Butter Soft

by Erick S. Gray

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Veteran urban author Erick S. Gray weaves a tale of college students exploring love in relationships that are exciting but might end up being more dangerous than they realize.

Nea and Amber are two college freshmen attending Clinton Hill University in South Carolina. The roommates come from different worlds: Nea is from Brooklyn, New York, and Amber is from a small town called Tyron, North Carolina. They build a friendship in the first semester of school but take different directions regarding love. Nea is coming off the death of her boyfriend, who was murdered before her eyes two weeks before her first day of classes. She meets Van, a wealthy white boy and talented painter who becomes enamored by her, and she becomes his muse. Nea believes it’s love. However, everything isn’t what it appears.

Amber is engaged to Henry, her hometown boyfriend from high school. However, when she meets Homando, an African American student at her school, she begins to doubt her relationship. Homando is intelligent, charismatic, outgoing, and different from what she’s used to—but he also sells drugs to support his way through school. The two create a bond, both sexual and mental, and she falls in love with Homando and becomes engrossed in his world. But some forces are against their interracial relationship and will stop at nothing to ruin Homando’s future and end their sexual tryst by any means necessary.

And then there’s Tiffany, a rebellious student. Tiffany comes from a strict, religious family, and now that she is in college, her liberated, promiscuous side has come out to play. She begins a series of affairs, including one with her middle-aged professor. Tiffany juggles these three men in her life like she’s in a carnival act, forgoing her family and spiritual relationships because she’s having too much fun. But the same thing that makes you laugh will eventually make you cry.

Release date: March 26, 2024

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

It looked like a different world in South Carolina. It wasn’t all country and nothingness, but there were sprawling, beautiful landscapes, along with small towns and some big towns. Still, it wasn’t some rural, backwoods place with cows and horses all over. Greenville, South Carolina, wasn’t what I thought it would be. I had this preconceived notion of Mayberry, rednecks, and hillbillies. I judged it and obviously watched too much TV. But the South probably had misconceptions of New York and the North too.

I sat in the back of the bus, gazing out the window and daydreaming. Two days ago, they buried DeAndre, and I was overwhelmed with grief. I didn’t want to leave New York. I wanted to stay home and remain closer to DeAndre’s resting place and his family. I felt they needed me, especially his mother. DeAndre was her only child. So, how could I go to school after my boyfriend was brutally murdered? Of course, DeAndre was killed by a rival crew over drugs, beef, or territory, the reason why so many murders were happening in Brownsville in the first place. My boyfriend had become a statistic. There’s a saying in Brownsville that if you’re 25, you’re either dead, in jail, or done with gang life. You’re one of the three because you can’t be much older and be out of that category.

DeAndre’s crew, Recut, Dice, Lale, and Sheek, promised to avenge his death. The streets were talking, and they knew who the shooters were. Recut was DeAndre’s best friend, and he vowed to get vengeance. Recut pulled me to the side at his funeral and handed me something.

“He wanted you to have this,” he said.

He handed me a platinum, heart-shaped locket necklace. Inside the locket was a small picture of us. We were all smiles. And there was a small engraving on the necklace that read, No matter where, together, forever. Immediately, I broke down into tears and fell into Recut’s arms. He had to console me.

“We gon’ get them niggas, Nea. I promise you that,” Recut had vowed.

I told him just to be careful.

DeAndre’s funeral was big and emotional, with a massive police presence. DeAndre was a known figure in Brooklyn, and the police feared there could be some retaliation at the man’s funeral. It was sad. We couldn’t even bury DeAndre without police involvement.

I wanted to stay, but DeAndre’s mother convinced me to leave for college.

“Make my son’s memory and death mean something, Nea. He wanted you to go to school. He wanted you to better yourself, even if it meant separating from him. My son knew you were special. He loved you, and I knew you loved him. Be better than this place, baby. Please. Don’t let it suck you in like it did him,” she said.

I nodded and promised her I would leave for college.

I wiped away my tears, sighed heavily, and gazed out the window as the bus moved through the picturesque countryside. Clinton Hill University was about fifteen minutes away. It was on the outskirts of Greenville. From the brochures I’ve read and their website, it was a beautiful school with a fantastic football team. And there was also the dedication of the students.

The bus wasn’t too crowded, and everyone was quiet. I assumed we all were nervous freshmen wondering what our first semester attending school away from home would be like. It was also great to see that I wasn’t the only young Black female on her way to a southern state university. But maybe I was the only Black girl from New York City.

We soon arrived at Clinton Hill University in the Blue Mountains of South Carolina. I admit I was in awe at the school’s beauty and size. It seemed surreal. It was like a mini-city situated on 1,500 acres in Upstate Carolina. I felt lost and out of my element when I got off the bus with the other students. I’d become this big-city girl now in the rural South with no friends and haunted by my boyfriend’s recent death. I sighed heavily and looked around. Where was I to go, and what do I do next?

