by Daya Daniels
“We’re going to the MGM Grand. We’ll have dinner there first then figure out where to go next.”
Wyatt tosses me something. I pick it up, look it over and realize it’s a fake I.D.
“I don’t think you’ll need it but just in case. Rose rarely gets carded any place around here and you’re with us.”
“Cool,” I mumble.
Liv
After listening to Ari babble on about the benefits of education and the most recent changes to copyright laws in the United States, I think the three of us were close to slitting our own throats. I keep my eye on Ari’s back as he heads away from the table, looking for the men’s room.
“He’s definitely a talker,” Wyatt says sipping his Granny apple green martini.
Rose laughs. “I don’t care about what comes out of his mouth. He’s nice to look at.”
I giggle. “He’s a lawyer.”
Wyatt nudges Rose in the side playfully.
“What!” Rose laughs, throwing his hands up in surrender. His gaze darts around the crowded restaurant and then his brown eyes land on me. “How do you know him?”
I let out a sigh. “I don’t really know him. I mean I do but I don’t. It’s complicated.”
Wyatt continues to glare at me. I laugh. “Ari is the son of my dad’s lawyer, Ben Berg. His father has worked for my dad for I don’t know, twenty plus years.”
“I see. I didn’t know you knew him, Liv. I swear,” Wyatt goes on.
“It’s okay. I suspect Ari knew I’d be here. He’s not an idiot,” I say quietly.
Wyatt gives me wide eyes, which is code for shut it, when Ari approaches behind me, returning to the table. He rolls up his shirt sleeves before he takes a seat. He picks up his cognac glass, finishes the rest of the Hine Triomphe in it and places it down.
“Cigarette break,” Rose says standing. He steps away from the table and then stalls to pull out his wallet.
Ari lifts a hand, halting the gesture. “You are clients of RR, I’ll get the tab.”
“Okay, thanks, man,” Rose says.
Wyatt shoots up from his chair and strides alongside Rose, leaving both Ari and me sitting at the table alone. I shift nervously in my seat, sipping from the glass of water in front of me.
I can feel Ari’s gaze burning a hole in the side of my face but I don’t look at him. He’s already eye-fucked me through most of this dinner, which I’m happy is now over.
“You knew I was here,” I say.
“Yes, I did.”
I nod, completely confused about his angle.
“Where is your boyfriend?” he asks.
“Working.”
He laughs. “You sure of that?”
I jerk my head in his direction. “Yesss, I’m sure of that.”
He smiles and takes a deep breath, pulling his wallet out of his suit pants. He opens it, taking a credit card out. Instead of waiting for the bill like a normal person would, Ari lifts his arm in the air with the card tucked between his fingers in the waiter’s direction. The man scurries over to the table and takes it from him, muttering apologies for the wait. He rushes off again to settle the bill for Ari.
I roll my eyes. “That was rude.”
“What?” Ari quips.
“I said, that was rude.”
He shrugs and gives me a twisted face. “Why have you decided not to go to college, Liv?”
I turn to face him again. “I have my art.”
He laughs. “You told me about that once. Do your parents know about it?”
I give him a blank look.
He runs a hand over his jaw. “It’s still like that, huh?”
I don’t answer, only turn away. “Stanton seems disinterested in the fact that you’re not going to Stanford like he did, but I didn’t expect anything different when I asked him, of course.”
I fiddle with the lemon floating in my glass.
“It’s a hobby, isn’t it? The art.” Ari looks at me as though I’ve just told him the funniest joke in the world. “Liv, you can’t base your future on hobbies.”
I don’t respond.
“Why do you care anyways?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why are you even crashing this dinner? What’s the sudden interest in me?
“You used to just want to have sex with me.”
Ari laughs. “Don’t go falling all over yourself, Liv. I wanted to say hello at first, but in the last few hours I’ve been in your company, you seem different. A little grown up. A lot less of the actress that I remember.”
