“She needs a nigga like Harlem,” Alicia spoke up.
“Mm-hmm.” Mia agreed.
“Let that man choose who he does and doesn’t want or need. Y’all heard him say what type of woman he needs,” Josiah stated.
“Yep, an independent woman who’s got her own,” Raque stated and started singing the lyrics to Jamie Foxx’s song.
“Y’all chill. I’m not on the hunt for a woman right now.”
“Damn, why you say that like we’re animals or something. Like you’re a predator, my nigga?” Mia asked.
I chuckled, but before I could answer her, Stephanie, who had just returned from the break room, spoke up. “Because we are. Truthfully, we love that shit. A man stalking us like we’re his prey, and he’s about to demolish us. Whew! Almost made me cum in my panties.”
“Eww. Ratchet ass. Don’t take much to do that. Don’t nobody wanna hear about your ratchet, cum-infested drawers,” Monte proclaimed with a scrunched face.
The ladies laughed. “She ain’t lying,” Alicia stated, pointing a comb in Stephanie’s direction and nodding.
“That shit can be sexy as hell with the right man,” Raque declared.
“Not to me,” Mia countered, wrinkling her nose.
“All I’m saying is that I’m on chill right now,” I explained.
“Does that mean you’re running around here like your mutt-ass friend Monte?” Mia asked.
Monte barked, making everyone laugh.
“What it means is that I’m sitting back chilling and handling my business right now. My focus is on this shop and my other business ventures. When I’m after a woman, I have to pour my all into her, and right now, I don’t have the time to do that. I’m not about compromising when it comes to my woman; I’m all about sacrificing,” I explained.
“You damn sure sacrificed a lot behind that one woman, or so I heard,” Monte stated.
The other staff stopped talking, and everyone almost froze. The tension in the air was thick, and what was unspoken hung heavier in the air than what was spoken. The woman he spoke of wasn’t my woman at all. In fact, I wasn’t even trying to have anything to do with her.
Unfortunately, I found myself in a Joseph situation, the biblical Joseph. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself, because I hadn’t been handling my business. I had become full of myself after becoming the most sought-after barber in the state. That shit went to my head, and I started slacking off. The money I earned was spent on partying, strip clubs, random women, vacations, liquor, and weed. That was all I gave a damn about until shit changed.
I was fired from the place that I had come to think of as home, the place that allowed me to build my reputation. I had worked at Chuck’s Premier Cuts for five years, when Chuck’s girlfriend, Aniya Roberson, made a pass at me.
It was a no-brainer for me to turn her down, but that didn’t stop her efforts. No matter how much I turned her down, she persisted, until one day she finally got the picture. My ass should have known something was up when she chilled out. Heryounger brother, Ayden, had started working at the shop, and the little nigga had sticky fingers.
Chuck operated on an honesty system, and he kept all the cash in the bottom drawer of his desk in his back office. Everyone had always known that, but we were all trustworthy-ass niggas. When shit came up missing, Ayden was the first suspect on everyone’s list, but Aniya covered for her brother and lied to Chuck.
She claimed that she caught me stealing, and she also claimed that I had tried to kiss her to convince her not to tell Chuck what I had done. I had been the one working late on each of those nights that money came up missing, but so had Ayden. It was my word against his and Aniya’s. It wasn’t weird science that Chuck would choose the woman he was planning to marry over his protégée who had been moving funny anyway. Because he’d had several discussions with me about my behavior leading up to that time, it was easier for him to break ties with me.
The firing didn’t just come with me losing my place at the shop, but it also came with my reputation being sullied. I became known as a sticky-fingered nigga, who couldn’t keep his hands to himself when it came to niggas’ money or women. Pair that along with being an arrogant, weed-addicted, drunk asshole, nobody would fuck with me.
The crazy part was that they claimed I was drug addicted like I was on meth or crack or some shit. Meanwhile, all those same niggas were smoking weed, same as I was.
“Monte, trust me, nigga, when I say everything designed for my downfall was the best shit that ever happened to me. I have no regrets, but keep ya li’l mouth shut, unless you’re speaking on some shit you know about. Are we good?”
He did a mock salute, turned his lips down, and nodded. “Good, boss man.”
3
TEGAN
MY ORDER – ONE WEEK LATER
The hum of machines filled the air, along with quiet chatter. Aromatic scents of freshly brewed coffee, caramel, and the warm, sweet fragrance of Danishes coated the air with sugary sweetness.
