Page 43 of Juice

“You so hard but sitting here with your face fucked up from crying.” He teased.

Before I could say anything else soft knocks to the door caught my attention. “Come in.”

“Aye Juice. Where you want these at?” Lox asked as he stepped in the room carrying an arrangement of the most gorgeous red roses that I’d ever seen.

Tossing his head to the other side of the room Julius told him. “You can sit ‘em over there.”

“Aight.” Lox nodded. When he left the room, I thought he was done but he wasn’t. In fact, when he came back through the door, he was telling somebody behind him the same thing Julius had told him. For the next few seconds people were in and out of the room delivering not only flowers but a bunch of shopping bags. Leave it to Julius to go all out.

Once everything had been brought in Julius leaned back onto the couch and pondered. “And you were crying for?”

“Shut up.” Playfully rolling my eyes at him I laid my head on his chest. “I’m nervous.”

“Why though?”

“What if they don’t like it?”

“What if they do? He countered.

“Julius.” I groaned. “You’re not helping.”

“You already know this shit gon’ be a hit Nariah. You been working on it for a minute and everything that could’ve gone wrong has been ironed out. Them folks gone fuck with it ‘cause it’s you. Them not liking it is the least of my worries.” Nipping me on the cheek with his finger Julius grabbed my face and turned it to him. “You’re Nariah the Great. Everything you touchturns into gold. Don’t be nervous ‘cause you got this. Besides I’mma be right there in the audience with my pistol in my hand daring a muthafucka to say something negative.

Laughing at his antics I shook my head. “You are insane for real.”

“Bout Nariah I’m grippy socks crazy. You ain’t know.” He affirmed.

“Thank you, Julius.” I breathed.

“Ain’t no need. You already know how I’m coming behind you, love. Now stop crying and let Devon fix yo face cause whoo—You look like Beyonce did on that video when she had that black shit running down her face.” He heckled, making me elbow him in the stomach. Getting serious Julius sat up. “Dead ass Nari. It’s up from here. You did this shit effortlessly, now it’s time to sit back and watch muthafuckas fall in love with it.”

A wide smile broke out across my face. “I love you, Julius.”

“Not like I love you.” He avowed. Sucking my bottom lip into his mouth, Julius kissed me so passionately that I almost forgot where we were. When he pulled back, he pushed my hair out of my face. “Do yo shit twin.”

Once I finished getting myself together Julius slipped out of room and let Devon know I was ready. One look at my face and his sassy ass was pissed. The rest of the time was spent with him fussing while he worked overtime to fix the mess I’d made.

After I got dressed it was officially time for my show to start. With my family sitting in the front row beside me my models hit the runway and did the damn thing. All of my hard work had come down to this one moment. When the show wrapped, the immense amount of love I received from the crowd had my heart smiling. I couldn’t even get through my thank you speech because everyone was up on their feet cheering me on. First graduation and now dropping my swimwear line.

The one thing I was the happiest about was showing my son that all of the times where I missed putting him to bed at night wasn’t in vain. His mommy was setting up his future. If nothing else I wanted him to be proud of me and the way he was clinging to me, I would say mission accomplished.

Sitting back in the chair I crossed my ankles and stared at the contract in front of me. It had been a month since I’d unveiled my swimwear line and like Julius predicted it was a hit. So much so that I had been getting offers for investors. Of course I’d shot them all down, in the event that I needed some front money my man was more than willing to take care of that.

The less hands you had in the pot the less profit you had to split, or however Tito said it. What I had done was took a few department stores up on their offer to have my line in their stores. The contract that I was reviewing was from Nordstrom, Tito had sent it over a couple of hours ago, but I’d been out shopping with Shunta and failed to read over it.

Now that I had a few minutes to spare I decided to take check it out.

Sauntering out of the dressing room, Shunta stood in front of the mirror with her hands perched on her hips. “Nariah, you like these?”

Locking my phone, I tossed it in my bag and glanced at the rhinestone embellished Christian Dior tights and nodded my head. “I do. I got the same ones.”

“Bitch. You damn near have everything in here.” She fake pouted.

“You gotta take that up with Julius.” I teased.

“Can’t stand his ass either.” She laughed and spun around in the mirror. “They look good on my ass.”

“They do.” I confirmed.

---