by Carnal, MJ
“We’re built on friendship,” Shea used to argue anytime he wanted me to get back together with him, or more importantly, back in his bed.
“We’re built on heroin and cocaine,” I used to counter, right before letting him have his way with me in a bathroom stall.
As if hearing what’s going on, Shea walks out of his room, pulling a shirt over his head. The redhead that was all over Nick the night before is trailing behind Shea, with lipstick still smeared on her face. My stomach curls when her eyes widen as she sees Nick standing here. I wish it wouldn’t bother me and that I could say that the question of whether or not they’ve been together in the past doesn’t cross my mind, but unfortunately it does. I steal a glance at Nick and see him shaking his head at Shea in amusement, and that makes me feel slightly better, even if it doesn’t mean anything.
Shea’s face isn’t amused when I look back at him. His eyes are glued to Nick’s arm around me and he gives me a questioning look as he walks up to us. I answer it, tilting my head a little. There is so much communication in unspoken words sometimes that you don’t even have to voice anything at all. He raises his brows as if impressed, but doesn’t say anything at all. Nick drops his arm and says hi to Shea with a sideways hug, and then I say hi to him with a kiss on the cheek. He puts his arm around my shoulder, the same way Nick had it, and it feels foreign there. The smell of marijuana reeks off of him, but it doesn’t bother me. I just take a deep breath and let it out, as if I’m taking a hit of him, glad to see my friend is in one piece after a night of partying.
“You ready for the show?” Shea asks.
“Yup. Let’s do it,” I reply, beaming at him.
He smiles back and begins to lead me out the door, but I stop halfway there so that I can wait for Nick. My hand feels bare without his in it and that scares me. Shea notices my pause and frowns at me, then looks at Nick and shrugs as if he gets it. He drops his arm from my shoulder and walks out in front of me.
“I’ll listen to what you sent when we get back,” Shea tells Nick over his shoulder. “Maybe we can work on those tonight.”
“You wanna go to the studio after the show? Is the bus here yet? I know Hendrix said there would be a small booth in it. That’s all we need,” Nick responds. He falls in step beside me and threads our fingers together, squeezing my hand slightly. I tilt my head up to look at him and smile at the boyish grin he gives me: my smile. It makes me want to kiss him to death and take a detour back to our room, but I restrain myself, only squeezing back with reassurance.
Shea shakes his head and turns toward us, opening his mouth to respond to Nick’s question, but his eyes zone onto our hands and he stops mid-answer. I internally kick myself for not telling him about Nick and me. I should’ve hinted at it at least, but something tells me he knew. I can read him well enough to think he saw this coming and I want to ask him that as well, but now I’ll have to wait.
Shea clears his throat, bringing his eyes to mine and he looks more hurt than pissed. “The bus isn’t here yet. It’ll be here tomorrow night and they didn’t book a studio. You think your pops will let us go to one of his?” he asks Nick.
Nick lets go of my hand and runs his through his hair, letting out a breath. “Will he? Yes. Do I want to ask him? Hell no. You wanna go to my house?” Nick suggests. My heartbeat slows down and I can hear it pulsing slowly in my burning ears.
“Yeah, we can.” Shea shrugs. “Brooklyn, would you mind that?” he asks, staring into my eyes. The spots of mud are more visible in his eyes now, and I can tell he’s testing me with his hotheaded attitude. Shea’s always been a bit of a spitfire; thankfully he uses that energy on stage or when he writes his raps. He saves his melancholy and broken heart for his ballads. You can say he’s a mix of J Cole and Bruno Mars, which is pretty eclectic for one artist and exactly what I love about his performances.
“I’ll go.” I say, narrowing my eyes slightly at him, daring him to say something stupid.
Nick’s posture has changed now too. Noticing the tension, his thumbs are tucked into the pockets of his jeans and his fists are balled up a little. Leo and Fern are either completely oblivious to it all or are just ignoring us with their cell phones. For all I know they’re texting each other about this. Darius is just looking straight at the elevator door. Thankfully the ride is short and we reach the ground level before anybody says anything else. Shea’s assistant meets us there, an older woman the same age as our mothers. She’s another reason he’s kind of been in check for a couple of years now. He’s more scared of letting her down than anybody else, I think.
