Lucina wore another expensive, eye-popping dress, with heels to match. As she walked by, she ignored the men out front as if they were all shadows in the dark.

“Is Ivan still inside?” she asked the security. She wanted them all to know who she was there for. It was more marketing for the future.

“Oh, yeah, he’s still in there,” the security told her.

“Take me inside to see him,” she ordered.

The security guards didn’t say another word. One turned to lead her inside.

One of the other ballers said, “Yo, I thought you said it wasn’t no more room in there,” to the remaining guards.

“There’s always room for her,” one of the guards deadpanned.

A few of the crowd started to chuckle. Someone said, “Well, goddamn, I wish I was Ivan.”

INSIDE THE LOUNGE, Lucina strolled into the middle of the room and immediately called the attention of her four girls. All eyes were on her, just as she liked it, especially since the game had reached halftime. Her four pretty workers scrambled in her direction from their separate sides of the room, all wearing curve-hugging jerseys and heels with tight blue jeans. Then the whispers started:

“Hey, that’s Lucina.”

“You know who that is, don’t you?”

“That’s Lucina Gallo right there.”

“Is that Lucina?”

“Yo, she da baddest bitch.”

“That girl looks skinny to me.”

“That’s a nice-ass dress she’s wearing.”

“Who the fuck is she?”

“Damn, my dick is hard just looking at her, homes.”

“Yeah, she’s very pretty.”

“I guess she’s the boss bitch, hunh?”

“Why is everybody staring at her?”

There were nearly three hundred opinions of her inside the room.

Perry Browning hollered out above the crowd, “LU-CI-NAAA! You bring six more girls with you? I told Ivan he went cheap on us in here tonight!”

Lucina only smiled in the football player’s direction. She had little tolerance for him that night.

She asked her girls in their huddled circle, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” they all answered.

“And are they treating you right in here?”

“Yeah, they’re treating us good.”

Lucina nodded to them. By that time Ivan had spotted her. She made eye contact with him and proceeded to send her girls away. “Okay, everyone go to their own homes tonight. Now let me talk to Ivan,” she told them.

As soon as they all left her, Lucina stared at Ivan through the crowd and gave him a come-here finger motion.

Ivan saw it from across the room and froze.

God knows, I wanna fuck the hell out of that girl, he mused of Lucina’s sexy grandstanding. I thought she said she wasn’t coming tonight. Let me go over here and see what she wants.