I purse my lips but don’t speak.
Ari places his arm on the back of my chair and leans into me. I can smell the remnants of the cologne along his jawline.
“I don’t know. I’m intrigued. The rocker boy has turned the cry baby into an almost—big girl.”
“Fuck off,” I spit out at him.
Ari backs away and laughs. “You have daddy issues, Liv. Abandonment issues. Trust issues. Attention issues—the whole lot.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah, you do. You always have.”
Ari always did think I was broken. It sickened me sometimes that maybe he was right but I didn’t need anyone to fix me, especially him.
“Well, thank you for that psych evaluation but it’s probably a little too late for it.”
“Honestly.” He laughs. “I don’t think you need it. You seem like you’re doing okay but this isn’t exactly the crowd that I’ve imagined you wanting to be around.” Ari slumps in his chair and checks his watch that glints under the light. “A bunch of musicians, who probably don’t even know how to read.”
I scoff. “That’s ridiculous, Ari, and you know it.”
A posh smile spreads across his face. “These guys, Liv. They make money. They might even have a little bit of talent but they’re uneducated trash.” He points out with a scowl on his face.
Ari was a snob but he hid it well. The elitist, old-school fortune, Ivy League air he had about himself clearly hadn’t gone anywhere.
“I always imagined something better for you. A brighter future,” he adds.
“It’s my life.”
“Yeah, it is,” he says with a smirk. “I think this is just a phase and it’s okay that it is. You should get it out of your system just don’t get stuck—don’t get caught up with them, Liv. You’ll lose yourself.”
I laugh at Ari’s arrogance.
“You haven’t tattooed his name on you or anything like that, have you?”
“No.” I narrow my eyes at him.
Ari takes a deep breath, puts his pen to the check on the table and scribbles his signature.
“Stay away from the wedding chapels around here. I think most of them are twenty-four seven.”
“I’m not legal around here anyways,” I whisper.
“Oh, yes, right. Well, that’s even better. It looks like the law will save you from yourself.”
I cock my head to the side and force a smile.
“The last thing you want is to end up knocked up by one of these losers or married. It’ll be a mistake, Liv,” he goes on. “Look, I know you probably think I’m an asshole.”
“I’ve always thought you were an asshole, Ari.”
He grunts.
“Do you think my tongue is an asshole then? Because I seem to remember differently.”
I look away from him, while he chuckles.
“I enjoyed it, Liv, but I was young you know—all about pussy. I’m an adult now. I’m different and so are you. I’ve always liked you. Surely, you know that.”
I nod a little.
“I know your parents could care less but I do care about you. I’m just telling you all this as a friend,” he says placing his hand over mine. “Just a friend.”
“Okay,” I whisper, pulling mine away and tucking it into my lap.
“I’m really here for work. The Vigilantes are important to Stanton and RR. I’m sure you know that, especially now.”
“
Yeah.”
Wyatt and Rose return from their cigarette break. Rose is clearly a little tipsy. Wyatt thumbs towards the entrance.
“We should get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Ari agrees when I stand.
“Where are we going?”
Wyatt gives me a huge cheesy smile, showing off every single one of his pearly whites and pops his shirt collar. “House party.”
Zane
“You busy later, Mr. Presley?” the half-naked, random woman in front of me asks.
I only chuckle meeting her eyes, knowing exactly what she was offering but I wasn’t interested.
“Yeah, thanks, I am.”
She lingers for a while, watching me pack up my Les Paul telecaster under the floodlights that illuminate the desert.
“Come on, beat it,” Yandi orders to the woman as she walks in. She thumbs over her shoulder, giving the hired model a fierce look and keeps it on the woman until she’s out of our sight.
I drop my head and laugh. Cash and I’d just finished a photo shoot and two on-site interviews. After recording in the morning and now this, I was fucking exhausted. All I wanted to do was go home to Liv. I pull my cellphone from my pocket and stare at it with a twisted face. I sent her a few text messages that she still hadn’t answered and I had none from her all day. It wasn’t like Liv to not contact me for this long.