The show starts off with a woman named Tracey performing alone: just her and her piano. Her voice wavers as she sings the way only a handful of people can, and it’s beautiful. After her set, I pull her to the side and take a demo and her information, talking to her for a little bit about signing and what she’s looking for. Of course, as usual, at the sound of the name Harmon Records, she’s all ears and wants to know everything I have to offer. Others perform but I only speak to one besides Tracey—the rapper Shea told me about. The man is on another level. His raps are poetic and on point, and he has a look that I know will sell.
Talking to him, I find out about his background: single mother, six siblings, grew up in a bad neighborhood. The amount of untold stories and undiscovered talent there is out there never ceases to amaze me. It’s also one of the things I love about what I do. I give them a chance to be heard, to get out of their struggles, even if that often means falling into a bigger heap of them. Notorious BIG said it best: more money, more problems. I’ve had money my entire life and even I know that to be true. By the time I’m finished talking to everyone, I’m completely exhausted, I would never leave without watching Shea perform, though. As I head backstage to his dressing room where everybody is hanging out, the poignant smell of marijuana hits my lungs. I visibly take a step back when I turn the corner and Darius laughs at my surprise.
“You not used to it anymore?” he asks with a hearty laugh that makes him cough.
I shake my head. “Please.” I am so not used to it anymore. Not that I mind it. I’m fine with that smell and having people around me smoke it, for some reason it doesn’t give me the urge to do it. It’s one of those drugs that I can take up and put down whenever I want. Not that I do it anymore. Unlike the heavier things, there’s no temptation in weed for me.
When I pull the door open, the smoke instantly swirls around me. Shea is lounging on the couch, playing Xbox with Nick. There are at least eight people, including four women I’ve never seen before. This life has to get old. How many different cities, girls, and drugs can you possibly do every night? For Shea, I know the answer is: unlimited. He’d rather be doing this than anything else. I know he does it for the thrill he gets when he’s onstage, but this extra shit is just too much.
“Shea, you’re on,” an older man with a headset says from the door as he waves the smoke away from his face.
“Boom, motherfucker!” Shea shouts, getting up from the couch and tossing his controller.
“That’s fucked up,” Nick says with a chuckle. “Damn.”
Shea grabs both sides of my face and kisses my forehead as he brushes past me. “Stand by the stage,” he says.
I nod. “‘Kay, break a leg.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, smiling back as he walks away.
The women in the room begin to follow him out, but Darius stops them by putting his hands up. “Go to your seats. Maybe I’ll let you back in later.”
They don’t even respond to that as they walk away. At least they’re not disgusting and trashy looking, like some I’ve seen before.
Nick grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room, walking toward the stage to a couple of chairs set off to the side. Nick sits down in one, not caring whether or not they’re for us, and extends his legs before pulling me into his lap. Smiling, I position myself sideways so that my face is in his neck. He begins to brush strands of hair out of my face, tickling t
he side of my arm as he does it.
While the host is talking and getting people riled up to welcome Shea, I look around the venue. It’s intimate and dark with all black walls and huge glass chandeliers that drop over the stage and the crowd. I love The Fillmore, it’s actually one of the best sounding places in San Francisco. I used to frequent it often when I visited. Because of this place and the bands they host, I’ve been able to get a lot of great artists to sign under Harmon Records, so in a sense I feel like this is my music mecca. I’ve never seen Shea perform here before, which makes tonight that much more exciting and a little nerve-wracking. He left the room before us but he’s taking a long time to get up here. I have half a mind to go see what he’s up to. Anytime Shea takes too long to get onstage, he’s up to no good.
“So you’re coming home with me,” Nick murmurs against my head, distracting me from my thoughts.
I smile. “I guess so.”
I can feel him twirling the curl at the end of my hair. It makes me sigh and move my face further into his neck, burying my nose in it. I love the way he smells, like a beautiful concoction of nature and cologne.
