God Don't Like Haters (8 page)

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You love Kirbie, don't you?" she sobbed into
my bare chest. "You wanna be with her!"

"No, no, no," I said. "I wanna be with you,
Ashleigh."

"I can't take it!"

"Take what?"

"The competition." She looked up at me with
red-rimmed eyes. "I don't know how much longer I can do this. On
the outside, you're with Monifa. I have to be number two to that
dumb, uneducated bitch. But on the inside your heart belongs to
Kirbie so I have to be number two to her too! What does that make
me? I'm number three!"

"You're number one,
Ashleigh. You know my situation with Monifa. Her brother is my
supplier. But as soon as this music thing takes off, I'm done with
her 
and
 him."

"What about Kirbie?"

"She's an artist on Swope Records. That's it.
Why would I wanna be with Kirbie? That's moving backwards. Does
Kirbie have a B.A. in Communications? No, she doesn't. Does Kirbie
own her own home? Does Kirbie have hundreds of people inboxing her
everyday asking her to represent them in managing their music
careers? No, she doesn't. Kirbie isn't on your level."

Ashleigh stared into my eyes. "But she gets
more Likes than me."

I sucked my teeth and laughed.

She laughed too.

"Let me show you how much I love you," I
said, as I grabbed her by her arm. I made her bend over and put her
hands down on the mattress. I whispered provocatively, "Showing is
what I do best."

With my fingers, I nettled her pussy lips
for a few seconds before I stuck my full cock inside of her. I felt
her womb clench, and this was the single-most favored sign of
appreciation that a woman could give. I began to powerdrive
her—both hands on her hips, pumping in full strokes, trying to make
her knees give. It only took four full dicks before she went down,
and that's when I pulled her arms behind her back as if arresting
her. My hands were big so I was able to secure her thin wrists
together with one hand. My other hand was on her shoulder.

I started digging in
hard
.
If making
love was give-and-take, I was being real generous right
now.

I gave it to her relentlessly. She was
moaning louder and louder with each stroke. It was maddening. I had
told her time and time again to keep her screams to a minimum. The
walls could talk, and I didn't want to get kicked out again. On the
other hand this was another one of those signs of appreciation.
When Ashleigh got like this I called it "hotel mania."

"Coras, I love you!" she screamed.

"Use yo library voice."

"I can't!"

"Do I need to get the duct-tape?"

"If you can reach it without pulling Mr. Pete
out," she said breathlessly.

I had a lot of love and admiration, even
gratitude, for Ashleigh. She would make somebody a happy husband
one day.

Just not me.

She was a hard worker, she wanted me to
succeed, she never hated on me or my situations, she had class in
an age of indecency—I loved all of that shit about her—but she just
wasn't for me. Kirbie Amor was my musical soulmate.

Sometimes I couldn't stay erect long enough
to finish Ashleigh off. I would always imagine what it felt like to
be inside Kirbie's pussy. I wanted to skeet on Kirbie's brown skin
and pull her hair like I hated her. I wanted to stick my tongue
down her throat and growl at her and threaten to do her more bodily
harm if she didn't marry me right then at that very moment while my
dick was buried in her moist hideaway.

Sometimes I needed an
extra 
Purple
Gorilla
 to finish Ashleigh
off.

And this was one of those times.

"Hold on, Ashleigh, let me get that
duct-tape and another pill," I said. 

CHAPTER 13

La'Renz "Buddy Rough" Taylor

Staying in a New York hotel across the street from a
business that was owned and operated by a former partner turned
traitor could put a toll on a man. But not me. I was more
disciplined than most people.

I could have acted out my rage. I could have
purchased an Armalite AR-10A sniper rifle with an anodized aluminum
finish and set it up at the window and peered through its scope and
chambered a round when I saw Eliyah Golomb walking out of his
top-ranked record label. I could have fired down at him and watched
him do the shakey dance until he hit the concrete and bled out and
then adjusted my scope to zoom in on his FAT FUCKING HEAD AND SHOT
HIM AGAIN!

But I didn't do that. Because I had
discipline.

But I was standing at the window with my
palms on the glass, looking down at Eliyah's building, picturing
his grisly sniper death.

"That would be too easy," I said to myself.
"I got something better planned for you, Eliyah."

I needed to get started on
that plan, so I pulled away from the window and loosened my tie and
started sorting through my stolen bag of mail. For hours I opened
envelopes and listened to artists’ submissions on my laptop,
skimming over intros and skits and choruses and getting to the
nitty gritty, which were the 
voices
 and the passion in those
voices.

This was how I built Taylor Music Group. I
had an ear for passion. And passion sold millions of records.

But as hours passed, I was starting to grow
frustrated because I had listened to half of the submissions and
nothing stood out to me. Not one rapper or singer yet. I was
starting to wonder if prison made me lose my ear for talent, or if
the world's creativity had gone sour.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out
slowly. This was a breathing technique to remove stress that I
learned upstate in a program that was mandatory after release from
administrative segregation. After a couple breaths, I felt
calmer.

And I thought of Sundi Ashworth.

I logged onto the internet and went to The
Site. Then I tapped on the search box and let my fingers hover over
the keyboard as I tried to remember Sundi's Site name.

Then it hit me what she
told me:
My Site name is still
SundiTaylor718 … I didn’t change the Taylor.

I typed it in and punched enter.

When her face popped up on
my screen, I leaned closer to see if it was really her. I was taken
aback by her beauty, as if I hadn't just seen her in person. Her
elegance came across well in pictures, and that wasn't the case for
most people. As I scanned through her uploads, all I was thinking
about was how she had transformed over the years. Sundi had always
been cute, but now she was 
gorgeous
. You could look at her eyes
and her poses and tell that she had unbridled confidence
now.

It sort of upset me.