Yandi barks off some instructions to the people that remain here. When I lift my eyes, she’s looking straight at me. I slip the phone back into my pocket and take a deep breath.
“Looking for Liv?” she asks with a smirk.
“Yeah.”
“She’s with Wyatt and Rose.”
I only bob my head.
“Wyatt put the invite out early, said they were going to dinner and then to party. He said some RR exec agreed to go along with them.”
I bob my head again, pulling a box of cigarettes from my pocket, removing one.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I grumble.
Yandi checks her watch. “We’d be right on time.”
“For.”
“Trent Marks from Hooligan Recordings has a mansion here. He’s having a big party at his house tonight. It’s the size of a hotel, complete with a three-thousand-five-hundred square foot nightclub or some shit.” She laughs. “That’s where they’ve gone.”
“Uh huh.” I kick some rocks under my feet, trying to turn away from the breeze to light the cigarette in my hand.
“So that’s where we’re going,” Yandi orders.
I take a long draw and puff the smoke, watching it drift away in the wind. “Uh huh.”
“I’ll let Tarver know.”
“Yep.”
I finish my cigarette and take in the crisp Nevada air. It’s cool out here this time of night, despite the hot temperature during the day. Yandi runs a hand over her hair, groans and then starts to head off.
“Who’s the exec?” I ask.
She halts her stride and spins around to face me. “Huh?”
“Who is the exec—from RR?”
“Oh, it’s Ari Berg. He’s young.”
“Uh huh.”
Yandi shrugs before heading off again. I spot Barry and Rachel a few feet away talking and giggling like school kids. I observe their interaction curiously. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve really seen Rachel smile. Barry meets my eyes and gives me a wave. I wave back. I groan when I spot Rachel heading my way.
“Hey, Z.”
“Hey, Rachel,” I reply, tapping some ashes away.
“I like your girlfriend, Liv.”
“Yeah, that’s nice.”
“Yeah, she’s real cool. I think she’s about the only person around here these days that doesn’t mind my presence.”
I give her a smile, taking in that she’s stone sober.
Cash is near the roadside taking pictures with a few models. He hoots and hollers, while they each take turns putting their tits in his face. I chuckle and shake my head. Rachel follows my eyeline and rolls her eyes.
“It used to hurt my feelings but now I don’t care anymore.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Rachel.”
“Nothing. I don’t expect you to say anything.”
“I will say that if you don’t stop fucking Barry, it will end badly. If Cash finds out, Rachel...” I stare at the ground and shake my head a few times. “It will end real fucking bad. I will tell you that.”
Rachel stiffens with a glare and steps closer. “Did she tell you?” she hisses.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Who?”
“Liv, did she tell you? She told me she didn’t say anything.”
I let out a long breath, putting two and two together. Liv knew.
“No, Rachel. Liv hasn’t told me anything. I can tell by the cheesy smiles and flirty body language that you and Barry seem to be displaying right in front of every fucking one. You need to cut it out if you want to make it to Christmas.”
It’s quiet for a while as she lets my advice sink in. Rachel’s posture relaxes. She turns away from me and wipes her tears that I hadn’t noticed were falling. “I just want to be happy you know,” she mumbles.
“Yeah, I get that, but doing things this way, won’t get you much closer to your goal. It might get you dead.”
Rachel bobs her head a few times.
“So, wipe your eyes and find a time to break up with him. Preferably, not before the end of this tour.”
She nods some more and heads off. I finish my cigarette and tuck it back into the box. I take another deep breath. Everyone wants such simple things, but yet they always seem unattainable—so far away that they might as well not even exist. I scrub my face with my hands, pull out a baggie and take what the White Gypsy offers.
I take another deep breath. “Ari Berg,” I whisper to myself, craning my neck to look up at the stars.
