Juice

by Nako

  Mahogany was human and every now and then she had to clap back on these hating ass hoes…but from under a fake page. She refused to let someone take her out of character and risk losing an endorsement by calling them a pussy ass nigga or bitch. However, under her fake page…she gave people the business.

  “Whoa…”

  Juice looked down at her screen to see what grasped her attention.

  “Is that…”

  He snatched her phone and stared at the picture.

  “When did you start following her?”

  “I never stopped. She barely post, or maybe I don’t be looking for her…” She sat up, now wanting her food.

  “I’m going to eat.”

  The private plane that they were on was a large one. It came with a dining area and she had a chef on tour with her which worked out in her favor because she often wanted a home cooked meal.

  “Put my phone on the charger when you done lurking.”

  They were best friends, she trusted him with her phone.

  Juice sat back and stared at the picture…for a long ass time.

  Tia looked…good as fuck. Was she working out? Her arms and thighs were toned. That ass was still fat too.

  He smirked at the caption, “Stacked that paper up and then made boss moves.”

  Juice said to himself, “Oh yeah?”

  She was on her shit. Clearly. Tia crossed his mind every now and then, but not as much as she used to when they first broke up.

  He clicked her profile and read her bio.

  Lawyer by day. Diva by night.

  He saw the elephant emoji, red heart and gravel. Tia pledged? He knew that she finished school because his mom told him.

  She didn’t post that much, but there were enough pictures for him to take his time going through while being careful not to double tap anything. It really wouldn’t have mattered because he saw that Mahogany liked a few of them from a year ago or so.

  He glanced over at her, wondering why she lied about not seeing her on her timeline. She moved to Houston. She worked out often. She still read like crazy. Still cooked. She had a few pictures on the beach…Juice could’ve sworn he saw some nigga’s ugly ass toes but refused to zoom in all of that.

  There was a bright pink ring around her profile picture that he clicked to see what she was up too.

  She posted a picture of her at brunch with what looked like a teenager, then a selfie in the car, a picture of her lemon drop martini. She still loved those. There were a few more snaps of her and a group of beautiful women out having fun.

  Tia had friends now.

  Tia smiled.

  Tia was…happy.

  Juice grew jealous and closed out the app.

  He put Mahogany’s phone on the charger and then headed towards the bathroom.

  “Baul made chicken parmesan, want some?”

  He shook his head and kept walking.

  Mahogany knew that he was probably in his feelings, but he was the only person to blame for Tia no longer being in his life. Plus, he had Faaizah now. When he returned, she was doing a crossword puzzle.

  “You okay?”

  Juice took a deep breath, “She’s a lawyer now.”

  “Yeah, I know…”

  “She did it without me.”

  Mahogany then asked him, “Are you mad?”

  He didn’t know. He had no fucking clue.

  “She’s living her life,” he said more so to himself than to his best friend.

  Mahogany was trying to follow him but was having a hard time. “Is that a problem?”

  “How would you feel?”

  “I would be happy. She deserves everything that’s coming to her… Juice, do you still love her?”

  He shook his head, “Nah.”

  It was a bold-faced lie and they both were aware.

  “Everything happens for a reason,” Mahogany reminded him.

  Juice knew that…but still.

  The next few days were a blur. His mind was on Tia like fucking crazy. Juice’s head was so gone that he beat his meat to an old flick he found in his cloud in a folder titled, “TD”.

  He was disgusted with himself when he finished. That shit wasn’t cool, but her body…her frame…her lips...her life…

  Juice was honestly intrigued and wanted to know more. She’d always been a private person, so if she was dating he wouldn’t be able to tell from a few pictures on social media. He was curious to know what type of law she went into and if she was enjoying it so far. Did she like Houston? It was closer to where she grew up. Did she come to New York often?

  His mom claimed that she hadn’t spoken to her in years and he wondered was that true but knew that she wouldn’t lie to him.

  When Juice made it home, his girlfriend greeted him at the door with a smile as bright as day on her face, reminding him that he made his choice.

  “Hey baby,” he greeted her with a hug and a kiss to the forehead.

  “I’ve missed you so much.”

  He rubbed her back. “Same, baby same.”

  They had dinner with wine and then he fucked her into oblivion until she begged him to stop. As she laid beside him, sleeping peacefully now that he was back home, he texted Mahogany, “Send me your password.”

  Tia still had him blocked from all those years ago, which boggled him but made him want to explore her life even more.

  “You are delusional,” was Mahogany’s response followed by her password.

  “Yeah-yeah.”

  He got out of the bed and went into the bathroom to take a shit while lurking her page all over again, this time checking the likes and comments to see if his ex had a new nigga.

  The next morning, Faaizah had his balls down her throat. He asked for breakfast, but this was better. He came suddenly, and she thought that she did a good job, but really, he was thinking of how good his old lady used to suck him up.

  “Yeah, you missed me,” she said, as she wiped her mouth. She climbed out of the bed to brush her teeth and shower.

  “What you want for breakfast?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Nothing too heavy. I got a meeting at one at Soco.” Which was a cool eatery where he normally handled his business matters.

