2. Jin’jer Elle Copeland #2
I immediately zoned out on her because I didn’t give a single fuck about what was going on with the people in Boston.
I left for a reason and stayed away for that same reason.
This was why I didn’t want to ask her how she was doing.
I knew it would open the door to a bullshit conversation that she led and I hated to be a part of.
Half of the women she talked about, she didn’t even like.
“Jin’jer Elle! Did you hear me?” My mother’s loud voice snapped me out of my daze. When I told her to say it again, I wished I hadn’t. “I said that your father’s birthday party is coming up. I will send you the information along with dress options.”
My face tightened. She must have bumped her head before she called me. “ I’m not sure why you’re going to do that. I won’t be available.”
“How do you know that you won’t be available if I haven’t even told you the dates yet? Let’s not do this again. It’s getting utterly ridiculous.” My mother was doing the most.
I huffed before I squeezed the bridge of my nose with my fingers.
“Mother, I’m not sure why you insist on doing this again.
I haven’t been to his party since I was twenty-two.
It’s utterly ridiculous that you continue to ask, knowing that I’m going to say no.
I don’t care when the party is, I’ll find a reason to be busy. ”
“When will it end, Jin’jer? This thing you have with your father. You are thirty years old and you’re still mad at us for doing what was best for you. You were out of control, so we sent you to a reform school. Look at you now!” I know the fuck she didn’t just say that stupid shit to me!
“Don’t you dare try to attribute my success to you and Dad shipping me off to a reform school because you didn’t want me to desecrate the Copeland name. Out of control is a very extreme way to say that I was being a typical teenager. All of my success, I did by myself.” I fussed at my mother.
She chuckled smugly. “You did it yourself, huh? That’s funny because I certainly recall paying tuition bills for you while you were in college.
You don’t have one student loan, but you did it yourself.
Let’s not act like you had the highest grades in high school, so you weren’t given a scholarship.
It was your father’s money that paid for that nursing education that you like to throw in my face.
Please stop making it seem like we turned our backs on you when it was you that turned your back, little girl. ”
“Trust me, that money wasn’t free. Like I said, I’m not coming to the party.
Pretty sure he didn’t ask me to anyway,” I told her.
I hadn’t talked to my father in over three years.
Before that, the last time we spoke was at the last birthday party that I went to.
Well, I wasn’t sure if his telling me that I needed to consider Weight Watchers was a conversation. “This was nice, Mother. Goodbye.”
It never failed after I spoke with my mother that I came down with the worst headache.
She wanted so badly for us to be this perfect family when that was the furthest from the truth.
The only thing that Judge David E. Copeland found perfect was himself.
My mother was so busy asking me to come home for his birthday party but in the same breath created a narrative that I was out of the country.
According to her, I was a nurse for the Doctors Without Borders organization.
It wasn’t good enough to just be a nurse; I had to be out here with a noble cause underlining it.
What my mother called being out of control was me having a boyfriend that didn’t fit into the image that was becoming of the Copelands. They wanted me to be with a boy that they hand plicked themselves. When I said no, they said you’re going to a boarding school.
I couldn’t wait to go out this weekend. My day at work combined with my mother’s call tonight was a perfect recipe for getting lit.
I would be irresponsible, too, but there was too much that could happen if I did that.
Lord knew that I didn’t need any of the consequences that came with being irresponsible.
The weekend was finally here, and I looked beautiful as fuck!
I had on my best wig, lashes, fragrance, and heels.
My outfit was cute too, but I could wear a potato sack and still be cute.
That was the way that God made me. On top of making me fine as wine, he made me thicker than molasses.
I was the beauty that plus-sized women were made of.
When Hera sent me the information for the club that we would be at, I looked it up on Instagram.
Club Obssession . From their page, I expected to have a good time.
The male population that seemed to patronize the club was mouthwatering.
That didn’t say much though because the men here were weird.
There were way too many married and down-low men out here approaching women like it was right.
The first year that I was here, this man chased me so damn hard.
He was in my text messages every day asking to see me.
Something about his desperation was off-putting to me and for good reason.
Imagine my surprise when I went down to the labor and delivery floor to check in with the parents of one of my patients and saw this man with his wife in a room.
This man had just texted me less than ten minutes before I came down to the floor to tell me that he missed me and wanted to smell my pussy.
From the way he texted me, you would have thought that I already gave him some pussy, but I hadn’t.
When he saw me, he almost shit himself. He was so scared that I would say something to his wife, but that wasn’t my thing.
She was innocent in all of this. Besides, there was no way that I would ruin one of the most sacred milestones in a woman’s life.
I blocked his ass and went on about my business.
Ever since then, I side-eyed every guy that tried to talk to me.
The club wasn’t too far from where I stayed, which I appreciated.
Hera told me to valet my vehicle and tell the bouncer my name at the door.
There was a very long line when I pulled into the valet line in front of the club.
From the onlooker’s faces, they probably thought a man would climb out of my big boy, black-on-black, tinted out Silverado.
