one shots

method to the madness [3/3]

Loud pounding on the door broke the tranquil air that occupied Clifford's home. It woke him and Mia up instantaneously while J-Wop's voice shouted from the opposite side of the door.

"Clifford! Get your ass up! I'm not playing with you!" She ordered. The sunlight that poured into the room stung the eyes of the agitated couple as they both sat up from their respective positions on his couch.

"What's going on?" Mia mumbled while wiping the sleep from her eyes and stretching her arms a bit.
"I don't know," he answered while rolling his head to ease the stress on his neck.

He stood up and stretched, sluggishly moving toward the door, which was two seconds away from being beat down.

He opened the door, J-Wop taking a quick step inside as if she was planning to ram the door. "Why are you banging on my door like this? Do you know how early it is?" he asked, closing the door behind the usually stressed out woman.
"Early?" her voice went up an octave as she looked at the man as if he were crazy. "It's 3:00 in the afternoon."

It was then that her eyes found Mia, who had yet to arise from the couch. The butterscotched woman blinked, her eyebrows rising in surprise. "Oh, well, good afternoon to you too, sunshine. You didn't tell me you'd have company, Cliff," the woman made her way over to one of the seats in the living room.

"You didn't ask. You didn't even call before you came. You just—"
"Anywho, we have a problem, Clifford," she finally began delving in the reason why she was here.
"A problem like what?" he kissed his teeth while sitting on the couch armrest that was closest to Mia.

"A problem like this," she started pulling photos out of the manila folder she carried and placing them on his coffee table.

At first glance, it just looked like some bad ass photos taken with horrible lighting. However, under a more careful eye, it was evident that the pictures showed Clifford beating someone up in an alley. Mia briefly remembered some journalists huddled up outside of the club, last night.

"How is this a problem?" he asked.
"It's making the label look bad, Meth. I mean— what if this guy decides to sue you or press charges. The label isn't gonna bail you out. They don't want anything to do with shit like this," J explained.
"So, they're perfectly fine employing and funding hustlers and gangsters and fighters and shooters, but completely distance themselves from any tendencies that hustlers and gangsters and fighters and shooters have. . . Yeah, that makes sense," Clifford sarcastically nodded.

"Look, your album just dropped. How do you think this is gonna' make you look? You're—"
"It's gonna' make me look like me! A nigga wanna' act out, he can get stomped out. I don't care if I'm the Method Man or the motherfuckin' Blank Man, J," Clifford shook his head.
"You can't think like that anymore, Clifford. You're a celebrity now, whether you want to be or not."

"Okay, so the next time somebody I care about is being held at knifepoint, what would you suggest I do, J? Huh?" he asked.
"Who was. . ." J-Wop's voice trailed off, concern filling her eyes as they drifted toward Mia, who didn't return the eye contact.

The woman frowned briefly. "I'm sorry, Mia."
"It's fine. It's in the past," she waved off the topic, wanting to just move on from the event. Every mentioning of it brought her right back in that alley with fear pumping through her veins.

"I'd like to think that, but I have reason to believe that this won't be a fleeting memory," J-Wop explained while recollecting the photos she put on display.
"What do you mean?" Mia's eyebrows furrowed.

"These pictures are gonna' be printed in every newspaper and magazine soon. If I have these pictures, you better believe that damn near every source of press has these as well," she explained. "We need to have a game plan."