Good Girls Ain't No Fun Boxed Set (The SIX romance and urban fiction volumes of the LOVE, SEX, LIES series)

by Jessica Watkins

  I hated to do it. I hated to even speak the words, because every time I thought about it, I literally felt myself getting sick, so having to physically say it was torture. However, I told them everything; what happened after I left Bliss Lounge on Memorial Day, how Raven was overtly affectionate and submissive to my love, and how I tried to tear her gawd damn face off. Then I told them about the emails that I found filled with her undying devotion and dedication to a man that was clearly devoted to someone else.

  “Oh hell nah! That bitch needs to be cut!” No matter how fucked up the situation was, listening to Cory shriek in his feminine catty voice made me smile.

  He responded to my smile in shock and awe. “This shit ain’t funny! And it’s not a laughing matter, dear! You know you are my Judy. I will kill a bitch for fucking with mine. I am Mayor of Whoop a Bitch County! Where the bitch live?! Leggo!”

  We all giggled uncontrollably while Cory looked at our laughter in disbelief. “You bitches are laughing and this is a serious matter. This hoe has committed a Code Ten Violation. She must be stopped!” Then, he swung hair that wasn’t even there.

  “In all seriousness, Lyric, Cory is right. Raven is bogus as hell,” Serena explained.

  “I know, but I blame James. Fuck Raven and whatever fairytale land she’s living in. She wouldn’t be able to talk this shit if James didn’t have his ass over there.” As I spoke, I was so disgusted that I could have flipped that fucking table over.

  The waiter approached the table just in the nick of time. Besides food, I ordered a very strong Long Island Iced Tea. I needed something to take the edge off.

  I had been drinking my sorrows away so much the last few weeks that it was frightening. Every time I found myself drinking too much, I thought of my father. Because he was, amongst many other things, an alcoholic, I always tried to monitor myself when I found myself looking for the answers to my problems in the inside of a bottle.

  “This lifestyle shit is for the birds.”

  Robin disagreed with me immediately. “Don’t blame it on the lifestyle. The lifestyle didn’t do this to you; disloyal and dishonest people did. Mature and respectful swingers know how to play without hurting someone. They respect boundaries and relationships. Raven obviously doesn’t have that respect because she is not a swinger, beau. She is a single woman pursuing your man. There is a big difference.” I wallowed in self-pity as Robin continued. “It’s not the lifestyle’s fault. I would never disrespect my couple in ways that Raven has disrespected you. Neither one of them even put me in the mind frame that it’s okay for me to do that. And that is the problem and what is at fault. James has crossed some lines that make Raven comfortable enough to disrespect you…”

  Cory chimed in with, “Amen!”

  “… Not saying that he may love her or really wants to be with her,” Robin added. “But whatever he is doing to make her think that what she is doing is okay, needs to stop.”

  “It doesn’t have to stop, because I’m done,” I hissed. “You are right. He is obviously saying and doing some shit to her to make her feel like she has a physical and emotional right to claim him just as much as I do, and I didn’t sign up for that. James overstepped boundaries and allowed this woman to hurt me. I can’t be with a man that is so weak for pussy that he allows it to fuck up our home.”

  Serena asked, “Has he called?”

  “Like forty going north; every day and every hour, seemingly.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “Not yet. I’m not strong enough to have that conversation. If I do, I’ll be bussin’ his head with that hammer instead of his windows. Then y’all would be visiting me in jail.”

  Cory immediately began to shriek. “Oh no, honey! No jail visits! I’m too cute to visit you up in that whorehouse. Some inmate might try to take my cookies.”

  TRICEY

  “I need to talk to Blood. Is he here?”

  I didn’t like how Devin looked. He looked disheveled. When usually his locs were in a neat style or ponytail, they hung all over and in his face. He looked flushed, anxious, and scared. That wasn’t good because he was suppose to be taking care of a major deal for Blood that was hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  I needed him not to look so damn scared.

  I immediately started grilling him as I let him in. “What’s wrong?”

