Hidden Tracks

by Zoe Lee

  “As you can imagine, now that you know who my ex-husband is,” she retorted, enjoying the way he practically writhed in embarrassment, “I have strong feelings about both privacy and learning things directly from reliable sources, and ignoring hearsay.”

  “Lucky for us,” Gin said seriously. “It’s one of the reasons I supported saying yes to you when you approached Kayla with the offer. I believe you’ll give us a fair chance.”

  Grateful that they appreciated her approach—and that Kayla had discussed the story with them beforehand, instead of unilaterally accepting—Astrid smiled again. “So that’s my introduction. If it’s all okay, let me start recording?” When there were no objections, she did so, then clasped her hands loosely on her lap. “To begin this first more formal interview, let’s pretend we’ve never met. Where were you born and where did you grow up?”

  This part—where were you born, where did you grow up, what was the first album you bought, when did you start singing/playing, and so on—was more for them to get used to her presence, like nature photographers just sitting in the middle of a field and letting the rabbits and birds stop worrying about them. It gave her a feel for their dynamics, too, to see if someone always went first, if someone cut anyone or everyone off, or if they argued about the way it had been. Also she liked to hear how they told their story now, versus at the time or two years ago or yesterday.

  Moving through that only took about an hour since none of them were overly wordy or so nervous about being interviewed that they stumbled through their explanations, which were both tremendously positive things to learn, in Astrid’s estimation anyhow.

  “So tell me the story of ‘Day Before You,’” she instructed next, “your first hit single.”

  That made all of them laugh, but she waited patiently, not offended by the reaction.

  “I’ll take this one,” Gin said, her eyes lit with unholy glee. “We were in New York. Trentham met a ballerina and romanced her in a rowboat on a lake in Central Park. And then Xavier met an exotic dancer that night and ‘romanced’ her in the employee dressing room.”

  “Three times,” Xavier mumbled under his breath, which was still perfectly loud. “I romanced the lady three times in the employee dressing room, for the record.”

  Gin looked completely unimpressed, or perhaps doubting, and carried on, “Of course they each gave her a pass to our show the next night, and… one woman shows up.”

  Although she’d seen it coming, given Gin’s glee, Astrid still chuckled. “And you two wrote a song about it. That’s much more productive than a fist fight over her, for example.”

  “Oh, no,” Xavier laughed, “we didn’t write it. That’s just the story behind it.”

  “Someone wrong the song for you based on an actual experience?” she asked in surprise, because the lyrics reflected the story, Xavier and Trentham so perfectly.

  Seth raised one hand, two fingers loosely gesturing at himself.

  Her core clenched in a completely inappropriate, outrageous, stupid reaction to the gesture, which reminded her of what those fingers had done to her last night.

  She corralled her thoughts sharply and tried not to be too thrown off to come up with a response, but all that she could come up with was, “Now that I didn’t know. You write, too?”

  “Seth’s written all but maybe two of our hits,” Xavier boomed. “And he was in the band for two years early on, left about six years ago. We were lucky to get him to play here.”

  Everything Astrid had theorized about the band shook, the top layer floating away like plaster dust to reveal a different, brighter, but less well-defined theory. She didn’t like being surprised by a band during the initial interviews, which had until now confirmed her theories. It was wonderful later on to be surprised, because that was what made her work interesting and rewarding. If everyone and everything was what it seemed, or what could be deduced from the music and social media, then it was boring. There was nothing revelatory or inspiring or cautionary that she could add to the conversation.

  “He hasn’t written just for us,” Xavier went on proudly. “Look him up.”

  “I just might have to,” she murmured, her gaze sliding back to Seth. Unlike the smirk such praise would’ve brought out in Barley and so many other stars she’d known, Seth was looking down, his disheveled curls almost hiding his face. His hands were tight around his coffee, as if the focus or the praise or both made him uncomfortable. Testing the idea out, she added carefully, a bit warmer than she’d been before, “That’s very impressive, Seth.”

