by Teagan Kade
“No,” she says firmly. “I needed this.”
“A trip out to the crazy farm with your overly broody childhood friend?”
She laughs harder. “Something like that.” She runs her hands across the leather dash. “And it is nice to see Bruno again.”
I’d completely forgotten about Dad’s nickname for the Pontiac. I give the throttle a stab, the exhaust popping and crackling. “See? He’s happy to see you too.”
“You know,” she says, “I wish I could have done what you did, pack up and travel the world for years playing music, being free.”
“It’s not half as glamorous as I make it sound. Trust me.”
Sel is lost in her own thoughts. “Rick never wants to go anywhere. He says we should concentrate on the local market first, keep travel to a minimum, but that’s one of the main reasons I got into this in the first place, to escape LA, to see life.”
A number of replies flash through my head. I could cut Rick off at the knees here, but I remember what has to happen. I reply simply. “What was it you told that cop when they caught us joy-riding in Dad’s Ferrari? ‘I’m Selena Antonella Torres. I do whatever the hell I want’?”
“Almost.” She looks to me smiling, eyes glinting from the traffic passing us by. “Whatever and whoever.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SELENA
“You bitch.”
My friend Alice looks down at the chocolate brownie I ordered her. “I’m on a diet.”
Alice is always on a diet. God knows why. She still looks like a supermodel, still the same busty knock-out the boys in the neighborhood went crazy for.
I stand and embrace her, almost losing an eye with one of her hoop earrings. “It’s great to see you, Alice.”
“You too, Sel.”
I take a seat. “You ready to get back into the studio? We’re recording again and I know a track or two that could benefit from your signature vocal stylings.”
Alice and I were best friends growing up. Nothing’s changed. She’s still one of the few people I can confide in, who I can actually trust to give me a straight answer instead of bullshit wrapped up in a bow. We started in the industry at the same time, but Alice never got her break even though she has one of the best voices in the industry. That’s why I took her on as a background vocalist.
At first, Alice simply prods the brownie with a fork, but a minute later the entire thing is in her mouth. She’s a sucker for anything chocolate—taste in men inclusive.
“I’d love to, Sel,” she replies. “You know that.”
“Maybe we can get that solo career of yours back on track. I’m sure Rick would be open to the idea.”
Her eyes narrow. “How is Tricky Ricky?”
Alice has always been a little unsure of Rick’s intentions. Maybe it was the fact he used to hit on her every time we were together.
“Rick’s fine,” I shrug. “Busy with work mostly.”
She rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. I’ve heard that one before.”
I pick up my mocha with two hands, a chocolate fiend myself. “Mat’s back in town.” I try to say it casually, avoiding eye contact, but Alice doesn’t miss a beat.
“I know. I saw you two on Delaney. Talk about sexual tension. Phew.”
I place the mug down. “That? It was just for the cameras.”
Alice laughs, picking through the morsels of the brownie. “You keep telling yourself that, baby, but Alice knows. You want that big ol’ microphone stand of his, don’t you? You want it bad.”
“I’m with Rick.” I try to say it with conviction, but it comes out weak.
“And how’s Rick in the bedroom?”
I swallow. “We haven’t…”
Alice raises an eyebrow. “Two months and you haven’t rocked the Kasbah yet? What are you doing, Sel?”
It’s a good damn question. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right yet. Besides, I promised myself I’d take it slow this time.”
Alice isn’t convinced. “There is slow and then there is glacial, babe.”
“Rick’s just a little…” I search for the word. “Boring?”
“Mat’s a Barton, Sel. He doesn’t know the word.”
“Wait. Why are we talking about Mat again?”
Alice plays dumb. “Oh, shit. Did I bring that delicious slab of man candy up again? Silly me.”
I go to pick up my mocha again, but Alice isn’t done.
“Hung like a horse, they say.”
“Alice!”
A few early morning patrons turn their attention toward us. I lower my voice. “Will you quit already?”
“I’m just saying. That pussy of yours doesn’t need boring. It needs fireworks and fun and a cock that knows how to make you bounce off the bedhead.”
“You’ve made your point.”
Alice smiles with smug satisfaction. “Good, because if don’t jump on that gravy train soon, I sure as hell will.”
“You’re not Mat’s type, remember?”
“What’s that? Intelligent and engaging?”
“Fat,” I tease.
“You little puta.” But she’s smiling.
“Tu eres más feo que el culo de un mono,” I reply. You are uglier than the butt of a monkey.
She’s quick with a reply. “Tu madre es muy gorda y fea.” Your mother is very fat and ugly.
I’m out. “Wow. I really need to polish up on my Spanish insults, don’t I?”
“You’re letting your people down, Sel. Once that border wall goes up…”
I pretend to slap her. “You never change, you know that?”
She slips the last crumb of the brownie between her lips. “And you wouldn’t have it any other way.”
My cell buzzes across the tabletop. It’s Rick, speak of the devil.
“Yes,” I answer, signaling an apology to Alice.
He sounds tired, maybe drunk. It’s getting hard to tell these days. “Where are you?”
