“Boy,” I said seriously. “Don’t play with me.”
“Come to the station by tomorrow and pick them up,” the DJ said.
Naja and I hugged tightly as we jumped up and down.
“Haneef!” Naja yelled, smushing her cheek against mine and trying to speak into the phone. “My cousin’s baby mother, god sister, aunt’s brother, and li’l sister, Tasia said they know you, and to tell you wassup! I love you, Haneef!”
I shot Naja the eye and mouthed, “You’re going to make them hang up again!”
“Elite!” the DJ seemed to be ignoring Naja. “Tell us the best station in Jersey!”
“Hot 102! Where my baby daddy lives! Holllaaaah!”
Once we were off the line, Naja and I started screaming again. “Okay, okay,” I said. “We need to calm down.”
We took a deep breath, looked around, and every li’l pigeon out there was staring in our direction. It was obvious they were sweatin’ us. Naja and I started smiling in their direction while giving them our famous Miss America waves. I saw just by the green oozing from their hater type glare that they were dying to be fly with us. After the phone call I just had, we were officially groupie royalty.
After a few minutes of pleasing our court, we sauntered into Arts High, side by side, both of us throwing our right shoulders forward and strutting down the hall. There was no mistaking that we had arrived…
“Oh, you just gon’ play me on the radio,” halted me in my spot. I closed my eyes and I knew by the voice it was Jahaad. I was so high off Haneef that I’d almost forgotten this dude existed.
“Get over here!” he said as he turned me around and pulled me toward him. It was written all over his face that he was pissed. He was mean, muggin’ the heck outta me, and the look alone almost made me promise to behave.
Jahaad was the spitting image of Usher: the color of pecan, chestnut brown eyes, five eleven, and athletically built.
He was looking at me with disdain—he was still cute—but obviously pissed. He was dressed like a rock star with slightly baggy jeans, a thin silver link chain hanging from his belt to his back pocket, a black short sleeve Korn tee, and an off-white thermal underneath.
We’d been together since ninth grade but since we’d been in the eleventh grade, I had gotten tired of him. But he had been my first, and I didn’t exactly know what life would have been like without him. He nagged the heck outta me, always accused me of cheating, complained all the time, always had something smart to say, and argued all day if he could have…but other than that…he’d always had a way of being there when I needed him.
I snatched away from him. “What I tell you about pulling on me?!”
“We need to handle this, Elite?” Naja asked, looking Jahaad up and down.
“No, Naja, we’re straight,” I assured her.
“Ai’ight.” She pointed down the hall, where a group of our girls were. “Hollah if you need me.” Naja walked backwards down the hall, eyeing Jahaad the entire way.
“What I tell you about grabbing me?!” I snapped.
“And what I tell you about not listening?! I see I’ve been too nice to you.”
Too nice. I gave him the screw face, and it was obvious by that comment that he’d been listening to some chick. “Ciera been in your face again?” I said more as an accusation than a question.
“Don’t worry about Ciera!” he snapped. “Worry about you. All on the radio, being a groupie ass ho!”
“What? Who you callin’ a ho?” I screeched. I may have been a groupie, but I wasn’t no ho. “You a ho, as a matter of fact. You come from a long line of skeezers!”
“You talkin’ about my mama?”
“Well, I wasn’t gon’ call no name, but if the spandex fits!”
“Are you crazy, talking to me like this?”
“Boy, if you don’t get yo’ wannabe Billy bad ass outta my way…!”
“Are you crazy, playing me for some punk ass cat who wouldn’t even know you if you sat next to him? He must’ve heard you were easy and that’s the real reason why he tracked you down.”
Easy? He called me easy? “If I was easy, I’d be givin’ you some booty, Mr. I-don’t-wear-condoms. Easy? Last I checked, you were ridin’ the pole.”
“And you wonder why other chicks be checkin’ me—because you don’t know how to treat me.”
“So, what you sayin’? You tryna get with one of them? What, Ciera tryna ride yo’ impacted ass sack. I wish you would leave me and try and get with that dog ass chick!”
I was so pissed, I could’ve smacked him upside his head. There had been rumors about this pigeon, Ciera, trying to kick it with Jahaad on the low. And word was that she was checkin’ for him mad hard, and that occasionally—on the D.L.—this fool was trickin’ all his li’l Burger King money on her bama ass.
Needless to say, I had to secure my place, regardless of how I really felt about staying in a relationship with this dude. But the mere thought of this chick being in my man’s face drove me crazy.
So, I had to let her know to stay outta my way before I laid her ass out cold. Point blank, period. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want him anymore. What mattered was that as long as I knew she wanted him, I wasn’t gon’ leave him.
And this wasn’t because I was selfish; I was so not above sharing the wealth. And usually I wasn’t a hater, and uhmmm…maybe, if someone other than my archenemy had come along, then I would’ve put Jahaad on the block. But with Ciera on the loose, it wasn’t gon’ happen.
“Now, I don’t know about anybody else, but Jahaad’s girl,” Jahaad spat while pointing his finger in my face, “don’t be acting like this! Now, unless you want some other chick to take your spot, you’ll get your act together. Feel me?”
“I really don’t appreciate the way you’re talking to me!” I pointed my finger back in his face.
“Well, you should get your act together.”
“So what you sayin’? I ain’t your girl no more?”
“You my girl, but if you keep acting like this…”
“Acting like this, and what? As long as we’ve been together, you don’t think any more of me than to be spittin’ whatever your boys or some bum bitch done told you to say to me?! Yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t need to be your girl.” I turned to storm away but he snatched me back around.
“Don’t be like that, Elite. I’m sorry.” He stroked my cheek. “I know I’m buggin’, but when I think about losing you, I just don’t know what to do. It’s like you think it’s alright to play me or something.”
“You know it wasn’t even like that,” I said, thinking now was really as good a time as ever to dump him. “I was just…just excited.”
“Yeah, over another dude. And you know he doesn’t love you like me. Nobody will ever love you like I do.”
“I know,” I said in my best sorrow-filled voice.
“So then you ain’t going to the concert, right?”
“What?” I quickly snapped. “Boy, don’t play with me.”
Jahaad looked at me as if he could see right through me. “You better not go to that concert! You better not try me.”
“Excuse