Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale

by M. Jay Granberry

  Adam is many things: protective, funny, talented. He might be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, innate sensuality in every move he makes, but one thing Adam is not, is weak. He doesn’t need Sin, or anyone else for that matter, fighting his battles.

  She’s forced to break eye contact when the doors open and a sea of humanity comes at us. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the frenzy that surrounds Sin. Fans want a piece of her, like a literal piece: hair, clothes, anything they can get their hands on.

  “Get back. Give her some room.” I push a particularly aggressive photographer back. I look at Sin over my shoulder. “We gotta move, Sin.”

  Aiden starts to plow through this crowd, elbows up, head down like a bull charging after the red flag. He clears a path and we almost make it to the lobby. Almost.

  Sin pulls up short and I’m a second from rolling right over her. “Aiden, stop! Hold up a sec?” she yells. A woman is on the ground at Sin’s feet. No, that’s a girl, a school-aged girl, who has no business being in a viper pit with the paparazzi.

  “OMG,” she squeals at Sin, and I tune out the rest of the conversation. Sin is pretty astute when it comes to assessing people, a skill both she and Adam honed out of a sad necessity. She spends a couple of minutes talking to the girl, and then we finally get her into the maze of hallways that seem to work like the tunnels in old Mario Brothers games. We enter in one spot and are transported someplace totally different.

  When the doors open into the three-bedroom villa, Sin looks slightly dazed.

  “Are you sure I’m supposed to be here?” she asks in awe, taking in the sweeping views of the Strip and the extravagant furniture with its gold trimmings and French country patterns.

  “Look how they set up all my instruments. It’s almost like they know exactly how I like it. Can we keep it?” She smiles, her big dimples carving out prime real estate on her face. I haven’t seen that smile, the genuinely happy one, since they committed to doing the residency. After Adam told the band about his mom and sister, it became apparent that the Vegas residency was looking like a very real option. It was like a storm cloud descended.

  “This is all you big time,” I say just to mess with her. The eye roll she levels on me is even cuter than the smile.

  “All right, smart-ass. Where will you be staying while we’re here?”

  “In the servants’ quarters, of course.” I tip forward, bowing.

  “You’re bullshitting me, right?”

  “No bullshit.” I fail to mention that the “servants’ quarters” are the mirror image of her floor plan. Not as big but still luxurious. Better than any place I’ve ever stayed but where’s the fun in telling Sin that?

  “You’re not staying there,” she says. Her nose crinkles with distaste. “You can stay with me. There are three bedrooms in here. I can’t believe they actually have servants’ quarters. What year is this? 1843?” She huffs.

  I try to keep a straight face but fail miserably when she starts another tirade. “Calm down, girl. I was fuckin’ with you. My spot looks just like this. It’s all good.”

  “God, you make me sick.”

  Her small fist connects with my chest, and I say, “Damn, that hurt.” I rub my hand back and forth over my stinging pec.

  “That’s what you get.” Looking at the pretty shell it’s easy to forget that Sin is more than capable of giving as good as she gets.

  “Seth?”

  “Hmm?”

  She shifts uncomfortably before meeting my eyes. The lightness of our teasing evaporates like water in the desert heat. “I’m not asking for the details about . . .” Her lips close over her teeth to fold into her mouth, and her eyes slide to the wall before coming back to mine. “You and Adam. Or your relationship? I just . . .” She stops talking and her shoulders scrunch up to her ears. “Is he okay?”

  I have to bite back the how-in-the-hell-should-I-know sitting on the tip of my tongue. It’s too easy to dismiss Adam. To buy into the line of bullshit all the people around him seem to eat like a gourmet meal. Sin is probably seeing the same thing I do: he’s hurt, and he’s spiraling, and he’s so fucking hardheaded that he thinks he has to do it by himself, face it alone.

  So, if Sin cares enough to ask the question, maybe she can be there, support him, even if I can’t.

