Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale

by M. Jay Granberry

  “Nah. Not for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Because I was still holding out hope he’d call or show up.

  “You know.” I shrug, twisting my lips in a self-deprecating smirk. “It is what it is.”

  “I call bullshit on that one. I saw you with your last boyfriend, and it was nothing like what I saw here.” He looks first up to the stage and then back down to me. Eyes wide, nostrils flared, lips run out on a rail. Pissed off on my behalf.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I was waiting for my invitation to be the best man at your fucking wedding.”

  “Wait on, brother. He’s not interested.”

  “Once again I call bullshit. He keeps glancing over here when he thinks you’re not looking.”

  I immediately turn to the stage, expecting to find Adam staring in my direction. But he’s not. He and Sin are standing center stage, huddled together like kids. Her arms are wrapped around his back, and his head is on her shoulder, a guitar hanging awkwardly between them. They talk to each other in hushed tones, and I wonder if he’s talking about me or us. I wonder if their conversation mirrors the one I’m having with my friend just yards away.

  “You know I’m not all hearts and flowers, but I liked the two of you together. He brought out your sensitive side.”

  “How do you know what he brought out? Not like you saw us together,” I state the obvious. “Kind of hard to see us as a couple when one half of the couple didn’t want to be seen in public.”

  A deep laugh bursts from his chest. “You two are about as obvious as Sin and Jake Johnson.”

  “Bullshit.” I push his shoulder because those two are the worst-kept secret ever.

  Sin gives us a signal and Aiden and I walk up the steps and take up positions on either end of the stage. Minutes later acoustic guitar melodies fill the air and people seem to drift toward the stage. Adam and Sin perform stripped-down versions of their most popular songs. After months of sitting through concerts I recognize the songs they’re singing now as new. Sin’s husky voice comes through the speakers, a sensual raspy growl that literally stops everything around her. I think everyone within hearing distance pauses to listen. It’s not the lyrics that make the song hot. It’s the erotic sound of her voice.

  When she finishes there’s silence for a long, drawn-out moment, and then the audience erupts in applause. Aiden and I take the stairs to the top of the stage to make sure that none of the fans in their adoration take it upon themselves to get on the platform. They don’t. In comparison to our regular concerts this audience is tame. Maybe because the show is stripped down and maybe because the people here are here to support a cause versus entertainment. After a final round of ovation, they disperse. Going back to their corners or job tasks.

  “You’re Seth, right?”

  The man next to me is in a black volunteer T-shirt, which means that he’s an employee of the Hotel, but he doesn’t look familiar. “Do I know you?”

  Red spots grow on his cheeks as he looks at me with admiring eyes. “Chris Weathersby. We met at the . . . um . . . concert last weekend.” A soft hand touches my forearm. I remember him now. He’d had backstage passes and an ear-splitting scream.

  “Oh yeah, did you enjoy the concert?”

  His smile probably ripped the corners of his mouth it’s so big. “I did. I work under Jeanine in marketing. She got me the passes. I’ve never been that close to the band doing a concert.”

  “That’s what’s up,” I say with a nod.

  His hand on my forearm slides up to my bicep, and he gives me what I think is supposed to be a come-hither look. Out of habit I look across the stage to Adam. His sunglasses are pushed up on his head, and his eyes are squinted in irritation. His eyes bore into mine and then drop to where Chris’s hand rests at the top of my arm before coming back to my eyes.

  He drops the mirrored lenses, covering the blast of heat shooting from his eyes. Dammit. I take a step in his direction, but the hand on my arm delays me. I look back to the man preening in front of me. He’s too short, too thin, too flamboyant, and too not Adam.

  “I would love to take you out some time.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I . . .” I’m not in a relationship, but I’m not interested. “Seeing someone.”

  His hand falls away and he gives my body another sweep. “If you’re ever not seeing anyone, look me up.” He reaches into his back pocket and retrieves a business card. He extends it between two fingers. Hastily I take the card from his fingers, but by the time I turn back around, Adam has disappeared. Sin has moved across the stage and is less than three feet in front of me.

  “Seth?”

  “Sin,” I say her name with all the frustration and anger I feel for the man who at present refuses to even have a conversation.

  “Adam is . . . complicated.”

  “No offense, but you don’t have to tell me about Adam. I know him. I know him in ways that . . .” Would make you question the things that you thought you knew.

  It’s not just the fact I’ve felt the call and answer of our bodies working in tandem, reaching for pleasure and drowning in lust. It’s that I held him in my arms when his mother died and soothed his heart that had been broken long before he met me. A heart I want desperately to fix. With me, he lets it all go and doesn’t put up the impenetrable front. He lets me see him weak, and needy, and sad, and heartsore. And you get the pretty shell, the protector that protects you from everything, including himself.

  But I don’t say that.

  Instead, I do my damnedest to appear unaffected. When I say, “We done here?” I know she wants to say more but she drops it. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  Like I knew he would, Jake shows up, distracting Sin with stares and whispers. They move into the wings hidden by drapes. Aiden and I stay a fair distance away so as not to intrude in their personal conversation, but it’s clear they’re having yet another disagreement about who the hell knows what.

