“I don’t care who sees us,” he said. And then he kissed me again. “We’ve got about two hours. Let’s go do something dirty.”
The doors were opening. There were two security guys I did not recognize on his floor. Different from the ones who’d done the night shift. I’d stopped trying to keep them straight. Staying in a hotel with Hayes and staying in a hotel with August Moon were two completely different things.
“Thank you, Simon Ludlow,” Hayes said, stepping out of the lift. “Your check is in the post.”
I froze, realizing what he’d said. “Did you … Did you arrange with Simon to take the girls?”
He was holding the doors open, waiting. “Maybe.”
“Hayes. That is totally inappropriate.”
“Is it?”
“You paid him?”
“He owed me.”
I could not help but laugh. “You are so fucking bad. You are the worst.”
“And that is why you love me,” he said. “Two hours. The clock’s ticking…”
*
The crowd at the Ziegfeld Theater for the premiere of August Moon: Naked was unlike anything I’d ever seen. There were thousands of fans swarming in every direction. Fifty-fourth Street completely closed off. Traffic at a standstill on Sixth Avenue and Seventh. A red carpet that extended a full city block, bleacher upon bleacher of photographers and press. Extensive security detail. For five guys who were schoolboys just a few short years prior, “playing football on Green,” I imagine it was overwhelming.
We arrived nearly two hours after the boys. Their time occupied with photo ops and walking the press line and engaging with their fans. Hayes had warned me that he would be consumed with promotional duties and suggested I would probably be happier if I brought a friend, and so two weeks earlier I’d called Amara and asked how she felt about being my wingwoman.
“Are you kidding me?” she’d laughed, on the phone. “The opportunity to cross that off my bucket list? Star-studded premiere of boy band documentary? Check. What are we wearing?”
The theater was huge, the crowd chaotic. Industry types and Brits and contest-winning fans and celebrities with their teen daughters. My own was on a momentous high. She and Georgia had been floating since their trip to the Apple Store. Replaying every moment of their afternoon. Everything Simon did, said, laughed at. They’d already experienced the unthinkable. The premiere was just icing.
It went quickly. The film was surprisingly well done: beautifully shot reportage of the band’s meteoric rise. Concert footage, intimate portraits, a compelling, almost wistful look at Augie mania in all its fervent glory. Much of it shot in artistic black and white. A series of flawless frames lingering on skin and lashes and lips. By the end I’d determined that she, the director, must have loved them all.
Amara agreed. “I feel like I just watched a ninety-minute Herb Ritts music video. Is it bad I want to lick them? Their skin … Did we not appreciate our skin when we were that young?”
“I don’t think we did.”
“Youth,” she laughed. “Wasted.”
*
I did not see him until the after-party. The guys, all seated together, were swarmed and swept up so quickly when the credits began to roll that there was no penetrating the thick wall of security and sycophants. But in the car, on the way over to the Edison Ballroom, he texted.
Where are you? Why aren’t you with me? I miss you. I need you.
Ditto.
What’d you think? Did you like it?
Loved.
xo
Find me. When you get to the party, find me.
*
I did. But it was no simple feat, in a sprawling two-story hall with atmospheric lighting and nine-hundred-plus guests. We navigated through the crowds and the waitstaff and the cocktail tables and the potted trees dripping with white lights, part sexy speakeasy, part winter wonderland. The DJ was blasting “All the Love,” the group’s next scheduled single. There was a large screen above the stage playing looped clips from the documentary, and I was keenly aware that everyone was there to celebrate my boyfriend, more or less.
At some point near the center bar, someone called my name, and I turned to find Raj. I had not seen him since Cap d’Antibes. He greeted me with a warm hug and introduced himself to Amara and the girls. And he was so affable and familiar I realized that for better or worse Hayes had likely been filling in some people on aspects of our relationship all along.
Raj led us through another level of security to the private booths off to the side. Each with its own reserved place card: “Universal,” “WME,” “Lawrence Management,” “Liam Balfour,” “Rory Taylor,” “Oliver Hoyt-Knight,” “Simon Ludlow,” and there, tucked in the most secluded corner, “Hayes Campbell.” He was standing with his back to me, engaged in conversation with a gentleman I did not recognize.
Raj called out to him, and the look on his face when he saw me made my heart smile. Surprise and happiness and wonder. As if he were seeing me for the first time. As if we hadn’t spent the afternoon doing naughty things.
And yet, despite the fact that I could read every emotion washing over his features, I was beside myself when he took my head in both his hands and kissed me. Before my kid, before my friend, before his businesspeople, before his fans, before every single fucking person in the Edison Ballroom.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” I beamed. He, in his Tom Ford suit and dazzling smile. “So … I guess we’re public?”
“I guess we’re public.” He leaned into me, his thumbs flicking over my earlobes, his voice low. “You look insanely beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
It was sublime, my dress. Lanvin. Midnight blue silk, draped, gathered, fitted, hitting me at the knee.
“Red lipstick?”
“I thought I would switch it up.”
“It just makes me want to do things to your mouth,” he said.
“As opposed to all the other times when you don’t?”
He laughed, withdrawing. “Hello, ladies!”
I looked on as he greeted Amara and the girls and introduced us to those in his booth: friends of his parents, a couple of reps from TAG Heuer, a publicist. Ever the host, he busied himself making certain we were all taken care of, pouring me and Amara flutes of champagne and the girls cranberry juice, even though he was drinking water.
“Fucking Graham,” he muttered to me, “he’s been on me and Liam like a hawk. Oh, girls.” He turned to Isabelle and Georgia. “Have you met Lucy Balfour? She’s Liam’s little sister. She’s thirteen. She flew all the way from London with her mum and dad and she’s miserable because she says she has no one here her age to hang out with. And when I pointed out that there were quite a few thirteen-year-old girls here, she complained that they were all ‘crazed, immature fans.’ And then I said, ‘Well, you haven’t met my friends Isabelle and Georgia, because they are certainly not that.’”
My girls were beaming. So very sweet in their dresses.
“Come, let us find Lucy!”
“Where the hell did you find him?” Amara asked. We had stepped away from the booth and were navigating a path toward the main floor. “He is really quite perfect.”