The Arranged Marriage || Christian Keyes & Amber Riley

Chapter 1.

Christian Keyes -
Friday 6:45 PM
May 23rd, 2019

It was a typical Saturday night, and since I didn't have any plans, I decided to swing by my long time friend Amber's crib. Whenever we had free time she'd either come by my crib or I came by hers, or we went over CJ's. Since starting my publishing company I had been busy working with the writers on my team touring, and doing book promotions.

We had just gotten back from a writers convention in New York, which allowed us the opportunity to network with other authors, and introduce our books.

My books The Love Doctor and it's sequel Sexual Healing were doing well currently ranking in the top five bestselling African American fiction literature on amazon. I was in the top twenty on Barnes and Noble, and number one under chick lit on this free writing app called Wattpad. Since my two years of free lance writing and blogging, I had gained a pretty decent sized fan base.

"Oh shit this that song right here!" I said excitedly while turning up the radio as Brian McKnight's song The Only One For Me began playing.

"You don't know nothing about this boy," my bestfriend Amber giggled as I jumped up and started singing horribly.

"I want you know I'll show you how I can be the man you need me to be," I sing while my popping my fingers and gyrating across the floor. Amber laughs uncontrollably.

"Come on girl don't be laughing dance with me," I say without even thinking as I grab her hands. I had known Amber Patrice Riley since high school. My pops had gotten a job offer at some computer company, and moved us from Chicago to LA.

In high school I was a major geek, all the kids bullied me, except for Amber and my other friend CJ. We met at lunch. I was trying to find a table to sit at, but no one would let me sit with them.

The only good thing about our school was you could eat lunch outside. I was sitting by myself under a tree one day when C.J. and Amber both came and asked me if they could eat lunch with be because they saw how bad the kids did me.

I thought they were just pitying me at first, but everyday after we ate lunch together, we studied in the library together, and we even played together during free time. We went through all four years of high school just the three of us.

C.J. had gotten married right after college, and had a son named after me lil Christian. He owned his own auto shop not far away. While Amber, had started her own cosmetic line that was flourishing she was trying to get endorsements and hopefully looking to sell her product to MAC.

I loved that we were still friends after all these years Sometimes after high school people go their own ways and you never see them or have intentions of talking to them again, but not us we will always be family.

When Brian hit that last note I was singing while looking into Amber's eyes, I don't know why but it instantly got awkward after she turned away. I turned the station and grabbed my water sipping it.

"You uh want to play another round?" She asked referring to the connect 4 game that sat on the floor.

"Uh yeah, yeah sure," I say noticing the change in her attitude. I hoped I hadn't made her uncomfortable by the song, I was just fooling around.

"Hey I Uh I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable I was-

"What...n-no you didn't," she says waving her hand before grabbing all the red pieces. I was going to say something but I decided to let it go not wanting to press the issue.