by Love Belvin
After the burial, Ms. Melba gave me explicit instructions to attend the repast. Against my team’s advisement and interest, I obliged. It was strange because although everybody, including Danny G and Lil Bruh pulled up, no one ate. A few familiar with my staff came over to say hello to them. Most people wanted to speak to me and take pictures, to which I had to decline. It wasn’t cool and plus, I didn’t think it was a good look with Jerry. But I sat next to Ms. Melba and took my time listening to her concerns about the case. She asked again if I’d known anything or had heard anything. My answer was the same as it was in the hospital. I didn’t know how to explain Mike and I now had separate social circles. Who he ran with was somewhat just as much a mystery to me, too. We did our own thing.
When a gang of people descended upon her as we spoke, I quietly excused myself. Danny G followed me out of the banquet room to the bathroom. When I came out, I decided to check my phone. I’d silenced it since the funeral. As usual, I had a bazillion texts and alerts. Ignoring them all, I went straight to IG where I was hit with a million notifications. Most of them for one thing. It was from videos including a live one Teke posted sometime last night—or early this morning for my time zone—of him in a club that looked crazy familiar.
I studied the footage for a minute. The music blared in the video, it was so loud. But what was clear was Wynter coming into view with slanted red eyes, dancing and making cocky expressions. I saw when he danced with her and Jemah while Wynter held an empty martini glass in her hand. She mouthed the lyrics to the English chick from London’s track. Her name escaped me, but her music didn’t. There was another video where they all sang and acted to an old DMX hit, “How It’s Goin’ Down.” And there was another one where Jemah and Wynter seemed to sandwich, even though Jemah was closer to the point of touch, and seductive with her moves. Wynter had her back turned to the camera, dancing, but focusing somewhere else and with a champagne flute in her hands in this one. She was fucked up, that was for sure. I tabbed out of the phone, taking a deep breath.
Teke crossed the line.
Again…
It wasn’t my imagination. It was suspected by more than just me he’d been flirting with Wynter and taunting me. What made my move to address it a slippery slope was the faulty foundation our relationship was built on. I had to keep moving strategically.
My phone rang, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yo.”
“The friend of Meks I have a contact for hit me back. She’s reaching out to her to find out her schedule on the low.”
Spilling That Hot Tea…
I had to recall the topic.
“And Friday?”
“Already cleared the flight with Captain Morgan’s people. The G550’s being cleaned from head to toe tomorrow and’ll be gassed up Thursday night.”
“All goodie…” I rubbed the back of my head, feeling the tension there. “Anything else?”
“Yes. The fundraiser with Toni McNabb—”
“Yeah,” I turned, facing the wall, recalling my need to discuss this with him, “she reached out to me with new dates. I can forward them to you. Forgot to.”
“Okay. Once you do that, I can match them against your calendar and hopefully schedule it before the tour.”
“Yeah.” I breathed, subconsciously turning around again. “We need to get that booked ASAP—”
Myisha stood there, with her legs spread, leaning on one hip with her arms crossed. By the expression on her face, I could tell something was wrong.
“Yo…”
“Yes.”
“Lemme hit you later. Something just came up.”
I disconnected before he could respond.
“What’s up?” I tossed my chin toward her.
“Is that the Love in Boxing fundraiser with you and Toni McNabb you’re scheduling?”
My forehead tightened. “Why?”
“Because it’s my fucking job to do.”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “I already gave you what I need you to handle.”
“No. You give me what’s trivial and unimportant. Packing up and clearing out my room and yours at the apartment?”
I turned to face her fully, wiping down my beard with my hand. “What’s wrong with that?”
She dropped her chin, her eyes blew up. “Other than that being the shit I give my assistants to do? The fact I don’t know why. I mean… I know they’re the two largest bedrooms in there, but it’s weird. Are we selling the place?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m just cleaning house, Myisha. Just do what I need you to do.”
