Live And Learn. Niobia Bryant

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      31: Cristal

      32: Moët

      33: Alizé

      34: Dom

      35: Cristal

      PART THREE

      36: Alizé

      37: Moët

      38: Dom

      39: Cristal

      40: Moët

      41: Alizé

      42: Dom

      43: Cristal

      44: Alizé

      45: Dom

      46: Moët

      47: Cristal

      48: Alizé

      49: Dom

      50: Moët

      51: Cristal

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Prologue

      Ladies

      “Check this bitch out.”

      Three more pairs of eyes varying in shades of brown immediately darted like bullets to the feet of their unknowing victim. The woman sashayed by their table in the crowded nightclub with her head held high, unaware of their catty criticism and disdainful looks.

      “Pay-less,” the four friends sang in mocking unison, distaste obvious on their faces as they thought of the national shoe store specializing in low-end footwear. It was one chain of stores they wouldn’t dare frequent.

      When it came to fashion, they searched for only the best labels: Gucci, Prada, Roberto Cavalli, Armani, and Dolce & Gabbana—just to name drop a few. Fresh hairdos and nails were weekly necessities. And when it came to the men who flittered in and out of their lives with the longevity of a lit match, only those who could afford their taste got a second look: celebrities, athletes, and wealthy warriors of the streets who had blown up like a keg of TNT. Unless he had that “turn your straight roots nappy” kind of sex that the women enjoyed. But those sex-you-down brothas didn’t get any of their real time—just late night calls to supply them with a nut, if their more financially set man at the moment couldn’t do the job.

      Alizé, Moët, “Dom” Perignon and Cristal—a.k.a. Monica Winters, Latoya James, Keesha Lands, and Danielle Johnson, respectively—were four childhood friends. They were sisters without the blood lineage with plenty of lessons to learn.

      PART ONE

      “Friends…how many of us have them?”

      —Whodini

      1

      “Whassup y’all? I’m Alizé.”

      I’m anything but a morning person, especially this particular morning. Rah’s king-sized water bed felt too damn good, and my body felt hella bad. A late night of drinking, partying, and then having sex until three in the morning will do that to you.

      Last night my girls and I all met up at Lex’s apartment—that’s Dom’s boyfriend—to celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday. Whoo! We got so tore up off Henny—ahem, Hennessey—that I didn’t want to see any more liquor for a minute. I could feel the effects of it all up and through my body. Trust.

      There was no way I was ready to face the world yet, but I had a ten o’clock class.

      Trying like hell not to wake my man up, I eased up the arm he had over my waist. I couldn’t do nothing but roll my eyes when he stirred in his sleep and tried to hold me tighter. Rah and I were cool. We were basically happy with each other, but when I wasn’t in the mood to fuck, I just wasn’t—in—the—mood—to—fuck. Too bad I couldn’t get his ass to understand that.

      “Rah, I gotta get up. Move.”

      He shifted closer to me and pressed what I hoped was a piss hard against my bare ass. “Where you goin’?” he asked, his voice full of sleep and his morning breath reaching me like a slap in the face. His hand rose to tease my nipple as he started kissing my shoulder.

      Now I was wishing like hell that I’d gone home to my mom’s and not spent the night at his apartment. My own mother wasn’t this aggravating, and she was Mrs. Persistence with an extra large, extra tall, big and bold-ass capital P. My daddy swears it’s one of the main reasons they got divorced. I couldn’t front on my father; my mother could be hell to reckon with.

      But let me repeat, when I wasn’t in the mood to fuck, there wasn’t shit anybody could do to get me in the mood.

      I shifted his hand from my breast, but he just moved it down to lift my leg up to play in my moistness. “Rah, I gotta go to class. Let me up.”

      I was a senior at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, majoring in business finance. I loved money and all of the nice things it bought, so my major was an easy choice for me. Oh, trust, I’m a sistah with a plan when it comes to my career. I will graduate this May and then take full benefit of my two-month summer internship at one of the top investment firms in the country. Then in the fall it will be back to the grind at ole SHU to work on the all-important MBA—Master of Business Administration to some and More Banking of Assets to me.

      I’m headed to the top of the corporate ladder with my MBA in one hand and my Gucci briefcase in the other as I take no prisoners and accept no shorts. I’m going to be part of the next wave of African-American women bursting through the glass ceiling. My name will be on Fortune magazine’s Fifty Most Powerful Black Executives. Black Enterprise magazine will do a spotlight on me and my rise to the top. I ain’t playing.

      One thing I know about myself: if I set a goal I will reach it. Anyone not with my program can either ride with me or get run the fuck over. Period.

      “Skip class.”

      See, that ain’t a part of my program.

      “Roll over, baby,” he moaned against my neck as his hand rose again to claim my breast. Neither my body, mind, nor spirit was in the mood.

      See, money is power, and right now Rah was thinking—whether he said it or not—that he was the money man in the relationship, so he could get this pussy whenever he wanted.

      He thought wrong.

      I turned on my back and looked up into his fine face with “the look”—a mix of faked sadness and regret that gets ’em every time. Trust. “Baby, I wish I had time, but I’m running late and I have a big test today that I can’t miss,” I lied with ease. “You know I get sleepy after sex.”

      Rah pulled me atop him and slapped my ass with a quick kiss to my cheek. “Get goin’ ’fore I change my mind.”

      I felt like a prisoner СКАЧАТЬ