Nina was trying her hardest not to jump to a horrid conclusion. She wanted to know if she had been dumped without proper notice because it surely felt as if Jio had fallen back this time and she didn’t know how to handle the rejection. In truth, Jio had been kissing her juicy ass since he met her. She’d grown accustomed to him popping up at her house without warning, banging on the door and doing whatever to gain her attention. This wasn’t the deal these days. Her calls went unanswered and even Ephrem hadn’t heard from him. Nina was too tired every day after burning the midnight oil to go to Jersey to see if he’d been at his own home since he wasn’t at hers.
Her phone buzzed against her desk, causing her heart to skip a beat. She just knew it was her man calling to reclaim her heart, but to her surprise, it was her mama.
Nina stared at the screen suspiciously before answering. “What do YOU possibly want with ME?” Is what she wanted to ask her, but instead she said, “Is everything okay?’’
Her mother gasped dramatically. “Why does something have to be wrong for me to call my daughter?”
“Because you don’t call this late unless you need something.”
“That is so ugly to say. Shame on you, Nina,” her mother scolded.
Nina rolled her eyes, spinning slowly in her leather chair.
“What do you need, Mama?”
“Well…” her mother dragged out. “Kobie invited us to this little celebration tomorrow night.”
Nina closed her eyes and without hesitation, she told her, “No.”
“No?”
“Yes, correct, the answer is no.”
In her last session with her therapist, they practiced saying the word no in every possible situation and Nina tried her hardest to add a sentence or a few words to justify why she was saying no. Dr. Berry would shake her head and remind her that no is a complete sentence.
“Nina, are you coming to the chapter meeting?”
“No, but I will send-
“Nina, can you pick up the kids for me?”
“I wish I could but…NO.”
“Are you available to look over this contract before the client signs?”
“No.”
It wasn’t easy and every day Nina was striving to be confident with her decision to say NO and stand on it. She was trying torewire her brain after being a certified people pleaser her entire life. Her mama calling tonight was just the challenge that she needed to prove to herself that she could say NO and not feel bad about letting anyone down.
“You don’t even know what it’s for.”
Nina didn’t care either. “That’s cool. I’m not interested either.”
There was a long stretch of silence on the phone until Nina asked, “Was that all, Mother?”
“Nina…”
“Mama.”
Her mother sighed heavily into the phone. “It’s for his Sprite campaign launch. The boy just signed one of the biggest endorsement deals in football.”
“Go Kobie! What does that have to do with me?”
“He invited the family.”
Nina snorted softly. “I’m sure he invitedyou.”
“He asked about you specifically.”
