by B. Love
“Nah. I think it’s for the best if we just stay friends.”
His tone was flat, face sad. But Maria wouldn’t press it. Friend or man, Nash was good for her sister. If they were meant to be, they would be.
Turning her attention to the stage, Maria watched as Exotic finished up her set. She’d never felt uncomfortable in the strip club. Maria had always been confident in who she was and the type of woman she was. She knew she was her only competition. Because of that, Maria had always been able to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of other women.
In fact, she almost always ended up spending more money than the men she went to the strip club with. But tonight, throwing stacks wasn’t on her mind. All she wanted to do was drink and forget about that man and his blood being on her hands. Now that she knew Exotic was on the calendar for the night, she wished she would have brought some money to throw.
“I told Ronica to keep the bottles on rotation. What you got a taste for?” Nash asked, breaking the silence.
“Anything that’s gon’ get me fucked up quickly.”
“Say less.”
He stood to head to the bar, and Maria dreaded it because she was sure Jax would try and talk to her again. Though he wasn’t the only man with Nash, the rest of them wouldn’t do more than speak and go on about their business. Exotic made her way off the stage as security picked up her money and put it in large, black garbage bags. Deciding to go with her to the dressing room, Maria stood.
“You ain’t gotta leave. I ain’t gon’ fuck with you,” Jax assured her, grabbing the blunt that was tucked behind his ear.
She looked down at him and considered if she wanted to stay or not. Truthfully, she didn’t feel like being around ten or twenty women talking loud and smelling like fifty different things at once… but she also didn’t want to be around Jax alone. And Nash was in absolutely no rush to come back to the table. In fact, he was leaning against the bar, watching them with a smile.
Slowly, Maria sat back down and pulled her phone out. Jax chuckled as he lit the weed-filled blunt, causing Maria to look in his direction.
“What’s so funny?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yea.”
“How?”
He looked at her briefly as he put the blunt between his lips. Maria couldn’t help but wonder how those same lips would feel wrapped around her clit. After taking four short puffs, Jax answered her with, “You doing anything possible to keep from talking to and looking at me.”
Maria scoffed and looked away. “You are so full of yourself.”
“But I’m right, too.”
Not wanting to agree, she continued to look away as she ignored him. There was no part of Maria that ever wanted to interact with Jax for too damn long. Her attraction to him irritated the fuck out of her. And he didn’t seem to mind the attitude she gave him. In fact, the more she ignored him or gave him attitude, the more he talked to her.
“Maria.”
Her eyes fluttered closed as he called her name. Slowly, she looked at him, regretting it the moment her eyes connected with his. They were tight, dark, and under turned. He had long, beautiful, curly eyelashes. And naturally arched eyebrows. Often times, his eyebrows were bunched together, as if he was in deep thought when he looked at her. And that look of deep thought made his eyes appear to be almost sealed shut.
And God… don’t let him lick his round, blunt brown and pink lips.
Christ.
Jax Diesel was so damn fine.
Swallowing hard, Maria looked away. If all he wanted to do was stare into her eyes, he could cancel that.
“Why you can’t look at a nigga?”
Her nostrils flared as she released a hard breath. Shaking her head, Maria ignored his question. It was as if he had no clue the effect he had on her. Or maybe, he thought she just… genuinely couldn’t stand him. Or his ground cinnamon-brown skin. Or his stubbly jaw. Wide nose. Pierced ears.
Sitting up, Jax looked at the side of her profile… stared at the side of her face.
Unnerved her in the most… simplest of ways.
“Will you stop staring at the side of my face?”
His fingers were under her chin, pulling her face in the direction of his as he said, “I will if you let me see them pretty-ass eyes.”
Pushing his fingers down from her face, Maria looked away again. Jax chuckled softly with a shake of his head.
“Do I scare you?”
Her face twisted up as she shook her head. “I fear no man.”
“Then why can’t you look at me?”
“Because I don’t fuckin’ want to,” she yelled, leaping from her seat and hovering over him.
Jax didn’t flinch at all. He blew smoke in her face before smiling and telling her, “Sit your little ass down before I take you to the bathroom and give you a reason to yell.”
Her head shook as she grumbled, “You’re annoying as fuck, Jax,” before walking away.
“You want me to chase you?” he asked behind her. “Let me know. But if I catch you, you better make it worth it.”
With a roll of her eyes, Maria forced herself not to smile. As she headed out of the VIP section, Nash made his way over with Ronica and a waitress behind him, both carrying two trays full of liquor.
“You leaving already, sis?”
“Fuck you, Nash. You wrong for that shit.”
Feigning innocence, Nash wrapped his arm around her neck and kept her from leaving. “What I do?”
“Left me with that cocky-ass nigga. You know I can’t stand him.”
“Maria, you gon’ have to get over whatever it is you don’t like about him. Jax ain’t going nowhere. Not only is he my business partner, but he’s Ransom’s cousin and business partner, too. If I don’t fuck with him on security, Chris gon’ fuck with him for her edibles. So what’s the problem?”
