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She flashes me her pearly whites. “I’m great. Thanks.”
I don’t acknowledge J-Smooth. I front like I don’t see the muhfucka standing here.
“Oh, aiight. I wanted to congratulate you on another number one single, baby. You’re doing your thing.”
She smiles. Thanks me. Then nervously shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
J-Smooth clears his throat. “What, you drop me from your label, and now wanna act like you don’t know me.”
“Oh, damn. J-Smooth? Damn, man. I didn’t even know that was you.” I laugh. “You standing there looking all incogneegro ‘n’ whatnot. What’s good with you?” I lean in, offering a fist to him. One of his cronies in his lil’ entourage takes a step forward.
I narrow my eyes. “Yo, there a problem?”
He throws a hand up to stop his lapdog from advancing.
Muhfucka, I wish the fuck you would.
“Nah, we good,” J-Smooth says.
“Oh, aiight. Just checkin’.”
He reaches out and gives me dap. But for some reason the shit feels fake. But I’m cool with it. The muhfucka’s pretty much on the verge of becoming a has-been, anyway, now that he’s lost all of his endorsements and no one else in the industry is checking for him.
If he wants to be heard, or seen, he’ll have to put out an independent project, or keep leeching off the spotlight of chicks like Lydia, too fucked up to peep he’s only using them.
Lydia steps closer to J-Smooth. “MarSell, I hope to see you opening night at my concert at the Garden.”
I glance over at J-Smooth on the sly. What the fuck? I notice a tight lump over his left eye. And it looks like there’s a bruise under his eye. But I can’t be for certain.
Muhfucka was probably somewhere running his mouth.
“Damn, bruh, whose fist you run into?”
He scowls, touching the frame of his shades. “Oh, nah, nah; just some bullshit-ass squabble. Nothing major.”
But then something major saunters in, causing murmurs through the crowd and everyone to turn their heads, including Lydia and J-Smooth. It’s Laila Reynolds—sexy as shit in a shimmering bronze mini and knee-high gladiator-style heels—on the arm of my boy Carlos in a tux, with his long, wavy hair slicked back. Both looking like they’ve been airbrushed to perfection.
Photographers swarm them, blinding them with flashing bulbs.
I shake my head, grinning. This muhfucka here.
“Pussy-ass niggah,” one of J-Smooth’s cronies, Leon, mumbles under his breath. Cat is about six one, two-thirty, eyeballing Carlos, like he’s ready to get it in.
I can almost see the hairs on the back of Lydia’s neck raise as she eyes Laila with what looks to be envy. As talented as they both are, she seems threatened by Laila’s success. And J-Smooth seems fidgety all of a sudden, stretching and rolling his neck.
I open my mouth to call cat out for that slick shit just as Marika sidles up beside me. “You ready.”
I kiss Marika on the cheek; quickly letting dude’s comment slide, then introduce her to Lydia. “Lydia, this is my wife, Marika. Marika, Lydia Miles.”
Lydia smiles. “Nice meeting you.”
“Oh, the pleasures all mine,” Marika says warmly. “I love your last album. I think I kept it in rotation for almost a month straight. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
I nod absently, eyeing J-Smooth as he shoots glances over at Leon, who smirks.
“There’s this bullshit-ass rumor going around that you’re on the DL.”
I cut my eye back over at J-Smooth. I think to pull this muhfucka to the side to see if he’s been coming outta his face sideways about me, but then decide the shit’s not relevant. I’m good with who and what I am.
