The Bet (21 page)

Lexi’s face doesn’t soften, but some of the venom disappears from her eyes.

“Maybe you’re right about the hicks down here,” she says. She starts slinking away, but then stops and turns back around, the menace still lingering. “You’d better hope so.”

I almost run off stage when the set’s over, my blood boiling, my hands clenched into fists, heat behind my eyes. I’m so angry I could punch a wall right now. I storm through the backstage area and continue marching down the hall, breathing fire and clenching my teeth.

I stop, tense every muscle in my stomach, and scream.

“Fuck!”

Then continue steaming ahead with livid, aimless determination.

Brando’s the only person who’s dumb enough to come near me, running sideways beside me to keep up as I burst through one door after another.

“Haley, what happened?” he says, his voice muffled and distant beyond the cloud of my frustration.

“Haley?” he repeats. “Talk to me.”

I stop tensely and face him.

“My fucking guitar! First it was…out of tune…then too loud, then too quiet. I played the first half of my set sounding like some amateur at a fourth-grade school recital. Then when Mike gave me another one of my effects pedals, it was all on the wrong settings.”

“I don’t get it.” Brando shakes his head. “It was fine during soundcheck.”

He looks to the side and notices Mike standing at the end of the hallway, carrying my guitar and arguing with someone.

“Mike!” he shouts. The long-haired guitar tech runs toward us with apologetic confusion written all over his face. “What the fuck happened?”

He holds the guitar up and shakes his head. “I don’t know, seriously dude. The guitar’s a mess. The strings are way out of tune, the neck has a bow in it, and one of the pick-ups is coming loose. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe it’s the dry air, but…I don’t know, dude. It must have got knocked over or something.” He turns to me and hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I swear, it won’t happen again. I’ll take the guitar off stage right after soundchecks from now on, and double-check everything right up until you go on—”

“It’s okay, Mike,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. I look at Brando. “I know who did this.”

Brando waits, and I wonder if he knows what I’m going to say.

“Lexi.”

“No,” Brando says. “She’d never—”

“Yes. She would. She’s scared that my show might get more attention than hers, and this is the only way she knows how to stop that.”

Brando pushes his hair back with his hand and looks up at the ceiling. “Sabotaging your set?”

“What? Is it out of character for her?” I reply, voice drenched in sarcasm. “Does it go against her strict moral code? You’re right. Lexi’s the kind of person who takes criticism constructively, and would be really happy for me if I started upstaging her.”

“Okay, okay,” Brando admits. “It could have been her. Look, Mike, you make sure you take extra care with the instruments for the upcoming gigs. We’ll do soundchecks closer to the concert time, and I want you to double-check everything – not just the instruments, the amps, the mics, the lighting – everything.”

“I swear,” Mike says, nodding vigorously before turning back down the hallway, still shaking his head at the guitar.

Brando turns back to me.

“Look, don’t jump to conclusions, Haley. I know Lexi can seem like somebody poured pure evil into a pair of Louboutins, but she’s still a musician. She wouldn’t do something like this.”

“You heard Mike,” I say, skeptically. “Somebody fucked with my guitar. If not her, then who else? Nobody else hates me like she does.”

Brando shrugs. “Lexi isn’t in touch with reality. She has hundreds of people around her – working for her, depending on her. If she doesn’t do well, they don’t get her crumbs. Any one of them could have thought it was a good idea. Lexi doesn’t have a clue what half her entourage does for her. She lives in a bubble.”

“When do I get a bubble?”

He laughs warmly. “I’m not saying don’t watch your back, I’m just saying that right now you’re doing awesome. And this kind of thing is the price you pay when people start noticing how awesome you are. There’s always someone, somewhere, who’ll try to bring you down. You’ve got to just roll with it, to be tough.”

I let a pouting smile form on my lips, put my hand on his chest, and slowly caress his front from his six-pack to his pecs. “Brando, I’m much tougher than you think,” I say, before pushing him away. “I know I’m in this alone.” I take a few steps backwards down the hall, facing him still. “The question is: Do you?” I say, before turning my back to him and walking away.

