She swallowed hard as she stared at me. “Yeah. I-I can’t deal with this shit. You don’t need to be with me. You’ve already gotten fired because of me. Happy birthday, Graham. I gotta go.”
She attempted to walk past me, and I grabbed her arm. “What the fuck you on, man?”
“Graham, let me go.”
“Naw. You finna explain.”
“No, the fuck I’m not! I can’t!”
My mothers both came running from the kitchen to see what was going on. My bio mom said, “Arlie, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I have to go.”
My mama had a frown on her face, and I could see her claws ready to come out. Whenever she thought I was being wronged in any way, she was ready to defend. It seemed my big ass age of thirty-four, thirty-five tomorrow, didn’t matter to her. Arlie jerked away from me and ran out of the house with Kimaji right behind her.
I stood still like I was in wet cement. Arlie was fine until that nigga said what he said and I announced being fired. Turning to my mama, I said, “I’m gonna need you. I got fired, and Ross Stanton needs to go down for it. Then, I’ma need you to keep me out of jail, because Eldridge Owens gon’ get fucked up.”
My bio mom dropped to the couch in shock, and my mama’s facial expressions hardened, like she was ready for war. I supposed Arlie’s age and immaturity was showing itself. However, she didn’t realize the kind of man she was committed to. I refused to let her go. She was mine. It didn’t matter that it had only been a week. She was gonna honor her fucking word, voluntarily or involuntarily. I’d shake her ass to death to make her see what she was doing to us.
We hadn’t even gotten started good yet, and she was ready to tuck tail and run, fucking with our future together. My patience was already thin as a muthafucka, but all this bullshit at once was gon’ have me wildin’ out like a fucking animal.
I glanced at my mama, and she said, “I got’chu, son. Ain’t shit changed about that. We gon’ get to the bottom of all that shit.”
I sentGraham a gift for his birthday, then hopped a flight to Baltimore. I couldn’t do this shit. My career was finally about to pop off, and my personal life was about to be on the same level. This shit couldn’t happen at a worser time. It was bad enough I was still grieving my brother’s death, but to have to endure shit from my past was going to break me.
Lots of people had a heaux phase, Jazmine Sullivan confirmed that shit years ago, but mine was extreme. I was in those streets bad after my mama died. I thought only the people I was with knew about that shit. Apparently, I was wrong.
I knew exactly who Eldridge Owens was. I heard stories about his abusive ways with Miss K, but I knew him in another capacity as well. I fucked his son . . . not Graham but his brother. I never knew this fuck up was Graham’s father until he showed up. Miss K had never said she’d had a baby from his ass. I’dheard something about her giving up a child, but he was never mentioned being the father of said child.
Despite Graham not even knowing his brother, being with him made me feel dirty in that moment. How could I form a lasting relationship with him knowing that shit? I did a lot of fucked up shit during my grief process. I fucked for money . . . old ass men, handicapped men, ugly ass men. I literally made myself sick that day, knowing that all that shit could come out. Maj didn’t even know everything.
Graham, my daddy, and Kimaji had been blowing my phone up, and I swore, I wanted to just crawl in a corner somewhere and die. Going to Baltimore would hopefully give me the reprieve I needed. I knew Mrs. Sidney would be busy doing shit for Graham, so she wouldn’t pop up out here.
Knowing he’d also gotten fired made me feel guilty as hell. I was the aggressor in our situation. Why couldn’t I have waited until we got home? We both lived in Houston. I would have learned that shit had I tried to get to knowhimbefore getting to know his dick.
As I made my way to Noah’s studio, I closed my eyes, saying a quick prayer that all would go well. I knew he had a couple of tracks for me already. I needed to listen to them and spit some fire shit to go with them. I could see the driver glancing at me in his mirror repeatedly, like he was recognizing me.
“Are you SOLA?”
“Naw. I get that shit all the time though.”
I rolled my eyes behind my shades. He knew he was taking me to Noah’s studio. He knew it was me.Asking a dumb ass question.My attitude was on ten. Noah could hear it in my voice when I called to see if I could fly out there this weekend. He’d asked what I was running from, and I couldn’t answer him. The problem was that I was running from my past, but my mindset was bringing the shit right along with me.
Running from my past was causing me to run out on my present, ultimately, affecting my future. I hated this shit. Maybe I needed to relocate. Who was I fooling? This shit would follow me no matter where I went, and now that Graham and Devin were on Eldridge’s bad side, that shit could come out at any moment.
When the car pulled up to the studio, the driver said, “YouareSOLA!”
I slowly shook my head and got out of the car without a word. Getting inside was of utmost importance, before anyone else recognized me. After walking inside, the receptionist smiled, and said, “Hello, Miss SOLA. You can go on to studio A.”
“Hello. Thank you.”
I walked to the hallway and followed it to where the studios were located. There was a total of five different studios in this building. Noah was doing big things for the industry, and I couldn’t be prouder to be on his label. Turning the doorknob, I went inside and saw Noah sitting at the boards with another guy, probably an engineer.
He turned to me, and said, “What’s up, shorty?”
“Hey,” I responded somewhat dryly.
He stood from his seat and leaned over to hug me.
