Make It Last Forever. Gwyneth Bolton

want to deal with Darius at all. Why did Darius have to go down there and see her?

      He sighed. He needed a Plan B in place in case Darius didn’t bend the way he wanted him to. He smiled. He knew just the people to call in order to keep the gravy train moving for everyone. It really paid to have dirt on people. Even the most seemingly insignificant person could come in handy at the right time.

      Chapter 4

      Two cups of coffee didn’t help and couldn’t halt the constant yawns that made their way through Karen’s mouth. Tired didn’t even come close to describing the way she felt. All of her attempts to go back to sleep were interrupted by dreams—dreams about people in the past, dreams about people that reminded her of herself and D-Roc.

      And the words… She couldn’t get those haunting words out of her head. Voices that sounded different but somehow said the same thing. We’ll be together forever… Our souls are connected, and that will last forever…

      If she didn’t have the utmost faith in her own sanity, she might have thought she was going crazy. But as long as the voices stayed in her dreams and didn’t start telling her to kill three people or some foolishness like that, she figured she was okay. She was almost tempted to go next door to see Dicey and get that reading she was always trying to tempt her with.

      Nah, I don’t believe in that woo-woo stuff. It’s just crazy dreams. Stress or something like that…

      “Good morning, Karen.” D-Roc came waltzing in on time with two cups of what looked like far better coffee than the stuff she’d brewed when she came in.

      “Morning.” She inhaled. It smelled a whole lot better than her coffee, smelled like it would do a much better job at waking her up than the no-name stuff she had.

      “You look like a caramel latte kind of girl.” He leaned over, handing her the fancy cup of java, and she wondered if there was such a thing as “love at first random act of kindness.”

      She glanced at him, gave him a slow appraisal and liked what she saw. He was wearing khaki slacks with a short-sleeved red, green and khaki plaid button-up that was unbuttoned with a red T-shirt underneath. He looked good. Really good.

      “I had to stop and get some for myself and figured it would be… I mean if you don’t like caramel latte, you can have this. It’s just plain Jamaica Blue Mountain. I did take a few sips already, but…” he rambled.

      She realized that she was looking at him with her slanted-eye incredulous expression, and it probably made him more nervous than she wanted him to feel. The guy had just brought her some delicious pricey coffee after all. Karen reached out and took the latte from his hand.

      “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”

      “Rough night?”

      “You could say that. You look like you’ve had a rough night, too. A little too much partying, huh?”

      “No. No partying. Just couldn’t sleep. I had some pretty weird dreams, not really nightmares…just weird. The sleep wouldn’t come and stay put. I kept waking up. Finally, I just got up and ah…worked on some lyrics. I was suddenly very inspired to write a song.”

      Hearing him describe almost exactly the same lack-of-sleep night she’d had, Karen felt a slight tremor go down her spine.

      “So—” he pulled up a chair and camped in front of her desk before continuing “—what does a brother have to do to get you to give him a chance?”

      Talk about loaded questions! It was clear to her the brother had other things on his mind besides community service. Or was that just her wishful thinking?

      Nah, brother man had an agenda, a panties agenda. She knew a brother on the prowl when she saw one. The only problem was she felt like she wanted to give in to whatever he was gunning for.

      She wanted the man.

      That was the plain and simple, honest-to-goodness truth.

      She let out a short breath and took a sip of her latte. “Why?”

      “Why?” he repeated.

      “Yeah, why? Why are you so intent on helping out here? As far as rappers go, you certainly don’t need to work on your image. You might even have Will Smith beat when it comes to being hip-hop’s golden boy. And you put out goody-two-shoes feel-good rap music. No gangsta…no politics…just happy-happy—”

      He frowned as he interrupted her. “You sound like you have a problem with music that makes people dance and feel good.”

      She shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with it. It is what it is. It’s not my particular vibe. I tend to go toward more conscious stuff, political stuff—old-school Public Enemy, new-school Dead Prez…”

      She didn’t need to tell him that she also had his CDs in her collection. She certainly didn’t need to tell him that she had purchased them, particularly the one with his shirtless muscled torso, strictly for the covers. And she definitely didn’t have to tell him that she had jokingly told her girlfriends and Amina that he was fine and he was her future husband and baby daddy whenever they were watching music videos or whenever they went to see one of his films. She shook her head. No, she didn’t have to tell him any of that.

      “But hey, to each his own… In any case, back to my question. You already have a great public image. Did you do something bad that’s about to come out in the papers or something? Did you get a new movie role that has you playing a character that works in a youth center? Why do you want to volunteer here? What’s your angle?”

      She took a sip of her coffee mostly to calm her nerves. She was already leaning toward just telling him yes, he could volunteer there, but she had to be sure. She didn’t want anyone using her kids for a publicity stunt. However, the more she hung around him, the more she started to believe that he wouldn’t do that.

      He took a deep breath and just stared at her for a moment. His eyes squinted, and he rubbed his temple before exhaling and leaning back. Weariness seemed to overcome him as his shoulders sort of slouched and his face became drawn.

      “I grew up not far from here in the Louis H. Pink Houses Projects—Pink Houses. The East New York neighborhood will always be home. But it’s been a minute since I’ve been back. Once I moved my grandmother, aunt and little cousin out of here, there was really no real reason to come back. Plenty of rappers think they can make it big and still hang out in the same spots they used to and end up getting got.

      “Plus, I was actually too busy touring and recording to get back much. And once Hollywood came knocking… Anyway, I’ve always donated money through a foundation I set up. It’s anonymous mostly because I never wanted to draw attention to my giving. Like you so eloquently noted, I don’t exactly need any help in the golden-boy goody-two-shoes department.” He smiled.