by Katia Rose
He shrugs. “I mean normally, yeah, but you’re my best friend. I know something’s up. You’re not gonna do it are you?”
I nod. “I don’t think so.”
“Hey, man, that’s okay. There will be other singles to work on, and other big labels too. You’re just getting started. It’s important to walk away from a deal if it doesn’t feel right, even if it looks stupid to everyone else.”
I take a deep breath. “Nabil, none of it feels right.”
He blinks. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want this anymore: the parties, the headlining gigs, the touring. I just...Music is my life. It always will be, but not like this.”
He brings his camera closer to him. “So...what are you saying?”
“That I’m walking. I’m gonna take Jacob up on his offer to buy into the studio and turn it into something really special. I’ll still make my own music. I can’t imagine a life where I don’t, but I’m done being, like, all-caps Youssef.”
Nabil’s eyes have gone so wide he looks like a cartoon. “Shit. Holy shit. You’re serious.”
“Yeah.” I brace for him to start trying to talk me out of it. “I am.”
“Wow. I’m proud of you, man.”
I feel my jaw drop. “You are?”
“Yeah.” His face lifts into a wide grin. “You’re walking away from a deal with Nautilus Records to, like, pursue life as a mastering engineer in Montreal. That takes balls.”
“Huh.” I sit up straight on the bed, a new energy zinging through me. “I suppose it does.”
“Have you told Mohammad yet?”
I let out a dark chuckle. “Um, no. He will probably have my balls.”
Nabil swears again. “Oh fuck, yeah, he’s gonna be pissed.”
I check the clock in the corner of my screen and let Nabil know I have to get ready for dinner.
“And then I’ll spend the night pondering how I’m going to announce this to everyone tomorrow,” I add.
He laughs and then gets serious. “Hey, uh, any word from Paige?”
My shoulders drop, and I sigh before I can stop myself. “Nothing new. She still wants space. It’s driving me fucking crazy. I just...I can’t lose her. I can’t.”
I’ve spent every second I’ve been here thinking about her. I can’t even look at a damn palm tree without thinking about how much I want to send her a picture of it. This weird limbo where I don’t know if we’re okay or not is killing me.
“Hey, you won’t,” Nabil assures me. “I’ve seen you two together. I know you’re not gonna lose her.”
To his best friend credit, he does a good job at sounding extra hopeful.
“By the way, what hotel are you staying at?”
“Huh?” I squint at the abrupt subject change.
“Just curious. Did they get you a boujee one?”
“Mildly boujee.” I give him the name, and he nods.
“Well, good luck with dinner, and tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.”
“Thanks, man.”
We hang up after that, and I finish getting ready before heading down to the hotel’s restaurant for dinner with Mohammad, a few people from Nautilus, and the proposed vocalist for the single. She’s an up-and-coming pop singer named Dannika, and we’ve met once already at the Nautilus office. She seemed like a genuinely nice and talented person, and I hope me pulling out of the single doesn’t impact her too much.
“Okay, Salah.” I mutter a pep talk to myself as I take the empty elevator down to the first floor. “One more dinner, and then tomorrow, you pull the plug. You can do this.”
The doors open onto the modern, grey stone lobby dotted with red velvet armchairs. I head over to the hostess standing in the entrance to the restaurant and tell her I’m with the Nautilus reservation.
“Youssef!” Mohammad calls as the hostess leads me across the resto-bar decorated with the same colour scheme as the lobby. He and the rest of the group are seated in a huge round booth at the very back. “Just in time!”
I shake a few hands and then squish in beside Dannika. She smiles at me, and we jokingly shake hands too. She’s got platinum blonde hair with the roots dyed gold, which somehow works for her. I noticed how pretty she was the first time I saw her, but it wasn’t much more than an after-thought. Mostly I just thought about how much I wanted to ask Paige what her thoughts on dyed hair roots are.
We get through a round of drinks and appetizers before the guilt over what I’m going to do tomorrow really sinks in and gets my stomach churning. It’s one thing to know what I have to do; it’s another to be faced with the prospect of actually doing it. Combined with the constant apprehension about Paige, my nerves are beyond shot.
I need some air.
“Excuse me,” I mutter before getting up and heading over to the bar. I ask for a glass of water and lean against a bar stool to stare out at the lobby after the bartender drops it off.
“You don’t want to be here, do you?”
The voice behind me makes me turn. I find Dannika walking over. She leans against the bar beside me.
“I just needed some water. It’s kind of been a long day.”
“I don’t just mean dinner.” She props her head on her hand. “You don’t want to be here at all.”
“I...” I guess there’s not much point in lying. She’ll find out soon enough. “I guess not, no.”
She nods. “It’s not what I thought it would be—all this.” She sweeps her hand out to indicate the bar, the hotel, maybe even all of LA. “You see all the movies about it, you hear all the interviews, but nothing can really prepare you for what living this life is like.”
“That’s true. It’s not what I thought either. Is it...I mean, is it still what you want?”
I glance away as I ask. We’re nothing more than strangers, but it seems like she’s been where I am, and I need to know.
