𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐘 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒: 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

June 24, 1988

It's been three months since the boys relocated to New York, and they were still in the same spot. Still working at the nightclub, still cramped up in a one bedroom apartment, and no music deal. Desmond was feeling more than bummed out about this fact, it's like he was running out of patience.

Though he met one of his favorite singers and slid her their CD, he began to think he was in over his head about something spontaneous happening after that. Why did he think they would get some call from a big record company two months later? Now he just had to laugh at himself for even thinking that, reality slapped him in the face once again.

"I don't know if I wanna stay down here any longer." Desmond spoke into the phone, telling his father how he really felt at the moment.

"Why you talking like that?" Aaron asked.

"Pops me and Gino been down here since March, the point of us coming to the big apple was to jump start a career. Nothings happened yet, I'm getting bored." He admitted.

"Y'all not working hard enough, what all have y'all done down there to make people think y'all were trying to start a career?"

"Honestly, not enough. Back when we met Sade, I gave her a demo tape basically and we all went back to our regular day lives after that."

"Well Sade already got her a career, she ain't gotta work to get out there, y'all do. Instead of just djing at the club, handout some mixtapes like the rest of these dudes doing nowadays on the streets."

Desi sighed into the phone "Thats not a bad idea, but we barely got enough to just be handing them out. Not everybody gone actually listen, and I'll be damned if one of our cd's end up on the side of the curb."

"I feel you on that, not everybody gone support ya if you ain't already big and well known." Aaron agreed and Desi only nodded "Its plenty of underground acts who made it big though, you and Gino just gotta keep at it. Start getting some small gigs in these nightclubs and you'll be surprised at just who might be lurking in the corner."

"We already a step ahead on that, we decided to play a little something tonight at this jazz club or whatever, hopefully tonight will be the night we get discovered. If not, it's definitely a wrap down here in the big city." He shrugged, almost giving up.

"Just think positive." He said before he had to eventually go and get back to work. They said their goodbyes before Desmond placed the phone back on the hook, picking up his joint he already rolled up.

Looking around the living room, Desi glanced at most of the instruments him and Gino bought over the past two months. Keyboards, guitars, saxophones and whatnot. They played them every other day in the apartment, and tonight would finally be in front of a small audience, it counts as something though.

Hearing the front door open, Gino and Cashmere came in with two boxes of pizza.

"Aww so this why you ain't wanna ride along! His ass wanted to sit up in here and smoke by himself." Gino shook his head, feeling betrayed since they always smoked together.

"Damn straight, I need this right now. I'm stressed."

"About what?" Cash asked, he can be completely clueless sometimes. Most of his attention was on grabbing him multiple slices of pizza though.

"This whole music shit, we ain't got no where and it seems I'm the only one bothered by that." He said and gave Gino the side eye.

"You don't think I'm fed up about us not doing shit yet? I'm salty as hell too, but I ain't gone sweat it. The opportunities gone come around sooner or later."