SEGUE. Ϟ

lii

"Damn it, P. You've been a father for a while now and you still don't know how to change a fucking diaper?" Lisa scolded, picking Omar up and putting him on a changing station. Chres, Lisa, Tionne, Sheila, Rozonda, Michael, and I were crowded in a family bathroom, trying to change the twins. They had been screaming and crying for about 15 minutes. "Come here, nephew. Let titi change yo ol' shitty diaper." Tionne said, picking up Addaren, putting him on the sink. "That's nasty, Tionne." Chres said, scrunching his nose. "Antoine Chresanto, please shut up." I need to find out what their problem is. Michael and Ro were in the corner, flirting. Wait, I swear she said she was pregnant the other day. There was a whole lot of shit going on and Andréa wasn't here to ease the tension.

Sheila stood by the baby bag, handing the girls whatever they needed for the twins. "I'ma go outside and get some-"

"No you're not. You're going to stay in here." Lisa interjected. "But I'm sweating bullets." I complained. "Oh, then maybe you should shoot another scene for Computer Blue. Sheila can play Bobby, Tionne can play Lisa, Michael can play Fink, Chres can play Brownmark, and I can play Wendy. RoRo can play Jill or Apollonia."

"Lisa, you're such a damn smartass." I snapped. She turned her head around, abruptly. "Did I make little Princey mad?" I took a deep breath and turned around. It was hot in this bathroom and I was getting irritated.

"Alright. Let's go. We're all done." I was the first to leave the overcrowded bathroom. I didn't even bother to worry about the stares I got from people watching all of us leave. We were in the middle of nowhere, it seemed like. In all reality, we were in Texas, on our way to Arizona. Initially, me and Chres were going to go see Dréa but I got a call early this morning saying that there was a mistrial or something in that nature so Chres took it upon himself to call the family to go get Dréa.

We all got on the bus. Joey was the driver. I sometimes forget that he works for Janet. Wait, isn't he supposed to be getting ready to tour with J?

"Next stop... Gerry- nigga what kind of prison name is this?" Lisa said, trying to pronounce the name. "It's in Arizona. It's too dry and hot to come up with anything legit." Tionne said, holding Omar. I held Addaren, who was cooing. "Put on some music." I said. Michael groaned as he heard Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. We all laughed at his frustration. There's no telling how many times he heard his own songs. It gets annoying at times. "Awe, don't worry Michael, we all go through it."

"Even me." Chres added. With Chres being Andréa's personal engineer, he has to hear all of her songs over a thousand times and he always complains to me about how he's going to run away and let my engineer handle her. Andréa is worse than me in the studio. I'm very strict and hands on but Dréa? She has to make sure it's perfect. When I first listened to her record, she went berserk on some amateur engineer over static sounds on the record. I was truly scared.

"Alright, you can sit over there on the couch. You ready, Isaac?" I looked over at the nerdy engineer who looked no older that 23. He looked fresh out of college. "Y-Yes." The boy sounded traumatized. She went into the booth and signaled for Isaac to begin. After recording the rest of the song, she listened to the track and snapped. "Issac, what the fuck? Why the fuck do I hear static?" This girl was 17 and going off like she's 30. "This is only the demo cut. W-When I mix and cut, the static won't be there." She held her hand up. "Isaac, you're a cute little white brother. Where you from?"

"Bel Air." She shook her head and started laughing. "How long have you been engineering?"

"I just got my license a year and a half ago, but I've been producing-" She held her hand up again. "That's what you keep getting messed up. You are NOT the producer. You are the engineer, which means DO NOT FUCKING MESS AROUND WITH MY TRACKS. I do the mixing and the cutting, dude. Not you. Your job is to make sure I don't heart he fucking static." She paced the room as few times. Poor Isaac didn't even realize that she was about to blow up. She flipped the chair and all of the papers. "Get the fuck out of my studio. Go find some half ass entertainer to engineer. Hell, Madonna could use all the help she needs. Tell my fucking brother to come down here on your way out!"

"Alright, cut the radio. We ain't talked in a while. So what's up?" Chilli said. I was surprised, to say the least. Chilli and Michael has been so engaged in each other that I swore that she had forgot about the fact that she's in a group.

"Well, me and Andre are dead, finally. I'm just chilling with DeVante Swing for now. We'll see how that goes. Still working out this whole bankruptcy shit with LaFace."

"I'm no longer with Dalvin, for one. Uh, I'm just really trying to stay out of the hospital, honestly." Chres didn't seem too happy about Tionne mentioning Dalvin. "Woah, somebody put me in the mix. It's been so long." Sheila said. Sheila hasn't hanged with the crew since 92, so she's way behind. "LET ME TELL IT!" Chilli said before anyone else could. "Alright, here's the deal. I'm going to just talk about Tionne and Chresanto. Last time you were in the mix, they were together. Okay, Tionne and Chres are complicated. Chres doesn't want to commit all the way because of that incident. He is committed to the music. Tionne don't like that. A girl needs love. Tionne ain't gon wait for him so she started to talk with Dalvin when we were on the Bobby Brown tour."

"What the fuck?! Ayo, T! You told me you started to talk to that fool after!" Chres snapped. This was getting good. I went to the kitchen area and grabbed me some tea, along with Lisa and Michael. "Aye, chill. Let me finish. Anyways, like I was saying, they were talking. Most of the time, he was macking while she just focused on the tour. It wasn't until after when they started to kick it, after Chres broke things off. When Dalvin cheated, the first time, she went to Dréa's and of course Chres was there. Let's just say they did the nastyyy. They got back together, broke up, she went back to Dalvin, and then this cycle continues. Up until now. She's done with Dalvin but we don't know what will happen from here with these complicated two."

"Wow." Sheila said. She couldn't quite process it. "Y'all give me a headache and it ain't even my relationship." She added. "Now, me and Michael are engaged and planning to get married in the spring of 1997." I spat out my tea and shot my head towards Michael. I couldn't believe my ears. "Engaged? When the hell were you going to tell me?"

"Well, we would've told you at the Christmas dinner but y'all spazzed."

"You mean to tell me that y'all have been engaged for almost a year and didn't tell anyone?" Tionne said. "I mean, we just told y'all." I shook my head. "Secretive motherfuckers."

"I'm going to go take a nap with my twins so y'all don't kill each other." I said, grabbing the two, carrying them to the very back, where I usually slept on tour.