by Erica Hilton
Nico shook his head and chuckled. “You’re funny.”
“That’s why I’m out here. I came out here saying to myself that if you’re out here with Mia, then there’s no way you didn’t send Bebo to kill me. You sent him to kill me, and you’re out here fuckin’ that bitch that you know I can’t stand.”
“I ain’t fuckin’ Mia.”
“Oh, my God! This is what I can’t stand! Nico, I’m not stupid. I’m home in New York dealing with my injuries after almost dying, and do I see you or hear from you? No. So I’m bugging out and can’t understand why. And in my heart I just felt it was something to do with Mia. I know you came out here with her before, so I had a feeling that if you wasn’t with me that you was more than likely with her, and guess what? I was right. You out here fuckin’ her while I’m in New York scared for my life. That shit is so fucked up.” Jasmine stood up and walked over to a mirror and looked at her neck.
Nico could see the bruises he had caused.
“You choke the shit outta me, you left me stranded at the precinct and never explained to me what that was all about, and you really wonder if I think you had Bebo come to kill me? Like, really, you want me to believe you had nothing to do with that?”
“A’ight, so whatever happened with that shit? Why did the cops let you go?”
Jasmine sucked her teeth and looked at Nico and rolled her eyes. “Because they didn’t have shit on me. It was all bullshit, and we both know that.”
“But what did they say?”
“About what? They took me in and they questioned me, but I didn’t admit to shit because there was nothing to admit to. And since they wasn’t charging me with a crime, they had to let me go. Nico, you know how this shit goes.”
Feeling a small bit of relief, Nico walked up to Jasmine and tried to kiss her on the back of her neck, but she moved away.
“I apologize.”
Jasmine shook her head. “You apologize? You out here fuckin’ that bitch. You choke me out and you got me home in New York looking like a clueless bird-bitch, and all you can say is ‘I apologize’?”
Nico slowly approached Jasmine. “Come here.”
“No! Get away from me! Go kiss on Mia. You can’t just fuck her and then kiss on me and tell me you apologize. That’s supposed to make things right?”
“I’m not fuckin’ her.”
“So then why is she out here with you? She’s transporting kilos for you or something?”
Nico looked hard at Jasmine and tried to figure out where that question came from.
“Is she, or isn’t she? It’s a simple question.”
Nico was quiet.
“Nico, it’s simple. If you using Mia as a mule to transport your drugs, just say that and I’ll know what’s up. But if you fuckin’ her then just say that too, so I’ll know what’s up, and I’ll know where I stand.”
Nico was no dummy. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, and he also knew the right words to speak. He just smiled.
Jasmine also said nothing.
“So who was homie wit’chu down in the restaurant? This his weed on the table?”
“He wasn’t nobody. I met him last night at the bar. He was telling me he plays pro football, and he asked me if I would go to breakfast with him.”
“So are you fuckin’ him?”
“Nico, please don’t try to spin this around.”
“I ain’t spinning shit, but if you wanna keep shit one hundred, let’s keep it one hundred.”
“I always keep it real, Nico, and you know that.”
“Yeah, I know that. And I also know you murdered Shabazz. And if you murdered him, you think my mind don’t wander?”
“Oh, my God!”
“Babe, I saw you murder your ex in cold blood, and I been riding with you and I ain’t ever blink about the shit.”
“Wait. Hold up, hold up. First of all, you ain’t ever see me do shit. And how dare you try to put that shit on me?”
“Nah, hold up, baby girl. You the one slinging those murderous accusations, and you need to cut that shit out. Let’s be mature adults about this shit. You feel me?”
Nico’s prepaid phone started to vibrate at that moment, and he saw that it was BJ. “My nigga, speak to me,” he said and then walked into the bathroom so he could speak in private.
“The coroner finally released the body to homie’s family. The funeral is on Friday,” BJ explained, referring to Bebo’s funeral.
“So whatchu saying?” Nico asked, still being careful not to say much of anything on the phone.
“We need to both be there,” BJ replied.
Nico had no plans of ever attending Bebo’s funeral, but he trusted BJ’s judgment, and if BJ was saying that they both needed to go, then he would go.
“I feel you.”
“You know what I mean, right?” BJ asked.
“Yeah, I been outta pocket, so the streets been talking.”
“No muthafuckin’ doubt,” BJ replied. “They on that conspiracy shit, but if we both there, it’ll quiet all that.”
“Yeah, yeah. So Friday, huh?”
“Yes, sirrr. At Gilmore’s in Queens, over there on Linden.”
“A’ight, speak to his moms and make sure they straight with cheddar and all that. Let them know that we gon’ make sure his kids is straight and that they’ll be all right.”
“Cool.” BJ ended their call.
Nico put his phone back in his pocket and exited the bathroom.
“For the record, I wasn’t slinging no murderous accusations. If you heard what I said, I was just saying that I didn’t know what to think,” Jasmine tried to explain to Nico.
Nico nodded his head at her. “Stop running your mouth,” he said to her, knowing his words would have a double meaning.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying . . . ”
Jasmine was getting frustrated because she wasn’t getting where she wanted to get with Nico.
