REMINISCE || MR. DALVIN. [ON HOLD]

chapter 6.

Dalvin's hand still hadn't left my waist as we all shuffled out to the limousine, each member of Jodeci and their entourage filing in one by one. This was excluding the groupies and the security - they rode in an SUV behind us, and the groupies just got left behind at the venue. There was only so much room in the limo, and it wasn't like they couldn't find more girls anyways. They had it like that, and if those ladies really adored them, they'd follow us to.....wherever we were going.

K was still going off about Mary's sudden and dramatic exit, assuring me that I was straight and she was just bugging.

"Per usual," he said, shaking his head, "But it's cool though. I'm glad she gone, fuck her."

Okay, then.

"Hold up," Cordell said suddenly, raising his hands to get everyone's attention, "If we all gone hang out and everything, I just gotta know one thing - " He pointed towards me, " - how y'all know this girl?"

"I don't know if we really wanna get into all that," I said, laughing. I was sat at the end of the limo in between Dalvin and Maya, meanwhile, Cordell was sat right in front of Dalvin, who had his arm resting behind me.

"Come on now, we gotta tell the story. That's a whole made-for-TV-movie right there," K said.

"It really is," Maya said, and I kissed my teeth.

"First of all, you stop co-signin' for people that ain't me," I said, making everyone laugh. I sighed before looking up at Dalvin, who looked down at me with raised eyebrows.

"Do you wanna tell the story?" He asked.

"Nah, you can do it. You're better at tellin' stories anyways," I said, and Cordell leaned forward with interest.

"Alright," he said before clearing his throat.

"Wait, no, I change my mind. I'll tell it, you gone add some extra shit onto it," I said.

"Nah, it's too late. So, back in the day, the summer before we put our first record out, we used to live in this shitty, ghetto ass apartment complex," he began.

"I remember that damn apartment," JoJo said, shaking his head.

"Shit, I do too. That carpet y'all had on the floor...." I trailed off, chuckling.

"Nasty as fuck," Dalvin finished for me, "That whole apartment was nasty as fuck. From the shag carpet on the floor to the mice running past our feet and the roaches crawling up the damn walls. We lived there for like two years, that was definitely the lowest point of our lives. Anyways, we were livin' there right, and not that far away was this convenience store we used to go to. Now, at this point, we hadn't been in there in awhile 'cause we were havin' issues with this nigga that worked there. But this one day, we decide to go in there and there's this honey workin' the cash register, and so I stepped to her, 'cause even back then I was The Mack, and I'm like, 'What's up, shorty?' and she started laughin' and was like, 'Nothin' much, daddy.' And - "

"See what I mean? Addin' some extra bullshit on," I said, shaking my head, "How you just gone lie to my cousin like that? See, this is what really happened: he came up to me, tryin' to mack and I turned him down. But, he kept comin' back for more and more, and eventually, Sybil got a date hooked up for us and well...I started hanging around them."

"Pause!" Cordell said, obviously invested in the story, "Y'all used to date?"

"You didn't know that?" Maya questioned.