Page 43 of His Favorite Felon

“My brother is finally growing up. I feel like a proud mom,” she joked, wiping away imaginary tears.

We all laughed at her dramatic ass. I’d been getting to know Chy a little more since meeting her at Code Red last month. She invited me out once, but Chance was acting weird, saying she gets into too much shit. I didn’t understand it because he would have her come over to the house, or we’d visit her at her place of business. Whatever it was, it felt like he didn’t want us to get any alone time, but I could’ve just been making that up.

I pulled my notebook from my Must Have Joy bag. I kept a composition notebook in there labeled music shit. It was full of half-assed songs I started and never finished. What can I say? I didn’t have much going on to inspire me, but now that I was out, it felt like love was in the air. I was ready to pour my heart out to my nigga and then suck his dick like there was no tomorrow. I could already tell I was ready to forfeit our bet.

Chance and I took a seat on the sofa; he grabbed my notebook from my hand and flipped through some pages, reading my music. Chyanne was messing with buttons on the mixing console. Out of nowhere, we heard a woman’s voice.

“Chyanne Legend, please stop touching my equipment.”

“Girl, hush, you know I got the money to replace anything,” Chy said, then started pressing random buttons. When she turned her head to address the other women, she smiled brightly. “Hey, bestie.”

If I didn’t know any better, my boyfriend’s sister just called Lyric Blackwell her bestie. What in the actual fuck? Did I just transport to another dimension where I didn’t serve five years? Instead, I rubbed elbows with some of the hottest moguls in the music industry.

After she and Chyanne hugged, she made her way over to us. She smiled sweetly at me, but a smirk tugged at her lips when her eyes fell on Chance. Chance looked at his watch, ignoring the flirtatious energy she was giving off. Instead, he said. “Six minutes late, Ms. Producer.”

“Damn, shame you finally get a girlfriend and still a dick. How is that even possible?” She laughed.

“Speaking of girlfriend. Justice, this is…”

“Lyric Blackwell,” I cut Chance off and finished his sentence.

She smirked. “At least someone has respect for me in here.” She laughed, joking. At least, I thought she was joking, but honestly, I didn’t care.

I recognized her face from interviews. Her name had been popping up on blogs before I got locked up. It seemed she had only grown more popular while I was locked up. This was a big deal for me, but only people who did time with me would understand how big this was. Music helped me pass the time in prison, so I wouldn’t lose my damn mind. While everyone usually gives flowers to the singer or rapper, I believed the true artist was the producer. I would do covers of every song she wrote and produced. She was, indeed, who she thought she was, and I was no hater, so I was gon’ give her her flowers.

She stuck her hand out. “Justice, the pleasure is all mine, but as a woman, I have to let you know that this man has been bothering me.”

My stomach dropped immediately. Meanwhile, Chance looked completely unbothered when I looked to him for an answer.

“Bothering you about what? Why?” I asked, not knowing what the right question to ask was.

“For you, of course. Now. Come on. Let me hear the most beautiful voice that Chance has ever heard. As he has stated many times over the past week.” That caused me to relax and even get a little turned on. The fact that he not only boosted my ego in private, but also did the same thing if I wasn’t in the room, was everything to me.

I walked towards the booth and stopped when I heard Chance call my name.

“Justice.” I looked over my shoulder. “Give her Trouble.” He gave me one of his delicious winks, partnered with that damn smirk.

I entered the booth and took a few deep breaths before grabbing the lyric sheet waiting for me. It was a cover of one of my favorite CoCo Jones songs. My voice trembled at the start, but then I closed my eyes to feel the lyrics, and because I knew the song verbatim, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I had stopped looking through the glass and stopped thinking about Lyric, Chyanne, and Chance. I let the music take over as I sang as if no one was around me. When I finished, silence settled in my headphones, and when I removed them, everything else was still silent, and my stomach sank.

Lyric’s voice came through the speaker in the corner. “Again.”

I blinked in surprise. “It was that bad?” I asked. I thought I did great.

“Hell no,” she replied warmly.

“Just sing again. This time, try not to be nervous. That first session was to get you warmed up.”

I peeked through the glass and saw Chance nod in approval. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes with a small smile. Then the music began to play. The second time around felt different. I let go and relaxed into the moment. By the third go-round, I was singing as if I had been performing in front of them for years.

When I finally stepped out of the booth, my cheeks hurt from smiling.

“You know people pay thousands of dollars for vocal coaches, and you’re just walking around with that voice. Unbelievable.”

She got up and walked over to another console. She removed something and then plugged it into the PC she was using.

As the file loaded, she turned to me. “One of my artists has been sitting on this record because he isn’t impressed with any of the vocalists.” She turned to me again. “I know he’ll love you.”

“Now, why did you have to say it like that. Unless you want a dead artist on your hands. Watch it.”