A frown covered her face as Nash tried to turn her back towards the VIP section. “I just don’t like him.”
Nash loosened the hold he had on her neck. “Do you not like him… or do you not like him because you like him?” When Maria didn’t answer him right away, Nash added, “You can see into me, but I can see into you, too.”
Running her hand down the side of her face, Maria sighed.
“We got all this liquor, and I know you came to get fucked up. Get out your head and enjoy your night.”
Twisting her mouth to the side, Maria considered what he’d said. That was the exact reason she came, and she would be upset with herself if she let Jax run her away. Agreeing with a nod, Maria followed Nash back to the VIP area. Instead of them taking their old seats, she grabbed Nash’s arm and pushed him into the middle seat, getting a laugh out of both him and Jax.
“Scary ass,” she heard Jax say, but she didn’t bother replying as Nash poured her a drink.
Jax could call her whatever he wanted — including scary.
But that wasn’t the case.
Not exactly.
Maria and her two sisters handled their father leaving differently.
Christian was closer to her mother than their father. She was affected more so by how Porsha was effected. Not only did their relationship suffer, but Porsha changed Christian’s perspective on love and men as well. Christian didn’t mind being with a man and even opening herself up to love, but she was so damn paranoid and untrusting that it was hard for any man to put up with it for too long.
Leigh was a daddy’s girl, so when he left, a huge chunk of her left, too. She was shattered. Searching for pieces of him in every man she encountered ever since. While she had no problem being with a man sexually, she didn’t commit to any of them. Getting their affection was one thing… but she didn’t want to depend on any of them to love her. Not after being disappointed by her father taking his away.
With Maria being the baby, she didn’t have many memories of her father stored up. Because of that, she didn’t really have a need for him. Her mother loved on her with a fierce lov
e that satisfied her, and her brothers stepped in when and where they could.
It wasn’t Ricky that scarred her in totality. He did put her in a position to not need a man, but it was her time with Malibu that made her not want one.
Malibu Lamar was born and raised in Compton. It took his parents some years, but eventually, they went back to school, got degrees, and started making the money they dreamed of making. His father started his own entertainment management company. Wanting to provide a better, safer life for Malibu and his siblings, his parents moved them all to Malibu.
That was where they met and fell in love, had their honeymoon, and conceived Malibu — hence his name.
The move didn’t change anything for Malibu. He still traveled to Compton as much as he could and got into trouble with his friends and cousins. His parents felt as if he was going down a path that would lead to jail or death, so they sent him to Memphis to stay with his grandparents on his mother’s side of the family when he was sixteen.
That’s when he and Maria met. Malibu went to her school, where they became fast friends and soon lovers. She fell head over heels in puppy love with him and thought she would spend the rest of her life with him. Unfortunately, Malibu was set in his ways. He came to Memphis on the same gang banging, drug dealing shit he was on in Compton.
At eighteen, four months before they graduated high school, Malibu was murdered.
Maria hadn’t opened her heart to love ever since.
There was something about the pain of losing both her father and Malibu that made Maria never want to love and lose again.
Her hand ran across the tattoo on her neck that she’d gotten in Malibu’s honor — sand and palm trees underneath a setting sun with Malibu written on top of it.
No.
Scared definitely wasn’t the word.
Maria wasn’t scared of Jax or love for that matter.
She was angry at cupid. At God. At whoever was responsible for filling her with love and passion and excitement just to snatch them all away from her.
Yea.
Angry.
Angry was the word.
And as Maria took the bottle of Hennessy to the head, she was determined to never feel love or the side effects of it ever again.
4
Them
At least once a month, Christian, Leigh, and Maria tried to get together and bond. It was a little hard because of their schedules, but they always tried their best to make it work. With Christian, the bakery had her turning in early. And both Leigh and Maria did the bulk of their work in the streets in the heat of the night. For the most part, they either got together early in the afternoon throughout the week or one night over the weekend when they all decided not to work.
Today, they were having a quick lunch at J. Alexander’s. As the trio conversed, they updated one another on their lives.
Christian shared what was going on with business and Tyrell. Business was great as usual, and she was unsure of Tyrell’s moves away from her eyes. It was Maria’s recommendation to cut him off while Leigh suggested she fuck off with someone else — both answers reminding her of why she hardly ever went to them for romantic advice. Maria’s heart appeared to be made of stone, and sex with a different man was Leigh’s solution to every problem.
Leigh shared that she didn’t have as good of a handle on her unrelationship with Ransom as she wanted to. He was getting antsy, ready for things to be taken to the next level, and Leigh wasn’t ready for that yet. Though she really cared for Ransom and enjoyed the time they spent together, she genuinely believed confessing her love for him and putting a title on what they had would make their relationship worse. Besides, with the lives they led, it was unsafe to start a family right now. Anything could pop off.
Maria shared that she hadn’t really been sleeping right since the job with Rico went wrong. It was her own fault, really, for even trusting him. For the most part, she only took leads from people she knew were on or close to her level. What Rico was saying was too good to be true. Five hundred thousand dollars in a wall safe while the owner was away for the weekend? She should have trusted her instinct and walked away, but she didn’t… now, she was questioning her ability to accurately do what she loved to do.