“It is, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong if it’s not what you want.”
I stare at her, my water glass still clutched in my hand. “Are you a mind reader?”
She throws her head back and laughs. “I’m a woman in the music industry. I wouldn’t survive without a little mind reading.”
I nod, my thoughts on another woman in the music industry—another woman who does everything she can to fight for what she wants.
“I guess there’s still part of me that’s scared I’ll regret it,” I admit.
Dannika shrugs. “Maybe there always will be, but I think you know what you want. I just wanted to come over and say it was nice to meet you and wish you luck, since I might not get a chance later. Things might turn into a bit of a shit show once you drop out of the deal.”
Now it’s me laughing.
“Can’t wait for that,” I say, voice dripping with sarcasm.
She mimes clinking an imaginary glass with mine and then pats my arm as she smiles at me. “Good luck, Youssef.”
“Thank you, Da—”
I pause when her eyes shift to something behind me. I glance over my shoulder, and it’s like the whole world gets put on pause.
Paige is standing right there.
Paige is here, in LA, right there, looking at me.
My jaw drops, but I can’t speak. I start to smile, and then I notice her expression. She isn’t looking at my face. She’s looking at Dannika’s hand on my arm.
She stays frozen for a moment, and then she takes off running out of the lobby.
Time resumes. The clatter of the restaurant fills my ears. Dannika drops her hand and looks from me to the lobby and back again.
“Do you know her?”
My mind and heart are racing so fast I feel like I might pass out. All I can do is nod.
“Oh, shit. I didn’t mean anything with the—” She gestures between my arm and her hand. “I think you better go get her.”
“Right. Yeah.”
I keep nodding like a bobble-head and stay exactly where I am.
“Youssef?”
&nbs
p; “Hmm?”
“Go get your girl!” She grabs my shoulders from behind and gives me a shove towards the lobby. That’s all it takes to get me in gear.
I sprint towards the big front doors. They’re some sort of motorized revolving kind that stop if you try to push them, so I’m stuck going at a snail’s pace and panting like an enraged bull—to the terror of the old couple stuck in the compartment with me. By the time I get out onto the sidewalk and feel the hot California air on my skin, I can’t see any sign of Paige.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I look again, straining my eyes for any sight of her, and catch the outline of a figure all dressed in black crossing an intersection not too far ahead.
“PAIGE!” I shout, and the old couple starts speed-walking away from me. “PAIGE, WAIT!”
I don’t know if she can hear me. She’s gotten pretty far in an impressively short amount of time. I start sprinting toward her, and now I know she can hear me, but she doesn’t slow down.
“Paige!” I catch up to her in front of some sculpture exhibition in a little cement lot. It’s almost completely dark out, and the spotlights from the exhibit silhouette her where she comes to a stop in front of me.
“Paige, you’re here,” I say to her back, struggling to catch my breath. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Her shoulders start shaking. “I...I just thought...I didn’t...”
“Paige.” All I want to do is touch her, but I don’t want to risk her running away.
I don’t ever want to see her run away from me again.
“Paige, I know this sounds cliché, but what you saw at the bar was nothing.”
“You’re right.” Her voice is thick. “That does sound cliché. I should have known. I should have expected it. This is the music industry, and you’re a—”
“I’m not.” I keep fighting not to touch her. “Whatever you’re about to say, I’m not it. I promise. That girl, she’s the singer I was supposed to do the single with. I barely know her. I’ve met her twice and said maybe ten sentences to her. She was just wishing me good luck.”
She still hasn’t turned around, but she twists her head enough for me to get a glimpse of her profile amidst all her dark hair. “What do you mean, you were supposed to?”
“I’m not doing the single anymore. I’m not doing anything with Nautilus.”
She whirls around at that, and the sight of her beautiful face so close to me, even after just a few days of absence, is enough to knock the wind out of me.
“What?”
I lift my shoulders and try for a grin. “You were right. This label, the music I was making...It’s not me. I was just doing what other people wanted because I was too scared of what I want. I’m still scared, but I’m going after it. I’m going to take Jacob up on his deal. I love being a mastering engineer, and maybe it’s not as cool or exciting or sexy as being the next EDM star, but it turns out that’s not what I want to do with my life.”
Her gaze darts around my face, like she’s looking for confirmation. A big group heads toward us on the sidewalk, and I put my hand on her shoulder to steer us into the exhibit so we don’t get in the way. The sculptures are all of trees without any leaves, and they seem to be made out of something like cork. Their shadows streak the concrete lot, casting the image of stretching branches over Paige and I’s skin.
“You were the first person to tell me that was okay,” I continue, “so, uh, thank you for that.”
“You promise?” She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t even blink. I couldn’t lie to those eyes if I tried. “You promise that’s all true?”
She moves a little closer to me. I’ve let my hand drop, so we’re not touching at all, but I feel her all around me.
“I promise.”
She chews on her lip for a few seconds, and then she nods. I want to sing with relief. She takes a shaky breath and then opens her mouth to speak.
“You were the first person to make me feel like I could...like I could feel something.” She holds her hands up in front of her, like she’s offering me something she can’t put into words. “When I’m with you, everything just...It lights up in a way I didn’t know it could.”