“Don’t fucking play with me!” She pointed to my cell in my hand. “You give Jashon your needs to handle.”
“Who told you that?”
Behind her, Danny G walked up, asking us to keep it down. Myisha raised her hand to quiet him without looking back at him.
“The industry is small, Raj. How long you think it’d be before I found out?”
“To be real, I ain’t care when you did. I just need things handled.”
“So, we’re going there? You go and hire one of my subordinates to replace me? How fucking humiliating, Gee-Gee!”
“You betrayed me!”
She shook her head while her narrowed eyes were pinned to me. “Uhn-uhn. You betrayed me. You knew more about my mother’s death than you told me. Even had a hand in it. I told you last month and I’ll tell you again: For my mother, I’ll go to the police and tell everything I know. She was sick as fuck, yeah, but she ain’t deserve to die the way she did. Mike may not be here to corroborate it, but I swear, I’ll tell! I’mma find out all the details and tell. Tell Grandmother McKinnon, too! I’ll tell everybody!”
Find out all the details? This threat sounded looser than her claims in my office that night Wynter’s girls were over.
“Tell everybody what?”
“Yo, Raj, bruh…” Danny G warned, but I was mentally gone.
Way off the charts. I couldn’t hear or see shit but my little cousin who had lost her fucking mind. I couldn’t believe she could stand here and threaten me, of all people. I did everything for her. Gave her any and everything she’d asked for since I was a damn kid.
She stepped toward me, her heels clacking along the way. The tears swelled in her eyes.
“You were there when she died. You killed her, he said.” Her lips trembled.
Then it hit me. I got got. I never questioned what information she had that night. All she said was Mike told her everything about her mom’s death and I took that to mean the facts that had been haunting me since the night I sat in my truck and did nothing. But that wasn’t me killing her. In all my guilt, I’d never been the perpetrator, only the weak, silent bystander.
My eyes narrowed as I cocked my head to the side. “How did I kill her, My?”
“You were there. You gave that bad shit to her.”
“How? What?” I pushed, not believing I fell for the bullshit these past three fucking weeks. The family knew Patty died of an overdose and it was “possibly” a toxic batch, so that was already out there. Why the fuck hadn’t I asked her for specifics when she hurled the threat in my office? Till this day, I felt guilty as shit over Patty’s death for not trying to warn her as Poppy handed her the bad dope, but I wasn’t there when she shot it up. “When the fuck did I do that?” I growled, knowing I’d trapped her.
Danny G froze behind her. The hallway seemed to echo my hard breaths and Myisha’s lagged thoughts. The seconds ticked by and I lost her eyes as they circled in her own calculations. Her own revelation.
“You gave her money that night and watched her get high,” she reached, eyes still unsteady.
Unsure.
My eyes closed, jaw clenched, and chest swelled with rage and relief. She had no fucking details of the story. Mike probably said just enough to upset her and implicate me to get her to do what he couldn’t: Control me.
And I’m here at his funeral, unwelcome, and paying my last respects…
&n
bsp; I leaned down into her face; my mouth balled so tight as I spoke, my damn teeth dug into my lips. “You mean to tell me you fuckin’ threatened me, had me fuck up what I had with ol’ girl on some bullshit?”
“He said you were taking the thing with Wynter too far!” she croaked, mouth trembled as she cried. “You told her everything. You ain’t even know her like that, but you told her shit that was supposed to stay between me and you. It’s just us. Only us. We’re all we got, Gee-Gee! You taught me that—” She stopped as though she could no longer go without breathing.
I shook my head, not able to believe this was really going down. “You’re fired. You tried to play top hand with my life. Casting fucking lots with my destiny! You gambled with the first piece of happiness I’ve had since being a fuckin’ kid. A kid, Myisha!”