Nope, it was thick, lil ole me. All five feet, six inches of me.
“Damn, lil baby. That’s a big boy right there. You ridin in yo’ nigga’s truck tonight?” the bouncer asked when I walked up to the ropes.
My blushing, flirtatious smile arrived to the chat. “That’s all me. What can I say.” I moved into his personal space. “I guess I like big things. I should be on the list, J-Elle Copeland.”
His eyes filled with lust as he unashamedly grabbed his crotch. “Fuck, baby. I got something big for you. Make sure I see you before you leave.”
He moved the rope to let me in without looking at the list to verify if I was on it.
Hera texted me where they were in the club.
She said I should see them from the door since their section was elevated.
I stood still for a second to look at all of the sections.
She was right. I saw her almost immediately.
I moved that way with purpose, but that didn’t stop men from pulling at me. That was why I didn’t like going out.
“Jin’jer Elle!” Welp, it’s clear Hera already had some drinks. She was overly excited to see me walk up to the section. Plus, she called me by my whole damn name.
I walked in after the rope was moved out of the way. “Hey, Hera. You seem spirited.”
She giggled then gave me a big hug. “Come on, let me introduce you to everyone.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to where a group of whom I assumed were her family sat.
“Y’all, this is Jin’jer Elle.” She pointed to a couple on the couch then said, “This is my brother Zeus and his wife, Dindi. Dindi is deaf.”
I nodded before I signed hello to Dindi. When she asked me where I learned to sign, I told her that I learned sign language in college. It was offered as a second language course, so I took it.
“Ok, ok, enough of that,” Hera said as she pulled me along. “This is my brother Poseidon and his wife, Melody. Melody and Dindi are best friends and cousins. You know Hestia.” She pulled me over to where a man leaned against the railing. “This is my brother Hades. He’s single but a ho.”
Well damn. “That’s what we’re doing, Hera? Alítheia tha me váleis éxo étsi brostá tis? (You’re really going to put me out there like that in front of her)”
I had no idea what he said, but it was sexy. I’d heard Hera and Hestia speak Greek, but when her brother did it, it hit differently. I watched them have a full conversation in their native tongue. My head ping ponged between the two with confusion written all over my face.
“Hera, go sit your drunk ass down,” her brother Hades said. He dismissed her then turned his body to face mine. “Now, did she say your name was ginger ale?”
I tittered. “Yes, but it’s spelled differently. Most people just call me J-Elle,” I told him. I spelled my name for him when he asked.
He took a sip from the beer bottle in his hand without breaking eye contact with me.
When it left his lips, he stood there silently still with his eyes on me.
I watched his eyes take inventory of my body.
“So let me understand. Your parents intentionally named you after a carbonated beverage but said wait! We’re going to spell it uniquely. ”
I hated that I let out an unintentional laugh. It wasn’t what he said but how he said it. There was so much concern in his tone. “I guess so. I never really asked for the origin of my name. I’m not sure that I cared enough about it to ask.”
“Yeah, you should have. You need some kind of story to tell people why your parents did that to you. I can help you make one up,” he said with a shrug. “How about we sit down and work on that shit?”
My brow arched. I could tell he wanted to do way more than come up with a name origin story. I considered what Hera said about him being a ho and decided to play a lil cat and mouse game with him. “How about we not right now. It was nice meeting you, Hades.”
I made sure I patted his arm with a smile before I turned on my heels and sashayed my beautiful ass over to the couch that all the girls in the section had taken over. All of the ladies gawked at me when I sat down. Is there something on my face? “What’s wrong?”
Hestia crossed a leg over the other then leaned her forearm on her thigh.
“Bitch, what did you say to my brother?” When my face scrunched, she arched a brow.
“Nah, his ass is still looking over here at you. My brother has the attention span of a baby squirrel. But he kept his undivided attention on you while y’all were talking. ”
“You act like we had a long conversation. He wanted to know the origin of my name. I told him I didn’t know if there was one, so he suggested that I let him help me come up with one, but I declined,” I told them.
Melody laughed. “Oh, that’s why his ass is looking stuck on lost. A female actually declined to spend time with him. It’s not often that he offers his time to females for anything outside of fucking them. You must be special. Let me find out.”
When I glanced over at Hades, he was in fact still staring at me.
I couldn’t read his face, although I desperately wanted to.
The corners of my lips curved up toward my cheeks at the same time that I sent a flirtatious wink his way.
My insides warmed when he returned my wink with one of his own coupled with a lick of his lips.
The bottle girl came over and took our drink orders. I was the only one who didn’t have a drink. After she got our orders, she went over to the couch that all the brothers were now on.
I watched her flirtatious body language as she spoke to Hades.
It gave we have fucked or are fucking. The bottle girl stepped between Hades’s legs then started to lower herself onto his lap.
His eyes locked with mine before his hands gripped the girl’s hips to stop her.
Please don’t stop her on my behalf, Mr. Hades.