"You just carried on like I never existed," I
said to my screen.

She had been enjoying her life while I was
away. That didn't sit well with me.

I kept flicking through her
pictures until I was years back into her timeline, until I came
across one that made me pause. One that made me very
fucking 
angry
. It was a picture of Sundi and Eliyah Golomb cheek-to-cheek
smiling at the camera. There were people in the background so I
assumed this picture was taken at an indoors public event. The time
stamp said this pic was uploaded six years ago, which would have
been one year after I had been incarcerated.

"Dammit!"

I knocked the computer off
of my lap and stood up, hands on my hips. All sorts of thoughts
were streaming through my mind. 
She
teamed up with that white boy a year after I got locked up. She
couldn't 
wait 
to move on. Did Eliyah
fuck her? Did he get in her head like he got in my wife's
head?

In search of answers I
picked the laptop back up while still standing and set it on my
forearm for balance. With my other hand, I clicked on the picture
of Sundi and Eliyah. From Sundi's caption—
just got hired by Eliyah Golomb himself as an A&R at
Mount Eliyah ENT, look out for me
hiphop world!
—it was clear that this
was taken sometime after she signed on. I started reading the
comments.

Isabel Wright:
Way to go Sundi!

Jordyn Ross:
That was a power move, girl.
#EGENT is the biggest label in the world. Eliyah is a good business
man. Way better than La’Renz ever was.

Kathrine DaFireBomb Walsh:
Yay! Now you can
move on from that graveyard Taylor Music Group!

AuthenticSteveHarvey:
Are you gonna sleep
with Eliyah like you did La’Renz? These hoes ain’t loyal. #affair
#scandal

Kian Mitchell:
Ur old boss La’Renz is
probably turning over in his cell right now.

Site user: Can u put in a good word for me. I’ll
email you my resume.

Aubrey StrokeYaBitch:
No female has ever
escaped from Taylor Music Group. Buddy Rough is gonna kill you when
he gets out.

Leah Hughes:
 Glad you got away from that
pretentious prick La'Renz.

April LuvinMe Heisler:
I see a great business
relationship in the future between you two! Don’t fuck it up like
you did last time!

Owen Patel:
Congratulations! The grind don’t
stop! You’re gonna look back and wonder why you ever worked for
Taylor Music Group under that criminal La’Renz. You’re destined for
greatness. You’re the next Debra Antney!

I wanted to personally respond to everyone
on The Site who had posted some hating shit about me or Taylor
Music Group. But I knew that would be stupid. I tossed the laptop
on the bed and it slapped shut on its own. If I wanted to prove to
the world that Taylor Music Group was a force to be reckoned with
again, the wrong step to take would have been to try and argue my
point in online replies. No, I had to put it in these muthafuckas'
faces. I had to become number one in the world again.

I had to get to work.

With a new fervor, I
started tearing open more envelopes. But after a couple more hours
of listening to thirty or so more submissions, I was starting to
grow despondent again. Nothing stood out.
Nothing 
grabbed
 me. And my trash bag was … empty?

"What the hell am I gonna do now?"

I picked up the trash bag and started
balling it up to stuff it in the hotel's trash bin, when I felt
something hard. I unraveled the bag and reached inside. It wasn’t
empty. There was one more CD, after all.

I read the front of it.
"
Swope Park Gritter Vol.
2
. Coras Bane, featuring Slim Eight, Yayo
Love, Kirbie Amor ... produced by Gee Beats ...
hmmm
."

I knew Yayo Love. He was my artist before
Eliyah stole him.

With a revived interest, I stuck the CD
inside the laptop and pressed play. The sounds that came out of the
speakers had me bobbing my head—it was quality production, original
and ear-catching. The first rapper, Coras Bane, had a nice flow. I
was trying to decide if he was somebody I could work with when the
next rapper, Slim Eight, came on. Slim Eight's style was slower but
there was still passion behind it. I was impressed so far. But when
Yayo Love started rapping, I felt disgusted. There was no rhythm.
His originality was gone.

This isn't the same rapper
I signed eight years ago,
 I
thought.

But the next track opened up with a singer
that completely blew me away! I turned the sound up, listening to
the woman's voice fill my hotel room. I was starting to get goose
bumps, she was so good.

She's it!

I grabbed the CD and turned it over to the
back so I could look at the song list. The girl's name was Kirbie
Amor. I listened to every song she was featured on and I was so
excited I kissed the CD and hugged it to my chest.

"I haven't lost my ear," I said. "I still got
it. This bitch is better than Jazzmine!"

I looked at the back of the CD again,
searching for the contact information. When I found it, I pulled
out my cellphone and made the call.

CHAPTER 14

Ashleigh Hedgman

I handed the promoter the one-page agreement. "Three
artists will be on stage," I told him. "Their names are listed on
there as well as their titles. Coras Bane, rapper. Gee Beats,
producer. Kirbie Amor, singer."

"Just three, right?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Okay. But if we see more than three artists
on the stage that'll be a breach of the agreement and we'll shut
your show down immediately. This is the Sprint Center, not Kemper
Arena or the Midland. We don't wanna see a bunch of rappers and
entourage prouncing around on-stage."

"It won't happen," I said. "But I would like
to ask for"—I leaned to the side, and with two fingers I squeezed
an imaginary apple seed—"one teensy-weensy little favor."

He put his hands on his
hips and made an 
umph
 sound, as if he hated
favors. But I could tell he was one belly-poke away from a smile.
Men liked it—or couldn't resist it—when women begged.

"I don't do favors," he said.

"Just this one. Please?"

"What is it?"

"My producer, Gee Beats, is a functioning
alcoholic," I explained. "Is it okay if he has an open bottle or
two on stage while he's deejaying?"

"Open bottles, no. Cups, yes."