almost point blank range simply because she tried to steal my image. Now, in her death, she had become a part of my image and would remain a part for the rest of my life.

  The fan asked for a selfie with me and I obliged, giving him a friendly hug afterwards. Then I grabbed my backpack off the carousel and headed to the front of the terminal, where Archie was waiting with a dozen roses. I thanked him, we kissed, and then he held my door open for me as I got in his rental car, a black Chevy Acadia. It was the type of low-key vehicle we used to hustle out of.

  "So you think you're a star now, huh?" he said to me when we were driving away from the airport. He said it with a small smile that was less of his normal belittling of my music path and more of a respect for it.

  Finally, I thought. Some respect.

  I grinned. "I've always been a star."

  "But who made you a star?"

  "Not you."

  "Who else put you on yo feet but me?"

  "Archie, you know you always hated that I wanted to be a singer."

  "I was giving you tough love. I was conditioning you, making that pretty skin of yours extra thick. I put that meat on you, nobody else did. You should be thanking me."

  "Thank you, Archie," I said with sarcasm.

  "The only thing I didn't like was how close you were to that nigga Coras. In all my years in these streets I can spot a backstabber when I see one. He's waiting to sink it in me deep."

  "No he's not."

  "He is too. And I didn't like how you invited that nigga to New York before me. I saw those pictures on The Site. I'm your fiancé. Why didn't I get an invitation?"

  "Coras coming out there was work-related."

  "I don't care."

  "Well, me and La'Renz are in Atlanta now. You can come down there to support me at my mixtape release party."

  "Is Coras gonna
be there?"

  "Yes. He's featured on the mixtape."

  Archie grunted.

  I asked him to take me by my dad's house and he did, but he said he wasn't coming in and I didn't expect him to after their last argument.

  My dad answered the door, looking past me at Archie sitting in car, then he let me inside.

  "You brought that piece of shit over here with you," said my father, as he locked the door behind me. He had hardly ever cursed since he'd found his faith in God.

  "Archie's not coming in," I told him.

  "I know he's not."

  "I just stopped by to see you before I head back out of town. My first real tour is coming up."

  His eyes got wide. "A tour?"

  My dad didn't have a social media account so he didn't know what I had been up to. We sat down on the couch in the living room and I updated him about everything from me first meeting La'Renz and Sundi at JFK, to my interview at Revolt that me and La’Renz got kicked out of because La’Renz hit a host named Liam Bashor over the head with a microphone. I told him about the producers I worked with too (leaving out the attempted rape from Timbuck), and I saved the best for last—my National Anthem performance and meeting Caylene Hope.

  He stopped me before I could finish. "You met Caylene Hope?" he asked suspiciously.

  "You don't believe me?" I said.

  "I do. But did you mention me?"

  "I told her you're a fan."

  "Did you tell her I love her?"

  "No ... was I supposed to?"

  He sat back against the couch and stared across the room at nothing, lost in a thought that awoke a slight smile. I didn't want to interrupt him, but I had questions that needed answers.

  "Daddy, can I ask you something?"

  He nodded absentmindedly.

  I turned in my seat, facing him. He smiled at me and told me he was proud of me and I thanked him, then said, "That time you and Archie got into an argument, you said something to him that I've been wanting to ask you about."

  "I meant every word I said about that punk."

  "It's not what you said about him. It's what you said to him." I touched my daddy's ear, squeezing his earlobe between my fingers softly. "You said that mom has been one of the most successful women in the music world for the last sixteen years. Who were you talking about?"

  He sighed, then rubbed his whole face in frustration. He left his hand over his eyes, hiding himself.

  I took his hand away and made him face me. "Daddy, it's time you tell me exactly who she is. I need to know."

  He stood up and went to the kitchen—and I followed behind him closely, angrily. As he poured himself a glass of vodka, he said, "I told you who your mother was. She was a good woman who got tired of my abuse. She ran away and never came back. It's my fault, not hers. Don't blame her, blame me."

  "Why did you say she was in the music industry?"

  He brought the alcohol to his lips and I snatched the glass and poured it into the sink. He wasn't relapsing on my watch.

  "Answer me," I said.

  "Kirbie, I don't know why I said that. I was just angry."

  "Stop lying!"

  He looked away from me.

  I said, "Are you protecting her? If so, why from me? Is she somebody important?"

  "I haven't heard from her in years, Kirbie. I don't know what she's doing with her life."

  I could see the falsehoods in my father's eyes, and it brought me on the verge of tears. My phone rang then, and when I checked it I saw it was Archie calling. So I grabbed the bottle of vodka my father had poured from and emptied it all into the sink.

  "I'll find out without your help," I said, then turned and headed for the door, throwing the bottle in the trash on my way out. "Bye, daddy."

  ***

  I sat in the passenger seat as Archie drove the rental. I was trying to figure out why my father would be protecting Caylene Hope. The only thing I could come up with was that he was protecting her career. If people found out she had a daughter that she abandoned, then her pro-womanhood public persona would be tarnished. And thus my father would be responsible for crushing her yet again (this time not physically, but it could still hurt her just the same).

  For that reason, I was okay with the world not knowing the truth. I would keep the secret.

