It didn’t.
“Wow,” Yoshi breathed. When he gave the audience a smile, it only made their screams go higher.
“Aw, he’s blushing!” Marissa beamed, appearing on the verge of joining her audience in their nonstop adoration.
“Wow, thank you so much.” Yoshi gave a small wave to the screaming crowd every now and again, his heart still pounding out of his chest. “Wow….”
To think, just an hour before, he’d been in the backstage bathroom bent over a toilet, emptying his guts. Aria had rubbed his back from behind, whispering the soothing words only she knew to say.
Of course he’d gotten sick. The first televised performance of his solo career? On a talk show that boasted four million viewers a day? The fear had nearly immobilized him. Every note he’d sung sounded like garbage to his ears. By the end of the performance, he’d been convinced his career was over. All because of one nervous, shoddy performance.
Then the crowd had erupted. And they’d yet to stop.
Now that he’d gotten through it, he felt like he was floating. His heart no longer raced with terror, but pure adrenaline. His veins pulsed for another hit.
He needed more.
The audience began to quiet with a few random “I love you, Yoshi!” thrown in. Marissa attempted to speak, shooting tentative glances at her audience as if she were waiting for another interruption.
Leaning forward in her chair, her amused blue eyes met Yoshi’s. Her black hair, pixie short, let her delicate features take center stage. Her deceptively small mouth lifted into the broad smile that had made her famous.
Set up like a living room, the main stage was comprised of two red chairs with a coffee table between. A large screen filled the back wall, boasting Marissa’s moniker. Cameramen and stagehands milled about all over, careful not to step in front of the rolling cameras.
Marissa came to the edge of her seat, laughing.
“Ladies and gentleman…” She kept her pitch elevated because a few overly excited audience members still hadn’t composed themselves. “We are back with Yoshi, who just continues to blow my mind, time and time again. He just finished giving us a breathtaking performance of his smash hit, ‘Kings and Queens’, and as you can tell by our insatiable audience, there’s no doubt in my mind that this young man is going places.”
The crowd erupted again, some even rising to their feet to applaud Yoshi.
Marissa nodded, giving the audience more time to collect themselves.
Yoshi leaned on the arm of his seat with a beaming smile, feeling his body bursting with warmth and disbelief. He couldn’t help moving his shining eyes to the entrance of the backstage area. He locked gazes with Aria, lifting his eyebrows high, as if he were barely resisting the urge to throw his arms out at her and shout, “We made it!”
Aria bounced up and down from where she stood off to the side of the stage, the backstage pass around her neck bouncing with her. Production staff zoomed by her in both directions. None of them seemed to notice the one-eyed girl with a beaming smile. She shot him two thumbs up, looking just as over the moon as the women in the audience, as if she weren’t going to be on a plane next to him in just a few short hours.
He thought of the destination he’d chosen just for her. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she found out where they were going. Even more than that, he couldn’t wait to get her there. They hadn’t said it plainly, but he knew the bulk of those two days away were going to be spent in the bedroom.
Aria stopped bouncing, as if she could read the filthy thoughts in his head. She clasped her hands over her heart and chewed at the smile on her bottom lip, her own eye growing heavy with thoughts of their upcoming vacation.
Yoshi couldn’t help it when the warmth in his body relocated its energy from his adoring audience and made itself available only for her. Only for that brown-skinned, eye-patched, big-haired beauty who could hardly contain her excitement from the sidelines.
He blinked back to the present when Marissa spoke again.
“I’m just amazed,” she said. “Every time you release a new song, you top yourself. When I first heard ‘Kings and Queens’, I can’t lie. It was so incredible that I immediately thought, ‘This is it. There’s no way this new guy is going to be able to top himself.’ Then you hit us with ‘Wild and Free’, and I thought, ‘Okay… this is it. No way this new guy is going to top himself.’ Then you dropped the album. Straight to number one in every country. Rave reviews across the board. Breaking records all over the place. I mean… How do you feel? Did you ever expect it to blow up like this?”
