“Love?” She asked, snarling. “You know damn well the only thing I love is my money and you two bitches. I don’t give no love to these niggas.”
“I know that’s right,” Raelynn said, slapping fives with her.
For the next hour or so, we all sat around laughing and talking about the men trouble we had. I didn’t have much to share outside of the fact that Ray had still been harassing me. He might not have seen it that way, but I was for sure calling it harassment. I’d asked his ass several times to quit fucking contacting me, but he just wouldn’t get the fucking picture. Or, he was getting it and was purposefully choosing to ignore it. Either way, he was annoying the hell out of me.
“So, what about you, Kenedi? I know we’re not supposed to talk about work, but I think your attention has been captured by someone at the office, so I think it’s okay for us to blur that line,” Zaveah said, smirking.
“Now what are you talking about?” I asked, knowing damn well what and who she was talking about. But I felt like it was better for me to act like I was oblivious to what she was hinting at.
“She’s talking about the fact that you work for the Sincere Hill and you haven’t slid down that man’s dick yet. I don’t even know how you’ve been there so long and haven’t at least tasted it yet. That shit can’t be normal,” Raelynn said, laughing and causing Zaveah to laugh along with her.
I couldn’t help the way my lips lifted in a slight smirk because the shit was funny. Sure, Sincere was fine as hell, but that was all I thought about when it came to him outside of work. You would be lying to yourself if you said that man wasn’t fine, but he was my boss, and I wasn’t going to even entertain the thought of crossing that line with him.Nope!Getting my career back on track was the only thing that I was interested in when it came to him.
“Look, is the man fine, sure. Absolutely. But, y’all know how hard it was for me to get a job after the shit with Ray, and he was the only one to give me a shot, so I don’t want to mess this up. So, I’m going to continue doing my job, admire how fine that man is from afar, and go on about my day.”
“I hear that. Because, as my good sis Ann Marie once said, fuck a nigga and be all about that check,” Zaveah said, laughing as she held up her drink for us to toast.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not the words, but fuck it, I feel you,” I said, clinking my glass with theirs.
Once we finished drinking and chatting about the niggas in our lives or lack thereof, I decided I wanted to dance. I knew my feet were going to be killing me in a couple of hours because the shoes that I wore weren’t made for dancing. They were made for making my legs look amazing while I walked in them and sat my ass down somewhere. But I wasn’t worried about the pain too much tonight. That would be a problem for tomorrow.
We had been dancing for about twenty minutes when I felt someone bump into me. Before turning around, I already knew who it was. He wore the same cologne all the time, and it smelledamazing on him. The shit was so strong that it introduced him before he even stepped into the room. And that was a huge compliment. I kept telling myself to look it up and figure out what it cost, because I knew he was spending a good chunk of my salary on it every time he had to get a new bottle.
“Excuse me,” he said, against my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I said, scooting to the side so that he could walk past.
To avoid making eye contact with him, I pretended I was focused on doing my little two-step and whatever my friends had going on. Chuckling, he scooted past me, and from the corner of my eye, I could see him heading to the VIP section. He didn’t take me for the clubgoing type, but I guessed he had to frequent these kinds of places to find new talent.
For the rest of the evening, I did everything within my power to avoid making eye contact with him. Although I couldn’t prove it, I felt as though he had been watching me since we bumped into each other. And if I were honest with myself, I didn’t know how I felt about that. Or, more importantly, why I cared so much about it. He and I had been occupying the same space for a while, so why should tonight be any different?
“What the fuck?” I heard Zaveah ask as we all turned our attention to where she was looking.
As I made eye contact with Sincere and whoever the man was standing in front of him with a gun to his head, he smiled. It wasn’t the normal smile he did around the office occasionally. It was a smile that gave me some type of reassurance that whoever was holding the gun to his head should’ve been a lot more afraid of him than he was of them. Even though they had the gun, not him.
“Ms. Mathis, I’ve been instructed to get you and your friends out of here.”
“Instructed by who?” I asked, turning to the man who had gripped my wrist and had already begun pulling me toward the door.
“Mr. Hill,” he said as I looked back up to where Sincere stood.
He mouthed the words “get out,” and instead of fighting whoever the man was, I chose to go along and listen. In this situation, there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do for Sincere but serve as a distraction. I was becoming increasingly interested in who the man that I worked for truly was. I knew there had to be more to him than the record executive that he positioned himself to be. I just couldn’t quite figure out what else he had going on.
SIX
SINCERE
After havingto deal with more bullshit than I should’ve been at this point in my life, I decided to head to the club to clear my mind. I needed something to help me forget about all the bullshit from the day. The club wasn’t normally my thing, but since my homeboy Silas owned the one I was headed to, I knew I would be good.
It seemed as though ever since I left the office motherfuckers had been on a mission to piss me off one way or another, and the shit was irritating and frustrating as hell. Just thinking about the shit that I just had to clean up pissed me off all over again.
I wasn’t able to completely get rid of the problem, but I was working on it and knew it wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. At this point in my life, I didn’t have time for the bullshit, and anything or anyone who thought they were going to get in my way was going to be dealt with as soon as possible.
The entire ride to the club, I damn near strangled my steering wheel. I was still pissed as hell, but the night air smacking me in the face was doing its magic and somehow helping to calm me down as I replayed the night in my head.
“So, tell me what the fuck went wrong again,” I said, walking around the room with my gun rested at my side and my eyes trained on everyone in the room.
As I paced back and forth, I looked at the niggas who worked for me and waited for them to explain how the fuck a million dollars’ worth of my money and product had gone missing in the matter of a fucking hour. Nothing these niggas said made any kind of fucking sense to me, so we were going to all stand in this motherfucker until shit started making sense or I killed all their asses, whichever one came first.
