God Don't Like Haters

God Don’t Like Haters

By

Jordan Belcher

Smashwords Edition

Felony Books, a division of Olive Group,
LLC,

P.O. Box 1577, Belton, MO 64012

Copyright © 2015 by Jordan Belcher

Cover Model: Destiny Anderson

Hair Stylist: Stacy Powell

Makeup Artist: Jessica B.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely
coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For
information address Felony Books, P.O. Box 1577, Belton, MO
64012.

For information regarding new and upcoming
titles, please contact Felony Books at
www.felonybooks.com

By

Jordan Belcher

PROLOGUE

Jazzmine Short

I'm one of the richest bitches in
this industry—and by bitch, I mean it as an acronym: Biggest
Idolized Talent to Come to Hollywood (
I didn't coin this term; a
celebrity blogger named Gabby did).
I'm arguably the most
popular artist ever, and according to 
Music Swag
Weekly
 I'm "The most Influential African-American singer
under 25." And that includes male and female singers. The only
black woman close to my status is the award-winning
songstress/actress Caylene Hope. But she's old. In her 40s, I
think. No one really knows. I don't even think "Caylene Hope" is
her real name. Shit sounds good though, don't it? Caylene Hope. It
sounds church-ish. She sings that goody-two-shoes crap. That
happy-in-love, faithful wife shit that's completely unreal and
fantastical.

I'm street. So I sing about
drama and no-good bitch-nuccas that cheat, sell
dope—
and cheat
,
because that's what them nuccas do. And I go by my real name, the
name my momma picked by herself because my daddy wasn't there. My
name is Jazzmine Short.

Okay, let me correct that:
it 
was
 Jazzmine Short. Now it's legally Jazzmine Short-Taylor,
but I only use Short because that's the name my fans and the rest
of the world knows me by. And when I say 
world
, I really mean it. Nuccas know
me above and below the equator. Like I said, I'm a rich
B.I.T.C.H!

So tell me why I still feel like shit. Like a
puppet. Like I'm not in control of my own career.

It's okay, though.

Mark my
words: 
Today, all of that shit is
going to change.

I slam the contract down on the marble
island. "I'm signed to Mount Eliyah ENT now, muthafucka."

My husband La'Renz "Buddy Rough" Taylor
scoops one more bowl of Fruit Loops in his mouth, then sets the
bowl down. La'Renz is light-skinned with muscles, and you can sort
of tell how buff he is by looking at how his shirt and tie sits on
his frame now. He's attractive, smart and rich, and he uses all of
that to his advantage.

I used to be in love with him.

He picks up the contract and looks at the
first page only. His watch sparkles as he does so—it's a $40k Rolex
Oyster Perpetual. He sees the name Eliyah Golomb, his former friend
and business partner, then he sets the stapled contract back down.
He picks his bowl back up and shoves another scoop between his
lips.

"No, you're not signing with him," he says
with a mouthful of cereal.

"I had my lawyer look at everything. It's
official. My contract with Taylor Music Group is up."

La'Renz doesn't look fazed. But I know he's
pissed. I can feel it in the air. He's the type to hold everything
in until the last minute and go berserk on your ass. I'm prepared
for his tantrum this time, though. I'll be damned if I'm arguably
the most talked about woman on social media and I continue to let a
has-been manager put his hands on me.

"You 
are
 Taylor Music Group," he says to me. "What makes you
think you can just leave?"

"I don't even use that last name. Never have.
And I can 'just leave' because my lawyer said I could."

"You think I'ma let you go?"

"You have no choice."

He looks up and gives me his "keep trying me"
eyes.

It's
coming
. 
He's
about to snap.
 I have a knife in the
pocket of my white robe. In my other pocket is my smartphone. The
screen is locked but I still have an active application running in
the background. It's the "recorder" app. I'm recording this whole
exchange just in case he hits me and I can use this in divorce
court.

"You wait until we're overseas in a luxury
Dubai hotel to pull this shit on me?"

"I didn't want to tell you until it was a
done deal. I learned that from you. Make sure all my shit was in
order before I make my move."

"I know you’re unhappy, Jazzmine. But you
don't go and sign with somebody else, especially my fucking
ex-partner, behind your husband's back. You work through it. You
find the problem and eliminate it and move on."

"We're not a real married couple and you know
it."

"We are too. We're just different. C'mon,
tell me what the problem is."

"You're the problem."

"Excuse me?"

"You're washed up. Nobody in the industry
wants to work with you anymore. And that's affecting me. When
you're not high on cocaine, you're bullying people. When you are
high, you're not focused. Eliyah's company is top five in Forbes
now. We're not even on the list anymore, La'Renz."

"How do you think that's gonna make me look
in the media, you signing to him? I'ma look like a goddamn sucka.
Is that what you want?"

"You already look like a sucka. Maybe the
world needs to see what I see."

He stands up, and my body goes erect,
pulsing into fight or flight mode. I knew calling him a sucka would
make him jump. I kind of want him to hit me. That way he'd have to
pay financially for all the times he hit me in the past.

He looks down at my hand, which is in my robe
pocket gripping the knife. I think he knows I have a weapon.

He looks me back in the eyes. "How long have
you been fucking him?"

"I'm not fucking Eliyah—"

"Don't lie to me, bitch. I read the
blogs."

"Blogs? Since when did we start believing
anything they write? Oh wait, I remember: since GabbyTV posted the
video of you fucking Sundi Ashworth in our mansion."

