19
“Hello?” KC answered.
“Hey, man. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Shit, Ryan? This you?”
“You know it’s me, nigga. Stop playing.”
“I wasn’t sure. Your ass barely calls anymore.”
“That’s because you usually beat me to it.”
“What’s going on, man? You calling about the landlord again?”
I smiled, but held the phone for a second.
“Oh, shit! What happened?”
“Man, so I took your advice and talked to her, told her I was feeling her, and we started going out, been seeing each other since the day after I talked to you.”
“Wait, that was like a month ago. Ryan Boyé has been seeing the same woman for a month?!”
“Yeah. You act like that’s impossible.”
“Shit, I thought it was! So y’all are exclusive? You’re not seeing anyone else?”
“I don’t want to see anyone else. She’s all I want. We’re officially in a relationship now.”
“What?!”
“I even met her mom.”
I thought I heard the phone drop, and the next voice I heard was his wife’s. “Ryan, why is my husband on the floor pretending he just passed out?” Sarita asked.
“Because he’s an asshole. Tell him to get his ass up and back on this phone.”
She laughed, and then KC’s stupid ass was back on the phone saying to her, “Baby, write this down: on this day in history, Ryan Boyé entered a monogamous relationship with a woman!”
“Man, would you stop?”
“Ry, this is truly some unbelievable shit. Where’s she at? I wanna talk to her.”
“She’s at her place next door working. She makes natural hair videos for YouTube.”
“Word? I watch some of that stuff with Sarita from time to time. What’s her name?”
“Your ass watches natural hair videos? Nigga, you’re bald.”
“I said I watch them with my woman. Now that you’re in a relationship, you’ll see. They have you doing all kinds of shit you thought you wouldn’t do.”
“She already is. You see I’m in a relationship. Anyway, her name is Angela. I think she’s 4C Angie on YouTube.”
“4C Angie…hold on, man. Hey, Sarita! Do we watch 4C Angie?!”
I heard his wife yell back, “Yeah! We watched her wash and go tutorial last night!”
“Oh, yeah!” he yelled back at her. Then he lowered his voice. “Shit, man. I see why you were so messed up over her, because, damn!”
“I tried to tell you. Fine ain’t even the word.”
“She got nice hair, too. And she makes quality videos. Good editing.”
“Wow.”
“Whatever. Wait till I tell Sarita. She loves watching her videos. You should check them out if you haven’t already.”
“I plan to. Let me go, man. I need to head on over to her place now.”
“All right. Hey, congrats, Ry. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, KC.”
When I got to her place, she was all made up with her hair in a big, curly afro, looking good enough to eat in a silky red blouse. I raised my eyebrows at the jogging pants she wore with it.
She followed my eyes, and said, “You can’t see the bottom half of my body on camera, so I just make sure I’m cute from the waist up.”
I leaned in and kissed her. “Oh, I was about to say…”
“Screw you, Ryan.”
“I wish you would.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I’m still working, so you can hang out here in the living room if you want.”
“Working this late? It’s almost dinner time.”
“I know, but I’m almost finished. Be right back.”
“Can I watch you?”
She gave me a peculiar look. “You wanna watch me make a video review of a temporary hair dye?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “Grab a chair from the kitchen and come on.”
I did, and followed her to the room, looked around at the camera on the tripod and the bright lights facing her, a huge banner with a repeating 4C Angie logo—a cartoon version of her smiling brightly with “4C Angie” written in her hair as curls—hanging on the white wall behind her. There was a small table next to her holding tubes of what I guessed was the temporary hair dye. I decided to sit behind the lights and watch her, but before I could sit down, she said, “Nuh-uh. You’ve got to sit over there, in that corner off-camera behind me. You’re gonna distract me if you sit right in front of me.”
“Distract you? How?”
“I can’t concentrate with you sitting there looking like you look. It’d be my luck to mess around and say something nasty and forget to edit it out and there goes my career.”
I chuckled as I stood and moved the chair. “Damn, I just make you say nasty stuff for no reason?”
“Oh, there’s a reason.”
I grinned and sat down in my new spot and watched as she turned the camera on and started talking about how the dye dried her hair out. She sounded and looked so good, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it to the restaurant I’d planned on taking her to.
She stopped the camera, turning toward me. “I can’t do this. The fact that you’re even in this room is killing my concentration. You might as well be sitting right next to me.”
I picked up the chair again and placed it next to her. “You need me to help you get through this? I can hold the tubes for you, kiss your neck, have sex with you…”
She gave me a smirk. “This ain’t that type of YouTube channel. And I didn’t mean for you to literally come sit next to me. If you sit there, your ass will be in the video.”
“You don’t want me next to you? I’m not good enough to be on your funky channel?”
“It ain’t no funky little channel.”
“I know. Okay, if you’re ashamed of me, I’ll move.”
“Ryan, quit. You know I’m not ashamed of you.”
I raised my eyes to her hair. “Did you use that dye on your hair? Looks the same to me.”
“That’s what I need to say in this video. It dried my hair out and the color isn’t even apparent. I’m supposed to have streaks of honey blond in my hair.”
“Wow, for real?”
She smiled at me. “Yeah. Ryan, you really wanna be in this video?”
“You want me to? You know I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
“I get over a hundred thousand views per video…”
I whistled. “Damn! My woman is a star!”
She giggled. “And what if one of those women you messed over sees you in this video and starts leaving crazy comments? I don’t read my comments, because I’m not about to deal with any trolls, but could that effect your job?”
“First of all, I never said I messed over any women; you assumed so.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I’ve already addressed that.”
Her eyes widened. “No, you haven’t! And you’re not going to, are you?”
“Nope. Second, I’m not fucked up about what anyone has to say about me, so let’s do this, 4C Angie.”
“Okay, but no messing around. Your hands better not come near my lap.”
“Damn, baby, I know how to behave myself. I have plenty of self-control.”
“You sure about that?”
“No.”
She shook her head. “And you’re supposed to be a corporate man.”
I smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
She turned her head and kissed me on the lips. “And no cursing. My channel is a family channel.”
“For real? Shit, I’ma just keep my mouth shut, then.”
She restarted the camera, showing me myself on the LCD screen. We looked good together, me sitting taller than her, her darker skin complementing mine. She introduced me to her audience as her boyfriend and I waved, turned and looked at her when she spoke, held up the tubes of dye when she asked me to, played with her hair while she talked about some upcoming online event. Leaned in and kissed her neck, making her giggle when she encouraged her viewers to like her video and subscribe to her channel.
After we were done filming, she said, “That was actually fun.”
“Yeah, and you better not edit me out.”
She laughed. “I won’t. Thanks for behaving yourself.”
I reached over and pulled her onto my lap. “I told you I have self-control.”
She kissed me and tried to stand up, but I held onto her. “Come on,” she said. “I need to go change these pants so we can go to dinner.”
I adjusted her so that she was on top of my erection. “We ain’t going nowhere right now.”
She grinned as she did something she’d never done before. She reached down and unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, sliding her hand into them and grasping my shaft.
“Mm,” she said. “You’re right. We definitely aren’t going anywhere.”