Doing My Own Thing (18 page)

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Authors: Nikki Carter

BOOK: Doing My Own Thing
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“She's just playing hard to get,” Truth says.
Sam shakes his head. “Dude, you can't be serious.”
“All these chicks want me—Sunday too if you want to get down to it,” Truth says.
Before I can reply, Dreya says, “Nobody wants you. Least of all me. Sunday, can I stay in your room for the rest of the weekend?”
“Of course.”
Then, Truth just loses it! In a lightning-fast move he wraps his hand around Dreya's throat and snatches her head back against the seat.
“Truth, get off of her!” I yell. “Stop the camera! Stop filming THIS!”
Sam knocks the camera out of the cameraman's hand before he can acquiesce. When he reaches down to pick it up, Zac shakes his head, no. The cameraman sits back in his seat. I guess he knows better than to cross Zillionaire.
Slowly, Truth removes his hand from Dreya's neck and she coughs violently. As Truth leans back and relaxes, as if he's proved something, Zac jumps across the seat and puts Truth in a headlock. Truth struggles to free himself with no success.
Zac says, “I guess somebody told you it was okay to beat on women. Maybe it was your daddy, I don't know. But you are NOT about to manhandle this girl in my presence. You are disrespecting every woman in this car, and NOBODY disrespects my girl. So, I'ma let you take a nap right now. You fixing to go to sleep, and when you wake up you're gonna be in a cab taking your fake thug self to the airport. If you're still here tomorrow, you might need a wheelchair to get back to the States.”
After a little more fruitless struggling, Truth loses consciousness. Zac then turns to the BET cameraman. “That better not show up on TV, or you're gonna lose more than your job, son.”
Son? The cameraman has to be twice Zac's age. He's tripping on some old straight gangsta type stuff.
But, I am glad he handled Truth. I just don't know what the aftermath of this will be for Dreya, Big D, or Truth's record deal with Epsilon Records.
All this over Bethany? I never understand guys who would put everything on the line for a whole bunch of nothing! Truth's gonna wake up in the morning feeling really, really dumb about all this. Really, really, dumb.
“Zac, baby, did you really have to do that?” Mystique asks.
“Yeah, I did,” he replies softly.
Dreya bursts into tears. No one moves to offer her any sympathy. It's not that I feel good about Truth hurting her, it's that she is
always
ruining something for me! This reality show, this trip, this music thing! I wish Dreya and all of her drama would just disappear out of my life.
And she can take her raggedy woman-beating boyfriend with her.
25
T
he fight with Truth in the limo has put a damper on everyone's evening. No one is in a good mood, but we decided to still go to the reggae club anyway. One, because we're hungry and two, if we all go back to the resort, more violence is sure to erupt. Truth needs time to clear out, and we need time away from him.
For some reason, witnessing the attack has caused Mystique to go sweet on Dreya. She's been holding her hand since before we got out of the limo. Frankly, Dreya looks kind of uncomfortable with the overt showing of affection. Dreya's not the affectionate type, at all, but she still doesn't release Mystique's hand until we get into the restaurant and sit down.
“Are you all right, Dreya?” I ask as we all look at the menus. “Do you want to call Aunt Charlie?”
“No. Don't call her,” Dreya says. “She's gonna trip that he's even here in the first place.”
“Okay, but do you want me to call Big D to make sure he's gone when we get back to the resort?”
Zac says, “No need. I already took care of that. You don't have to worry about him anymore this weekend.”
“I-I could feel his hands pressing into my throat. I couldn't breathe. Was he trying to kill me?”
Sam says, “No. He knows that no one would've let him get that off. He was just trying to scare you.”
“But those few seconds hurt so bad. Was I wrong to call him out about Bethany?” Dreya's voice sounds so small and frightened. I've never seen her so shaken. But I guess seeing your life flash before your eyes, even if it is briefly, is pretty scary.
“I don't think you were wrong to call him out about Bethany, but maybe you shouldn't have done it in front of all of us. That was kind of rough,” I say.
Mystique says, “That doesn't give him a reason to choke her, though.”
“Definitely not excusing him,” I say. “I'm just being honest.”
Dreya says, “Sunday is right. I wanted to embarrass him on camera. That's why I did it, plus I was mad that he would play me like that—again. I mean seriously, is Bethany all that?”
“He's just a dog,” Mystique says. “And dogs don't deserve girls like us. They deserve hoodrat, busted-up chicks.”
“Not even a hoodrat deserves getting choked,” Sam says. “Although a hoodrat probably would've put in some work on him as soon as he took his hands away.”
A live band is playing in the tiny but lively club. I sway back and forth to the festive drumbeat. The dance floor is packed with locals and vacationers. I can tell the difference because the resort people look a bit out of place. Their dancing is a little off the beat—shoot, a lot of them look like this is their first time dancing.
Even with everything that has gone on tonight, now I feel like dancing. Maybe it'll relieve some stress, and since the BET cameraman was so mad at Zac that he went back to the hotel, I don't have to worry about my club dancing being on TV.
“Order me some jerk chicken,” I tell Mystique. “Come on, Sam, I want to dance.”
Sam's eyebrows lift. “You want me to go out there?”
“Yes! It'll be fun.”
“For who? You or the people who will be laughing at me when I attempt to dance?”
I give Sam a tiny smile. “You can save a girl's life, but you can't dance to an itty-bitty reggae song?”
“Aw, crap,” Sam says. “Come on. It sounds like you're calling my manhood into question.”
Zac laughs out loud. “Dude, she IS. And she's making you dance. You must be sprung.”