  She could only see one eye, but it darted up, something flashing through it quicksilver fast, before his eyelashes swept down and hid it again. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  Before she could regroup and redirect the interview back onto her intended path, Kayla’s cell rang loudly. She stepped away to pick it up, talking fast and quiet for a minute, and then turned around with a huff. “Astrid, I’m really sorry, but can we cut this a little short for today? The band has a photo shoot later tonight, and the photographer’s asked us to come in a little bit earlier because he’s got some new vision for the shots.”

  “Of course,” Astrid said agreeably, reaching forward to tap her cell, ending the recording, before she stood up and fussed with the tuck of her blouse into her pants before she caught herself. “Are we still set to continue tomorrow morning at ten?”

  “Yeah,” Kayla said, already ushering the band up.

  “Astrid,” Hank told her as they hustled up, “it’s great to see you again. It’s been too long, and—” His whispered words stuttered to a stop as he hesitated, but then he rolled his eyes at himself and finished, “And you’re so different than I remember. I hope we get the chance to catch up a little more over the time you’re with us working on the article.”

  Trying not to take so different as an insult, Astrid tucked her cell into her purse and, once she was certain no hint of hurt remained on her face, looked at Hank. “I’d love to.”

  “I’d better—” Hank apologized, gesturing vaguely at the band.

  “Of course, go,” Astrid said briskly, “I’ll see myself out. Tomorrow, then.”

  She crossed the room and pulled open the suite door, knocked back a half-step from its unexpected weight. A hand caught it just above hers on the handle, a soft, melting heat touching her back. Seth’s hand. A little wisp of air got stuck in Astrid’s throat, and the tiniest noise escaped her when Seth’s chest brushed against her shoulder blade and her tricep as he eased sideways, drawing the door open all the way so that she could step through.

  Refusing to admit a certain wobble in her ankles, she exited the suite and began a quicker walk down the wide corridor towards the elevator, even though she knew instinctively that he’d keep pace at her back, a shadow with the warmth of a banked fire.

  Even though she knew precisely where he was in relation to her, it made it torturous not to turn around to confirm it with her eyes or change her speed so that he would come up alongside her. But Astrid had been on TV at seventeen, gotten knocked up by Barley Finn, had their daughter at twenty, and shared Barley’s spotlight until five years ago. She had hard-earned self-control, which she was very proud of, and a man with mysterious eyes and a gentle, knowing smile was not going to rattle it… Not more than making her ankles wobble today and nearly shattering her orgasms-in-an-hour record the night before, damn it.

  When they finally reached the elevator, Astrid hit the button and resolutely watched the display showing what floor the elevator was on, ignoring the way her breaths quickened.

  But when the elevator arrived and the doors opened, there was nothing to do but get in and turn around and face Seth. The space was too small to continue to ignore him, even though he seemed perfectly content to remain silent, but now she knew for sure that he was watching her. He must have stroked his hands through his hair since she’d looked at him last, because it was half-heartedly pushed back from his face, that deep gaze on her still.


  “Were you a wild one when Hank knew you?” he asked finally, softly.

  “In some ways,” she sighed, something about the way he was looking at her making her want to answer just to find out what he’d say after. “But I got pregnant not even six months after I met Barley. Being a mother means quite a lot to me, so my wildness was limited.”

  Instead of offering up some immediate platitude, or walking back his comment because he didn’t want to even accidentally imply that she had ever been a bad mother, his head did that subtle, slow tip to one side, the curls on the lower side brushing his shoulder. “It’s good you let yourself be a little wild while you were being a good mama,” he praised her at last.

