Cali Boys

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Authors: Kelli London

BOOK: Cali Boys
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Also by Kelli London
The Break-Up Diaries, Vol. 1
(with Ni-Ni Simone)
 
Boyfriend Season
 
Uptown Dreams
 
 
 
 
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
CALI BOYS
A Boyfriend Season Novel
 
 
 
KELLI LONDON
Dafina KTeen Books
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Cali Boys
is dedicated to two very important people in
my life. Two incredible ladies who are so much more
than my friends: you both make up my dynamic duo,
and are the best from-the-soul sisters a girl could ask for.
 
Lashon Fryer, my “sister” since kindergarten: Without
you I wouldn't have completed this book. Thanks for
being just a phone call away, and answering even when
you're extremely busy and do not have the heart to say
so, because that's what we do as family—we're there no
matter what or when. When you need me, I'm on
standby.
 
Linda Washington-Johnson, my spiritual soul sister:
Priceless, ever ready, and never wavering in your truth,
friendship, and loyalty are just a few ways to describe
you. Thank you for your honesty and always being
yourself.
 
Cheers to you both!
Acknowledgments
A huge thanks to my princess and princes: T, CII, and K. You three are, hands down, the best of the best. You're extremely intelligent, good-hearted, and selfless. You give me three reasons to smile every morning, laugh every day, and love you even more each night. Love you. Love you. Love you. ;)
For my family and friends: Thank you for supporting and encouraging me. You all are wonderful. Don't ever forget it. I thank you.
Huge kudos and many hugs to my dream team of consultants in New York, Atlanta, and Philadelphia: Rukiya “Kiki” Murray, Alakea Woods, Josh “UnconQUErable” Woods, Chris Ferreras, and Eligio “E” a/k/a “Zap” Bailey. You are all priceless!
Thanks to my fellow writers who offer wonderful teen readers an escape and entertainment. I am proud to be a part of the movement.
Selena James: Your vision and dedication are incredible! Thank you for believing in my characters and stories as much as I do. With your help, I've brought many to life. Now let's get ready for
Epic Fiascos
!
For my readers, I truly and humbly thank you with all of my heart. You're incredible, appreciated, and top of tops. Let's rock the world together!
From Kelli
'Tis the season for boys, boys, and more boys. That's what the world thinks most teenage girls think of, right? Wrong! Okay, well, sometimes, I guess, at least in
Cali Boys
. However, there's so much more to a girl's mind and heart. While writing this book, I was forced to address a lot of problems that teen girls encounter, in addition to their boyfriend issues (or the lack thereof, because sometimes a girl just hasn't snagged the right guy yet): friend issues and disloyalty, a girl's rite of passage into womanhood, weight problems, bullying, and, of course, one of my favorites—self-esteem. We, as girls (some of us are a bit more mature, like me, but still girls at heart
), have a lot of day-to-day realities and problems to overcome. And while many will be trying, or seem a tad hard to bear, believe me, there's a beautiful trade-off on the other side. There's always a lesson to be learned, and that lesson, a jewel of life, is the reward. In short, our lives aren't just what we make them; our lives are about what lessons we learn, then apply, to better ourselves. Because that is always the point, my jewel of a friend: bettering yourself.
So while I've penned this book to entertain you, please read the lessons between the lines. Despite what others may think of you, it's what you think of yourself that really counts. So think you are the best. Meditate on excellence, education, having a good heart and being a great person. And remember: it's not what you are called, it's what you answer to. You are royalty, and you should always be addressed as Your Highness (
your name here
)—even if it's only in your mind—because whatever a girl thinketh, she can become!
TTYL my fellow Queens!
Take care. Be strong. Love yourself.
 
