Onyx and Starr Read online

  Onyx & Starr

  A Different Kind of Love

  A Novel by Lady Lissa

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  © 2015

  Published by Leo Sullivan Presents

  www.leolsullivan.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Unauthorized reproduction, in any manner, is prohibited.

  Prologue

  Onyx

  “Ahem,” he clears his throat again.

  He finally gets Starr’s attention, but does not look happy when she turns to face him. “Oh, I’m sorry baby. It’s just that I haven’t seen Onyx in a couple of days and I miss him,” Starr gushes.

  “Wassup man. You know, you really ought to get that throat checked, especially since they have so many viruses going around. Ssshhhiiiddd, you might even have Ebola,” I said as both Starr and I break into laughter.

  “Yea, whatever nigga,” Freddy says.

  “Where are you coming from?” Starr asks me as I’m giving Freddy the evil eye.

  Man, I don’t know what it is about that nigga but I don’t like his ass. He looks shady and suspicious as fuck, if you ask me. I wonder why Starr is still with his dumb ass. I hope she ain’t fucking his stupid ass, especially since she wouldn’t give it to me. I was hoping that she would realize that I’m the best guy for her. I mean, I’ve been knowing her longer than any of those guys she chooses to date so that would make me the better guy for her.

  I hold up my shopping bags and say, “I was just doing a little shopping.”

  “Really? Is there anything in those bags for me?” Starr asks as she makes an attempt to peek inside my bags. I hold them above my head since I know she won’t be able to reach them because of our differences in height. I’m 6’4” and she’s only 5’6”, so I’m sure to strangers walking through the strip mall, we look pretty silly.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Where are the two of y’all headed?” I ask once she finally calms her butt down. I don’t give a fuck where that nigga is going. For all I care, he can go step out in five o’clock traffic.

  “We’re on our way to the Coach store. Mama’s birthday is coming up so I want to get her a handbag and wallet from the Coach store,” she says with a smile.

  “Oh, I totally forgot about your mom’s birthday. I’ll be sure to get her something special for her birthday,” I say.

  “That’s nice of you Onyx. I know she will appreciate it because she always loves your little gifts,” she says.

  The dude is standing beside her, mean mugging me like some lil bitch. I really want to know what his fucking problem is, but for Starr’s sake, I’ll let it alone for now. But, I will tell you this, if that nigga don’t watch his step, he ain’t gonna get too many passes to act right.

  “Yea well, your mom has expensive taste and so do I, so it doesn’t take a genius to know that I need to give what I get. I’ll just pick out something for her that I would pick out for my own mom. Are y’all doing something for her on her special day? I know how your dad likes to fire up the grill.”

  “I’m trying to throw her a surprise party but her birthday is only two weeks away. There’s no way I can pull a surprise party for her in such a short period of time,” she says.

  “Oh, well if you need some help, I’d be more than happy to help you,” I offer.

  “I’ll help you baby. All you had to do was let me know you needed help,” Freddy says.

  “I did tell you I needed help baby. Remember? You said that you had too much going on with graduation plans and everything,” Starr says looking at him. Yea, he’s a senior also but if I have time to help her, he should have time too. I mean, he’s her man and all.

  I can tell that she pissed him off when she said that. Like he didn’t want me to know that she had asked for his help but he had turned her down. He probably really didn’t want me to know, especially since I just offered my help.

  “Well now I’m telling you that if you need my help, I will help you,” he said.

  “Thanks babe, I appreciate it but its’ cool. Onyx offered to help me and he knows my mom’s taste better. I know that if the two of us work together, Mom is bound to have a great party,” Starr says.

  He didn’t respond but I could tell from the look on his face that this nigga is definitely not happy at all. I can see the heat rising from his neck and face as it grows redder by the minute; hell, I can even feel the heat radiating off that nigga.

  “Great. Well let me get outta here. I will call you later so we can get started on your mom’s party plans. Maybe we can get together next weekend,” I tell her.

  “She’ll be busy later and next weekend,” Freddy said.

  “Dude, what the hell is your problem? This is an A and B conversation, I’m sure you know the rest,” I tell him.

  “My problem is with you. You know that Starr is my girl, right? So why the fuck you keep trying to push up on her?” Freddy asks me as he steps all up in my personal space.

  Now I don’t know about y’all, but where I’m from, a nigga steps in your personal space, he asking to get his ass beat. I don’t give a nigga too many chances to stick themselves in my face.

  “Muthafucka, seeing as how you don’t know me, you don’t know what I like and don’t like. So let me school you in on a lil’ something, I don’t like people in my fuckin’ face. So what I’ma need you to do is fall the fuck back. Now you have two seconds to fall back before I make you get the fuck back,” I tell him as I look down at his ass.

  Yea, that’s what I said, I’m looking down at this insecure little piece of shit. That is what I thought of him as I tower over his 5’11” figure. In case I didn’t mention it before, I stand at 6’4”; so I’m a pretty good height. Anyway, as I stare at this nigga, I think, ‘this nigga must got me fucked up’. I’m also hoping that he will take my advice and fall back because if he don’t, I swear that it’s about to be a whole different kind of situation out here. I tried playing the nice guy because Starr is my best friend, but I have had all I’m gonna take from this nigga.