Yoshi laughed when Marissa’s eyes went wide. “Thank you, Marissa. Thank you. No…” He sat taller, raising his eyebrows at her. “Honestly, I can’t even be mad at you, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve been waiting too. I’ve been waiting for that moment when this all comes crashing in around me. But it hasn’t happened yet, so…” Yoshi paused to let the audience get a soft laugh in. “I swear, every morning I wake up and I’m just… I’m stunned that this is actually happening, you know? It’s always been my dream, but never in a million years did I imagine it would get this big, this fast….”
“Well, it’s happening, and not only are you an incredible performer… not only do you have this undeniably captivating, beautiful voice—”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“But on top of that, you’re also an amazing songwriter.”
Yoshi felt the heat on his cheeks. When he said, “Thank you,” that time, he meant it so much that the words didn’t even leave his lips. They got caught in his throat.
“I’m not sure if our audience has any idea how many songs you’ve actually written.” Marissa looked towards the audience. “You wrote every song on your new album…”
“I did, I did.”
“You have songwriting credits on every album you worked on with The White Keys…”
Yoshi’s heartbeat sped up. His management had spoken to Marissa before the interview to reiterate that Yoshi’s untimely exit from The White Keys was completely off-limits. While Yoshi knew Marissa wouldn’t assail him with a “So, when did you stop beating your wife?” severity, he still shifted in his seat.
“Yeah, I was blessed… so blessed to have the opportunity to play drums for The White Keys. It will always be one of the most amazing, rewarding experiences of my life. My only exposure to instruments was playing at a youth center in Brooklyn when I was a kid. I was there almost every day, just learning. By the time I was eighteen, I was a pretty solid at the drums, but still rusty. Adam took me under his wing anyway. Brought me into the industry, taught me how to take my drumming and my songwriting to the next level. I don’t know where I would be…” Yoshi’s words slowed to a stop when he caught sight of Gus, who’d suddenly appeared next to Aria on the side of the stage, slicing his fingers across his throat in a ‘shut the hell up’ motion.
Yoshi clapped his lips shut.
But it was too late. Marissa had kept her end of the bargain. She hadn’t brought up his relationship with Adam, Yoshi had. So when she asked, “Do you still speak to Adam?” Yoshi had no one to blame but himself.
He shifted again, watching Gus bury his face in his hand. “Yeah, yeah. We speak.”
Marissa squinted. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, we talk on the phone, you know…” Yoshi’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t technically a lie. He and Adam did talk on the phone—if leaving fifteen-minute messages on Adam’s voice mail once a week counted, that is.
“That’s so good to hear.” Marissa gave him a break, changing the subject. “So, yes, you’ve been writing songs for years. You’ve just written one with Pharell that’s been nominated for Song of the Year. You’ve worked with so many great artists. You’ve got a backlog so extensive I could really sit here and list them all day. Yet, only now have you come to the forefront. Let me just say, I’m so glad you did. You are a true talent and you deserve to be front and center. Thank you, Yoshi. Thank y
ou so much for sharing your gift with us.”
“I’d like to thank you, Marissa,” Yoshi said, motioning to her. “You know, this was my first time performing on TV by myself, and I won’t lie, I was scared to death. My girlfriend had to hold my hair back in the bathroom before I came out here.”
The audience burst into laughter. Yoshi raised his eyebrows, because they had no idea he wasn’t joking.
“Your girlfriend,” Marissa took the bait without hesitation. “Are you about to break the hearts of every member of my studio audience? Has some lucky girl taken Yoshi off the market?”
Yoshi’s smile collapsed. Shit. Had he said ‘girlfriend’ out loud?
“Uh…” He shifted in his seat. “If I’m being honest, I am seeing someone, yes….”
“Anyone we might know?” Marissa asked, conspiratorially.
An audience member shouted, “Carmen!”
Yoshi’s wide eyes flew to the audience. Then, they jetted over to Aria. He wasn’t surprised by the look he found on her face, and his heart fell to his feet.
“I, uh… You know…” He tried to collect himself, pulling his eyebrows at Aria, silently begging her. “Her privacy is pretty important to her. And to me too. So out of respect for her….”