  “You know he’s not okay, Sin,” I finally say. She nods, her eyes never leaving mine.

  “When she’s done this before—”

  “She hasn’t done this before,” I say tersely, cutting off whatever she was about to say. They’re all so used to dealing with the terrible-horrible, making lemonade from the sour-ass lemons that life has dealt. I don’t think it’s sunk in that his mom, the woman who brought him into the world, died tragically.

  “This time is forever. She’s never coming back. She doesn’t get another chance to make it right. Even though he won’t say it, I think he’s been waiting, maybe his entire life, for her to just make it all right.”

  “Adam won’t talk to me about her. He shut me down hard the last couple of times I mentioned it.” She slides her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and rocks back on her heels. “But we’ve been through worse. He’ll get on the other side of this thing. I’ll make sure of it.”

  She believes her words with the conviction of their shared history and an understanding of him that I can’t come close to.

  I can’t hold back the worry and love I feel for the man who all but kicked me out of his life. “Take care of him,” I say in a voice opaque with emotion.

  “I always have.”

  Adam

  I hear the screams long before I see Sin. She’s one hundred percent bona fide. The real fucking deal when it comes to this rock star shit. I pause for a minute to take it all in. We’ve played in New York, LA, Miami, but being here, in Vegas, our hometown, with a residency feels more like success than some of the biggest shows we’ve played in much larger cities. Which is completely insane.

  It was only five years ago we were putting original music out on SoundCloud, and playing the old lounges on the north end of the Strip, at the intersection of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard, the ones no one goes to but hardcore gamblers and alcoholics.

  It was a start, and when the college kids flooded the casino floors, entertainment directors took notice. They offered to pay us more per set than some of the larger casinos on the Strip. We weren’t balling out of control, but it was enough for us to move off campus and upgrade our instruments.

  Sin was a given with rich, deep mahogany skin and a husky voice with the range of Ann Wilson of the band Heart. Most entertainment directors in Vegas are men, and Sin is a beautiful woman. She’s also a black woman who sings rock and, in those early years, we couldn’t seem to break through those stereotypical walls. Like black women couldn’t sing rock or a band comprised of people from different ethnicities would be hard to market.

  I thought we were more like No Doubt or the Black Eyed Peas, but the message we kept getting was that Sin couldn’t be the front woman of the band. Not because she didn’t have talent but because she didn’t fit the mold. The fact she was singing bluesy rock in a genre dominated by people who were her opposite. We were told no so many times, it lost its sting.

  The conversation with the execs would without fail veer into the “Adam looks like the front man” category, which is bullshit. I fit snugly in the box as a white man with blond hair and blue eyes, but the talent in our band, the heart, comes from Sin. I used to hate to see the light of excitement dim in her eyes when we knew we gave a kick-ass performance but the only feedback we received was about the racial makeup of the band. It was gut-wrenching because when she hurts, the entire band hurts. We don’t share blood, but we share history and experience, which to me makes us closer than family.

  Sin was there to clean and bandage my cuts when the old woman running the group home beat me so severely the welts on my back bled for a week. Dan plays the role of a fool, but anyone taking the time to del
ve deeper easily recognizes the dude has a heart of gold. He single-handedly made high school not just bearable but fun. Sin and I met Dan during our freshman year of high school. He was one of the few people who didn’t write off the two foster kids who noticeably stuck out in the close-knit community. He spoke when other people sneered. He made jokes when others ridiculed. He was one of the cool kids with enough social clout to make band class the place to be seen. He took band mostly because he was trying to get at Sin, but when she shut that down, he was happy to become one of our closest friends. When shit got real after I caught one of the older boys from the home roughing Sin up in the bathroom, he let us sleep on his bedroom floor until the night we ran away from Pahrump and got to the other side of the mountain to finally see the bright neon of Las Vegas.