26

Brando

BY THE TIME we get to New York, the final show on the tour, I’m going out of my mind. It’s one thing to want a girl so badly you could fill a book with the things you want to do to her, but it’s a whole new level of ball-ache when she’s everywhere you look.

In every town we go to, I get calls all day long asking for a few minutes with the hot new star, pleading music reporters sounding as desperate as I feel. The photo shoots we did for the first single start popping up on magazines and newspapers, her sexy eyes and slightly-less-than-innocent smile tempting me to tear out the pages and do bad things to myself like a guilty schoolboy. And to top it all off, night after night I have to watch her go on stage and become a guitar-playing goddess, making thousands of fans go as crazy for her as I am. Jealous every time I see her put her lips close to the mic, curling her fingers slowly around it…

I was a bad enough wreck when I lost her, but being near her like this is a torture that even a war couldn’t justify. She’s growing with every show, getting sexier with every victory. It’s not just me noticing anymore, every member of the crew who works with her, anyone who catches a glimpse of her shows realizes that they’re in the presence of something special, that this is the start of a star being born.

The good thing is that Haley’s progress is making everyone work at the top of their game. I’ve never seen so many people willing and eager to do the best job they can out of love for an artist, but the bad thing is that I haven’t had a moment alone with her since our unlit private encore after her first gig. I have to barge my way through a crowd of people every time I want to ask her something.

But I’m not completely out of action yet, and if I have to play a little dirty, then so be it.

I pace a little, standing at the steps of the MOMA. I check my watch and stick my hands back deep inside the pockets of my designer jacket. I miss New York, but not the cold – I find it much easier to look good with fewer clothes on.

I notice her immediately when she emerges from the bustle of people and traffic, how could I not in those tight patterned leggings and the same leather jacket she seems to wear like a security blanket. I smile as she draws near.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asks as soon as she’s in earshot.

“Who?”

She gives out a deep laugh, one that says ‘I get it.’

“My
band?
” she says, deciding to play the game a little with me. “Aren’t we going on a tour of the city?”

“Oh yeah,” I say, offering my arm for her to take. “Your band is sitting on top of a sight-seeing bus right now, probably freezing their asses off. You, on the other hand, get the special treatment.”

She starts walking beside me, our arms linked.

“What kind of ‘special treatment’ is that?”

“You get to see New York with a real New Yorker. The authentic experience,” I say, leading her up the steps to the museum. “The
good
bagels and coffee.”

“And the good pizza?”

“And the best shops on Fifth Avenue.”

“And the nicest drug dealer in Central Park?”

“And the rudest, smelliest cab driver.”

She throws her head back and laughs. I can’t help joining in.

Even though it’s been a long time since we were alone with each other, it doesn’t take long for us to slip into same rhythm we had before: Easy, laid-back, and with more than a little sexual tension in the spaces between our jokes. We amble around the museum, dedicating as much of our attention to each other as we do to the masterpieces around us. Haley asks me to take pictures of her next to a Georgia O’Keeffe with the giggling excitement of a schoolgirl, and she’s anything but the hottest young star on the music scene, nothing like the magnetizing whirlwind of energy that her fans can never be near enough to.

When we’re done passing amateur judgment on the art, we leave the museum and I buy us a couple of hot dogs at a stand outside Central Park. I hand hers over and wait.

“What are you looking at?” she says, holding the hot dog inches away from her lips.

“Just watching you take a bite out of that hot dog.”

She grins and rolls her eyes. I half-expect her to turn her back and eat it, but instead she locks her eyes onto mine, and takes a slow, soft-lipped bite. I know she’s playing it for laughs, but the almost heart-attack inducing rush of blood to my cock is no joke. She chews with a smile, and after swallowing says, “Damn, that’s good. You satisfied?”

“Mind doing that again?”

She punches my arm and we laugh as we start walking through the park.

“So what do you wanna do?” I ask. “Times Square? The Empire State? We should have enough time still for the boat to the Statue of Liberty.”

Haley groans.

