Which is fine by me. The more space between Rhyson and my career, the better.
“How did the production meeting go?” I’m eager to change the subject.
“It was okay.” He leans against the doorjamb, folding his arms across the Nike logo on his chest. “At this point, they have everything planned out. It’s me and a piano. Not a ton of stuff. But lights and video and all the other things they want to add will be cool.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“The shows Petra’s doing with us will be kind of fun.” Rhyson links his hands behind his head. “We’ll do just a few pieces together since my audience isn’t exactly into classical. Just enough to make them ooh and ahhh a little.”
Petra. Again. If my ugly insecurity were visible, I’d need a bag over my head.
“It’s so soon.” I chew on my bottom lip. “Two weeks, right?”
He walks over and sits beside me, pulling my legs across his lap.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“Uh oh.” I smile at him, running my hand over the stubble on his chin and jaw.
“What do you think about coming on tour with me?”
My hand falls from his face and into my lap.
“And do what?”
“Be with me?”
Be his girlfriend. Leave all the opportunities popping off here for myself to watch him from the wings. I’m not sure what to say without starting an argument.
“It’s not a long tour,” he continues. “It’s like six weeks. Just a few shows.”
“Aren’t you going to Europe?”
“A little.” He squeezes his thumb and index finger together, leaving a tiny continent-sized space between.
“You’re going to Europe
a little
?”
“It’s just six weeks.” He hesitates, pulling my fingers between his, not looking at me until he has to. “If you come, maybe we could do some songs together.”
I know any other girl in my position would be thrilled, but all I can think about is what I would assume if some unknown took the stage with Rhyson. Some girl I’d never heard of. Some girl he’s sleeping with.
“Are you bribing me to come on tour with you?
“What? No. You’d be great. I’m doing stuff with Marlon to build buzz for his new solo album.”
“Grip has platinum collaborations with other artists. He’s already proven himself. I keep saying this, but it’s like you don’t hear me. All I want is the chance to do the same. To prove myself.”
“I do hear you, baby, and this is an excellent chance to prove yourself to a worldwide audience.” He grabs my hand, his fingers playing some melody I don’t hear on my arm. “Pep, if I’m on this tour and you’re here, we’re apart for six weeks.”
“We’re both in the business. There will be times when our commitments separate us.”
He frowns, dropping my arm. I give him a hopeful smile.
“Let’s see what happens with my audition and then talk about it later.”
His face steel traps as soon as I mention the audition. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip, biting down on whatever he would say.
“Is that hummus?” Rhyson conveniently turns his attention to the bowl of hummus I left on top of the piano.
“Yeah.” I hold my breath while he scoops up some of it on a cucumber. “Taste.”
“Shit.” He screws his handsome face into a grimace. “What the hell? Sarita made that?”
My face falls and my shoulders slump.
“I made it.”
“You . . . you made it?” He laughs, dropping the half-eaten cucumber back to the plate. “It tastes like butt.”
“Rhyson, it does not. It’s made with fresh chick peas.”
“Tastes like it’s made with fresh butt.”
“I wanted to make one of your favorites. Something healthy, and this is what I get?” I can barely hold on to my offended face because he always does this to me. Makes me laugh when I should be mad at him.
He grabs me, squatting and snatching me close, arms under my butt until my heels leave the floor and I’m on my toes.
“I don’t care if you can make hummus, babe.” He sucks my earlobe into his mouth, and my fingers cling to his shoulders because it feels so good I might fall if I don’t hold on. “You do everything else well. Especially that magic trick you’ve been working on.”
I pull back, looking at him suspiciously. Because it’s Rhyson and there’s always a catch.
“What magic trick?”
“You know.” He grins and bends to whisper in my ear. “That one where you make my dick disappear in your mouth.”
“Rhyson!” I drop my forehead to his chest, face on fire.
“I’ll never get tired of making you blush.” A deep laugh from his chest reverberates between us. My favorite sound, next to him singing. “I’m sorry, by the way.”
“For what?” I ask, frowning.
We haven’t had much to apologize for since our big argument last week. Things have been unbelievable. I’m almost scared to leave the house because it’s all the outside forces that tear at us.
