Aria sputtered.
“When we ran away together… I promised you I’d be a star. That I’d take care of you forever.”
“You have taken care of me.” Her jaw went slack. “Yosh, we’ve traveled the world, playing shows, painting every town blood red, and having the time of our lives. We’re living those same dreams we whispered to the moon every night on that rooftop—dreams that seemed so far away it actually made us laugh to even speak them out loud. But now it’s real. Eighty cities, ninety shows, three hundred days. You’ve done more than take care of me—you changed my life. Both our lives.”
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life rotting away behind a drum set. I want to be seen, Bo. Seen… Heard….”
“Loved?”
Yoshi straightened. A lump moved down his throat before he turned away and faced the balcony rails. The loose white tank he wore blew in the night breeze. It was a crew neck with nonexistent arms, leaving a gaping hole that stretched down to his hips and left his entire side exposed, hinting at the deep V at his waist and the beginnings of his six-pack abs. When he clutched the railing, his toned forearm flexed. The muscle seemed to travel up his bicep, along his shoulder, and all the way into his jaw where it rolled beneath his skin, finally coming to a stop at his chiseled cheek. “I don’t even know why we’re talking about this. It’s not even a done deal. I haven’t been offered a contract.”
“But you will.”
He met her eye.
Aria let a silence fall, drinking in his familiar woodsy scent and the warmth of his presence. She stepped closer. Leaning her hip against the railing, she bent her head and tried to reclaim his gaze, kicking his calf gently with the tip of her boot. When a smirk finally broke through the corner of his mouth, she tucked her finger under the hem of his shirt and tugged the fabric hard, making the hole stretch enough to reveal every dip and curve of his toned chest, even a hint of his pink nipple, nearly taking him off his feet. His smirk blossomed into a full-blown smile as he reared away, and she drank in those deep dimples.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “Adam’s sensitive, and odds are good he’ll be crazy pissed, but you shouldn’t have to put your dreams on hold. Even if he did give you the gig that changed our lives, it doesn’t mean our lives stop.” She released his shirt and turned, leaning on the railing next to him. From the corner of her eye, she saw him look at her. She wondered why he always waited until he knew she wasn’t looking at him to look at her recently. “How come you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“A day before the meeting? I’m usually in the loop way earlier than that.”
“I didn’t tell you because Adam can’t know, and you’re terrible at keeping secrets, Bo.”
Her face curled. “I am a great secret keeper! I’ve kept all your secrets!”
He stared up at the moon, shaking his head. “You’ve kept the depressing ones, I guess. But the embarrassing secrets are apparently fair game. Did Noodle really need to know about the time I shit my pants during third grade P.E.?”
“Um, everybody needs to know about the time you shit your pants in third grade P.E. The fact that you expect me to keep that a secret is sadistic. I’m only human.” Aria hesitated, happy to hear the sound of his laughter, even if it was more strained and short-lived than usual. Now that she’d gotten him in a better mood, she went to the subject that had been nagging at her all night. “Hey… When Noodle said that thing on the bus, about the songs you write—”
“Noodle says a lot of things.”
She wanted to let the topic drop, but she couldn’t help herself. “Do you really write the songs with female backing for the sole purpose of keeping me on the tour?”
His voice went to a whisper, so soft it nearly vanished in the cool night air. “Since the day I was born, nobody in my life has ever wanted to keep me.” He craned his neck with his eyes lowered, then slowly blinked them up to hers. “Except you.”
Aria’s lips parted.
He watched it happen, his voice dropping low. “You better believe I’m gonna do everything in my power to keep you too.”
Aria tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Pretty sure I just spent two hours in an arena filled to the brim with women who’d be more than happy to keep you.”
“Maybe. But… before the Keys? Before the notoriety? Before the money?” He searched her gaze. “It was you.” He nudged her. “My Anne Boleyn. My day one.”
Her eye lowered as she fought a shy smile.
“I’m keeping you,” he whispered.
