Page 14 of When Love Becomes A Need
Neal stared at me in disbelief. “You for real?”
“Yeah, man. My brother, you are my best friend. You know what you’re doing and you’re the only muthafucka I trust that’ll run it right. You can move your clients there, handle the hiring, all that shit.”
If it was one person outside of my family I knew I could count on, it was Neal. Since we were paired together in Junior High for a school project, we’ve been thick as thieves. Neal was a class clown in school. He was always making jokes and pissing the teacher off. Over theyears, he’s matured a lot. He still joked around and shit, but he knew when it was time to be serious.
When I saw he could draw and told him about wanting to open a tattoo shop, he was down to get his license to tattoo in my shop. He’s been down with me from the beginning, so once again, there isn’t anyone else I would trust to run my second shop.
“I appreciate that shit, man. You know how my home situation was, but you gave me a chance when no one else believed in me. I won’t let you down, bro.”
We slapped hands and I pulled him into a brotherly hug. “You know you family and family looks out for each other.”
He pulled away from me and nodded.
I stayed around helping Neal clean his room so we could head out. Now that I had someone to run the location, it was time to get my second location up and running.
CHAPTER 5
Fatima
It was a big day for me.
My nerves were all over the place today.
I decided to take a leap of faith to get my dreams off the ground.
I stood in front of the building, staring at it. I’ve been standing here for the past ten minutes trying to get the courage to walk inside. My feet felt like they were being weighed down by cement blocks. My hands were sweating so badly that I was afraid the portfolio would be wet by the time I got inside. My heart was beating quickly, and my chest slowly felt like someone was squeezing it from the inside.
Yet and still, here I was.
It’s now or never, Tima.
Taking a huge breath, I said a small prayer before finally grabbing ahold of the brass door handle and pulling it open.
I walked down the hallway until I got to the elevator. With shaky hands, I hit the button then took a moment to look around the small lobby. The walls were an eggshell white, filled with black and white photos. The floors looked like they had recently been waxed. They were almost shining.
My attention went back to the elevator when I heard it chime.Stepping inside the elevator, I took my phone out of my dress pants pocket and pulled up the email to get the floor number.
After seeing it was on the sixth floor, I put my phone away and hit the number six button. I wrapped one of my arms around myself and started taking small breaths to relax my nerves. My foot was tapping rapidly. The closer I got to the sixth floor, the more I felt like I was about to pass out. A small wave of nausea hit me all of a sudden when the door finally opened.
I stepped off the elevator and my eyes widened. The room in front of me was filled with bright lights that made the room shine. There were more black and white photos on the wall, along with some in color.
Walking deeper into the room, I noticed a lady at the end of the office-like space.
“Hello,” I spoke up.
The lady behind the desk looked at me with a smug look on her face.
“Can I help you?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m here to see Mr. Jacobs.”
She squinted her eyes at me, looking me up and down. “Do you have an appointment?”
I nodded again. “Fatima James.”
She stared at me a few seconds longer before looking back at the computer. Even though I was nervous as hell, I wasn’t feeling the lady’s attitude and was about to address it until she spoke again.
“He’ll be out in a minute. Take a seat.”
