by Shan
"Don't worry, I got you. You'll be able to sit on your pretty ass and watch the money pile up in a minute," I said and grabbed Keysha's hand. I brought it up to my lips and gave it a soft peck and held it in place for a moment. Her hand trembled under my touch, and she shifted slightly in her seat. "Yea, let me stop playing with you."
"Thank you," she sighed and quickly took a toke of the blunt. "What I don't understand is why you insist on doing so much. You don't have to be seen, but yet you are, and everyone knows you. Do you ever worry that someone would turn on you and rat you out to the feds or something?"
"Yea I worry about it, but you gotta stay ten steps ahead of shit like that. You don't make as much money as I do and don't have the legal system on your side. You gotta give that paper up to the boys in blue and not just no petty ass uniformed officer. Take it to the top. I've had so many fed cases opened on me that always end up going nowhere. I got murder charges pending out here in Atlanta, and I'm sure I got somebody that'll be coming to visit me pretty soon once word get out that I'm around. Even then, I can't stray too far away from my money and neither should you."
"I hear that," Keysha said as she passed the blunt to me. We continued riding around the city with me pretty much teaching Keysha everything that I knew. I had to admit that although I didn't agree with her being in this life, I actually admired her. She seemed to be a strong woman and about her business, and I couldn't deny that it made her that much more attractive.
She had her own money and was only looking for someone to help take her further in the game unlike most bitches that was out looking for a nigga to help them come up. Most these bitches lived by the eighteen year plan and had no other goals. Keysha was twenty-three with no kids and from what she said she was waiting for the right man to come along before she even thought about bringing shorties into the world.
"Tired?" I asked Keysha after she let out a long yawn.
She laughed, "I am. I haven't noticed that we'd been out this long. It's cool though; I got page after page full of notes. You don't know how much I appreciate this."
"It's all good ma'. I normally wouldn't do anything like this for anyone unless they were about to be working for me, but you seem cool enough for me."
"Well I'm hoping that your ass is gonna be working with me. I thought that's what all this was about. You showing me how you would be doing things if I extended my product to you."
"Yea, that was the plan, but I don't know now," I stated truthfully.
I was having second thoughts from the time I hung up the phone with Rozalyn earlier that evening. I knew I needed to take my ass home and try to salvage things with my wife, but the stubborn part of me wanted to make her ass suffer a little longer. She really hurt me—again.
I should've been able to count on her to hold me down while I was down, but yet she was making moves as if she thought I was never coming back. This shit had me so fuckin' confused. I half-way believed that Rozalyn was trying to help, but her history of fucking around on me refused to allow me to fully believe anything that she said.
I just didn’t see why Rico would have to lie about Rozalyn wanting to spend a week with him in Jamaica. I ain't never had any problems with that dude. We were getting a little money together, and before I had gone down, I had promised him a twenty five million dollar cut from what I made after I got rid of the bricks. That little two and a half million dollars was nothing, and I couldn't see him coming for that when he promised way more than that. I don't know. Every time I thought about the shit, I got a fucking headache.
Since Keysha couldn't stop yawning, I stopped to pick up something to eat through the drive-thru of McDonalds so that I could take her back to her car. I had to make my mind up quick about what I wanted to do. I didn't want to waste Keysha's time if I decided that I was just gonna go home and work things out with Rozalyn. I could already see that being around Keysha was gonna be hard. All these little tight clothes that she was wearing, and the little flirtatious tone she kept throwing at me was beginning to be too irresistible. She wanted to give a nigga that pussy and even though I knew I shouldn't take it, she had me wondering what she felt like.
"Where'd you park?" I asked Keysha as we pulled into the parking lot of the Hilton.
"I didn't drive. I had my man Nino drop me off. If it's okay with you, can I wait in your room with you until he comes."
I sighed, "I um—"
"It's okay. I can wait in the lobby."
"Nah, you ain't gotta wait in the lobby. I was just gonna say that I can drop you off at your spot."
"It's cool. I can wait in the lobby," she said again.
I shook my head and parked my car in a vacant space. I turned the car off and opened up the door. "Come on," I told Keysha. I got out of the car without waiting for Keysha to follow behind me. I wasn't trying to be funny with her, but I just spent the last six hours with her. When I told her it was about business I meant that. We didn’t need to be hanging around each other for any purposes than that because I knew where it would lead to.
Once we got up into my room, I noticed Keysha pull her heels off and toss them to the side before she took a seat in one of the sofa chairs that were located on the side of the bed. She toyed around with her phone and made a humming noise before bringing it up to her ear.
"Hey Nino, I'm ready," Keysha said over the phone. I pulled my shirt over my head, tossed it onto the bed, and then kicked my shoes off. I laid across the bed and rested my head into the comfortable blankets. That quickly, I was drifting off into a good sleep until I felt a pair of soft hands began massaging my shoulders. I tensed up under her touch and groaned under my breath. "Can you roll over and look at me? I want to ask you something."
