Synergy (6 page)

‘And now you fucked the dude, you practically a
hooker’ 
a voice in her head
said.

Thoughts of last night began to make their way to the
surface. The way he picked her up and wrapped her legs around his
waist, the way he pressed her into the wall and kissed her
neck...

Shaking
off the thoughts, she grabbed her coat from the nearby coat stand
and buttoned it up tightly before moving to the front door, and
opening the lock as quietly as she could. Once she was on the other
side of the door, and she had shut it over, she knew there was no
going back.

‘Come on Dee, figure how to get the fuck outta
here’,
 she told herself.

Jason

Jason woke to a banging on the hotel room door. At first he
had no idea what it was, and chose to ignore it as best he could.
At one point, he even put the goose feather pillow over his head to
shut out the noise. It wasn’t until he smelled a woman’s perfume
radiating from said pillow that his mind woke up, and he opened his
eyes. As he laid with the pillow closing off his view from the rest
of the world, head first on the bed, he let his brain catch up with
where he was and what he did last night. 
Who
 he did last night. He felt
himself blush slightly remembering the line he used in the club,
but smirked when he remembered how it worked. He smiled remembering
how drop dead beautiful this girl was. Dee. How beautiful Dee
was.

“
Jason!”

The
voice at the door made him spring up from under the pillow, and he
looked to the other side of the bed, where he saw an empty space
instead of the woman he was expecting. He didn’t have long to be
disappointed, as the voice at the door shouted his name again, and
this time his brain registered that it was Tom. Jason hopped out
the bed and felt a breeze as he remembered he was naked. Scanning
the room, he found his boxer shorts in a heap at the end of the
bed. He stepped into them quickly and opened the door. As the door
swung open, Tom’s closed fist was in mid-air, as if he was getting
ready to knock at the door again. Tom paused for a second before
putting his hand down and stepping past Jason into the
room.

“Man I’ve been knocking for a half hour!”
 Tom exclaimed, scanning the room.

“
Sorry, I guess I
was tired.
”

“
Hungover more
like
.” Tom grinned, moving to the en-suite
bathroom and glancing round the door.

“
What’re you
looking for
?” Jason asked, slumping on the
chair by the bed.

“
Just seeing if
your lady friend was still here.”
 Tom
said, looking at Jason and smirking, waiting for his
reaction.

“
How do you know about
that?”

“
Nothing gets past me, J – I got connections”

“
So the concierge told you?”

“
Well, you start
dry humping someone in the elevator people are gonna
talk.”
 Tom laughed.

“
You’re making that up.”

“Am I though?”
 Tom
teased.

Jason
rolled his eyes, and rubbed his hands over his face, feeling the
headache setting in.

“
Anyway, you’re
late for the studio so go get yourself looking human and I’ll call
the car.”
 
Tom said as he pulled out his phone and began texting
casually.

“
What time is it?” Jason asked as he got up and shuffled to
the en-suite.

“
Eleven”

“
Shit.”

Jason
planned to get a quick shower and head out as quick as he could,
knowing he was already an hour late for his studio session. He
wanted to let all thoughts of last night evaporate, especially as
he had more important things to concentrate on, but he couldn’t get
certain images out of his head. He couldn’t help but think about
her thick lips, the way her body looked in her lacy black
underwear, and the sounds she made when she climaxed...

He shook his head as if he was physically shaking the
thoughts away
. ‘Now?
Really?
 ‘

He
thought about how the space in the bed was empty when he woke up,
and wondered how long ago she’d left. He wondered if she’d snuck
out really quietly on purpose. Maybe she was ashamed of it, and
wanted to forget it ever happened. He found it hard to believe
though. He didn’t believe he could have had such an amazing time if
she didn’t too. He didn’t even mean just the sex. Granted, it was
pretty spectacular, but he had a good time just talking to her too.
They may have been drunk, but he knew there was a little spark
there to begin with. They may not have had a huge heart to heart,
but he had felt like there was more to her than met the eye. She
was so drop dead beautiful and sexy too, but she had this feisty
attitude. He could imagine she was a woman who could handle
herself, who was proud of being independent, and he liked that. In
his industry and line of work, it was typical to meet a few thirsty
girls. Those gold-digger types who loved men to buy things for
them; who would try to find a man to provide for them and not
bother working for it. He knew if she was that type of woman, she
would still be in the bed next to him when he woke up. She hadn’t
even known who he was last night. There were girls taking photos of
him from outside of the restaurant from a distance, and she spent a
considerable amount of time with him chatting, not having a clue
who he was. He liked that.

Once he
was finished washing, he stepped out of the shower with a towel
draped around his waist and opened the en-suite door, letting the
steam circulate out of the room. Tom was sitting on the chair next
to the bed wrapped up in his phone. As Jason entered the room, Tom
looked up.

“
So?”

“So?”
 Jason repeated to his
friend as he opened the chest of drawers and picked out some
clothes to wear for the day.

“
Who was she?”

With his
back turned away from Tom, Jason smiled as he thought about
her.

“Dee.”
 he finally
answered.

“
Am I supposed to know her?”

“Oh no, I guess you’d left by then...”
 Jason muttered, as he stepped into a pair of boxer
shorts.

“
Was it that girl you were with at the bar when I
left?”

“
Yeah, that’s her.”

“Niiiiice.”
 Tom said,
elongating the word so it sounded a little seedy.

