The Roof is on Fire (24 page)

“Jada, it looks like your cookies need another minute or two. I'm leavin' yours in there.”

“Let me see,” she said, rushing over to the oven. “You may be tryin' to let my cookies burn.”

After looking in the oven, she agreed that a few more minutes were needed. I waited for my cookies to cool before putting them on a plate. Roc did the same. By the time he finished, Jada's cookies were done.

She was singing and dancing all around the kitchen, knowing that she was the winner, based on looks. Truth be told, Roc's cookies looked like mountains of shit. Mine weren't too bad, but the oats had gotten a little browner than I had expected.

Jada carefully placed all of her cookies on a plate and introduced her display.

“These here are my famous sugar cookies, these are my very chocolatey-chocolate cookies, and these are my peanut butter with extra nuts cookies. Roc, you go first, baby. Only because I know Jaylin is goin' to find somethin' to complain about. Please enjoy.”

Roc picked up the chocolate cookie, chewed then nodded. He bit into the sugar cookie, then the peanut butter one. Right after he swallowed, he leaned over and kissed Jada on her cheek.

“You have an investor and we sellin' those cookies as soon as we get back on our turf. The peanut butter ones are the best, but they definitely all good.”

“Thank you, Chef Roc,” Jada said with glee in her eyes. “But I'm the only person who makes money off my skills. Sorry.”

He laughed, then tasted my cookie. I waited for his response with a slight grin on my face. He chewed and chewed some more. Then he opened his mouth and cleared his throat.

“Not bad, but not good either. I needed more flava, so I'm on the fence.”

Jada giggled and all I could say was, “Whatever.”

It was my turn, so I took tiny bites from Jada's three cookies and washed them down with cold water.

“There is no such word as chocolately-chocolate, and all I tasted was a bunch of sugar and dough. Your investment wouldn't be worth it, Roc, don't waste your time.”

Surprisingly, all Jada did was give me the finger. Roc waited for me to taste his cookie, but I wasn't touching it.

“Nigga, I ate yours, didn't I?” he said with a frown. “Fair is fair, ain't it?”

“I don't always play fair, but since you about to cry about it, I guess a tiny bite won't hurt.”

He also gave me the finger.

I picked up the cookie, sniffing it. It didn't smell too bad, so I bit into it and chewed. Awful. But just to mess with Jada, I took another bite. “Now, this right here is pretty good. I got my money on Roc.”

Roc laughed, but Jada got mad. “Get the hell out of here. You know darn well that his cookie ain't better than mine.”

“Hey, in my opinion it is. You can't offer your opinion if you haven't tasted it.”

Jada snatched one of his cookies from the plate. She bit into it, then spat the chewed up cookie in her hand. “Are you kiddin' me?” she shouted. “That cookie is terrible. It don't even taste like a cookie.”

“You mad because my cookie tastes better than yours. Stop hatin,' ma. It's not a good look.”

Jada threw her hand back and tasted my cookie. This time, she ran to the sink to spit it out and rinsed her mouth. “Yucky,” she said with a twisted face. “What was that?”

“It's called the best cookie you ever ate. Forget what you talking about, baby. It's time to choose a winner. Like I said before, I got my money on Roc.”

Roc pointed to his chest. “I got my money on me too, so with two votes out of three, I won.”

Like always, Jada got mad and pouted. “I should've known that y'all wouldn't play fair and would stick together. Don't ask me to do nothin' else with y'all. I'm done.”

She stormed off, but all I did was laugh and shrug. Roc and I started to clean the kitchen. By the time we finished, it was almost five o'clock. Roc said that he was going to chill outside and listen to some music by the pool. I told him I'd be out later because I wanted to get some washing done.

I entered the bedroom, and when I entered the closet, I noticed that Jada was in a panic, looking for something.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

For whatever reason, she was fidgeting. “No…nothin'. I'm straightenin' some of my things.”

The one thing that I could tell was when I was being lied to, especially by a woman. Jada hadn't straightened anything and her clothes were the exact same way as they were before. It was obvious that she was looking for the flash drive, because she kept checking her jean pockets.