“I’m sorry I haven’t told you I love you today.” He shakes his head from side to side, eyes locked with mine. “So remiss. Bad boyfriend.”
I’m convinced half my laugh lines will be because of him. After Mama died, I thought the closest I would come to joy would be the absence of pain. I was ready to settle for that. To just not feel that black hurt that hovered over every part of my life and seemed to occupy my very soul. Rhyson has taught me that joy has its own space. It is not the absence of anything, but its own presence. Its own entity. It fully inhabits us if we let it, and I have it with him.
“Does it feel weird to be somebody’s boyfriend?” I caress the hair not shoved haphazardly under the beanie.
“Not yours.” He leans down, licking into my mouth. Pulling my lips between his. Scrolling down to suck at the underside of my jaw. “I could eat on you all day. Just nibbles here and there until you’re all gone. All mine.”
“I’d like that,” I say, voice husky with passion and emotion because the two are inseparable when it comes to Rhyson. I’ve had sex before, but I’ve never had this. This melding of the deepest love I can fathom and passion I never imagined. They twine around each other so tightly that every time he’s inside of me, I hand over more of my heart. More of my soul. I always think he has it all, and he always finds more. Takes more. Gives me more.
Rhyson walks us backward to the piano bench, sitting down and settling me on his lap, his erection poking between my legs. I know where this leads. It’s led there on this very bench several times.
“Rhyson, we don’t have time.” I still press my breasts into him, just because I want him to regret it as much as I do. “Grip’s waiting.”
“I know. Ignore the wood. That’s my constant state when you’re around.” He pushes my hair over my shoulder, his eyes unexpectedly serious when they meet mine. “I want to talk to you about something. It’ll only take a minute.”
“Is everything okay?” I pull back. “Your dad?”
His face changes, hardens like it always does when we talk about his family.
“Dad’s recovering. Grady still wants us to try family counseling when he’s well enough.” His eyebrows shoot up and he rolls his eyes. “Oh. I forgot to tell you this—my mother wants to move here.”
“What? Wow.”
I don’t know how to feel about that. She wasn’t exactly a welcoming presence the first time we met.
“Yeah, she says she wants the family to heal, and nothing is holding them in New York since all of their family is here.” He shakes his head and seems to want to shake off the subject. “Save all that for later. That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh. Then why so serious?”
“Was that a
Dark Knight
movie quote? Or were you actually asking why I was being so serious?”
“Little bit of both.”
We smile at each other because even with the sex we can’t get enough of, even with the cameras that seem to follow us if we step outside this house, even with the tension over my next career steps, we’re still great friends. I hope that never changes.
“I want you to move in with me.”
Whoa. Didn’t see that coming. I go from an easy smile in a tender moment to the breath ragged in my chest and sweat popping out on my forehead. Even though I thought I was ready for this, thought I wanted it, now that he’s actually
asking
me, I’m not sure I can.
“What? Rhyson, I . . . that’s a huge step.” I slide off his lap, pacing back and forth in front of the piano, running my hands through my hair. “And we haven’t been together long at all.”
“We may have only been officially dating for a few weeks, but we’ve been together for months.” He persuades me with the charisma of those eyes and that smile. “Come on, Pep. It makes sense. You’re here all the time anyway.”
“I know, but—”
“And I know San’s your best friend, but you living with a
Spotted
reporter isn’t a good look. I know he’d never expose anything on purpose. He’d never hurt you on purpose.” Rhyson’s mouth flattens into a hard line. “But if he ever hurt you just by being who he is and working where he works, it would be very bad for him.”
“Rhyson, that look scares me.”
I see it in Bristol. I saw it in his mother at the hospital. There is a ruthlessness inextricably tangled into their DNA. I’d never want to be on the other end of it, and I don’t want San to be either.
“That look isn’t ever for you. You don’t have to worry.” He walks over to me, taking my hands in his. “But anyone who ever tries to hurt you, they should worry.”
He dips his head until I can’t look away, and neither of us blinks. He’s showing me something he doesn’t show everyone, and I’m not sure I can handle it, but he thinks I can. So I will.
“Move in with me, Pep.”
