Boy Trouble (3 page)

I
had no words to explain last night. After I dropped Kennedi off at home, I spent the night tossing and turning in my own bed, trying to fall asleep. I was having a hard time because I was trying to make sense of that madness at the club last night. I'd known Kennedi since the third grade and I had never seen her act like that over a guy. I'd seen her get mad a few times, but nothing like that.

It made no sense, but I knew I needed to let it go. I needed to focus. I had a test in first period that I had to do well on, so I couldn't be worried about my girl's love life.

I threw my chemistry book in my locker just as my other BFF, Sheridan, walked up. Sheridan was the daughter of the legendary Glenda Matthews, who was probably the hottest singer/actor in Hollywood. She had like a million Grammys and several big-time movie roles and was always traveling overseas or staying at their Los Angeles home. Ms. Matthews wanted to keep Sheridan away from the glitz of Hollywood, so she kept my BFF in Miami with some of their family, who were supposed to keep an eye on her. Notice I said
supposed
, because those shiesty relatives just took Ms. Matthew's money and let Sheridan run free. That was perfectly fine with Sheridan though. No adult supervision meant that she pretty much did what she wanted. She loved not having to answer to anyone. Good thing she had a good head on her shoulders so she stayed out of trouble. Well, major trouble, anyway.

“Hey, how was the party last night?” she asked.

“Girl, you don't even want to know.” I closed my locker and turned toward her. A few months ago, Sheridan and I hadn't even been speaking. We'd fallen out because Sheridan had pushed up on my then-boyfriend, Bryce. She had been mad over the cancellation of the
Miami Divas
and all the drama afterward. So, since I knew she'd just been trying to be dirty, and she'd truly apologized, I'd forgiven her.

“I tried to call you last night,” I said to Sheridan. “It went straight to your voice mail.”

“Yeah, my phone was dead and my charger wasn't working,” she replied. “But what's up? Tell me about the party.”

I shook my head. Lately, Sheridan always had an excuse for why she couldn't call or hang out. I began replaying the night. “The party was cool. It was tight, seriously. But it's what happened after the party that's not making sense to me.” I stopped and turned to face her. “It's Kennedi. She went ballistic.”

“What do you mean?”

I needed to hurry up and tell her what had happened before we saw Kennedi. “Kennedi was seriously trippin',” I continued. “I'm talking, I'm trying to figure out if she was on some kind of drugs because of the way she was trippin'.”

Sheridan and I walked past a group of students who were dragging up the walkway, late as well. We attended the prestigious private Miami High School, and because of all the money our parents paid for us to go here, the teachers often cut us slack when it came to things like punctuality. Since I started hosting
Rumor Central
, though, I'd been pushing my luck
.
Not only was I late almost daily, my grades were plummeting because I barely had time for anything outside of the show. I'd been trying to get my academic act together since my mom threatened to make me quit my show if I didn't get my grades up, as if that would really happen. Even still, I wasn't trying to flunk out of my senior year, so I'd been trying to get my grades up because there was nothing cute about being dumb.

I'd given up on the whole tutor thing because I hadn't had much luck with that. The last two tutors I'd had had turned out to be psychopaths (long story). Now I was just trying to do it myself.

“So what are you talking about, she went ballistic? Hurry up and tell me before the bell rings,” Sheridan said.

I actually looked around for Kennedi just to make sure she didn't pop up on us.

“Apparently, Kennedi thought Kendrick—”

“That's her new boyfriend, right?”

“Yeah,” I continued. “Apparently, she thought he was going out of town, but he wasn't. He lied to her and was at the party hugged up with another girl.”

“What? For real?” Sheridan said.

While we walked, I told Sheridan everything about how we'd caught Kendrick with Bambi and how Kennedi had ended up losing her dang mind.

We stopped in front of my first-period classroom.

