by Lisa Suzanne
16
When I walk in the door just before ten, Kylie is sitting at my kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee as she types something on her phone. My heart immediately jumps in my chest as a spear of regret settles into my chest.
She glances up at me when I walk in the kitchen, and I immediately get the sense she stayed here last night waiting for me to get home so she could grill me on how the dates went. The look on her face tells me she disapproves.
She studies me for a beat, and then she shakes her head. “Oh my God, Dax.” She blows out a breath. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with one of the contestants.”
I smile cautiously. “Okay. I didn’t sleep with one of the contestants.”
“Thank God.” She taps her fingernails against the side of her cup. “If you had, I was already thinking about the best way to get you some help.”
My brows furrow. “Help?”
“Like sex addicts anonymous or something. They have groups that meet.”
I can’t tell if she’s serious or joking—one of the things I both love and hate about this woman. “I’m not a sex addict.” I pull a coffee cup out of the cabinet and pour myself a cup. “But I did have sex last night.” I say the words quickly and quietly, like ripping off the bandage.
“You what?” she screeches. She scrunches her nose as she avoids eye contact with me. “With who?”
My eyes turn down to the ground as the name falls from my lips. “Melanie.”
“Oh God, Dax.” Disgust drips from her tone. She clears her throat, clearly switching gears to manager mode. “That’s against your contract.”
“It’s not like they’ll ever find out.” It’s a weak defense, but I realize with remorse that what I did is pretty indefensible.
Her eyes still don’t meet mine. “They could refuse to pay you if they do find out.”
Shit. Shit. This is bigger than just me feeling guilty.
We need that money.
A thought crosses my mind, and before I can filter it, it comes tumbling out of my mouth. “What if Melanie seduced me to save the network a hundred grand?”
“Wait a minute,” she says, her eyes finally meeting mine. She shakes her head a little like she’s confused. “She seduced you?”
I clear my throat as I work out the theory. “She came onto me on the group date, and then when I got in the car to come home, the driver took me to her place instead. Apparently she paid him off.”
Kylie’s brows furrow. “I wonder if I should get ahead of this and just confess to Shayna.”
I shake my head. “If there’s a possibility they won’t pay me, let’s not go that route.”
She nods. “Whatever you want. The first episode airs tonight at eight and MFB has a gig at ten.”
“Are we watching?”
She nods. “I set up a viewing party at the bar where you’re playing.”
I hold a hand over my face in mortification. “Great. Our fans can watch me make a fool of myself before I play.”
She shakes her head. “Your fans will watch you be chosen as one of the men on this show. They’ll be rooting for you.” She lowers her voice. “Most of them will be wishing they were one of the women.”
I stare at my hands for a beat before I look up at her and roll my eyes. “You really think so?”
“I know so,” she whispers, her eyes locked on mine. A moment of heated quiet passes between us, and just as I’m about to ask her why the fuck she wanted me to go on this show when I’m sure she’s feeling the same sorts of things for me that I’m feeling for her, Rascal comes bounding into the room. His speed is pretty much always bounding.
“He’s back!” Rascal sings. “You engaged to someone yet?”
“Dude, we’ve gone on one group date. I barely know these women.”
“But you just rolled in now, didn’t you?” he asks. “Did you bag a babe?”
I blow out a breath.
“Oh, shit! You did bag a babe! Do I have to watch to find out who or will you just confess?” he asks. He bounds over to the coffee pot—just what this kid needs, more caffeine.
“It wasn’t caught on camera,” I say.
His brows furrow. “I thought you said the cameras are always around. Except bathrooms...eww, Dax, did you fuck a girl in a bathroom? I thought even you had higher standards than that.”
“Melanie Werther at her own house.”
His eyes widen as he abruptly stops pouring his coffee and turns toward me. “The host?”
I nod. “Hostess,” I correct.
He grins a sly smile and shakes his head. “Only Dax Hunter, I swear to God. New t-shirt idea? Something like I banged the hostess?”
I chuckle. “Probably not the best idea since it has to stay a secret.”
He shrugs and finishes pouring his coffee and Kylie’s phone starts ringing. She glances down at the screen and then up at me. “Shit,” she mutters. “It’s Shayna.”
“Goddamn, that secret got out fast.”
“I’ll do damage control.” She takes her phone into the family room and I head upstairs to shower.
“Bad news or good news first?” Kylie asks once I come back down the stairs.
“Always start with the bad, sweets,” I say.
“They’re not paying you for yesterday’s episode.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. The only way they’d know that I broke the terms of the fucking contract is if someone told them. The only one who knows what happened between Melanie and me is Melanie and me. My heart sinks at the same time my blood boils.
That bitch sold me out.
“Just yesterday’s?” I ask.
“You’re on probation. If you step out of line again, they’ll withhold the rest.”
“Is that the good news?”
She nods.
“So Melanie was a ten thousand dollar mistake,” I mutter.
“Hope it was worth it.”
I glance up and meet Kylie’s eyes. She looks disappointed, and I don’t blame her. I’m pretty disappointed in myself. “It wasn’t,” I say.
