Starving for Love

by T.C. Littles

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

A spoiled rich girl falls for one of the most notorious thugs in Detroit. Will she give up everything, including the successful future her parents had planned for her?
Raised in one of the few well-to-do areas left in metro Detroit, Morgan was spoiled by her parents with the most lavish life they could afford. They placed her on a pedestal of greatness. With dreams of her becoming a top-tier businesswoman working in the newly revised Downtown Detroit district, her
parents were shocked when their daughter ran off with Javon Bates, one of the most dangerous thugs in the city. He’s better known as Always Making Paper.
Intrigued by danger, attracted to the thrill, and feenin' for life in the fast lane, Morgan gives up everything she's ever known to go on a ride of her life with Javon. Drugs, love, heartbreak, and scandal—will they break the good girl turned bad? Or will Morgan and Javon’s relationship stand the test of time?

Release date: December 27, 2022

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Me and my family had been on struggle mode for years.

After forking the last few chicken-flavored ramen noodles into my mouth, I tilted the bowl up and drank the leftover salty juice that was swimming around in the bottom. I was chowing down as I sat on the front steps because I was hungry as hell and had been all day. I’d even nibbled on the moldy-looking corn dogs they served at school. It was the end of the month, and shit was on “every man for themselves status” at my house.

My dad came out of the house. “Hey, Shayla, you got some more of them noodles in your backpack?” he asked me, begging as usual.

I took one look at the man I was supposed to love and look up to and wanted to throw my noodles back up. His face was sunken in, his lips were chapped and cracked, his dark brown skin was dry and ashy, and his hair was so long and unkept that it was matted to his scalp and looked like it stunk.

Ricardo “Spiderman” Stewart had once been looked up to and respected by everyone in our neighborhood because he had been crushing life and living big. He had had a job at the factory, had been making good money there, with a 401(k) and full-coverage insurance, had kept a new car in the garage, and had had the nicest house in the hood. Me and Tom-Tom had been the only ones out of our friends to have fresh kicks, new clothes, and all the newest toys. That had all been before Ricardo’s crack cocaine addiction surfaced and took over. My pops had gone from passing out spare change to begging for spare change. He chased his high whenever he wasn’t high, and he ain’t give a fuck if he had to lie and say he was trying to put food in me and Tom-Tom’s mouth.

“Naw, Pops. I do not. But I would not give you any if I did.” I rolled my eyes, stood up, and pushed past him to go change out of my school uniform. “And try taking a shower and changing your clothes. You smell like a porta-potty.” I gagged involuntarily.

“One day you and your brother are going to regret the way y’all treat me.” He puffed out his tiny chest, then scurried down the porch steps.

“I doubt it.” I watched in embarrassment and sadness as he rushed up the block in his worn-down dress shoes, more than likely on his way to the corner store to beg for some credit to get a beer. Then I opened the screen door, stepped inside, and headed up to my bedroom.

Food was never on his mind unless me or my brother brought it into the house. My dad got four hundred dollars a month in food stamps for both of us, but he sold two hundred of it every month so he could feed his addiction, which left only two hundred to feed me, him, and even twenty-two-year-old Thomas.

My brother used to have his own welfare case, but he had got flagged for getting over on the system. He had been getting food stamps, cash assistance, and even Medicaid, all after claiming that he was mentally challenged and that this was why he was not able to get a job. The scam had worked out sweet for a few months; then the state had sent Thomas for a mandatory psychological evaluation with one of their doctors. Not only was he deemed mentally stable before the assessment was over, but he was also labeled a con artist. Thomas was lucky, but I was blessed, because all they gave him was community service, five years of ineligibility, and a restitution bill as punishment. I’d probably be getting high alongside my father if Tom-Tom wasn’t around to hold me down.