  We met Miles around the same time we met Dan, but where Dan was the class clown in high school, Miles was a loner. He was unnervingly quiet, more content listening to music or reading than hanging out with our motley crew. He kept to himself until a band trip at the end of our freshman year. He had the misfortune of getting assigned to share a room with Dan and me, and we took it upon ourselves to hotbox his ass in the bathroom right before we stepped on the field for the band competition. Miles got lit. His eyes would barely open, but that mouth? Jesus, the words kept coming. It was like he’d waited his entire life for that exact moment to say all the words, and he never went back, at least not with me and Dan and later Sin. His parents were so happy that he had friends, I don’t think it even occurred to them to question who our parents were. They embraced us like one of their own. Miles’s mom is the one who taught Sin how to do her hair. She’s the person who washed our clothes and doled out hugs that made us feel safe after years of instability. Miles’s dad always made sure that at dinnertime there was enough food to feed two additional mouths even though they were struggling themselves. Those are the things that bind us together.

  As I round the corner, the screaming and chants get louder. I spot Sin in the middle of a long, golden carpet. She’s an eye-catching contrast to the neutral pallet of creams, golds, and blacks used in the hotel’s decor. Her dark pink dress, flawless brown skin, natural hair fluffed into big ringlets, and smile big enough I see the dimples even from here all say she’s somebody.

  She’s holding her own in front of the reporters, nodding her head, and responding to directions to turn this or that way. I walk with measured steps, always conscious to project only what I want people to see: the confident rock star embracing his destiny.

  “Adam, over here.”

  I stop moving, looking directly at the camera in front of my face. The click of the shutter goes off multiple times before the photographer lowers the lens.

  “Hey, Jimmy, I didn’t think you’d make it to the opening.” I hold out my hand to one of the photographers. He started in the business around the same time we did.

  “Paula had the baby two weeks ago.” He beams, clasping my hand in his. “The bosses wanted pictures of this opening for the spread we’re doing on you guys next month. So here I am.”

  “Congrats on the kid, man. If you have a minute after all the pomp and circumstance, I’d love to see pictures of the little guy . . . girl?”

  “Girl,” he says with the kind of affection parents are supposed to have for newborn babies. “We named her Avery.”

  I nod and release his hand.

  I call out to a couple of other reporters whom I recognize as I make my way to Sin. She’s still front and center, answering questions and trying to give each publication a chance to get their shots. Aiden is a foot or so in front of her, and Seth is about a foot behind, close enough to respond, but far enough away that they aren’t included in the pictures.

  The guards are dressed head to toe in black, which is supposed to make them blend into the scenery. To me Seth stands out. His presence is commanding and almost larger than life. He fills a room and touches every person in it. He’s a natural-born leader. Everyone knows it. I try to catch his eyes as I walk past, but he doesn’t so much as blink my way. What did you think he was going to do? Fall at your feet?

  When I reach Sin, I wrap an arm securely around her waist.

  “Adam . . . Sin, let’s get a couple shots with the two of you together,” Ty, from the Music Chronicles, yells. I press my cheek to Sin’s, and we both smile big, giving the man what he wants. Giving them all what they want, further proof of our coupledom.

  When the rumors first started it was comical. I recognize that Sin is beautiful. My appreciation of her beauty, at least the aesthetic beauty, is clinical, detached; I’m like an art purveyor who would never hang a picture in his house but knows that others would beg, borrow, and steal to have it in theirs.

  If I could like her that way my life would be a hell of a lot easier. Once when we were eighteen, staying in a weekly rental in the Naked City, the Las Vegas equivalent to skid row, we kissed. We were both tired from hours spent in the sun playing music for tips to the passersby on the pedestrian bridges that connect the casinos on one side of Las Vegas Boulevard to the casinos on the other side.

  It had been a good day. We’d made close to three hundred dollars. We were sitting on the grungy, thin comforter, counting what at the time seemed like a fortune. Sin was the one person who understood the hardships and the joys; it was a transcendent moment, so I leaned over, gently cupping her face, and kissed her. There were no sparks, no heat. Nothing that told me this was right, and it was the same for Sin. As a matter of fact, that was when she asked if I was gay. I remember looking down at myself wondering if she saw something I didn’t see.

