"Why are we here?" Nova shouted over the loud hip-hop music playing at the trendy Atlanta club. One of the places the twenty-somethings came when they visited Atlanta and wanted a taste of what the Black Hollywood was like. She could barely hear her thoughts it was very loud there between the music and the loud club-goers screaming over the noise.

"To loosen your ass up!" her friend, Mocha, shouted back at her, holding up her drink and twerking on the side of the table. In the crowded club, body to body, she basically twerked on anyone who walked past.

Mocha's older sister, Cambrea, sat beside her at the small table. Both were wild, but she was so glad they were with her, in Atlanta, vacationing for the week.

"I'm about to take a hot guy back to the room with me!" Cambrea said, with a cackle.

"Uh?" She looked around the club. Though there were a lot of men to choose from, they were all strangers in a city far away from their hometown of St. Louis. "You don't know any of these men, Cam, why would you-"

"Because a little strange is nice sometimes," she said, licking out her tongue at her.

Mocha, full name JaMocha, and Cambrea might as well have been twins, but they were not. Two years apart but close and best friends. They did not look much alike, but they acted the same. Wild, and outgoing, always loud, and sometimes obnoxious. But they were the closest friends she had right now, and she loved hanging with them.

"I don't know about strange..."

She stopped talking when she noticed someone watching her. A guy that was far off in the club surrounded by a flank of women. She could not tell if he was someone famous, seeing as in Atlanta celebrities hung with regular folks like it was nothing. She looked away and back at her friends.

"You know what? One dance never hurt anyone."

She followed JaMocha and Cambrea out to the packed dancefloor. She may be a little tipsy, having had three drinks already. This was not like her, she was more reserved. She did not act a fool in a different city with strangers. Yet here she was wilding out with her girls and getting into the music.

Why the heck not? She was young, only twenty-seven, and these were supposed to be the best years of her life. Party hard with no worries in the world. Well, of course, work so she would have money to live, pay her bills, eat, and keep a roof over her head. Plus, she needed money to shop and dress like she wanted, wearing nice things. Oh yes, hair and nails were a must, she got them done bi-weekly. She did not play with her me-time.

This vacation was her first grown-up trip in years. She mostly stuck close to home after she moved back home after her stint in New York City trying to make it as an actress.

Home called her back and she was happy to be there. Her family and the few friends she cared for were there.

"Nova getting it in!" Cambrea said, dancing on her.

She was a great dancer and knew it, from years of dance classes. Cambrea was tall and leggy, the opposite of her. She was shorter, what one might call petite at only five feet one, with a slim build. Cambrea was at least five feet eight and her younger sister was two inches taller. JaMocha, like her name, was mocha colored, a dark, reddish brown color. Cambrea a shade lighter, with more red tones in her brown.

She was the darkest, with ebony-colored skin, something she was insecure about for many years and kept her in a shell. "Tar Baby" "Darkie," "Blackie," and "Midnight," were just some of the names she was called throughout her childhood. She never saw the beauty in herself till later in life, in college, when her dark skin caught the attention of guys who deemed her exotic.

A dancer and an actress who also dabbled in singing, New York City did not have a place for her there. They did not know how to cast her in many plays. Most told her Hollywood would love her, but she wasn't ready for that. She was not thick-skinned enough for the business, so when the opportunity came for her to go back to St. Louis, she took it.

"Why are we all dancing together with all these hot ATL guys in here?" Mocha stated. She found her way to a guy who was off to the side and pulled him on the dance floor.

She was bold, bold. She could never be that bold, especially with guys. Another guy came their way and started dancing with Cambrea, leaving her all to herself and feeling weird dancing alone. She was about to walk off from the dance floor when someone came up to her.

"Please, don't leave just yet."

She turned to look at him. She could never forget a face.

"Leek?"

"No one's called me that in years." Because his real name was Malik, but in all her years of knowing him, she never called him that. "I missed you, November."

Hardly anyone called her by her government name. She hated her name. She was not even born in November, which made it worse. She was born in June.

She grabbed him in a hug. "What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since..."

"Graduation."

High school graduation, so that was nearly ten years ago. Ten years since she last saw the boy she considered her best friend for years. Or, in his case, the literal boy next door. He lived next door to her for years, and they grew close. She thought they would become more than friends one day, but that was all he saw her as.

"You look...great!" He always did, nothing changed but that he got hotter. He was the type of hot who knew he was hot and took advantage of that. He was the type of guy that was hot and used it to get what he wanted.