Thomas had taken care of me since I was eight years old, which was when our mother abandoned us. He was thirteen at the time. We had been walking home from school when she rode past us in the passenger seat of a dark green Checker cab. We had just gotten out of school and had detoured to the penny-candy store for some fifty-cent bags of assorted Frooties. I remembered that day like it was yesterday.

“Hurry up and come on before Mama be talking shit,” he urged me. He was always cursing behind our parents’ backs.

“Leave me alone, Tom-Tom. I’m walking as fast as I can.” I was more concerned with unwrapping one of the green-apple candies I’d just gotten from the store than keeping up with him. “And here comes Mama to pick us up anyway.” I stuck out my tongue at him, then started walking to the curb, so I could get in the back seat of the cab she was in.

Thomas had his back turned as he was fussing at me, so he did not see the cab that was approaching us, with our mother in the front seat, waving. He did not see her until the cab zoomed right past us.

“Mommy! Mommy! Where are you going? I want to go!” I yelled after the cab, waving my hands in the air, sad because I loved going places with my mom. She always got me toys, snacks, and special surprises whenever I went along with her on grocery trips and errands, especially when she went to the mall. She even took me to get my nails and toes polished on Fridays, when Daddy got a paycheck. I turned and faced my brother. “Why did Mommy leave and not take me?”

“Are you sure that was even her?” he questioned, watching the cab move even farther up the street. “Man, that wasn’t her, dummy. We have a car, so she would not be in no damn cab. Plus, she would not have rode past us,” he told me.

“That was her, Tom-Tom! Do not call me no dummy,” I yelled. I hit him with my little fists and all my might, but, of course, he did not budge.

“Quit being a brat and come on.” Tom-Tom did not care about my tears, because I always cried and threw tantrums when I couldn’t go with her.

I stumbled the rest of the way home, eating my strawberry candy, then did all the chores my mom would’ve had me do had she been home. I cleaned my room, emptied all the garbage cans into one big bag so Thomas could take it to the dumpster, vacuumed the living room, and even set the table for a dinner that wasn’t cooking. I remember being restless as I waited for my mommy to walk through the door, be surprised that I was such a responsible big girl, and spoil me with some extra dessert.

“Tom-Tom, where’s Mommy?” My stomach was starting to hurt because I hadn’t eaten anything but junk food since lunchtime at school.

“I do not know. You saw her in the cab the same time I did. Maybe she has gone to the grocery store or something. I’m about to play basketball with my friends, so stay out the way.”

Worried and afraid, I sat on the porch, waiting for Rose, as my mom was called, to arrive back home . . . until the mosquitos chased me in the house. I even tried calling the taxi company and asking where the driver had dropped my mom off, but my description “the ugly man” was too vague for them to pinpoint the specific driver, and I did not have a number to identify the vehicle by. Of course, I did not think I had to have a number. I was only eight years old. All I cared about was my mommy. Tom-Tom, though, he wasn’t thinking about Rose’s disappearance. It seemed he was taking advantage of it. With our dad at work and her gone, he did not have a curfew or anyone checking when he got home. He ran wild with his friends all through the neighborhood from the time we got out of school until right before Pops got home from work. That was when shit hit the fan.

The sound of a car alarm blaring in the distance snapped me out of my reverie. Life had been kinda spinning for me ever since that day my mom disappeared, I thought as I unlocked my bedroom door. I pushed it open and was smacked in the face by the hundred-degree heat. I hated having to keep my room closed up, because it always ended up being hot, stuffy, and stale smelling, but that was better than coming home to an empty room. I did not have much, but what I did have, I valued, and I wasn’t trying to see it for sale at the corner liquor store. The corner store had an entire section of electronics, including TVs, phones, and video game systems, and it also had a section with jewelry. Basically, it was a pawnshop for poor folks, drunks, and prostitutes. And a lot of people that hit licks and needed to get rid of the hot merchandise hawked the items at the store. Even shadier behavior went on in the back rooms.