  In my early teens I knew I’d always looked twice at attractive men. My interest wasn’t in their swag; it was their body, their eyes, their smiles. I never gave it much thought, though. Especially when our day-to-day was about survival. How would we eat? Where would we sleep? How would I keep me and Sin safe another day?

  It wasn’t soon after that conversation I kissed my first boy and life became a lot more complex. Sin City was a fledgling band. Within a few short months we were big on the college scene and gaining popularity in town. We’d won a local talent show to open for the Killers, who were at the time the biggest rock band to come from Vegas. We were booking shows at the Bunkhouse Saloon, which was the equivalent to LA’s Whisky a Go Go. Even then I knew without question my sexuality, bi or gay, I wasn’t sure then, would be a speed bump to our momentum. I’d seen the impact coming out had on other artists whose careers tanked overnight. I didn’t want to be the reason why Sin City didn’t make it.

  Fast forward to Sin’s breakup with he-who-shall-not-be-named, and it was easier for both of us to pretend that the easy affection and comradery between us was love, just not the romantic kind.

  I slip my hand under the fall of her hair and brush my nose up her cheek. “Let’s do this. You ready?” I whisper directly into her ear and the reporters’ questions that had died down suddenly climb to the ceiling again. That little glimpse into our intimacy feeding the beast.

  She nods. I lace our fingers, and we enter the lounge the same way we’ve walked into every other situation . . . together. Security closes the door behind us, blocking the reporters from entering, and the silence is instant. The lively atmosphere of the casino is mellowed by the low light and smooth jazz. The lounge gives me a Duke-Ellington-at-the-Cotton-Club kind of vibe with the art deco wall sconces and the feathered centerpieces. If this wasn’t business, I’d love to take a seat at the bar and order something strong and suave.

  All eyes turn our way and, after years of being almost famous, I’m still not used to the recognition. The whispers and sidelong glances create a low buzz barely audible above the ambient music. Most of the people in attendance are employees judging by the dark suits and sensible shoes, but they’re practically vibrating with excitement to meet me, Sin, and Dan. Miles is out for tonight. Kisha, his wife, got rushed to the hospital with some kind of issue with the pregnancy. We were ready to skip the pre-medi
a party and the following press release announcing Sin City as the new resident band for The Hotel. Press be damned, Miles and Kisha are family, but once they spoke with the doctor, Miles asked us to hang back. The doctor was still trying to track down the root cause of Kisha’s fever and swollen legs, so he didn’t think there was a need for all of us to sit in the hospital. This is especially true when Kisha is in good spirits and threatening to kick his ass if he invites everyone there to gawk at her.

  I pull on Sin’s hand to get her to stop. “Did D tell you he wasn’t coming tonight?” I scan the room and frown when I don’t spot Dan.

  “No,” she says, squeezing my hand in hers. “But he’ll be here. You ever known him to pass up free food or free booze?”

  “Not once,” I say, but I can’t help once again examining the faces in the room searching for Dan.

  “It’s all good. I’m sure Dan will make a grand entrance as he loves to do. In the meantime, divide and conquer. Let’s work this party and finish up, so we can get out of here and finally hit up In-N-Out.”

  “That right there is why I love you.” I lean forward and smack her cheek with a wet kiss.

  “My need to satisfy your craving for cow?”

  “Don’t underestimate the power of beef. It has the power to bring a man to his knees.”

  “Are you speaking from experience or . . .” she whispers.

  Not the place, Sin. There are too many eyes, too many ears. There is no telling what supersonic ear motherfucker heard her whispered comment and how they would interpret that comment. I roll my eyes and shake my head, changing the subject.

  “You good by yourself in here? The young’uns seem to be chomping at the bit.” I nod in the direction of some of the younger employees organizing themselves into a line.