When Sam doesn't reply, I say, “Well . . . are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Sprung?”
Sam laughs out loud. “I'll answer that if and when I make it off this dance floor in one piece.”
“Good answer, bro!” Zac high-fives Sam as we walk away from the table.
On the way to the dance floor, I turn and ask Sam, “What did Big D say about the job offer?”
“He seemed happy for me, but he just kept cracking his knuckles.”
“He does that when he's mad.”
“I know. So, I asked him if he wanted me to turn the job down.” Sam maneuvers us through the tight maze of tables and onto the floor.
“You did? What did he say?” Now, I'm yelling because the music is so loud.
“He totally freaked me out and started crying!”
My mouth drops open. “Get outta here! Boo-hoo crying?”
“Naw. Tears just started coming down his face. It was weird, but he said not to turn the job down.”
“Big D is an emotional cat, for real,” I say. I remember when he gave me a similar speech about it being destiny that we met and all that. Big D is a big ol' softie.
“I know, but I'm glad I talked to him about it, because I'm taking the offer.”
The thought of Sam all the way in New York City while I'm studying in Atlanta makes me a little sad, and just a tad bit stressed, so I let the music transport me to another place. I move in time to the drumbeat, and imitate the hip motions of the other dancers. Sam does a version of what the men are doing, which ends up looking like a little jump with his hands up.
Then the fast drumbeat slows down and couples start moving in close. Sam pulls me into a very modest embrace. He knows what it is. We might be a couple, but I don't do the whole dirty-dancing thing. That's not me.
“So, when you go to college in ATL, are you going to get a replacement boyfriend since I won't be there?”
“We'll have to see. I'll have to do something to pass the time, right?”
“Sunday . . .”
I shake my head and smile. “Nope. You don't get to make the rules. You're chasing the paper, right?”
“Well, that's because I'm done chasing you. I've already caught you.”
This tickles me for some reason and it makes me laugh. “Okay, dude. I'm caught . . . for now. But let me hear one story about you and some New York groupie . . .”
“You won't. I promise, you won't.”
26
A
fter a few hours at the reggae club we come back to the resort to turn in early. When Dreya and I get to my room, it suddenly dawns on me that Bethany is probably in here. Even though, this time, Bethany isn't in the wrong, Dreya probably doesn't want to deal with her tonight.
Before I open the door, I turn to Dreya. “Is there anything you need from your other room?”
“No . . . it should all be in your room. Zac said that Shelly was going to go in and pack it up for me.”
Darn. I was trying to stall for time.
“What is it? Do you not want to share with me, because I can go with Regina and Bethany if you want the room to yourself.”
“So you would be cool sharing a room with Bethany?”
Dreya laughs. “Of course not, but since these rooms are four hundred dollars a night, I'm sure not trying to spend my money.”
“Oh, well then cool. Come on in. I think Bethany might be in here, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay with that.”
Sure enough, Bethany is sprawled on the couch in my sitting room. She's still fully dressed, so I pull the blanket from her feet to wake her up.
She squints her eyes into tiny slits. “Sunday, is that you?”
“Yeah, girl. We're back from the club. You okay? You still have your clothes on.”
She nods. “I'm cool. I found Dilly, and he doesn't believe me.”
“Don't worry about that. Sam will talk to him tonight. It'll be okay in the morning.”
Bethany sits up on the couch. “Are you sure? Because I really like Dilly. I think I might even love him.”
I can't imagine anyone being in love with Dilly. Even though he's nice and very cute, he's ridiculously young and goofy. But to each her own, I guess.
Dreya rolls her eyes at Bethany and goes into the bedroom. Bethany watches nervously as Dreya walks by. I don't think she wants to tangle with Dreya tonight, but luckily for Bethany, Dreya doesn't have a tangling bone left in her body. Not after her run-in with Truth.
There's a knock on my room door. It's Dilly and he's standing there, redder than a Macintosh apple in a bobbing barrel. His chest is heaving up and down and he looks ready to blow up.
“What's wrong, Dilly?”
“My brother's been shot. My sister just called me.”
My eyes widen in feigned surprise. “Is he okay?”
“Yes, the bullet just grazed his shoulder. He's at home.”
I nod. “That's good. How are you? Are you cool?”
He pushes past me and up to Bethany. “Sam told me you weren't lying.”
“I told you.”
“But the fact that I didn't believe you . . . well, it makes me think that I don't trust you. And maybe I shouldn't be with a girl I can't trust.”
Bethany looks down at her folded hands resting in her lap. This is a reaping-and-sowing kind of moment if you ask me. All the mess that Bethany has done. Hooking up with other people's boyfriends, playing people behind their back . . . it was kind of inevitable that it was going to come back to bite her one day.
I just didn't think it would be tonight, in my hotel room, in Barbados! I mean, come on . . . can I please just enjoy paradise?
Bethany says, “You're probably right. I don't deserve a nice guy like you anyway. Just go, if you're going to keep saying mean stuff to me. I can't take it.”
“But,” Dilly says, “I really like you, Bethany. You're funny, you can sing, you're pretty, and your body is bangin'.”
“So are you saying we're still together?”
Dilly nods. “If you want to be.”
Bethany dang near knocks me over jumping up to hug Dilly. Is it just me or was Dilly's whole speech kind of . . . well . . . twelfth grade? I mean, I know he's about to be a senior in high school, but I wish a boy would tell me “your body is bangin”' as a reason for us to get back together. Seriously?
But like I said, to each her own. I just wish they would move their party outside of my sitting room. I've got two more days in Barbados, and I plan to enjoy them so I need my beauty rest! Ya dig?

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