Loving The Plug

Chapter 23

Things were starting to change for Desire and Scrap, through all the ups and downs they managed to stick together through whatever. Desire and Alena were opening up their salon in two days, Scrap had his grand opening in a couple of days and in two months Desire and Scrap would be meeting their baby girl La'Marie (LaMARee) Alena Johnson.They mixed Scrap and Lamont's name. Desire hated the fact that her baby was not able to meet her uncle, but naming her after him would always keep Lamont's name alive.

Desire and Scrap had to stop by the tattoo shop to handle a couple of things before the grand opening. Desire had eight people to interview for the three positions that Scrap had left and Scrap had to handle everything else like cleaning up and setting up for the grand opening.

When they got to the shop Desire prepared for her first interview, she kept it simple by just asking simple interview questions, telling them the rules and requirements, and asking to see their work.Desire didn't know much about working in a tattoo shop or managing one but Desire knew if your work was bullshit or not and if you had enough potential to bring in clientele and a good image for her man's shop.

Her first interview started at ten in the morning, by one she had already interviewed four people. Picking three people was harder than she expected but she couldn't make the final decision until she gave everyone a chance to go through the interviewing process.
By three oclock Desire was done with interviews, she reviewed all of the questions she asked and all the copies of the work that she saw when she made her final decision on who she was going to hire.

She chose to hire two males and one female because she loved their response to her questions and their work was dope as hell.After she made her decision she went over everything with Scrap before she called everyone that she picked to hire. She called everyone that she chose and congratulated them, she also told them they had to come to orientation tomorrow so that they could meet their boss. By the time Desire finished up, Scrap had already waxed the shop, cleaned the restrooms and set up everything for the orientation and grand opening.

They locked the shop up and headed home, they ate tacos for dinner and Scrap rubbed Desire down until she went to sleep. The next day they had more work to do Scrap had a lot more work to do. Scrap had to do his orientation and he decided to do a mini picnic with his six staff afterwards. Desire had to confirm everything for the grand opening the next day. She had to call the event planner, entertainers and decorators to make sure that everything was ready, Desire also had to do a couple of pickups. Desire was done with everything by noon and she had time to stop by the shop and join the staff for the picnic. Scrap had all kinds of food barbecue ribs, wings, fried chicken, salad, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, macaroni & cheese, potato salad, and fruit. The staff was getting to know each other and enjoying themselves. Everybody left the shop around seven o'clock pm. Desire and Scrap went home and got some rest, they had another long day ahead of them. They got up the next morning and had breakfast before they showered, got dressed and headed to the shop for the grand opening.They got to the shop in fifteen minutes. It was 11:30 am, the grand opening started at 1:30pm. Scrap had a DJ, his artists were doing tattoos, He also hired a bartender and of course he had plenty of food. They had a taco lady who made nachos, burritos and quesadillas. She has every kind of meat that you could think of carne asada, beef, chicken, and more with all the sides included.

People who lived near the shop noticed the signs and started to come inside of the shop, by 2pm each artist had clients lined up waiting to get tattoos. The party ended at 11pm because the tattoo artist had been working all day, They didn't leave the shop until 11:30 because that's when the last client finished up their last client. Alena also showed up to their grand opening party, Alena also shared that she would be moving back to California in a week. Desire was super excited when she found out, she missed her best friend so much and couldn't stand being so far away from her. The morning after the grand opening Scrap got a call from Alexis saying she needed to talk to him, he immediately told Desire. The bitch Alexis called to tell them that she was pregnant and it was Lamont's baby. Desire couldn't believe what you had just heard, she didn't know if she should be happy, mad or sad about the whole situation. Desire was ready to curse Alexis out but she decided to handle it differently and just told Alexis to call her when she had the baby and they would do a DNA. Desire couldn't let Alexis pregnancy get in the way of hers, Her and Scrap had their baby shower in a few days and Desire tried her hardest to just keep her focus on that. It was hard for Desire but she kept her focus on getting everything done for her baby shower. She had to find someone to do decorations, a baker, DJ and caterer. Scrap had just opened his shop a few days ago and they were already busy and booked up, business was going better than he expected. Alena was there to help Desire pick things out when Scrap had to work, he tried his hardest to be there for everything but he couldn't abandon his brand new shop and employees but Desire was okay with that.  Desire knew that running a business came with a lot of hard work and time. She was proud that he was making money without doing anything illegal.

The day of the baby shower Desire was panicking making sure that everything was in order and everything went right.This was one of the biggest days of Desire's life and she was going to do whatever it took to make sure everything was perfect and Scrap was right behind her. They chose a designer theme, all of the decorations were Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel. They also had a caterer who made soul food, they had a candy table with all types of different candy plus cupcakes, Rice Krispies, and candy apples. Scrap's employee's and cousins showed up with plenty of gifts for the baby outfits, blankets, diaper bags, a bathtub, strollers, A carseat, pacifiers and shoes.

When the baby shower was over, Scrap and Desire felt relieved, now all they had to worry about was getting the rest of the items that they needed for their baby. Scrap and Desire started to look for a new home once they had everything prepared for La'Marie's arrival. They found the perfect home in Santa Clarita it was a two story five bedroom, four bathroom house with two four car parking garage. The house was beautiful, every room was huge with a nice view of the freeway and mountains.Scrap and Desire rented out both of their old homes and bought their new home. They moved in a month later and finally set up the nursery. Weeks later they were done furnishing their whole home.

Months started to pass by and Desire was worked up about having her baby, even though she was nervous she was ready to meet her baby girl. They only had a couple months left before her due date and time was not moving fast enough for Desire. Her first semester of college was almost over and she was confident that she would have a A+ in all of her classes.

Scrap finally stopped selling drugs and is currently running a successful tattoo shop making five figures a month. His shop is going so good that he's planning on opening up a second shop soon and expanding his current shop. He felt extremely relieved that he wasn't risking his life or his freedom for a couple thousand dollars, life was good receiving money the legit way.

Alena and Rock finally purchased a home in California, they found a nice house in Hollywood. It was a four bedroom, two story home.The Both of them loved their new home and they're preparing for their bundle of joy. Alena and rock also enrolled in LA Trade tech with Desire.

Desire and Alena spent weeks making the final steps to open their salon, they found a nice sized salon that they went half on after looking at multiple salons to rent out , now they have to finish buying furniture and find employees.