“So, I was trying to figure out what made her—” Before I could finish talking, Sheridan's boyfriend, Javier Espinosa, walked up, and I couldn't help but groan. While I didn't particularly care for Kendrick, I downright hated Javier. He was one of the scholarship kids—students who couldn't afford to come here but were given a scholarship by some charitable foundation. He and Sheridan had been kicking it for the last month. I wasn't feeling it at all because Javier was the rudest, most disrespectful guy I had ever seen, and I couldn't for the life of me see why Sheridan liked him. Yes, he was cute. Real cute. And yes, he was fine. Real fine. He reminded me of Mario Lopez without the dimples. But he was still rude and nasty to people. Not Sheridan, though. For some reason, he treated Sheridan like a queen. At least according to her, he did. In the beginning I
had
seen him putting her on a pedestal, but the last week or so, he'd been talking to her like she'd been downgraded to servant.

“Hey, baby,” Sheridan said as he approached us.

“Hey, babe,” he replied, leaning in and kissing her.

“Is ‘babe' the only one you see standing here?” I asked.

He looked at me, looked back at her, and said, “Yeah.”

“Javier.” Sheridan giggled, although I didn't see what was funny. “You said you were going to start being nice to my friends.”

He laughed and then looked back at me. “What's up, Millie?”

“Really?” I said as I rolled my eyes.

“See, babe? Trying to be nice to her and she still has a stank attitude,” he said.

“Because you know my name isn't Millie, idiot.”

“I wish you two would learn to get along,” Sheridan interrupted. She had a better chance of Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey becoming BFFs.

“I'm trying to be nice. You see she's calling me names,” Javier said, grinning like he was some kind of comedian.

I threw my hands up. It didn't even do any good to talk to Sheridan about guys. I had tried to tell her when she was dating my cousin a few months ago. I'd tried to tell her
then
that my cousin was no good. I loved Travis, and he was super cute with a dimpled smile that the girls went crazy over, but he was no good when it came to the girls. I'd told Sheridan that dating him would only get her heart broken, but she hadn't been trying to hear it and that's exactly what had happened. She'd found out Travis had cheated on her and it had dang near busted up our friendship. If I told her that about my own blood and she didn't listen, why would I expect her to listen now?

“So, um, are we going to finish talking?” I asked Sheridan. I didn't even bother looking at that jerk. I wished he would just disappear.

Javier didn't give her a chance to answer. “Nah, she's going with me. She's going to walk with me to her next class.”

“So, now he's speaking for you?” I told Sheridan.

“You know what, Maya?” Javier said. “How about you try to get your own man and stop sabotaging your friends? Or are you jealous of Sheridan?” He put his arm around Sheridan's neck and pulled her close. “Yeah, babe. I think that's what it is,” Javier said, looking me up and down. “She's hatin' because you all happy and boo'd up.”

“Are you freaking insane?” I said, finally acknowledging that fool. “Maya Morgan isn't jealous of anyone,” I told him. “Especially not because she has you! I'm sure if I wanted a scholarship thug from the other side of the tracks, I could get one, too.”

“Maya!” Sheridan said. How was she gonna try to check me and not that buster boyfriend of hers?

He lost a little of his smile. “Nah, babe. It's cool. That's what people do when they're hatin' on you.”

”Ugh, I'm not hating on my BFF. Get real.”

“Yeah, about that whole BFF thing,” he said with a smirk. “We gots to give you your walking papers.” He leaned in and tongue kissed Sheridan right there in the hall. It was so disgusting. “I'm her new BFF,” Javier said, after pulling away from her.

She giggled like that mess was actually funny, and I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

“Whatever,” I said, turning and stomping into my classroom. I don't know if it was something in the air or what, because both of my girls had gone completely berserk. Believe me, I wasn't a hater, but I hated the way both of my girls were acting!

I
t seemed like this meeting had been going on forever. I glanced down at my watch. We'd already been in this freezing conference room for more than an hour, and that was after I'd had to spend seven freakin' hours at school. I was absolutely exhausted and the last place I wanted to be was sitting up in a stupid meeting. I hated these quarterly planning meetings, and if there had been any kind of way I could've skipped out on it, I would have. But Tamara had personally sent me a text, reminding me to be there, then had my producer, Dexter, meet me at my office to walk me to the meeting room. Tamara was my boss, though I'd first met her because she was a friend of my family. The way she was tripping with me lately sometimes made me wonder if she had forgotten that.