She met his eyes. “I’m keeping you.”
Yoshi breathed in as his gaze plummeted, locking onto her full lips. He clutched the railing.
Against all her will, Aria’s gaze fell too; his plush pink lips parting the moment she looked at them. She begged herself to find a less attractive part of him to look at—his nose, his armpits, the smattering of hair between his thick black eyebrows—anything else but those full lips—but she couldn’t.
He leaned in. “One….”
His breath warmed her lips, and she wondered how he’d gotten so close, so fast. “Two…” Her voice shook. When he took her chin beneath his fingers again, she pulled back. “Three…” she whispered for him.
Yoshi’s teeth clenched, as well as his fingers, even tighter on the bar as he slammed his palms onto it. He choked out a laugh and dropped his head, turning completely away from her when redness began climbing to his cheeks.
“Why do you guys do that?”
Jolting at the new voice, Aria pivoted towards the balcony doors, hoping her racing heart wasn’t manifesting its uneasy state in her eye. She shot a look to Yoshi, who hadn’t bothered to turn from the balcony to see who was at the door. Surely he already knew.
Noodle leaned on the doorframe, cradling a beer and squinting at them. The music from the nightclub pounded outside and made the balcony floor vibrate. Noodle motioned to them with the bottle, showcasing the tattoos on his knuckles. “You guys do it all the time. That ‘three, two, one’ thing.”
Aria tucked her curls behind her ear. “It’s nothing.” Shooting one last look at Yoshi, she made her way to the doors and clapped a hand on Noodle’s shoulder. “Who’s a girl gotta screw to get a drink around here, huh?”
Noodle cocked a lip. “Why can’t you guys just fuck and get it over with already?” His voice faded away as he followed her back inside the club.
Over his shoulder, still leaning heavily onto the railing, Yoshi watched them go, his hazel eyes darkening.
2
“Yoshi, I can make you a star, but your girlfriend’s gotta go.”
“My girlfriend?”
“Yeah, that black girl… Aria? Way too black.”
Yoshi faltered in the midst of flicking the lighter in his hand, and then a chuckle split his lips, sure the man on the other side of the desk, Simon Brady, was joking.
Simon pressed one nostril closed and bent down over his desk, pushing a rolled-up Benjamin into the other. Yoshi looked away just as he demolished one of the many lines of coke on the glass desk.
Yoshi’s eyes flitted around Simon’s office. Gold and platinum plaques lined every wall, glass frames glimmering under the rising sun splashing through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Yoshi couldn’t remember the last time he’d been up this early in the morning, and he was thankful this secret meeting had required him to arrive in disguise. The black skull cap and sunglasses were doing wonders to hide the eye bags and bed head only a long night of partying could bring.
He looked back to the desk, taking a moment to drink in Simon’s perpetually beet-red face and shiny black hair. Simon was doughy but not fat, and dressed like he had the body of a high school track star. Yoshi was sure the black T-shirt he wore, busting at the seams, would fit Aria perfectly, and she was half his size.
Simon offered him the rolled-up bill, and when Yoshi declined with a wave of his hand and a tight smile, Simon yanked open a drawer at
his desk. The clatter of pills filled the office.
“What do you like?” he asked. “Molly? Ganga? I had the flu last week, so I’ve got some Robitussin in here… Not really my thing, but….”
“I’m good,” Yoshi said. “Thanks, though.”
Simon shrugged before closing the drawer, reinserting the Benjamin in his nose and going in for round two.
Yoshi waited for him to sit tall again, half his face contorted as he sniffled profusely, refusing to allow a single spec of coke to go un-ingested.
“First off…” Yoshi started, once Simon met his eyes again. “Aria is not my girlfriend. We grew up together. We’re just friends. Best friends. Secondly, she’s not too black…” He frowned. “She is black.”
“She’s too severe.” Simon wrinkled his nose, his Jewish accent stronger now that his nasal passage was irritated. “If she were a little shorter, a little thinner, at least a mulatta…” he dragged on, wagging a hand with gold rings on every finger. “If she didn’t wear that thing over her eye, that Jack Sparrow pirate patch… What’s that about?”
