The Importance of Being Kept

Chapter 1. Freedom

Kia Brayden Adair stared at herself in the mirror as they sat in Kia's room at her home. "This is your day girl, this is your life, the world is yours to conquer. Watch out New York, I'm coming for ya! Yeah! Yeah...as soon as I fix this tangled mess on my head! Dammit! I'm mixed, my father's White and my mom is Black so don't that mean I'm supposed to have the silky, smooth, hair?! Instead, I end up with a thick head of curls, curls that I can't do a thing with that's been the bane of my existence since I learned to comb my head! Even my mom has naturally, silky hair and she's Black! So why didn't I inherit my hair genes from her?!"

Kaylee Jenkins, her best friend, burst out laughing as she watched Kia struggle with the thick tawny curls. "Kia, do you even know how you sound right now? The words that come out of your mouth girl!" She shook her head and grabbed a comb to help her. "Why do you insist on wearing it natural if you're having such a hard time with it?"

"Cause...I don't know, I kind of like the way it looks."

"Umm hmm," Kaylee said, giving her a knowing look.

"It isn't because of them!" Kia knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Them" were the two men who made her life both hell and heaven or whichever mood they were in when she happened to run into them. Once they had commented how they liked her hair after running their fingers through the wild curls to comfort her when she'd hurt her knee from jumping off a swing in mid-air. She'd been such a crazy, energetic kid, she had no clue how her mom had kept up with her. She'd only been 10yrs old playing in her backyard with her brother and the twins. They'd run to her the moment she'd started screaming in pain and yelled at her brother to get helped. The twins had refused to leave her side that day. It was one of the sweetest memories she had of them, with those two, sweet memories were rare.

"Besides," Kia said finally managing to pull her hair back in a thick ponytail, "once I leave, I won't ever have to see those two annoying bastards again!"

"You mean those two 'gorgeous-drop-your-panties-at-even-a-hint-of-a-smile' annoying bastards?' "Kaylee giggled.

Kia turned to look at her. "I cannot believe you just said that!"

They burst out laughing.

"I've been hanging around you and your vulgar brother way too long," Kaylee said. "You two are no good for me."

"Well deal with it cause you're stuck with us and I'm taking you to New York with me."

Kaylee gasped. "No...way!"

"Yes...way! I already spoke with my parents about it. They're going to pay for you to go and everything!"

"Kia...I..." Kaylee was too shocked to say anything else.

"Did you really think I was leaving my soul sista behind? Kaylee, you're my best friend. You're like my sister and my parents have practically adopted you as their second daughter so yeah, you're coming with me, deal with it!"

Kia had met Kaylee her freshman year at San Francisco State. They were roommates in a dorm together the entire four years. Kaylee was from Mississippi. She was a sweet, soft spoken, country girl who knew nothing about the city life, but came to California anyway for the experience. She didn't have much family. Her only closest living relative, her grandmother, died leaving her with little to nothing. Kia didn't find this out until her sophomore year with Kaylee. The girl had kept her life a secret, too ashamed to tell others she had no one for fear of being taking advantage of or pitied. Kia's mother, Mia, and her fathers had already grown fond of her by then, so when they all found out, they pretty much took her under their wing as their own daughter. Kia had to laugh at the irony of it all, hadn't her mother and her mother's best friend, Kaitlyn, come from the south in sort of the same predicament? Her mother had friends she lived with before she met her fathers, but Kaitlyn had come with her husband, Taylor, who was at the time, her boss. She once asked her fathers and Taylor why they had a weakness for southern women.