Page 12 of 10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace

She smiled. “No problem… Cornell, you think you can get us backstage?” Sasha stared at her brother hopeful, and I wanted to tell her good luck.

This nigga was talking abouthopefully, so I put my dreams of telling Zay I wanted to have his babies to the side.

It was clear Cornell didn’t have as much pull as he liked to pretend. He had to call Zay’s cousin, his best friend, to allow us through security in the back.

Then the suite he was trying to front with wasn’t even his. It was his sister and her friends. “Hey Nell,” I turned and saw Berkeley.

“Hey Berks, what’s good with you?”

I looked between them and got this feeling that they had mattress tangoed before. It was the way she looked at him with this flirtatious look in her eyes, and how he kept licking his lips while taking her in.

“Hi, I’m Stevie… I’m a fan of your work.”

Berkeley noticed that I was there for the first time since she greetedNell. “Hey Stevie, thanks so much… are you and Nell…dating?”

“We’re friends,” he quickly corrected her.

Ouch.

“Oh, you guys look super cute together… are you hanging in our suite for the show?”

Cornell nodded his head. “Yeah.”

“Oh, cool… make sure you stop being a stranger, Nell.” She patted his shoulder and then walked over toward where her girls were.

There was part of me that felt like I had no reason to feel any way. Cornell wasn’t my boyfriend, and he was free to mess around with anybody he wanted.

“You hungry?” He finally snapped out of watching her ass in the black dress she wore.

“I can use a drink,” I muttered while hugging myself.

It felt like I was interrupting something, and I didn’t like that. The least he could have done was pretended he didn’t want to fuck this girl in my face. I watched as he went to go get us a drink, and I went and sat down.

The show was starting, and everyone was out their seat cheering and rapping along with the words to his song.

“Started out with nothing but a dream and a plan, hustling every corner just to make some bread. From ramen in the kitchen to steak on my plate.”

I bopped my head to the music while rapping along with Zay. All the women in the suite were on their feet shaking their asses, making videos for their social media. Sasha and her friends started to take shots while they had these ring lights on the top of their phones to get the perfect lighting.

Cornell was on his phone texting someone, and from the way he was aggressively texting, it couldn’t have been a good conversation. He let out a low huff, and then tuned into the show, not truly paying attention to it.

He had probably seen the show dozens of times since he was on tour with the man. His phone pinged and he quickly replied before shoving his phone into his pocket.

“Come on, Stevie, we out.” He stood up, and his sister turned to see him getting ready to leave.

“Where you going?”

“I got some shit to handle, and need to bounce,” he vaguely told her.

The show was good, and I wanted to tell him to leave me behind and handle his business. This was a date, so the proper thing to do was to leave, although Ireally reallydidn’t want to.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, as he held my hand, and we walked down the hallway.

We left the same way we came, and Cornell still hadn’t told me why we had to leave. I sat in the front seat as he whipped out the arena and headed down a few streets before he pulled down a random block and parked.

“I really like you, Stevie… you different from other chicks I fuck with.”

Why did he think that was a compliment? Why did men always think saying things like that was a compliment? Yes, I enjoyed being different now, though it was something I didn’t always enjoy. However, why did he think because he thought I was different it was a compliment or a prize?

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