Note: Read "Wax On, Wax Off" by QueenJessicaPearson before this because it's funny as shit and there's a reference from that story in this one.
"Anika came to see me this morning." Before Jamal even went to his mother's house, he always checked the studio first. Chances were that Cookie would be there even before she would be at her house. Even as the CEO of Lyon Dynasty, Cookie was most comfortable in the studio. Music was her passion. Everything else was just noise.
"What did my soon-to-be-ex-CFO do now?" Cookie asked, not looking up from the soundboard. Anika's employment was a running joke at Dynasty. Cookie couldn't have fired Anika even if she wanted to. Before coming back to Lyon Dynasty before what had to be the hundredth time, Anika made it clear that she wanted a contract that would shield her from Cookie's temperamental hire-and-fire moods. She also wanted to be head of A&R.
"Tell that yellow bitch to kiss my ass," was Cookie's reply when Porsha handed her Anika's fax.
After a string of disastrous choices had not only threatened the future of Dynasty but their safety as well, Cookie had to admit that she didn't know what she was doing. Having an ear for music wasn't the same as running a company, nor was street smarts an exchange for a master's degree in business and years of A&R experience under one's belt. The bitter negotiations went on for nearly three weeks. When the dust cleared, Anika had signed for much less money than she was asking for, but a much higher position: she was now Lyon Dynasty's CFO.
Anika also had the unusual clause that while Cookie couldn't fire her without just cause, she was free to quit at any time for any reason and still have her contract paid out. Cookie hit the roof, but Andre, who still worked for his father at Empire, encouraged her to agree. "All Anika wants to do is work and prove herself," he counseled his mother privately. "She's not going to quit unless you put a gun to her head."
"Anika wanted to talk to me about coming out." Jamal handed his mother a bottle of water. "She said you told her to talk to me."
"I figured if anyone could tell her all about it, it was you." Cookie knew this conversation was coming, and she wasn't looking forward to it. "What'd you tell her?" she asked, making a big ceremony out of clearing the coffee table for Jamal to set the food down.
Jamal sat on the couch and began to pull the food out of the bags. "The truth. How the press is going to be up her ass 24/7, how they're going to dig up every ex-boyfriend in her past, how she'll have to be on every front cover of every gay magazine and at every gay function, and she'll be considered a sellout and a traitor if she doesn't. What did you tell her?"
"Same stuff I told you. Be yourself, be proud, blah blah blah." Cookie had known all his life that Jamal was gay. She probably knew even before Jamal did. "If Anika wants to put that label on herself, that's her business. She's the best damn A&R since me. She can do whatever she wants to in her private life."
Jamal didn't say anything for a while. Cookie's words were too rushed and too impersonal to be real. They sounded like a speech, as if she'd been practicing it over and over and was just waiting for a chance to perform it. "Wow," he finally said when he digested his mother's words. "No wonder she was crying when she came to see me."
"What? Why?" Cookie joined Jamal on the couch, scooping up a carton of shrimp fried rice. "I told Anika wants to come out, fine."
"Even if Anika outs you when she outs herself?" Jamal asked gently.
"This is the biggest night of my life, Anika! Of our lives! You've worked just as hard as I have. I want you sitting next to me if they call my name."
"Just as long as I'm not sitting next you as your girlfriend, right? As your partner, your CFO, your friend – all of those things are okay. But not the woman you're dating. Right?"
"Kitten, it's not like that-"
"Yes, it is! You're as selfish as you've always been, Cookie! I don't know why I'm surprised anymore."
For so long, Cookie pushed and pushed Jamal to come out of the closet. But Jamal was gay-with-a-capital G. Cookie had been the wife of Lucious Lyon or the ex-wife of Lucious Lyon for most of her life. Cookie slammed her food down, too upset to eat. "Why does she have to make this so hard? I just want to go to the damn Grammys and watch my sons perform. Just go to the damn Grammys."