  But he ignored me and quickly searched the living and dining room for Blood. “Where he at?”

  I didn’t like Devin’s tone, nor how he was talking to me. Before I could check him, Blood was coming out of the back of the house from the bedroom.

  It was nearly midnight, so Blood and I were in the bedroom lounging when Devin rung the bell. Things were pretty much the same between me and Blood, so he sat in the loveseat in basketball shorts and a wife beater, sipping Hennessey and watching ESPN, while I was on my laptop talking to Vic on Facebook’s Instant Messenger.

  Blood looked at Devin questionably as they sat at the dining room table. “What you doin’ here?”

  I stayed close behind, in the kitchen, ear hustling but going through the refrigerator like I wasn’t.

  “Man, I still can’t find Trevor and NeNe.”

  Trevor and NeNe are the runners that Blood and Devin always use for the runs. They run the drugs while Devin trails the dope to its destination so that he can then complete the transaction, but they have been missing for the past few weeks.

  “The fuck you mean you can’t find them?”

  “Ain’t neither one of them answerin’ their phones. They ain’t home. Nobody on the block has seen them. I don’t know where they at.”

  That’s when I took my nosiness to the doorway of the kitchen. I leaned against the doorframe and watched Blood give off a demeanor that I had never seen before. He was always a calm man. He never overreacted about anything, but I was expecting some kind of reaction out of him considering two of his employees were ghost while a multi-hundred dollar deal hung in the balance.

  “Fam, you gone have to make this run with me. I can’t keep them niggas waiting too much longer.”

  When Devin was sweating with anxiety, Blood sat cool, calm, and collected.

  Calmly, he told Devin, “You know I don’t make no runs.”

  “Blood…”

  “I don’t make no runs, my nigga!”

  Both Devin and I jumped in fear. Like I said, Blood was always a calm man. He rarely got so angry that he showed it on the surface.

  “So what? You want me to run this shit across the city by myself?” Devin looked almost heartbroken. “C’mon, Blood. You know I need a extra hand.”

  “Find Trevor and NeNe.”

  “I can’t!”

  Devin was getting beside himself. I began to think that maybe I should excuse myself out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.

  Yet, with a cynical smile, Blood simply repeated himself firmly. “I don’t make runs.”

  Eight

  Tuesday, June 14, 2011

  STAR

  At this point, Tricey had gone over and beyond to do so much for me that I couldn’t deny her visit, no matter how bad I wanted to.

  Though Mr. Reed was selling me dreams of an easy trial and release, I wanted my feet to remain on solid ground. I couldn’t allow him or my family to send me off into this land of freedom, in case I was actually found guilty and sent back to prison.

  I needed to stay in survival mode, and that meant living with the fact that I was a prisoner and would be one for many years to come.

  Yet, seeing Tricey’s face reminded me that I was Star Anderson; not just prisoner number 7KR26.

  “Hey, Star!”

  She was so happy to see me. I was happier to see that she didn’t bring my son with her.

  As a rule, we couldn’t embrace, so Tricey fought the urge to be a regular human being behind this wall full of criminals and animals.

  “Hey, Tricey.”

  We sat across from one another, and I felt like she was looking at me like I was an ex
hibit at a museum. She no longer knew me. I wasn’t the same person; on the inside nor on the outside.

  Compared to me, Tricey looked so pretty in her jeggings, pumps, and cropped top. Her ass was giving some of the gay inmates imaginary hard-ons. I envied her long extensions.

  I would have killed a bitch in order to be able to get my hands on eighteen inches of any fine remy or virgin hair.

  Her flawless makeup made my mouth water, and visions of myself looking as cute once upon a time danced in my head.

  “You’ve gained so much weight,” she told me. Then she smiled, “You thick as hell, girl.”

  I tried to smile, but shame kept me from it. I knew that Tricey now knew everything that I had done; from the escorting to how involved I was in Tim’s murder.

  “Thank you for hiring Mr. Reed,” I told her.