I gathered my belongings from the bus and joined the herd of other newcomers. I had no idea where to start. I figured I had to find my dorm room. I was on a full academic scholarship, not a full-ride scholarship, meaning my tuition was paid for in full. Still, the scholarship covered partial room and board and a particular amount of food each week. I was expected to use my own money to make up for the other meals and help with textbooks and the remaining balance for my dorm room. DeAndre helped me with that. The money he made on the streets helped me secure everything else I needed. But now that I was 700 miles away from home, and he was dead, I had to go into survival mode and do what was best to stay in school.

I learned to be observant and pay attention. I was nervous, but I didn’t show it. I followed behind everyone else, taking in the environment. I wore a white cropped shirt, tight blue shorts, and a pair of white Nikes. My hair was blown out but styled, and my makeup was minimal. I looked cute and flattering and caught the attention of a few boys in passing. They smiled at me, but I didn’t smile back.

One student said, “Damn, freshmen girls look better every year.”

I finally made it to the college dormitory, which was pure pandemonium. A melody of characters and personalities were hanging around. There were lots of white and Black faces, mostly young and some old. A real buzz of energy infused the entire area as people gossiped, laughed, jostled, and reunited with old friends. I didn’t know anyone there, so I searched for my room on the second floor.

I entered the dorm room and saw I was the first to arrive. My roommate hadn’t shown up yet. I was relieved to be there first, meaning I got to pick first. Mixed emotions ran through my mind, thinking about who my roommate would be. Was she going to be heaven or hell, white or Black, cold or hot?

It was a typical small room with two extralong twin beds, desks, two dressers, and a shared closet. The walls were eggshell white. I decided to take the bed by the window, so I placed my things on the bed and sighed. So this was it. I was officially a college girl. If DeAndre could see me now, he would be proud. Thinking about DeAndre made me emotional and teary-eyed. I wiped away a few tears and stared out the window. The view I had was of the courtyard of the dorm. It was full of students mingling and chatting.

After taking in the dorm room, I started to unpack my things. What I noticed was that I was truly alone on campus. Many freshmen students, boys and girls, had their parents, grandparents, siblings, or whoever to help them settle in with their things. Everyone around me was all smiles and excited. I only had to unpack my clothes and a few girlish materials. On my side of the dorm, there weren’t any pictures plastered on my wall, pictures of my family placed on my desk or dresser, or any remnants of home. The only thing I had that I cherished from home was my heart-shaped necklace from DeAndre. I didn’t even have any pictures of my mother.

The noise from the hallway became loud and obtrusive, so I decided to close my room door. It was a little quieter. I sat at the foot of my bed and exhaled. Right away, I missed home. I was a city girl in what I considered the Deep South. And I said to myself, Nea, what were you thinking? Why did you choose to come to school way out here? I began to regret my decision to attend school in the South. There were many other prime schools in New York, including NYU, John Jay, St. Johns, and Columbia University. I had been accepted into every one of those schools because of my GPA, SAT scores, and achievements, but I chose Clinton Hill because they gave me an academic scholarship. It was one of the best schools to offer the world’s most exemplary journalism graduate programs. I wanted to become a journalist. I wanted to become a voice in this world and report on what was happening in a nonbiased manner. And I planned to receive a bachelor’s degree in journalism and communications and become the next Oprah Winfrey.

While I sat on my bed near the window, thinking about my hopes and dreams, the door to the room opened. It was my new roommate. I wasn’t surprised that she was a snowflake, a white girl with blond hair and a bright smile. She wore a white and blue sundress, and I admit, she was pretty.

She smiled at me and said, “Hi, I’m Amber, your new roommate.”

I couldn’t be pregnant. I was so nervous about the pregnancy test results that it felt like I was about to have a panic attack. I sat on the toilet alone with the door shut and locked. The home pregnancy test said it took up to thirty minutes for the results, becoming the longest thirty minutes of my life. I was supposed to start my freshman year at Clinton Hill University next week. Being pregnant would throw a monkey wrench into my plans. I took a deep breath and tried to be patient, but my nerves were wearing thin. I was a small-town country girl from Tyron, North Carolina. It was one of the whitest towns in the country, and I was a young, white girl with dreams.

Growing up in a small town could lead to everyone having a narrow-minded attitude. Tyron, North Carolina, was a place where almost everyone had the same skin color and socioeconomic status and followed the same way of thinking. And if anyone fails to conform to the standard, they would be viewed as an outsider or an outcast. Believe me, they would be subjected to judgment from everyone. But the advantage of growing up in a small town was a huge support system. When something tragic happens, you feel the love from everyone. When something great happens, you’ll probably be in the newspaper.

