Later that same night, when Butta came in and got into the bed where Arnessa was lying awake, she told him, “Thanks for the handbags—they’re all really pretty. But you didn’t have to—”

Cutting her off, he placed a finger across her lips. “You’re a lady now … my lady.”

Lil Wayne’s Receipts filled the car as Arnessa sat outside of Cenise’s school, waiting for her. Without alerting her phone, Butta’s voice came over her Nextel speaker. “Ma, where you at?”

Pressing the PTT button on the side of her phone, she chirped him back, “Picking Cenise up from school.”

“What else you got to do?”

“Um, I’m running Cenise and her friend a few places.”

“Meet me at my people’s spa that I showed you on Seventh. Let them take your whip and go.”

“Aight,” she responded.

Butta closed his phone. “She’s on her way,” he announced to Kisa, Sincere, and Eisani.

“Now, what is it that you want us to do?” Eisani asked Butta.

“E, she the same girl you picked the handbags out for. I want y’all to take her shopping.” Butta pulled two bundles of money, totaling a little over fifteen thousand from the pockets of his jeans and set them on Kisa’s desk. “Pick her out some hot shit, yo. I want her to get some fly shit. I’m talking about skirts, dresses, blouses, jeans, shades, shoes—”

Kisa interrupted him, “Butta, you upgrading bitches now?”

Everyone laughed, including Butta. “Come on, Kane, you know it ain’t like that.”

“I’m fucking with you, b. I can tell you like her, though. I’ve never heard you talk about a girl the way you talk about this Arnessa.”

“I know,” Sincere interjected, “all he been talking about is Arnessa since he picked me up this morning.”

“That’s enough, that’s enough,” Butta said, grinning. “I’m feeling her for real, plus she so cool. I can’t wait for you all to meet her.”

* * *

Once inside the bustling luxury spa, the receptionist led Arnessa upstairs to Kisa’s office. When Arnessa entered the room, Butta stood up and pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. He kissed her. “Hey, baby.”

“Hi,” she said in a low voice, not at all used to being affectionate in front of others.

Proudly, he introduced her to everyone. “This is Arnessa. Arnessa, this is my brother Sincere, his wife Kisa—but we call her Kane—and this is Eisani, she not nobody special.”

“Shut up,” Eisani told him. Then she turned to Arnessa. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same here.” Arnessa smiled nervously, feeling insecure in the presence of Kisa and Eisani. The two of them were beautiful, as exquisitely dressed as if they’d just stepped off the pages of Vogue. They both exuded power and confidence without speaking. Feeling inferior to another female was not something that Arnessa was used to.

“We outside when y’all ready,” Butta said, walking out with his arm around Arnessa.

As they walked down the stairs Arnessa asked Butta, “Where are we going?”