4) The Doc is In

Marshall and I were both finished with our showers so we started walking to the studio.

"So what are you and Proof gonna be working on?" I asked him as we held hands. "New album?"

"Yeah," he replied. "We're actually meeting with the rest of Dirty Dozen to work on an album together."

*******

Once we got to the studio, some of the guys were chilling on the couch, while others were recording in the live room or working by the mixing board. The music was blasting so loud that the beats were bouncing from wall to wall.

"Ayyyeee Marshall!" Denaun rejoiced once he noticed us step in. All the guys looked over and greeted us the same. Once they were finished Marshall turned to me.

"Aight babe, I'm 'bout to be in my zone,"

"Alright." I smiled.

"Which means I'ma start recordin' and shit in the booth."

"Ok," I said once more.

"Which means I'm gonna be busy and won't be able to talk.."

"Marshall, I know, it's fine." I laughed at how nervous he sounded. I guess he thought I was gonna be upset that he couldn't chat with me the whole time. But that's common sense, I wanted to come just to chill and see how he works on his music. Plus I was able to talk to the rest of the guys anyways, it's not like I was alone.

"Aight," he said a little uneasy. "Whateva you say." Marshall gave me a quick kiss and made his way to the live room.

Once he walked away, it wasn't till then I started to realize how hot the room was. I took off my denim jacket so that I was now wearing only my black cami. I then threw my hair up into a slick back ponytail.

Once I was done I threw my jacket on a chair and looked over at the couch to see where to sit.

"Aye Tori," Proof motioned for me to sit down next to him and Swifty. I nodded my head.

"Hey guys. What's up?" I greeted with a smile as I sat down. Proof put both arms across the top of the sofa.

"You know, just chillin', workin' on some music."

"Yeah, we grindin'." Swift added. "Bout to put Dirty Dozen on the map!" Him and Proof fist pumped.

"Cool." I twiddled around a loose string that was on the bottom of my camisole. "So what does Dirty Dozen mean?" Proof laughed before speaking.

"We're 6 different bodies with our personalities split!" Proof exclaimed. "Thanks to Em's whole Slim Shady idea, we decided we should all create an evil character for ourselves."

"Yeah, that's why it's Dirty Dozen." Swifty added. "Cause there's six of us but we all got an alias so it's like double the amount of members."

"Ohhhh." I bursted out from my epiphany. "That's really clever actually."

"Thanks, it was me and Em's idea." Proof gloated while sinking into the couch.

"Oh come on, it was mostly Em's idea." Swift argued.

"Nigga, you wasn't even there when we came up wit it!"

"Yeah I was!" The two began arguing so I shut down my attention from their conversation.

My eyes started wondering around the room. I just so happened to look over in Marshall's direction only to find he was already looking at me. Or should I say glaring. Lividly glaring. I felt my heart beat speed up as I tried to think of what was wrong. I mean even though he was all the way in the sound room, I could see how furious his expression was. That death stare had him looking like a freaking serial killer. I quickly snapped my head at Proof who was oblivious to the whole thing and was having a complete separate conversation with Swift. Which is when I realized maybe Marshall was mad at Proof for having his arm around me. Even though his other arm was reaching towards the other side of the couch too.

"Hey um, Proof?" He stopped mid-sentence and looked over, waiting for me to speak. "Don't look now, but Marshall's giving us the death stare so I think you should just pull your arm away." Proof instantly got what I was saying and slowly brought his arm back to his lap. I didn't see what the big deal was anyways. It's not like his arm was over my shoulders or anything.

Around fifteen minutes later Jeff Bass came charging into the room in an urgent manner.

"Where's Marshall??" He asked before realizing himself that he was in the live room, recording. Jeff walked over to Denaun Biz and Kuniva and told them to stop the music. He then grabbed the microphone that was on the sound booth.

"Yo what the fuck? Why'd you guy's stop the mus--" Marshall's sentence faded away as he looked up from his notepad and saw Jeff leaning into the mic.

"Hey Em, I need you to meet me out in the other room real quick, I need to talk to you." Marshall slowly nodded his head and walked out of the live room. He then walked past us to meet Jeff in the other room. He looked almost, scared. And to make it even more dramatic, everyone was dead silent. Was he in trouble? I looked over at Proof and Swift. I was about to say something but Proof beat me to it.

"Yo Tori, can we go into the recording room? I need to talk to you about something real quick. In private." I nodded my head with a look of worry.

"Sure, is everything alright?" I knitted my eyebrows together.

"Yeah, sure." Proof said as he got up and walked over to Denaun, telling him what he had to do. Denaun made sure the mic was off so that our "private conversation" remained private. I honestly had no clue what was going on.

When I stepped in Proof closed the door.

"Alright Proof, what's up?" Proof scratched the back of his neck and made a loud sigh.

"Listen," he looked down at the floor and laughed to himself. "I honestly don't know how to fucking say this."

"Say what??" I persisted.

"Ok, before I tell you, you gotta promise not to say anything. Lemme let out all I needs ta say, and when I'm done, then you can talk, aight?"

"Yeah sure. You got it."

"Aight. So, as you know, we've been friends for a long time.....And Marshall's my best friend so I would never intend on doing anythin' that'll upset him." I nodded my head firmly. Where was he going with this? "And, aight to make this short, I think I'm catchin' feelings for you and I don't know what to do about it because Em is my best friend, and I'm married, and I'm just not that kinda guy." He took in a deep breath, not knowing what to expect from me.

I was baffled. Completely thrown off. How was this possible? And since when?

"For how long?" I asked.