  Once Faai hopped out the shower and went to cook him up something, he got in and prayed as he washed. After he was dressed for the day, he checked his phone and the Instagram app for a notification that Tia responded to his message that he sent from Mahogany’s page.

  His heart skipped a beat once he saw that she read it an hour ago but didn’t respond.

  Juice wondered why the wait.

  “Bad news?”

  He didn’t hear his girlfriend talking to him, “Earth to Jihad…”

  She playfully waved her arms in front of his face.

  “My bad. What you say?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah…what you doing today?”

  She handed him a napkin and spoon to eat the oatmeal that she cooked.

  “Going to look at dressesssssss….” she cooed at him and then stared down at the rock on her finger. Juice outdid himself when he dropped down on one knee.

  “Word?”

  His mind was truly somewhere else.

  The phone vibrated. She hit ‘em back.

  “Juice, I’m going to assume that you sent this message in a drunken state of mind. Take care and continue to be blessed.”

  C H A P T E R 7

  And if it’s real, they cannot control it – Trey Songz

  “How did you know Mahogany was the one?” Juice asked Porter.

  Genesis, her younger brother, downed his shot and pointed to Juice. “This nigga here…”

  “Yo, how we get from talking about the new Bentley truck to falling in love and shit? Miss me with all of dat,” he was anti-romance.

  Porter kept telling him, “Your mother fucked you up.” He shook his head at Genesis.

  “Therapy will be good for you,” Xavier suggested.
/>   Genesis shot them both a middle finger. “I’m good. I don’t have mommy issues, nigga.”

  They all disagreed.

  “P, talk to me,” Juice said coolly.

  “You do know that this is a conversation we probably should have had before you dropped one point five on a ring,” he noted.

  “Who said I-”

  Genesis poured another drink and Juice nudged him, “You talk too much.”

  That was supposed to be between them.

  “I spent more than that though but it’s still a lot for you to be questioning if I thought Mahogany was the one.”

  “I didn’t ask you that, I just wanted to know you how you knew.”

  Xavier chimed in, “Juice, how about you tell us where this came from?”

  He took a deep breath, “I saw a picture of Tia…and my head is gone.”

  “Tia…Tia…why does that name sound familiar?”

  Genesis raked his brain and so did the other gentlemen in Porter’s man cave.

  “My ex!”

  “The one with the accent?”

  “The fuck? Yeah, I guess. She’s from Louisiana.”

  Xavier nodded his head, “Quiet chick. Yeah, okay…you saw a picture of her and what?”

  Juice really didn’t want to talk to anyone other than Porter and was now regretting bringing it up in front of all of them.

  Ashton, Casey and Moses who was in the corner of the room playing cards finally chimed in, “Come talk to us. We been married longer than P’s ass.”

  That was a fact. Juice ambled over and took a seat across from the OG’s.

  “What’s up?”

  Moses handed him a blunt, but Juice declined, “About to fast…trying to get a head start.” He wasn’t drinking or smoking right now.

  “Respect.”

  Juice was done with the small talk, he got right into it.

  “I love my fiancée. I wouldn’t have proposed if I didn’t.”

  Ashton questioned, “Okay but?”

  There was always a but with these niggas. He learned that years ago.

  “I’m wondering if I made a mistake with Tia…”

  “If you did make a mistake, it’s too late now. You just said the most two important words. Fiancée and love. You LOVE your FIANCÉE. Let the past be the past.”

  That was the hard part.

  “We were best friends.”

  “You got a new best friend now, nigga.”

  Casey told him, “If your fiancée has done right by you, which I know she has simply on how she treats you around us, honor that.”

  “Tia is long gone,” Genesis shouted across the room.

  “I’m sure I can get her back,” Juice popped his shit, although she chumped him off in the DM.

  “Are you happy?” Xavier asked him.

  “VERY!” he said, truthfully.

  “Let her go then, let it go. Act like you never seen the picture.”

  He didn’t want to hear that.

  “Going to make a sandwich, this nasty ass food…”

  They needed to fire their in-home chef. The food was always horrible, but P swore that he and the kids loved it. He went upstairs and into the kitchen to make himself a turkey sandwich.

  Mahogany was in the living room relaxing, something that she rarely got the chance to do.

  “Catching up on your ratchet shows?” he asked her, as he pulled out the bread, mayo, honey mustard and turkey.

  “Yes, you know I’m behind on Real Housewives.”

  “What Nene and them doing?” he asked, as if he kept up with the show too.

  “Acting like damn fools,” she cackled loudly.

  The Housewives was her guilty pleasure. Eating ice cream, smoking a blunt and binge-watching all her favorite shows while her kids napped. Her husband had his friends over tonight and she wasn’t mad about it. Porter loved to entertain, Mahogany not so much. When she was home, she wanted to be alone.

  It took Porter awhile to understand how she felt, but now he did, and they were good to go.

  “Ashton and the rest of them dudes told me to leave Tia alone…” his voice trailed because he wanted to know what her take on it was.

  “You should.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh…you’re about to get married.”