Your girl,
Kells, aka Royal Highness, Kelli London
 (See how I filled in the blank with my name?
I'm with you!)
KelliLondon.com
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
1
JACOBI SWANSON
I
t's not supposed to happen this way
, Jacobi stressed, sloshing a creamy mask on her face, then washing her hands and drying them on her jeans before getting down to business.
It's just not.
With her damp fingers, she pinched the shirt fabric where her breasts were supposed to be, then pulled, making two lopsided, sideways tepees. She'd never have melon-sized brassiere-fillers like her best friend, Katydid, and definitely wouldn't have vavoom-sized, D cup ta-tas like the women in her family. Her head shook at the thought. Never mind large. Big ones didn't matter so much. The problem was, it seemed as if she'd never have enough to fill a bra. At least not in the equal sense. Her small breasts were different sizes. One was clearly bigger than the other, by almost an inch. The other was barely a lump.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, letting the shirt snap back against her skin, leaving wet fingerprints where she'd pulled. The unevenness made her more insecure. How was she supposed to start a new school in a couple of months looking like her left boob had been deflated? She nodded. It would take some serious work and dedication to even out her breasts before summer was over, but she'd do it—whatever it was. And
it
—the solution—lay before her on the sink in a magazine whose cover touted
BOOB LIFT OR BUST
: 2
BEST CHEST EXERCISES.
Turning to page sixty-three, Jacobi read the directions, took off her shirt, and grabbed a medium-sized hand towel. “I can do this. I will do this. I
must
do this.”
Her left hand gripped one end of the towel; her right, the other. She pulled, tugging on the terry cloth until she felt her chest muscles tighten, then released. Again she performed the routine, pulling for a second, then letting go. She repeated the exercise in short intervals, tightening and loosening in quick, five-second repetitions while she watched her muscles contract in the mirror. They'd barely moved, she noted. But they had, and that caused her to smile.
“Pull to the east. Pull to the west ... to increase your breasts! To the east. To the west. To increase your breasts!” She sang a bit too loudly, switching her hips side to side in rhythm with her words, mimicking a dance she and Katydid made up years ago.
Jacobi turned sideways and viewed herself in the mirror. Her profile hadn't changed one bit, but she felt like it had. With a solid thirty days of the bust-increasing exercise, she was sure she'd see a difference. And she hoped it'd be sooner than later because the four marks where she'd pulled on her shirt, two on either side of where bigger breasts were supposed to be, stood out more than anything else on her chest. That was a definite no-no. Girls her age—in her opinion—were supposed to have something to look at. Namely, boobs.
“To the east. To the west ...” she sang again, then paused mid mantra, sure she saw and heard the doorknob rattle. “I'm in here!” she yelled.
A deep laugh rumbled from outside the bathroom. “To the north. To the south. Now get your butt out!” Diggs, her older brother, answered. “That's why nobody likes you but Katydid, Jacobi. You're weird. Mean and weird. ‘To the east. To the west ...' Who says stuff like that? And you wonder why you can't make new friends?”
“Yeah!” said her younger brother, Hunter, agreeing with anything that Diggs said, as usual. He was barely five, and already a huge toothpick in her side.
“Shut up!” Jacobi's heart raced, and a film of perspiration made the creamy cleanser mask run down the sides of her face to her neck. Just the mention of her not making new friends made her panic even more. If she had a choice—which she didn't—she'd have plenty of friends in the new neighborhood; that's what she told herself. But the truth was, here she was a loner—an unsocial butterfly who longed for her old stomping grounds and her real BFFs, Katydid and Shooby, though Shooby was more of a crush than a best friend. But not having friends here wasn't her fault. Where she came from, you had to either stand on your own or join some dumb female clique that paraded as a gang. And getting into trouble wasn't her thing, but she knew she could hold her own and hang with the best of the troublemakers if forced to; she and Katydid had done so plenty of times together. The housing projects had taught her that. And it didn't matter that they'd moved to a house where they didn't have to have bars on their windows. The lessons of the streets were already ingrained in her mind, and it was too late to erase them. So, she wondered, how was she responsible for any aspect of her new life? She was in friendless surroundings, had been forced to move into a new neighborhood where she didn't know anyone, and was broke compared to all the other teens in her area. More importantly, she questioned, how much had her older brother heard? She wiped away the white, creamy facial mask streaks from her skin and tried to wish Diggs away.
