by Noire
You hear my warrior- cry!
Picture ya vision through a warrior’s eyes!
It’s hard to see past the pain to more glorious times!
Eva said to channel my aggression, put it all in a rhyme
And on the day it manifested they caught on to the vibe!
I’m the last of my kind, the rebel called Ice Mello
Instincts and quick reach was forged in the ghetto!
Where the blocks is hot, but the nights they could get very cold…
I’m focused, but on my shoulders lies a heavy load…
And on my road to success I paid a heavy toll
Feels like I’m battling myself for my very soul
You hear it in the songs…
You see it at the shows…
Now it’s time for this chapter to come and close
So now I start anew
I’m tryna walk it through
Taking steps, bridging gaps, so we can mend the wounds!
It’s like Fiyah and Ice!
Glory and pain, inspired my life!
I know its trife, but we live by the roll of the dice!
Decisions were made, consequences were paid
How much would you sacrifice?
Flipping pages in his notepad, Fiyah broke in with the second verse.
Everybody knows Fuego spits flame!
Best with the pen game and that shit can’t change
My destiny’s to shine, Eva gave me the recipe,
Although sometimes I let the hood get the best of me
Flow so ferocious I give it to ’em in doses
Known to spit fire on whoever comes the closest
Better take notice to what’s happening ’round here
Talent, young, hungry and passionate ’round here
Yeah, too many end up in coffins over the money
It’s a new day and I choose my fam over money!
And through the tribulations
Hard times and hatred
I put it all in the song and found my salvation
And I can wrestle with the demons and the dark
Long as I got Evita in my heart!
And deeply seated in my thoughts
I keep it caliente, you know I got the spark!
We’re coming full circle now, we headed for the charts!
It’s like Fiyah and Ice!
Glory and pain, inspired my life!
I know its trife, but we live by the roll of the dice!
Decisions were made, consequences were paid
How much would you sacrifice?
There was face-painting and party clowns, and a big red bounce house with mad little shoes scattered around outside. Mello stood watching as Reem stood on a picnic table wearing a T-shirt with Cameron’s picture on it and spitting into a cordless mic.
We gotta celebrate!
It’s ya birthday, son!
Uncle Reem’s on the mic, gonna show ya how it’s done!
We got cake and ice cream, we feeling alive,
We partying for Cameron ’cause my man is five!
So when I say happy, y’all say birthday…
“Happy Birthday!” all the little kids screamed as Cameron released a bundle of multicolored balloons and blew out the sizzling candles on his fifth-birthday cake.
They were celebrating on a grassy field in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, and Mello grinned and snapped endless pictures as mad lil shorties crowded around Cameron trying to get up on that first piece of cake.
“All right now!” Alex yelled out as she laughed her ass off and tried to calm the kids down. “Everybody’s gonna get a big piece, I promise. Gone!” She shooed the kids back a safe distance, then picked up a large knife and guided Cameron’s hand as she helped him cut his birthday cake. “Back up, babies! Back your little butts up,” she giggled. “’Cause we ’bout to eat some cake!”
Mello snapped a few more random shots, including some of Miss Threet hugging Reem as she laughed in the midst of all her foster kids. Then he zoomed his lens on the birthday cake and focused on the colorful image that had been carefully emblazoned there.
Eva.
Her smiling face stared at him from the center of her son’s rectangular sheet cake. She looked sexy and vibrant, exactly the way she had in life. Mello gazed down at the image of his baby. For the past nine months he had struggled with her death and fought to remember her in the light of beauty, and not as he’d seen her last, in the rigors of her horrific death.
It was still hard for him to block out all those memories, but hanging out with Cameron was slowly helping him to do just that. Playing with the young’un, talking to him about his mother, just loving on the little kid and sharing all of his memories of Eva so that one day they would be Cameron’s memories too, really, really helped a lot.
“Okay!” loudmouthed Alex yelled again, “Cake is cut! Who gets the first slice, Cam?”
People always talked about how Mello had stepped up and taken responsibility for Eva’s son, but Eva’s girl Alex had really stepped up too. She’d come back to Harlem after wrapping up her singing gig, and had opened up a small studio above a barbershop where she was giving voice lessons to neighborhood kids.
Mello had been surprised as hell when Alex called him screaming and laughing one Saturday morning urging him to listen as Cameron sang his ABCs. It had been live. Lil man had put some funk on that everyday children’s tune, jazzing up his ABCs with a little urban flair, and in a voice that was way too dope to be coming from such a little kid.
Looking around the huge park at all the playing children and strolling families, Mello couldn’t help but yearn for Eva. She was missing out on so fuckin’ much. Alex and Fiyah had decorated the party area, stringing colorful balloons and cut-out clowns and party streamers everywhere they could. Miss Threet had brought all her foster kids out with her and a whole crew of other kids who lived in her building were there too. Some of the kids had spent the morning running across the grass flying kites, while others played kick ball and freeze tag, and even more ran around flinging bright yellow Frisbees up in the air.
