Xavier woke up, on the couch, with an empty bucket next to his head. He looked around the unfamiliar apartment.
"I FLEX CAUSE I GET CHECKS! I FLEX CAUSE I GET CHECKS! ELASTIC POCKETS FINNA STRETCH! BALL SO HARD I'M GETTING TECHS!"
Xavier got up and walked down the hall, to find the source of the shouting. He passed Big E, who was in the kitchen, pouring milk into a bowl of salad. Xavier looked at him for a second, confused, before continuing down the hall and opening Kofi's bedroom door.
"FLEXI-... Damn, X! That was a good take!" Kofi said, taking his headphones off.
Xavier looked at Kofi's microphone and laptop set up.
"Hey, can you take me home?" Xavier asked.
"Sure." Kofi sighed, getting up and following Xavier out of the bedroom door.
Xavier looked down at his phone, and saw a notification for a Snapchat message from a contact listed as "Sasha". It said "why did you give him my snapchat?" with angry and sad emojiis. He struggled to remember what happened, or who Sasha even was. As they walked out of the front door, he went to her Snapchat story, and immediately recognized her as the girl with pink hair.
"What happened last night after you bought me the bottle?" Xavier asked, as they got into Kofi's car.
"You fucked the girl in the bathroom, essentially cockblocking Big E in the process, then you threw up on the girl I was tryna take home." Kofi said, still annoyed.
"WHAT!?"
"Yeah, right on her lap."
"No, the first part!"
"...yeah. Her name was... Sasha. Yeah, Sasha."
"Dude, are you sure I had sex with her!?"
"No. I just know you two were buck naked in a stall in the men's bathroom at the club for like 20 minutes. I suppose ya'll could've been playing Odds and Evens but I doubt it."
"I don't remember that at all!"
"Damn, that sucks."
"...how did you get her Snapchat?"
"I told you, I scanned it off your phone." Kofi said.
Xavier typed "He kinda just took it" in response to Sasha.
"Bruh, what am I supposed to tell Naomi!?"
"...uh... I don't think you're supposed to alert your ex after you fuck somebody. I could be wrong."
"NAOMI IS NOT MY EX!" Xavier exclaimed.
"So you're still dating her?"
"YES!"
"But she broke up with you?"
"YES!"
"And she kicked you out the house?"
"YES!"
"So she said the relationship is over?"
"YES!"
"But it's not over?"
"YES! I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
"So the relationship ended, but ya'll still in a relationship."
"The relationship didn't end."
"But she said it did?"
"Yes."
"So... she broke up with you, but ya'll still dating?"
"Yes!"
"Alright, that's the part I don't understand."
"She said it's over but it's not over because we always say it's over and it's never over." Xavier said, trying to rationalize it in his head as he was saying it.
"Okay, one more time. Just for clarification. Last night, you cheated on your girlfriend, AFTER she broke up with you, but it's still technically cheating because you guys aren't really broken up, even though she said you're really broken up?" Kofi asked, confused.
"That's what I've been saying since I got in the car."
Xavier's phone vibrated with another message from Sasha.
"What did Sasha say?" Kofi asked.
"Why do you think that's Sasha messaging me?" Xavier asked back.
"When the notification light is yellow, it's a Snapchat. Nobody Snapchats your lame ass."
"You don't know me, Kofi."
"What did Sasha say?"
Xavier sighed, rolling his eyes.
"She said 'I know this is so backwards considering what happened last night, but you seem like a really cool guy and I'd like to get to know you. Do you want to go to dinner tomorrow?'."
"Wow. You're gonna have to block her."
"Block her!?"
"Yeah, when one night stands are tryna be wifey you gotta reality check them bruh. Besides, you got your girlfriend... who broke up with you... but not really broke up with you... but kicked you out and hasn't talked to you in 6 days."
"I can't just fuck her and then completely ignore her the next day." Xavier said, as Kofi parked outside.
"So what are you gonna say?"
"I said 'I'll have to see'. I'm gonna tell Naomi what happened, and see how that works out."
Kofi rolled his eyes.
"Good luck, X. See ya."
"Bye. Thanks." Xavier said, getting out of the car.
Kofi and Big E sat in the make-shift studio, smoking weed.
"Bruh, last night was like a reality check. I really gotta start taking off with this music shit." Kofi said.
"You making Flex Ed 3?"
"Man, I'm running out of Flex puns." Kofi said, looking at his tracklists.
The tracklist for "Flexual Educa$ion" was
1. Flex-Rated
2. Tyrannosaurus Flex
3. Flexercise
4. Flexplanation
5. 6 Side Watch (Flexagon)
6. Polar Flexpress
7. Lead By Flexample
8. Houston, Flexus
The tracklist for "Flex Ed 2" was
1. Intro
2. Still Flexing
3. Flexperience
4. Flex
5. Flexico
6. Special E-Flex
7. Flex (Remix)
"Maybe you need, like a new gimmick." Big E said.
"Like what?"
"I'ont know. Flexing is getting old. You need dimensions. Lil Uzi don't just flex on niggas every song. Sometimes he talks about arguing with his girl or some shit. You can only make so many songs with the same subject matter before it gets redundant."
"Man, fuck that. All I need is a team around me. I need some producers, so I don't gotta use free beats off YouTube, I need a manager, I need somebody to start getting Flexing merchandise made-"
"An accountant to price all this shit out."
"Yeah, an accountant... uh... what else?"
"PR/Social Media manager to make sure you don't say no crazy shit. A ghostwriter wouldn't hurt."
"You tryna say I'm trash?"
"No, I'm just saying. Drake got ghostwriters, why can't you?"
