Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Twenty-Three

    Drake once owned a residence in Miami. This was just one of the reasons why whenever he visited the city, there were always a ton of people he had to stop through and visit. Friends, fellow artists, and people he considered a second family. He had a lot of love for Miami, but with everyone he always wound up visiting, this tour stop always tended to take a lot of energy out of him.

    The first night in Miami, he kept it low key while his boys proceeded to party throughout the night. He had shut them out so he could function the following morning. Thursday morning consisted of stage rehearsals. He paced across the stage with the microphone in his hands. "Say you won't, say you won't, saaaay you won't," he sang into the microphone. He bent down at the waist to grab his water bottle while stage hands moved back and forth in front of the stage, putting the finishing touches on the stage setup.

    When he was finished rehearsing, he jumped down from the stage and clapped Chubbs on the back. "Where to next?" He turned his head and looked down the aisle they stood at the front of.

    Down the aisle, near the entrance into the venue, stood a woman. No details of her face or clothing was visible, and the only way he could even discern it was a woman was because of her frame and the length of her hair. Light shone on her from behind, so all he could make out was her silhouette. She stood there for a few minutes.

    Drake's brows furrowed. Chubbs was still talking to him, but his words were going in one of Drake's ears and out the other.

    The woman started to move towards them. Incredibly long legs, confident strut. Her outfit started to come into view. Denim button-down shirt, open to reveal a white tank top, a denim skirt, and dark blue Timberland boots that matched a pair he had in his own closet. The color of her hair became visible: wine red. Shades covered her eyes, but by the time she reached the middle of the aisle, he knew her identity. Even Chubbs arched an eyebrow in surprise.

    "Robyn?" Drake asked. Robyn. As in Fenty. As in Rihanna, the chart-topping pop princess. And also known as my ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend who tried to get in between me and Mia.

    She whipped the chunky designer sunglasses off of her face and beamed at him. "Hello." Her greeting to Chubbs was a simple head nod.

    "I didn't know you were in Miami."

    "I came to see your show," she told him.

    His eyebrows shot up. "I do have a show in New York."

    She shrugged her shoulders and looked away from him.

    But you didn't want to wait until New York, did you? You know my girl is in New York right now, so you thought you'd come here when you knew she wasn't with me? He glanced at Chubbs, then back at Rihanna. "You didn't have to fly all the way here for my show."

    "I love Miami," she said flippantly, turning her hazel green eyes on him. "I also had something that I wanted to discuss with you. A possible collaboration. I was hoping you would join me for dinner. Tonight."

    Leave it to her to breeze into town and demand my time like I don't have plans and a performance to prepare for. She was always spontaneous, always making last-minute plans. Little consideration for anyone else's time. That should have been a red flag. "Tonight...would not work. I have too much lined up today and tonight, too many people I need to see."

    She lowered her eyes and closed the distance between them, close enough that one of the lapels to her denim button-down shirt brushed against his chest. Slow to lift her eyes back up to his face, she said in her lilting Barbadian accent, "But...you have to eat."

    He stared down at her, trying to read her eyes. Everything in him screamed for him to turn her down. She was trouble with a capital "T." None of the innocent looks in the world could mask just how dangerous she was. She seemed to have a hold over him, no matter how much time passed and no matter what she'd done to him in the past. Not that I'm completely innocent when it came to our relationship, he reminded himself. We pretty much treated each other like shit. It wasn't one-sided. But still... even though everything inside of him screamed for her to claim that he was too busy, the business side of him said that a collaboration with Rihanna would be fire. The business side of him told him that he'd be an idiot if he let his personal life get in the way of making good music.

    "You have to take that long to think about it?" she asked him, an amused smile stretching across her Fenty crimson-stained lips.

    "You know why I have to think about it," he told her in a tone that left no room for joking.

    The smile was wiped from her face.

    Chubbs nudged him in the arm. "We have to go. Time."

    Drake nodded, while keeping his eyes on Rihanna. "Tonight isn't going to work for me. Today is crammed enough as it is."

    She frowned.

    "But, I could fit in a dinner or a lunch tomorrow night if you're still in town."

    Her expression brightened up again. "Good. Tomorrow night, say seven? Il Gabbiano. No need to pick me up. I will meet you there. Table in my name. Nice seeing you, as always." She turned around without waiting for a response from him. Gone as quickly as she'd arrived.

    Chubbs scratched his head. "She's charming, as always," he muttered, mimicking her tone of voice.

    Drake laughed and started to walk forward, removing his cell phone from his pocket. He scrolled through his missed text messages. None from Mia, but he did respond to a few, including one from his mother.

    "Are you..."

    Drake looked up from his phone as he walked down the aisle, side by side with his best friend and security team member.

    Chubbs ran a hand over his head. "Are you sure you want to go to dinner with her?"

    "That's your way of saying you don't think I should," Drake said knowingly.

    "You've got a great lady. It would be a shame if something like this messed that up."

    "Robyn doesn't have the power."

    Chubbs shook his head.

    Drake laughed. "Speak your mind, man."

    "Not smart," was all Chubbs said. The man of few words. The man who never really had to say a lot of words to express his feelings on any given subject. He spoke two words, but the message behind those two words rang loud and clear.

    Drake nodded, gazing off in the direction Rihanna had just walked in. "You might be right about that," he said, pocketing his cell phone.