Page 28 of Ony If It’s You

Chapter Eighteen

K ehlani

“Could you drive any slower, Celeste?”

“Oh no ma’am, don’t get in my car rushing me when you were the one being fucking grown this morning.”

I blushed just thinking about my reason for running behind.

Javyous was vicious in bed and relentless.

He also was never tired. All I had to do was blink and he was there with his dick in hand ready to serve it up.

I was enjoying every bit of it, but not when I had important stuff to do like make it to the Brown Girls Convention on time.

“I tried to tell him I had somewhere to be,” I whined.

“Mmm. His ass must be part vampire the way he be sucking on you. Look at that big ass hickey your neck!”

“What?” I shrieked, pulling at the visor. “Shit!”

I snatched my purse up and fished through it for my compact mirror and foundation. I needed to try and cover it the best that I could. I was going to kill Javyous.

“Girl, y’all really are newlyweds.” She snickered.

“It’s not funny, Celeste. This is a professional event and I’m too old to be walking in there with hickeys on my neck.”

“Oh, bitch I’m sure Samiya and her husband fuck.” She waved me off. “Hell, they just got married too.”

“Yeah, well she already has a successful business.”

“And you do too.” She side eyed me. “Just because hers is bigger doesn’t make yours less important.”

“No, I know, I just want to grow.”

“And you will, Lani, a little hickey won’t stop that.”

That was why I loved my best friend. She kept me grounded. It didn’t matter what I was doing or where I was doing it, she was always going to be there with me.

“Fine.” I breathed in and out a few times so that I could calm down. “Okay, I’m good.”

We had arrived downtown at The Metropolitan where the event was being held.

I was a ball of nerves. It was a little intimidating knowing that I was about to be surrounded by a lot of women that were way more successful than I was, but it was also very motivating.

I wanted to expand and grow my business so bad that I could taste it.

“You look fine, let’s go,” Celeste said, closing the visor and killing the engine on the car.

Take one last deep breath, I put the strap to my purse over my head and climbed out of the car. Celeste and I grabbed hands and walked inside together. It was small things like this that mattered to me with her. She knew I was still a nervous wreck although I told her I was good.

The event was being held in the boardroom, so the receptionist pointed us in the right direction. I was a little confused about it being in the boardroom because it was a convention. I expected it to be a large crowd, but it was only few people there.

“Kehlani?” Samiya was seated in the front of the room at the head of the table. I was fangirling a little bit, so I didn’t say anything until Celeste elbowed me.

“Oh, uh, yeah, um I’m Kehlani a-and this is my best friend, Celeste.”

“Hey, Celeste.” She smiled at my best friend. “I was just waiting on you guys to get here. You can have those seats.”

We went where she was pointing and took a seat.

“Okay, so all four of you looked the same exact way when you walked in here.” She laughed.

There were only four of us other than her in here.

“I like to do these things in small numbers so that I can make it more personal. It’s hard to answer everyone’s questions when it’s a large number so I prefer the small, intimate ones.

Now I selected all of you ladies because you all have small businesses that I want to help you expand. ”

We all nodded as we looked at each other.

“Okay so what I think is most important in owning and operating a successful business is doing what you love. I say that because you can’t convince me that something is good for me or anyone else if you don’t think it’s the best. Okay, let’s go around the room and introduce our passions to each other. ”

Samiya dropped some jewels on us at the convention. I was a lot more confident in my career after speaking to her. It was super motivating to learn that her business had started out as just a dream much like ours and she built her business and herself up in under five years.

The main thing that I took away was that I needed to incorporate myself.

It was important that I protected myself and my business and an LLC would do that for me.

I also needed to work on a way to mass produce JoSi.

I couldn’t make as much product as I would need in my kitchen and room at work.

She also gave each of us a card for her husband if we were looking into getting an actual website.

All in all, I just couldn’t wait to put all of the information and resources that she had given us to use.

“Girl, I give it a year tops, you’re going to be a fucking boss!” Celeste exclaimed when we were back in the car.

“ We are, bitch,” I corrected. “I’m taking you with me. I need nail techs.”

“I’m still new, bestie.” She downplayed herself and pissed me off. Celeste was still new in her craft, but she was dedicated as fuck and bomb. She’d only been doing nails for a little under a year and already had multiple designs go viral.