She presses her lips together and nods once before rubbing her hands together. “I need to run a few errands. I’ll see you tonight.” She grabs her purse from the kitchen table and heads toward the front door.
Stay. The word almost slips out, but I have no real reason to keep her here apart from the fact that I simply enjoy her company. “Where’s our gig tonight?” I ask.
“Rigby’s in Gaslamp.” She opens the door.
“See you there.”
She nods and disappears, and it sort of feels like a little piece of me walks out the door with her.
The guys help distract me as we sit down to lunch and I fill them in on yesterday’s dates. We go over our setlist for tonight and they can hardly contain their excitement to watch me on television.
I don’t really want to watch it, but it looks like I don’t have much of a choice tonight.
We get to Rigby’s a little before eight, and Kylie is already there. She presses a Miller Lite into my palm nearly the second I walk through the door, and I’m grateful for the alcohol. I kiss her cheek, and then she disappears into the crowd.
“The star of the show is here!” someone yells, and a few girls squeal. I see my t-shirts on a couple women in the place, and I immediately feel at home even though I’d have preferred to watch this at Emerson’s—my real home turf.
It isn’t long before Melanie lights up every screen in the bar and a hush silences the crowd. I glance away from the screen as the guilt fresh in my chest nearly oozes out of my pores. I can’t even look at her knowing what she did. Now I just have to figure out why she did it. To save the network money? That seems unlikely.
Everyone hangs on every word she says, and I tip the bottle back and finish my first beer before they’ve even shown my face for the first time.
And when my mug finally does appear on the screen, a huge and loud cheer rises up all around me. Someone claps me on the back and Kane,
who sits next to me, grins. Embarrassment filters through me, but it’s matched in equal parts with excitement—excitement that the people here are loving this, excitement about what this could mean for MFB, and even excitement about where it will all lead me.
Someone shushes the crowd again, and then we proceed to watch my introduction.
“I’m Dax Hunter,” I say on the screen, my voice filling the room. I try not to cringe as I watch. “I’m twenty-five and I’m a rock star.”
The scene cuts to me holding a guitar and making a face in a room with white walls, and then it cuts back to the interview.
“I also have my own line of t-shirts.” The scene cuts to me in that same white room and zooms in on my shirt that says Rock Star. “Get yours at Daxshirts-dot-com.”
The crowd gathered screams when the scene cuts to me onstage at Emerson’s. The other MFB guys are in the background, but the focus is on me. It must be footage Kylie gave them to air because I’ve never seen it before.
After the introductions, the scene cuts to each of four male celebrities talking to the ten women before the women head off to vote. No one here except for the guys in my band and Kylie know I’ve made it to the final two men, and it’s exciting watching those around me as they try to guess who it’ll be. I feel the entire crowd at the bar pulling for me, and when my name is announced toward the end of the two-hour episode, they go wild.
“A round on the house!” Ken, the bar manager, shouts in excitement. The crowd gets even louder, and then the five of us head to the stage to play our set.
I feel so much more in my element up here, the crowd singing along with songs we wrote as I sway to the beat Brody keeps on drums. I grip the microphone with both hands and belt out the words. I look out over the audience, acting like I’m making eye contact with different women when I’m really just playing the part. I’m lost to the music, not focusing on anyone’s face as my eyes move around to give everyone that feeling like I’m singing just to them.
I learned a long time ago how to block out everything and still make it feel like I’m looking at someone, but when my eyes find Kylie’s brown ones, they seem to come into focus. My eyes flick down to her mouth. Her lips are moving just a little as she mouths the words along with me. She knows these songs as well as we do, and I realize not for the first time that she’s so much more than just our manager. She’s a fan and a friend. A confidante and a cheerleader.
And I’m starting to wish she was more.
17
“Tonight the men will be taking the ladies to a wine and paint date,” Melanie says into the camera on Tuesday afternoon. I need to find a way to get her alone, to confront her and ask her why she did what she did. “Eden, Talia, Amanda, and Kristy, you’ll be going on tonight’s date while the ladies who went bowling last time will stay here at the house. You’ll all have a happy hour before the elimination ceremony tonight to secure your place with both men.”
I raise my hand, and the ladies giggle nervously. “Do I have to drink wine? Or is beer acceptable?”
Danny laughs and hits me on the shoulder good-naturedly, and I laugh along with him.
Mel raises a brow at me and looks off camera at Shayna, who nods. Melanie turns back to me, a slight snarl on her lips. I maintain a smooth expression. I hate her for selling me out to the network, but I can’t let that show. No one ever has to know what happened between us. “Beer will do, and scotch for you, Danny, but you both have to paint. Whichever of our ladies has the best painting as judged by our instructor tonight will have a free pass this week, and whichever of the men has the best painting will have the power during the elimination ceremony. Boys, ladies, good luck and have a wonderful date.”
Shayna holds up a sign off camera that tells us to follow her, and we walk through the hallway and toward the Hummer limo waiting in the driveway. Eden sits to my left and Amanda is on my right. Talia and Kristy flank Danny across from us.