Tryon, North Carolina, was one of the friendliest places in the country. We had an estimated population of 1,700, and nearly everyone was a Christian. My hometown was known for its quality wine and table grapes in the early 1900s and was home to several family-owned vineyards. However, prohibition eventually forced these family vineyards out of business. But fortunately, Tyron’s wine-making tradition had recently been rekindled.

My hometown was so small that we had a movie theater that showed one movie at a time during its release. The place had a suburban feel, and most residents owned their homes. And many people, including retirees, tended to lean conservative. In high school, I didn’t care for the town, and I couldn’t wait to escape for college. Moreover, I didn’t like that other people I rarely associated with probably knew everything about my personal life. Parents would gossip about their kids or their kids’ friends. I never loved it when I or anyone I was close with became the center talking point. So, I started to feel trapped and longed to leave someday.

I continued to sit on the toilet and wait. I glanced at the pregnancy test and sighed heavily. I hated myself for being so stupid. If I were pregnant, it would be Henry’s baby. Henry was the epitome of a country boy, a good ol’ boy. We’d known each other since grade school. He lived down the road from me, and we were friends that became lovers. Henry was typically seen wearing a baseball cap, old jeans, and a T-shirt but occasionally wore cowboy boots and a button-down shirt. He had short hair and no piercings, and he was old-fashioned. He believed in working hard for what he wanted and was content living in Tryon for the rest of his life. And that was where we had our differences. I liked Henry, but I wasn’t in love with him. He was someone who grew on me over the years—a true-blue country boy who was masculine, treated women and family with respect, was easygoing, and wanted me to marry him soon.

If I were pregnant, I knew the night it probably happened. We hooked up in the back of his pickup truck on my high school graduation. It was a lovely night. We watched the sky turn into a canvas of pinks and purples during the sunset. I was excited. I’d just graduated and was going to college in the fall. And to celebrate, Henry and I enjoyed a six-pack of beer and each other. We parked in a field in the middle of nowhere and could hear the bugs and crickets serenading us. I’d lost my virginity to him when I was 16 years old. Still, I was so afraid of becoming pregnant that we didn’t have sex again until a year later. A pregnant teenager still in high school was frowned upon in my hometown.

I was more comfortable having sex with Henry now that I was 18. And there we were, in the back of his pickup truck, with him on top of me, making love to me with no condom. Henry was average size, and he was the only guy I was having sex with, and when he orgasmed, he refused to pull out. He became unattractive when he would come, making the ugliest faces and strangest sounds. When I first saw it, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What was that?” I had asked him.

“What was what?” he’d replied.

“The faces and sounds you made?”

He laughed and replied, “That is my loving face, Amber.”

Henry didn’t want me to leave for college. Instead, he wanted me to stay in Tryon and go to a nearby school where he could visit me frequently. But that wasn’t happening. I knew I would never have the chance to go again if I didn’t leave now.

“I love you, Amber, and I’m afraid our relationship will not be the same if you go to Clinton Hill. We can get married, and I want to raise a family with you. Do you not want the same thing?” he’d ask.

I huffed and replied, “Not now, Henry. I want to experience something different and get an education. You know I want to become a doctor someday.”

“But I can take care of us,” he’d exclaimed.

“And what about my dreams and future, huh?”

“I’m not saying anything is wrong with you becoming a doctor. But why not study at a community college where you can still live here, and I can see you daily?” he suggested.

“Community college? You’re joking, right?” I was upset.

“Amber, I have your best interest at heart—”

“And if that were true, then you would trust me and become more supportive of my dreams and future, Henry,” I’d chided.

“I don’t want to fight.”

“What is it, Henry, huh? Are you scared that I’ll find someone new at Clinton Hill? It is a big campus with many different people,” I said.

He sighed. “You are a very beautiful woman, Amber. And being with you is my dream come true. And, yes, I’m afraid you’ll leave me for someone else.”

I smiled and replied, “You don’t need to worry about that. I do love you, Henry. But I need this. I need something different from Tryon. I need a future and a purpose.”

I kissed him passionately to assure him our love would be permanently cemented, and he became content with my words. Did he have something to fear? I didn’t know. We never left Tyron, North Carolina, and never experienced anything different from small-town living. However, I knew I couldn’t expect to experience all walks of life if I stayed in the same spot forever. It would be a disservice if I didn’t get out and explore this incredible world we lived in.

It had been thirty minutes, and it was now time to see if I was fucked or not. If I was pregnant, I knew Henry would want me to have this baby, and my opportunity at Clinton Hill would probably be put on hold. And if not, then God is good. I had to drive forty minutes outside of Tyron to buy a pregnancy test because I feared that if anyone saw me purchase one in Tyron, my secret would be out, and the gossip would spread around town like wildfire.

Everything felt still, and there was complete silence. I slowly reached for the pregnancy test with tension stirring inside of me and looked at the result. It was negative. Seeing that, I dropped to my knees and started to cry. But they were tears of joy. I wasn’t pregnant.