“I didn’t know!” she screamed, body trembling from a budding cry. “You never said—”
“You never gave me a fuckin’ chance to! You came home, caught feelings like some psycho bitch and plotted against me. Not once did you come to me and ask what went down between us. You ain’t consider my feelings not once. All you thought about was you. That opened my eyes to a lot. You revealed so much in that one act. That ain’t love. It ain’t family. That’s control and manipulation.”
“Raj—”
I swung my arm, dismissing her tears. “I gave you everything. I protected you when you were young and vulnerable. I knew you had some shit with you, but never fucked with you. Only gave you a lifestyle you could flourish in. Gave you the keys to everything I own. And the one time I catch a break in life—a real one, something for me—you go and try playing God in my life?”
“What is it about her? What makes Wynter so special? She was a nobody. You didn’t even choose her. You couldn’t stand her for months. What changed?”
My head shook as I tried catching my breath through stretched nostrils only. “It ain’t something I can explain. Nothing I’m ‘bout to defend. But she’s something I can’t let go of if I ever want a chance out of this blackness that’s been smothering me since Hoover Street. You’ve been with me since we left that place. You know my demons, My. Even protected me from people who never will understand. I gave you that power. Now I see it was too much. I need it back. I need her.”
With mascara-stained tears glistening from her eyes and snot running from her flushed nose, she nodded her head. “I can work with her. With time, I can adjust.”
I shook mine. “I can’t move on after discovering how vindictive and manipulating you are—”
“I swear, Gee-Gee! I’ll never do it again!”
“Nah, you won’t. That’s why we need to regulate this thing. We need to do what’s healthy. We need to move apart. Give me space to find happiness or to fuck it up on my own. I did that shit for you when you left with Vanda. I’m taking mine now. You gotta go. This ain’t healthy. Won’t work if I can get her back to the crib.”
She heaved as her eyes blew the hell up. “You’re moving her in and me out? Oh, God!” she cried.
“It’s called leave and cleave, Myisha. No way I can have what I need with her and you’re there quarterbacking. I can set you up with your own. Get you whatever you need to get settled.”
Tina came out of nowhere, wrapping her arm around Myisha as she covered her face and wailed.
I felt a tap at my arm. “We gotta go, dawg. Drawing too much fuckin’ attention with this,” Lil Bruh barked on the low.
I felt my nostrils spreading even more, fighting to get enough air in and out. I jerked my chin toward Tina, who was eyeing me for my next move. “Get her up to Sparta.”
I needed Myisha out of my sight. ASAP.
Got finessed by my lil MyMy…
“Time’s up for the fuckboys,” was the last of the bar from the track Pixie recorded last night and sent over to Young Lord for more producing and mixing.
I sat back in my seat feeling Young staring at me, but I couldn’t find the words to speak.
“You ‘on’t like it?” he asked, stolidity in his expression and tone.
My brows shot up and I licked my lips, dazed. “No. No! It’s just…” My eyes swept up to him. “I’m still not used to my emotions being spilled from someone else’s lips yet. I know we’re coming up on three weeks now…used a few of them, and it still feels surreal.”
“You’ll get used to it. Trust me.” Young ran his index over his top lip.
“Get used to Brielle, of all people, singing my words.” One brow arched. “Yeah, right.”
“Word bond.” Lord stood from the chair and turned to his engineer. “Put in the horns the kid recorded last night where I told you and mix that ASAP. I think her label wants it packaged to send out to radio in four days.”
“No,” Scott, the engineer, corrected. “Two. Tonight’s an all-nighter for me, brother.”
Young Lord snickered before directing me to the door. “I’ll have somebody send you grub in a few.”
“Beer, too!” Scott shouted as the door closed.
We were at the studio in Young and Kennedi’s Malibu home. It was not only monolithic in size, but with a breathtaking ocean front view to add to its splendor. According to Kennedi, they’d just moved in a couple of months ago. However, the entire place was fully and lushly furnished, and the massive studio he had installed was fully equipped with just about everything Dave’s had been in Phoenix.