He put an arm around her waist as the music changed to a slower song. He leaned over and whispered in her ear. "You look the same."

She did not know if that was a compliment or not. He never told her how pretty she was, it was always platonic with them. Now here she was feeling like the teenager she was at seventeen, but this time, in the arms of her secret crush.

After their dance, he took her hand and led her over to the corner of the club that was sectioned off for the VIP. He was the guy staring at her earlier with the shades on in the club. How did she not recognize him immediately? Malik was the type of guy that always stood out.

"What are you doing in Atlanta, Leek? I thought you went out to L.A. after school."

While she went on to NYU for college and pursued her dreams of becoming an actor, Malik wanted to get started in the business and go on auditions in Los Angeles. Similar dreams, two different routes to take it. Her dream given up, and she wondered if he struck out like she had.

"I did L.A. a few years, but my people here in Atlanta. I'm doing my thing, some small movies, some modeling now."

Wow, she was impressed. He was gorgeous enough to be a model back in school and she even suggested that to him, but he loved acting just like her. They were theater rats back in the day.

"What about you?" He picked up her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. "Why haven't I seen you on my TV screen?"

"You know I was never one for Hollywood, I wanted to do stage."

"And?"

"Sometimes dreams are just dreams. It's all good." She looked around the area where he sat where a few other celebrities she recognized were hanging out. Malik must be more than a little bit famous here to hang with the big leagues.

"Nova! What are you doing over here?" It was JaMocha, yelling out to her from the roped area of the VIP.

"Hey, those are my friends, can they-"

Malik waved for the bouncer guy to let them in.

"Girlllll, heeeey!" Cambrea said, looking Malik over. "Do I know you? Looks like I should know you."

"Cambrea, Mocha, this is Leek Hunter, I went to high school with him."

"Shut the door, Malik Hunter!" JaMocha yelled out. "Boy, I just saw you in a movie the other day."

"No shit! And I saw you at the Grammys a few weeks ago with uh...what's her name, that model chick?"

What? Where was she that she had not seen Malik in any movie or at awards shows that she did not watch? When he left her life, she pushed him out of her life because of the heartbreak she felt.

"That is me," he said and stood to greet them with hugs. "You two lovely ladies must be related. I can tell, in the eyes.

"Yes, we're sisters and Nova's best friends," Cambrea said, grabbing his arm and sitting beside him on the couch. "So, uh...tell us, you and Novi date in high school?"

He chuckled at that, and she inwardly rolled her eyes. That would be the first thing they asked.

"No, my girl and I were BFFs if you could believe that."

"He lived next door to me, moved there, what, after eighth grade?"

Malik grinned, grabbed his drink, and took a sip. His sparkling blue eyes, gleamed at her as he watched her. "Something like that. Nova and her family were like my second family. I probably was over there more than my home."

"There's a story there for sure." Cambrea grabbed a glass of champagne as a server walked by with it. "This is complimentary, right?"

"So how long are you ladies visiting my city?"

"We've been here all week and now trying to get lit our last few days, Spring Break. We have to get back to school on Monday," JaMocha stated.

"School?" he looked at her quizzically.

"We're all teachers. Actually, at our old high school."

"What? Interesting." He stroked his beard and licked his lips. "I never would have thought-"

"I love it!"

"We have to keep in touch, girl." Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear. "I was a fool to let you get away from me then...that night when you wanted to-"

She stiffened at his words, then stood up. "No! You don't get to say that to me right now, Leek. You haven't changed a bit. Full of yourself. Ladies, let's go."

"Hold up, no, wait!" JaMocha scooched even closer to Malik, wrapping herself around his arm, and pulling on him. "Malik, you're fine as hell. If you have a girl, you can forget about her tonight."

"Pardon her." Cambrea pulled her sister up. "That man does not want you."

And she didn't either. Maybe when she was young and dumb she had a crush on Malik Hunter like everyone else, but now she knew better, and she deserved better.

"November, wait!" Malik tried to stop her, but she rushed away with her friends following her. She did not stop till she pushed her way through the club and out the front door. The warm spring air infuriated her even more. Now she was hot and mad, mad and hot, not a good combination.

"Girl, please tell us why you ran away from that hot man!" Cambrea said.

"On Gawd! Please tell me why you never told either of us you knew Malik Hunter? That man is everything!"

"Because he's nobody, nobody to me. Let's go." She wiped a tear from her eye before her friends saw it.

No way could she tell her friends that the night of her high school graduation she begged Malik to take her virginity and he refused. The next day he was gone.

She hated him.