He understood her unresolved feelings but couldn’t do shit about them. She missed her sister. Hell, Asao missed her too, but attacking Samari wouldn’t bring Na’Mya back. He blamed himself. He always would, but Asao refused to live in the past.
Samari watched the video then rolled her eyes before she scrolled through a few of the comments.
When claiming a man that isn’t yours gets your ass beat.
Damn, Samari got vocals and hands. Love that for her.
Baby girl tried it and got dragged.
How she thought that was gonna end?
Ol’ girl fucked around and found out.
There were a few that tried to say that Samari needed to be checking her man not the woman he was fucking around on her with. The majority were clowning Tori for getting her ass beat and supporting Samari’s decision to do so. The video that was posted showed Tori stepping to Samari and sneaking her before Samari stomped her out, so no one really questioned the reason for the altercation.
When she handed the phone back to Asao, he watched the video one more time before he was grinning and shaking his head. “This shit is wild. I hit Raaj up to make sure you were good and he said there isn’t much she can do unless she wants to file a civil suit because you fucked up her face.”
“I wish the fuck she would,” Samari said dryly.
“She probably won’t, but even if she tries, he’s gonna handle it.”
“I hope she’s smarter than that.”
Asao grinned and stared at her, making Samari roll her eyes. “You’re right, common sense isn’t common.”
“Now come on so we can get back out here before Dom gets my dad in the booth.”
“Wait, your dad’s trying to record?”
“Not if I can help, but if he does, just know that shit is never getting traction.”
“Hater…” Samari joked.
Asao kissed her before they left the room. “I’ll be that because I’m not trying to explain to Kendra why we turned his old ass into a rapper.”
EPILOGUE
A yearand some change
Samari looked around the building and her chest felt tight. Everything was perfect. Black Diamonds had been transformed to fit the look required for the album release party happening tonight. Whereas her first one almost two years ago had been designed in all white, this one was the same but the color scheme was all black which blended better with the club.
Sheer material extended from the ceiling, sweeping the floor in certain areas. Near the DJ booth was a hanging video monitorthat extended damn near to the ceiling, displaying an image of the couple.
Asao stood behind Samari with his arm loosely draped around her neck. They were in all black and she had her head tilted, looking up at him while his head was lowered so his eyes were on her. It was one of those rare moments where the essence of who they were was captured perfectly.
Samari and Asao existing in their own world…
Which was why the team had voted unanimously for that to be the cover of their album.
“I’m nervous.”
“Why?” Sheree asked, sending the video she’d taken of the décor to Cantor. He would be arriving later, closer to the time of the release party since Sheree wanted to be here early to have a moment with her girl before everything got crazy later.
“Because this is big.”
Sheree rolled her eyes. “This isn’t your first album release, Mari. Why are you stressing?”
It wasn’t.Unboundhad done numbers. Six of the twelve songs reached number one on the charts and eight of twelve reached the top ten. Almost two years later, the songs were still in heavy rotation and had great streaming numbers, but this was different.