‘Who is it?’ mouths Alice.
‘Rick,’ I mouth back.
She pokes her tongue out.
I kick her under the table. “I’m with Alice.”
“Alice?” he says, surprised. “That’s good timing. You wanted her to do backup vocals on this album, right?”
“Yes.”
“That is what you wanted, isn’t it?” It’s a thinly veiled dig at the both us. Rick’s never been Alice’s biggest fan either.
“It is,” I reply.
“And she agreed?”
“She did.”
A huff. “Fine. I need to get these new contracts ASAP, so she’ll have to come down to the office right now and sign.”
“You’re working late again?”
He avoids the question. “You’ll let her know?”
“I’ll let her know. Will I see you later?”
“We’ll see.” He hangs up and I drop the cell on the table staring at its black face.
Maybe not.
Alice is waiting for me to spill. “What did Sticky Ricky have to say for himself?”
“He’s working late, but he wants you to swing by his office, sign the new contract.”
“Now? It’s like ten o’clock, Sel.”
I shrug. “Sorry.”
She starts to throw things into her handbag. “I better head off then. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow and Rick’s office is downtown, right?”
I nod. “Yeah. I can come with if you like?”
She slaps a ten down on the table and stands, hanging her handbag over her shoulder. “Nah. I’ll be fine. The guy might have no concept of time, but I need the money and it ain’t going to drop from the sky without a signature on that contract. You know what these record types are like.”
Unfortunately, I do. The music industry really is big business behind the scenes, far more corporate at the top than Mason ever let on, though he always seemed to do what he wanted. He never struck me as the kind of guy who’d let someone push him around, lest of all someone in a suit. I don�
��t think he even owned one, his wardrobe fifty shades of black.
Mat probably doesn’t own one either.
The thought of Mat in a suit, though abstract in nature, is a quality one. A tendril of heat flickers through my body that has no place out here in the open.
Call him, my subconscious offers. What’s the worst that can happen?
I know the answer to that one.
I get back on track. “So you’ll do it? Sing on my record?”
Alice’s head slumps sideways. “Of course I’ll do it.” She kisses me on the cheek, that Paco Rabanne perfume she loves so much potent. “You be good now.”
I hold her at a distance. “And you be careful.”
“Of the streets or Ricky?” She pats her bag. “You know I always tag-team with my friend Mr. Pepper Spray”.
I laugh. “How could I forget?”
I watch Alice go before sitting back down to finish my mocha. My cell sits there lifeless.
I’m pissed at Rick, pissed at his dismissive attitude, his constant avoidance.
But with Mat, I’m torn. Do I call him?
I finally snap into action, picking up my cell and calling his number before I have time to back out of it.
Just two friends getting together. Nothing more.
He answers on the first ring. “Sel? What’s up?”
Act casual. “Oh, nothing much. Just catching up with a friend.”
“Alice?”
Damn, he’s good. “How’d you know?”
“Mocha for you, brownie for her from that little café near Sunset, right?”
“You got me.”
“What can I do for you?” he asks.
I have to think fast. “Have you eaten?”
It’s ten PM. Of course he’s eaten, idiot.
“I could go for a midnight snack,” he slurs, words slick. “Have you?”
Apart from the mocha, I haven’t. “Maybe I could bring around some Chinese, we could hang out a little?”
“Hang out?” he laughs. “Are we sixteen again?”
“As adults.” I shake my head, knowing how it sounds. I am way off game tonight.
“So you want adult time?”
I cringe. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Sure. I’m a sucker for crab Rangoon.”
“You’re at your parents place?”
“Yep. The White House.”
“See you in an hour?”
“Can’t wait.”
I hang up quickly, my fingers burning and my own dumbfounded expression staring back at me.
“Now you’ve done it,” I say to my reflection.
*
Driving into the Barton estate makes it apparent that the White House is in dire need of a good groundskeeper. I park and knock on the giant door, the buzzer out of order. Each knock booms beyond.
The door opens and there stands Mat in his trademark white tee and jeans, the necklace I gave him years ago dangling as he leans against the door. I notice a new tattoo on his arm.
“Sorry, no door-knockers,” he says.
I shove past him with the takeaway in hand. “Not even those bearing horribly oily and overpriced late-night Chinese with enough MSG to kill an elephant?”
Mat closes the door and rubs his hands together. “Sounds like a challenge. Come through to the den, milady.”
Mat doesn’t ask why I’m not with Rick, and frankly, I don’t feel the need to explain.
I was never a big fan of the Barton ‘White House,’ a property they picked up off Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the 1990s for a steal, but there is one room I was always fond of.
We come into Mason’s den at the back of the house, no windows, no light but for a single bulb. I think it was meant to be a storage area of some kind, but Mason turned it into a kind of rec room-slash-den-slash-listening area. This is where he used to write his music, listen to music, drink, and hang out with his friends. I think Slash once passed out on the pool table.
I look around. The place hasn’t changed at all, locked in time. “If only these walls could talk.”
Mat collapses into the couch. “If only.”