"We worked through that, Jazzmine."

"Don't
say 
we. You
 worked through that."

"That situation benefited us. You know it
did. You're songwriting got better."

I gasp. "You are a bitch-ass, opportunistic
muthafucka to say something like that. I shouldn't be surprised but
I am. My songwriting got better because you cheated with Sundi?
Really?"

"It's true. You had more pain to write about.
It was a real-life experience that you could draw from."

"I've had tons of real-life cheating niggas
in my life. I didn't need my so-called husband to be added to that
list."

La'Renz walks over to the bar, bends over and
snorts a line. I never turn my back to him. "The media won't
support you and Eliyah's relationship," he says, as he rubs his
nose. "Professional or intimate, they won't support it. You're a
young black girl leaving a black man for a white man. The blogs
will eat you alive. I'll get the sympathy this time."

"People don't see color nowadays."

He laughs.

"Eliyah Golomb is Jewish, not white," I
say.

"Obviously you haven't thought this through.
Go ahead, leave. And watch the career I built for you disappear.
Eliyah is just using you to get to me." He grabs his trench coat
and pulls his strong arms through the sleeves. "You still have a
show to do in Abu Dhabi in two more hours. I'll meet you there. And
if you don't show, I'm suing you and your Jewish boyfriend."

He walks out the suite and slams the door
behind him.

I collapse onto a bar stool, drained. I
wasn't going to admit to him that I'm sleeping with Eliyah. I was
just going to let him speculate, like I had to do with Sundi
Ashworth until the truth finally came out and couldn't be denied.
La'Renz is gonna feel my pain.

I take the knife out of my pocket and set it
on the counter, then I get up and walk to the terrace doors and
open them to invite the cool Dubai breeze inside. I step out onto
the gold terrace and rest my hands on the shiny gold rail.
This is utterly the best view of any city I have ever seen in my
life. A whopping seventy stories in the air, I feel like a bird.
Dubai has unsurpassed luxury and peacefulness and I can finally
enjoy it with the weight of the contract off of my chest.

Buzz! Buzz!

My phone vibrates inside my
pocket so I pull it out and see that I have another thousand
comments on my Site post from earlier. I had posted three
words: 
Change is
coming,
 with no hashtags or emoticons
or nothing. This was my hint to the world that I'm switching record
labels, and a few fans picked up on it.

Emily Bauer:
 Are you finally leaving
Taylor Music Group? About time! You either need to sign with
Gizelle's label or with Eliyah Golomb's label.

ChromeGat OaklandStyle99:
 change is
already here, you dumb bitch. It's called evolution!

ChiTown Millie Walker:
I hope you’re talking
about changing labels. La’Renz is a has-been. You need a new team
to take your career further. Get rid of that coke head husband of
yours. I screamed my head off when you married him.

Jamie Collins:
I’ve already purchased my
tickets @JazzmineShort. Can’t wait to see you in Abu Dhabi! I love
you!

Aaron White:
Are you ever gonna do a song
with Caylene Hope?

Jamaican Kill Squad:
 Change is coming?
You need to change your dress lol

Barnett Phillips:
 Would you like to make
$200 to $2000 a day? This is not spam! Click the link here

Brenda Clark:
Is “Change Is Coming” a new
song title?

Tyesha816:
I love your music! When are you
coming back to Atlanta?

JayJay Cooper The Beast:
I’m your #1 fan. I
have your face tattooed on my back. No, I’m not crazy. I just love
and respect you that much :)

Rosie Foster:
I’m praying that your change is
for the better

I have some of the best fans in the world.
And some of the best haters too. When I first got in the music
industry I was 19 years old (I'm 24 now), and the social media
realm was overwhelming. It made me cry all the damn time reading
people's negative comments about my life, my singing, about my food
choices, even the names of my songs. Their comments weren't meant
to critique; they were just hurtful for no reason at all. La'Renz
taught me how to overlook the hate by only responding to the
support. After a while my eyes started subconsciously skipping over
the bullshit posts and only seeing the love. At least most of the
time that's how it went. Sometimes the hate was so outrageous I
couldn't help but notice. But for the most part, social media
didn't stress me anymore.

It's just a
tool, 
La'Renz had said of The Site
one morning, while grabbing me by the arms and trying to shake my
tears away. 
It's just a tool,
Jazzmine. Use it to help you. Have fun with it. Stop taking it so
fucking serious.

Now I'm able to scroll down
my timeline and laugh for hours on end.
 
Getting over social media hate
is something I can credit La'Renz for. But the real life hate that
comes with being a superstar ... I wouldn't wish that on my worst
enemy.

I shut down The Site app and take a look
across Dubai, proud to be where I am today. Proud that I came from
a Memphis ghetto with no hope, to being a mainstay on the Billboard
Top 100. I'm even more proud that I'm able start a new chapter at a
new label soon.

"I'm gonna be free," I say into the sky with
my arms open, cheesing like a little girl. "Free. Free! Do you hear
me, Dubai? I said FREE!"

And suddenly, unexpectedly, my feet are no
longer on the ground.

I scream, as I'm flipped over the railing by
someone's strong hands.

Falling. In circles. I can't grab onto
anything. All I can do is scream at the top of my lungs, but even
that's hard to do because my throat fills with rushing wind and
chokes me as I tumble and freefall from fifty stories up.