Page 5 of Made to Love Ya

I opened my eyes and saw the source—my brother’s best friend and my first and only love: Izael “Zae” Ellis.

IZAEL AMIR “ZAE” ELLIS

FIVE MONTHS LATER

“You’ve gotto be shitting me. This chick struck again,” I grumbled, pacing back and forth on the gleaming mahogany floors of my downtown office suite.

I stopped to stare out the windows and at the springs in the distance. That technique was not working today. Nothing could soothe me whenever she struck.

“Do we know who she is? How the fuck can she be stopped, and why does she always seem to have a vendetta against us?” I asked.

“Not against us, but against River & 3rd. It’s the only restaurant of ours that she leaves bad reviews for,” Jaylen Simmons, my good friend and business partner, stated.

“Everyone loves River & 3rd, except for her. She’s making her damn name off bad mouthing our restaurant. This is bullshit!” I barked.

“It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, she’s putting a bad stamp on us, and it might be the exact thing that stops us from getting that Michelin star.”

“No one has seen her. No one knows who she is. Yet everyone seems to take her word. I mean, this shit is picking up steam. Her reviews are mentioned as if they were Scripture itself on various sites. For all we know, it might be some hatin’ ass nigga trying to pretend like he’s some broad.”

“Well, if you want to get technical about it,shenever claimed to be a she or a he. We have no idea who this person is, Zae. Social media refers to T as a she. But they don’t know.”

“What the fuck ever, nigga. We need to be hollerin’ at Frost.”

“Why?” Jaylen asked.

“It might be one of his dancers. I mean, why else would she be playing off the name of his strip club, Tasty Temptations? Think about it. Her blog isT’s Tasty Temptations.”

Jaylen shrugged and replied. “It’s probably all about the food, the temptation of it all, and the taste. And her name probably starts with T.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple. I think it’s one of his dancers—Tropical, Topaz, Toffee, Tsunami, Temptation. That’s it. It has to be her!” I exclaimed, shaking my head.

“Damn, nigga. What the fuck is you? A connoisseur on Frost’s strippers or some shit?”

I stroked my fingers through my beard and replied. “I might be familiar with one or two.”

“The way you just ran through that roster, my nigga, it’s more than one or two.”

I shook my head. “Nah, everybody down there knows that I love Xanthe. She’s my favorite.”

“That broad is nasty as fuck, Zae.”

I smirked. “That’s how I get down.”

“I hope your ass strapping up, my nigga.”

“I ain’t said shit about sticking my wick in her, Jay. Now she can slob on a nigga’s knob.”

“Whatever. What are we gonna do about that blog? Get that shit shut down or what?” he asked, reminding me that I was pissed off.

“Nah. You need to shoot by the restaurant and check the cameras. Look at the last week or two weeks’ worth of footage and find out who the fuck it was. Compare it with the last couple of weeks at the other two restaurants because she left reviews about them also. I think we should be able to narrow it down that way.”

“Yessuh, boss,” Jaylen joked, bowing low.

“Nigga.”

He chuckled. “I was trying to figure out when we switched from being business partners to you being my boss.”

“My bad, man. This shit got me worked up.”

---