You Don't Know Me Like That (5 page)

“B
ryce who?” That's all I could think as I sang along to J. Love's new track. He'd emailed me an MP3 file of the new song. It hadn't even been released yet, but he wanted my take on it. I knew within the first thirty seconds that this was about to be a hit.

After J. Love dropped me off last night, he called me, and we talked for his whole ride home. He invited me to his album-listening party next week. I gladly told him yes.

I knew it was early, but I was about to call Kennedi on ooVoo for a video chat and tell her that she was going to have to fly down so she could go with me. Sheridan and she would have to put aside any beefs, so all three of us could kick it.

I logged on and dialed my bestie's number. It took a minute, but finally the video of Kennedi filled the screen. She was still in bed.

“Hey Kennedi, it's Maya.”

She poked her head from under the covers. “Whooaaa,” I grimaced. “You look a hot mess.”

She didn't find anything funny. “Are you doing drugs?” she asked.

“What?”

“You gotta be on something calling me at seven o'clock on a Sunday morning.”

“You should be up going to church.”

She yawned. “I am about to get my praise on at Church of my pillow and blanket.”

“Well, wake up. I have something I needed to tell you.”

She threw the covers back and stretched. “And you couldn't tell me at ten?”

“Nope. Guess who I spent the day with yesterday?”

“You and Bryce made up.” She stretched and let out another long yawn. “Big deal. Like I didn't see that coming.”

“Nope. It wasn't Bryce. It was J. Love.”

She was quiet for a minute, then sat straight up in her bed. “J. Love, like Grammy-winning J. Love? Like make you wanna throw your thong on the stage, J. Love?”

“Yes, ma'am.
That
J. Love. I interviewed him earlier this week, then he took me out afterward.”

Kennedi was wide-awake now. “And I'm just now hearing about this because . . . ?”

“Because you are always getting in trouble and got your phone taken,” I replied. She'd sent out a group text to her friends to not send her any texts or call for three days because her parents had her phone.

“Well, I told you I was getting it back Friday. You could've called me then!”

“I'm calling now.” Leave it to Kennedi to want the scoop as it happens. “Can you focus, please?”

“Okay, okay.” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and leaned into the camera. “Tell me about this secret date.”

“It wasn't secret,” I said, getting comfortable myself. I stretched out on the chaise lounge in my oversized bedroom, adjusted my laptop, and continued telling her about my date. “We went to the mall. Girl, he shut down the Gucci store so we could shop.”

“Are you freakin' kidding me?” she yelled. Oh, she was wide-awake now. “So what did you get?”

“He bought some stuff for his mom. I got a pair of glasses.” I held up the Gucci shades so she could see them.

“Too cute. What else did you get?”

“That's it.”

“What? J. Love is a multimillionaire, and all you got was a pair of glasses?”

I laughed because Kennedi was my girl, but she's that chick who would've cleaned the Gucci store out if J. Love had told her to get whatever she wanted. The funny part is she could've bought whatever she wanted out of there with her own money, but there was something about spending some guy's money that she loved.

“I only got the shades, because I'm not trying to use the boy like that. And I didn't want him to pay for those. I was going to get them myself, but he insisted. Then, he wanted to buy me some more stuff.”

“And you didn't let him? Lord, where did I go wrong with my bestie,” she wailed.

“Shut up, Kennedi. You know I'm not a gold digger.”

“That's not gold digging. You're rich just like him. Well, maybe not just like him because, really, it's your dad who's rich, not you. But J. Love's money is his own.”

“Kennedi—”

“My point is, a gold digger goes looking for rich dudes. I keep trying to tell you, that's not us. Rich dudes find us, and it's our responsibility to relieve them of their money and save our own.” She was serious as a heart attack, too.

“Girl, you are so stupid. Anyway, after we left the mall, he dropped me off, and we talked all night. He said he felt an instant connection to me. Girl, he even opened up and told me about some legal drama he was going through.”

“What kind of drama?”

I thought about not saying anything, but Kennedi was my girl. If there was one person I could trust to never say anything, she was that person. “Well, apparently he got arrested in Seattle or something. His boys got with some groupies, and the girls claimed they were raped. Tried to involve J. Love and everything. But he wasn't even there.”

“Dang, but I can imagine he always got some kind of drama going on.”

“But I just love the fact that he trusted me enough to share that with me.” Just talking about J. Love was giving me butterflies all over again.

Kennedi leaned across her bed. “That is so totally cool. How old is he?”