  An unexpected rash of heat ran under the skin of her cheeks and the back of her neck, and she was relieved that she couldn’t visibly blush. It had been a long time since she’d spoken about those early years of motherhood, when she’d flown so high with love and then worried so much about how much time she gave to Kerri and Barley, both of them so needy. Back then her love had been a fountain that never ran dry, spilling over Kerri and Barley, Barley’s bandmates and their loved ones, the roadies like Hank and the rest of their team, and even the journalists and photographers who’d flowed through their lives.

  It hadn’t been like that—she hadn’t been like that—since she and Barley had separated and the world had trampled through their heartache and regret and longing for something, somewhere, to have gone differently. Many who had loved her, many who had gotten her love, had disappeared, or judged her. While she would never have wished to erase the love she’d given out, she had had to become a silent figure for a few years, careful of everyone.

  Sighing, she got out of the elevator when the doors cracked open.

  A hand cupped the sway at the small of her back, and even though she had no right, no business doing so, she let herself sink into Seth’s touch for the length of the hotel lobby.

  It slid away when they reached the revolving door to the outside, and with another sigh, Astrid went first. She wanted to jump into a taxi immediately, leave this man who kept bringing something bubbling up to the surface of her awareness, but she didn’t.

  “Did I make you sad?” Seth asked in that unbearably gentle way, standing before her, feet planted solid and safe on the sidewalk, his fingers tucked into his front pockets.

  “No,” she denied. “Those years… they seem like a dream sometimes, or as though it were an indie movie with sun-drenched landscapes where everyone is happy and in love.”

  “I don’t think we’re meant to live that way our whole lives,” he murmured, looking away like an enigmatic model, the famous Chicago wind sending his hair swirling upwards.

  Clicking her tongue, she admonished, “Of course, it wasn’t really all happiness.”

  It had been quite some time since she’d been emotionally intimate with anyone in any significant sense and she hadn’t thought she missed it, because she wasn’t one who had trouble finding potential partners if she wanted them. But this unexpected taste of it, only as long as it had taken them to go from the suite to the sidewalk, made Astrid want to reach out with a sharp fierceness that was impossible for her to deny to herself, not with her hands—fine, not only her hands—but with her heart too. She shivered, despite the heat.

  “I had best… go,” she said, hating the unintentional pause, as if inviting him to ask her not to go or ask her anything else to keep the conversation going and going.

  “Yeah, I should too,” Seth agreed instead, and she fought the flare of irrational, silly disappointment. She waited for him to offer up even a vague platitude about why he should go, but he didn’t explain himself any further, he only said, “I’ll see you around, Astrid.”

  And without any outward hesitation, he dipped his chin in goodbye and sauntered away, a slow-moving southern man moving lazily and confidently, the more aggressive Chicagoans darting around him ceaselessly without disrupting his pace at all.

  “You idiot,” Astrid muttered to herself, and stepped to the curb to hail a taxi.

  Apparently four orgasms had made her stupid instead of satisfied.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Seth

  When Seth was nineteen, he and Hedda had gotten a record deal at a little indie label in Nashville, so they’d left Juilliard. The album they’d cut hadn’t gotten traction in Nashville, but it had in Hedda’s hometown, Berlin. After three years of working the underground circuits in Europe and Japan, Hedda had told him that she was ready for something more certain. While it had blindsided Seth, all he had wanted was her happiness, even if that meant she’d outgrown him or grown tired of their life together. He had let her go with hugs and love when she got a position with an orchestra at an opera house in Berlin.

  Within six months, she’d died in a car accident before he’d even had a chance to come to terms with how much their breakup was fucking him up, and six months after that, Xavier found him deejaying in Rio. Xavier asked him to join Downbeat and Seth had been too tired, too needy with the idea of being near Xavier, who had known Hedda too, to argue it. He’d been with them for two years, but nothing felt like it had with Hedda, so he’d gone back to Maybelle and that easier life before he could descend into self-destruction.

  During nearly all of that time, he’d been selling songs. A lot of them.

  He wasn’t ashamed of his songwriting by any stretch of the imagination, although it would be a lie to say that he had never wished that he’d done better as a performer.