He waited for Marissa to push the subject, but then breathed in relief when she didn’t.
Instead, she tilted her head at him.
Yoshi tilted his head back.
If she weren’t an openly gay woman, the adoring look that passed between them would’ve probably landed them on several tabloid covers come morning.
“This isn’t over,” she threatened, pointing a finger at him as her audience applauded. “We’re going to talk more once we get backstage.”
He held his arms out. “I’m all yours.”
“I’ll just say she’s a very lucky girl.”
Yoshi’s eyes met Aria’s again. He watched her gaze fall.
“Nah, I’m the lucky one,” he said.
Aria’s gaze shot back up. A chorus of “awww” rose from the audience.
“So, back to the music…” Marissa crossed her khaki-clad leg, wiggling her checked Vans sneaker before sitting back. “Like I was saying, people think you’re an overnight success, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth.”
“I think I definitely am an overnight success,” Yoshi said. “And it only took me twenty years.”
Laughter rang out again, seeming to grow louder and more genuine with each joke Yoshi made.
Marissa’s eyes shrank as she tried to compose her giggles. “Exactly, exactly. There really is no such thing, is there? You really have been doing this for a very, very long time. It’s no wonder you’re such a rare talent. How old were you when you first started singing?”
“I was about three years old,” Yoshi said softly. “I don’t really remember the specifics, because I was so little. But the feeling I got, the release, when I was singing? I remember that.”
“Well, lucky for you…” Marissa smiled devilishly, pointing to the large screen behind them. “We’ve got a little something that might jog your memory. Let’s take a look.”
The audience broke into dramatic “oooos.”
The smile fell from Yoshi’s face. Then, his heart was racing again. That time, it stole his breath, and he shot Aria a look across the studio. The smile was gone from her face as well, and she shrugged.
He saw in her eyes what he felt in his heart.
They couldn’t possibly have the footage. Could they?
His gaze followed Marissa’s finger. He shifted in his seat to face the screen just as her moniker faded away and footage from a grainy old video took its place.
Yoshi was instantly short of breath. Sweat droplets collected on his forehead as his fingers dug into the fabric of his chair.
In the video that appeared on the screen, he was just three years old, wearing red pants and a red leather jacket with black lining. Clutching a microphone in his tiny hand, his big hazel eyes strong and determined, he sang the lyrics and executed the dance moves to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with near-perfect precision. His hair had been permed within an inch of its life and then drowned in gel to maintain the false curls. Even he couldn’t deny, watching the video, that he’d been talented. Not shy in the least, he worked the stage with wild abandon, pulling off Michael’s dance moves and even facial expressions with what appeared to be minimal effort.
But the effort had been anything but minimal. Even then, he could still smell the cigarette smoke floating in from the audience in that Las Vegas showroom. He could feel it burning his little lungs, making his eyes water in the fight to ignore the sting so he wouldn’t flub a lyric or miss a step.
Beyond his pounding ears, Yoshi heard the familiar sound of the audience exploding into defining “awwwws.”
Even a few of Marissa’s stagehands had stopped what they were doing, Yoshi noticed, to watch the video, hands over their hearts, eyes ripe with adoration.
To the naked eye, it was adorable.
Yoshi knew it had been anything but.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, shooting Marissa a stunned look. Thankfully, their mics had been turned off for the duration of the video, because he could hear the panic staining his voice.
“We’ve got friends in high places.” She winked.
“No, I’m serious.” Yoshi frowned, eyes going dark.
The smile vanished from Marissa’s face as she shifted in her seat. “Well, I’m not sure, sweetie. I’d have to speak with the production manager…” Her eyes traveled his face. “Is everything okay?”
Before Yoshi could answer, the video faded to black, the audience broke into applause, and their microphones were reactivated.
Marissa pasted the smile back on her face, clapping her hands together while facing the audience. “Is that not the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?” She beamed.
Yoshi looked to the audience just in time to find a slew of faces so pleased they were near tears, as if the child in that video had just found the key to world peace.
