Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Forty-Three

    After hanging up on Mia, Drake's mind went into overdrive. He couldn't turn his thoughts off. His brain insisted on replaying his conversation with Mia over and over again.

    While lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, he would get to a point where he felt like he could forgive her. After all, she said she'd slapped the man for kissing her. She had contacted Drake, had told him about it. But then he would imagine her ignoring his text messages. For some reason, imagining that set him off. The visual of another man kissing her set him off.

    The timing of it all was inopportune. His tour needed Mia. That was clear after his performance in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta was one of his favorite cities in the United States. There were reasons why he referenced it in several of his songs. In the beginning of his performance, he had the audience. He had them eating out of the palm of his hand. But similar to Tampa, when "Soul Cry" started to play and Mia's voice came out of the speakers, there were the looks of disappointment. The screams that turned into low, confused murmurs. When the show was over and he headed backstage, there were the videos posted from his show, along with complaints in the captions. People were beginning to make memes with headlines of "Mia: Missing in Action." After the performance, he and his crew hit up a night club, one of his favorite clubs in Atlanta, and then one of his favorite strip clubs in Atlanta.

    Earlier in his career, strip clubs were a go-to place when he was feeling down. He could relax, unwind, and almost forget that he was sad in the first place. In the best strip clubs, the dancers and bartenders tended to make you feel like you were the king of the world - if they were good at their jobs. Making their clientele feel that way was just a part of their job, but when he was really down and out, he got lost in that fantasy. He allowed himself to believe the act they put on. He was often criticized for his association with strip clubs and for calling strippers out in his songs, but the people calling him out didn't know how much strippers and clubs had done for him. It was common knowledge that he'd dated quite a few strippers, sure, but his respect for them and for the managers that ran the well-reputed gentlemen's clubs ran much deeper than that.

    So after his Atlanta performance, he expected to feel comforted. He walked through the doors of Magic City with his boys close at his heels, and he felt like he was in a place that was familiar. A sense of nostalgia and memories hit him all at once.

    VIP area. Nothing less. The manager came out to greet him and had bottles of Drake's favorite champagne sent over. His boys carried boxes of cash with them, and set those boxes down once they reached the VIP area. Women slid down the poles, worked their way up the poles, or worked the floor giving lap dances.

    Drake glanced around the club, and he felt a sense of foreshadowing. Deep in his gut, he knew that it was going to take a lot more than a night out at a strip club to make himself feel better. It was going to take resolving things with Mia for him to feel better. And there's no telling when her and I will be able to resolve the issues between us, he thought as he sat down on the black leather couch. Because now that my trust in her has been tested, I am starting to wonder if I should even be in a relationship right now. I'm on the road. If she becomes an entertainer, she will also be on the road. If this is a sign of things to come, then maybe the timing just isn't right for us. It took a long time for me to try out a relationship with her, but maybe I was right all along. Maybe I have to wait until my career is over before I can settle down with someone and be happy.

    Dancers...the good dancers could smell money when it walked into the room. Once that money was on their radar, they tempted to mill around it. They might dance on another man, but that man was in close proximity to the money. Several dancers eyed Drake. He didn't so much stare at them as stare through them.

    "Are you still worried about your tour?" OB questioned, sitting beside him and offering him a cigar.

    "I don't know what I'm going to do," Drake admitted, accepting the cigar and balancing it between to fingers.

    "If you feel like the tour needs Mia, then you should still ask her to perform with you," OB told him, being serious for once.

    Easier said than done. "If she joins me on tour, it would be...awkward. Because I can't just go back to being her loving boyfriend after what she did."

    "She didn't really do anything, though," OB muttered. "I mean...okay, she danced with a guy. But I get how she could feel like a third wheel with Nicki and Kenny. Who wouldn't feel like a third wheel with them? You know how affectionate they are and shit."

    Drake had expressed to Mia that he didn't fault her for the dancing, but he still didn't like to imagine her dancing with someone else. "The dancing isn't what I have the problem with. The ignoring my messages, the standing me up when we were supposed to Skype...that is what I have the problem with."

    OB nodded quietly, puffing on his cigar. "I'd be pissed off, too," he confessed. "But put yourself in her shoes. Telling someone you love that someone else kissed you...it's a hard thing to have to tell someone. Can't you understand how hard that was for her to do? I mean...especially the fact that it was you. You're the self-proclaimed possessive type."

    Drake laughed and rolled his eyes. He handed the cigar back to OB. "Can you cut it?"

    OB took the cigar back and squinted through the smoke generated from the cigar between his lips. "The girl loves you," he said around the cigar. "I think that much is obvious. For fuck's sake, she left working with Nicki and Beyonce just to visit you on tour because she missed you. Right? She has a good heart. Everyone can see it. You can see it. She didn't set out to hurt you."

    "I know," Drake mumbled as a dancer approached him. He gave a slight shake of his head. He wasn't in the mood for a lap dance. He should be. That was the whole point in coming here. But he wasn't in the mood to have another woman on his lap. The only woman he wanted on his lap was Mia. Fuck. He leaned forward, rested an elbow on his thigh, and ran a hand over his head.

    "I mean...what are you going to do?" OB asked him. "Are you going to let her go, then let Zach scoop her up?"

    Drake frowned.

    "That's what would probably happen if you let her go," OB theorized. "Something like this isn't worth losing a good woman like Mia over. Trust me. We single men envy the fuck out of you."

    "And I know that," Drake said, accepting the cigar back from OB. "I know that this isn't worth losing her over. But I'm angry and I can't just shut those feelings off."

    "Your feelings are valid," OB told him with a shrug. "It's okay to be mad or upset. Just...don't lose her." He leaned forward and lit Drake's cigar for him. "Do what you usually do. Put your feelings down in a song or some shit and get over it. Forgive her."

    Drake raised the cigar to his lips, took a puff, and pondered over his friend's advice.