After taking off my school clothes, I hung them in the closet, then rifled through my dresser drawers for something I could wear. I had barely had a selection of summer clothes last year, so I was super struggling now, especially since I’d gained weight and gotten taller. It was obvious I’d gotten my height gene from Ricardo, because I was already pushing five feet six, and that was where I hoped the heredity started and stopped.

After trying on the seven pairs of shorts I had in total and not fitting into a single pair, I decided to turn a pair of denim jeans I’d worn throughout the winter into shorts. It was the best plan, especially since the jeans were worn at the knees anyway. It was easier and cheaper for me to grab a new fitted cotton T-shirt from the dollar store or Walmart than it was for me to cop some shorts. I’d been thinking of ways to cut corners for so long that I probably would not know what to do if I had money.

Since I was extra sweaty and hot from the walk home, I took a quick shower before changing. It did not matter how poor I looked; I never smelled that way. I had done lost count of how many bars of soap I’d swiped off store shelves when I could not afford this basic necessity. Rose might not have been around to teach me how to put on a training bra or insert a tampon, or to warn about how important it was for me to wipe from front to back, but I did remember her taking tons of showers and baths. She used to have the entire house humming with her mango-scented bath and shower gels. Anyway, after I got my hygiene together, I let my body air-dry since it was so hot. The box fan in my bedroom window wasn’t doing shit but circulating the humidity, but it felt good against my damp skin for all of five minutes.

Bzz-bzz-bzz! My cell phone vibrated on the desk.

It was Bird messaging me on our favorite app since my mobile service was temporarily off. I was thankful as ever that we had Wi-Fi and that our internet bill was subsidized. Bird was one of my two best friends.

Bird: R U Home Yet?

Me: Yup, no thanks to you. :(

Bird: Aw, trick, shut up. Walking will lift that flat ass up. I’m OMW around there. “OMW” was text talk for “on my way.”

Me: Fuck you. Okay. I’ll be on the porch.

I slipped on my clothes and headed downstairs. As I walked through the living room, I heard my brother and his homeboys out on the porch. I wanted to see if Tom-Tom had come up with the few dollars I needed to get my cell phone back on. The bill was twenty-five bucks, and I was short twenty-five bucks. I opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch.

Tom-Tom looked over his shoulder when he heard our rickety screen door opening. “Sis, what’s good? How was school?”

“Lame, as always.” I sat down on a chair across from where he and his friends were sitting. I despised Tom-Tom’s bum-ass crew with a passion.

“Well, that shit will be over in a few weeks. So, lame or not, tough it out like a champ,” my brother told me. Tom-Tom might’ve been a middle school dropout, but he stayed on my head about school. I did not have to be a 4.0 student, but I did have to get my lazy behind out of the bed every day and apply myself enough to go on to the next grade. Most days Tom-Tom got up and walked me to school if I wasn’t catching a way there with my girls.

He humbly preached to me all the time, but he had never followed his own advice by heading to a GED center. He was too busy getting dead-end jobs, getting fired from them, and then trying his luck at pulling off hood scams. I never gave Tom-Tom any pushback, because he had stepped up and raised me after Rose ran away and Ricardo checked out.

Ten minutes later, I saw Bird coming up the block, and I wanted to go back in the house to find some other scraps of clothing to put together. As always, she was looking cute as ever. She was wearing a hot pink maxi dress and a pair of pink sandals with Swarovski stones all over them, and her hair was wet and wavy like a mermaid’s. Bird had what they called good hair, so she was always able to get away with quick hairstyles that required little to no maintenance. There was no way I could achieve a wet and wavy look without putting a full weave in my head. But, anyway, she was rocking the look perfectly, while I slouched in my seat like the dud I was.

“Hey, boo,” she called as she walked up on the porch, popping her gum and switching her booty as hard as she could for Tom-Tom and his friends. Although she had a boyfriend, Bird was a huge flirt.

