Page 43 of Suleem and Yahzi
“Nope, it’s perfect. I want this.”
“Aight, color or just the outline?”
“I want it filled in but I want the rose black instead of red. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I got you. I can use gray and white to define the petals.”
I nodded again and he pulled on gloves and moved his chair closer. “This is simple so I’m gonna do it freehand.”
“You’re not gonna mess it up, are you?”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t crazy enough to tell you no and I’m damn sure not about to play with my life by messing up your ink, Yahzi. Trust, I got you. Where you want it?”
I tugged my braids to one side, exposing the space behind my right ear as I pointed. “Here.”
“Aight, bet.”
When he cleaned the spot and sketched the design I tried to control the anxiousness in my stomach. This was a big deal and a part of me understood this tattoo was a promise of my commitment to Suleem that I was in this with him.
My tattoo was so damncute. I didn’t give a damn if Suleem didn’t like it. After Arris was done, I handed over my phone and had him snap a few pictures for me. I also tried to pay him but he refused, saying he couldn’t take money from me. I cringed knowing that meant he would get it from Suleem. After I let him know this was a surprise, he shrugged and said that was cool, that Suleem would take care of it as soon as he found out. I groaned in annoyance and left his place, pulling up the address for Fadez on my way down to the parking lot.
It took me ten minutes to get to the shop and I walked in smiling at how nice the place was, even if it was currently empty. A woman was seated at the station near the door. She looked up from her phone and smiled as soon as her eyes landed on my face.
“Yahzi?”
I frowned and nodded. “You know me?”
“Nope, but I was just looking at your face.” I stopped in front of the chair and she extended her phone to me. With eachmessage I read in whatever group chat she was a part of, I got pissed.
There were pictures of me at the block party, dancing with Suleem’s aunt, some of me with Rebel and Teaira. As cute as I was yesterday, conveniently all of the shared photos had me looking crazy. I was either in the middle of speaking with my mouth open or caught mid dance move looking awkward.
“What the fuck is this?”
She grinned and crossed one leg over the other, shifting her position. “That’s a salty bitch mad that you came home and staked claim to a man she delusionally thought was hers.”
When I just stared at her she added, “Jessica is my cousin, and she’s married by the way, but apparently was fucking around with Suleem. I don’t deal with Jess like that but I’m cool with her sister. I told Jenisa you were taking Joel’s spot because she was creeping with him. She must have told Jessica, who thought it was a good idea to add me to a group chat with Jenisa where she decided to talk shit about you, because again, she’s pissed about no longer having access to dick that doesn’t belong to her husband.”
It took me a minute to process everything she was telling me. “This is your cousin?”
I held the phone up and she nodded and shrugged. “But only because our mothers are sisters. I don’t fuck with Jess like that so I use the term family loosely when it comes to her.”
I scanned the messages again, scrolled to the first one in the group chat and noticed the only blue message, which was from this phone, said,you better find something safe to do because talking shit about Leem’s girl will get you fucked up.
The rest of the messages were between Jessica and her sister, with Jessica so-called dragging me and her sister telling her to worry about the dick attached to the man she made vows to.Apparently he was very close to divorcing her because Suleem’s dick wasn’t the only one she was delusional about.
I handed the phone back. She locked it and used the device to point to a station on the opposite side of the shop. “You’re over there next to Makai. Unless you want one of the other stations. You’re DP royalty so I’m sure you can have whatever you want in here.”
She paused. “Well, any station but this one. It’s mine, and as much as I know Kassir will do whatever Suleem asks, I’m his OG because I’m the first barber hired here and he’s not trying to piss me off.”
I grinned because I liked her. She legitimately didn’t give a damn about my connections and I didn’t want her to. If I was going to work here, I had to be cool with the other barbers and not have them tiptoeing around me. “Nope, that spot is perfectly fine with me.”
“Cool, we’ll be straight then. Makai moved all of Joel’s shit out before he left for the park.”
“Wait, so who’s Joel?”
“Nobody important. He could cut but was lazy as hell and hardly ever showed up. Makai pretty much took all his clients. Kassir fired him earlier. All the stations were full and you needed one.”
“Ah shit.” Definitely a bad start.
