Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Four

    "Hello," Rihanna greeted back in her Barbadian accent. Her hazel eyes lowered down to Drake's and Mia's hands, still affectionately linked together.

    "Nice to see you, Robyn," Drake said cordially.

    "Is it?" Rihanna countered, flipping the hood of her gray hoodie up over her head.

    His hand tensed around Mia's.

    "I see you didn't take my warning," Rihanna said sweetly to Mia. "What a shame."

    Mia removed her pink Aviators from her face and studied the tall, leggy pop star. I mean...she has a few inches on me height-wise, but I could take her if I needed to. "Turns out your warning was not needed," she said, making sure to keep the smile on her face. "We're good over here. He and I are good."

    Rihanna rolled her eyes and turned her head to peer in the window. Her posse was gathering up their belongings and standing, preparing to exit the studio. When she turned back to look at Drake and Mia, she muttered, "Yeah well, good luck with that."

    "Oh, honey," Mia crooned. "Luck isn't needed here." 

    A slender brow lifted and Rihanna pressed a hand to her collarbone, surprise registering on her face. "Oop! You really just told me to mind my grown ass business. Okay, then." The door opened and Rihanna's posse appeared, two brown skinned women with dark hair cascading down their backs and one brown-skinned, effeminate-looking man whose flamboyant style was ridiculously on point. Even though those friends were talking over each other, just to get her attention, her focus remained on Mia. She stared at the songwriter for multiple beats before her mouth cracked into a smile. "Okay then, little Mia. You've garnered some respect from me. We'll see what you can do in this industry." Her gaze shifted to Drake, and the look in her eyes grew frosty. Without another word, she turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall with her friends in tow.

    Drake inhaled sharply, watching Rihanna's departure. "She has a biting sense of humor. You can't take anything she says personally."

    "I haven't taken anything personally yet, but I will return whatever energy she's giving," Mia quipped.

    "As long as you're keeping things in perspective," he said as he pulled the door to the studio open. "If she ever seems annoyed around us, just know that it's probably something that I did."

    A heavyset black man seated next to a stylishly dressed Latina cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, "And oh my God, who do we have here? We have Mr. Drake, a.k.a. Jimmy Brooks, a.k.a. Aubrey Graham, a.k.a. Aubrey Drake Graham...am I missing anything?"

    "Just a good sense of humor. Nowhere to be found," Drake muttered under his breath so only Mia could hear.

    She turned her face into his arm and laughed as he led the way towards the double-sided desk with suspended, mobilized microphones hovering over it.

    Drake started to sit in a chair located in the corner of the room, but a hefty large black man stopped him. "Uh-uh. Big Drake has to sit up front. Front row and center."

    Drake's eyebrows lifted. "This interview isn't for me. It's for Mia."

    "We want to talk to you and Mia," the Latina known as Yesi Ortiz said into the microphone. She was a short, cute woman with medium brown hair and a tanned complexion. Casually dressed in a cream-colored cashmere sweater and jeans, she shuffled through a few sheets of paper.

    An intern helped to adjust Drake's and Mia's microphones and provided them with headphones in case they took phone calls at some point during the radio show. The intern was male, of average height, had red hair, and a constellation of freckles across the bridge of his nose.