Not This Time

by M. A. Binfield

  “Shall we go and do what we need to?” She spoke softly to Maddie and was rewarded with a nod. She waited for Maddie to stand and headed out onto the deck.

  * * *

  Maddie sat, her backpack on her lap and her mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts. As fast as Sofi had spirited her outside, she had disappeared inside again to get them some drinks. Maddie didn’t know what to feel first—embarrassment that she had stumbled into a meeting that no one wanted her at, anger that Sofi was still refusing to rest properly, or shame that, despite everything she’d told herself about guarding her heart, seeing Sofi’s relationship with Noah up close made her feel things she shouldn’t. There were a lot of reasons why she needed to be careful, but the depth of her antagonism toward Noah, for his infuriating grin, and for wearing one of Sofi’s T-shirts in bed was chief among them.

  “Coffee?” Sofia pointed a cup in her direction.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sofi sat next to her.

  “What for?”

  “For Noah. His idea of a joke isn’t always funny. And sorry for putting you on the spot like that. I just thought if you knew the song, you’d get the vibe, and they were driving me crazy. You definitely helped. Thank you.”

  Her expression was serious. Maddie simply nodded.

  “And thank you for last night too. You were sweet for coming by. I’m sorry if I got all off the wall with the wine and the big panicking thing. I hadn’t eaten and I was feeling a little stressed. It hasn’t happened for a while, and I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”

  Maddie felt the distancing, knowing that Sofi was rowing them back a little. She should have been relieved, but instead she felt a disappointment that she had no right to feel.

  “I was happy to help, and Mateo had fun.” She wanted to say more about last night, but Sofi was making it plain she didn’t want to talk about it. “And, yeah, I wasn’t really expecting the welcoming committee today. Not that they were very welcoming.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I think the media coverage of your visit freaked everyone out. They said they don’t want people talking about me and you when they should be talking about the album. But I told them that people talking about me at all is good for the album. It doesn’t really matter what they’re saying as long as my name stays in the news.” Sofi sipped her coffee, seeming oblivious to what she’d just said.

  “Glad to be of use,” Maddie muttered, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. Everything always came back to Sofi’s career.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I think it’s exactly what you meant. Last night must have been a jackpot for you—me, Noah, and a ‘mystery child’ for them to talk about. How did we impact on your streaming numbers? I’d like to think my son was of some use to you.” Maddie was hurt, but she wasn’t going to say it. She took refuge in sarcasm.

  “Maddie, it’s not what I meant. Honestly. I just said that to calm them down. They worry about everything. And they try to make me worry about things that I don’t want to worry about. Things that I feel really good about. I’m just happy you’re back in my life.”

  They sat silently for a minute. Not for the first time, Maddie felt like she was out of her depth. She kept telling herself that they should just do what they needed to do and she should leave. But for some reason she couldn’t seem to make herself listen.

  “I’m sorry.” Maddie meant it. It wasn’t Sofi’s fault she was freaking out.

  “Don’t be. I am obnoxiously and ridiculously career-focused, but I would never use you or Mateo in that way, though I get that you’d think that I might. It fits.” Sofi sounded upset.

  They sat in silence, both looking out over the ocean. Maddie couldn’t help but react to Sofi’s words, wanting to say something back, wanting to reassure her, but she couldn’t. It still all felt too uncertain.

  “So, none of them like ‘Not This Time,’ huh?” Maddie tried to move them onto safer ground.

  “They hate it.” Sofi turned to her. “But I love it—and I think the fans will too. A lot of them have grown older with me, and I think they’re as ready as I am for something different. It’s funny, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “About what?”

  “I wasn’t sure if you still listened to my music, y’know.”

  “I do. I always did. And I’ve always loved it, but…” She wanted to be honest, but she wasn’t sure how Sofi would take it. “I think you play it safe sometimes. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I know how it works, but ‘Not This Time’ is real, more raw, and I really like it.”

  Maddie was pleased to see Sofi smile shyly.