“He's twenty-one.”

“Oh, my, God. Your mom is going to kill you.”

“That's only, like, four years older than me.”

“Okay, tell that to your mom. Does he know how old you are?”

“He didn't ask, but he knows I'm a senior in high school.”

“Well, if he ain't trippin', I ain't trippin.” She laughed.

“Anyway, J. Love invited me to his album listening party next weekend, so you have to come down.”

“Oh, you know I am so there,” she said excitedly, before adding, “So, what does this mean for Bryce?”

“Bryce hasn't bothered to call me, so it means Bryce . . .”

“. . . Is officially history,” she said, finishing my sentence.

I chuckled, but I felt a twinge in my heart. “Maybe we're just taking a break for a minute, and I'm testing the waters.”

“You know Bryce is all that, but he's like you, spending daddy's money. So, I say give J. Love a shot. Shoot, you guys could be some kind of power couple, like Beyoncé and Jay-Z.”

“You're sure right about that.” I glanced at the clock. “Okay, go back to sleep. I have to do some research for this story I'm working on. I didn't get anything done yesterday.”

“You have me wide-awake now.”

“Well, go back to sleep.”

“Ugh, fine. Bye.”

I hung up the phone. I was sure she'd be back out in no time, but me, on the other hand, I was too excited to sleep. But I really needed to focus. I had an interview tomorrow with the stars from
Twilight,
and I hated to admit that I hadn't seen any of the movies in the series. I just wasn't into vampires like that. But the one thing Tamara made clear, when it came to the entertainment portion of my show, I needed to know what I was talking about. And that meant watching their movies. So they'd sent me over a copy of
Twilight
732, or whatever number they were on now, and so I needed to get to watching.

I popped the video in and got comfortable on my sofa. I don't know how much time had passed, but the next thing I knew, my mom was tapping me on my shoulder, and the credits were rolling.

“Maya, what are you doing?”

“Hey, Mom,” I said, stretching. “I guess I fell asleep watching this movie.”

“Since when did you get into vampires?”

“I'm not. It's some research I have to do for the show.”

She walked over and turned the TV off. “Well, I've been meaning to talk to you. I got a progress report from your chemistry teacher.”

I groaned. As much as I loved the new age, I wish we could go back to the days when they sent stuff in the mail and you had a chance to get it and hide it before your parents saw it. “Mom, I'm going to pull the grade up.”

She looked at me sternly. “You'd better, because I told you, the only way I'm supporting this TV show thing is if you keep your grades up at school, and from the looks of things, you're not doing a very good job.”

“I'm working on it, Mom,” I said.

“Maya, if you flunk this class, your teacher said there's a chance you might not graduate.”

“She's just being dramatic.”

“Maya, don't play me for a fool, okay?” my mother said.

“I told you, it's not that serious. I'm going to do well in that class.” That was a bold-faced lie. I didn't know how I was going to pass that class. Since Valerie had left, I hadn't had much help acing this class.

“You'd better,” my mother warned. “If you want to keep digging up dirt, you'd better.”

I let out a long sigh. Between this class, calculus, and a stupid English informative research paper I had to do—and I had no idea what I was going to do that paper on—I was slowly sinking into a big hole as far as school was concerned. I needed to figure out something and figure it out fast.

M
y mom was right, I thought as I looked at the computer screen. An F on my chemistry exam would completely screw me.

My phone rang, and I logged off the website where we checked our grades. I didn't want to chance my mom popping back into my room and seeing that I was also failing calculus.

“Hey, Jayla,” I said.

“Hey, Maya. I was just seeing if you had had a chance to look at the Pinterest page?”

“No, not yet. But I trust you, though,” I said. “You've been doing an awesome job.”

“Well, I like doing this stuff. I'm about to get back to work on the website.”

“Do you ever do anything for fun?” I asked. “Because every time I talk to you, you're working.”

She laughed. “This is fun to me. I actually like working.”

I wanted to tell her I loved my job, too, but geesh, I did have a life outside of work. But since I needed her, I kept my mouth closed.

“Okay, well, I'll check it out. I won't be able to do it today. I need to study for this stupid chemistry test. I hate this class.” I blew a frustrated breath.

“Oh, you're not doing well in it?”

“No.” I paused. “You wouldn't be any good at chemistry, would you?” I wasn't trying to get a tutor or anything, but I definitely could use someone to just do my work for me. It's not like I'd ever actually use chemistry again.