  “We’re not rushing down the aisle,” he was constantly reminding her of that.

  Mahogany paused her show and went into the kitchen. “She’s looking at dresses. What are you talking about?”

  “How you know?” he asked as he cut his sandwich in half.

  “She texted me earlier asking if I was going to be able to make it.”

  Juice wasn’t aware of that.

  “What you tell her?”

  “I let her know that I’m attending the wedding as a guest of yours. I don’t want to be in the wedding. I’m not her friend.”

  Mahogany was blunt, but he could bet a million dollars that Faai took her response the wrong way leaving him to be the one to have to clear it up when he got home.

  “You don’t like her?”

  She gave him a blank look. “Did I say that?”

  “Just making sure.”

  She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, “I mean she alright…”

  Juice knew it, “Yo, you’re crazy.”

  She didn’t care how he felt about it.

  “Listen, if I join her bridal party then that’s going to be the highlight of the wedding.”

  She hated attention and preferred to be in the limelight as less as possible.

  “I’ll be there to support and celebrate you…”

  Mahogany could hope that her attendance was enough.

  “I got you, sis.”

  Her stomach grumbled. “Make me a sandwich.” She was high and had the munchies.

  “You didn’t eat the food that the chef made?”

  She shook her head and turned her nose up.

  “Porter likes that nasty ass food. I threw it away.”

  He chuckled, “I told him the same thing.”

  He and Mahogany were one in the same.

  “Back to you and Tia though…why do you like her again? Cus she got a fat ass?” She prayed that Juice wasn’t that shallow.

  “Uh, how old am I again? Seventeen? No.”

  He couldn’t explain it if he tried, “I don’t know man…I’ve been thinking about what our lives would’ve been like…if we were still together. We had so many plans for when she finished school.”

  “DiCaille & McAfee Firm.”

  “Nah, what about D & M?”

  She shook her head no disagreeing, “Sound too much like a sex position.”

  He laughed at her silly self.

  “We gotta come up with something bae.”

  It was the middle of the night and they had been sexing off and on. Both of them were high as shit when they decided to do their vision board. The one that they did every year, but his schedule had been crazy, so they were just getting around to doing it.

  “Once we get married, we’ll both be the McAfee’s so let’s do that.”

  “What?”

  “McAfee Enterprises...it covers everything.”

  He loved that.

  “Damn that shit sound like a billion-dollar company,” he nodded his head and rubbed his hands together like Birdman.

  “And do!” She puckered her lips out and he greeted her with a kiss.

  Their dining room table was full of magazine clips and she even printed their goals out for them to tape down to the back of the board. No matter what side of the board they saw, it’ll be a reminder of what they were working towards.

  “We got real goals...”

  “Everybody ain’t able to think like this…” Juice commented.

  “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t dream this big,” she reminded her boyfriend.

  He shook his head, “Don’t say that. You had it in you.”

  Tia knew that she didn’t, but she wouldn’t say anyt
hing else. They bobbed their heads to the tunes of Sade as they glued, cut and taped their dreams together.

  η

  Tia went extra hard in the gym today. She was sweating bullets and smelled like a pig sty as she ran a few blocks to seal the workout and then jogged home. She stripped down to nothing, stretched in the middle of her bathroom and then took a hot shower. She proceeded to wash her body in peppermint soap, which had amazing benefits for the skin. Tia threw on a nightgown and made a smoothie before sitting down to do some work. She went into the office about three days out of the week if she wasn’t on a case at the time. They were obligated to do two pro-bono cases a year. She’d been reading and reviewing files to see which one she would do since her schedule had slowed down after winning a major case a few weeks ago.

  Tia found her favorite readers and put them on. With her green smoothie, candle lit and Kash Doll rapping about icing her out, she had a good vibe going until her phone vibrated.

  Tia hated to be interrupted, so she went to put her phone on airplane mode when she saw she had yet another direct message from Juice who was attempting to communicate with her from Mahogany’s page. Like, how old were they again?

  She opened the message, prepared to block Mahogany and keep it moving with her life.

  Can we talk? Five minutes – IAMMAHOGANY.

  What the fuck did he want? That was all she wanted to know. Tia was done with that chapter of her life, it ended so long ago.

  For what? - she messaged him back.

  Almost instantly, he responded, you can set a timer…917-278-4755

  His number was the same, but she made sure she forgot those digits a long time ago.

  Tia put her phone down and paced the floor. She should be working.

  “Fuck that nigga,” she said out loud.

  He left her high and dry when she needed him the most. Tia damn near pleaded with him to help her out. Juice didn’t deserve not one minute of her time.

  She refocused and went back to working until her phone chimed again.

  “Shit, I forgot to put my phone on DND.”

  Instantly, she toggled the button and then flipped her phone over to really concentrate. Juice had his chance with her and blew it. Tia wasn’t going backwards.

  Two hours later, she was stumped, and her eyes were failing her. Her workouts were so intense that the sleep that followed was always worth it. She stuck one of her meal-prep containers in the microwave and tapped her nails against the granite counter as she counted down the two minutes until she could feed herself.