I hadn’t met Ari Berg but I assumed he had to be the son of Ben Berg, who was RR and Tom Stanton’s shark of a lawyer. I didn’t like Ben Berg. His cuff links usually cost more than my entire outfit and his eyes dripped of greed, just like Tom Stanton’s.
The men that took care of our business were hungry fuckers, using our talent and fame to enrich themselves. They had no respect for us—half of them probably didn’t even like our fucking music. The Vigilantes were so big that now it seemed like the business became only about money—royalties, album sales, advance checks. Money became the priority and the music was secondary. It wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It just wasn’t.
Liv
“Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!” everyone cheers.
I raise my glass and take in the line of people that stand at the bar, all doing the same as me. The bartender rushes to fill the glasses that line the top of it. He tosses the bottle up in the air and catches it behind him. Everyone claps and cheers at his acrobatic capabilities.
I shut my eyes and toss my third vodka shot for the night down. I feel the burn as it slips down my throat and warms my insides. I open my eyes and giggle.
When Trent Marks downs a second shot, everyone cheers. The bunch of us have been at his house for the last three hours. This place is insane—complete with an Olympic-sized swimming pool that’s full of colorful floaties and half-naked women swimming around in its pink-tinted water.
Dear Boy by Avicii booms throughout the place.
Wyatt and Rose are out on the floor under the lights that flash pink, purple, blue, and green. A DJ stands in front of a mixer at the back of the room on a platform and women hang from fireman’s poles around the room. There’s a ton of people here and I have no clue who most of them are. I spin around and look at Wyatt across the room who gives me a wave. I move to the music that feels like it’s in my bones.
The room goes dark and the lights flash. I drift off on some ethereal plane. I can feel the bass in my chest. I lift my hands above my head. I sway and dip to the music. I spin around only to see Ari a few feet away. He’s removed his
jacket and his dress shirt is undone three buttons from the top. He dances with a woman who has a thick head of red hair. She dips down to the floor and puts her ass in his crotch. She spins around and drags her fingers down the middle of his chest. She does a shimmy, pulling on Ari’s shirt, forcibly yanking him forward against her chest. One of her thighs is up near his waist, before she slowly puts it up over Ari’s shoulder. He only laughs. I giggle at the very burlesque show across the floor.
Trent Marks bumps into me, tossing an arm around my shoulder. “You’re beautiful!” he shouts, passing me another shot.
“Thanks.” I smile. “You have an amazing house!”
He moves onto his next victim, while I laugh. The room darkens and the floor glows blue. I toss the shot down, feeling my insides begin to burn. My vision is hazy and my brain is cloudy. I drop my head and sway to the music, singing the words. The DJ says a few things into the mic and the music switches up. The crowd whistles and cheers.
Need Me by Rihanna kicks in.
I lift my arms over my head, shut my eyes and dance. After a moment, a hard body slides up behind me. I’m startled for a moment, until an inked forearm snakes around my waist. I throw my head back into a hard chest, right before we sway to the beat. He moves smooth, pulling me into him, allowing me to feel his hardness that nudges into my back. His soft lips graze my ear. He presses a kiss there, as we sway and dip together to the beat.
I take in the sound of the beautiful but strange voice that fills the nightclub. I spin around slowly...
Zane
Liv’s beautiful blue eyes are half-shut. She gives me an adorable smile. I brush her long hair away from her face, taking in her features and the sheen of sweat on her skin. I press a kiss to her lips, tasting the orange flavor that lingers on them.
“You came.”
“Yeah,” I say into her ear.
She looks absolutely gorgeous tonight, wearing a white dress with a hem that hits the middle of her thighs. The dress scoops just above her ass, exposing her back. The five-inch heels that she’s wearing, I want somewhere up nearby my ears before the night is over.
“You look beautiful.”
“You look good yourself.” She smiles, taking my face in both of her hands.