“I know.” We’re even closer now. “I feel the same.”
“I was a dick to you.”
I lift the corner of my mouth. “What instance are you referring to?”
She huffs a laugh. “Okay, fair. I meant when I...After the wedding, I just...Everything was so much, and I didn’t know how to handle it, but I still shouldn’t have handled it like that. I pushed you away, but I should have known I didn’t have to. I know that now. I talked to my mom. I went back to Brampton. A lot happened, actually, and then I flew here because I just couldn’t wait to make things right, and then I saw you, and there was some girl holding your arm, and...and...”
“Paige.” I reach out and take her hands in mine. “Slow down. Breathe.”
“Right. Breathing.”
I exaggerate my inhales and exhales, and she follows my rhythm.
“Paige,” I say once she’s got some oxygen in her, “you have to know that was not what you thought it was. I would never do that to you. I promise.”
“I know.” She nods and squeezes my hands. “I know that. I just freaked out. I think I’m jet-lagged, and I didn’t even know if I would find you. Nabil said you would be at the hotel, and—”
“You talked to Nabil?”
She shrugs and gives me a little smile. “I had to find you somehow.”
I shake my head. “And here I was thinking he called just to check on me.”
We both laugh, still a little breathless.
“You flew all the way to LA just to see me.”
Even saying it out loud doesn’t make it totally real.
Paige shrugs. “I had to say it in person.”
“Say what?”
She drops my hands and places hers on my shoulders, staring up at me in the semi-darkness. I frame her face with my palms and feel like I’m holding the entire world.
“I love you, Youssef.”
My heart stops. I think I go into full-on cardiac arrest for a moment, and then it restarts and thumps so loud and fast it’s the only thing I can hear.
She loves me.
I’ve waited so many years to hear it, and standing with her now, I realize there could never have been a moment more perfect for it than this.
“I love you, Paige.”
She beams at me, that mega-watt smile of hers so few people have gotten to see, and I can’t wait a second longer.
I kiss her. I pull her to me and kiss her hard until we’re both gasping for breath, until all the fear is replaced with a fire burning hot in my blood, until the past is behind us and the future is ahead.
And then I kiss her again.
Twenty-Three
Youssef
CADENZA: A point in a piece of music when an instrumentalist or singer has the opportunity to perform a solo with artistic license, often a display of skill
I get the door of my condo open and step into the entryway, my backpack heavy with copies of the paperwork Jacob and I went over today. We’ve just got one more appointment with a lawyer tomorrow, and then I’ll be the co-owner of Schenkman Studios.
Jacob has already been complaining about how I’m destined to ruin things with my modern ideas, but I know him well enough to tell the difference between his pissed off complaining and his ‘I’m secretly very happy about this but don’t want to ruin my reputation as a hardass’ complaining.
I kick my shoes off and head into the kitchen. Sufjan meows and butts his head against my leg. I swing my backpack off and drop it on the island before giving him a scratch. I hum the latest track I’ve been mastering to myself as I grab his food bowl and get a fresh can of cat food out of the cupboard.
“You deserve a treat, Mr. Stevens,” I tell him as he claws at my jeans. “Even though you’re being an asshole right now. Today is a big day.”
It’s been t
hree weeks since my trip to LA, and I play the final night of opening weekend at Luxe tonight. It’s my last show before the temporary hiatus I’ve announced. I know I’ll never be able to give up making my own tracks and playing for crowds; the thrill of creation and performance are too big a part of me. I need to share my music that way, but I’m happy to do it on a smaller scale, and for the time being, I’m putting all my focus into helping the studio reach its full potential.
“But tonight, we shall party,” I tell Sufjan as I set the bowl down and watch him start devouring his food.
“Okay, seriously? How have you not noticed me yet?”
I jump and make a sound somewhere between a screech and a yelp when I hear the voice from behind me. I whip around to face the rest of the apartment and find Paige stretched out on my couch.
Wearing a pair of black boy shorts.
And nothing else.
While she holds a bottle of champagne.
“Oh holy fuck.”
“I think you mentioned something about partying?” She lifts up the bottle. “Before you made that...noise. Could you do that again for me, actually? I want to record it.”
“Very funny,” I mutter as I stalk toward her.
It’s hard to focus on anything she’s saying when she looks like that. The afternoon sun is streaming through the window and lighting up her skin like she’s a goddess blessing the earth with her presence. Every curve of her body is absolute perfection.
Her dark hair hangs loose around her shoulders, and it’s got that wavy look to it she’s been doing a lot lately. The brown streaks she got before Aaliyah’s wedding have been touched up, which adds to the sexy, tousled look. She’s been dressing different lately too, more drapey t-shirts and leather jackets instead of her constant hoodies—although she still only dresses in shades of black and grey.
I was a fan of the hoodies and sweatshirts; I’d be a fan of her in anything, but lately, she just looks so powerful—like she’s staring the world straight in the face instead of hiding herself away.
It’s hot as fuck.
However, what she has on at the moment might be my favourite look of all.