“I should be happy about that,” he says, his flat voice making me frown against him. “But it took another man asking you to convince you.”
I almost roll my eyes at that. Almost. Until I put myself in his shoes and realize what he must think. Instead of arguing or explaining myself, I go another route, the only one that matters. “But you’re the one that I’ll be sleeping with.”
Nick leans away from me, making me lift my face to look at him. His eyes are blazing with intensity. “Damn right,” he growls before taking my mouth in his and kissing me senseless, leaving no space in my mouth unexplored with his tongue. He breaks the kiss as suddenly as he started it and looks at me again, chest heaving against mine. Shaking his head he lets out a breath that mingles with my own. Our mouths are so close to one another, both slightly parted.
“I won’t share you, Brooklyn,” he says, his voice sounding almost pained as he shimmies beneath me and readjusts himself.
I don’t have time to ask him what that means because I get distracted when Shea walks past us, not acknowledging either of us. My stomach sinks, knowing he must have seen us kissing. Knowing he saw me sitting on Nick with our arms wrapped around each other. Shea is the type of friend that is happy for me regardless of what I do, even if he doesn’t agree with it, as long as he knows what I’m doing. He’s always been what Ryan used to call “childish” in that sense, but it’s not childish. Shea obviously knows what I’m doing, but the fact that I’m sitting on top of his friend/producer’s lap and I never told him about Nick and I makes me feel horrible. I’m a fucking idiot. Maybe I should have Hendrix get me that on a travel mug for Christmas.
“Why do you only work with Shea?” I ask Nick as I watch Shea turning his neck side to side in a stretch.
“What do you mean?” Nick asks, bouncing me on his leg. I get the feeling he’s getting tired of carrying me so I make to stand, but he holds my hips so I can’t move.
I look at him. “I heard you tell your dad you’re only working with Shea. Why is that?”
Nick purses his lips in disapproval, I’m assuming for his father. “My dad’s an asshole, in case you didn’t notice.” He sighs. “He was … is … a good producer. He’s won a lot of Grammys and to him this is a ‘show me who you work with and I’ll tell you what you are’ sort of thing. Me working with Shea doesn’t bode well with him because he thinks Shea’s music is garbage. My dad’s more into jazz and classical. He worked with a lot of famous musicians, mainly Hispanic, back in the day. Anyway, he’s only heard Shea rap, so he doesn’t approve. He doesn’t understand the quality of music we’re recording.” Nick shrugs as if that’s all.
“So that’s where the name Shadow comes in,” I say, my voice drifting off in wonderment.
“Exactly,” Nick responds, kissing me on the tip of my nose. “We pretty much live our lives trying to outdo each other now. It’s stupid, really, since he has me beat by a long shot.”
I shrug. “Who cares? Besides, you have a long career ahead of you,” I say with a smile.
Nick smiles back and opens his mouth to say something, but we’re cut off by the cheering of the crowd. I stand up, clapping along with them and smiling at Shea when he looks at me over his shoulder and smirks at me. He turns back around as the lights turn off completely and the tempo of one of his songs starts. Shea runs onto the stage and stands in the middle right when a purple spotlight shines on him. He begins to sing, his voice wrapping around every note perfectly. This song is a slow ballad about heartache and the one that got away. It’s one of my favorites from his last CD, and I sing along with him as if I was the one performing.
As I stand there, swaying my hips slowly to the beat and singing, Nick stands beside me with his arms crossed in front of his chest, nodding his head along. Shea performs another song right after and then takes a break, taking a swig of the Hennessy bottle they placed in an ice bucket onstage. I cringe at the sight; I’ve never understood how he could do that. His white T-shirt is already clinging to him from his sweat, but I know he won’t take it off. He’d rather come to the side of the stage and change into another one than take it off. His old manager used to encourage him to take off his shirt. Shea always turned that down, saying he wanted to be taken seriously as a musician and not seen only as a sex symbol. Now he has both, so sometimes he concedes and takes off the damn shirt when he’s hot. That’s probably the women’s favorite part of the show. It’s so stupid, really. The man puts on a hell of a show with his clothes on, so it makes me mad when I hear young girls or women discussing how the best part of the show was when he took his shirt off.
