Try Me

Chapter one

Khalan opened the door and walked into the house. He's ready to take a shower and go to sleep. Khalan had been at work all day while having to tolerate disrespectful people. One thing about him is that if someone says something dumb, he's going to respond.

The customer is always right.

He's sick of them saying that shit. The customer is going to send my ass right to jail if they keep trying me, he thought to himself. Last week, some guy was talking shit, and Khalan ended up fighting him. He dragged his ass right out those automatic doors, and he still didn't get fired because they needed him.

The rest of the workers are high school students who barely ever come in. If they fire him, they'll have no one but Marbell, and if they fire Khalan, she'll quit anyway.

Khalan goes further into the house, and the first thing he sees is Tyra on the couch, laid up with some nigga. Khalan sucked his teeth and walked by them. She always has someone in the living room like she doesn't have a whole room upstairs.

"So you not gonna say hi?"

Khalan ignored her and went to drop his stuff on the kitchen table. I'm so tired that I'm not even in the mood to eat anymore. Tyra came into the kitchen with the nigga she was with.

"Khalan, I want you to meet Akia. He's my boyfriend."

Khalan turned around slowly to see her boyfriend. He looked him up and down, making the boy shyly look away.

Damn she did something with this one! He fine as hell.

And when he says fine, Khalan means fine. Akia is tall, about an inch over Khalan, and has light skin with long, curly hair. He's skinny as hell, but it looks like he has a little muscle, which can only mean he plays a sport. Khalan usually doesn't go for light skins, but he had to admit that Akia was cute.

Let me stop though. He probably young as hell.

"It's nice to meet you." Akia said—or rather, mumbled. Khalan stared at him for a long ass time because he couldn't even hear what he said. Bae, you gotta speak up." Tyra nudged him. He cleared his throat a bit before looking at Khalan again. "It's nice to meet you; T has told me a lot about you."

"Mhm. I'm going upstairs; don't be loud. I'm tired."

Akia looked over at Tyra, silently asking for help. Tyra shrugged her shoulders and grabbed his hand, leading him back to the living room. As they started to walk away, Khalan overheard Akia asking if he had done something wrong, and Tyra reassured him he hadn't.
———

"Let's go party!" Arian screamed when he walked into Khalan's room. He always wants to be out, but Khalan ain't complaining because he too enjoys going out a lot.

"Y'all need to stay in the house sometimes." Marbell complained. She acts like she is not the craziest one. Last time they went out, she had a stripper clean the poll because she wanted to get on. She made hella money, though; she even got offered a job.

"Mari, you can stay home." Arian mugged her. Mari ignored him and continued looking for a party. "There's one that what's his name girlfriend invited us to." Khalan and Arian looked at each other, trying to figure out who she was talking about.

"Who?"

"What's his name! Y'all know who I'm talking about." She snapped her fingers as if that was going to give them a hint. How the fuck we supposed to know? Arian still in thought like he gonna figure something out. "Bitch give us a description, first letter, a place, I don't know."

"Uhm, he got like waves and he bleached his hair? You know? And he got that bad ass girlfriend."

Ohhh, are you talking about Darius? The nigga Khalan used to go with." Arian said, snapping his fingers. Khalan shook his head no because he didn't want to go there. They tryna get my ass caught up. Khalan used to fuck with him. Darius is down low. The dick was good, but he started doing too much. He had a girlfriend, but he still wanted Khalan, and he had even tried saying she was just there for the straight image.