  But it had never come up before with someone like Astrid Sinclair, whose article on Downbeat would have a global audience. Even his family and friends in Maybelle didn’t truly understand how many songs he’d written for artists around the world, people he’d met during his travels while performing or during his side gigs as a session musician. They’d never won any notable awards, which he tried not to be disappointed in, but still.

  He wasn’t part of Downbeat anymore and he shouldn’t have hung around in Xavier’s suite until Astrid arrived, but he hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity to speak with her again. He should have definitely left before she’d begun the first formal interview, when he’d somehow made it into their story as more than a passing former bandmate.

  The last thing on earth he’d wanted to talk to Astrid about was that.

  While he’d done his usual evasive maneuvers to get away with saying as little as possible about it, he hadn’t wanted to evade Astrid. She was beautiful and grounded. She didn’t have a quick temper or vacant, careless eyes. He’d read many of her articles and while the writing had a tendency to be a little distant or a little pretentious, especially because she was writing about primarily rock music, they were heartfelt, measured and insightful. There was something in the way she held herself, in the soft strength of her jaw and chin, in the thoughts and sparks and shadows that flickered in her light, mirror-like eyes. Taking her to bed hadn’t made her any more real; if anything, it had only increased her mystique.

  She wasn’t for him, though.

  If the universe was aligned and she was still feeling the same desire that he was, maybe she could be his for another night or two. There was nothing wrong with consenting adults feeding their desire, and pleasure and shared joy were beautiful things. But if he was feeling care, or interest or protectiveness or anything more than plain desire, then one or two nights wouldn’t do; he was past settling for a night or two with people who he cared about.

  So he should stay away.

  His heart was precariously perched in a tiny rowboat in a very large lake of loneliness whose waters were choppier now more than ever, after six years of near-complete romantic solitude in Maybelle. It would be masochistic madness to get a taste of Astrid Sinclair’s heart, knowing their lives weren’t going to intertwine or criss-cross or melt into one.

  Groaning, he signaled the bartender at Local Beats for another.

  Instead of the bartender, though, one of the owners, Ray, prowled over w
ith his refill. They’d met back when Seth was with Downbeat, since Jorge was from Chicago and it was where Anita lived, so they looped back through here more than anywhere else. And Local Beats was Xavier’s favorite place in the city, so they’d spent a lot of nights laughing and dancing, then crowded around a table on the roof fucking off or writing music and lyrics.

  Ray was a tough man. Probably in his early fifties, with a hard jaw, thick muscles, and the aura of a guy who’d seen a lot of shit and preferred the low-impact drama of the nightclub. It had been a long time since they’d had a deep conversation, but they used to ruminate over all of their big loves who had come and gone, what they’d given and what they’d taken, for hours.

  “Seth Riveau,” Ray declared in his no-pretenses baritone.

  “Hey, Ray.”

  “What are you doing with these beers at six at night?”

  Seth scratched through his hair and laughed a little helplessly. “Trying to stay away.”

  That earned him a snort and a stated “That don’t work.” He squinted and then asked, “It’s not still… shit, what were their names? The man with a shaved head and the woman who was always wore so much jewelry she sounded like a kid shaking a piggy bank?”

  “What a throwback,” Seth said, a remembering laugh chiming into the big empty club. “No, I haven’t seen them since I was still with the band. They were good times though.”

  Ray replied, shaking his head. “God knows I’ve been with more than my fair share of men and women. But I could never figure out why a catch like you was always with couples.”

  “Just wasn’t time to settle down,” he offered with a shrug and an easy wink, even though a part of him hated deflecting, hated erasing Hedda’s impact on his life at all. “If I wasn’t in love, the second-best thing I found was to share a bed with a couple who was in love, you know? Help them each love the other, shower them in my attention and affection too, more than just the one could give the other. Or help them live out a fantasy or ten.”