Fiyah’s mother, Milena, was sitting on a blanket watching the happenings from sad and guilty, but also happy eyes. Mello had heard her tell Alex that she wished Rosa could be out here playing with all these kids, and just hearing the little girl’s name had sent Mello’s grief slamming back to the surface. He’d been forced to go crouch behind a tree until he could stop the tears from falling from his eyes as he relived that fateful car ride and the last time he had seen Rosa and Eva alive.
He’d gotten his shit together in time to take pictures of Cameron before he cut his cake, but grief could still do him like that. Charge up on him and batter him out of nowhere. It might start with just a familiar word or phrase. Or a song might come on the radio that Eva used to like. Sometimes he’d get hit with a big dose of her when he ate one of their favorite foods, and there were other times when he woke up in the middle of the night and could swear to God that he smelled her scent.
To help get past his pain, Mello spent most of his free time focusing on Cameron. Between him, Reem, and Alex, the little boy had almost every book and every toy you could think of. They took turns picking him up from Brooklyn on the weekends, and Mello looked forward to chilling with his shorty and schooling him on all the things Eva would have wanted him to learn.
Eva’s soul was all tangled up in his memories when Mello felt a tug on his pants leg.
“Here,” Cameron said, holding out a party plate with a thick hunk of cake sitting on it. “It’s the biggest piece, Mello. I cut it for you.”
Mello was touched. He looked down at the cake. It was a huge center slice and it held the image of Eva’s bright smile. He sighed deeply, then looked down into the eyes of the small boy who was offering it.
“Yo, man, c’mere,” he said, closing his camera lens as he took the plate and sat down with his legs folded under him. He glanced up at the sunny sky and sent his baby girl a s
ilent message that he knew, even way up there in Heaven, she really needed to hear. I got him, Eva. Cam’s gone be straight, baby girl. I got him.
It damn near blew Mello’s mind when he heard Eva respond in his ear, clear as day, like she was sitting right there beside him. Thank you, baby. Thank you.
Mello swallowed hard. One day, he knew, life was gonna get better. It could only hurt until it started feeling good. Grinning at his lil shorty, Mello pulled Cameron down beside him, and together they sat in the green grass and shared a sweet piece of Eva’s beautiful smile.
About the Author
NOIRE is an author from the streets of New York whose hip-hop erotic stories pulsate with urban flavor. Visit the author’s website at www.asknoire.com or email the author at [email protected].
Praise for
Hood
“A strong plot and carefully drawn characters with classic motivations.”
—Publishers Weekly
Praise for
Thong on Fire
Winner of the African American
Literary Award for Erotica
“Noire delivers a captivating page-turner that will be hard to put down. Thong on Fire is not just a book but a literary journey that goes beyond the sheets.”
—APOOO BookClub
“Thong on Fire is compelling and engaging, the kind of story that once started, is hard to put down.”
—RAWSISTAZ
Praise for
Candy Licker
#1 Essence Magazine Bestseller
“Raw, in your face, and straight from the street. Urban erotica has never been hotter!”
—NIKKI TURNER, author of The Glamorous Life
“[Candy Licker is] completely absorbing…. [The book] delivers everything that lovers of this emerging micro genre—black urban erotic chick lit—are coming to expect: cribs full of music, sex, drugs and criminality; many dollars flying by; and an honest, often-abused girl just trying to make it through.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Noire skillfully mixes gritty, in-your-face urban drama with a healthy dose of raw sexuality. Candy Licker proves that Noire is a force to be reckoned with in the urban erotic genre.”
—Urban-Reviews.com
Praise for
G-Spot
#1 Essence Magazine Bestseller
“The Coldest Winter Ever meets Addicted!”
—JAMISE L. DAMES, bestselling author of
Momma’s Baby, Daddy’s Maybe
“Freedom comes with a price in Noire’s sexy, gritty urban melodrama. Noire’s heady brew of lethal realism and unbridled sexuality should spell ‘hot and bothered’ for erotic fiction fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
“G-Spot is being billed as an urban erotic tale, and it lives up to the billing!”
—Booklist
“A sexy novel with loads of action.”
—Romantic Times
“Rough and raunchy—it moves.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This raw erotic thriller is dripping with sensuality, danger and high tension!”
—Mahogany Book Club
Also by Noire
Novels
Hood
Thong on Fire
Baby Brother
(co-written with 50 Cent)
Thug-A-Licious
Candy Licker
G-Spot
Edited by Noire
From the Streets to the Sheets:
Urban Erotic Quickies
Hittin’ the Bricks is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A One World Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2009 by Noire
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by One World Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
ONE WORLD is a registered trademark and the One World colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Noire.
Hittin’ the bricks: an urban erotic tale / Noire.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51258-1
1. African Americans—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3614.O45H57 2009
813'.6—dc22 2008044768
www.oneworldbooks.net
v1.0
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Lights, Camera, Action!
Warning!
In The Beginning…
Black Girl Lost
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
And at the End…
About the Author
Hittin’ the Bricks is now Noire’s first movie…
#1 Essence bestselling author…
Praise for Hood
Praise for Thong on Fire
Praise for Candy Licker
Praise for G-Spot
Also by Noire
Copyright