The first half of the meeting had been a bunch of boring numbers stuff, and the second half, the part they were doing now, well, I really wasn't looking forward to that because I knew, at some point, all eyes were going to be on me.

“So, we got the Kevin Young story locked down,” Tamara said after the producer handling that story finished giving her report. There were six people at the meeting: me, Tamara, Dexter, an associate producer, one of Tamara's assistants and someone from the corporate office.

Tamara turned to one of her assistants—she had like five. “Sonia, were you able to find anything more about that drama with Paul Harrington?”

The geeky-looking girl fumbled through some papers. “Yes,” she said, pulling out whatever she had been looking for. “Apparently, his ex filed a restraining order and she's shopping a reality show.”

Tamara gave Dexter a side eye, which only meant that he'd be calling her about that reality show as soon as this meeting was over.

“Okay, great.” And the moment I had been dreading since I'd stepped foot in this meeting finally arrived as Tamara turned to me. “Maya, what do you have? It's been a minute since you had some good stuff.”

“Right,” Dexter chimed in. “We need some more Bling Ring, cheerleader-escort-type stories.”

“Don't forget the Glenda Matthews story,” an assistant producer named Ken added. “That had to be the all-time best.”

They all nodded in agreement at that. That may have been an all-time best for them, but it had to be the story that I regretted the most.

When I'd first started doing
Rumor Central
and gotten really mad at Sheridan, I'd found out that her mom had had a baby before Sheridan and had given the child up for adoption so it wouldn't mess up her career. I'd run the story on my show. I know, janky. But to my defense, Sheridan had done some low-down, dirty stuff as well. Like sending out a sexy lingerie pic I had texted Bryce. She'd sent it to everyone in his contact list. And let's not forget the fact that she'd messed with him in the first place, so, as far as I was concerned, that was war.

But I'd ended up being the good one in all of that mess because Sheridan had been able to find out about a sister that she'd never known that she had. To this day, she kept in touch with Valerie. Valerie's adoptive parents didn't want them talking and had moved her away, but Sheridan stayed hopeful that once they got older, they could reconnect. And that was all thanks to me.

“Hello,” Tamara said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” I said, turning my attention back to the meeting. “What did you say?”

Tamara looked at me sternly. “I said, what do you have, Maya?”

I looked down at my phone and the video of Demond and Mynique. “Umm, I'm working on some stuff,” I said. I couldn't believe I was torn over whether to air the video of Demond and Mynique. Oh, believe me, I wanted to. But Kennedi had really pleaded with me not to. If I didn't know better, I would've thought that Mynique had put her up to it. But she'd said she felt sorry for Mynique being in an abusive situation.

Rumor Central
had made a name for itself (well, I made a name for
Rumor Central
) by putting the rumors out there, then letting people draw their own conclusions. My show was like Perez Hilton, MediaTakeOut, and Bossip on TV—but from a teen perspective. And while that was only part of the show (the other was the celebrities coming on, talking about what's hot in their lives, addressing some of the gossip that's going on out there about them, stuff like that), the Rumor Mill, which is what we'd started calling the section of the show where I dished dirt, was the most popular part of the show.

“Come on, Maya,” Tamara said, snapping her fingers in my face. “Are you even here with us today?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, trying to figure out why my mind kept drifting off. Probably because I was tired and ready to go home.

“Are you getting soft, losing your touch?” Dexter asked.

“Never that,” I said, shifting in my chair as I tried to compose myself.

“Maya, in all seriousness, this is no joke. Yes, the ratings are good, but they could be better. We used to blow the competition out of the water. Now, we barely beat them.”

I wanted to tell her, “But we are beating them.” But I knew that wouldn't be good enough for Tamara, so I stayed quiet.