Marissa nodded along with her audience. “There’s nothing we love more than embarrassing our guests with videos from their childhood! Seriously, how precious were you?” she cried, shooting Yoshi a look.
He didn’t answer, leaning on the edge of the chair with his downturned lips hidden in his hand.
His wide eyes found Aria, knowing that was the only place he’d discover any real peace in that moment. She shook her head at him with a hand over her heart.
Marissa leaned over and pressed a hand on Yoshi’s knee, reclaiming his attention.
She asked him a question. He didn’t remember answering, but he must’ve, because the questions continued to come.
By the time the interview was over, he couldn’t even remember finishing it.
9
Aria flipped through the trashy tabloids on her lap, pretending not to listen in on Yoshi’s phone call. A bulk of the passengers at their departure gate were already lined up for a flight that hadn’t even finished deplaning, leaving most of the seats in the sitting area empty. Aria never understood that. Why were people lining up when they had another forty minutes before they’d even be allowed on the plane?
She shrugged to herself, happy. Their impatience meant she could stretch her legs out and rest her feet on the empty seats across the way. Outside the window next to her seat, airport ground crew were busy gassing up the plane that would be touching down in the Maldives in eighteen hours.
She tried to hide the pleased smile on her lips. Yoshi had promised to surprise her with an amazing destination for their vacation, and he hadn’t disappointed. The moment she’d had a look at the departure screen, she’d immediately leapt into his arms. She’d been imagining Hawaii. Puerto Rico. Maybe even Paris.
No. This guy was taking her to Asia. To the most beautiful string of tiny islands on the planet.
She flipped through the tabloids in her lap, all of which had
the face of the man sitting next to her on the cover, and her smile slowly fell. Yes, the man next to her was taking her to the Maldives for a romantic vacation.
But only she knew it.
To the rest of the world, the blonde-haired, tan-skinned goddess who graced those tabloid covers alongside Yoshi was the one enjoying these luxurious vacations. Enjoying Yoshi. To the rest of the world, Carmen was the one who enjoyed his head between her legs every night. Carmen was the one who drifted off to sleep with his words of love whispered in her ear. Carmen was the one so alive with excitement about making love to Yoshi for the first time she was nearly making herself sick.
To the rest of the world, Aria didn’t exist.
It shouldn’t have bothered her. It never had before. Even with The White Keys, when she’d been a lowly background singer, she’d never yearned for more. Not the way she did now. There was something about playing background in her own boyfriend’s life that was illuminating a side of her she hadn’t even been aware of.
“No.”
Aria’s eyes flew to Yoshi when his deep voice rose involuntarily from the seat next to her. He was leaning on his knees with his cellphone on his ear, glaring towards the long line of passengers at the gate. He had a backward white baseball cap on, a baggy white tank and white skinny jeans. It made his bronzed skin hum. She ached to reach out and touch him, but she knew she couldn’t do that either.
Not when they were in public. It was bad enough that she’d jumped on him, wrapping her arms and legs around his waist the moment she’d seen the departure screen an hour earlier. It had been an involuntary reaction to her excitement, but the fact that they were in public had brought her back down to her feet in an instant. Thankfully, no one at their gate seemed to notice them, but it had still been a foolish reaction.
The public couldn’t know she existed.
Her stomach tightened.
“No,” Yoshi lowered his voice. “I don’t want to know where they got that footage, Gus. I need to know. I need to know.”
Aria’s eyes fell back to the magazines in her lap, still trying to choose one to read. The issue on top had a photo of The White Keys with all the members blurred out except Yoshi. The headline read ‘The One Who Got Away.’ Aria tossed that one. Too heavy. The next issue had a photo of Carmen between international soccer star, Bruce Vega, who she’d ‘broken up’ with in England, and Yoshi. It was the lead article. The headline read ‘I Still Love Carmen.’ The paparazzo photo they’d chosen of Bruce made him appear somber, almost desperate. Aria switched to a different magazine. The next one read ‘Yoshi’s Intimate Texts to Carmen.’ Aria chortled. As far as she knew, Yoshi didn’t even have Carmen’s phone number.
Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) Page 12