  “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you. You were always the one I wanted to impress.”

  Maddie bit back the self-deprecating comment that was on the tip of her tongue and let herself enjoy the compliment. She hadn’t made a success of music, but she had learned to love some of the songs she had written.

  “Well, I think it’s great that you’re trusting your instincts more. They were always good. It’s just that no one ever listened to us back then.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  They fell into silence again, and Maddie assumed that Sofi was, like her, remembering some of the not-so-good times they’d had in the band. The stupid songs they’d been given to sing, the ridiculously cheesy videos they’d had to appear in. Going solo was supposed to liberate them from that, but Sofi, with all her success, was still having to fight to be listened to. It sucked. But it wasn’t Maddie’s battle. Not anymore.

  “I pulled out of the festival.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. And we postponed the other UK dates too. The tour starts in Paris now. And that means I get another ten days to recover properly. Last night was a bit of a wakeup call.”

  “Good for you, Sofi.” Maddie was surprised but happy. “I’m so pleased about that.”

  “I think you’re the only one. Felix is still going to try to get Little Boy to do the song with me, but it’s going to be much harder to schedule once we’re both on tour so I guess it might not happen. That was the hardest thing to let go of, to be honest. It would have been huge, and I needed it. But you were right last night, I definitely need more rest, so something had to give.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

  “There’ll be other chances. And I don’t care what the rest of them said, I’m proud of you for putting your health first.” It sounded trite and kinda motherly. But Maddie was too relieved to be embarrassed.

  “Want to see some of the fabrics for the bedroom?” Maddie patted the backpack. It was full of samples she’d chosen. Some she wanted to use to reupholster the chairs and some for cushions and curtains.

  “Yes, please.” Sofi sounded genuinely excited. “Let’s go and look at them next to the walls so we can match colors.” She stood and Maddie followed unthinkingly. Halfway up the stairs, she stopped. Noah was upstairs. He was either getting changed or had gone back to bed. Either way, she didn’t want to encounter him again.

  “You okay?” Sofi looked back at her.

  Maddie willed herself to damp down the ridiculous feelings of jealousy. “Sorry, no, I thought I’d forgotten something, but it’s fine.” She followed Sofi up the stairs and watched her push down on the handle of her bedroom door—the bedroom where Sofi and Noah slept together—and step inside. Maddie took a breath and followed her, wanting him to at least be dressed.

  “I quite like the plum color. My first thought was that it was too dark, but it looks a little lighter now that it’s dry, and if we had just one wall like that and the rest more neutral it might work. What do you think?” Sofi walked across to the wall behind her bed and put her hand on the foot-wide stripe of dark purple paint.

  “I like it too.”

  Maddie looked around the room. The bed was made, the room was tidy, and there was absolutely no sign of Noah, or his things. She felt confused, and more than a little relieved. She began to unpack the samples
and lay them out on the bed—on Sofi’s bed. She tried to ignore the knots that formed deep down in the pit of her stomach when Sofi came and sat on the bed and let her slender fingers caress the fabrics that Maddie had laid out.

  “I was thinking we could cover the chairs in this.” Maddie picked up a large square of patterned linen. As she handed it to Sofi, their fingers touched and Maddie felt the contact like electricity. She swallowed as Sofi laid the square across her thigh and stroked it with the palm of her hand. Maddie felt the touch almost as if it was her own leg. She was losing her mind. She dared to look at Sofi and, when their gazes met, she saw on Sofi’s face a look that was instantly familiar to her. The idea that Sofi might be finding them being together equally affecting had her shook.

  At the back of the house, something clattered to the floor and smashed, and Maddie heard heavy footsteps clumping along the corridor toward them.

  “Sofi. I need a dustpan and brush,” Noah shouted. “I dropped my cologne, and it’s gone all over my shoes. And they were both damn expensive.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Sofi said. “He’s so clumsy it’s ridiculous.”

  “He sleeps in another room.” Maddie hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She wanted the bed to swallow her whole.