“Maya, we need some hard stuff,” Tamara added.

Dexter cleared his throat. “Well, what about that stuff I heard about your boy getting some drug charges?”

I glared at Dexter and his red mop-head self. He was getting as bad as Tamara. No, he was worse than Tamara. “First of all,” I began, “J. Love is not my boy. Second of all, someone on his tour bus was caught with marijuana. He wasn't. And third, unless it's major, I don't want to touch any story about J. Love.”

Dexter glared right back at me. He hated for me to have any kind of personal feelings about stories that we aired.

“Now, now,” Tamara said, stepping in. “Maya's right. It's a dope charge. And it's not even J. Love, so it's not worth it.” She turned to me. “But Maya, we need you to get on it. We did the whole Cancun spring break thing, and you came back with nothing.”

“And yes, you busted the K2 ring, but you ended up becoming the story,” Dexter added. “We need more.”

“Fine, I am looking into a tip about Demond Cash and Mynique Foxx,” I said, reluctantly.

Their eyes grew big. “The actor Demond Cash?” Dexter asked, excitement already building.

I nodded. “Yeah. I think he may be abusive, but I'm checking my sources right now.”

Chatter filled the room. “Oooh, that would be good,” Tamara said. “Definitely keep us posted on that.”

I nodded, grateful when Tamara started wrapping up the meeting. As I headed back to my office, I couldn't help but wonder, was Dexter right? Why was I even second-guessing whether to run that story? Was I going soft? Was I getting a conscience?

I opened the door and walked into my office/dressing room. My assistant, Yolanda, was sitting at the small conference table going over some paperwork.

“Hey, where'd these come from?” I said, leaning over and sniffing the big bouquet of roses that sat on my desk.

“Oh, the front desk brought those back about twenty minutes ago,” she said.

“Who are they from?”

“Who knows?” she replied. “Probably one of your many admirers.”

I plucked the card out. I did have a lot of admirers, but since you never knew who was crazy and who wasn't, I tried to steer clear of those people. I smiled when I read the card. “It's from Alvin.”

“Of course it is.” Yolanda chuckled. She was a great assistant who stayed out of my business, but Alvin was always sending me sweet little gifts, so she knew about him. Alvin was just a really good friend, though. We'd met through a friend of Kennedi's who had hooked me up with him to help me try and track down this crazed fan who was stalking me. Alvin was like a computer genius. But as most geniuses were, he was a stone-cold nerd. And although he'd ended up being a great guy, Maya Morgan didn't do nerds. Still, we talked on the phone almost every day and joked all the time. Though I really liked having him as a friend and I knew he wanted to take our relationship to the next level, he never pressured me or made me feel uncomfortable, so we stayed good friends.

“ ‘Congratulations on another ratings win,' ” I said, reading the card.

I hadn't even told Alvin that the ratings had come in and
Rumor Central
had won its time slot in thirty-three markets. But it didn't surprise me that he knew.

I picked up the phone and dialed Alvin's number. “Hey, you,” I said when he picked up the phone.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he replied.

“Got the flowers.”

“Good. I know how much you love white lilies.”

“They are beautiful. How did you know about the ratings?” I asked.

“I knew they came out today, so I went and checked, even though I already knew they were going to be good.”

“You wouldn't know they were good the way my bosses are trippin',” I said, falling back in my desk chair.

“That's because they're trying to hang on to the top spot. The minute you become complacent, someone snatches your crown.”

“No worries. This crown is positioned tightly on my head.”

He laughed. “Of course it is. Is everything else okay?”

I nodded as Yolanda motioned that she was leaving. As soon as she left, I loudly exhaled. “No. Everything is not okay. My girls are losing their doggone minds,” I said.

“Boy trouble?”

“How'd you guess?” I asked.

“Because your girls have good heads on their shoulders and only one thing can send a girl over the edge like that—a boy.”

“You ain't never lied,” I replied. “They are definitely over the edge. Now the question is, can I reel them back in before it's too late?”