“Do not ‘hey’ me, trick. What happened to you coming to school today? They gave out some extra credit just for us being there.” I was happy I had not ditched, because I needed all the extra boosts I could get out of math. All my classes, really, but that one in particular. I’d tried telling the counselor I struggled with numbers because I had been broke all my life and did not have a reason to count, but she had given me a peer tutor and had told me to buckle down harder to break the generational curse. I knew the counselor had told Bird the same thing, but she clearly wasn’t taking heed of the advice.

“Girl, I ain’t worried about no damn school,” she said as she sat down on a lawn chair on the porch. “It’s the end of May, and we are about to graduate. It’s not like we are in the eleventh grade, and they can mess us up for next year. We’re about to be done-done. I swear, I can’t wait. You might not see me back in those hallways until the last week.” Bird had always been nonchalant about school. It did not matter if it was the beginning of a semester or end of the year, she had always been like that. I never judged her or tried to coach her like Tom-Tom did me, though. Hell, I was barely earning Cs.

“Well, are you at least excited about prom?” I questioned, wishing I were going to prom, but none of the boys at school were checking for me. And even if they were, it wasn’t like I could afford a dress, shoes, or the glam fee.

“Nope, not really. I would skip that, too, if it would not break Jayson’s heart. He seems hella immature to me now that I’ve been kicking it with your neighbor. I’m kinda ready to throw my entire relationship with Jayson in the trash for Murk, but I’m going to try to wait till he leaves for college to spare his feelings.”

“Whoa. This is new news. The last time we talked, you were going to get an apartment near Jayson’s campus.” I could not believe Bird was having a change of heart over her high school sweetheart and life plan.

Jayson was a beast on the basketball court, and he had kept college scouts in the bleachers at every game since his freshman year. They had watched his growth, his wins, and how he took the losses, and as a result, this year he had a handful of full-ride offers to Michigan colleges. All Bird had talked about after he signed his four-year contract with Michigan State University was getting out of Detroit on his back. She had even gone on the school visit with Jayson so she could go pre-apartment hunting. Murk was stroking more than the soft spot between her legs. He was messing with the sense in her head as well. She’d been creeping around with Murk for only a few weeks, and already her entire game plan was canceled.

“What can I say? Plans change, and shit happens,” she said nonchalantly and shrugged. “But do me a favor and please do not tell Yoshi. I do not want her telling Duncan, because he’ll definitely tell his boy.” Our other homegirl was friends with Bird’s soon-to-be ex-bae.

“Your secret is safe with me. But are you sure you want to break up with Jayson for Murk?” I wasn’t trying to be a hater, but I also did not want to see Bird hurt and regretting her decision.

Murk was fine as hell and new to the neighborhood. All the dudes from the hood wanted to be him, and the broads wanted to bang him—not just Bird. Murk had money. He was the only dude whipping a Cadillac Escalade on rims, and the only dude flossing expensive name brands day in and day out. Plus, he always accessorized with a cold-ass chain, which I could tell wasn’t fake.

Some white-owned real estate company had bought up all the abandoned houses that were salvageable and had completely renovated them. They were basically brand-new homes now, but they were still surrounded by the run-down houses me and my friends lived in. Anyway, Murk had moved into one of the houses about a year ago and had been running different females in and out of his front door every other day. My bedroom faced the front of the house, so it was easy to back up my truth with descriptions of the women, if Bird wanted to know.

“Hell, yeah, I’m sure,” Bird insisted. “He had me talking in tongues, and you know I’m not saved. Jayson ain’t no li’l boy, but Murk is hung like a horse. That might be too much information, I know, but I soaked in the bath for an hour after we had sex and my hookup is still sore.” She started giggling in the lawn chair, with a grin on her face, then imitated how she was riding him when they were having sex.

“You’re crazy as hell.” I shook my head, laughing. Used to Bird sharing all her business and too much information, I did not even blink, not even when she was basically saying her cootie cat was blown out. She was outspoken, blunt. . .