  Heated words turn into a heated kiss, and I’ll be damned if the motherfucker doesn’t have his hands in her shorts within seconds. One of these days I’m going to ask him to school me on game.

  Sin jumps off the wall, holding Jake’s hand, and comes over to me.

  “We’re going to get out of here.” If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’s blushing.

  “I’ll go get the truck.”

  “Um . . .” She looks up at Jake and tugs the end of one of the cornrows she’s braided into her hair. “I’m going with Jake up to Mt. Charleston. His family has a cabin up there that we used to . . .” Her words fall off in an embarrassed huff.

  “Sin, you don’t have to ask me for permission. Just tell me what’s up so we can handle it.”

  I fold my arms across my chest and rock back on my heels.

  “We’re um . . . going to . . .” She turns her big eyes up to Jake, silently asking for help. He leans down, whispering something in her ear that has her putting a hand over his mouth and the dimples popping her cheeks. He kisses the tips of her fingers before pulling her hand from his mouth.

  “What she’s trying to tell you is that I want to take her on a weekend getaway. No bodyguards. Just us, in the mountains, hanging out for a couple of days away from all this bullshit.” He points at the cameras turned in their direction incessantly clicking. Aiden walks in the photographer’s direction.

  “You got your shots. Now turn the fucking camera,” he says, standing directly in front of the cameraman.

  “How far is this place? Is it secure? How many people have access?” I’m not Sin’s babysitter, but it’s my job to bring up the questions she doesn’t want to think about.

  “It’s a compound almost at the summit. It’s pretty secure. There is twenty-four seven security that rove the compound. We never really see them unless there’s a problem. Only me, my parents, and sister have access,” Jake answers in fast succession. “We good?” He threads his
fingers with Sin’s.

  “Not at all.” I chuckle because this dude has some fucking big cajones. “No disrespect but my job is to keep her safe. Having her go to a mountain fortress, in the middle of a forest, that I probably couldn’t find with directions doesn’t help me do that.”

  “I can . . .”

  I shake my head before he even finishes that asinine thought. He has no idea of the threats that surround Sin or how to protect her from them and, on that note, I don’t trust him. Not to keep her safe from himself or anyone else.

  “No, you can’t. One of us needs to tag along. You’ll never know we’re there. No harm. No foul.”

  Jake snaps his mouth shut, the muscles in his jaw working as he grinds his molars. The pissed-off stare and tensed jaw don’t do shit for me. Jake is in my world; either he tows the line or he gets the fuck out. Player’s choice.

  Aiden rejoins our group, catching the tail end of the conversation.

  “You had the last overnight trip to Chicago for the music festival. I’ll take this one and hit you up with coordinates when we get there.”

  Jake gives us a terse nod, already pulling Sin toward the makeshift parking lot.

  “What the hell was that all about? I didn’t take the last overnight trip. Because I’m the boss and I don’t trust that pretty motherfucker. Fuck that guy,” Aiden growls.

  I chuckle at his irritation. I thought he was over his crush on Sin. “Don’t be salty. Sin ain’t never been checking for you.”

  “Fuck you too.” That makes me laugh even harder.

  “You better hurry up. You have a romantic weekend to get to.”

  He flips me the bird from both hands before he jogs to catch up with the couple.

  The sight of Adam walking, no stalking, through the hallway that leads to the securities area of the villa momentarily throws me for a loop. Where’d he come from?

  I note his stiff gate, squinted eyes, and general pissed off demeanor charging the air around him.

  “How’d you get in here?” I sit up from my prone position on the couch and mute Bloodsport on the TV.

  He rolls his eyes like I just asked the stupidest question. “Sin gave me a key a while ago. I just never used it before.”

  She would. “What’s up?”

  “Are you fucking him?” he demands in a low voice, advancing on me with long steps.

  “Am I . . . what?” I shrug, confused.

  “You heard me.” He walks forward until the tips of his boots touch my sock-covered feet, towering over me. An imposing figure. “Are. You. Fucking. Him?” He takes his time pronouncing each syllable. Letting the words pierce the air that’s suffocating with the heat of his anger.

  “Are you serious with this bullshit right now? Last time you opened your mouth to speak to me it was to tell me to leave you the fuck alone. You haven’t returned one text, one call. And you want to stand here with your chest puffed out because you saw me talking to someone? I have no idea who you’re even talking about.”

  I push to my feet, forcing him to back up a step with just the mass of my chest and the annoyed breaths forcing my rib cage up and out.

  “That guy had his hands all over you at the concert today.”

  “That’s a problem why? Because even though you don’t want me, you don’t want anyone else to have me either?”

  That question falls between us, heavy, ugly, messy. We stare at each other over the fallout. Blue eyes touch brown, our chests less that a hair width apart, anger and frustration snapping and popping and hissing between us.

  “What do you want me to say right now, Adam?”

  His long, graceful fingers curve around the back of my neck, closing that last breadth of space between us. His thumb brushes over my bottom lip.

  “Tell me you’re not fucking him,” he utters, leaning forward until his forehead rests against mine. “That you haven’t fucked him.” The fingers on the back of my neck flex, tightening. “That you have no plans to ever fuck him.” His lips drop to mine in a stinging kiss and, even in his harshness, I respond. Opening my mouth. Moaning when his tongue twists against mine.