"With your girlfriend," Jamal finished sympathetically.
Cookie sighed. God, it was all so complicated. "Yeah, Jamal," she finally conceded, for the first time ever. "With my girlfriend."
When Creedmoor Records folded, a wealth of A-list artists were suddenly free be signed. The question of which artists would go back to Empire and which ones would go elsewhere all boiled down to which artists hated Lucious Lyon. As it turned out, most of them hated Lucious. Dynasty went from having a handful of artists with potential to dozens of artists pounding on their door, even willing to be paid much less than they'd been paid at Empire or Creedmoor.
The amount of work was overwhelming. Cookie couldn't imagine how many ways she would have botched things. Anika, who had assembled a small team of young and hungry financial geniuses, had everything under control. She refused to allow them to handle contract negotiations, though. Only she or Cookie was allowed to do that.
Cookie happened to be at Anika's apartment on the night of what would have been her 31st anniversary when an old Donny Hathaway song took Cookie back to that run-down rat hole in west Philadelphia. She was 17 and Lucious was 18, and Cookie was ready to throw in the towel on their marriage after Lucious spent all their rent money on a sitar. Lucious babbled to her about what a bargain it was and the sounds it could make and how it was nothing like playing a guitar, but all Cookie could think about was how it was so cold that Andre had to sleep between Lucious and Cookie so their body heat could keep him warm.
But then Lucious played her a song and Cookie had to admit it was beautiful, and where in the blue fuck did he learn how to play the goddamned sitar? God, there were days Cookie wanted to go back to that so bad. Back to that misery and crippling poverty and Lucious's strong arms, telling her everything would be okay and he would love her for the rest of her life...
"O-kay. Good night, Mr. Hathaway." Anika stood and stretched her legs, which had grown stiff, and flipped off her stereo . "Work's over." She was just as familiar with the date as Cookie was; Lucious had proposed to her on the same night after all. It saddened Anika, the date on the calendar, but compared to what Cookie had gone through, Anika knew she had no right to cry. Certainly not in front of Cookie. "Dry up, Cookie. We're gonna get you high."
Wiping her eyes, Cookie remembered why what she wanted so badly could never be. The Lucious Cookie loved no longer existed. Hell, the Lucious Anika loved didn't even exist. That's why they were in Anika's apartment together at almost midnight on a Friday evening, sorting through potential artists and new acts.
One of the artists who came to Lyon Dynasty was, of all people, Kid Fo-Fo. He'd had some epiphany about God and love and bitches, and his apology to Cookie was so sincere and heartfelt that Cookie signed him to a one-record deal. Fo-Fo, in appreciation, sent Cookie a flower basket full of Crown Royal and marijuana edibles. At the very bottom of the basket was a bag of what Cookie already knew was the most potent weed in all of New York. Cookie had to smile. This dumb motherfucker kept it extra real.
Cookie gratefully accepted the glass of Crown Royal on ice that Anika poured for her. Anika didn't do drugs any more than Cookie did, but she wasn't one to let a perfectly good helping of free weed go by. "You know I have a drug policy, right?" Cookie asked, noticing how Anika's tongue expertly ran across the basket's enclosed rolling papers.
The hypocrisy of an ex-dealer being anti-drug was not lost of either of them. "Yes, and I respect it every day I'm at the Dynasty building." Anika flipped her iPod until she came to the music she was looking for. Donny Hathaway was great for a good cry, but Anika needed some music to get high to. "Ah, here we go."
"Isley Brothers," Cookie said appreciatively once she heard Ron Isley's distinctive vocals. The music lacked Ernie Isley's trademark Stratocaster guitar, but it figured that Boo Boo Kitty's young ass would only know their newer "Mr. Biggs" music, rather than the classic tunes that got people dancing and making love. Still, the song she was playing was pretty good. "What's this song called?"
