Old Happenings Bring New Troubles

"Hey Nicki... Safaree..." Drake looked away and took a seat on the couch across from them in the hotel suite. He didn't think Safaree would be around for whatever it is that Nicki wanted to talk to him about. Drake assumed it would be just a normal conversation of them talking like always and discussing what's going on with both of them. You know, the usual. But when he walked in and saw how serious Nicki's face was...and SB in the room as well he figured it's definitely something else. 


"Hey Drake." Nicki spoke up casually which confused Drake but he didn't let it show on his face. He only shifted on the couch so he didn't feel like he was sliding between the seat cushions. Nicki looked next to her at Safaree to try and read his face for an expression but it was nothing. Just his normal stare. Looking around as if he could care less to be apart of this conversation but since Nicki insisted, he was here. 


Safaree really wanted to be anywhere other than here right now. Safaree's phone buzzed and he immediately thanked God when he read the message and who it was from.


"Y'all can talk. Manny needs me for help in the other room." Nicki cut her eyes at Safaree while he stood up. She watched him and Drake share a head nod and Safaree proceeded out of the room. She looked off to the side at nothing in particular until Drake spoke up breaking her from her trance.


"So, wussup with you Nicki? How you been?" 


Nicki leaned to the side tucking her legs under her and sat on them. She leaned her arm on the arm of the couch and made eye contact with him.


"I'm great, how are you? How's the movie coming along?"


"It's good. You know I had to let my hair grow out for it. That's why I'm looking all sexy and scruffy right now." Drake said as he ran his fingers through his hair and over his beard. Nicki playfully rolled her eyes and twisted her lips.


"Oh  really?"


"Yeah." he chuckled. "How are you though? How are things working with the album?"


"It's coming along fine. I'm really really enjoying making an album this time around. It's so much more fun, you know? I felt so much pressure with the first one and it's so good to just kind of... relax and be free with this one. You know?"


"Trust me, I know. I felt the same way." Drake looked at her and Nicki gave a slight smile and ran her fingers through her hair.


"So what did you want to talk about? Sounded important?" 


"Uhm... I wanted to talk to you about us." 


As soon as she said that Drake's eyes lit up and Nicki frowned. Of course he would think she meant that in a good way but little did he know what she was really here to tell him.


"What about us?" He said with a little too much excitement in his voice. Nicki sighed and untucked her  legs from under her and sat up straight looking directly into his eyes waiting for him to return the same eye contact. 


"I know we play around constantly. The flirting and stuff like that." Nicki paused for a moment. "But I really think we shouldn't anymore."


"Why? What did I do?"


"No, no. This has nothing to do with you. It's just-- look." Nicki got up and walked over to the couch that Drake was sitting on and took a seat right next to him. "I've already made it known to the rest of YM but I wanted to tell you in person and not over the phone given our relationship." She looked at his facial expression and really didn't know how he was going to take what she was about to tell him. She looked down at her hands in her lap before speaking up again.


"Me and Safaree are dating, and I really think all of the playing around should stop, out of respect for him." 


She looked up to look at Drake's face. It was emotionless and blank. He looked off to the side of them room and laughed. "Wow. Are you serious right now?" he laughed again and shook his head. "How long has this been going on?" 


"For a while now." Nicki looked him directly in his eyes while he continued looking off trying to avoid eye contact. "I still love you the same. You know you're a brother to me and that will never change. I don't want there to be any hard feelings."


"Wow. So you really was just gonna keep playing with my emotions while you were actually in a relationship?" he laughed again which began to heavily annoy Nicki. "That's some fucked up shit." Nicki made a confused face. For one she had never seen Drake look this upset yet angry at the same time and she didn't know why he had that tone of voice with her. She put her hand on his shoulder and he roughly shook it off.


"Seriously?" Nicki said obviously with her anger boiling up. She scooted back and away from Drake more so that he could see the anger in her face. He still wouldn't turn his body and look at her though which was making her more upset. She was being sincere and genuine with him but he is acting like a teenager with this attitude right now. She wanted so badly to just grab his face and make him look at her but she didn't want to think about what the action could've resulted in. 


"Can you look at me, please?" Nicki folded her arms across her chest while still staring at him.


"It's hard to look into the face of someone you thought you knew."


Nicki dropped her arms from her chest and her nostrils flared for a second. "Are you seriously acting like this right now?"


