I was still smiling when I got to my room. The idea that I could be pouring sweat and still attractive/attracted to middle-aged businessmen in hotel elevators. Perhaps it was the Lululemon.
I’d barely gotten my sneakers off when the girls came barging in, hysterical. They were yelping and jumping and speaking over each other. Apparently, they’d had the distinct pleasure of bumping into one Simon Ludlow and his personal trainer at the pool. And after they chatted him up and explained who they were, Simon had invited them to join him for a quick jaunt to the Apple Store and lunch before he had to begin prepping for this evening’s premiere. And could they pretty please, with icing on top, go?
“Absolutely not.”
“Mom, his bodyguard is going to be there.”
“I don’t care, Isabelle. Simon is twenty-one years old. Why is he inviting you to lunch?”
“It’s just pizza.”
“Actually, he turned twenty-two last month,” Georgia added, as if that would somehow help their case.
“No. No.”
“Mom, please. He only invited us after I told him you were my mom. He was just trying to be nice. Please.”
“He’s like the sweetest one,” Georgia said, and at that point I realized they were wearing makeup. What the hell?
“He might even be gay,” Isabelle added. Her attempt to soften the blow?
Georgia threw her a look. “He is not gay. Simon is like the least gay.”
“He’s not the least gay.”
“There’s a least gay? Who’s the least gay?”
“Rory,” they said in unison.
“Okay, I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to have a shower and think about it and then I’ll let you know. But don’t get your hopes up. And take off that makeup. No one is going anywhere with makeup.”
“Okay,” Isabelle said. “But we’re supposed to meet him in the lobby at eleven-fifteen. So could you kind of shower fast?”
I was trying to remember everything I knew about Simon. Whether he’d struck me as a potential rapist, child molester, predator. But the only image I had of him was as a jocular blond who liked age-appropriate models. Regardless, I texted Hayes.
Simon invited the girls on an outing to the Apple Store. Please advise.
Totally safe.
Really?
Really.
Also, did you know there was a LEAST gay guy in your band?
Lol.
Rory.
Great. I want to ask where you fall on that list, but maybe I don’t really want to know …
?????
You haven’t been complaining.
Stop getting ur intel from 13 yr olds.
*
By ten after eleven we’d all congregated in the sky lobby, with its sweeping view of Columbus Circle, the park, midtown. The girls were near jumping out of their skin, and at the same time trying to keep their cool. And I had still not made up my mind.
“Please, Mom.”
“Do you not trust me?” Simon smiled, all broad shoulders, cleft chin, and blond chiseled perfection. Did they just make them like this in England? How was it they all found one another? “Your girlfriend doesn’t trust me, Campbell.”
His candor threw me. I was not yet in the habit of referring to myself as Hayes’s “girlfriend,” especially in front of Isabelle.
“I made a promise to Georgia’s mom,” I said.
This was true. Earlier in the week, when I’d swung by Georgia’s house to pick up her bags, her mother, Leah, had asked about Hayes. I told her the truth. She high-fived me, and I laughed, but vowed to keep her daughter under lock and key.
“She’ll be fine,” Simon said. “Trevor will be with us the entire time.”
I looked over to see Trevor standing watch near the elevator bank. Tall, all-powerful Krav Maga Trevor. Ready to take on the tsunami of fans below.
There were a group of girls congregating in the sunken lounge not far from us. Fans who’d somehow figured out the boys’ schedule and booked rooms at the hotel. Security detail was keeping them at bay, but I could see them in my peripheral vision, whispering and giggling and capturing everything on their camera phones. Later, our exchange, inaudible from a distance, would end up on YouTube.
“They’ll be okay, Solène,” Hayes said, reassuringly, his hand at the base of my spine.
But they weren’t his kids.
My eyes moved from Hayes to the girls to Simon and back again.
“Trevor,” Desmond called over to him. He’d been surveying the activity in the lounge, never more than twenty feet from Hayes. “I’ll go with them. You stay here. You all right with that, Solène?”
I nodded, touched by the kindness of his gesture.
“Thank you!” Isabelle hugged me. “You’re the best mom ever!” The girls were near exploding as they headed with Simon toward the elevators. I imagined what they were going to tell their friends in L.A. Poor Rose and her judgmental parents. Missing out.
“Thank you,” I said, wrapping my arms around Desmond. I could not recall ever having hugged him before.
“No problem,” he said. And then: “Don’t break him.” He gestured toward Hayes.
“Just his heart.” I smiled.
“Not even that.”
I watched him take a few paces toward the group near the elevators before I called him back. “Des, they’re thirteen.”
“Got it.”
“Treat them as if they were your own daughters.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
It wasn’t until they had parted that Hayes threw me a bemused look. “What precisely do you think is going to happen at the Apple Store?” he laughed. “What kind of animals do you think we are?”
“They’re virgins, Hayes. I’ve seen you in action. I know how persuasive you can be.”
“Really?” He took my hand, leading us to the elevators that went up to the rooms. He seemed to not care that we were being watched, recorded. “Well, for one, I’m pretty sure you weren’t thirteen when I met you. Nor a virgin. And still…”
“And still?” An elevator arrived and we waited for the passengers to exit before stepping into the empty lift. The doors closed. Alone.
“… and still I was very respectful. I did not force you to do anything you were not comfortable doing. Not once. And now you’re like: ‘Anal? Sure.’”
I laughed, uneasy.
This was something new. The “when in Miami” that I thought was going to stay in Miami, but apparently not. And evidently something that once required a year of marriage and much coaxing could be negotiated with two glasses of Scotch and an “I promise I’ll be gentle.” Fucking millennials. Fucking millennials.
“There are cameras in here,” I whispered.
“The cameras don’t have mics,” he said, completely assured.
I thought about it: Solange Knowles pummeling Jay Z, and that football player knocking out his fiancée, and I realized, indeed he was right. No mics.
“I’m pretty certain I didn’t say ‘Sure.’”
“Actually, I think you said ‘Please.’” He smiled, coy. Dimples. “You like me an awful lot.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
He moved toward me then, reaching to hold my head in his hands. “Please,” he repeated, before kissing me on the mouth. So soft, so tender, I might have forgotten where I was.
“Cameras,” I whispered when we parted.