Page 28 of Brown Sugar

“He’ll get what’s coming to him. They always do.”

I smirk at him, bringing my own wine glass to my lips. “You’re a great listener, did you know that?”

“Probably has to do with the fact that I don’t talk much.”

I laugh. “No, seriously… you are. I might’ve been wrong about you.”

“Does that mean now you’ll cooperate with your security detail?”

“Maybe,” I say with another laugh.

He shakes his head at me like he can’t believe I’m serious. But I’ve begun learning how to read him and I can tell he’s just as engaged as I am in this conversation.

“Tomorrow,” he says. “We leave for practice early. You gonna be on time?”

I sigh. “I’ll set my alarm now so you’ll believe me.”

Picking up my phone to do so, I gasp when I unlock my screen and glance at the slew of notifications that have come in over the last few minutes.

The call from Tommy was just one of them.

I tap on the text Amari’s sent me with a link to an Instagram Reel. It plays as soon as it opens on my phone screen.

Shawn’s seated at a table with other men on some podcast. The clip starts right as one of the hosts asks Shawn a question.

“So you and your girl are no more, right?”

“For real?” says his co-host, shaking his head. “You mean you let fine-ass Kiana go?”

My stomach twinges watching the men chuckle like jocks in some locker room.

“I had to,” Shawn replies after his laughter dies out. “It was time. Onto the next one.”

“What was she like?”

“What was she like what?”

“Bro, you know,” says the first host, and they break out into more laughs. “The sex game? What was she like?”

“Yeah, how freaky deaky was she? Scale of one to ten,” cuts in the co-host.

Shawn grins then holds up his hand to signal just okay. The men bust up in even louder laughter.

“My new girl though, she’s fire.”

The clip ends and soon I’m left staring at the video still.

The video that has more than fifty thousand likes in the last hour. That’s all over social media according to Amari. It’s going viral everywhere.

I feel sick.

Tyson calls my name as I leap from the stool and rush off toward my bedroom.

11

TYSON

Kiana refuses to talk about the podcast segment the next morning. She’s got huge sunglasses covering her eyes and her lips pressed together when I turn up. I barely get a muttered good morning before we’re off to dance practice.