"'Speechless'. It's off the Life soundtrack." Without her classic pearls-and-heels look and her hair falling in her eyes, Anika could've easily passed for a soft stud on any ghetto stoop. Short hair, white tank top with no bra, Adidas sweatpants, a blunt in one hand, a glass of Crown by her side - straight from the bottle, no ice - and her legs spread wide like she was about to start oiling her girlfriend's scalp as she hunched back over her laptop.
"It's nice." Cookie sat back and sipped on her whiskey while Anika smoked and continued to work on the roster and the budgets. "How can you work and be high?" Cookie asked out of nowhere.
"I'm not high. A little buzzed, though." Anika's screen was filled with squiggly red lines, and her American accent was beginning to fade.
Cookie laughed. "So am I. And there's still so much to do."
"Like what?"
"The budgets. The roster. And I gotta go over the playlist for the Christmas Cookout." Cookie's Cookout had secured its biggest venue yet. and nearly every A-list performer on Dynasty was slated to perform. Anika handled the financial end, while Cookie covered the music. "And we gotta get your twerk game tight. Can't have you out at the Cookout all stiff and shit."
"Oh, my God." Anika shook her head, laughing. It wasn't a painful memory anymore. "How many times do I have to tell your ignorant ass that it was a wine? It's hard to do in a skirt. Much easier to do in clothes like this." She gestured to her sweatpants, then went right back to her typing without missing a beat.
The clicking of the keys was hypnotizing, and the liquor was starting to kick in. Cookie couldn't stop looking at Anika's lips as they wrapped around the joint she was smoking. "Do it," Cookie said without thinking.
"Do what?"
"Wine for me."
The typing stopped. Anika wasn't one to back down from a challenge, and Cookie had just thrown down the gauntlet. Her island pride was at stake here. "Don't ever say I didn't do anything for you." Anika stood and powered down her laptop, took another hit of her blunt and drained her glass. "But I need a better song."
Cookie didn't know how long it took for Anika to flip through her iPod because she was getting tipsier by the second. But Cookie sobered up the second that fluttering ride cymbal filled the air, then that deep, long timpani roll that sounded like thunder. She looked over to Anika and found her bent at the waist, slowly sliding her pants down her legs. Their eyes caught, and Anika held Cookie's gaze as she stood back up as the music continued to play. Cookie was wrong. Anika did know the old-school Isley joints, and "Sensuality" was arguably the sexiest song the Brothers ever made.
Underneath Anika's sweats was a pair of shorts so tiny that Cookie couldn't tell if they were boy shorts or underwear. The missing bottoms called attention to the firmness of Anika's stomach and the lack of fat on her body. Cookie wasn't sure if she could call herself bisexual. She'd had no interest in women before prison, and no interest in them now that men were available to her again. Either way, Anika had never been Cookie's type. Too scrawny, too light-skinned, too young and far too many Lyon men up in her pussy. But oh, that night, with Anika's body flowing like water to the slow, sexy music in the background, Cookie was mesmerized. Mimi would've signed over her life to Anika had she witnessed Anika's hips and thighs moving so smoothly, all the way down to the ground with her arms over her head, then back up again.
Anyone looking inside Anika's apartment that night would think that Cookie was bored watching Anika. Cookie merely sat back and watched as she sipped her alcohol, as if she was at a strip club. Her face revealed nothing about her thoughts. But Anika had been working with Cookie long enough to know her idiosyncrasies. Cookie was naturally animated by nature, and right now her body was still. Too still. Cookie was trying so hard to appear nonchalant that she wasn't even breathing.
By the time Anika reached back for the blunt and straddled Cookie's lap she could feel Cookie's body shaking, even though she was doing everything she could to make herself stop. "Open your mouth," she ordered.
"What?"
"Like I said, you're getting high tonight. Open your mouth, Cookie." Anika was calling the shots now.