I rolled over, and she straddled me. She pulled her hair to the back and placed her hands onto my chest. I could see her hard perky nipples poking through her BCBG top. She was looking up at the ceiling and then finally she looked down at me. Her eyes were piercing through mine.
"I wanted to talk to you about a few things that I was thinking about in the car. I know that you said you're thinking about whether or not you want to work with me, and I know that for a nigga like you, it has to be hard for you to accept the fact that I am a woman. So I wanted to offer you a proposition."
"I'm listening."
"What if I offered you a service fee? You help me set up my organization, get it up and running and then I pay you fee for doing so."
"How much we talking about? And it will take time for you to get things up and running smoothly. It's not something that you'll have going in a couple of months."
"Well how long will it take? I mean you've been doing this for a while. Niggas was already out here doing shit your way—"
"But then you came around, changed it up, so I gotta start over again. I gotta build a team up again. Get up with all the street lieutenants and get them all on the same page, and that takes a lot of time. You dealing with egos and a bunch of muthafuckas who feel like they should be where you at. Not only that, I gotta find a few places to store the product, to cook it, a new distributing route. It's a lot of shit, and it's gonna take me at least a year to have it going before I could walk away and leave it for somebody else to take care of it."
"A year, that's fine. I'll pay to be around you for a year."
I laughed, "Stop playing."
"I know you said that we shouldn't mix business with pleasure, but I can't deny the fact that I'm really feeling you. I want you, and if you allow me to have you, I promise not to let anything personal get in the way of money. I'm a go getter by heart, and I ain't never allowed a nigga to come in between that. And this is not even in the norm for me to pursue a dude like this, but it's also not normal for me to not go after what I want either."
"I'm not that nigga you want, Keysha."
"Let me be the judge of that."
"Bitches flip out, wanna kill a nigga, fuck with a nigga people and shit when it don't work out. I'm cool on everything. You a pretty gir
l and I like the fact that you headstrong, but I'm good."
"I'm not that bitch. If it don't work out then it doesn't work out. I won't act up. Trust me when I say I'm not one of those weak bitches. I can get any man I want, but I want you."
Keysha leaned down toward me and covered my lips with hers, sealing this new relationship between her and I. Everything was telling me to push her off of me, make her leave, and take my ass home, but I ignored it all. But didn't I always.
Chapter 1 8
Rozalyn
I should've cheated
First of all let me say,
You can't accuse me of all the things
You know that you are guilty of
And I see that it is for you to blame
Everything on me.
If that's the case,
I should go have my fun and do all the things you say I do.
Boy I can't continue to take this from you
~Keyshia Cole~
Every day for a week after Tamar left here, I received some type of flowers and an expensive ass gift. It was his way of apologizing for slapping me the night before, but these gifts didn't mean shit to me.
The first day, I found it cute and was flattered that he wanted me to know much he didn't mean what he did, but by the second day, I was already over it. None of this shit changed the fact that he walked out on his family. Fuck all them flowers and fuck them gifts. That shit was still boxed up and them damn flowers went in the trashcan each time the dude delivered that shit.
"This shit is bad, Rozalyn," Brian said as he walked around my newly finished shop.
"Thank you. I must say that they brought my exact vision to life," I agreed with him looking around proudly.
"Girl, I think I wanna come work out here instead of Miami," Starr joked and placed her hands on little waist.
"They look pretty much the same except for the color scheme," I told her.
"And the damn nail bar. You didn't say anything about that," Starr said.
I laughed, "Oh well, yea. It was a last minute addition. I did the research, and there is only one nail shop within a ten mile radius and there is an estimated of six thousand women that work in this area and another ten thousand that live within five miles. I saw dollar signs and to take the opportunity."
"Look at you. Well I guess that nigga Tae's hustle has rubbed off on you. I know that I would've never thought of that. But now you know we gonna have to talk about getting this shit added to my place," Starr chuckled. "Dead ass serious."
"I kinda figured you would say that. I'm cool with it."
"Anyway bitches. I know we were supposed to be coming down to help you with the grand opening and all that, but we need to talk," Brian chimed in.
"About what?" I asked with both brows raised suspiciously. I haven’t seen either of them since the last time I was in Miami, and we were discussing the plans I had of expanding the shop and the opening of my clothing store. We talked all the time on the phone. They knew about Tamar's last fatal injury and how he had disappeared shortly after. I've cried on the phone with the both of them when I felt like I couldn't make it through. They had helped me through some tough times when Tamar wasn't around, but lately I hadn't made a reference concerning my relationship with him. I honestly didn't know what the fuck was going on. Starr and I also talked about her boy Chino, and she swore to me that she had no idea he was like that. She told me she would've never done no shit like that to me, and I believed her.
It had been two months since he was here, two months since we had crazy ass sex, and two months since he slapped the hell out of me and walked out. He called and talked to the kids every other day, but anytime I tried to say anything to him he would always hang up on me.
Because of my past mistakes, he wanted to believe that what Rico told him was true and he blamed me for no longing having the plug that he had with Rico. I admit my fuck up but I wasn't going to keep apologizing for that shit and I damn sure wasn't gonna take blame for something I know I didn't do. Fuck Tamar.