She made me more curious about what was on the drive, but I couldn't help but to mess with her about the cookies.

“Say, about the cookie thing. Truth is, your cookies were hooked up. They were good, but if you cut the sugar in half, they'd be better.”

All she did was display a fake smile. I was surprised that she didn't give me any more gripe. Her eyes were still searching through her clothes in the closet. She then stepped out of it.

“Oh, well,” she said with a sigh. “Roc promised that he would show me some swimmin' techniques, so I'm goin' outside. What else you gon' do?”

“I'm gon' wash some of my clothes. Then I'll be outside to go for a swim and finish up the book I'm reading. Don't drown before I get there.”

Jada chuckled, and after tossing her swimming suit over her shoulder, she left the room. I kept my eyes on her. The first place she went was to the computer desk. She looked around, picked up some papers on the desk, then checked the back of the computer. She put her hands on her hips, then sighed again.

Afterward, she went to the bathroom to change. I waited until
she left the bathroom and went outside. That was when I went to the computer and stuck the flash drive in it.

The first thing I saw was Chase and Roc having sex in the living room. I wanted to back away from the computer, but couldn't. How or why in the hell did Jada have this in her possession? I didn't know. But no matter what, it was very damaging to Roc. He wasn't playing with the pussy, and the way Chase conducted herself with him was not the way she was with me. Maybe it was done on purpose. I had a feeling that she wanted Roc to be seen as the aggressive one, and her as the passive one. It surely appeared that way, and it was almost like she knew she was being taped. Poor Roc hadn't a clue. If Desa Rae ever got a hold of this, he would find himself doing serious damage control. I was anxious to tell him about the flash drive. I knew it was going to cause him to lose it. He'd already been uptight, but this would surely send him over the edge.

I hit the fast-forward button to see what else was on the flash drive. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see Chase and me in action. We were getting it in. The video showed everything that had transpired into the wee hours of the morning. I wasn't in the same predicament as Roc was with Desa Rae finding out about this, but it wasn't like I wasn't concerned about something like this getting into the wrong hands. Being in Jada's hands was enough, and to invade my privacy like this wasn't cool.

No matter what, I had to get at Jada and figure out her purpose for having the flash drive, without her knowing that I'd removed it from her jeans. It was apparent that Chase was in on this shit too, but to what extent? Was she trying to get at Roc, me, or both of us? Jada and Chase had definitely barked up the wrong tree, and what a mess they had made.

As I was in deep thought, I heard someone walking down the hallway. Not knowing who it was, I hurried to remove the flash drive, easing it into my pocket. Right after that, I saw Jeff.

“What's up, Jaylin?” he asked, as if he already knew what was up. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

I played clueless. “Not at all. I was checking out a few things on the internet, and decided to reply to some of my fan mail. I tend to get a lot of it and can barely keep up.”

He nodded, then put his hands into his pockets. “That's because so many people love you or hate to love you. They seem curious about you, and that's a good thing, isn't it?”

“Most definitely. Can't say that you'll ever hear me complaining.”

“Good. But here's the deal. I told you that I'd be back with my decision, so I'm here to have a discussion with you. After further investigation, I determined that you did break the rules by opening the door to let your ex-girlfriend inside. However, I don't think it's my duty to remove you from this house.”

There was a small sigh of relief from me, but there also wasn't a chance in hell that I'd let Jeff put me out of this house. Ex-girlfriend, my ass.

“But, Jaylin, I think, to be fair, that we should tell Jada and Roc about this. If they think you should go, then I'm afraid that you'll have to leave.”

I stared at Jeff, wanting to punch him in his face. But in an effort to put this incident behind me, I was down for what he had suggested. Once this was over with, I couldn't wait to confront Jada about the flash drive. I figured what was on the video would concern Roc, and he definitely needed to know there was some trickery shit going on around here. I had a good feeling about who was behind it.