"I don't need a ghostwriter. I got it all up here." Kofi said, pointing at his head.
"Alright, well... keep on with your music and shit, I'm gonna finish this deer cereal and start looking into filling these positions."
"Nigga what the fuck is deer cereal?"
"Carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes in a bowl of milk."
"...who taught you that?"
"My uncle used to eat it."
Kofi rolled his eyes and sighed, putting on the headphones.
Two hours later, Big E was sitting at the computer chair, as Kofi sat on the bean bag near it.
"You remember Tyler from high school?"
"Tyler who?" Kofi asked.
"Breeze."
"...not really."
"Well he's a sound engineer."
"What's that mean?"
"He mixes and masters songs."
"And that means..."
"He adds effects and makes them sound good." Big E said.
"What does that got to do with me?"
"You make music. He could mix and master your shit. He got a studio too."
"My shit is fine the way it is."
"But it could be better, ya know? AutoTune, reverb, echos, all that Travis Scott type shit. That's why you only got 500 followers."
"526!"
"I'm just saying..."
"Saying that?"
"Yachty use AutoTune." Big E shrugged.
"That nigga is terrible!"
"You're not wrong, but you're not seeing the big picture."
Big E clicked a button and a song started playing.
"Who's this?" Kofi asked, smiling, nodding his head.
"R-Truth."
"Man fuck that nigga! He went to school with us, he live right around the fucking corner, and he got 250 more followers than me, and he's not even good!"
"But you're nodding your head."
"Cause the beat, man. The beat, and the autotune and... man, who made the beat?"
"Somebody named 'Soulless Senpai'."
"Find their SoundCloud account and hit them up."
Big E did some typing.
"Found it... he's from Ireland but he lives in here. He has some white girl with orange hair as his profile pic."
"Tell him I'm interested working with him."
Big E nodded.
"Oh, and tell that Tyler nigga we'll be at his studio tomorrow."
"Gotchu."
"I gotta come up with some melodies for this AutoTune shit. I'mma be on my Kanye shit... Fleeeeeexin, nah I don't like that. Fleeeeeeeexin on these niggas, I be fleeeee-"
"He already hit you back." Big E said.
"What he say?"
"He said, 'Awesome! I like Flexperience. Is there any specific sound you're looking for?'."
Kofi thought.
"Nah, just give him the address to Tyler's studio and tell him to bring some beats."
It was about 7PM. Xavier stared at his phone, debating on whether or not to call Naomi.
He pulled up her contact, and hovered his thumb above the call button.
Just then, he received a text message from Sasha, saying "It's fine if you don't want to see me again. I understand."
An immediate wave of guilt hit him. Before he could respond, his phone started ringing.
"Hello?" Xavier, asked, eagerly answering.
"Hey." Naomi said, on the other line.
"What's up?"
"I have a date tonight, I need you to come watch Valentine."
"...wait, what?"
"I have a date tonight, I need you to watch Valentine for me."
"A date!? With who!?"
"With Mynger."
"Mynger?"
"Yeah, Mynger Business."
"Naomi, I'm serious."
"I'm serious too."
"Why are you going on a date!?" Xavier asked.
"Because I'm single? If you don't come over and watch her I'm gonna have to take her to my sister."
"Valentine doesn't need to be around your sister's bad ass kids."
"Then come and spend some quality time with her. She'll enjoy it."
"...I'm on my way." Xavier hung up.
Xavier texted back "Does Five Guys at 6 o'clock sound good to you?" before leaving his mother's house, and beginning to walk to Naomi's.
The girl from the SoundCloud profile picture of the producer Big E found was sitting in a college lecture, with her headphones plugged into her laptop.
"Becky, are you even taking notes?" The girl sitting next to her asked.
"No, I'm finishing this beat. I'm playing beats for a rapper tomorrow, and I really think he'd like this one. It has like a Big Sean type vibe, but not like lame 2012 Big Sean, it's more like lit 2017 Big Sean." Becky replied, in her thick Irish accent.
"We have an exam in a week."
"I'm not gonna need college if one of these rappers in town makes a hit song on one of my beats. Tell me what you think of this 808." Becky said, handing her the headphones.
The girl put them on.
"I don't know anything about... hey... this sounds really good." She said, smiling, nodding her head.
"Thanks Nattie. You should follow me on SoundCloud. SoundCloud dot com slash Soulless Senpai."
Nattie looked confused.
"Why Soulless Senpai?"
"I'm ginger." Becky shrugged.
When Xavier arrived, he saw a light skinned man in a suit, standing by a car in front of the house. He was wearing glasses, and had his hair in a short ponytail.
"You must be Xavier." The man said.
"Yeah..." Xavier said, slowly shaking his hand.
"Jimmy."
Xavier simply nodded, before walking in.
He noticed Naomi's make up and rolled his eyes.
"You're going on a date with a nigga named Jimmy who wears bow-ties?" Xavier asked, looking skeptically at Naomi.
"He's wearing a bow-tie?" She asked, handing their year-old daughter Valentine to him.
"Yeah, he looks like the Pringles guy, except light skin."
"He's Samoan."
"Good for him."
"...Well I'll be back... you can stay here tonight on the couch, there's food in the fri-"
"Hey! Hey Val! Hey Val! Did you miss Daddy!? I missed you too! Mommy's going on a date with some corny dude!" Xavier said, nuzzling her nose with his own.
Valentine laughed and began kicking her feet.
"It's a good thing I like 'corny dudes' or else I would've never dated you." Naomi said, leaving.
Xavier sat Valentine on the couch, before sitting next to her and turning on the TV.