  “You don’t have to thank me, Star. I was going to do whatever I had to do to get you out of here, and I still am. Besides, he’s Blood’s lawyer and Blood is footing that bill…”

  “Speaking of Blood, what the hell is going on? I thought he was dead!”

  Instead of explaining Blood’s miraculous rise from the dead, Tricey said, “So, I was right. You weren’t even reading my letters.”

  The sadness and disappointment in her eyes made me feel like shit. However, my decision to avoid my family was still sitting well with me. Tricey could never understand the shit you have to do to survive in prison, and I hope she never does.

  She watched me, waiting for me to have a response or to give her an explanation. I gave her back nothing, just looked at her hoping that she would understand that my answer wasn’t going to fix anything.

  With a heavy sigh, Tricey decided to just answer my question. “Smith played me. Blood had actually gotten arrested after killing those two dudes that kidnapped him. They took him to some abandoned building and he shot them. The police responded to shots fired and arrested him on the scene. Instead of Smith telling me that, he told Blood that after Bank’s boys held me hostage, I didn’t want anything to do with him, so Blood stopped reaching out to me. At the same time, Smith convinced me that Blood was dead and that I should change all of my numbers and move. During that time, Smith stole all of Blood’s money. But then Blood appealed his case and they let him go. This was right after you took the plea deal.”

  I was straight flabbergasted. I looked at her in shock and awe. She laughed at my incomprehension.

  “Yea,” Tricey said. “I felt the same way.”

  “Mr. Reed called Blood your boyfriend, though.”

  Tricey smiled genuinely. “We got together once he was back.”

  “What about Smith?”

  Then, Tricey just looked at me. Her silence told me everything.

  I sighed heavily and sat back. “Well…,” was all I could say.

  By the way that Tricey open and closed her mouth, I knew that she wanted to say so much but was diligently searching for the right thing to say.

  I cut off her thinking and told her, “Tricey, I know that you want to know a lot, but I honestly feel better just sitting here listening to you. I appreciate you helping my case, and tell Blood that I said thank you. But let’s just talk about you. It’s the best entertainment that I have had in a year. Can we do that?”

  Tricey looked as if she initially wanted to argue with me. Then, the noises of guards and inmates got her attention. She looked around at our surroundings, at the inmates crying, fussing, and laughing as they visited their families. I saw her watch their exteriors with disappointment and disgust. I even saw her watch mine in the same manner.

  “Yea,” she said finally and with a smile. “We can do that.”

  A few hours later, I was in the television room with Nik and with the bubble guts.

  My trial started in two days, and no matter how I tried to avoid it, the anxiety was kicking my ass.

  On top of that, this was the very room that I sliced GiGi up in. I stared at the spot on the floor where she laid and could still envision her body lying there lifeless.

  “Shit.” Nik’s cursing brought me out my nightmarish trance. I looked at her, wondering what she was fussing about, and saw her looking regrettably at the door.

  Simone was walking in looking like she was ready to start a lot of shit.

  From what Nik tells me, she use to fuck with Simone before I got to the County. She stopped fucking with her because the chick had the nerve to act territorial over her in a prison, but Simone swears that I am the reason why she stopped fucking her.

  Yea, they even have relationship drama in prison.

  But this was a road that I wasn’t about to travel. Visiting with Tricey today put more passion in me to get the hell out of there. Hearing her speak of things happening on the outside gave me hope that I will have a life outside of the four walls of a prison. Her smell alone, smelling of perfume and outside – not cement walls and inmates – gave me a motivation that I didn’t quite have before.

  I wasn’t about to fuck up my possibilities because some bitch wants her beau thang back.

  “Don’t start,” was all that Nik said to Simone once she approached us with a mean mug and her hands on her hips.

  I looked around the room quickly to scope the scene, to make sure that none of Simone’s girls were in there ready to jump, to ensure that a guard was on the outside of the room, and that there weren’t any weapons in the room.