  But I damn sure needed to know.

  I was so deep into my thoughts that I barely noticed that we had pulled over on Prospect Avenue in front of a few storefronts. I looked to my left, past Archie, and saw a man in a black barber's pullover shirt jogging across the street toward us. Archie clicked our vehicle's unlock button, and the man climbed in the back seat of our GMC. I looked at the building that the man had come out of. It was a one-level structure called The Fade Factory. It was a barbershop.

  A barber had joined us. I looked over at Archie curiously, but he ignored me.

  "You'll find what you need under the seat, my nigga," Archie said to our guest with finality. "Put the money under there after you check the package."

  "I don't need to check it," said the barber. "You've always done me right. Wussup, Kirbie?"

  I looked back at him and paused a second to see if I recognized him—I didn't—before saying hi back. I watched him shove a stack of cash under the seat.

  "I like how you're representing the town," the barber said to me after he opened the back door, one foot hanging out. "I wish you the best of luck in that singing shit. It's dope how you sing about selling dope and you really do this shit. Just don't give the people too much info about the game, you hear me? Don't get yo'self locked up."

  "I won't," I smiled. I liked this guy. "What's your name?"

  "Kipp Mayor da Barber."

  I shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Kipp."

  "You got my support," he said. "Ask Archie. When he told me his girl got a record deal, I told him I'ma buy every disc she put out, the regular and the deluxe versions."

  I laughed. "Thank you."

  "I'll see you on the next round, Archie."

  Kipp hopped out the car, shut the door and jogged back across the street to his shop.

  When we pulled off, I turned to Archie. "We've been driving around this whole time with cocaine under the seat?"

  He gave me a sideways glance. "When do we not have drugs on us? We're always hustling. Ain't shit changed."

  "Yes, it has. I'm starting to become known. More and more people are recognizing me so I can't be around the packages like that. That's not smart, don't you think?"

  "I've been moving more weight since you did that Revolt interview. Everybody wants to fuck wit' me now that they know you're my fiancé. I wanted Kipp to see you, to let him know that I'm not lying about you. You're good marketing."

  "Archie, at least let me know when we're riding dirty."

  "If I do, then what? You're not gonna ride wit' me? Kirbie, we're in this together. We're gonna be married soon. Don't try to change up on me now. We need this money, and you're gonna help me get it. I don't see that music shit bringing in no checks."

  I started to mention the $25,000 business check La'Renz wrote to me. But unfortunately La’Renz took it back and hadn’t returned it yet. And without physical proof, Archie would think I was getting played. I had my own suspicions lately and I didn't need Archie exacerbating them.

  "It takes time to see money," I said. "This music is an investment."

  "So is this dope. And it's the only thing giving us returns right now, so I don't want no lip."

  I wasn't the nervous type when it came to guns and drugs, but I was uncomfortable now. I didn't want to lose my opportunity with La'Renz and Sundi and Taylor Music Group. Even with my reservations about La'Renz's honesty, I at least wanted a chance to see my mixtape released commercially.

  Archie made another drop, this time to a guy I had sold to before. I counted the money for Archie after the guy left, like old times, as Archie cruised toward a Grandview car wash where our next customer was waiting. It went smooth, like it a
lways had since I started hustling with him. I found myself loosening up, weighing packs with the digital scale to make sure Archie was staying sharp (he hit a bump in the round on purpose, and the pack fell down my shirt and we both laughed hysterically). Two hours in the streets and I was looking forward to our next destination, enjoying my old stomping grounds.

  "Looks like you're feeling better," Archie said.

  I smiled. "I've been away for a while. Forgot how much I missed hustling."

  "It's in you. It's all you know."

  When me and Archie finally got home, I felt all the stress from my out-of-town work slide off my shoulders. I grew up in this house, with Archie, since the age of fourteen. It was comforting to my soul being here.

  He cooked me a plate of baked tilapia with shrimp and spicy calamari served hot. So hot I had to nibble on edges until it cooled. I was licking my fingers during the whole meal, and it made him ask me if La'Renz had been feeding me. "All we ate was hotel food or fast food. A lot of vending machine food too," I told him. "We were always on the go." Afterwards, he took me upstairs by the hand and laid me down on our old California king bed, the sheets puffing out a sweet burst of citrus fabric softener as soon as my back touched. I could tell Archie missed me because he took his time kissing me all over my body, even licking inside the shell of my ear.

  A minute or so after we were both naked and Archie started doing me hard, my mind began to wander. Maybe it was the monotony of his grunts that made me drift, I wasn't sure. But I was realizing again that I had never been with another man, yet this time I was fearing my curiosity because I wanted to act on it. I allowed myself to think of Julian Beltrán, of how he whispered in my ear, Farewell, novia ... En otra vida. I could almost feel his breath tickling my ear. I shuddered.

  "Oh yeah," Archie panted. “I missed this pussy …”

  I thought of Coras, who had sexually violated me in the studio (amazing!), with Ashleigh looking on (which made it even more unforgettable!), then cornered me on the hotel balcony in Manhattan. His kisses were so new and fulfilling, his grip so tight and protective.