Taking a deep hit off her blunt and filling her mouth with smoke, Anika leaned in so close to Cookie that their breasts pressed against each other. As Anika's lips formed a perfect O shape, Cookie instinctively inhaled as Anika exhaled slowly, their mouths not even an inch apart. It was the first breath Cookie took in nearly two minutes. "Not bad," Anika admired as Cookie exhaled. "How do you feel?"
Cookie was too focused on Anika's lips to answer. She was so used to Anika's trademark red lipstick that the natural color of Anika's lips fascinated her. They looked so soft and pink that Cookie had to touch them. Anika closed her eyes as the sensations of Cookie's fingers dragging across her lips over and over quickened her own heartbeat. When Cookie finally stopped, Anika pursed her lips out, kissing Cookie's fingertips, and her eyes urged Cookie to keep going.
Cookie's hand left Anika's mouth and traced her throat, then her collarbone, and finally down to her breasts. Just like before, Cookie's fingertips circled her nipples until they poked through her shirt. Cookie reached down and pulled Anika's shirt up past her breasts. Anika lifted her arms over her head, and Cookie was able to remove the shirt completely, tossing it to the side.
Again, Cookie was riveted with how Anika's breasts, nipples and areolas were practically the same color. Anika moaned when Cookie began to trace the tiny, sensitive nubs of flesh, then tilted her head back and sucked her breath in when Cookie replaced her fingers with her lips and tongue. They followed the same path as Cookie's fingers had just followed, only in reverse: breasts, clavicle, throat, chin, and finally - finally - that full, luscious, pouty pink mouth.
What was happening between Cookie and Anika wasn't drug-induced or alcohol-induced. It was the result of over a year's worth of tension between them, which had been caused and cultivated by Lucious Lyon. How Anika managed to get Cookie into her bedroom was anybody's guess, but Anika's longing for Cookie was stronger than her high.
Anika wanted to go down on Cookie because it was her anniversary. Cookie wanted to go down on Anika because she'd treated the poor girl so horribly for so long. Cookie won. "If it's my anniversary," Cookie reasoned, "then I want you for my gift." How could Anika argue with that? She'd once been the biggest pain in Cookie Lyon's ass. Now she was a gift.
Anika's thighs were wet with spit and cum as she grinded against Cookie's face – no longer on beat, Cookie thought smugly from below. By then, the Isleys were deep in their psychedelic phase on Anika's stereo. Anika's cries of pleasure were drowned out by screaming guitars and deep, pulsating kick drums, but just barely.
They could blame last night on the drugs and the alcohol. Better yet, they could pretend that that the shit never happened. That was Cookie's plan when she woke up in a bed smelling of Chanel and Jean Patou and weed and sex. She took her time showering and dressing and gargling. Cookie might have eaten Anika's pussy and taken a pair of her clean underwear, but she'd be damned if she was going to use Anika's toothbrush.
Anika was wearing nothing but a pair of panties when Cookie finally came out of her bedroom. Cookie didn't even asking for a cup of coffee as she began gathering her things quietly. "Cookie, are we gonna talk about this or pretend it never happened?" Anika asked, doing that creepy touch typing thing that Cookie hated so much, where she could talk to Cookie without looking at the keyboard or the screen.
"It's up to you." Cookie wanted so badly to pretend that she didn't care, but she did, and Anika knew she did. Why Cookie kept this tough girl act up, Anika just didn't know.
"Good." Anika walked over to Cookie, draped her arms around her shoulders and kissed her deeply. It wasn't the passionate, cum-fuck-me kind of kisses from the night before. This one was soft and sweet. "Don't go, Cookie," she cooed, her lips brushing against Cookie's ear. "Not yet."
Cookie thought of Laz just then. "Anika..."
"Shh." Anika pressed two fingers against Cookie's lips, which Cookie kissed in return. "Hate me later, okay?" Anika began kissing Cookie on her neck, running her hands up her shirt. "But let me taste you. Just once." Anika had wanted to return the favor the night before, but Cookie's prison pussy tricks had knocked her out. Now it was time to put 13 years of all-girls' boarding school to the test.