Yoshi squinted.
“You can’t debut with a girl that severe. It’ll alienate your white female fans before you’ve even had a chance to hook them. You need a white woman on your arm for the debut, no questions asked. Blonde hair. Light eyes. Big tits.” He shifted, feeling the tone of the room. “Listen. I’m not racist, okay? I don’t see color.”
“Everyone sees color. There’s nothing wrong with seeing color. There is something wrong with making rash judgments about the color you see.”
“America will make rash judgments. America will be racist. I’m not. They are. All I can do is accept that reality, and mold my clients in kind.”
“Aria…” Yoshi paused. “She’s very important to me. She’s non-negotiable.”
“I understand that. And I believe you when you say that. But I also believe you when you say you want to be a legend. You want Grammys. You want platinum albums. You want the Super Bowl. I’m here to tell you that you can have it. You weren’t meant to spend your life rotting away behind a drum set while Adam Brand drinks in all the glory. All the fans. All the pussy.”
“Adam’s girlfriend is black,” Yoshi said. “And he does all right.”
“Shaun Green is different. Adam was already established when they got together, and they were only introduced because he needed her to rehab his image. Adam decided to keep her, because he has the wiggle room to do that. He already has his Grammys and his platinum albums. He’s yet to make it to the Super Bowl, however, because he refused to get rid of Shaun once her job was done. He seems happy, though, so fair enough. Let him stew in mediocrity. But you, Yoshi? You are anything but mediocre. You’ve got it all. A melting pot in the flesh. I look at you and I have no idea what the hell I’m looking at. Is he white? Is he Mexican? Oriental? What?”
Yoshi bit back a groan at that last one.
“You have the looks to tap into any market. We will never tell the public what you really are—”
“That’s great, because I have no idea what I am,” Yoshi said. “Orphan. Don’t know my lineage. Probably never will.”
“Fantastic!”
Yoshi lifted an eyebrow, smirking. “First time anyone’s celebrated me being an orphan.”
Simon lifted his hands and made a frame in the air, eyes lighting up. “Pussy in every shade will latch on like parasites. Everyone will want to claim you. They’ll be begging to take your money.”
“I don’t know, man, I just wanna sing—”
“You could hit Michael status. Bowie status. Jagger, Prince, Elvis. Adam Brand might be a rock star—” Simon leaned on his desk and jabbed a finger at him “—but I can make you a pop star. Kicking open doors he could only dream of.”
Yoshi hesitated.
“Come on now. Your Instagram name is King Yoshi, so don’t sit there and act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You think it’s normal for a drummer to have as many followers as his lead singer? You’re a couple hundred thousand followers away from surpassing Adam on Twitter. Neck and neck on the ‘gram. You think that’s happening to any other drummer in the industry? It isn’t. You are a star. More than somebody’s dusty drummer. I think you know it too. Your voice…” Simon had to take a moment. “Your voice… It’s smooth. Effortless. Not following a trend. It’s honest. When I listen to you sing, I believe you. You don’t need Adam. Adam needs you. He’s counting on the fact that you never realize that for yourself.”
Yoshi shifted.
“Here’s my plan. You leave The White Keys with no notice. You told me Adam doesn’t have you under a binding contract, so it shouldn’t be a problem—”
“My contract is non-binding because he trusts me,” Yoshi explained. “He trusts that I have integrity.”
“His mistake, not ours. Now, as I was saying, you quit The White Keys. No notice. It’ll cause a media frenzy. People will speculate about what happened to make you leave so abruptly. They might even hate you for it, but that’s okay. Our only goal is to get people saying your name, even if it’s in anger. As long as they’re saying it, you’ve won.”
“I can’t do that to Adam. He’d be completely blindsided. Scraping for a replacement.”
“Even better. A few canceled shows will get the public talking even more.”