“Thank you, God,” I cried out.

This damn town wouldn’t remain my life.

It was a beautiful morning, and I rode in the passenger seat of Henry’s pickup truck with everything I owned in the back. We were on our way to Clinton Hill University. It was a three-hour drive to the university, and I had butterflies in my stomach. Henry insisted on driving me to the school. He wanted to spend as much time with me as possible. He and my parents were the only people I left behind in Tyron. My mother was a seamstress, and my father was into agriculture. He was a farm manager, and his duties were to delegate tasks like planting, fertilizing, and harvesting crops among farmers, in addition to managing budgets. So you can say that I was a farmer’s daughter. Living in a rural area, I saw how much work it took to raise the food and animals that many people take for granted.

During the ride there, Henry repeatedly told me how much he would miss and love me.

“It isn’t going to be the same without you, Amber,” he said.

I didn’t tell him about my scare. I wasn’t pregnant.

“You’ll be fine, baby. It’s not like I’m leaving for Mars,” I joked.

He chuckled.

We finally arrived at the university, a sprawling, impressive mix of Colonial, Gothic, and Modern architecture presented like a living brochure. It was a maze of wonder and people. Henry stopped his truck outside the dorm building and was taken aback at how different everything was. There were white kids with “Trump” blazers and stern, judgmental glares, kids with dark eye circles and unkempt hair, an eclectic group of Black students with some Latinos and a sprinkling of white folks, athletes, along with a cluster of skinny jeans and expressive attitudes. It was a rainbow coalition.

I was taken aback. This was it . . . college.

Henry helped me with my belongings, and we went into the dorm. Immediately, I could tell Henry felt like a fish out of water; we both did. Coming from a small North Carolina town to this, it almost felt like we were in the Land of Oz. The diversity of Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and Indian was surreal, and I was genuinely excited. In high school, I could count on both hands the number of Black and Latino students I went to school with. Now, they were everywhere.

While Henry and I looked for my dorm room, I received plenty of smiles and stares from the boys in my white and blue sundress, especially from the Black guys. Right away, Henry frowned and became insecure.

“Damn, snow bunny is thicker than a Snicker,” one of the guys commented about me.

Henry didn’t like it. He was ready to confront the guy, but I intervened and said, “He don’t mean no harm by it, baby. This is college. People are different here. Besides, what does that even mean?”

I chuckled; he didn’t.

“Well, they need to respect a lady, at least, my lady,” Henry replied.

I smiled at him. “Always the gentleman you are. It’s what I love about you.”

Finally, he smiled.

“There goes my man’s wonderful smile,” I said.

We continued searching for my dorm room in the madness of everyone arriving on campus the same day. Finally, we made it to my second-floor dorm room, and the door was closed. I assumed my roommate for the semester was already inside. I was so nervous that I almost didn’t want to enter the room. I wondered what she was going to be like . . . funny, intelligent, outgoing, or was she going to be aloof, mean, and unpleasant? Would we become best friends this semester, or would we hate each other’s guts?

I looked at Henry for encouragement, and he said, “Go on in, babe. I’m right behind you. It’ll be fine.”

I took a deep breath, opened the door, and entered the room to see a pretty, young Black girl staring out the window on one of the twin beds. When I entered the room, she turned to look at me with a deadpan gaze. Maybe she was surprised that she shared a room with a white girl. So I decided to introduce myself right away. I smiled brightly and said, “Hi, I’m Amber, your new roommate.”

For a moment, she quietly stared at me. It felt awkward, and I thought this was a mistake. Maybe she didn’t like me for some reason. But then, she stood up, smiled, and replied, “I’m Nea.”

“Nice to meet you, Nea,” I replied.

We shook hands.

“And this is my boyfriend, Henry,” I introduced.

She smiled, and he smiled, and they shook hands. Already, we were hitting it off, I believed. She was so pretty with an accent. I figured it was from somewhere north, New York, Chicago. And I’m sure she thought I had an accent too. But I had to ask her.

“So, Nea, where are you from?”

“Brooklyn, New York,” she replied. “And you?”

I grinned shyly and replied, “Tyron, North Carolina.”

I was sure she had never heard of it. My town was so small you probably needed a magnifying glass to find it on the map.

Nea and I got to know each other better that entire day. We were from different worlds, but we connected somehow. Henry stayed with me for a few hours, and I had to convince him to go home and that I would be fine. He was reluctant to leave me alone on campus but had no choice. I now had my new life, and he had his.

We passionately kissed before he left, and he promised to visit me as often as possible.

“He’s cute,” Nea said after he left. “How long have y’all been together?”

“Since my junior year in high school, but we grew up together,” I said. “And what about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”

Nea immediately became saddened by something, most likely by my question. I didn’t mean to become intrusive in her life. I became apolog. . .