CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
jamal's sacrifice
Jamal
next day
The Lyons were having an urgent family meeting this morning thanks to Hakeem and his loud ass mouth. He had told the world about Jamal and Mateo when he was having a bitch fit, and Jamal wouldn't be surprised if he was trending on Twitter again.
Thirsty paced around while on his tablet. "Well...this isn't looking too good."
Jamal grew worried. "How bad is it?"
"It's pretty bad. You're trending on Twitter, and everyone's wondering if you're gay. But that's not the worst part."
"What could be worst than that?" Ro asked.
"The Twitter detectives," Thirsty answered. "They did their research and figured out the guy Jamal's always with is in fact Mateo, so Jamal's not looking too good right now."
Jamal glared at Hakeem. "I hope you're proud of yourself."
Cookie yelled at him. "What the hell were you thinking, Hakeem? You can't expose your brother like that! It was his choice to come out to the world, and you took that from him!"
"I wasn't trying to expose him. I was mad, and I didn't know everyone was recording."
"You punched him in the face. Of course they were going to record."
Andre shook his head. "I told you that you need to work on your emotions, Hakeem. Now look. Our brother's life is in shambles."
Lucious said, "Calm down, Andre."
"No, I'm not going to calm down. It's one thing to argue at home, but now they're arguing at your company, Pop! That's not a good look!"
"I bet you're thrilled," Jamal said with an attitude.
"With your snake ass!" Hakeem spat.
"That's enough!" Cookie interjected. "Don't come for Andre when you're the one who fucked up, boy!"
Jamal huffed and crossed his arms. "Dad. You said we can salvage this. How?"
"By this." He left and came back with a white girl with straight black hair. Jamal had never seen her before in his life.
"Okay...who's she?"
"This is Tory Ash. Your girlfriend."
Everyone gave him a bewildered look, including Jamal. "My what?"
"Your girlfriend," Lucious repeated. "The world thinks you're gay, right? Once you go public with Tory, they'll no longer think that."
Jamal laughed because this was fucking crazy. "Okay, you've said a lot of crazy things during my twenty three years on this earth, but this is next level insanity. I'm not pretending to be straight."
"You don't have a choice. Do you want Empire to be blacklisted? Do you all want that? Then none of you will be CEO!"
Andre didn't look happy about that at all.
Royalty said, "What if we're overreacting? What if the world doesn't care if Jamal's gay?"
Lucious looked at her seriously. "Jamal is a Lyon, and when it comes to Lyons, people always care. So this is the only choice you have, son."
Jamal was so annoyed. "What about Mateo?"
"What about him? He doesn't matter right now. Tory does."
"But he's my-"
Lucious cut him off. "Forget about Mateo, Jamal! Worry about your new girlfriend. And if you wanna be mad at someone, be mad at Hakeem. He caused this."
Hakeem just stood there looking guilty.
"Look, does this family care about Empire or not?" Lucious then asked.
"Yeah we do. So if you pretending to be straight saves Empire, then that's what you'll do, Jamal," Cookie said.
His jaw dropped. "Ma-"
"It has to be done, Jamal." Then she held his face sadly. "We all have to make sacrifices in this family. This is yours, baby."
Yeah, this was a sacrifice. He was sacrificing his relationship with Mateo. Mateo wasn't gonna be happy about this at all. The question is...how the hell was Jamal gonna tell him?
Hakeem
After that meeting, Hakeem went over to Tiana's house because he felt like shit. The guilt was eating him alive, and it wasn't a good feeling.
He plopped down on Tiana's bed, laying down. "I fucked up so bad, Tiana. I don't know if this fake girlfriend thing is going to fix it."
Tiana paced around. "Let me get this straight. You accidentally told the world that Jamal's gay, and now Lucious has him in a fake relationship with Tory Ash to trick the world into believing he's straight?"
"Yes! Please don't tell anyone the truth because my family would kill me. I've already done enough damage."
"You need to fix this, Hakeem. You owe it to Jamal."
"But how?"
Tiana rubbed her chin. "Does the world know about Tory and Jamal yet?"
"No, they haven't gone public."
"Then do it for them. Go on Instagram and tell your followers that Jamal isn't gay. Tell them about Tory, and tell them to chill with the rumors."
He was unsure. "I don't know...I think it's better if it comes from Jamal."
"Just do it, Hakeem. Trust me, he'll appreciate it. I feel like they'll believe you more than Jamal, anyway."
"Aight." Hakeem stared at his phone, took a deep breath, and then went live. Once again, hundreds of people came rushing in, all asking about Jamal. "Wassup y'all. I wanted to hop on here and clear the rumors about my brother. He isn't gay, so please stop saying that. He has a girlfriend named Tory Ash."
Tiana gave him a thumbs up, and he saw people asking who was Mateo. "Mateo is Jamal's best friend. Not his boyfriend."
Then he saw someone ask, who is Martha then? Hakeem furrowed his eyebrows at the screen. "What do you mean who is Martha?"
The person said, when you were arguing with Jamal, you said you meant to say Martha and not Mateo. So who's Martha?
Hakeem quickly came up with a lie. "Ohhh, that! No, that was a mistake. Martha is his girlfriend Tory. I had her name mixed up." Based on the comments, they believed him. Thank god.
"But yeah. I wanted to put a stop to the rumors because they're making Jamal uncomfortable and that's not cool. If you guys see anyone saying anything bad about my brother, put them in their place for me. Can y'all do that?" Everyone said yes. Hakeem smiled. "I know y'all will. That's why I love y'all. But I gotta go. I'll talk to y'all later."
He ended the live and let out a deep breath. Then he looked at Tiana. "Did I completely butcher that?"
"No, you just saved Jamal's image. They believed every word you said!"
"Yeah, but that was a couple of hundred people. What about the rest of the world?" he questioned.
"The news is going to spread fast. Trust me, the rumors are going to end."
Hakeem hoped they did because he really fucked up and he felt so bad. He didn't want Jamal's life to be ruined, and he definitely didn't want Jamal hating him for the rest of his life. Because despite their arguments, he really did care about Jamal. He loved him, man.
So Hakeem hoped Jamal appreciated what he had just done for him. And he'd do anything else for Jamal. He deserved that much.
TORY ASH