"Oh, my goodness...what in the world...oooh...what are you doing, Boo Boo Kitty?" Cookie was trying – and failing – to be as neutral as ever while Anika was slipping her hands down Cookie's yoga pants.
"I'm about to eat breakfast," Anika answered cutely. "I hear it's the most important...Cookie, are these my panties?"
"Charge 'em to the game," Cookie suggested.
"Keep 'em." Anika laughed as she knelt down. Bringing her head up, Anika began to lick Cookie through the fabric of her underwear. "Oh, my God," Cookie whispered. Anika begged Cookie to have her one time, but Cookie was wondering if she was up for another weekend-long fuck-a-thon. At least she had all her work with her. "Ohhh, my God..."
"You might wanna take a seat for this, old woman. Don't want you to have a heart attack." Anika dragged Cookie to her couch while they kissed. Anika tugged stubbornly at Cookie's shirt when it didn't come off fast enough. "Cookie, where in the world is your bra?"
"Keep it," Cookie replied, and they both giggled.
"Oh, I will. Now, where was I?" Anika peppered Cookie's breasts, stomach and thighs with kisses as Cookie's panties – Anika's panties, really – were tossed over her shoulder. Then Anika looked up and stopped. She sat back on her haunches, just staring for a second. And then Anika began to laugh. Hard.
"What?" Cookie asked. Anika was beginning to make her uncomfortable. She would try to hold back, but it just made it worse. "What?" Cookie asked again, pulling up her pants. Then it hit her. Last night, Anika and Cookie were tipsy and high and in the dark. Now they were stone sober in the light.
After getting used to seeing herself naked in the mirror, Cookie thought she looked damned good, especially for a woman with three kids and nearly two decades in prison. Her stomach was flat, her waist was small, her skin was smooth and clear, and she still had the best ass on the planet. But with Anika laughing so hard that she couldn't even stand up, Cookie couldn't have felt more hideous than she did right then. "Cookie, wait. Wait!" Anika tried to get up, but she was laughing too hard to do so. She tried to grab Cookie's ankle instead.
"Let me go!" Cookie narrowly missed Anika's head as she kicked away from Anika's grip. "Get off me, bitch!"
"Hey!" Anika scrambled to her feet. "Stop it! It's not what you think!" She narrowly beat Cookie to the door, putting her body between herself and Cookie's escape. "Stop. Calm down, Cookie." Anika took Cookie's hands and squeezed them. "Cookie...Cookie..." She kissed Cookie's lips over and over and over, saying her name with every kiss until Cookie stopped shaking with rage. "It's just that you're still waxing, that's all," Anika explained. "I swear, that's all it is."
"Oh." With some mental fuckery, Anika had convinced Cookie to get a Brazilian wax, slyly dropping that Lucious loved them. Watching Cookie waddle around Empire for days on end trying not to grab at her crotch was the highlight of Anika's entire adult life. Cookie spent days contemplating murder, suicide or both. Strangely, Cookie found that she liked the feeling once the uncomfortableness finally went away. Unlike Anika, who was completely bald, Cookie sported a landing strip - a dead giveaway of her regular trips to the salon.
"I thought...because..." Cookie gestured to her body. The dimpled thighs, the stretch marked stomach, the implants - which Cookie had redone when she got out of prison because the first surgery was so botched - were all things that made Cookie self-conscious. Standing next to a woman as perfect-looking at Anika didn't help.
"Oh, Cookie." Anika wrapped her arms around Cookie's waist. She'd noticed the stretch marks, of course, and Anika knew Cookie had breast enhancements. But like Laz and Malcolm and Lucious before her, Anika couldn't have cared less, not with those beautiful eyes, those sexy lips and that absolutely perfect ass. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." She wiped away a few stray tears that had fallen down Cookie's cheek. "You forgive me, baby?"