“Ugh. I’ve seen those things so many times on TV I feel like I’ve already been there. Didn’t you say you were gonna give me the ‘authentic’ New York? Why don’t you show me the places you used to hang out?”

I breathe in through my teeth. “You sure? The places I used to hang out sure weren’t LA.”

“All the more reason to see them,” she challenges.

I’ve never liked introducing girls to my friends. The last time I did that was with Lexi, and she had a habit of arguing with them and making them hate her, or flirting with them and making me hate her. With Haley, though, nothing ever feels tough. She’s almost too good to be true. I start hoping she’ll disappoint me, let me down, or just show me a flaw, so that not having her will be a lot easier, but she never does.

We take the subway to Brooklyn, and I take her on a whirlwind tour of the record stores, instrument stores, and studios that I know better than I’ll ever know LA, and where the owners treat me like I was just there yesterday. Haley dives into the stacks of records like a kid on Christmas, and drinks in every drop of history from the dirty corners and graffiti-stained walls of the forgotten parts of the city. I watch her face light up as my friends tell her the same stories of landmark gigs and famous musicians I’ve heard a million times, but feel new now that I’m hearing them with her.

We head back to Manhattan and duck into an old Irish pub to have a few drinks, but by the time we get out it’s already gotten dark and the temperature’s dropped a few more degrees.

“You know, the Mercury Lounge is just a few blocks away,” I say, as we step out of the loud bar onto the street. “I got a good tip that there’s a pretty hot, unsigned band there doing their first gig in New York.”

Haley breathes on her hands and rubs them. “Are you trying to replace me already?”

I laugh. “Impossible.”

She grins. “Thanks, but I should really get going back to the hotel. It’s late.”

I know she should go. If she was just one of my artists I’d be arguing myself for her to go home now. To give herself plenty of rest and hot tea and to make sure nothing bad happens. But she’s not just one of my artists. I’ve been waiting to get her alone for three weeks, across the entire country. I’m not going to let her slip away from me again without a fight – or at least a kiss.

“You don’t have a gig tonight, and you’re heading back soon. You should enjoy the city while you can.”

“My gig’s still tomorrow, and it’s cold,” she says, tightening her jacket and folding her arms over it.

“Why didn’t you say so,” I reply, taking off my designer jacket and hanging it off her shoulders. “There. No excuses now. Unless you really don’t want to go?”

She hesitates. “I do, it’s just that…”

“Haley. It’s the Mercury Lounge. And as long as you’re with me, you’re a VIP.”

She looks up at me and smiles with a little nod of defeat. I put my arm around her and lead her to the lounge. Little victories.

The band is surprisingly good, even more so than I’d been led to believe, but I’m too focused on winning Haley over to bother with business. It’s a sold-out show, but I use a connection and get us in late, sliding into the back of the packed room.

They play a slow, bass-led rhythm. Synths swaying around the lead singer’s dream-like vocals. The kind of music that makes time slow, that pulls at your deepest secrets. I stand behind Haley and wrap my arms around her front and feel glad when she puts her hand over mine and presses back against me.

We stay like that for the whole show, moving slowly, her body melting into mine. We don’t even pull away when the band finishes and the crowd erupts in appreciative applause. Instead, Haley twists her head and looks up at me, her lips inches from mine. We look into each other’s eyes, as vulnerable and open as each other, a look that’s full of promises. I move in slowly, more like falling. Her lips part.

“No,” she says, suddenly standing two feet away. “Brando … please.”

It takes me a few seconds of rubbing my eyes and avoiding eye contact before I recover from being stunned by the rejection.

“Okay. It’s fine, I get it,” I say, my voice suddenly sounding like somebody else’s, somebody defeated. “Let’s go get you a cab.”

She nods, backing a few more steps away from me.

What the fuck just happened?

27

Haley

LYING ON MY SIDE, I push my soft breasts up against the hard muscles of his back. I feel the heat of his body, smell the hazy musk of his skin. My fingers trace his side, so delicately I can feel every goosbump. I reach around to his front, run my nails down the central line of his abdomen, down to the base of his cock, already growing. I pull myself closer and for a second it feels like I’m flying, like there’s nothing beneath me.