He could keep his stubborn ass wherever the fuck he was at. Me and the kids were good when he wasn't home and now that he still isn't home, we gonna continue to be good.
"I think we gonna need a drink for this one. Let's walk over to the Iron Cactus. Some guy was telling me about it when I was on my here earlier," Brian said and headed towards the door. Starr and I followed him, and we all walked down to the Iron Cactus.
Once we got in we were seated at a table in the back of the place, and each given a menu. I didn't know what the hell Brian was about to say, but knew once he started smacking his lips that he had what he considered some juicy gossip to tell me. I took my eyes off the menu and laid them on him, giving him my undivided attention.
"What Brian?" I asked eager for him to just get to it and stop with the dramatics already.
"So, when was you gonna tell us that you and Tamar were no longer together. I mean you went from crying damn near every night cause you thought that someone killed him and hid his body to not saying anything at all. Now I see why," Brian said with a roll of his eyes. He picked his menu up and ran his perfectly manicured nail across each item that caught his eye.
"Who said that we wasn't together?" I stated defensively.
"His new bitch Keysha that's who," Brian huffed
"Who the fuck is Keysha?" I wanted to know.
"The bitch he been all over Atlanta with. They saying she came from Detroit and supposed to be something major. I was talking to this chick named Dakota that I used to do hair with out in that shop I worked in Atlanta before I moved to Miami and the bitch was telling me that she had this client that paid her so good that she didn't have to work if she didn't want to."
"I heard about this chic Keysha. My pops was telling me her people was something major back in the eighties," Starr chimed in as she ran her eyes over her menu.
I looked away from the both of them and stared out into the crowded restaurant. Keysha. Damn, it sure didn’t take him any time to move on. Just like that and he already got a new chick. Yea, let me have done something like that, and he would swear up and down that I was a hoe; I thought to myself before bringing my gaze back to Brian.
"Yea well, Dakota does the girl hair once a week and she says that Tamar has moved into the chick's spot and that she all in love with him. She said that they be all over town shopping, going out to eat, and just forever cruising the streets like they the king and queen of the A. I ain't wanna believe that shit, but she sent me a picture, and I ain't have no choice but to take her word for it then."
Brian took his phone out and dropped it on the table. I picked it up, and there was a shot of Tamar and this chick Keysha posted up on somebody's balcony. She had her back against Tamar with her head rested comfortably into his chest, and he had his hands secured around her waist. The two of them were smiling, and they seemed—happy.
This type of shit I should be used to by now. There had always been other women, and although I was made out to be the bad person because I've had a couple of affairs, Tamar had always been a damn dog. But because he had been the bread winner and the so-called man of the house, it was what I was to expect and just turn the other cheek. It was like some unwritten law that came when you were a hustler's wife. He could speak on me all day long and point the finger at me when I fucked up, but anytime he did anything wrong, it was almost always my fault.
Either I wasn't having sex with him enough, or I lied to him about some petty shit that made him stray. Oh, I remember the times when I was pregnant, and the doctor forbid me from having sex and he had no other choice, but to step out on me.
There had been so many women that it had gotten to the point that I no longer looked for them, I no longer sought out whether or not he was being unfaithful. I knew that I would most likely find that he was, and I didn't want to feel that pain.
Ignoring it caused me to feel numb to it. I constantly told myself that it was only sex and not to get bothered by some bitch that wa
s only getting some dick. I stopped caring a long time ago. It was the relationships that ate at me. The relationship with my sister, the relationship with Kari and the baby that came as a result of it, and now this new relationship with this hoe Keysha. TUH!
"She look a'ight," I said obviously hating. She looked more than alright. She had a shape to die for; almost like she stepped out of one of those music videos, with the perfect set of tits and thighs. Not only that, but her face was gorgeous as fuck. She looked better than any woman that I have ever known him to be with.
"So what the hell happened?" Brian's nosy ass asked. He was pissing me the hell off. I know that he was only trying to help, but I didn’t appreciate him being all up in my business like this. I didn't know what the fuck happened. I tried to help and got accused of trying fuck one of his business associates. I knew not to even tell them that shit because just like Tae, they would most likely believe that I did do that shit. Fucked up that I couldn't escape my past.
"We decided that we were getting a divorced. He no longer wants to be in the relationship and neither do I. I don't give a fuck about him and that bitch," I lied.
"Damn, why you ain't tell nobody?" Starr asked.
"Because I know everybody is sick of my damn drama. Hell I'm sick of it. It's cool because hopefully by time I have the grand opening; we will be celebrating me being a single woman and moving on with my life."
"Girl I'm with it. Anytime there's a celebration, I get to drink like there is no tomorrow. I will be booking my flight first thing tomorrow morning," Brian said clasping his hands together.
He wasn't the only one that would be doing something tomorrow morning. Fuck it. I was going straight to a family attorney in the morning and asking for a divorce. Fuck I look like sitting at home taking care of his kids and a child that isn't even mine while he lay up with some bitch?