I set the takeaway down and sink into the couch as well. Unlike the white, plush seating in the rest of the house, this couch is worn and falling apart. Mason always told us it was the first thing he bought with his first royalty check. He could never bring himself to give it up. “Too many memories,” he told us. I think Mat might even have been conceived on it.
I look over the countless golden records and posters lining the walls, trinkets and merchandise from the The Score’s tours, Mason’s band. “He was really something, wasn’t he?”
“Dad?” says Mat, reaching over to place a record on the turntable. “Yeah. It’s just a pity he had to, you know, leave his legacy that way. No one should be remembered like that.”
It’s true. That night had tragic consequences for all concerned.
Music starts to play. I pick up on it immediately. “Holy shit. Is this the Stonewall album?”
Mat nods, beaming. “The ‘holy grail of tax scam records’ Dad used to call it, one of five. He never used to let us touch it, remember?” Mat tosses across the sleeve.
I pick it up. “I do. What do you think this would go for?”
Mat shrugs. “Ten grand?”
“Well at least you know you can sell off his vinyl collection if you’re ever strapped for cash.”
“I wouldn’t do that. Besides, the trust fund keeps me sorted enough for now.” He walks over to the shelf of records and selects another, holding it up for me to see. “Horror Business by The Misfits, a first pressing on black vinyl limited to twenty-five copies. Dad has two.” He slides it back in and selects another. “But my absolute favorite, if you recall...”
“Harry Manfredini’s OST for Friday The 13th, released by Waxwork Records on a blood-filled vinyl.”
Mat looks impressed. “Damn, you really do remember. I suppose I made an impression.”
I lift a shoulder, press my tongue into the corner of my cheek “Perhaps.”
“You’re really serious about us working together?”
“Come down to the studio tomorrow and find out for yourself, 8AM sharp.”
He nods. “I’ll be there. You have my word.”
“Can’t wait. Now, we going to eat this Chinese or what?”
Mat selects another record. “I’ve got just the thing.”
*
Chop Suey by System of a Down continues to play on repeat as we both sit on the couch nursing our respective food babies.
Mat’s looking at the roof. “That was fucking great. The Chinese food in China isn’t even that good.”
“Because American Chinese isn’t Chinese at all.”
He looks across, head resting on the back of the couch, slate eyes shimmering in the low light. “You don’t say?”
Something strange happens. The air charges and we start to move closer, with our eyes at first and then our heads and bodies, moving until our lips are inches apart.
There’s protest in my head, but it’s blocked out by a sudden rush of need, of sensation that gathers thick and desperate between my legs, my clit pulsing and my nipples drawing tight. I’ve never felt anything like it.
Time pulls to a stop, the world sucked away, only Mat remaining, his sharp features and smoky eyes fast stripping away my inhibition.
“Mat,” I breathe it rather than speak it.
I picture it in my head. There, we kiss at the same time, lips softly pressing together and then melding in full force as the need overtakes us.
His hand runs up the back of my neck, brushes past the delicate hairs there to hold in position as his tongue finds my own in the heated space of my mouth.
I forget to breathe, my heart beating against his chest and my pussy pulsing in time in sexual tachycardia.
But we don’t. We’re frozen, neither of us able to make the first move.
Why can’t I do it? Because of Rick? Because
I’m settling for second?
Thinking about his name brings everything back in focus. I pull back and look at the heated way Mat holds my gaze. “Mat, I—”
He reaches up and holds my face with both hands. “Sel, it’s okay.”
I push his hands away and lean back further. “No, Mat. It’s not. I can’t—” I don’t even work out how to finish the sentence. “I’ve got to go.”
I stand and almost trip running for the door.
“Sel!” Mat calls.
I make it to the foyer before I realize I left my keys back in the den.
Damn.
Mat’s standing there when I turn, the outline of an obvious erection in his jeans. He ignores it, holding out my keys in the palm of his hands. “Don’t go. Please.”
I take the keys, my hand remaining on his longer than it should, the heat passing between us. If I stay just a second longer I know I won’t be able to control myself, to pull back from the brink.
I don’t say another word. I turn and open the door, running down to Ari and the car, telling him to pull away before I have second thoughts.
Nothing happened, I remind myself, so why then do I feel so guilty?
I made my intentions clear, too clear, and now I know. Now I know how much he wants me.
What have you done, Sel? What the hell have you done?
I turn and look back at the White House.
Mat stands in the doorway shaking his head.
I’ve seen that look before.
I never want to see it again.
CHAPTER SIX
MAT
It’s been a while since I had a good hangover. It became Dad’s breakfast of choice near the end there.
I hold my head, still thinking about Sel when the call comes through. We were so close I could almost taste her, feel the supple press of her breasts against my chest. I should have known better. She told me herself she wanted to take it slow. Yeah, with Rick, asshole. Not you.
I should have kissed her. At least then I’d have the memory of it, but no.
Where’s Mat from the world tour? Always so forward, leave no girl behind?
I don’t know, but he sure wasn’t there last night.
There’s still hope.
Bullshit. You don’t come back from that, even if the feelings did seem mutual.
