She grabbed my arms and said, “No, you’re not taking a taxi.” She was a little tipsy, too. They were both tipsy. I was only buzzed.

TaShay stepped on my feet with her heels and whispered, “We can have our own party.”

I said, “I don’t think Tan is up for leaving, and she’s the one who drove us here.”

I just wanted to get the hell out of there before the girl started going mad for the bigger fish and pissing me off. I never liked that pecking-order shit unless I was the one doing the pecking.

“She’ll leave,” TaShay assured me. “Let me go talk to her.”

She broke away from me and squeezed through the crowd toward Tan. I waited there for her and thought about the both of them again. Did I want to get involved, or did I want to send them both home?

I looked around at all the game players in the club and figured, If I don’t get involved with them, there are plenty of guys in here who will.

Just give them what they want, I told myself again.

TaShay came back holding Tan’s hand. “She just wants to meet a few people, then she’ll be ready to go.”

I looked at Tan, who may have been more than tipsy, and she winked at me.

This girl is ready to get in any kind of trouble she can get into, I told myself. I still didn’t want to be embarrassed by her drunken assertion, so I planned to stay clear of them while they went star searching.

I said, “All right, well you guys stay safe and sound, and I’ll be waiting for you near the entrance.”

I surely wasn’t planning on standing around while they squeezed, and pushed, and begged to get near Jamie Foxx and crew. I even heard that Will Smith was in the building. Shit, a guy has to have his own pride, you know.

I was standing there minding my own business when a familiar face walked up to greet me.

“Long time no see, stranger.”

“Hey, how are you doing?” I asked her. It was Shauna Eubanks, the first California woman I ever slept with. I met her on my first trip out to L.A. in the early nineties. Shauna was a budding model herself back then, and she still looked tight and good. A lot of folks my age had gotten loose around the belly, but she had kept it all together and was wearing a red, mid-thigh skirt to prove it. In fact, I met her through Marcus Vissel.

She said, “I’ve been doing my thing, I can’t complain. But you know I have two kids now.”

It seemed like everyone was throwing that in my face just to say that I was getting old and useless or something. Or maybe that was just how I perceived it.

I joked and said, “They’re not mine are they?”

I caught her off-guard with that. She chuckled and said, “Hey, man, you don’t want to play that game. Do you have any kids?”