Page 29 of Kisses Behind the Spotlight

Those were the waist beads she was rocking, and her favorite sweater to throw on and go, hanging off her shoulders. Then I paused, and my stomach churned. I remembered Jameera wearing that outfit the same day I tried to fuck her in her office, but she was crying about her deadlines.

My breathing became erratic, and I felt my chest heaving. It felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest when I caved and clicked the volume button at the bottom of the picture to play the song.

He started off calling me “Silver Spoon,” which didn’t bother me. Unfortunately, I was used to motha fuckas underestimating me because I lived an affluent life growing up. I attended some of the best private schools, and had a stepfather with money who helped make my dreams become a reality.

However, D3 mentioned a few personal things that caught me off guard. Jameera was pillow talking with that nigga. My grasp on the phone got tighter the longer I listened. The song kept restarting because Quincy wouldn’t stop calling my phone. D3 mentioned my hand tremors and called me a jitterbug. There was a line calling me Bumpy Johnson, referencing the skin issues that plagued me. He even said some shit about Jameera wanting a nigga she can touch without bruising. All details were true, and things that I didn’t talk about publicly. The part that crushed me was hearing this nigga brag about fucking Jameera in his verse about women not being shit.

“I’mma fucking kill them!” I raged after finally finishing the snippet D3 posted on his Instagram.

Storming out of the crib, the door slammed shut behind me hard enough that the frame rattled. My robe swayed with each furious step I took down the hallway. It took everything out of me to refrain from punching a hole in something.

I tapped the elevator button and desperately tried to control my breathing while I waited impatiently. My eyes were locked on the numbers above as they climbed higher until the elevator finally dinged. Stepping onto the elevator, I slapped the button for the floor below and stood there feeling fucked up on the inside. The door closed, and my reflection in the mirror told the tale of a man battling betrayal and hurt with no clear direction. I ran my hands over my face, the low hum of the elevator coming to a stop as the doors slipped open.

My feet were moving before the doors were fully open. Marching toward Amill’s door, I wondered how the fuck Jameera could do me like that. When I reached the door, I raised my right fist and pounded incessantly. Everybody was about to have a fucked up day because Jameera didn’t take a piss without telling Amill, so her ass knew.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jameera

Sitting on Amill’s plush sofa, we swiped through potential influencers for our upcoming launch. A few of the girls Amill met in Miami made the cut, lightening our search. A text from Mama Marissa came through on her MacBook, and Amill clicked to open it. It took her to TikTok. I couldn’t understand how Amill could withstand social media. I got on for business, then got right off. The space could be so negative when blogs platformed randoms who made up stories about you and your loved ones for pennies. I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many times I saw something negative and untrue about Q online.

Travis posted the video two hours ago. It was a time-lapse video of him walking through Amill’s apartment, showing off her sanctuary. The living room, closet, bedroom, and terrace were all given their time to shine. Then he went into her office, and the camera panned down to the sketches of our unreleased spring collection.

I gasped and my blood boiled. We had a whole rollout planned to hint at the color scheme, style changes, and all of that before showing the sketches, and Amill’s fanned-out ass man beat us to the punch. The caption of the video said, “Get you a girl with her own shit.” I wanted to gag.

“I’m going to text him to take it down. It’s only been up for thirty minutes,” Amill explained, furiously tapping around on her phone.

I went to the comments, and everyone was talking about the sketches they saw. Thankfully, the comments were favorable. But that wasn’t the point. All of the likes and shares Travis got were off Amill’s back. I bit my tongue, went to his page, and noticed that video had about two hundred thousand views in thirty minutes while the rest of his videos sat at fifty and sixty thousand.

The last video he had that reached a million views had a picture of Amill on the cover. I clicked on it and music played loudly in the background. Amill drunkenly danced with Travis, his hands roaming her body. She pulled away and tried to leave but stumbled into the pool. Travis shook his head before jumping in to fish her out. That solidified everything I thought about Travis. I hated him for Amill.

“Why would he post this?” I inquired, shoving the MacBook into her lap.

“It was funny,” Amill answered.

“Amill, you shouldn’t be content for his pages or livestreams. When you get to Atlanta with him, all I see is videos of you drinking and showing your ass,” I complained.

“Mama Marissa is already giving me a lecture. I don’t need to be jumped with lectures at the same time,” Amill whined, sounding just like Yarissa.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The banging at the door startled both of us. We sat up on the couch, and I paused the movie, placing the MacBook on the couch next to me just in case we needed to run.

“Let me look at the camera to see who that is,” Amill whispered as the incessant banging continued.

“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” Q barked from the other side of the door.

Amill hopped from the couch and rushed towards the door. I was slower to get up from the couch, but I wasn’t far behind.

“You ain’t shit! I know you knew what Jameera was doing! Get the fuck outta my way,” Q ranted, brushing past Amill as soon as she opened the door.

Her mouth slipped into a wide, shocked O and her head tilted to the side as Q stormed over to me.

“You fucking around on me with a nigga that just wanted to use your stupid ass for clout?!” Q accused, holding his phone up a mere two inches from my face.

There it was again. Fight-flight-freeze. I froze, again. My eyes involuntarily widened seeing the misleading picture of me and D3. I didn’t freeze out of guilt, but out of surprise. It had been almost two weeks since the incident, and I filed it away in the back of my mental rolodex when we resigned as D3’s stylist.

“You did that shit! I know how you look when you’re guilty of some shit. Your bug eyes always give you away!” Q hissed, punching the wall in the foyer. “I hope it was worth throwing everything we built away!”