  “Guys, this really isn’t necessary. Y’all don’t have to argue about this,” Starr says trying to squeeze between the two of us. She puts her hands on my chest and lightly pushes me back a little before turning to Freddy.

  “Babe, what is this really about? Are you really that mad because Onyx is going to help me with my mom’s birthday party? You don’t have to act like this because it’s not that serious,” she says, trying to calm his ass down.

  “Nah yo. This nigga is totally disrespecting me and our fuckin’ relationship. This nigga needs to know his place! I’m your fuckin’ man and this nigga is crossing so many fuckin’ boundaries right now yo!”

  “Starr, you really need to get ya man, baby girl. It’s only so much I’m going to take before I lay his ass out,” I say as I open and close my fist over and over again.

  “Well what you wanna do nigga? I’m right here,” Freddy says as he pushes Starr out the way. As she tries not to fall, she loses her balance. She falls on the sidewalk and lets out a scream. That is all the ammunition I need to fuck this nigga up. How dare that muthafucka not only put his hand on Starr and throw her to the ground, but he doesn’t even check to make sure she’s alright. It’s all good though because I will teach this nigga a lesson he won’t soon forget. That way next time his bitch ass sees me coming, he will move the fuck back.

  He steps up to me again, asks what I�
�m gonna do and bumps his chest up against me. When he does that, I haul back, really far back, and punch the fuck out of that son of a bitch. I must have surprised or shocked his ass when I did that because the nigga lost his balance, even while he’s trying to keep himself from falling. I look at Starr as she tries to get up but her right knee is skinned and bleeding, so she sits back down on the sidewalk. She has tears flowing down her cheeks from her pretty light brown eyes as she looks at us.

  Freddy finally recovers, stands up and tackles me by wrapping his arms around me, trying to throw me to the ground. I am an athlete so this move he is doing is pretty common. But since I’m no stranger to exercise and shit like that, I can take this nigga. He would actually be funny as fuck, if we weren’t in the middle of a fight. I lift my fists up and bring them down hard on his back. He’s still holding onto me so I repeat the motions again, three more times until he falls to the ground. At this point, he’s on the sidewalk screaming in agony. I know for a fact that this shit hurts but fuck him. Once he’s down, I give him a swift kick to the gut before leaning down to ensure that he hears what I have to tell him.

  Chapter One

  Onyx

  12 years earlier…Onyx meets Starr…

  I never was a fan of Atlanta, Georgia but it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not because it’s home now. My dad decided he wanted to move with the company he worked for, so he uprooted our family from New York and moved us here. His office opened a bigger headquarters in Atlanta and his boss promised him a promotion if he moved to oversee the company. I am nine years old when we move here and I am the awkward and new kid on the block.

  My dad found us a beautiful home on Dawson Lane and the first friend I make is this cute little girl with long pigtails and a pretty smile. While the movers are unloading our things out of the moving truck, I am outside bouncing a basketball in the driveway. This little girl bounces up our driveway from the house next door and just steals my damn ball. I am in a state of shock as I stand there looking at her like she has lost her damn mind.

  She doesn’t pay me any mind and just shoots the ball. The thing that surprises me the most, is when I hear the SWISH of the net as the ball goes in. She catches the ball and puts her hand on her hip, looks at me and asks, “Are you gon’ play or not?”

  Okay, she wants to play a little one on one and the first thing that pops into my head, is Monica and Quincy from the movie, Love & Basketball. She throws the ball at me and says, “Check boy!”

  So what the hell am I supposed to do? I check the damn ball and the two of us begin to play. We shoot hoops for the rest of the afternoon. While we are shooting hoops, she tells me her name is Starr. At first I’m like this girl is trying to play me, but then she tells me that Starr is her real name and it’s on her birth certificate. Wow! I’ve never met anyone name Starr before. It’s a pretty name, unusual but pretty all the same. She is a year younger than I am at eight years old and she’s in the second grade, while I’m in the third grade. She tells me that she goes to Deerwood Academy and that’s where I will be going to school also. She says she really likes attending school and she loves her teacher.

  She has an older sister name Maggie and a younger brother name J.T. I give her information about myself also, telling her what my mom and dad does for a living and what brought us here. I let her know that I have an older brother who is in middle school. By the time we are done playing ball, we know everything there is to know about each other. I mean, as much as two eight year olds need to know to call themselves friends.

  “STARRRRRRR! STARRRRR!” Yells a female voice from the house next door.

  “I gotta go. That’s my mom,” she says as she tosses the ball back to me.

  “Okay, thanks for coming over. I had fun,” I tell her.

  “Me too. Do you want me to wait with you so we can catch the bus tomorrow?”

  “Nah, my mom has to register me at the school first. But I’ll look for you if I start tomorrow,” I say.

  “Okay, cool. If you don’t come to school tomorrow, I’ll come over to play basketball with you after I’m done with my homework,” she says.