Jeff went outside to get Jada and Roc. I sat on the couch, watching
as they came inside laughing and dripping wet from being in the pool. Roc wiped down his face with a towel, then tossed it over to Jada so she could dry off.

“Man,” Roc said, making his way into the living room. He seemed almost out of breath. “This chick is crazy. She almost drowned my ass.”

“I did not. You're the one who told me to stand on your shoulders while you were underwater.”

“Why would I tell you to do that? What I said was stand back so I could free my shoulders.”

Jeff interjected. “Thankfully, no one was hurt. Sounds like there was a simple mix-up between the two of you. But have a seat and let me explain a certain mix-up we seem to have in this house.”

I stroked my goatee with a tad bit of anger trapped in my eyes. “There ain't no mix-up. You're only confused by what actually happened and you don't have your facts together.”

“Maybe so. That's why I'm giving Jada and Roc an opportunity to clear this up. Afterward, we can move on.”

Roc and Jada took their seats and listened to Jeff explain his side of what had happened. I had already spoken to Roc about everything. The plan was for us to stick together, no matter what. But this was new to Jada. She didn't seem interested in what Jeff was saying and neither did Roc. He kept shrugging as Jeff kept putting emphasis on me breaking the rules.

“So, to sum it up,” he said. “I want the two of you to decide if Jaylin should have to leave this house or not. It has to be a unanimous decision or else he stays.”

This could turn out simple, especially since I saved Jada from leaving when she got into it with Prince. The question was would she do the same for me?

Roc and Jada turned in my direction. I put my arms on top of
the couch and crossed one of my legs over the other. This was about to get real interesting, especially since I knew what I had in my pocket—the flash drive.

“When do we have to decide?” Jada asked Jeff. “Now?”

He nodded. “Yes, as in right now. Ladies first.”

Jada's mouth dropped open. “Here we go with this mess again. Why I gotta be the one to go first? Why not Roc?”

“Because he told you to make the call first,” Roc said to her. He glanced over at me, giving me a slow nod, as if he had my back.

Jada made a ticking sound with her mouth. She searched me from head to toe while scratching her head.

“Dang, Jaylin, I don't know what to do. I hate to be put into a preditment like this, and we have had so much fun around here, haven't we?”

“A lot of fun, and we've learned some valuable things that we need to apply to our everyday lives. With that being said, the word is predicament, not preditment.”

“Thank you for that tad bit of information, but at a time like this, I preferred for you not to go there. Boo, I know you think my decision shouldn't be hard, but it is. While you know I ain't got nothin' but love for you, this is a challenge that I really and truly want to win. As only you know, we got this li'l thing goin' on between us and I'm not sure if you gon' follow through.” She paused and continued in thought. I assumed she was thinking about the money I had offered to her. She could forget it if she made the decision to vote me out over some bullshit.

“Okay,” she said, smacking. “What I'm hopin' is that you're a man of your word like you say you are. And that you'll be happy for me, if I win.” She paused to touch her chest. “With all of that bein' said, my dear, sweet, loveable friend, I've enjoyed your company
soooo much. I don't know what I'mma do without you around here, but you did break the rules. Therefore, you need to go pack yo bags and get yo highly educated self out of here.”

I almost couldn't believe Jada's decision, but then again, yes I could. I said not one word. Nothing but a crisp silence soaked the room. I looked over Jada's shoulder at Roc. The ball was in his court. He damn sure better had known how to play it. If not, he was going to be fucked!

1. After reading
Hell House Part Two
, who do you now believe will be the winner?

2. Do you think Sylvia should have been the first person voted out of the house? Why or why not?

3. Would you come up with a plot to win this challenge or would you play fair and square. Share your plot to win or what would you do to get the other participants out of the house?

4. Do you think Jaylin should have to leave the house for inviting Brashaney to come inside? Why or why not?

5. Roc and Desa Rae are from the Full Figured Series. How do you feel about older women dating younger men?

6. Chase is known for being scandalous. How do you feel about women having sex with multiple men, versus men having sex with multiple women? Should there be different standards?