“It’s not really fair that we’ve got an actual art curator with us tonight,” Amanda complains as she looks across the car at Talia.
The corners of Talia’s pretty mouth tip up. “You’ve mentioned your artistic abilities with finger paints. Why don’t you just use your fingers?”
Amanda rolls her eyes, and Danny catches my eye. We both try not to laugh as the cattiness starts to emerge from the ladies.
The car ride is thankfully short since it’s riddled with awkward quiet after that little exchange. We’re dropped at a small studio with a full bar on one side and four tables set up.
Shayna directs each of the women to one table and then comes over to the two of us. “You’ll paint next to each of the ladies for a brief time and rotate through all four. Danny, Chris will move your artwork around for you, and Dax, Jarrod will move yours. Do your best with it but just have fun. The more you drink, the better your painting will be. Danny, you’ll start with Amanda. Dax, you’ll start with Eden. We’ll bring your drinks over momentarily.”
I slide into the seat beside Eden. “This seat taken?” I ask.
She giggles. “Is now.”
The instructor stands at the front of the room beside an easel with a blank canvas on it. “Good evening, everyone. I’m Miles, and I’ll be your instructor this evening. Tonight we’re painting a simple fall scene like this,” he says, holding up an intricate picture of a bunch of trees and leaves with a little river flowing through it that looks pretty advanced. He says more things about the process, lets us know all our supplies are at our fingertips, and then he says, “We’re going to start with the river. Dip your thick brush in the blue paint and put it right here in the middle.” He proceeds to show us how it’s done, and I take a few bolstering sips of the beer Jarrod just set down next to me before I make the first brushstroke.
“I’d like to dip my thick brush into something other than blue paint,” I mutter, and I’m rewarded with a laugh from Eden. “Have you ever done this before?” I ask.
She nods. “My friends and I get drunk and paint all the time.”
I laugh.
“You?” she asks.
“Not even once.”
“Well, you’re really missing out.” She copies the instructor and hers already looks like a river while I stare at my still blank canvas. “You’re going to have to start sometime,” she says.
“I’d rather talk more to you.”
She glances over at me. “That’s a nice thing to say.”
“Tell me something about you no one else knows.”
“I can’t,” she says. “If I did that, all of America would find out.”
“Good point. Tell me something about you that everyone knows, then.”
She smiles. “I love my wine white, my coffee black, and my men just like you.”
I raise a brow and finally brush the first stroke of blue paint across the canvas. It doesn’t look half bad, and I toss in a few more strokes as I gain confidence at something I’ve never done before.
“You spend much time at the beach in Santa Monica?” I ask.
She shrugs as she taps her paintbrush in the water. “As much time as anyone who lives a couple miles from the beach does. You go much in San Diego?”
“Not as often as I’d like.” I set my brush in the water cup and run a hand through my hair. I steal a glance at Eden and watch as she eyes my hair as it falls back into disarray. Her hazel eyes fall back to mine, and she smiles. Even though I don’t know her that well yet, I sense a connection between the two of us. In the back of my mind, I wonder if she feels the same thing with Danny. I brush that thought away. It’s not fair to the process if I make constant comparisons.
We spend more time making small talk, and then Jarrod interrupts me in the middle of a sentence to let me know it’s time to move to the next table, which is Talia’s.
When I sit beside her, I compare our two paintings. She looks at mine and back at hers, and then our eyes meet and we both start laughing.
The more time I spend with this girl, the mor
e I like her.
“Good thing the competition is between Danny and me and not you and me,” I say.
She laughs and leans in conspiratorially. “Amanda might’ve been right about this not being fair. I do look at art on a daily basis.”
“While drinking wine?”
“Only during a show.”
“Obviously,” I say. “I get to drink at work sometimes, too.”
“What’s it like to be a rock star?” she asks as she follows Miles’s instructions for adding in the trees.
“I’m not exactly a star. I’m just a guy who fronts a band.”
“A band that’s opening for Vail. Come on, Dax. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” I lift a modest shoulder as she giggles. “I love what I do. It’s the best job in the world. But I have a question for you on a totally different topic.”
She raises a brow as if to tell me to go ahead and ask it, so I do.
“You said the two of us would never work out. Do you still believe that?”
“I believe in first impressions,” she says, and I nod. I’m not sure I want to waste time on someone who has already written me off. “But I also believe in the power to change my mind.”
That doesn’t exactly answer my question, but it does lead me to believe there’s still a chance for us.
I sit with Amanda, who talks about her kids and how much they love to paint, then Kristy, who plants herself ever more firmly into the friend zone, and then our time painting comes to an end. Talia’s is the most technically correct and the clear winner, but Eden’s is a close second.
Mine and Danny’s aren’t even close. You’d think I’d have the better painting since my career path is more creativity-based than his, but he’s got me by a longshot.
Miles declares Danny the winner, and then we’re ushered back to the house. “Is there anyone you need me to keep?” he whispers to me just before we join the ladies for happy hour.
“Eden and Talia,” I say without hesitance.
“Okay to let Amanda go?”
