“Hey, best friend,” I said.
“No, hoe, don’t call me your best friend now, when your ass done been MIA since yesterday. Charlie, where the hell have you been? I understand you mad at my brother, but why you got to make me suffer. Wait, hold on, let me call Toya because she been trying to reach you too,” Monae said and I waited for her to click Toya on through the line. As she did that, I made myself comfortable in the tub and let today’s events just take me away.
I sat and I thought about the radio interview that I heard with Jaquan on The Breakfast Club early yesterday morning. Yes, I was still mad at him but I made it a habit to always support him, even if that meant staying in the hotel yesterday after I dropped my baby off to school so that I could hear the entire interview. I’m not going to lie, it made me smile after hearing the way he defended me numerous times throughout his interview. It made me miss him more when I know that I shouldn’t.
“Charlie?” Monae said through the phone.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I responded.
“Toya?” she called out, making sure that Toya was on the line as well.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Toya replied and I smiled inwardly, thinking about how much I missed talking on the phone with my girls.
“I’m glad to see that you’re still alive, Charlie. I hate when you do that shit, though. Every time you and Quan go through some shit, you make us suffer by not even answering the phone for us. You could have at least told me out of all people where you were going to be because you know I wouldn’t have said shit,” Toya said. She was referring to Monae on the last part because we all knew that Monae couldn’t hold water.
“I’m staying at the Westin Diplomat on Hollywood Beach, but I’m going back home in the morning. Wait, Monae, where are you?” I asked. I needed to make sure that she wasn’t anywhere near her brother because if he heard location, I’m pretty sure that he would come looking for me.
“I’m at Quan’s house, why?” she asked me.
“Is he there? And do you have me on speaker?” I asked, panicking a little bit.
“Yes, he’s here, and you’re on speaker because I’m in the kitchen cooking. But before I came down here, he was in his room sleeping because he said that he was going into the studio later on tonight. Don’t worry, he can’t hear us,” she said, trying to defuse the situation, even though I knew better.
“I don’t care. Take me off speaker, I don’t trust his ass,” I said to her.
“I swear you do the most. Okay, I took you off speaker, now what’s up?” she asked.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Call me paranoid, but I just didn’t want to take a chance like that.
“Guess who I ran into at the beach today?” I asked them.
“Who?” they asked in unison.
“Tracy from the club. Toya, you remember the one I’m talking about. Dude that sent the bottle to our table.”
“Yeah, I know exactly who you’re talking about. Remember I told you that my cousin had called me because dude wanted your number, but you said that you didn’t want to talk to him. What he was doing at the beach?” she asked.
“When you think about it, I don’t even know because it’s like the nigga just popped up or some shit. I never even paid it any attention that he was on the beach, in the sand area where I was sitting, with jeans and sneakers on. That got me thinking. What if he was following my ass?” I said, thinking out loud.
“Really, Charlie? Why the hell would that man be following you? How would he even have known that you were there? It’s restaurants and shit out there on the beach. You don’t know if he had just finished eating and then ran into your ass out there. I mean, it’s not hard to miss a yellow bitch with some bomb ass red hair,” Monae said and I laughed.
“Monae, hush. Anyways, what’s been up with you? Did you and Quay fix y’all problems yet?” The last thing I heard about them was when she told me that he wasn’t answering the phone for her after the incident. I wanted to know had they progressed or were they still beefing.
“Girl, he still ain’t fuckin’ with me. You think Tracy ass was following you, I’m the definition of a stalker. It’s crazy because most people might think I’m crazy for following his ass, but this is what I have to do because he still has my ass blocked. I even had to DM him on Instagram like some groupie ass bitch, just to get in contact with him, and he still won’t reply to me. This shit is so frustrating,” she vented.
I’m so glad that I wasn’t the only one having trouble in paradise.
“Speaking of men. Guess who I was with two nights ago in my office for over an hour, chilling?” Toya asked.
I honestly was shocked to hear her say this because Toya ass was so damn mean, so I was taken back when she said this. I’ve seen some of the finest men try to holla at Toya while we’re together, and this bitch would still turn them down. A few times, I thought this bitch was blind because she was turning down niggas that resembled people like Nelly, Willie from Love and Hip Hop, and LL Cool J. So, I wanted to know every detail about who she had up in her office.
“Who?” Monae and I asked eagerly at the same time.
“Diandre,” she said.
A smirk formed on my face. I’ve known Dre just about as long as I’ve known Jaquan, and that nigga was fine as hell and an arrogant ass nigga too, but I loved him like a brother. I also knew that when he wanted something, he would go after it. I already knew about him wanting Toya because Jaqu
an had told me about it a few weeks ago when we were on good terms. I didn’t want anything to do with helping him get my girl because I knew how Toya was, and I didn’t want to get his hopes up.