"Mmmm...I dunno," Cookie pouted, but she was smiling. "You hurt my feelings, Boo Boo Kitty."
"Then I guess I'll have to work hard for you to forgive me." There was only one way for Anika to atone for her sins and be exonerated – on her knees, with her face tilted towards heaven. "Forgive me, baby?" she murmured, running her tongue back and forth, back and forth across Cookie's nerve-rich center. "Pleeeease?"
"Oh, my God...ohhhh, my God...yes! Yes!"
Even though Cookie and Anika weren't in a relationship – it was just a sex thing back then - Cookie felt the need to break it to Hakeem that she was now seeing his former lover, who was also his father's former lover. "I'm not asking you for your blessing," she clarified when Hakeem nearly hit the ceiling at the news. "I just felt like you should hear it from me first. I wouldn't want you to find out some other way."
"First Dad, then me, now you!?" Hakeem spat. "When is Andre gonna get a turn? Is Jamal next?" Hakeem had never loved Anika – hell, he barely liked her most of the time – but this felt like betrayal.
Cookie might have let that kind of comment slide back in the day, but now Hakeem's words bugged the hell out of her, and she didn't know why. Since she couldn't put it into words, Cookie slapped Hakeem so hard that he decided Anika being his almost-stepmother again wasn't so bad after all.
They swore that they would be discreet, and they were. But even though Cookie and Anika were completely professional at work – no lunchtime cookie, no sexting during meetings, no extended breaks behind closed doors - they still couldn't keep it a secret. When Cookie once told Hakeem that she felt like she was in the closet, Hakeem laughed so hard at his mother's words that he slumped to the floor.
"Who's in the closet?" Jamal asked. He was going back to Empire, where he was still signed, but he still stopped by to see his family regularly.
"She thinks her and Anika are in the closet," Hakeem choked out between guffaws.
"Hakeem!" Cookie said, furious with her youngest son for running his mouth.
"Wait, y'all are in the closet?" Jamal asked. He looked genuinely bewildered. "Really? 'Cause everybody knows what's up. Hell, I know what's up and I don't even work here."
"Hakeem!"
"Hey, don't look at me." Hakeem shrugged. "It's not my fault that it's all over your faces. I didn't think you guys even know what a closet what."
"Yeah, unless y'all are gettin' busy in one," Jamal joked slyly as they made their way to the boardroom for a monthly meeting.
"Boy, watch your mouth!" Cookie slapped at Jamal, but missed as he ducked behind his younger brother, who was laughing his head off. Hakeem stopped being bitter a long time ago.
"You think you two are really hiding something, huh? I'ma show you you're wrong." Jamal half-walked, half-jogged down the hallway. "Don't believe me just watch...don't believe me, just watch..." he sang.
"What the hell is he doing? What the hell are you doing?" Cookie tried to chase her Jamal down the hallway, but Jamal was too far ahead, plus he wasn't in three-inch heels. "Excuse me!" he announced as the Dynasty employees took their seats in their boardroom-slash-auditorium-slash-cafeteria, which was nothing but a huge loft with some chairs. Unlike Empire, all LD employees were welcome to sit in meetings, and many did. "Can I have your attention please! Hey, turn that down!"
"Jamal!" Cookie hissed, grabbing at Jamal's arm. "What-are-you-doing!?" Everyone else was thinking the same thing. Why was an Empire artist coming to an LD meeting?
Jamal ignored his mother. "Guys, I have a question, and I need your help." He wrapped an arm around Cookie and grinned. "Everyone in this room who knew that Anika and my mom were seeing each other before today, raise your hands. Be honest, now."
Only Porsha rose her hand, but the looks on nearly every face in the room told the whole story. "Y'all some lyin' muhfuckas," Porsha said, shaking her head. Not only had everyone known that Cookie and Anika were dating, they were relieved when it finally happened. "Pussy seems to calm ya mama down," Kid Fo-Fo once commented to Hakeem. "No offense to ya mama."