  Right away, she just tells me what we are going to be doing tomorrow afternoon. She doesn’t give me a choice and guess what. I like it. She is such a cute little girl. She has pretty light brown eyes, long pigtails, her skin is the color of a Milky Way candy bar, and she has a smile that could light up any room. I thought the first friend I would make when I moved her would be a dude. Boy, was I wrong.

  Starr and I say our good byes and go into our homes. I like that I have already made a new friend the first day I moved here. It will make going to school much easier since I know someone who is already a student there. When I make it inside, my mom is just finishing up on the dinner.

  “Go wash your hands and then come in here,” my mom says.

  “Okay mom,” I say as I run to the bathroom to wash my hands.

  Once I finish washing my hands, I go back to the kitchen as my mom told me to do.

  “Do you need help with anything mom?” I ask.

  “No, but I would like for you to tell me who that little girl was that you were playing ball with all afternoon,” she says.

  “She’s our new neighbor and her name is Starr. She’s eight too and in the same grade with me. She likes school, she likes her teacher, she really likes playing basketball and watching movies. She’s really cool mom,” I say.

  “That’s nice that you made a new little friend already,” she says.

  “I know right and she likes to play basketball too,” I tell her smiling a huge smile.

  “That’s good Onyx,” she says, blowing me off.

  “Go call your brother and daddy for dinner,” she says.

  I take off to the back rooms to find my dad and brother, Junior. Junior is just where I thought he was going to be; in his bedroom playing his games on his PS3. Once I let him know that mom called for him, he hurriedly turns the game off and goes to wash his hands. My brother and I have our own rooms and I am super excited about that. When we lived in New York, we had to share a room and because Junior is twelve, he always gave me a hard time. He didn’t like sharing a room with his little brother. Sharing a room with my brother ain’t been all peaches and crème for me either.

  The four of us sat down at the dinner table to eat dinner and then it was time for my brother and I to go to bed. After my brother and I finished taking our showers, he went to his room and I went to mine. My mom said she would be waking us up early so we could go to the schools to get registered. I am excited and nervous at the same time and it takes me a couple of hours to get to sleep. I am excited because I have a friend in Starr but I’m nervous because she’s the only one at that school that I know. You know how it feels to be the new kid on the block; it sucks. People pick on you, call you names, and torture you just because you’re a new student. I hope they just get to know me or leave me alone.

  The next day, my mom wakes us up around nine that morning. After we get dressed, she takes me to Deerwood Academy and my brother to Bunche Middle, so we can get plugged into the school’s system so we can get our education. The process takes a little over an hour at each school. By the time she has finished all the paperwork, it is too late to start today so we are told that we can begin school tomorrow. I’m glad we aren’t starting today. I was more nervous than excited last night and I barely slept.

  I spend the rest of the day watching for the bus, waiting for it to drop Starr off at her house. Finally around 3:45 that afternoon, the bus pulls up. I am super excited and want to run outside, but I know she has homework to do, so I chill instead. After about fifteen minutes, I head outside and begin to shoot hoops while waiting for Starr. Finally around five thirty, she makes her way over to my house. I cannot contain the happiness that I am feeling. I’m sure she can see me smiling a mile away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Starr

  I couldn’t wait to finish my homework so I could go shoot ball wit
h Onyx. He’s so cute with his pretty chocolate skin. As soon as he spots me coming up his driveway, his smile grows so big. I am glad that he is as happy to see me as I am to see him.

  “Hey,” I greet him.

  “Hey, how was school?” he asks.

  “It was good. I kept looking for you,” I tell him.

  “My mom had so much paperwork to fill out that when she finished, it was too late for me to start today. My mom said we will start tomorrow,” he responds.

  “Oh, okay. Well let’s play ball,” I say as I grab the ball from him.

  “Check,” I say and toss the ball his way; he checks the ball and the game begins. I enjoy playing with Onyx because he’s just as competitive as I am. He doesn’t let me win anything. Every point I get, I have to fight for it; literally. I’ve played with a couple of boys before at my old school but every time I scored a point, they claimed they let me win. Onyx doesn’t let me win anything; he makes me work hard for my win and I love it. I am very competitive when it comes to sports. I know it’s probably hard for y’all to understand because I’m only eight years old, but my dad always taught me to have what he calls a “competitive edge”. He said I need that to get ahead in the world, so I do my very best at everything, especially sports. We play ball until seven in the evening and then we head to our houses.

  The next day, I ask my mom to comb my hair really pretty but I don’t tell her why. I’m sure after seeing me playing ball with Onyx the past couple of days, she knows why. I never really knew what it was like to have a crush on someone, but I feel I have a crush on Onyx. But he’s my friend so I’m just glad that he likes me as his friend. I see Onyx in the hallway on our way to the cafeteria and I wave at him profusely. My female classmates are whispering to me and asking who is he, but I don’t respond because in the hallways, we cannot speak or we’ll get in trouble. They will have to hold their questions until we can talk at the lunch table.