  He pulls back. His face directly above me.

  “Tell me,” he whispers.

  If I were a stronger man, I would tell him to go fuck himself. But I’m not. I crave his affection and attention. Even when it’s the thought of another man taking his place that’s brought him here.

  “I’m not fucking him,” I whisper defeated.

  Adam lets out a relieved breath. “No?”

  “No.” He kisses the denial out of my mouth. His lips are hard and unyielding, pressing the soft flesh of my lip into the ridge of my teeth. His tongue plundering, claiming, taking.

  And I give.

  I give as good as I get. Welcoming him in. Lying out the mat of my body in invitation. Sliding my hands down each knot of his back, gentling his, easing the turmoil that brought him here. Our kisses calm and shift, easing more with each pass until our heart rates slow and our breaths are smooth.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally whispers. “I should’ve left you alone. Because I knew.” Knew what? I stare at the tumult in the depth of his gaze, unease twisting in my gut.

  “You knew what, baby?”

  “That we’d end.”

  “I’m not following you.” I back up until the couch cushion hits the back of my knees, stopping my momentum. “From the moment we met, everything about you has been fucking random. You want me, but no one can know. You sleep in my bed. Wear my clothes. Eat with me. Hang with me. Create a world with the two of us front and center, but then say we have to end.”

  I ball my hands into fists on my lap.

  “Why, Adam?” I don’t look at him when he takes the seat next to me. “I can’t tell if you’re straight up playin’ me or if I’m missing something. Sometimes you’re too fucking hot to handle. And other times, like for the last however many days, you’re fucking glacial. Most days I feel like I’m drowning at the deep end. Trying like hell to reach you, to be your life raft, but the closer I come the farther away you move, and I don’t know how to fix it. Or us. Or whatever it is that we’re doing or not doing. Baby, you’re driving me. I’m here trying, but you gotta let me know. What do you want, Adam? Because I want you—love you.”

  My voice breaks with emotion. He stares at me but remains unnervingly quiet. I know at a molecular level I won’t like what he has to say. After waiting for what feels like minutes, but in reality, is seconds, his words come.

  They are stilted, soft. With each one my heart plummets, landing somewhere on the pile of platitudes. I glimpse turmoil churning in the depths of his blue eyes before he drops them back to the floor. And I just . . . I don’t understand.

  “It’s not you. Please don’t ever think that it’s you. You’re . . .” He glances back at me over his shoulder. He looks me over, across the plains and down the slopes of my face, like he’s committing every inch to memory. “You are . . . perfect,” he utters with meaning.

  I don’t feel perfect. I feel foolish.

  “You’re perfect and beautiful and so much more than I could’ve ever hoped for, but I’m no good.” He laces his fingers, squeezing the palms tight. “A liar. The great imposter in the pretty shell who stole you. And I have to give you back before I hurt you more than I already have or worse, before you see the real me. I don’t think I could take that rejection from you.”

  I see you, Baby, I think. I’ve held the man who mourned the mother who had never been there. I’ve supported the friend trying to protect those he loves. I’ve felt the tenderness in the way he touches my body, almost reverent.

  “I’ve seen the real you,” I insist. He gives a shake of his head that sends long strands of hair into his eyes.

  I need to cross this space between us, narrow this divide.

  Leaning forward, I cup his cheek and his head drops with the gravity of us. The whiskers on his jaw scrape against my palm and his eyes squeeze so tight his long eyelashes appear
short and spiky. He shudders with a deep inhale as he turns fully into me, kissing the center of my palm.

  “I’m trying to do the right thing here.” His eyes crack open and when they meet mine, I know with certainty that it’s over. “I’m no good for you. Deep down you have to see that,” he whispers, pushing to his feet, taking lengthy step across the room. I follow his retreating form, catching him right before he walks past the threshold.

  “What are you talking about? Right for who, Adam? Because this doesn’t feel right to me.”

  He takes another step back, widening the distance between us that is already too far.

  “Don’t . . .” I extend my hand but he’s out of reach. His feet slow their retreat. Pausing just inside the hallway he turns for a final glance.

  “Whatever we had. It’s done. Over.”

  Why? I don’t get a chance to ask the question. He holds up his hand and my mouth snaps shut.

  “Just let me go. You’ll be better for it.”

  Adam

  Tori sits across from me at the breakfast counter with waffles and bacon on the plate in front of her. Her curls are a wild tangle around her shoulders. Rainbow Dash, from My Little Pony, dominates the middle of her pajama shirt.

  “Addy, can we go swimming today?”

  “Maybe. The weather is starting to change and it’s getting cool outside.” I don’t mention the pool has a heater because she remembers everything. She can recall the most mundane conversations with accurate clarity. I learned pretty quickly I have to not only watch what I say, but I have to mean it within the confines of three-year-old understanding.

  “Finish your food so we can tackle that hair and get out of here.” Her tiny face screws up in a pout. She doesn’t like getting her hair combed, or taking a bath, or brushing her teeth, or doing any of the things that make us respectable human beings.