“I won’t do it. Listen, when I had nothing, Adam said yes.” Yoshi motioned to himself. “Maybe you don’t get it but… I’m an orphan. An addict at birth. High as a kite when I took my first breath. Foster care from five to eighteen. I should be in jail. I should be dead. I should be sucking dick for dime bags. Instead, I’m behind the drums for the biggest rock band in the country. That’s down to Adam. I can’t betray him and live with myself. He’ll lose face. He’ll lose money.” Yoshi seemed to ponder his own words, because his eyes went big and he shook his head. “No. It’s not right.”
Simon sighed. “I’ll give the black girl a gig—”
“Aria.” Yoshi grit his teeth. “Her name is Aria.”
“Right, Aria—whatever. She sings backup, right?” He snapped a finger. “It’s done.”
Yoshi faltered. He went to speak, but nothing came.
“Yoshi. Do you want to be a star?”
Yoshi’s eyes narrowed. He clawed his nails through his hair. It broke the gel and made a few pieces fall forward.
“I can make you a star.”
Yoshi swallowed, leaning forward with his fists pressed to his mouth. He closed his eyes and shook his head against the thoughts rushing through it.
“I will make you a star. I will make you great. But I can’t make you great with Adam Brand dragging you down like an undertow, or with that black girl.”
“Aria.” Yoshi frowned. “Aria.”
“No, not Aria—Bowie. Michael. Prince. Prince. The Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, and Niagara Falls all turned purple this year. The world turned purple for Prince. What color will the world to turn for you?”
The darkness vanished from Yoshi’s face, relocating to his throat as he choked back a heavy swallow. “I need to think about it.”
“Think fast.”
--
Aria flicked the TV remote on the tour bus the next morning, chewing the tip of her nail, barely registering what she saw on the screen. The band and crew had gone out for an early breakfast, hoping to eat off the hangovers they’d collected the night before. She had stayed behind. After waking up in her bunk at the rear of the bus, showering in the tiny shower, and devouring three bowls of Cheerios, she was officially out of ways to keep herself distracted.
As she flipped through the channels, she hummed to herself, happy that her voice was coming back. She’d been off the roster for over a week—per Adam’s orders—until her vocal cords were back where she needed them to be. Any other boss would’ve been furious at Aria’s condition. They might’ve even had her removed from the tour completely, replacing her with an understudy.
But Adam.
>
Adam.
Aria’s gaze searched the living area of the bus. It was small, but lavish. After five years touring with The White Keys and watching their rise to fame, the biggest difference she could note was the tour bus. The first bus they’d crossed the country in, five years earlier, had been something out of a horror movie. Constantly breaking down, running out of water in the middle of nowhere, and being an all-around piece of shit had made for some traumatic, and hilarious, memories with the band.
But today, the tour bus was nicer than her apartment in New York. Adam had made sure that with every new album came a better bus. There were four on the tour, and Adam had gone out of his way to make sure his road crew, security, and management teams were all treated to the same opulence he was.
Aria sighed as she thought of Adam.
She didn’t have much time to dwell on the pit in her stomach, because the door of the bus opened. Sunlight blasted in, shaking her out of her reverie. The bus teetered under the weight of the person stomping on.
Screams from the fans camping outside wafted in. Aria could picture them out there, baking in the sun behind the barriers surrounding the parking lot, gazing at the lines of parked buses, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of their idols.
The screams were so loud this time Aria felt like the fans were on the bus with her.
She wasn’t surprised when she came face-to-face with Yoshi. The fans were screaming his name long before his long, lean body appeared in the entryway. His hazel eyes met hers as the door to the bus slammed shut behind him, locking automatically.
He wore a black beanie and Ray-Bans with red rims. His skin seemed bronzer than the day before, his jaw so tight she felt it might shatter.
She jumped to her feet, ignoring the remote that clattered to the floor, and let her gaze run his body, taking in his loose tank top—a black one this time—white skinny jeans, and black Chucks.
Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) Page 3