“Hello, San Francisco!” Shea yells into the microphone, making everybody scream. He smiles. “How you all doing out here tonight?” He pauses, letting them cheer. “This is a special city for me, one that brings a lot of memories. Some good, some bad, but no matter what’s happened here, I’m always glad to be back with you all!”
There are hoots and hollers and women screaming they love him. He eats it all up. Nick chuckles beside me, knowing Shea is enjoying the hell out of all of it. I roll my eyes but laugh along as I watch the spectacle. I keep enjoying myself until Shea turns and looks right at me. Even with the blinding lights illuminating over him, he finds me, the way he does when he wants to prove a point. This knowledge makes my heart stop beating.
“This next song … isn’t mine …” he starts and chuckles when someone shouts for him to perform a specific song of his. “But I keep listening to it. It reminds me of someone in my life that I keep striking out with.”
He turns his body then and looks straight into my eyes as the familiar beat of Drake’s song, Connect, starts playing in the background. The bass builds up slowly with the tempo of the song, dropping in perfect synch with the hi-hat of the drums Leo is playing. Shea does a little sensual dance along with it, moving his pelvis slowly. He doesn’t even acknowledge the catcalls of the women in the audience; he’s completely in the zone watching me. He begins to rap the first verse, smirking as he does it, and I can feel is the adrenaline beginning to bubble through my body. The only thing I can hear is my heart pounding loudly in my ears as heat creeps up in my face, and I’m thankful for the darkness in the building.
I don’t have to turn my head to look at Nick’s pissed off face. I can see his jaw clenching and his fists balling from my peripheral vision as he glares at Shea. I feel jealousy swirling in the air, wrapping its little claws around each one of our necks and gripping, taking each of our breaths slowly away from us. The crowd is oblivious to it all. And the worst part is, there’s not much I can do to ease the palpable tension. I feel like I’m rooted to the ground, unable to move from here.
“Oh the idea is fun,” Shea sings. I find my lips moving, singing along, even though I’m glaring at him, hot tears forming in the back of my eyes. “Oh the idea is so fun every time, at le
ast we try for homerun every time. Swinging. Eyes closed just swinging …”
He continues to sing, turning to the audience with a bop in his step and waving his arms in a dance as the tempo switches, and then turns back to face me. He walks over to me slowly until he’s standing directly in front of me, his eyes narrowing as he sings, “She just wanna run around the city and make memories that she can barely remember. And I allow her. Talk about pussy power. She just wanna run over my feelings like she’s drinking and driving in an eighteen wheeler. And I’d allow her. Talk about pussy power …”
Tears begin to trickle down my face as Shea continues to sing to me, planting little bombs inside my chest with each look and detonating them with each word. When he sings that he’s just trying to connect with something, he turns around and keeps dancing, performing for the crowd now, getting them riled up. I continue to watch him in a daze. When he finishes the song, he looks at me again, his mouth curling into a wicked smile that makes me want to run up to the stage and slap it off. Blinking away my tears in disbelief, not understanding how he could be so downright mean to me, how he could see that he’s hurting me and smile at it, I turn around and begin to run toward the dressing room.
The more steps I pound into the ground, the harder my heart pounds in my chest, matching the steps chasing me from behind. Wiping my face, I make sure that there are no tears left on it, even though I refuse to look back now. I know he’s running toward me but I can’t look at him. I just want to get away, but he doesn’t let me. Nick’s arms wrap around me and he lifts me up, carrying me like a baby as he cradles me to his chest and continues to walk me outside of the building. The wind hits us as we step into the alley. Nick tells one of the drivers to take us back to the hotel, carrying me into the car and leaving me on his lap as we drive. I don’t cry. I don’t lose it like I expected to when I’m comforted. I hold everything in, unwilling to let myself crumble in front of him over this, even though I feel hurt. I shake my head against Nick’s chest out of confusion, unable to understand why Shea would do that to me.
