“Haley. It’s the Mercury Lounge. And as long as you’re with me, you’re a VIP.”
She looks up at me and smiles with a little nod of defeat. I put my arm around her and lead her to the lounge. Little victories.
The band is surprisingly good, even more so than I’d been led to believe, but I’m too focused on winning Haley over to bother with business. It’s a sold-out show, but I use a connection and get us in late, sliding into the back of the packed room.
They play a slow, bass-led rhythm. Synths swaying around the lead singer’s dream-like vocals. The kind of music that makes time slow, that pulls at your deepest secrets. I stand behind Haley and wrap my arms around her front and feel glad when she puts her hand over mine and presses back against me.
We stay like that for the whole show, moving slowly, her body melting into mine. We don’t even pull away when the band finishes and the crowd erupts in appreciative applause. Instead, Haley twists her head and looks up at me, her lips inches from mine. We look into each other’s eyes, as vulnerable and open as each other, a look that’s full of promises. I move in slowly, more like falling. Her lips part.
“No,” she says, suddenly standing two feet away. “Brando … please.”
It takes me a few seconds of rubbing my eyes and avoiding eye contact before I recover from being stunned by the rejection.
“Okay. It’s fine, I get it,” I say, my voice suddenly sounding like somebody else’s, somebody defeated. “Let’s go get you a cab.”
She nods, backing a few more steps away from me.
What the fuck just happened?
Chapter 10
Haley
Lying on my side, I push my soft breasts up against the hard muscles of his back. I feel the heat of his body, smell the hazy musk of his skin. My fingers trace his side, so delicately I can feel every goosbump. I reach around to his front, run my nails down the central line of his abdomen, down to the base of his cock, already growing. I pull myself closer and for a second it feels like I’m flying, like there’s nothing beneath me.
Then I realize there really isn’t anything beneath me, and slam face-first into the floor beside my bed.
I jump back up to my feet so quickly I see black and white stars zoom past. Through the daze and the mist of my sudden awakening I begin to put the pieces of reality together. I’m in a hotel room, in New York City. Brando’s not really in bed with me (he walked me to my door and left – almost like a real gentleman) and I have a gig tonight.
There’s something else, I think, as I stumble into the bathroom, rubbing the dull echo of pain on my forehead, unable to tell if it’s a headache or the effect of falling out of bed. I stand in front of the mirror, turn on the faucet, and splash cool water onto my face. Another piece falls like a die in the groggy swamp of my sleepy mind.
Brando. His big, broad arms around my shoulders, leaning back against his chest, tracing the thick veins in his hands. In the battle between professional distance and pure, animal instinct, the latter is winning.
“Keep it together, Haley,” I say to my reflection.
Except it doesn’t sound right at all. It sounds like somebody put my vocal cords through a lawnmower. And it feels even worse.
“Oh no, wait. No,” I say, scrutinizing every stab of scratchy pain that each syllable causes in my throat, listening to the random pitch-shifting in my voice. From two-packs-a-day-smoker huskiness to clown-trumpet sharp notes and back again.
“Fuck!” I scream, yanking on yesterday’s leggings, and it sounds like an outtake from the Exorcist.
I run out of the hotel suite and go to the next door, banging like the zombie apocalypse is at my back. I don’t know who exactly is in the next room, but I know it has to be somebody I can trust; we booked the entire floor of the hotel for our crew, band members, and tour managers.
“I am going to tear your head from your fucking neck and—” I hear Lexi say until the second she opens the door and sees me standing there. Her downturned eyebrows suddenly raise themselves in arches. “You’ve got the wrong door.”
“I’m sick! My throat!” I scream with full force, though it comes out sounding like an alien language of squeaks and croaks. Lexi looks at me like I just turned into a giant beetle before I point frantically at my throat, and her confusion quickly turns into wide-eyed recognition.
“Oh! You’re sick! You poor baby,” she says, smiling with sympathy.
I nod so hard I nearly break my neck. I see the flicker of thoughts behind Lexi’s green eyes as she debates what to do, but then she steps aside and opens the door wide.
“Okay, get in here. You’re not gonna get better standing in a hotel hallway.”