Page 7 of Love Next Door
Yamika had seen him and his friends when she was visiting last weekend, and she couldn’t stop talking about them. I was over him after our initial encounter, his first week here.
“Best way to get over a nigga,” Yamika commented.
“Is to get under something bigga,” Nina finished and slapped hands with Yamika.
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe that worked at twenty-one and twenty-two, but not at our big ages. It’s time to grow up and not put up with trifling ass niggas anymore.”
“Girl, please,” Kamaia stated. “We’re only three years out from that twenty-two. That shit still applies,” she professed, coming to sit back on the floor with the three of us in her bra and pajama shorts.
I rolled my eyes and pressed my lips together when loud music poured from next door. I tried to ignore the music, but it kept going.
Kamaia jumped up and started shaking her ass along with Yamika. Nina lifted one eyebrow and thrust her thumb toward my neighbor’s apartment. “Do you have to put up with that all the time?”
“More than I care to admit,” I lied. Truthfully, this was only his second time doing it, but the last time, it hadn’t been this loud. I was just over the man. Everything about the fine ass man irritated my soul, from his cocky, arrogant attitude to that BDE he carried around like the sweltering summer Georgia heat.
I poked my tongue into the side of my cheek and inhaled a long breath before I popped up from my seat on the floor.
“Where are you going?” Nina asked.
“To tell him to turn that mess down. It’s after nine at night.”
“Girl, let that man have his fun,” Yamika ordered as she twerked against Kamaia.
I rolled my eyes. “No, ma’am. I don’t pay a grip in rent to be living in the hood, and that’s exactly what he’s bringing.”
I strolled out of my apartment, forgetting that I was wearing my Betty Boop night shorts and tank top. When I stepped into the coolness of the hallway, I took a few steps to my right and rang his doorbell.
When he didn’t answer after several long seconds, I banged on his door. It took another minute before he finally answered.
“Hey.” He greeted me with a cool smirk as he pulled a glass of what appeared to be lemonade to his lips. My heartbeat raced as I clamped down on my teeth, adding pressure in my jaw. He was so damn fine, but he irritated my very soul. “How can I help you, neighbor?”
“You can turn that noise down. It’s after nine.”
His eyebrows scrunched down. “It’s a Friday.”
“In a nice, quiet, upscale apartment building where we pay for amenities like peace, security, stability, and luxury. If I wanted to live in the hood, I would’ve moved there.”
He frowned at me. “For real? That’s all you got?”
My jaw grew tense as I planted my hands on my hips and stared him down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t care. Some people are trying to get some rest.”
“Is that why your friends are peeking their heads out your doorway, giggling?”
I turned my head in the direction he pointed and rolled my eyes at my girls before frowning at them. They hurriedly closed the door, and I turned my attention back to the object of my irritation.
“I said some people. I never said me,” I remarked smartly with an intense gaze and a smirk on my lips.
“Yeah, a’ight. Chill, baby girl. It ain’t that deep.”
He closed the door on me, and fury rose inside of me as heat warmed me from the crown of my head to my feet. This wasn’t over.
“What’s up?” Yamika asked.
“We plot and we wait.”
My dreams were filled with images of July Maxwell. I couldn’t shake the six-two, cocoa-brown man from my mind. Those hooded nut-brown eyes framed with curly, long lashes followed me everywhere.
It was seven in the morning, and my girls and I were armed with pots and pans. I was ready to reenact the scene from a popular reality show. When I nodded my head, my girls started clanging the pans against the balcony railing, and I banged my pots and pans together.