A loud banging on the door told her that wishing-away powers were only real in movies, and served as an answer to her wondering how much Diggs had heard.
“Increase your breasts on your own time, in your own room,” Diggs said, laughing between words. “The truly grown folk—like me—need to use the bathroom. I gotta get fresh, too, before the motorcycle show tomorrow. That's why you're trying to magically grow breastesses overnight, right?”
Before she knew it, she'd swiped her things off the counter and opened the door. She was embarrassed and upset, mad that she had to share a bathroom with her brother. If her parents weren't such penny-pinchers, they'd have sprung for a house with more rooms instead of moving to Baldwin Hills and banking half the small inheritance they'd received upon her grandmother's death. Who wanted to live in the Hills, anyway? She'd have settled for someplace on the outskirts of Los Angeles where people weren't so uppity. She shrugged. Maybe if they'd had the money they had now—money she'd been secretly flipping for her father on Wall Street for the last few weeks, ever since he'd caught her trading penny stocks—she could've changed their minds by changing their bottom line: their debt-to-income ratio and net worth.
“What, you think growing bigger breasts is gonna keep your singer boyfriend, Shooby?” he asked, laughing. “Shoo-shoo-shoo shooby-do,” he sang. “I hear he can't even sing.”
“Shut up, Diggs! And for your information, he's not a singer. Shooby's just his nickname. You don't know what you're talking about,” she snapped, pushing him out of her way and into the almost ceiling-high pile of moving boxes they hadn't yet unpacked. Yes, he was right; she'd hoped she could puff out her chest a bit. She wanted to look like the other girls in their crew, and was sure Shooby would finally notice her if she did. She didn't want to be invisible and stay in the background; she wanted someone to pay attention to her at the motorcycle show. And not just any someone, but Shooby, the only person from her old Lancaster neighborhood besides Katydid that she was sure she'd never be able to let go of. They had a history together; one that included flash mobbing for fun, Scooby tutoring her on life, and Jacobi liking him.
Suddenly Diggs snatched the magazine from under her arm. He held it up as high as he could while he scanned the cover.
“Give it back!” Jacobi yelled, jumping in an effort to take it from him. But that's all it was—effort. Diggs was tall, skyscraper-high for his age, and she couldn't reach the magazine no matter how high she bounced. “Stop playing, Diggs!” She drew back and punched him squarely in the chest.
“Ow,” he said, pretending she had hurt him. “Breast exercises. Hmm.” He cackled like a hyena. “Girl, you better pray. Ask God to fix your teeth and face first—your breasts can come later. First you need to be proactive. Get it? Like the acne stuff,” he said, laughing and pushing his way into the bathroom, tossing the magazine at Jacobi right before he slammed the door in her face. “Or just keep hiding behind the stock market and that stupid video camera you love so much. Those are your friends. As long as you're behind the lens of that camera or the
Wall Street Journal
, and not on video or the front page, you won't be harming the world,” he yelled.
She poked out her lips, begged herself not to cry, and wished she and God could have a two-way conversation so she could know for certain what He was planning for her. Diggs was right. Her skin was atrocious, her breasts were lopsided, and the prized video camera her father had surprised her with was her only close friend now, especially since the stock market was plummeting and she was constantly losing money. But prayer wasn't the only thing she needed—that she knew for sure, because she'd kneeled down many times to ask God for at least a B cup. She needed help from a different sort of trinity: divine intervention from a higher power, heavenly chest exercises, and an angel for a dermatologist. And because their flash-mob crew was growing thicker by the day, and Shooby was the ringleader with all eyes on him—girls' eyes—she knew she needed immediate help to get his attention.

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