Page 5 of The Need to Know

At twenty-seven, I’d never felt skin, and though I often heard it was a pleasure above all delicacies, I wasn’t risking my future on it. I didn’t even take head from just anybody.

I. Was. Responsible.

“You’re turning twenty-eight. You’re almost thirty. When are you going to settle down and get serious? Start a life, spend time out of the club than always in it on the hunt?” Pops questioned. “Owning it requires a level of maturity I’m not sure you have. I was married with you on the way by the time I was your age. I worked the club, but I didn’t focus on the party.”

Scratching along my jaw, I put on a poker face. Losing my temper would ruin everything I’d worked so hard for. But Pops was pushing all the right buttons.

It was me who made BLVCKJVCK prominent, me and my Midas touch. I wasn’t a romance enthusiast. I wasn’t interested in dating and falling in love. I didn’t want to be home more. I partied, but it was for show, for business. I wasn’t a drunk and I didn’t smoke all that much. I could handle ownership. I deserved ownership. It was a lousy copout to hit below the belt and bring up my love life otherwise.

“How much did the club make last year?” I challenged.

Pops sighed. “The club made a lot of money last year, Eazy. I’m aware of your potential, but this is a lot of power I’d be handing you, and I just think you need a little more time. Be patient, son. There’s no one else I’d sign it over to, but for now, let’s just celebrate you being another year older.”

It was all bullshit, but what the fuck could I do but sit there and take it?

So, grudgingly, like a prince destined for the crown, I waited.

He sent me flowers this time.

As I was opening the front doors to the shop after lifting the security gate, I was met by a floral courier holding a large arrangement of pastel roses. Light orange, pale pink, and lavender roses were jutting out of the glittery rose-gold vase he was holding in his hands.

I didn’t need to read the card sticking out of the bloom of flowers to know who’d sent them.

Corey. He always knew when to go all out.

I accepted the flowers and unlocked the front door to Shéc and let myself in. I went and set them on the checkout counter, the perfect piece for our white lacquer stand.

To distract myself, I turned on our speaker system and gathered my phone, going and hitting the R&B genre on my music app and shuffling the contents. It was just my luck Alicia Keys came on. “Fallin’.”

It was after nine a.m., but we weren’t open yet, leaving me the only person inside this Monday morning. It was the end of June. A new shipment was coming in an hour for our summer arrivals. I had to get my head in the game.

The shop was half mine. I co-owned it with my best friend from high school, Paisley Parker. Together we called our fashion boutique Shéc—pronounced chic. It was ours, due to an investment from Paisley’s parents.

When I’d dropped out of college, my parents had been majorly disappointed with me. Paisley took a semester off to figure out her own goals, but her parents had been gentler with her. I’d never held any true interests or talent, unlike Pay’s knack for radio and buzzing personality, but if there was one affinity I had, it was clothes. My peers in my college classrooms would roll in wearing sweats and hoodies, and I’d be sporting my latest ensemble. Fashion was my passion, and when Paisley came up with the idea of using my gift for clothes as a business, I was hesitant, but all in.

We didn’t have any employees, but we made it work running the shop as a duo six days a week. We were nearing our third anniversary, and things were finally settling into routine and place. Belmont, Georgia was just over a half hour away from Atlanta, where everyone went to kick it and hang out. A lot of local women hit our shop to find affordable outfits to wear into the city. We were located in a busy strip mall, the perfect place for shopping on a lunchbreak.

When I’d dropped out of school after my sophomore year, everything was a mess for me. No matter how many 11:11s I wished on, nothing good ever came. Co-owning Shéc was a step in the right direction.

My eyes trailed pitifully to Corey Reece’s roses, and I couldn’t help but think about what it all meant. He wanted me back.

I looked around my empty storefront, and Alicia was still mocking me.

Corey was complicated. To the ignorant, the roses were a romantic expression. In reality, they were an attempt at a Band-Aid. We hadn’t spoken all year, the longest between our hiatuses. A part of me loved to think that I’d finally gotten over him, finally moved on and realized my worth.

If only it were that simple.

Corey was my on-again/off-again ex-boyfriend. We’d dated for almost three years. I could describe our relationship in one word: Toxic.

To put it plainly, I was a fool for Corey. He used to cheat on me and win me back with the prettiest lies. I knew he was no good for me, but like an addictive substance, I went back. I pretended to ignore the signs he was up to no good staying out late with his boys. I pretended it was normal he had two phones and would never let me touch either. I pretended not to smell the perfume on his clothes whenever I’d collect his laundry off the floor.

At his worst, he messed around and had a baby on me—yes, a baby. Like an idiot, I believed him when he spoke of his baby momma putting something in his drink and taking advantage of him, completely forgetting it took two to tangle. I was gone over that man, and he had me walking around for two-plus years stuck on stupid. Paisley said it was the D, and sadly, it wasn’t even that, it was the L, aka Love. When Corey looked me in the eyes and told me he loved me, I felt special, wanted, and important. Just for a moment before he went and messed up again.

His child’s mother once came to my shop and browsed around with her friend, practically bragging about the expensive bag Corey bought for her and how he was still slingin’ it her way. Paisley held me while I cried, but she wasn’t shy from scolding me and calling me out on my weakness over Corey. Paisley always kept it a hundred with me, no matter what, because I was too damn old to be coddled and lied to for the sake of feelings. Something Corey stepped on repeatedly.

Late at night when I stayed over at his place, Corey would hold me and tell me I was his girl and no one else’s, and that no one was allowed to have me but him. Those words used to get to me, making me feel like I was his possession, and for a while that was enough.

But he was never my possession. As Paisley loved putting it, Corey was no more than community dick with a handsome smile and a roll of cash.