Page 82 of When I Thug You Like That

Me: Sure. Will dinner require me to go home and change?

917-653-3738: You’ll never have to change wit’ me, Jai’ana. I’ll see you Wednesday at 6:30.

I bit down on my lip and let out a light moan. This was gonna be one fucked parent.

CHAPTER 13

I Be Knowing Things

JAMISON

“You back already? And unannounced. I already see what kinda client you ‘bout to be,” Morgan said, turning her clippers off as she stood behind her chair, finishing up a client.

I’d walked into the barbershop at two o’clock, dapping up Dre and Duke on my way back to her station.

“Yo’ ass ain’t gon’ be able to keep no clients being rude like that.”

“Mannn, it’s two o’clock,” she repeated.

“I know how to tell time.”

“Do you? ‘Cause we agreed to a six o’clock appointment.” She turned the clippers back on and cleaned up the back of dude’s neck. “You can’t just pop up four hours early like you run my schedule.”

I stopped a few feet away and crossed my arms on my chest. “First off, wassup, lil’ nigga? Second, how you even know I’m here for a cut? Third, I move how I wanna move and pop up where I wanna pop up, da fuck?”

She looked at me through the mirror.

“You need a cut, man?”

“Yeah.”

I laughed along with everybody else in the shop and dropped down into one of the waiting chairs.

“Exactly, nigga.” She chuckled.

With Jai’ana agreeing to our six-thirty date, plans had changed. Justin was with Esha this week, and Baby Jay’s hair didn’t need to be touched up as of yet, so there was no need to wait. Should I have texted prior to? Yeah. But I believed money talked, and there wasn’t an inconvenience that an upcharge couldn’t fix.

“Shit, my plans changed,” I told her. “I got somewhere to be later.”

“What that gotta do wit’ me, bruh? You supposed to hit my line.”

“You crying, or you gon’ squeeze a paying customer in?”

She pulled the cape off dude and brushed the loose hairs from his neck. Dapping him up and taking her payment, she side-eyed me.

“Yo’ ass lucky I got a gap in between now and my next client. Got me cutting through my break and shit.”

Laughing, I swiped my hand over my head.

“I got an extra fifty for the inconvenience.”

Her entire demeanor changed. That sour look turned into a smile. She slapped the back of her chair twice, gesturing for me to sit.

“Shit, you should’ve led with that. Let’s get you comfortable, big dawg. You got places to be.”

“That’s wild,” the dude whose hair she’d cut said.

“Mind ya business,” she told him. “I pride myself on good customer service.”