This November

Chapter 3

"I know there is some tea with you and fine ass Lick 'Em Malik Leek," Cambrea said to her two days later while they ate breakfast down in the hotel's restaurant.             

She picked over her toast and eggs, not hungry for the meal that cost an arm and a leg. Her stomach had not been right since seeing Malik. If she would have known he was now in Atlanta, she would have never come. She sure as hell steered clear of L.A. because she thought he was still there.

What happened to them? They used to be really good friends. Friends that had an attraction for each other. Malik may have never said it, but she knew he had feelings for her. It was the way he would look at her, the things he would say, how he discouraged her from dating any other boy in high school.

While she spent nights all alone, in her room either hanging with her sister, Noelle, or babysitting her two younger brothers, Malik was always running around town with this girl or that girl. So many girls he dated over the years. Nothing serious, well one. The one she loathed the most was the one he cared for the most.

She never wanted to see Malik again.

"Nothing!" she spat out to her friend.

"The man is fine, like fine, fine...if you like that light bright damn near white," JaMocha said.

She groaned loudly at her friend. She hated colorist people and comments like that. She'd dealt with her skin color being an issue all of her life, so she did not accept it on any side of the spectrum. Malik too hated his complexion for years, complaining about being too light.

He was pale, with blue eyes and blonde, curly hair, so yes, any Black person would be questioned on their identity. Now he had locs in his thick curly hair. It looked nice on him. He looked incredible, better than he did when they were younger.

But she hated him.

"You're not going to tell us anything about you and him?" Cambrea asked.

"No!" She abruptly stood up from the table, though she had not finished her breakfast. "Charge my food to the room, I'm going up. I just need to be alone right now guys, okay."

She did not know why she was taking things out on her friends. They did nothing wrong, simply ask a few questions. In the two years they had known her, they had not known her to talk about a guy. She met them both when she started teaching at Roosevelt High School. Cambrea started teaching there first, right after graduating college from St. Louis University at age twenty-three. She taught Algebra and Algebra II classes.

JaMocha had been there three years, after finishing her Master's degree, and now taught the English Literature, Composition, and creative writing classes. She liked to read and write books as much as she liked to talk and cause problems. Because she was young at only twenty-eight, the students loved her because she could still relate to them.

Well, she was only twenty-seven, and while the students respected her, sometimes they treated her like one of them. She was ten-plus years older than most, but she looked like one of their classmates. With her small frame and youthful face, it was hard getting them to see her as a teacher. Once she wowed them with her creative style of teaching acting, she won them over.

She loved what she did despite that not being the plan, no matter what Malik Hunter thought of it.

"Stupid boy!" she mumbled to herself on the elevator ride up to the seventh floor.

Now she was upset and hungry. All over a guy who hurt her more than anyone else in her life.

She stepped off the elevator and headed down to her room, stopping short when right there standing at her door was the guy who had turned her stomach and made her unable to eat.