"Well how else am I suppose to react to some shit like this?" 


"Whatever, Drake. I'm done with this." Nicki said getting up from the couch and clutching her phone. "I see you don't wanna be an adult about this situation? Really?" Nicki folded her arms standing up staring down at Drake giving him one more chance to fix this. He pulled out his phone and continued ignoring her. Nicki rolled her eyes and began walking towards the door. When Nicki's hand touch the doorknob she immediately dropped it and turned around quickly when she heard Drake's sly remark that he thought he said under his breath. She charged over to him and stopped right in front of him knocking his phone out of his hand to make sure he was going to give her the attention she was demanding in this very moment.


"He's not even with me for the money Drake and I can't even believe you would say something so fucking low and disrespectfu--"


"That's some dumb ass shit right there. Don't even entertain it." Nicki and Drake both looked towards the door to see Safaree standing there with his arms folded across his chest. Nicki relaxed her tense body language when she saw him and they made eye contact and she then turned her attention back to Drake.


"I don't want to speak to you until you can act like an adult. Until then don't even try to contact me." 


"Don't even stress that shit. Let's go" Safaree opened the door and Nicki went to walk out first before they both heard him speak again.


"Yeah go on with your free loading boyfriend."


Safaree turned around and began walking back towards Drake. "Yo, you got one more time to say some slick shit and I promise you it's over. I promise you nigga." 


Drake stood up from the couch when he saw SB approaching and stepped back unknowingly but when he noticed he stepped back up a bit to seem tough. When Nicki saw Drake stand up she hurriedly walked over to Safaree and grabbed his wrist trying to pull him back. 


"Safaree, don't do this."


"Nah, this nigga keeps think it's okay to disrespect niggas and I'm about to teach him a lesson if he keep it up."


"Why don't you just teach me one now? Ain't nothing but space and opportunity." Drake said stepping closer to Safaree.


"You sure that's what you want?" Safaree chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure you'd like it if a guy put their hands on you."


"What the fuck is that suppose to mean?"


"Safaree, c'mon!" Nicki yelled still pulling on his trying to get him to back away from Drake but Drake only kept stepping closer. 


"Exactly what I said." 


"SB!" 


Safaree looked back at Nicki still having a tight grip on his wrist. Nicki's eyes began to burn as she looked into Safaree's eyes. She had never in her life seen him this angry before and it scared her. 


"Please? Just c'mon."


"Better do what your boss said before she cuts you from payroll." 


It was then that Safaree loosened his wrist from Nicki's grasp and pushed Drake making him stumble back and fall to the couch. Safaree stepped up closer to him and went to swing before he heard the soft cries from Nicki. "Safaree... please.." she wiped at a tear that escaped. "It's not worth all of this." Nicki stepped closer to him and grabbed his wrist bring his fist down and pulling him towards her. Drake began to sit up and Safaree turned his head in Drake's direction. Drake sat up and fixed the wrinkles in shirt. 


"If you ever put your hands on me again you'll regret it."


Safaree went to speak again before Nicki pulled him off with all the force she had in her pulling him towards the door. She succeeded  and closed the door behind him. She pulled him by his arm all the way down the hall back to just her and Safaree's hotel suite. She put the card in the door still having hold of his wrist pulling him in the suite behind her. She closed the door and leaned on it. She grabbed hold of his other wrist and held both of them while looking down at the ground. She looked up at him with her watery eyes and then looked off to the side.


"Nic, I'm sorry."


"Can you please just promise to never scare me like that again? Please?" 


Nicki let go of his wrists and wrapped her arms around his waist tightly pulling him towards her. He put one arm around her waist and the other on her head. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head and then removed his hand from her head and put it around her waist.


"I promise."

---

"Did you hear this?" Nicki walked into Safaree's room holding the laptop open and spotted Safaree sitting on his bed watching TV.

"Hear what?" Safaree stared at Nicki as she made her way around the bed to the opposite side of him. She stopped right before the bed taking off her slippers and crawled into the middle of the bed but more so closer to Safaree. She sat the laptop down in front of her sitting criss cross.

"Chris and his diss record to Drake."

"THESE niggas."

Nicki playfully hit his arm and detached the headphones from the laptop.

"Just listen." Nicki put her hand to the mouse pad and pressed play.