Nico walked over to the wet bar and poured himself a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks and asked Jasmine if she wanted anything to drink. Jasmine just shook her head.
Nico put his drink on the table and gestured for Jasmine to come to him. She came to him, and then he kissed her on the lips. Jasmine sucked her teeth and told him that she hated him.
He planted a peck on her lips. “You hate me?”
“Yes.” Jasmine felt Nico unbutton her pants, and then she heard her zipper get unzipped.
“You ain’t give my pussy away, right?”
Jasmine lied and shook her head no. “You can’t fuck me, Nico.”
“Why not?” Nico asked, unzipping his own pants.
“Because you don’t trust me, you don’t tell me anything you don’t—”
“Stop talking,” Nico commanded.
Nico took another swig of his drink, and then he put it back down. He took Jasmine by the hand, led her into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.
“Take a shower with me,” he said to Jasmine while he got fully undressed and made his way into the glass-enclosed shower.
Jasmine wanted to resist, but the sight of Nico’s naked body turned her on so much, her pussy instantly got wet. She got undressed and joined him in the shower. She started to tongue-kiss him as the water rained down on both of them.
Before long Nico’s dick was rock-hard and lathered up with soap. He turned Jasmine around and fucked her from behind in the shower for twenty minutes.
Jasmine didn’t know what it was about Nico, but something about the way he fucked her always made her have multiple orgasms and left her literally weak in the knees.
When they had finished fucking and showering, Jasmine was uncharacteristically quiet, dealing with all kinds of emotions and
feelings. Overwhelmed and confused, she had no clue what the hell she had gotten herself into.
Nineteen
Nico ended up staying in Jasmine’s room for the rest of the day. Including the session in the shower, he had fucked her four times, to be exact. Her pussy was sore, but she knew one thing: As long as Nico was with her, he couldn’t be with Mia.
Jasmine had hoped for an opportunity to catch Nico saying something revealing, but with all of the fucking they were doing, the opportunity never presented itself. By the time ten o’clock rolled around, they were exhausted and decided to order room service instead of venturing out to eat. Neither of them had the energy to deal with Mia and any drama that would have come their way if they bumped into her somewhere.
After they had finished eating their dinner, it was only a quarter to eleven, which was very early for Las Vegas time, but Jasmine found herself dozing off in the bed with Nico.
“You still up?” she asked him.
“Yeah.”
Jasmine turned and faced Nico and she kissed him on his chest. She was very groggy and her voice sounded even more tired than she was feeling.
“I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”
“Oh, a’ight.” Nico had lost trust in Jasmine, so he couldn’t reciprocate the feelings that he had felt less than a month ago.
Before long, Jasmine was knocked out and in a deep sleep. Nico knew that the weed she had been smoking combined with the liquor and the sex was going to have her out cold for a while. He was tired, but he wasn’t about to let himself fall asleep; it was way too early for that.
After about an hour of just laying there, Nico slid out of the bed and went into the bathroom to take a piss. When he came out of the bathroom, he looked around for Jasmine’s cell phone.
Jasmine had her FBI-issued BlackBerry inside of her open Gucci bag, which was not too far from the bed, and she had her regular BlackBerry on the nightstand right next to her head. Seeing the BlackBerry on the nightstand, Nico never thought to look inside her Gucci bag. He walked over and picked up the BlackBerry on the nightstand and walked back into the bathroom with it. Then he locked the door and started searching through the phone.
Nico looked at text messages, incoming calls and outgoing calls, and he figured out how to play back recordings. The only recording he saw was the one that Jasmine had made when Bebo had shot her.
Realizing that she hadn’t taped any of the conversations she’d had with him, Nico came out of the bathroom and placed her phone back on the nightstand. He quietly got dressed, got his phone, and made sure that all of his cash was in his pocket. Then he took a long look at Jasmine, and as she slept, he reconfirmed how fine she was. Though he felt some relief that she hadn’t recorded him, he still had a gut feeling that she was working with the feds.
Nico slipped out of the room headed to the roulette table, but he decided to go to his room first. When he got there, Mia was nowhere to be found, and her bags weren’t there. He called her three times, but she didn’t pick up. He decided to just go play roulette for an hour, telling himself if Mia wasn’t in the room by the time he got back, he was just going to go to the strip club or back to Jasmine’s room and fuck her one more time.
Nico had no idea that Mia had already checked out of the room and had checked into an inexpensive hotel room right near the airport. She was tired of Nico and his bullshit love triangle. And she was even more tired of him just tossing her to the side whenever he felt like it, like she was a piece of trash or something. She had made up her mind to head back to New York the next day, and she was going to go straight to the safe deposit box Nico had her open up for him and take the three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in there and then disappear and spend the money however she felt. That would be the best form of revenge to sting Nico with. Even though it could possibly get her ass killed, she didn’t care. She was going strictly off her hurt feelings.
***
When Jasmine first opened her eyes, she wasn’t exactly sure where she was. So much had been going on in her life, she wasn’t sure if she was at her mother’s house, at Simone’s house, or at her and Nico’s house. After about a minute she sat up in the bed, and then she remembered that she was in Las Vegas, and that she and Nico had just spent the majority of the previous day fucking their brains out.
