“Shhuusshh!” she whispered. “… There it go again! I think my phone iz tapped. I’ll talk ta ya later … Bye!!”

Just like that she was gone. Meanwhile, Goldie was left standing at the pay phone dumbfounded. Little did she know this would be the last time she’d talk to Kat.

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER
14

AFTER THE MÉNAGE À TROIS, Tender shied away from Kat. She’d given one hundred percent of herself to their friendship and in return all she got was Kat’s ass to kiss. For her loyalty and devotion all she received was empty promises and a pack of lies. She questioned herself, how could she have been so gullible? How could she have put her life in Kat’s hands?

Tender had a strange notion, that Q and Kat were seeing each other behind her back. She wasn’t stressing out behind that though. She didn’t like it, but what could she do. She didn’t own him. He was free to do what he liked. After all, she was still sleeping with him and he was still taking care of her. She just wished they would be up front about it.

The whole situation was bigger than a man. She knew she made a mistake by bringing Kat around him. She rationalized, “Men come and go. Friends last forever.” True friends do. They don’t cross certain lines.

True to her word, Tender began to hustle up the money for Goldie’s lawyer. She began spending as much time working as humanly possible. She spent as little time as possible at her so-called home. She only slept there. She and Kat began to see less and less of each other. That was because Kat was spending quite a lot of time out of the house herself, with Q.

“Tenda, c’mere! Come holla atcha gurl!” Luscious yelled across the somewhat empty club.

Luscious was an older stripper who Tender had gotten familiar with by dancing in the same clubs. There were quite a few strip joints in Philly, but when you travel in the same circles, you’re bound to run into the same people. Plus their personalities were so much alike, laid back, that they couldn’t help but to like each other.

“It’s fuckin’ dead in here tanite,” Tender announced. “I shoulda stayed home! I ain’t neva seen it like dis.”

“Hey, get usta it,” Luscious cautioned. “If you been around long as I have, you’ll see. Every night ain’t a good night. It be like dis sometime … I can remember me and my girlfriend sittin’ at dis same bar, cryin’ our eyes out it was so bad …. We went home da way we came in. Broke!!!”

“Damn! Well what did you do on days like dis?” Tender inquired. “How you make it?”