Christian’s phone rang, and she was prepared to send whoever it was to voicemail until she left, but when she saw that it was their grandmother, Ever, she answered and put it on speakerphone. Ever was their father’s mother and the closest link to him that they had. When he dipped, a few of his family members stepped up, but most of them fell back. In their minds, he had way too many children who needed saving after his disappearing act, and they wanted no parts of it.
But that had never been the case with Ever.
It didn’t matter if she had to feed all twenty-six of them rice and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches… she wanted them in her home. Together. Bonding with her… all at once.
“Hey, Grandma,” Christian greeted with a grin before taking a sip of her lemonade.
“Chris, you got my bank card?”
Christian eyebrows bunched and mouth parted slightly as she stared at the phone. Her gaze averted to her sisters, both of whom looked just as confused as she did.
“Do I have your bank card?”
“Yea. I can’t find it.”
“No, ma’am. You don’t remember the last place you used it?”
“Naw.”
“Well, when was the last time you left the house?”
Ever paused, and Christian pictured her grandmother staring off into space as she massaged her chin. “I don’t know, baby. That’s okay. I’ll keep calling around while I look for it.”
“Okay. If you can’t find it, I’ll come over and look with you. And if we don’t find it today, we need to cancel it in case you lost it.”
Ever agreed, then hung up. Not soon after, she was calling Leigh, asking the same thing. Then Maria.
As Maria sent a group text out to her siblings, Leigh called their aunt, Evelyn, to see if she had seen Ever’s card, or at least knew when she last left the house.
“I got it,” Evelyn confirmed. “I’ve been keeping it because her memory is getting a little fuzzy, and she’s losing money and her purse. The bulk of her money is on this card, so I’ve been keeping it when I’m not with her to make sure she doesn’t misplace it or leave it somewhere.”
“Have you told her that?” Leigh checked. “And what do you mean, her memory is getting a little fuzzy?”
They were all close to their grandmother, but Leigh was probably the closest to her. As a daddy’s girl, she clung to whatever remnants of him she had when he left — including his side of the family.
“She’s just getting very forgetful. And irritated when she can’t remember things. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”
Every morning that Christian opened her bakery, which was usually five or six mornings out of the week, she started her day the same way. She would make herself a cup of vanilla-caramel coffee, have some type of pastry, and read a few chapters out of her bible while she took a few pulls from a blunt, butt ass naked in her sunroom. When the sun would begin to rise, that was her sign to get ready for work. Even though she was the owner of Gucci’s Baked Goods, Christian was way too independent and hands on to allow anyone else to take full control of her business.
Her managers and employees pretty much got paid for doing the bare minimum because she did as much as she could while she was there. Plus, her backhouse operation of edibles on the lower level of her bakery required her total devotion. There was only one person that helped her with her weed induced baked goods, and that was her younger sister, Audré. Other than that, none of her other employees knew what her most popular and bestselling items truly consisted of. Though Christian wasn’t the only person in her family selling drugs, she was the only woman, and the only person selling them in edible form.
In fact, it was her brothers’ and uncle’s rejection of her place in their businesses that
inspired Christian to start her own. She and her sisters were independent in that way, and Christian figured they got that from her mother’s side of the family because they typically clung to each other or themselves most. As Christian unlocked the door and flipped the sign from closed to open, she thought over when she would take her next vacation. She loved traveling, and leaving Memphis was honestly the only time she really took a break from work.
At least once a month, Christian tried to leave town; usually, it was a trip to Vegas. That was her favorite place to travel. When she went, she never got more than two hours of sleep every night she was there.
Christian looked around her bakery with pride. The white décor, though chic and classic, was the total and complete opposite of her home. Her floors and table legs were black, but the tops of the tables, chairs, and everything else for that matter were white and clear. Behind the cash register was a large black chalkboard that had the menu of the day on it, which was different from her staple ten bakery items that she sold on a daily basis. As she looked over the nametags to make sure everything was in the right place, her morning crew came from the kitchen and locker room.
She smiled at them all as she normally did before grabbing a lemon blueberry muffin to wrap up for one of her consistent customers. Bailey came in every morning, two minutes after they opened, for his muffin and hot lemon green tea. Sure enough, the bell on the door chimed, and his voice permeated the bakery as he disconnected his phone call. Before Christian could make her way behind the register to ring him up, Lisa had beat her there, winking and telling her softly to let her do her job.
With a pouty eye roll, Christian set the muffin down and chuckled as Pierre walked over with Bailey’s tea. Feeling useless, she greeted Bailey and headed from behind the counter as she watched four other customers trickle in. After looking around and not being able to find anything to do or clean, Christian decided to head down to the lower level and package a few cookies and edibles for Audré. Typically, they didn’t accept customers for the edibles unless they were called in and paid for in advance, so Audré came in towards the middle of the workday. Wanting to help lighten her load, Christian mentally prepared to wrap one hundred of each, knowing that would be the minimum amount they would sell on any day.