"I dunno. It was sort've weeks ago I guess. But the other night when Marshall gave the call on how he lost the battle...you were the only girl in the house at the time, and you were all vulnerable when you were crying, and it was sort've cute, and I don't know what the fucks wrong with me."

"Proof, this isn't good. I mean, what about Sharonda?? I thought you loved her.."

"I do! I do. Believe me I do, but I dunno. She's been working so much lately, I never see her. And we've been having some problems lately, I guess maybe it's 'cause of that.."

"Proof, we can't." I shook my head.

"Tori, I'm not askin' you to do anything. I'm just letting you know because I thought maybe you could help. I don't wanna do anything with you. I'm a good person. I'd never do that to my wife or Doody."

"Ugh, Proof!" I began to massage the temples of my forehead. "Why now? Why when we live together? Do you have to complicate things??"

"Tori, I'm not trying to! I literally can't help this! I don't want this!" I started pacing around while biting the nail on my thumb.

"Ok well, I think what you need to do is, first off do not act on this feeling. Ok? It'll only make things worse for you. Don't think about, don't dream about it, nothing." Proof nodded his head to show he was listening. "But also, you need to rekindle your relationship with Sharonda. Get closer to her since you're having some problems, try to work on that. It'll get your mind off of me and will eventually make you realize why you love her so much and not me." I gave out a sigh. "But I appreciate you for telling me rather than being a jerk and trying to actually make a move. I know you're a good guy, Proof. I'd never judge you, and I'm glad you came to me." I reached my arms up as we embraced into a hug.

*Marshall's POV*

I stepped outside of the room with Jeff. My head started scrambling around, thinking of all these things I could've done to get myself in trouble. Maybe this is because I've been sort've edgy lately. Or maybe it's because I found 20 bucks lying on the floor the other day and took it, maybe it was his? I dunno but it's not like I stole it, I mean finders keepers, right?

"Interscope wants to make an appointment with you."

"What?" I didn't even catch what he said at first. "An appointment?" I repeated. "Uhh ok?.." At first I was just going with it, I didn't really believe him.

"Yeah, they want you to meet with the Doctor." Jeff smiled the most slyest smile I've ever seen in my life. I just laughed, shaking my head.

"Aight, now you're just fuckin' with me." I knew very well who the doctor in question was. And I wasn't about to believe he of all people wanted to meet with me.

"I'm not fuckin' with you Em. I got a call from Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Records. He got a hold of your EP and gave it to Dr Dre himself." He placed both hands on my shoulders. "He asked to meet with you."

Right then and there I knew the doctor was in, and I had an appointment coming up real soon.

"I can't fucking believe it! Oh my fucking God! This is crazy! When? When does he wanna meet??"

"If I tell you, you gotta promise to keep yourself in one piece by then." He joked.

"Yeah, sure, you got it. Just tell me already!"

"It won't be till late February."

"Ugh," I grieved. Of course 4 months from now. "Why??"

Jimmy shrugged. "Guess the doc has a lot of patients to tend to." He joked. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah well I don't have a lot of patience." I chuckled. "Hah, see what I did there."

"I did that was pretty clever."

"But forreal.. I can't even fathom this.. I, I might get a record deal. With one of my biggest idols!" I exclaimed. "I gotta go tell the guys!"

I ran back into the studio room. I scanned around like crazy before saying anything because I wanted everyone to be there.

"Yo, where's Proof and Tori?" I asked just before I saw them right about to embrace into a hug. The fuck are they doing in there? My blood instantly began boiling. But I had to hold it in because this was suppose to be a happy moment for me. I grabbed the mic. "Aye-yo lovebirds! Come on out, I've got some big news." Alright, that was pretty low, but I couldn't help myself.

The two both shot their heads at me with wide eyes and immediately broke apart from the hug. They ran out of the room and crowded around me, along with the rest of the group.

*Tori's POV*

All the guys and I were all crowded around Marshall, waiting to hear what he had to announce. I just wished he didn't walk in on me and Proof hugging like that. Talk about bad timing..

"Aight, Jeff just told me, that Jimmy Iovine got a hold of my EP, and gave both Jeff and Mark a call, saying Interscope Records wants to meet with me!"

"WHAT?!" We all began to cheer in unison.

"You're gonna be fucking famous man!" Denaun shouted.

"Man, we gon' be famous too!" Swift added in rejoice.

"Nah man he finna go solo and leave us whack bitches behind." Bizarre joked.

"Alright, listen ya fucks!" Marshall yelled kiddingly. "That's not all. The guy who wants to meet with me, just so happens to be one of my all time favorite hip hop artists!"

"Me?" Proof joked. At first I thought Marshall was gonna laugh and say something back but instead he looked over with a blank expression and continued talking. Ouch.

"Well what're you waitin' for dawg, tell us who it is!" Bizarre shouted.

"Dr Dre!" Marshall announced confidently.

"Fuck outta here man!" Kuniva laughed. "You sure Jeff's not just pullin' your leg??"

"Do you want me to call Interscope right now?" Jeff inquired. "I wouldn't be making this up."

"Man this is crazy..." Denaun shook his head in denial. "Well I can proudly say, speaking for all of us, we're proud of you Marshall. Mad respect dawg."

"Thanks man." Marshall said while giving Denaun a pound hug.

I wanted to say something too but I knew Marshall was mad at me. I needed to clear the air up in private. But even with him mad, I was so incredibly happy for him and at a loss for words. This could be huge. Marshall could get a record deal, and we will never have to worry about eviction letters, or being robbed, or any of that shit ever again. Our prayers have been answered.