  Ironically, they had replaced the glass vase, which I used to stab GiGi with, with a stack of magazines.

  “Fuck you mean don’t start? You protectin’ this bitch now?!”

  Her voice was so annoying. A year of being locked up with women had developed such a hate for bitches within me. Just hearing their nagging voices and over the top attitudes was too much.

  Too many menstrual cycles going on at the same damn time under one roof.

  “I don’t have to protect her because you ain’t gone do shit,” Nik told her sternly.

  Then the bitch had the nerve to make a move towards me. Nik stood up so fast that, if she was a guy for real, I would be turned on by the way she protected me.

  Simone looked at Nik like how dare she defend me.

  She bit her bottom lip and threatened me as she walked away, “Don’t worry. I’m gone find a way to get your new girlfriend.”

  In a normal situation, I wouldn’t have been so quiet, but I wasn’t about to risk my potential over a bitch that wanted to flex just because.

  “Eat a bitch pussy a few times and she loses it,” Nik said as she sat back down.

  We both giggled.

  “Damn, she actin’ like I took her next best thing. What you do? Eat her soul?”

  With a flirtatious smile, that had the nerve to be sorta sexy, Nik answered, “Something like that.”

  TRICEY

  I felt some kinda way as I sat on the couch watching Ariana play in the middle of the floor. Ever since I left the County, there was such a cloud of gloom and despair over me.

  I was surprised that my sister actually accepted my visit, but, in some ways, I wish she hadn’t.

  Star was so different. She was no longer the sweet and gullible teenager that I once knew. The past year in prison had made her hard, unapproachable, and distant.

  She was my sister, my blood, but I know longer knew her.

  She was like a stranger to me.

  I wondered what had happened to her while she was in there. It was obvious that she had been through some things that were unspeakable, but something told me that I didn’t want to know the details anyway.

  After leaving there, the pressure to get her released was ten times worse than before.

  “Tricey, we gotta go!” Blood’s thunderous shout scared the shit out me and Ariana. He stampeded into the living room with keys already in hand.

  He was unlocking the door before I could say or do anything.

  “Where are we going?!”

  “Devin got shot. C’mon! We gotta roll.”

  “Oh m
y God!” I immediately hopped up, picked Ariana up, and walked out of the condo behind Blood, who was already several feet in front of me.

  As we exited the building and I fought to keep up with Blood, I asked a million questions. “What happened?! Is he okay?! Who shot him?!”

  We hopped into Blood’s truck and he told me how it all went down. Devin was making a drop to some of their employees when, apparently, they attempted to rob Devin. A scuffle ensued and Devin was shot in the process.

  “So your own people tried to rob you?” That didn’t make sense to me, and by the look on Blood’s face, it didn’t make sense to him either. “Who was it?”

  “Some new niggas that been on the block out West for a few months.”

  “New, huh?”

  “Yea,” he answered reluctantly.

  I knew better than to scold Blood at a time like this. Since the murder of his best friend and right hand man, Shon, and then Smith’s deceit, Blood was always anxious about who he befriended, employed, and trusted. Every relationship was a gamble to him.

  Unfortunately, I think that included our relationship, in which I subsequently proved to be disloyal as well.

  Blood told me that he didn’t trust the situation enough to go to the hospital to check on Devin, so we rode to the Westside so that he could ask around and see what was what. Of course, nobody knew anything or was most likely too scared to say what they knew.

  Once Iyana called and informed Blood that Devin had only suffered a through and through wound to the arm and that he would be released in the next hour, we went back home to wait on Devin to show up.

  A few hours later, Devin was walking through the condo, alongside a frazzled looking Iyana and Lucky, who had been making runs with Devin since the disappearance of NeNe and Trevor. Lucky was one of Blood’s cousins that usually ran aspects of Blood’s Westside operation. However, Blood has had to adopt him into some of the goings on in his business citywide.

  “What the fuck happened, Lucky?” Though Devin was the one in a sling, Blood was directing his frustrations to Lucky.