Purple Rain

Chapter 4: Raspberry Beret

It was a ritual that Prince would stay with me all weekend until Monday. He would practice with his band five to six days a week and work with dad on Tuesdays and Wednesdays if he could. He would talk about music on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, but Saturday nights and all of Sunday would be for us. The weekdays is where we missed each other the most because he had yet to get a phone at Mattie's. But every night before he headed home, he always called me at their rehearsal building. Sundays we would go to my dad's for dinner, and seeing him opening up every week was rewarding. He was staying away from his father, and I rarely saw his mother, but this weekend his stepdad would be working graveyards. This was something new for us to spend time together because we usually spent the weekends at my place. Today, I worked the morning shift so I was getting off around 1 and that's when Prince was starting his work at dad's business around 1. He had worked there last week, but I unfortunately missed it because I worked 2 doubles at the restaurant. I decided I was going to bring him some lunch, well, technically dinner since he wouldn't be done until sunset.

I pulled into dad's business and I saw Prince walking all sweaty and shirtless from one building to another one. He hadn't noticed me as he had his Walkman going with his headphones on. I walked into dad's office and slipped the food into the fridge before making my way out to Prince. He was now carrying two pallets out, and damn...he was fit. I walked into the building he was in and he was dragging another pallet to the other side of the building we were in. I could hear the music inside his headphones. "I was.......five.....boss." I cocked my eyebrow. He was singing but I could only catch a few words of the song. I didn't want to scare him, so I stomped my foot on the floor and he turned around. "Oh, hey!" He said before taking his headphones off and leaning them around his neck. He pressed pause on his Walkman. "You got off early." He said surprised. He was sweating and I walked over to him. "That's the beauty of working in the morning." I kissed his cheek. "I brought you something to eat. It's in the fridge behind dad's desk." I sat on a stack of pallets and he walked over to me. He brushed the hair out of my eyes. "I gotta show you something before we leave later." He said. I nodded before he kissed my cheek. He took his Walkman off and placed it beside me before walking over to the pallets. I was glad he was wearing sneakers for right now and not his heels because lately he hadn't taken them off except for when we slept. He was wearing makeup occasionally, too, but he wasn't right now. He was embracing himself which made me so happy for him.

Prince dragged out two more pallets and I was still sitting there watching him. His back was so sweaty which was...a little bit of a turn on for me at the moment. His abs were sweaty, too and sweat was dripping from his curls. He walked back and sat next to me with a bottle of water. "Was work okay?" He asked breathing a little heavy. "Yeah, it was pretty busy for a Wednesday. Why don't you take a break and show me what you wanted to show me?" I asked him. He drank some more water before standing up and grabbing his Walkman. "Let's go." He said. We left the building we were currently in and I followed him across the area to his rehearsal building. Prince opened the sliding door and I saw how clean it was in the building. It was cooler because the AC was going and he had a couch in front of the "stage" which was just a bunch of pallets put together with plywood on top of it. "Wow." I said looking around. We walked around the couch so we could sit down. Everything was set up like a professional stage, but just on a budget. "Do you like it? I've been working on it on my down time." I smiled and laughed looking at everything. "This is so cool. I can't believe you did this all by yourself." I slid closer to him and laid my cheek on his thigh. "I'm so proud of you." I said to him. He was stroking my hair back. "Thank you." He said softly. I reached up to take his hand and bring his fingers to my lips. I kissed each one individually.

"Samira...do you...would you like to go out this weekend?" He asked me. I rolled over onto my back. "Go where?" I asked Prince. He stroked his middle finger over my chin. "Wherever. I got paid from my first album and...I figured we could go somewhere." I smiled a little. "Are you asking me out?" I asked him. Prince blushed. "Yeah, I am." I smiled before taking his hand. "Why don't we just spend the weekend at your mother's like we planned, and you can send her on a vacation. I'm sure she'd love that." His eyes lit up at the idea. "We could have the whole place to ourselves, too." He said. I watched his eyes as he was thinking. "Your mother would love that so much. I'm sure she wouldn't tell Hayward. When he comes home to sleep I'll hide and when he leaves the house is ours." It was like being a teenager and sneaking around with a boyfriend my parents didn't like. I sat up and turned to face him. "Mom has been wanting to see her sister." He was deeply considering it.