“Then let me just slide you my number because I’m trying to get all the exclusives and I’m good with stuff like that. So if you need to talk it through…”
“Don’t let her hustle you. She’ll be sending you a bill in the mail with a demand for royalties,” Dayton said, pointing at Beauty. They all laughed before she rolled her eyes.
“Girl, ignore him. We’re cool. I finally got you on my show and I’m trying to get you back when the album drops.”
“If you want me here, I’m here.”
“Okay, okay. I’m still going to slide you my number. But since we’re talking about the new you. How about we let the people get a taste of what they can expect? I want to play your new single. You cool with that?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Aight, here we go. I’m telling y’all, this shit is fire. While it’s playing, you know the deal, go straight to my page and drop your thoughts.”
By the time they left the station, Samari was on a high. Beauty wasn’t joking when she said she would be sliding Samari her number. They exchanged digits with the promise to do other appearances.
Before they could even make it back to Niles’s car, Samari’s notifications were blowing up with comments and tags on Beauty’s page about “Let Me”. There were already thousands of likes and hundreds of comments, which had Samari cheesing.
“The fuck you smiling for?”
She didn’t bother looking at Niles when she responded. There was no way she would allow him to steal her high, and make no mistake about it, after the interview with Beauty and the Beats, her head was in the clouds something terrible. “These comments are crazy.”
“You thought they wouldn’t be?”
One shoulder lifted in a noncommittal shrug. “I didn’t expect anything, so it’s wild to see all these people showing love.”
“You’re dope as fuck, Mari. You have the type of voice that has men ready to put on capes,” he teased and she cut her eyes in his direction, catching the rare smile on his face. After a minute of being in her head, she fully turned her attention to him.
“Wanting this so bad, having it, then losing it was hard. It’s just, I don’t know…”
“Feels good. You can say it. Claim that shit because that…” He pointed to her phone. “It's just the beginning. Get used to the feeling so when you really see how heavy the city is fucking with you, your damn head doesn’t get any bigger than it already is ’cause that muthafucker is massive.”
“My head isn’t big.” She mindlessly raked her fingers through the sprouting curls on the formerly shaved side of her head.
He smirked. “Nah, it’s not, but I had your ass second guessing though.”
She shot him a bird and Niles tapped on the display in his car, changing the music. When her song began playing, she smiled his way and he winked. “Shit is dope as fuck and I know you wrote that song about my boy after y’all was fucking in the booth.”
Her eyes went wide. “He told you that?”
“Nah, he didn’t but Dom had to mix it and Sao left the original version in the system.”
Samari’s face blazed and her mouth dropped open. Although not the same as the situation that stained her past, she was still uncomfortable knowing there was a recording of an intimate moment she hadn’t been aware of. Her reaction was misread and had Niles speaking again.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. It was just sounds. We didn’t put cameras in there. Just be glad I didn’t put your ass on blast with Beauty and Dayton. In there talking about your fingers were the inspiration.”
She quickly turned her face toward the passenger window, hiding the embarrassment and unease that twisted in her gut barely, processing his words as he continued talking. “It’s all good though. But ay, let me ask you something.”
She pushed past the sick feeling that bottomed out in the pit of her stomach and muttered, “If it’s about my inspiration, please don’t.”
Niles chuckled. “Nah, it’s not about that. It’s about my boy.”
She turned toward Niles. “What about him?”
“He’s doing a lot…”
“I didn’t ask him to,” she quickly defended and Niles nodded.
“I know but that still doesn’t mean that he’s not putting a lot on the line. Sao is built different. When he fucks with you, it’s with every part of himself.”
