He paused then, taking a deep breath. “So I have something of interest to tell you … My parents are coming to the premiere.”
I spun to look at him. He was reclining on the bed, long legs crossed, hands folded behind his head, completely at ease. A pose incongruous, I thought, with the subject matter at hand.
“Fuck.” It was barely a whisper.
“It’s okay, I’ve already prepared them.”
“You told them how old I was? You told them about Isabelle?”
He nodded slowly.
“Did they freak out?”
“Define ‘freak out’ exactly … No, I’m playing with you. They did not freak out. They were surprisingly … okay.”
“‘Okay’?”
“Okay,” he repeated, a small smile on his lips. “It’s going to be okay.”
But I doubted that. Highly.
*
We decided to skip the flurry of industry parties that night and went to a late dinner at Casa Tua on James. We’d only just arrived at the restaurant and were snaking our way through the candlelit tables in the courtyard garden when someone called Hayes’s name. I turned to find him stopped alongside a table of what looked to be three young models. Accompanying them was a middle-aged gentleman. Perhaps an agent, a father, a predatory paramour. It gave me pause. Was this what I had become? Middle-aged?
The girl closest to Hayes was fine-boned, blonde, beautiful. Her thin hand was wrapped around his wrist. “Amanda,” she was saying. “We met at the Chateau a couple of weeks ago.”
I watched him register, smile. “Amanda. Yes. Hi. How are you?”
“Wonderful,” she said. Of course she was. She had flawless skin and a smattering of freckles over her delicate nose. And she was young enough that she could get away with going out at night in South Beach with not a lick of makeup.
“We were just talking about you,” she cooed. “I believe you know my friend Yasmin.” She gestured to the girl seated across from her.
A brunette, slightly older, vaguely ethnic, large wide-spaced eyes and a pornographic mouth.
Hayes took a moment, placing her, and then he nodded, slow. “I do.”
“Hi.” Yasmin smiled, flicking her hair.
“Hi.” He grinned. He’d fucked her. That much was apparent.
It was in the shift in his body language, and the way she refused to hold his gaze. And it struck me, that I was able to tell so quickly, that I knew him that well. My boyfriend.
I had not, for the most part, expended much energy worrying about the women of Hayes’s past. Because the past was the past. And since September, I had tried not to worry about the women of the present, because he promised me there were none. He’d asked me to stay off the Internet and not read tabloids and to trust him, and for the most part I did. But all I had was his word.
*
“Do we need to use a condom?” I had asked him earlier that evening. It had become something of a ritual.
He had cocked his head, wily. “I don’t know. Do we?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Have you done something you’re not proud of?”
“No,” I’d said. “But I’m not the one in a band.”
“If I do something I’m not proud of, I’ll let you know,” he’d said, flipping me onto my stomach.
“I’m trusting you, Hayes.”
“I know you are.”
*
But there, in the garden of Casa Tua, beneath the stars and the sprawling trees and the Moroccan lanterns, the reality hit me. That there had been many, that there would always be, that they would be everywhere. Hayes’s conquests. Creeping, entangling him, like ivy.
“Are you here for Basel?” Amanda asked. She’d pronounced it basil, which was irksome.
“Yes,” Hayes said.
“Cool.” Her skinny fingers were still encircling his wrist, serpentine. “Where are you staying?”
He paused for a moment, his eyes scanning the faces at the table and then landing on me. “With a friend … I’m sorry, I’m keeping her waiting.” His attempt to untangle. “Good to see you. Yasmin. Amanda. Enjoy your dinner.” He waved at the others and pulled away.
*
Later, over the burrata and a bold Cab, Hayes felt the need to explain himself. “So, Amanda … She’s Simon’s friend.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know you didn’t. But I didn’t want you wondering.”
“And Yasmin? Simon’s friend, too?”
He swished his wine in his glass. “No. Yasmin wasn’t Simon’s friend.”
“Yeah, that was evident.”
“Sorry … It was a long time ago.”
I nodded, swilling from my wine. “I thought you didn’t like models.”
He laughed. “I’m pretty sure I never said that. Who doesn’t like models?”
“Oliver.”
Hayes grew serious, fast. “Yes, Oliver. He knows his art and he’s too sophisticated for models.”
The way he’d said it surprised me.
He reached out then and grabbed my hand on the table. “I don’t have a problem with models. They are, for the most part, quite pretty. But given the choice, I’d rather be with someone who’s lived a little, has something interesting to say, and isn’t just eye candy.
“Do you know what girls like that talk about? Instagram and Coachella … That’s good for like a night. Which was what Yasmin was. A night.”
My eyes were on his hand holding mine. His long, thick fingers. His two rings: silver, patterned, one on his ring finger, one on the middle. He switched them up so often.
“I thought you loved Instagram,” I said.
“I do Instagram because our team makes us. You know what I like about you? That you’ve never been to Coachella and the only thing you Instagram is art.”
“You were looking at my Instagram?”
“Maybe…” He smiled, coy. “I’m thinking about taking a page out of your book and segueing into artsy photos.”
I laughed. “What? No more body parts? No more ‘Hayes, can I sit on your big toe?’”
He shuddered. “That’s really … I don’t quite have the words for what that is. Sometimes our fandom scares me.”
“Yes,” I said. “Me, too.”
*
I awoke the next morning to a phone vibrating. The shades were drawn and I could not determine the time, but it felt early. Too early for the phone. After numerous rings, Hayes answered, annoyed. There was a pause and then he bolted upright.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
“What happened?”
He looked to me, eyes wide. His hair was unruly and his voice croaked, but his smile was glorious. “It appears I’ve been nominated for a Grammy.”
*
August Moon was in the running for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for their song “Seven Minutes.” The ballad, which Hayes alone had written with one of their producers, was also up for Song of the Year. It was, in every way, a big deal.
*
We dined at the Bazaar at SLS that night with Lulit, Matt, our artist Anya Pashkov, and Dawn and Karl Von Donnersmarck, a couple of New York collectors. The mood was decidedly festive.
“Your life, Hayes, will be even crazier if you win?” Lulit said over cocktails, her pitch rising at the end. As if at the last moment she’d decided to make it a question.