And Young hadn’t turned out to be too bad a guy. He was still standoffish to a degree, yet inexplicably generous. I’d been staying with them for three days and since, Kennedi had waited on me with class and hospitable grace in between her online courses. She flew out for a few days, leaving the kids behind with the nanny, to be a gracious hostess. And Young Lord had put me in the mix with two of the biggest names in pop music: Pixie and Brielle. He’d been currently working with them both, and oddly requested relationship ballads. More specifically, breakup or friction. If I was nothing else, I was the woman to produce heartfelt words on the subject of romantic anguish. I just couldn’t believe the turnaround time for both tracks. Music can be an expeditious industry.
I followed behind him to the next studio room, the largest one where my contemporaries were. They were all huddled around, listening to a song blasting from the massive speakers. Immediately, as we entered, Young Lord began to bob his head and an unusual beam opened on his face.
The track was mid-tempo, but seductive as fuck, led by heavy drums and an electric guitar. Damn… My head began to bounce according to the beat, too.
“You in my bed…
Taking my head.
Your shivering skin…
Slippin’ through my hands when I’m in.
You know the rhythm of blues…
Baby, that’s old news.
And now my secret’s out…
They know what this love’s about.
My private Wynterland…
Without you I’m half the man—”
“And watch how the beat drop—but because it’s already alive in your head, you know where to pick it up,” Young challenged the spellbound group, shouting over the track. Clearly, he’d heard this before. Had this been released to radio and I didn’t know?
And to speak truth to his claim, every head I could see still bounced during the drop.
“Aye!” Jemah rocked her hips with one hand in the air, snapping her fingers as her ass swayed suggestively.
Her eyes were on me when they opened slowly and intoxicatingly. That was honestly the mode the song drove you into. Even that instantly, my nipples were stinging hard. I tried crossing my arms over them and not looking down to draw attention.
“We fuss and fight…
Sex and write…
We set the rhyme of love.”
After a dramatic piano and horn climax, the song ended. And by that time, undisputedly, I knew it was him. This was new music.
“And that’s why that nigga is hot!” Irv declared, screaming so loud the cords in his neck bulged.
<
br /> “Yup!” Rico added just as animatedly. “That’s why the people fuck wit’ him. ‘Bout fuckin’ time, Raj!”
“Yo, you talk about pussy in a track and how it makes you lose your fucking religion, and the world buys it!” Jon clapped palms with Rico. “That shit was fiyah!” He beat his chest like a maniac.
“That dude ain’t lose his religion,” Jemah interjected. “He’s saying he switched religions. That pussy got his praise now!” Her claim was so lively as the room went up in hysteria, all agreeing with her theory.
“That’s my nigga,” Young Lord quietly and proudly announced to a sprightly room.
It was like an all-boys club, something Jemah and I had discussed privately that we were adamantly against. But the joshing, declaration of Raj’s unrivaled talent, and agreeing he was at the head of the class from this single alone made the mood weird for me. Forget the fact he possibly mentioned me in his song, confirming to these people I’d spent the past three weeks with there was dissention in my marriage. Now they knew that was the reason why Ragee had never made an official appearance or had been spoken about by me this whole time.
I felt like Beyoncé. All these years I’d thought she hadn’t discussed or boasted much about her marriage because of her morbid preference of privacy. No. I now believed, since the Lemonade and 4:44 albums, the poor woman didn’t paint the sky she owned with blush-worthy love notes of it because it wasn’t as beautiful as the world had perceived it to be. She hadn’t had long periods of peace and stability in her marriage and therefore, had no security to exult her institution of “happily ever after.” That was me. No glory, therefore no gushing love story. Only short, isolated stints of pure, soul-shaking and toe-curling bliss.
Fuck…
What was more unnerving was the room, and how all eyes seemed to have been on me. And if I thought I was imagining it, once the track was done and the speakers were turned down, Jon shifted closer to me.