“New and fire. Don’t play with me.”

“I know.” She grinned. “I am kinda fire.”

“Period.” I ran my hand across the front of my neck like I was a City Girl.

“Brunch?”

It was still pretty early in the day and we hadn’t eaten, so brunch didn’t sound too bad, but I knew better than to think she just wanted food. This bitch wasn’t slick.

“Where are you thinking about going?”

“DayLux,” she replied without looking at me.

I laughed and shook my head because she was intentionally trying not to look my way.

“For food or your man?”

“He is not my man, hoe,” she quickly replied and rolled her eyes.

“Well, your sneaky link that’s not so sneaky.”

“Bitch, we are sneaky.” She cut her eyes my way. “And for the food, heffa. Nobody is thinking about Dominique.”

“If you say so,” I sang. “I could eat though.”

It didn’t matter what my answer would have been, she was going to DayLux regardless. Celeste wanted to downplay it, but I knew she was feeling Dominique. She may have had him fooled, but I knew her ass.

“Cuz!” Dominique grinned and walked towards us with outstretched arms when he noticed Celeste and me.

“Hi, Dominique.” I returned the smile and hugged him.

“What’s up, beautiful?” Celeste was blushing hard under his stare. I rolled my eyes and went to the table that he was just seated at. It was the same section that he was in the last time I came to DayLux, so I figured it must have been his personal one. “My cousin know you here?”

“No, I texted him, but he didn’t reply. He left for the gym pretty early though, so maybe he’s training.”

“Word, my pops said he got a fight set up with Don Peters in a month so that’s probably why he’s going so hard.”

“Don Peters?”

“Yeah, he’s the current middleweight champion,” he answered as he tapped away at his screen before turning it to us. My eyes ballooned when I saw how big Don was.

“He’s huge. There is no way he’s in the same weight class as JV,” I said.

“Right,” Celeste agreed.

“He’s just shorter than JV, he’s not that much bigger than him.”

“He looks like it.”

“Nique, what can I get you, baby?” a female dressed in a bodysuit and some fishnets asked when she approached.

“He’s not your fucking baby,” Celeste spat.

I laughed and scooted closer to her just in case this girl said something that she didn’t like.

“Chill out.” Nique pulled Celeste into his body before ordering for her. “Let us get some chicken and waffles and a pitcher for them. Y’all want the original one?” he asked, referencing the mimosas and we nodded.

Ol’ girl wrote the stuff down then rolled her eyes before walking away. It was clear that she wasn’t happy about us, mainly Celeste, being here with Dominique.

Brunch was just what I need to wind down. I had been on go so much lately, that I hadn’t realized I hadn’t been out doing adult shit. If it wasn’t something with or for the kids, I was being a wife. Life really had me consumed for the past few weeks, so I needed time to unwind.

“Hey girl, your next appointment is here.”

Looking toward the door to my office, I saw Jasmine standing there so I nodded before I tossed the pills in my mouth and chased them with some water.

I fully intended to curse Celeste and Dominique out.

We drank so much alcohol yesterday. I hadn’t been drunk like that in a long time, but I also hadn’t had that much fun in a long time.

We drank and sang all afternoon and night.

Pharaoh called while I was out saying he would get the twins from school and keep them, so I stayed out and enjoyed my day off. I was paying for it now though. I was hungover. After this appointment, I was going the fuck home, showering, and getting in the bed.

“Levi?” I asked when I entered the room that my client was waiting in.

When he turned to face me and smiled, I was a little stunned. He was fine as hell. His shirt clung tightly to his buff arms and displayed how fit he was. His locs were freshly done and neatly styled. The man was fine, not finer than my man, but fine nonetheless.

“In the flesh.”

Going to my sink, I washed my hands then headed to the supply table for some gloves.

After putting them onto my hands, I stood at the top of the table and asked him to lie back.

When he did, he stared up at me. I felt a little uncomfortable under his stare because he was making it painfully obvious that he was intrigued.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” he asked.

“Thank you. Can you close your eyes?”

Smirking, he closed his eyes. I reached over and grabbed the oil that I used to clean my clients’ faces and began to massage it in before grabbing a microfiber cloth to rinse. After that I cleansed with a foaming gel. It was used to ensure that the skin didn’t dry out.