  Sofi looked at her with a face full of something that looked a lot like panic.

  “He had jet lag. I knew he’d want to sleep in. I suggested he sleep in one of the spare rooms. So I wouldn’t disturb him this morning, I mean.” Sofi avoided looking at her as she spoke, acting like she had things she was ashamed of.

  Maddie’s first thought was that they were having problems and her second thought—that maybe Sofi was tiring of him and had finally realized she could do a lot better—wasn’t one she was at all proud of. If Noah was who Sofia loved, Maddie should absolutely not be wishing for a break-up.

  “Hold on.” Sofi disappeared from the room still holding the square of linen.

  Maddie heard raised voices at the other end of the corridor and was relieved that she couldn’t make out the actual words. The feeling of something not being right between Sofi and Noah—the tension, the snarky comments—made sense if they weren’t as happy as the gossip websites would have everyone believe.

  Maddie heard Noah say her name. He followed it up with a distinctly annoyed, “Really, Sofi?” What Sofia said in response was inaudible, but it had clearly inflamed Noah as he was stamping around and she heard him call Sofi reckless and, possibly, selfish. Maddie felt terrible about listening, but it was impossible not to. She tore a couple of sheets from her notebook and labeled the fabrics she intended to use before picking up her backpack and heading downstairs. If Sofi and Noah were having problems, she didn’t want her presence to be making things worse. Whatever old feelings might have surfaced between her and Sofi, they were in very different places in their lives. Sofi needed someone willing to live their life with her in the eye of a storm, someone willing to move from country to country, and someone happy to be second to her career. Noah seemed like that person, but even if he wasn’t, Maddie knew with certainty that it wasn’t her.

  * * *

  “I just don’t want to do it anymore. Why is that so hard to understand?” Sofi stopped pacing and looked from her mom to Felix. “I don’t care what you tell people about us breaking up, I just don’t want to have to be with him anymore. He won’t stick to the rules and he’s acting all jealous like he’s got a right to tell me who I can and can’t have in my life. I wouldn’t take that from him even if he was my boyfriend.”

  “He already said he’s sorry, Sofi.” Her mom spoke first. “And he’s not being jealous, he already explained that to you. He just thinks that you’re going to get yourself in trouble hanging out with Madison, that people will start talking. Like they did before.”

  Sofia walked to the window and back again, wanting to burn off some of the tension she felt. “I don’t give a damn what people are saying about us. I never did. I can be friends with whoever I want and Noah can’t say a thing about it. He’s not my boyfriend or did you both forget that somewhere along the way? I want to end it.”

  “You can’t.” Felix spoke quietly.

  “What do you mean, I can’t?”

  “The contract runs till after the Grammys. You can only ‘break up’ if you both agree to it.” He indicated the words with speech marks in the air. “And Noah is pretty clear that he doesn’t want to.”

  “I thought the contract had expired?” Sofia felt a tightness in her chest.

  “Nope, four more months. Sorry.” Felix shrugged. “You guys need to sort this out though because you can’t be canceling events we’ve arranged for you both. The press will get pissed and you both need the publicity.”

  Sofia couldn’t care about that today. She had argued with Noah. He had accused her of getting too involved with Maddie and said she was ruining everything. And when she had gone back to her room and realized Maddie had left, she had been angry enough to refuse to go for their scheduled lunch appearance.

  “He’s making me stressed. I collapsed on stage. Last night I had an actual panic attack. Surely there’s a medical get out clause?” She appealed to her mom, wanting someone to understand how crazy this was, how much she was hating the whole thing.

  “Just see out the contract, Sofi. Do the Grammys together and then blame work commitments for breaking up like we always planned. You’ll both sell better these next few months if you’re together. You know that the two of you together creates a buzz. It’s why we did it in the first place.” Her mom cast her eyes down. It was no comfort to Sofia that she felt shame about treating her this way. But then Sofia was as bad. She’d willingly agreed to it, and then signed the damn contract which had her trapped.