“A fuck ni**a, that’s that shit I don’t like/ They throwin’ bottles, I’m throwin’ models just ’cause I give a bitch long pipe, / Doin' shows on tha soccer field that's dome, right? / I be singin’, he be singin’, so it’s on, fight/ But hold up, I ain’t give a ni**a no green light/ This head up, my bread up, one on one, what you scared, bruh?/ Matter fact, take care bruh, you a pu**y ni**a/ My ni**a Tunechi, yeah that ni**a nice/ Shout out to Nicki, man, that ass tight/ Them eyebrows, man, them shits is yikes/ OVO, you overdosed, screamin’ YOLO no, I live twice.”


"Hold on. Why the fuck he mention you though? Nah, he need to shut up forreal."

"Faree, calm down."

"Whatchu mean calm down? You okay with that?"

"Obviously no. But I see you getting angry babe, so calm down." Nicki ran her hand up and down his arm. Safaree sighed and kept his eyes on the TV. Nicki took her hand off of his arm and bent her elbow to rest her chin in her hand.

"Whyyyyyy do they bring me in this?" Nicki slurred her words in a pouting voice. Nicki sighed deeply and looked down at the laptop screen staring at it. "I really just wanna escape from all of this. Do you know how that line made it sound?" Nicki buried both of her hands in her face and sighed again.

"I don't understand why they keep bringing your name up."

"This is getting out of hand."

"It was out of hand from the jump. But I don't know why they bringin' up my lady." Safaree reached over to his nightstand and picked up his Blackberry. Nicki removed her face from her hands when she felt the bed shift and stared at Safaree.

"Safaree don't tweet anything."

"I'm not."

"I'm not playing with you Safaree. Don't."

"Alright, alright. I won't." Safaree put his phone back down on the night stand and then turned his attention back to the TV.

"I don't know what to do about this."

"Stay out of it."

"But Drake is apart of my YMCMB family and I work with Chris."

"Stop stressing this." Safaree sat up and leaned against the headboard. "Yo, look atchu. This don't even have shit to do with you and you stressing. Just relax."

"Well it does have shit to do with me now." Nicki said derailing her eyes back to the laptop screen. Safaree leaned over and closed the laptop, slightly pushing it out of the way. Safaree grabbed a hold of Nicki's arm and pulled her towards him. Nicki gave a slight smile as he was pulling her to him and she threw her leg over his legs and straddled him. As she got comfortable in his lap she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. She snuggled up to him as close as she could get and inhaled his wonderful scent. She smiled to herself loving this moment. She felt like she had escaped the world cuddled up like this to him right now. He wrapped an arm around her and used his other free hand to rub her back. She closed her eyes to take in this moment.

"Thank you." she said barely above a whisper.

"For?"

"Keeping me sane." Nicki laughed a little when she heard Safaree chuckle.

"You don't know when to relax sometimes." he said as he caressed her back a little slower.

Nicki opened her eyes and looked out at nothing specifically. "Faree?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you and Drake could ever really straighten things out?"

"Where is this coming from?"

"I don't know, with all this drama surrounding him lately I've just been thinking about everything that's happened. It's just a thought."

"I'm actually tired of hearing about him. Only thing I'm worried about is this girl I like."

"Oh really? Is she pretty?"

"Pretty? She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Nicki smiled. "She sounds like a keeper."

"Yeah, she's alright I guess though. She be acting mad phony sometimes and be frontin' on me. I don't know if it'll last. I might just hit it and quit it."

"HEY!" Nicki  sat up and poked out her bottom lip while slapping Safaree on his arm causing him to laugh.

Nicki leaned back into Safaree's chest and wrapped her arms back around his waist, locking her hands together behind him. She closed her eyes again and let out a sigh. She loved moments like this with Safaree. Where he just held her and caressed her back while she let go off all her worries for the short amount of time. Just then Nicki's phone sounded off from her room and her eyes shot open and she snarled her lip. "Seriously?" She took her hands and unwrapped them from Safaree's waist and began to climb off of him. He grabbed hold of her waist so in case she was to fall he had her. When he seen she had her balance he let go. Nicki stroked her hair making her way down to her room. She scanned her room for her phone when she seen it buzz again and headed over to her dresser. She picked up her phone looked to see the missed call from her friend TT who she missed so much. She clicked the call button and walked back over to the edge of her bed taking a seat. "TT! I've missed you! Come to LA!"