Chapter 6 – A Day in the Life

Jason

It had
been almost a month since Jason had stepped foot in Club X and gone
home with Dee. There was something about her that still had him
intrigued and he wished he could be a normal guy with time on his
hands so he could find her and maybe ask her out, but he accepted
his fate that normal things weren’t supposed to happen to him right
now. Besides, he couldn’t be getting emotional about a girl he had
seen only once, so he continued working on his album. Luckily for
him, he found that meeting Dee had made his work easier; he always
wrote every track that went onto his CDs – it was just something he
took seriously -  so meeting a girl had only given him more
ideas to work with, more material to write about.

He’d
spent pretty much every day since in the studio working with some
of the top producers of the last few years, Timbaland and Swizz
Beatz among them. He loved hearing his words really come to life
once they had mixed his lyrics with music, and he could spend hours
just listening to it back, trying to think of ways to perfect it,
to make it better and better. Granted, he was a self-confessed
perfectionist to the extreme, so sometimes he had to be dragged out
of there by Tom, even if it was just to grab some food. He had
always been that way, even in his teen years. He thought if he
hadn’t been, maybe he would never have become so successful. He
believed everything you got in life came down to hard work, and he
wasn’t about to mess it up at his peak.

Over the last week, Jason had been working even harder than
usual, finalising every detail of the album ahead of its release
date. He was excited to finally get it finished, and excited for
people to hear his material. He had a small amount of time during
which he could go back home for a week or so, before he would head
back to Detroit for the listening party and the stack of events
that followed; interviews, radio, photo shoots, promo...He really
did have his work cut out. He didn’t dread it though, he looked
forward to it. He knew upon his arrival home his parents would get
at him for not getting enough sleep and point out the bags under
his eyes - this was the usual protocol. It was usually followed by
them feeding him on homemade cobbler and cheese steak until he felt
fifty pounds heavier.

Though
he enjoyed work, Jason was looking forward to going home for the
week. Memphis, Tennessee, the place he was born and raised. He
loved the small town he came from and he loved his family more than
words could describe. Though his parents divorced when he was a
child, they remained friends, and would often get together for the
sake of their son. Both his parents had remarried and his father
even had two sons of his own with his second wife, Jason’s
stepbrothers. His mother’s parents, his grandparents, Norma and
Bill were a huge part of his life too. They lived only a few doors
away from his mother so they always spent time with him at his
mother’s house whenever he came home. His Nan was the one who would
make her famous cobbler for him and she would always save some for
him to take with him wherever he went next. Though they were old,
they were still active and full of life, and he loved getting to
spend time with them.

From the
outside looking in, he had a privileged life, but it hadn’t always
been that way. His mother had spent every moment working when he
was a child to provide for him, and when he told her he wanted to
be a singer, she had used every dime she had to save up for him to
attend singing lessons, despite struggling to pay their mortgage.
Being an only son to his mother, she had always been protective of
him, and she probably gave him a little more than she should have
too, but he loved her for it. He had never become a spoiled kid
though, because he was taught the value of money, and he was taught
to appreciate what he had. When he finally made it in the music
business and had money of his own, his mother helped him to spend
the money on sensible things, rather than fritter it away
frivolously. She’d helped him to buy a house and a car, and when he
made even more money, he bought her a house and a car, plus a
holiday home. He made sure his parents were well looked after,
because he knew he probably wouldn’t be where he was today without
them.

It was a
quick flight home from Detroit to Memphis, a couple of hours at
most. He was due to board his private jet at 2pm the next day with
Tom, who was also from Memphis, living only a few blocks from him.
He was excited at the prospect of going home, though he was a tiny
bit disappointed to be leaving his work behind. He’d also become
pretty fond of the bed at his hotel, but he knew he’d be back in
just over a week, and he’d probably stay in the same room. As the
album had been finished already, he had no reason to go into the
studio for the last day in Detroit. In fact, for once in his life,
he had nothing to do today at all, except relax and wait for the
plane ride tomorrow. So far, he had eaten his morning breakfast
brought by room service and showered, and he now found himself
sitting on his bed with his guitar, strumming away
aimlessly.

“
Leaving on a jet plane...to the people who will keep me
sane...”

He
laughed at his made up lyrics, and promptly tossed his guitar to
the side before lying back on his bed, arms crossed above his
head.

He
didn’t know how people coped with days where they had no plans at
all; to him, it was boring. He liked having an hour maybe, or a few
here and there, but a whole day and night with nothing to do was
something alien to him. He wasn’t used to this type of life, and
honestly, he had no idea what to do with his time. After lying for
a few minutes thinking, he decided to get off the bed and out of
the room, hoping Tom would provide more entertainment than staring
at four walls. As he grabbed his wallet and his phone and shoved
them into his jeans pocket, he thought about the food he would get
at home tomorrow and his stomach rumbled hungrily. He walked to the
next room along on his left and knocked on the door.

Before
Tom answered the door, Jason heard his voice inside, and when he
came to the door to let him in, he saw he was on the phone. Not
wanting to disturb Tom’s conversation, Jason smiled and stepped in
ahead of him, sitting himself in the chair by the bed. It only took
him a minute to realise Tom was talking to his fiancée, Carmen. It
dawned on Jason how excited Tom must be to get home tomorrow to see
Carmen and his baby, Lydia. Lydia was walking and talking a little
now. She still only had a few select words, but she was turning
into more of a little person every day, and it was amazing to
watch. Jason himself was looking forward to seeing her, being her
godfather.