Free Still Wifey Material by Kiki Swinson Page A

bet every dime in my pocket that she called him to set up the date after she heard me tell Carmen and Rachael that me and Bintu had brunch together this morning. She was such a fucking hater! Why did she always have to be in the spotlight? Wasn’t it enough that Fatu sent his personal shopper to the salon for her to pick out something to wear to his party? I mean, damn! Let me shine sometimes. It was bad enough that I was younger than her, so give me a fucking break already. Her time was up!
    During the course of the day I helped Carmen and Rachael prep their clients, and on my downtime, I did some paperwork. By five pm I hadn’t heard from Bintu, so I tried to get him on the phone while I was in the back office, but I got his voice mail. I left him a brief message saying that I called to hear his voice, so when he got a moment, I wanted him to call me back. As soon as I hung up my cell phone, it started ringing. My heart pounded because I knew it was Bintu calling me right back.
    “Hello,” I said without looking at the CallerID.
    “What’s good, shawty?”
    When I heard the country accent, I automatically knew that it wasn’t Bintu. This was Neeko, the cat I’d just met yesterday. I forced a smile and said, “I’m good! What’s up with you?”
    “I’m chilling.”
    “So what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”
    “I was calling you to see if you wanted to hang out later.”
    “Where are you trying to go?”
    “I was hoping you’d go out to dinner with me.”
    “Sure. What time are you talking?”
    “What about nine?”
    “Nine is cool, but where are you taking me?”
    “I don’t know, but I’m sure we could ride around and find something.”
    “OK, that’s fine. What are you doing now?”
    “Well I’m driving down the beltway so I can make a quick stop at my homeboy’s spot.”
    “Where’s your girlfriend?”
    “Probably hanging out with her girlfriends.”
    “So she’s letting you hang out tonight?”
    “She ain’t letting me do a damn thang! I’m doing this because I want to.”
    Blown away by his arrogance, I said, “OK. You stated your case! How long are you going to be at your homeboy’s spot?”
    “Not long. Why?”
    “No reason. I just asked.”
    “What are you doing now?”
    “I’m down at the salon, sitting in my office, trying to organize a few things.”
    “Make a lot of money today?”
    “What kind of question is that? We’ve got the best stylists around town, so of course we did,” I replied in a cocky manner, dishing out the same amount of egotism he had just dished out to me.
    “Who’s there with you now?” he asked, obviously not feeding into my haughtiness.
    “Both of the stylists we have, but all of us are getting ready to leave.”
    “And where are you going after you leave there?”
    “Home to take a shower so I can see you later.”
    “Whatcha gon’ wear?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Do you have any cute little skirts or dresses?”
    “Yeah, I have a lot of them.”
    “Well, wear one of them.”
    “OK, I will.”
    Just as I was getting ready to speak again, Neeko cut me off. “Hey, listen, Nikki, I’ma call you back after I holla at my peoples, OK?”
    “OK.”
    After I hung up with Neeko, I was happy to no end. I was going out on a date tonight and I knew I was going to have a good time. He looked like he had money, so I knew he was going to take me somewhere really nice. Now I wasn’t gonna fuck him, because I had just fucked Bintu last night and that would be trifling of me to let another man dig up in me the very next night. What I planned to do was eat, talk, and bullshit around until I got tired.
    Several minutes later I heard Rachael scream at the top of her lungs. I jumped to my feet and snatched the office door open to see what was going on. I was met by a very tall, masked man pointing a big-ass gun in my face.
    “If you scream or make any noise, I’m gon’ kill you right on the spot,” he warned me.
    “What’s going