The Mixtape

While I cruised the appetizers table, I tensed up when I felt someone place their hand on my shoulder and thought I had to put my socializing cap back on. Turning around quickly, I breathed out a sigh of relief as I saw Alex standing behind me. He was wearing all black, with a Hermès gold buckled belt, which I was almost certain he took from my closet. His shirt collar was pressed and smooth, and the sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up to his elbows.

“You need to slow down on your socializing, brother. People are afraid you’re going to hop on a table and start dancing,” Alex joked, grabbing my fiftieth crab bite from my hand and popping it into his mouth.

“I said hi to Tyler,” I offered.

“Saying hi to your manager isn’t really being social.” He glanced around the space and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck as his necklace swayed back and forth from him hitting the chain. It was half of a heart necklace—I had the other half. Mom gave it to us years ago, when we went on our first tour. She said she was leaving her heartbeats with us.

Corny as hell, but then again, that was our mother, corny as hell. Sweetest woman you’d ever meet, and a big crybaby. The woman still couldn’t watch Bambi without tears flooding her eyes.

There wasn’t a day when we took off those necklaces. I was thankful for the reminder of home.

“I’ll go talk to Cam. How’s that?” I offered up. Alex tried his best to hide his grimace, but he suffered from a lack of poker face. “You can’t hold a grudge against her forever.”

“I know. I just don’t appreciate how she did that interview and threw you under the bus in an attempt to get exposure. That’s not how your girl should be acting.”

When my brother and I formed our duo, we performed in a lot of small venues. It was then that we crossed paths with small-town Georgia peach Cam—the up-and-coming country star.

Even though we were both different kinds of performers—I was the soul/R&B musician and she the country singer—we found common ground. It wasn’t every day you came across two Black people who found success in an industry where we were the minority.

Even though we were both successful, Cam’s rise to fame had happened within the past year. She was finally getting the credit she deserved for her talents, and I loved to see it. The only problem was, with success came ego. She glowed in the spotlight, but the same glow seemed to become addictive to her. Over time, it was clear we were growing in different directions, which I knew for a fact when we went out for lunch one afternoon and she reached out to the paparazzi to have us photographed together.

The fame became all she craved. More, more, more. It was never enough for her, and her need to be at the center of the spotlight damaged her common sense. She made rushed decisions without thinking of the consequences of her actions. She trusted the wrong people. She acted out of character from the sweet woman I’d met years before.

Still, I knew she wasn’t all bad. I’d been in the limelight for the past few years; I knew how that could mess with someone’s head. When we first met, we connected in the deep ways that I loved. She was a young girl with a dream, and I was a boy with the same. I knew that goodness had to still live inside of Cam. Success had come so fast for her over the past year, so I was certain she just had to find her footing. Sometimes when I looked in her eyes, I still saw innocence. Other times I saw her fear. So what kind of asshole would I have been to turn on her when she was just figuring it all out?

When she went to do an interview a few weeks ago and spoke about our personal relationship—something I never wanted the public to be involved in—Alex got pissed. Cam knew that I didn’t want our relationship in the public’s grips, because we’d watched time and time again how the media ripped apart people for entertainment. Cam told me she meant no harm and the interviewer had tricked her into answering the questions about our relationship. I believed her. Why wouldn’t I?

“She didn’t mean any harm,” I muttered, looking at my highly annoyed brother.

He shrugged. “Of course not. But she did mean to use it as a way to get clout. I know you both have been together for a long time, and I don’t want to say that she’s using you—”

“Then don’t,” I said through gritted teeth.

He frowned. “All right. Dropping it.”