“I just . . . I have to—”
“What’s the real issue? There’s always a real issue behind what you actually say.”
I heave a weighted breath because he’s so right.
“I watched my mom pack up our lives and start from scratch when my dad left. I promised myself I would always have my own space. That I would never be at the mercy of a man like that.”
“You don’t trust me to take care of you?”
He frowns, bending closer, eliminating the space between us. I pull back enough to think. Enough to make my point.
“I don’t
want
you to take care of me.”
Why does he still not get that?
“Pep, but I can. While you are making your way, I can. Have you thought any more about quitting The Note?”
I have considered it. Not for the reasons he probably thinks.
“I’m quitting.” I raise a hand when his face lights up. “I’m quitting because it’s a circus. Photographers come in since it’s a public place. All the customers take pictures of me. Everyone asks about you. It’s just . . . a joke.”
“Can’t say I’m sad about it.” He tries to seduce me with those long lashes, going in for the kill. “So about you moving in . . .”
“I thought we were going to the studio.”
“Oh, yeah. Marlon’s gonna kill me if I’m late.” He grins, slapping my butt. “I can just blame it on you.”
“Oh, yeah, because he’s such a fan of me already.”
It upsets me that Rhyson’s best friend doesn’t trust me. Bristol, I can’t make myself care about because she’s probably an apple that didn’t fall far enough from her mother’s cold-hearted tree. But Grip is like a brother to Rhyson, and I know he only wants what’s best for him. For him to think that isn’t me hurts.
“I don’t care if he isn’t a fan yet. He will be. Soon everyone will be a fan of you. But I’m your biggest fan.” Rhyson drags me out of the music room by one hand, looking over his shoulder with that irresistible grin. “Don’t forget that when you’re big time.”
By the time we pull up to Wood, Rhyson is fifteen minutes late. He’s such a consummate professional, it does bother him. The whole way there, he’s tapping the steering wheel, honking at slow drivers, and driving too fast. I can barely keep up with his long legs on the best of days, much less when he’s speed walking to get to this session. He barrels through the front door of Wood, and I barely have time to take in the glass reception desk with mahogany accents or appreciate the mural of famous musicians painted on the walls before we are down a long carpeted hallway on our way to the studio.
“So each studio has a theme,” Rhyson says over his shoulder, giving his version of an abbreviated tour. “Oak. Mahogany. Pine. You get the picture.”
“Hey, Rhyson!” A girl calls from the end of the hall we just left.
We both turn to look at her. She looks ethnically mixed, her light caramel skin, smooth and unblemished. Blonde dreadlocks fall past her shoulders and to her waist. Her grey-green eyes are clear and a little too warm when they settle on my boyfriend.
“Kai, this is Amber, our receptionist,” Rhyson says, his voice impatient. “Amber, Kai, my girlfriend. What’s up?”
She looks at me an extra moment, those beautiful eyes cooling before she speaks.
“Just wanted you to know Marlon moved from the Maple room to Cherry.” Her eyes go wide. “Oh! And nemesis is in Birch.”
“Great,” Rhyson mutters. “This night just got better.”
“Problem?” I hold his hand as he negotiates the maze of hallways, passing various studios with their huge soundboards and the booths I would kill to get in.
“No, she was just giving me a heads up that Drex is here.”
Rhyson stops because I have. He tugs on my hand, but I’ve dug my heels into the hallway carpet like they’ve dried into cement.
“Pep, I’m already late.” He gives me a quick frown. “Come on.”
“I’m-I’m not feeling well.”
I have to get out of here. As vindictive as Rhyson says Drex has always been toward him, it’s a small miracle he hasn’t already made sure Rhyson knows about our one night together. Everyone else knows we’re dating. I know Drex knows. And I know he remembers me. If he hears Rhyson and I are here together at Wood . . . I can’t take the chance.
“What?” Rhyson leans in, cupping my face, frowning, concerned. “What kind of not feeling well? Like fever? Stomach? What’s wrong?”
I ignore the guilt gnawing at my insides and clutch my stomach.
“I think it was that hummus.” I grimace, biting my bottom lip.
His face clears and he grins ruefully.
“I hate to say I told you so, but I did say that hummus tasted like butt.”