The Nine

Chapter 6.1: Coriana

Please keep reading, commenting, sharing! Do you like the book so far? I really hope you do.

I only updated because Wattpad's going this real weird thing where it deletes all my spacings when I sync my changes? I don't get it. Excuse all mistakes.

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It's true what they say, black is slimming baby.

I admired myself quick in Tara's mirror while she finished getting ready. I had on a simple black dress that stopped mid-calf and had borrowed some two inch heels from Tara, which I'm sure she'd never wore. My new, dark blue hair was clipped up in a messy bun.

"Girl you ain't ready yet? We on a time crunch!" I called into her room.

I waited another minute. This bitch was aggravating me yeah.

"Tara, baby the fuck where y'at? You can't be late to no funeral naw!"

She came hopping through the doorway, struggling to put on a heel.

"Help, please," she asked with a sheepish look on her face. I laughed at her.

"Girl you need to invest in some new shoes, you been rocking the same damn dust busters since we was in high school," I scolded her, helping her wedge her feet into the tiny black heels.

"Excuse me if I thought at seventeen I was done growing," she said, checking the mirror to see if she looked good. She looked gorgeous in the face department of course, but... Tara in a dress was a weird sight because she normally dressed like a nigga or a fisherman or some other shit. Catching her in a dress was like seeing a dog in a tuxedo. Her slim, willowy body wasn't flattered by her outfit at all, but I ain't tell her that. I would've any other day, best the fuck believe, but we couldn't be no more late than we already were and I'm sure it wasn't her prime directive to turn heads at a nigga funeral.

"Come on," I told her as I grabbed the keys to my Jetta off the end table next to the door. Getting down the steps of her second-story apartment was hell in the shoes I had on, but ya girl made it.

"You talked to Wallace? Where he at?" She asked me as we hopped in the car and I started it up. The sun was blazing so I had the air on high. It blew a few locks of my hair every which way, but I always had the emergency bobby pins in my purse for stuff like that, right between my taser and my nine.

"He said he was on his way like fifteen minutes ago, so he should be pulling up to the church now," she said as we approached the first light. She took a deep inhale and licked her lips. "Your food smells good as hell girl."

"Girl, the fuck? You thought it was gone stank?" I pushed her shoulder and she laughed.

The funeral was at the church Tara grew up in, and she'd often taken me along with her so the people there knew me too. They paid me to cook for the family, because if it's two things about Coriana Parks everybody knows, it's that her food good and her pussy better.

"No, I dunno," she sighed, "Maybe your senses are heightened when you're sad." She sucked up a dry sniffle.

The man who died was Tara's childhood choir director - he was a cool guy, and cute too. He was, what, fifty-five when he died? I wanna say it was cancer, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure on the cause. She was his lead soprano and she grew to love him very much over the years. A couple months ago, he had told Tara that after he died, his wish was for her to sing at his funeral. She and Wallace were gonna perform his favorite, "One Sweet Day" by Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey.

I thought it was cheesy as fuck, but hey.

We were halfway there when my damn phone got to vibrating again.