Player Haters Read Online Free Page B

with his broad shoulders and tight round ass.
    “What’s up, Melanie?” Tim leaned over the bar with a seductive stare. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he was gonna kiss me. If he hadn’t already slept with my best friend, Desiree, I probably would have let him. I’d had a crush on Tim since the day we met. But as usual, Desiree spotted him first, and although she’d moved on, dealing with him would be crossing the line.
    “Not much, Ti—” Some ugly-ass woman banged into my chair and I stared her down.
    “Sorry,” she whined. I glared at her, then turned back toward Tim.
    “Damn, it’s crowded in here for a Thursday night. What you giving out, two-for-ones or something?”
    “It’s always like this on Thursdays now that we have karaoke. Every wannabe singer in Queens is here. Especially after the word got out that some music executives from Arista Records signed a sister to a record deal last month.” Tim tried to lean closer, and I sat back in my chair. “So what’s up, Melanie? When you gonna let me take you out?”
    “Never.” I twisted one of my shoulder-length blond dreads around my finger.
    “Why?”
    “Don’t play stupid, Tim. You know exactly why. Because you used to go with my best friend, that’s why.”
    He looked like he was about to plead his case, but I cut him off.
    “Look, you seen Trent? I’m supposed to meet him here.”
    Tim frowned as he pushed himself up from the bar. He’d made it quite evident in the past that he didn’t like Trent.
    “Yeah, he’s out back on the patio. He’s been looking for you.”
    “I figured that. He’s not drunk or anything, is he?” I gave him a concerned look.
    “Nah, he’s fine. He looked a little agitated when he walked in, but he talked some stupid-ass woman into buying a bottle of Dom and he’s been fine ever since.”
    “Thank God for small favors,” I thought out loud.
    I lit a cigarette, then picked up my drink as I turned toward the back of the bar. I spotted Trent through the small patio door. He was leaning against the fence, flirting with two sisters in their early twenties. I had to laugh. There was no question that if Trent was anything, he was a ladies’ man. He had both those sisters mesmerized as he stood there profiling in his all-white attire. He looked like he belonged at one of P. Diddy’s Fourth of July parties in the Hamptons. I could just imagine the bullshit he was telling those sisters. Of course you know there was no sign of the urgency that I had heard in his messages.
    I watched Trent do his thing with the ladies while I finished my drink. Usually I would’ve just walked over with an attitude and interrupted his little conversation. But this time, believe it or not, he ended the conversation the second he spotted me at the bar. He just handed one of the women a business card, whispered something in her ear and headed my way. You should have seen the expression on her face when she glanced at the card. She looked like she wanted to run after him. So I know she must’ve been pissed off when she saw him approach me.
    “Yo, where the hell you been?” Trent demanded.
    “Nice to see you too, Trent.”
    I hated it when he did shit like that, no matter how cute he looked in his all-white outfit. But then again, Trent looked cute in anything he wore. He had one of those bodies that was made for clothes. My friend Desiree once said, “Trent don’t wear clothes to look good, clothes wear Trent to look good,” and she was right. Trent could wear a beat-up, old man suit from the thrift store, everyone else could be wearing designer suits, and he’d still be the best-dressed man in the place.
    The funny thing is, Trent isn’t this superfly pretty boy that you’d think he was. Don’t get me wrong. He’s not ugly, by any stretch of the imagination either. But he just isn’t the type you’d expect to make women fall all over themselves. Trent’s secret is the charming, almost regal way he carries