THIRTY-FIVE: THE GIFT

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Despite Giovanni's attempts to make trouble between us and the increased pressure that came with being more successful, Adonis and I were more in love than ever. We worked as a team whether we were taking care of our dogs or our house. In everything we did, I tried to follow the advice a friend gave me before I got married.

"I don't think a relationship can ever work if each person gives only fifty percent," she had said.

"Why not?" I asked, puzzled. "That sounds fair to me."

She shook her head. "No, the real way to think about marriage is that you each have to give one hundred percent."

Adonis and I both gave one hundred percent to each other. We never kept score the way some couples we knew did, with a "you did that, so I'm going to do this," kind of tally. We had no pet peeves with each other. We were best friends.

For instance, in the same way that Adonis had always dreamed about opening his own record label, he knew that one of my goals since high school had been to be a singer and songwriter and produce music on my own, but I was slowly growing out of that idea as I saw all that Adonis went through with his label on a daily basis. Even though Adonis had been adamant about me staying with The Delegation so that I could be on the road with him, he did everything he could to support me in reaching this goal.

By the time Adonis opened his studio, Abraham had started to manage different bands through Q Productions. When he found a rock band in Virginia Beach that he wanted to take on, he asked if I'd like to write some songs for them. The idea didn't sound appealing to me-if I'd wanted to form a rock band or even write music for one, it wouldn't have been with these particular musicians. But I decided to do it because I wanted to help Abraham, and maybe I would learn something in the process.

One day, the singer of this band came over to work on a song I'd written, with lyrics by Ricky. Adonis was there, donning a snap back and some sweats as he relaxed on the couch with BeBe and Chronic while enjoying his normal blunt. He smoked and walked around the house eating everything in sight while this singer and I worked for hours on a song in our home studio. I had no idea that Adonis was actively listening as I kept trying to teach the guy to do the song a certain way, putting emphasis here or there on the lyrics and hitting certain notes. But he just couldn't get it; he never really understood what I meant. Finally, frustrated, I told him we were through for the day.

"You know what, we got a good start today, so let's just pick this up tomorrow." I said.

The second I had walked him out the door, Adonis was standing right beside me, laughing his ass off. "Damn baby, how you ain't lose your fucking mind with that nigga, going over that song over and over again?" he asked.

𝑇𝑂 𝐴𝐷𝑂𝑁𝐼𝑆...𝑊𝐼𝑇𝐻 𝐿𝑂𝑉𝐸  | 𝐷. 𝑆𝑊𝐼𝑁𝐺Where stories live. Discover now