  When Maddie came out, Sofia had watched as her career crashed and burned. She had felt terrible for Maddie and spent weeks fighting the urge to get in touch. The younger fans they’d had in the band couldn’t seem to adjust to Maddie’s new out-there sexuality, and she wasn’t given any time to build a fan base that was more comfortable with it. Worse than that, some of the gossip websites started to talk about Maddie and Sofia again, to look at their “close relationship” again through the prism of Maddie’s bisexuality. The whole thing had terrified her, and it hadn’t taken much for them to persuade her that Noah—on the same record label and just starting out—would be perfect camouflage and a boost to both their careers. But now everything felt different and she was sick of lying, sick of hiding.

  “Did it ever dawn on you that I might want a relationship of my own one day, that I might be sick of living a lie? This thing with Noah is plain crazy and I want out.”

  Her mom and Felix exchanged a look.

  “If this is about Madison—” Her mom said it first.

  “It’s not.” Sofia’s denial was instant, if not entirely truthful. “I’ve been struggling with it for a while. It was okay in the beginning, it felt under control, but lately it’s become impossible.” Knowing that lying to Maddie about Noah was what was really weighing on her. “He’s acting more and more like a jealous boyfriend and I just don’t feel good about it, or about the lying.”

  “Does Madison know?” Felix asked.

  “I haven’t told her, but…”

  “But what?” Her mom was determined to have the conversation.

  “But she had a relationship with me, Mom. For three years. I know you don’t want to think about it, but over that time, we got to know each other pretty fucking well. She’s gonna guess before too long. She must know that I would never be with someone like Noah.”

  Yet Maddie had accepted the relationship at face value. Maybe she didn’t know Sofia all that well, or maybe she was simply too good a liar. Sofia felt a little nauseous.

  “And when I saw Danny the other day, he pretty much made it clear that he knew it was fake too. I’m gonna be a laughingstock if this gets out—Noah too. It’s got to be better to end it now before it does.”

  Her mom blanched
at hearing Sofia spell it all out so openly, but Felix looked at her like he got it. He was shrewd. He wouldn’t want this to blow up in their faces.

  “Okay. I’ll talk to Noah’s people again. I’ll make that point. I still think we should wait till after Grammys, but let’s start looking at an exit strategy. We can start to plant seeds about your conflicting schedules.”

  Her mom looked like she wanted to object, but for once, she deferred to Felix.

  “Thanks.” Sofia didn’t feel that grateful, but she also didn’t want to keep talking about it. “Now maybe I can have some rest.” She walked away, heading up to her room, dismissing them both.

  “He’s a good man, Sofia.” Her mom spoke to her from the bottom of the stairs. “He treats you well and he cares about you. It’s a shame you won’t give him a chance.”

  Sofia wanted to go back down and scream in her mother’s face that she was a lesbian, that being a lesbian meant loving women and that it didn’t matter if Noah was the king of fucking England, she would never want him the way she had wanted Maddie. Who was she kidding? There was no past tense. She would never want him the way she still wanted Maddie. But her head had started to pound and she wanted to lie down right then way more than she wanted to get her mom to take her sexuality seriously.

  She lay on her bed and stroked the fabric samples that Maddie had left for her. She was washed out but too wired to sleep. She tried to order her thoughts. She had lost Maddie because of deception she hadn’t been guilty of in the past. But she was lying to Maddie—lying to everyone—about Noah in the here and now, so maybe Maddie was right not to trust her. She sighed heavily. If she wanted to make Maddie and Mateo a part of her life somehow, she had to find a way to come clean about Noah and hope like hell that Maddie would understand and forgive her. And hope like hell that she didn’t end up paying him half a million dollars for breaching the contract she’d scared herself into signing.

  She rolled onto her back, trying to control her breathing so that the tightness in her chest would lessen. And no matter how Maddie reacted, maybe it was time for her to be a bit truer to herself as well.