Cookie could've died, but she had to get the truth out in the air for good. "Okay, okay. Let's keep it one hunnit," she said, her cheeks flaming. "If anybody here knew about me and Anika before now for real, raise your hands."
One by one, hands began to go skyward, including Hakeem and Jamal's. Kid Fo-Fo raised both his hands.
All Cookie could do was put her head in her hands as the LD family applauded loudly. The cheers turned into a full-blown roar when Anika walked into the room. "What's going on?" she asked, looking around at the happy faces. "What happened? We win something?"
Cookie looked up then, and smiled. "Come here, baby," she said, with a voice so full of love and longing that it told the whole story. This wasn't just a sex thing. Not anymore. "Come sit next to me."
"Do you have any idea how much your support meant to me when I came out?" Jamal asked, cutting into Cookie's thoughts. "I could've done it without you, but knowing that you loved me and had my back made all the difference on some days. Sometimes, that's all I had to get me through."
"How many times do I have to say this? I don't care." Cookie was being honest about that much. She really didn't care at all if they called her gay or bisexual or anything else. But Anika..."I'm old. They can put whatever label they want on me. If outing me makes Anika feel better, fine." Cookie stabbed at her rice so furiously that she nearly punched a hole in the carton.
"She wants your support, Mom."
"I told her she can do whatever she wants. What does she want me to do? Drop to one knee on the red carpet tomorrow night and propose?"
"You told Anika that you don't care." Jamal shook his head. "There's a difference between 'I support you in what you're doing' and 'I don't care what you do.'"
Jamal's words hit home. "I don't care" was what Cookie's mother said when she signed the paperwork that allowed Cookie to marry Lucious when she was just 15. And as it turned out, her mother really hadn't cared. Even though Cookie was just shy of 16 when Andre was born, Cookie's mother did not give one coke-dealing fuck about whether Cookie was afraid, or sick, or cold or scared. Meanwhile, it pained Cookie to think of Anika crying in front of Jamal.
"It's not as complicated as you're making it out to be," Jamal reasoned. "You just said that you don't care if they label you or not. So let them label you. Tomorrow night, you're going to the Grammys with your girlfriend. And your girl wants to come out, and you don't mind if she does, what's the problem?"
"I can't explain it, Jamal. Just..." The thought of Anika having a label on her filled Cookie with dread for reasons she couldn't put her finger on. "I'm sorry," Cookie said, cutting the conversation short. "I don't want to talk about it right now."
"Okay, Ma. I gotta get out of here anyway." Jamal rose and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Gotta get some last minute stuff done before tomorrow."
"Thank you, Jamal. For the food and everything. Look, baby..." Cookie took her son by the hand. "No matter what happens tomorrow, remember that I love you. And I'm so proud of you. Five nominations..." Cookie began to choke up. "I don't care what label you're on, baby. I'll be rooting for you."
"Even against yourself?" Jamal asked incredulously. The two of them were pitted against each other for both Record of the Year – Jamal as a performer, Cookie as a producer - and Song of the Year, both as songwriters.
"Even against myself." Cookie said, smiling sadly. "You know I want what's best for you boys, even if it's at my own expense. I spent 17 years of my life proving that."
Jamal shook his head. "Ma, you're a terrible liar." The two of them burst out laughing. This was a woman who didn't let her son win in as much as a game of checkers when he was a little boy. That's what he loved so much about Cookie. He stuck out his hand, gesturing to the rest of the food with the other. "Eat, drink and be merry..."
"...for tomorrow, we war." Cookie shook her son's hand, then pulled him in for an embrace. 14 Lyon Dynasty nominations against Empire's 15. Tomorrow night was going to be a bloodbath. And Cookie wanted a massacre, no matter where her son was signed.
TBC