Seeing that the light was on in the bathroom and the bathroom door was closed, she assumed that Nico was in there. She walked over to the bathroom door, knocked on it and called Nico’s name, and waited for an answer. When she didn’t get one, she tapped on the door again and opened it up and went inside.
Jasmine shook her head as she exited the bathroom. When she realized it was five o’clock in the morning and there was no sign of Nico, she knew he had purposely slid out on her.
Jasmine went back into the bathroom and peed and then washed her hands before getting back into the bed. The room was still somewhat dark because the sun hadn’t risen yet. Jasmine lay in the bed feeling like a whore, knowing that only hours ago Nico had been fucking the shit out of her, and he was now probably fucking Mia the same way.
She reached over and grabbed her BlackBerry. She called Nico, but she got no answer.
Nico would have answered his phone, but he was in the strip club getting a lap dance and didn’t even realize that it was ringing.
“I can’t do this shit no more,” she said out loud in frustration.
She then sent Nico a text message: So it’s like that, Nico? You just fuck me for hours and leave without telling me???
Jasmine waited five minutes, and when she realized Nico wasn’t responding, she texted him again: You back on that bullshit AGAIN! It’s all good, though. Don’t worry I WON’T CHASE YOU!!!
Jasmine tried to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. It had now been a full hour, and Nico still hadn’t responded to her missed call or to her texts. She needed to feel wanted, so while still lying in the bed, she decided to call Derek.
When Derek didn’t pick up, she left him a voice mail: “Hey, Derek. This is Jasmine. I know it’s early, but I just really need to speak to you. First, I want to really, really, really apologize for yesterday. I am so sorry. But call me back when you get this, so I can explain. It’s way too much to explain in a voice mail.”
After about five minutes Jasmine decided to send Derek a text message: Hi Derek, it’s Jasmine. I just left you a voice mail. Call me as soon as you can.
Jasmine grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and started to flip through the channels. Two minutes later, she heard her BlackBerry vibrating on her nightstand. She quickly reached for it. She thought it was a phone call, but then she realized it was a text message from Derek.
Jasmine, the pussy was good, but I don’t need the drama. LOSE MY NUMBER! Thanks!!!
When Jasmine read that text message, she felt like she had just been dropkicked in the gut. She immediately called Derek, but it went to voice mail. She knew he was done with her and was avoiding her. She was so mad with Nico at that point because not only was he playing games with her, but he had now managed to fuck up the NFL jackpot that had fallen in her lap.
Beyond frustrated, Jasmine got up and went to the wet bar and poured herself a drink. She was done with Las Vegas. It made no sense for her to stay out there any longer. After her drink she was going to take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and then head to the airport and see if she could change her ticket or fly standby so she could get her ass back to New York and reassess everything.
Twenty
When Jasmine made it to the airport to head back to New York, she asked to see a JetBlue supervisor. She complained to the supervisor about how rude the JetBlue stewardess had been to her on her flight to Las Vegas, and asked if she could be upgraded to the front of the plane so she wouldn’t have to be subjected to the same ghetto treatment.
The white male supervis
or looked like he could be a weatherman on the local TV news, with his blond hair, bright blue eyes, and perfectly tanned skin. He began furiously typing into his computer.
“Would you like a window seat or an aisle seat?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jasmine replied.
“Okay, just give me one more minute, and I should be—Oh, okay there we go. Would the third-row window seat be good?”
Jasmine smiled. “Perfect.”
“Sorry I couldn’t actually get you in the first or second row.”
“No, that’s fine. You helped me out a great deal.”
Jasmine smiled, took hold of her boarding pass, and thanked him again before going to sit down and wait for the plane to start boarding.
A little over an hour later, she found herself boarding the plane and sitting happily in her third-row seat. She had already put her carry-on bag in the overhead compartment and was reading the latest issue of Essence magazine while the other passengers boarded the plane. She began to flip through the magazine aimlessly before deciding to put it away.
She looked up and couldn’t believe her eyes. She saw Mia boarding the same plane and taking her aisle seat in row two just across the aisle from her. Jasmine’s heart started to beat rapidly because she was certain that Nico would be soon boarding the plane. Mia was wearing designer sunglasses that hid her face somewhat, but Jasmine was sure that it was her. She intently watched for Nico, but he never walked onto the plane.
Mia searched out one of the male flight attendants and asked him if he could put her carry-on bag in the overhead compartment for her. And as soon as the flight attendant took hold of her bag, she turned and saw Jasmine looking at her. Mia slightly slid her shades downward off her face, just to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.
“Yeah, it’s me, bitch!” Jasmine shouted at Mia, to the shock and dismay of the older white lady sitting next to her.
Mia rolled her eyes and shook her head before putting her shades fully back on. “Thank you so much,” she said to the flight attendant. She went into her bag and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and tried to hand it to the flight attendant who had just helped her. “Here, this is for you,” she said, purposely ignoring Jasmine.