She chuckled. “Hardly. I'm good at techy stuff. But I hate chemistry.” She hesitated again. “But . . . I am good at grade changing.”

“What?” She had my full attention now.

“Well,” she said, slowly, “this is just between you and me, but . . .”

“Will you say it already?” I said when she stopped talking.

“At my old school, right before the grading period ended, I would go in and change the grades right before the report cards printed,” she admitted.

“Change the grades? How? How in the world are you getting into the school's system?” I didn't know how that was even possible. She might've been able to get away with that at her bootleg public school, but I definitely didn't see her being able to do it at Miami High. We had state-of-the-art everything, and I'm sure that included security systems.

“You said it yourself, I'm a technological genius.”

“Ummm, well, you know the system at my school is top-notch.”

“Never met a system I couldn't crack,” she said.

I leaned back in my chair and considered what she was saying. Could I actually let her change my grade? I thought about that F and how I really didn't have time to study. Of course, I could.

“Wow, you mean, I wouldn't have to sweat chemistry, and I could still get an A?” I finally asked.

“I would probably shoot for a B. You don't want your mom getting suspicious.”

“Good looking out. I might just have to take you up on that offer.”

“Okay, just let me know.”

I hung up the phone in awe. When it came to computers, was there anything that Jayla Cooper didn't know how to do? That girl was a beast. I was just glad to have her on my team.

I
was floating on cloud nine. I'd finally made my way through the
Twilight
series, so I was prepared for my interview. Now that I knew Jayla could fix my grade, I wasn't stressing over that chemistry test anymore. And J. Love had taken me out to see comedian Mike Epps last night, so yesterday had been a good day.

Now, I could focus on my show before dinner with J. Love again tonight. He was trying to squeeze in as much time with me as possible before he hit the road. Even though he'd be back for his party this weekend, he made no secret about how much he was feeling me and how he wanted to spend as much time with me as possible. I was loving every minute of it.

My assistant, Ariel, poked her head in my office. “Hey, are you ready?” she asked. “They're ready for you on the set.”

“Cool.” I grabbed my scripts and headed out to the studio. While I'd prepared for the
Twilight
interview, I was mostly excited about today's main gossip story. One of the stars of
Basketball Wives Miami
was creepin' with a married movie star, and she and the wife had gotten into a big fistfight, and both women had been arrested. They'd managed to keep it out of the news, but they couldn't keep it from me. I was about to blow their story up. I probably should've felt bad, but I didn't. I was no longer selling out my friends. I didn't know these chicks, so, oh well.

I headed onto the set, did my thing, then called it a day. I was ready to see what J. Love had in store for us this evening. He was leaving in the morning to go perform in Dallas and wanted to do “something special” before he left.

“Hey, Maya. Can I talk to you for a minute?” Tamara said on her way to her office.

I wanted to protest, because I was trying to get out of there since it was already seven o'clock, but I followed her anyway.

“Hey, Jayla,” I said, when I noticed Jayla sitting in front of Tamara's desk. “You're working late.”

“Oh, it's not that late,” Jayla said.

“Sit, sit,” Tamara said.

“I have somewhere I need to be.”

“This will just take a minute.” She smiled in Jayla's direction. “I was just complimenting Jayla because she, well, I'll let her tell you.”

Jayla turned toward me, her face lit up with excitement.

“Well, today, the fan club hit our two hundred thousandth member.”

“Wow,” I replied, taking a seat. “We were just at twenty thousand people a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah, that was before Jayla worked her magic,” Tamara said.

“Dang,” I said. I definitely had to give Jayla her props. This girl was off the chain.

“How did you do it?” I asked. I mean, I know I was the real reason for the boost, but she still had to have done something.

“Well, we've been trending a lot. That sparks interest in the Maya Morgan brand and that gets people talking and gets them over to all your social media pages. I made it easy to join the fan club by just clicking a tab on each page.”

“I do have a question, though,” I said. “If you build all these people on social media, what happens to the actual
Rumor Central
website?”

“Oh, that's the beauty of it all,” Tamara said. “It all goes hand in hand. It's all about driving traffic from one site to the other.”

“Yeah, we don't want to leave everything in Facebook, Instagram or Twitter's hands, because if they shut down, then what? ” Jay la added.

“That's right,” Tamara chimed in. “Jayla showed us why we want all roads to lead right back to
Rumor Central.
” She looked at Jayla in admiration.

I had to agree with Tamara. I didn't know where Jayla had come from. I was just glad that she'd come, because with her touch, my fabulous life would never be the same.