FULL CIRCLE

O7.

🎶 Now playing: Toxic Love (Instrumental) by Prod. Dior.

2 weeks later...

"Antonio?" Ms Maya questioned from the back isle of the store. "Did you hear what I said?" The firmness in her tone made him look up to face her.

"Ma'am?" He asked as he packed a customer's goods into the bag.

Ms Maya shook her head at his absentmindedness, eventually walking up to the cash register. "What is going on with you? I asked about all this stock that's coming in, when did we order all this?" She questioned as he shrugged his eyebrows before closing the till. "Morris is trying to make up for his absence and lack of support by buying all this stock as him investing into my store but we all know this is about him more than anything... selfish bastard." His jaw flinched as he spoke softly.

Ms Maya's face softened as she gently placed her hand on his shoulder and looked up at his tall frame, "I know your relationship with your father has been rocky to say the least, but if you feel like you can't focus or you need to step away from everything, let me know instead of just approving everything."

Antonio sighed, "A lot of the stuff that's coming in was ordered last week like we normally do."

She playfully smacked her lips as she put the receipts away, "I'll stick to closing up shop and you can open in the mornings, that way it'll be less pressure on you-"

The store bell rang once again, revealing a face everyone adored, "Hey, Anto-Anto!" Mauro yelled happily. Whenever he greeted Antonio, everyone else automatically took that as a greeting as well. "How are you baby? We haven't seen you in a while. How's school?"

"You know school got nothing on me Ms Maya," he confidently boasted, making Antonio chuckle. "What's with all the stock outside? I know you're making money Anto but those are way too many boxes..." he teased, making Antonio playfully rough him up. Surprisingly, Mauro's statement brought attention to Ms Maya's words and he requested that they have a staff meeting once they closed.

His lighthearted mood immediately dimmed down once Justine walked into the store. He let go of Mauro in attempt to walk away from her. Antonio and Justine hadn't spoken since their last sexual encounter because he'd expressed how tired he was of their routined relationship and the lack of communication and of course she felt nothing was wrong.

Justine headed to the storeroom to put her bag down and although Antonio was expecting the silent treatment, that was the last thing on her mind. She walked up to him and tugged on his forearm firmly, "Can we talk?" She tilted her head, insisting that they go into the storeroom. Antonio glared at her and went against his thought to ignore her. She pulled her phone out and showed him a video. Antonio's face remained scrunched until he noticed that it was the visuals he'd been working on with Roman.

Justine's attitude got sour after noticing the small smile on his face. Come to think of it, he hadn't been on his phone as much and must have missed Roman's messages about the edit coming out. "Who is she?"

"That's none of your concern, you said you wanted to talk so what's up?" He plainly said, aggravating her further.

"This is exactly what I need to talk about. Did you sleep with her?!" Justine raised her voice. Antonio caught an attitude too, "No, Justine. And stop acting like we didn't have problems before this video came out. That's a visual for my music, which you don't support, so why are you tripping?"

Justine looked at him as if he were crazy, when in actuality she was the one being belligerent. "Do you see how she's looking at you? You think I'm not going to trip over another hoe looking at my man-"

"Hold on now," Antonio pulled a face at the insult. He tried his utmost best to be respectful and not cause a scene but at this point he was failing miserably. "No, you hold on," Justine raised her perfectly shaped acrylic tip to his face. "Tell whoever this is to back up-"

"The only person who needs to back up is you, J. You and I both know we've been wanting out of this relationship for a minute now and maybe it's time. I ain't dealing with this," Antonio pointed between them. "no more. You can keep your shifts or whatever but miss me with all that other stuff. It's over." He said before walking off to help customers.

Justine gathered herself with a heavy lump in her throat before heading back to work. Accepting to breakup was just not happening.

After finally getting her way around the busy store, Reign had settled on a Lauren Hill disc for her vinyl and a cute case for her Air Pods. She walked up to the till point, not knowing she'd cheer him up like she did. "Finally found my way here..." she said as he smiled widely with his head still hanging low. "She who Reigns supreme," he mocked her jokingly as she shook her head at the phrase she found extremely corny; which Antonio had grown absolutely fond of. He thought it was very much suiting.

"What's eating you?" She asked as she placed her goods on the counter.

"I'm good, but you look good though..." he studied her outfit as he tucked his bottom lip in between his teeth as a reaction habit.

"That tiny forehead vain says otherwise, long day?" She casually leaned on the counter, completely oblivious to Justine's gaze. Antonio scratched the back of his head, "I'll hit you up later and tell you all about it." He responded, clearly noting his estranged girlfriend's body language.

Mauro, who was still in the store, watched anxiously from an omniscient perspective. He did help Antonio with his plan to speak to Reign after all.

"Hi, you're holding up the line so could you please speed it up, if you don't mind?" Justine plastered a fake smile on her face after she'd been gawking at Reign. Antonio gave Justine a look of annoyance, "It's okay J, she's a paying customer like all the others right?"

"Wonder what else she's paying with to have you giving her all your attention like that." Reign's face scrunched up at her rudeness. Being somewhat nonchalant as usual, Reign ignored Justine and gushed over the teaser video that Roman had curated for his new song, flipping the phone to Antonio as he packed her goods into a paper bag.

"It's dope right? My boy Roman never disappoints," Antonio commented.

She paid quickly after the small talk and Justine budged in again, "You're the girl in the video? You're so pretty... but he has a girlfriend-" Justine threatened as she got closer to Reign, almost getting physical.

Reign scoffed at her as Ms Maya showed up to escort Justine off with a sincere apology to the customers. The conversation they had at the beach then dawned on her. "So... all this time you were talking about your friend being in a little situation, it was you?" She stared at Antonio.

"Reign..."

"I'm the other girl?" She bluntly asked, feeling like a fool before walking off. Running after her would only cause more commotion. A heavy sigh escaped his lips.