Burn Me Once

by Clare Connelly

  ‘Fillet steak. Fries. Onion rings. A salad.’ He lifts a brow questioningly and covers the receiver. ‘Anything else?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Ice cream. Some oysters. Maybe some garlic bread. A peach.’

  He winks at me, then hangs up as he strides over to me. He stares at me for a heart-thumping second, his expression unreadable, and then he drops his hands down, inviting me to grab them.

  I know it’s not wise, but I put my hands in his as if on autopilot and he pulls me up to stand. Our bodies press to one another. My breath catches.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  My heart drops.

  He can’t have missed me. It’s not what we are.

  I smile, but I know it’s only half a smile. I’m too perturbed, confused, concerned, to be properly amused.

  ‘I want to ask you something.’

  I don’t think my look is encouraging, but apparently he doesn’t notice. He begins to sing again. His latest song. The one that is on all the radio stations—everywhere. His latest song that is a number one hit.

  God, he’s so famous.

  And yet we speak as though it doesn’t matter.

  ‘Yeah?’ It’s a hoarse prompt.

  ‘I’m doing a gig Friday night. Wanna come?’

  It takes several seconds for me to connect the words with the truth. The fact that by ‘doing a gig’ he means performing at a concert. And not a little local town hall concert either.

  ‘Where?’ I ask with a sinking heart.

  ‘The Garden.’

  ‘Madison Square Garden?’

  He nods.

  He’ll be performing for tens of thousands of people. On Friday night. When I would usually be at happy hour with my two best friends.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I say, not quite sure how to reply properly. ‘I’m good.’

  ‘I know you’re good,’ he responds with a wry twist of his lips. ‘I’m asking if you want to come to the concert.’

  I bite down on my lip and decide honesty is the best policy. ‘Will you be offended if I say no?’

  He laughs. ‘No. My ego isn’t that fragile. I’m curious, though.’

  Naturally. ‘It’s just...’ How can I put into words what I don’t fully understand myself?

  ‘You don’t like my music?’ he teases.

  ‘Can’t stand it,’ I quip back.

  His smile makes my stomach lurch. ‘I just...’

  ‘Yes?’

  His lips are twitching at the corners, showing his amusement even as he tries to listen seriously to whatever wisdom I’m about to share.

  ‘I don’t know. I mean... I just... First of all, I don’t see you like that. I know you’re some superstar, but I like it that this feels so normal.’ I pause. ‘I mean apart from the luxurious apartment, the mega-mansion at the heart of the village and your penchant for ordering everything off the room service menu.’

  He laughs.

  ‘And we both know this isn’t a relationship.’ I force myself to meet his eyes. ‘We’re two people who have agreed to...to sleep together. To fuck. That’s our thing.’ I sigh. ‘I had fun today. At the MoMA with you. But we shouldn’t do that again.’

  ‘We can do the Staten Island Ferry next time,’ he teases.

  ‘I’m serious, Ethan.’ I need him to understand. ‘We’ve both said what we want from this. The MoMA, your concert... Those things aren’t on my list.’

  He stares at me long and hard for a few seconds. ‘I thought we said we’d have fun?’

  ‘Yeah. Sexy fun.’

  He laughs. ‘I found you very sexy at the MoMA. Think of it as foreplay, baby. It was just one afternoon.’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head quickly. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  His eyes crinkle at the corners, as if he’s trying really hard not to laugh. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have a tendency to overthink shit?’

  ‘Not so eloquently,’ I mumble.

  His laugh is short. ‘Well, you do.’

  ‘There’s danger in this,’ I say seriously, softly, pulling him back to the heart of my worries. ‘Danger for me.’

  His eyes throb with mine. He is reading me. Studying me. Analysing me. I keep my expression blank of emotion with an enormous effort.

  ‘Who hurt you?’

  The question knocks me sideways. I drop his hand and take a step backwards.

  ‘No one.’

  I move towards the window. I’m awkward. My body is hot and cold.

  ‘Who hurt you?’

  ‘No one.’ I say it more emphatically now. ‘You think that the only reason a person can not want to be in a relationship with you is that she’s running from a past trauma, or something? Talk about egomaniacal.’

  The charge is completely unreasonable—particularly given that he’s right.

  ‘I think there’s more to this than you’re telling me,’ he insists quietly.

  My eyes lift to his in the reflection of the window. There is strength in his stance and I feel it push against me. I suck in a breath; it barely reaches my lungs.

  ‘So?’ I’m on the defensive. I make a point to lower my voice. ‘Have you told me everything about you and Sienna?’

  I see his frown in the reflection. ‘No.’

  ‘But you think I should be an open book to you?’

  ‘Hey.’

  He walks behind me slowly, but his hands on my shoulders are firm. Demanding. He turns me around, then presses his thumb beneath my chin, holding my face towards his.

  ‘You’re the one who’s acting like I’ve just fucking proposed. Why?’

  ‘I’m not.’ I bite down on my lip and jerk away from him. ‘I just don’t want you to go shifting the goalposts.’

  I sink my teeth into my lip harder. His eyes drop to the gesture.

  My heart twists painfully. Far worse than his desire to negotiate our...whatever this is...is his quick acceptance of my position. I know it’s for the best, but it hurts that he doesn’t fight harder.

  What am I wanting? Him to prove that he wants more from me than I’m willing to give? What kind of emotional sadist am I becoming?

  ‘So, a concert, huh?’ I say, the words so over-bright they are brittle, like wood that’s been left in the sun for days on end. Paint peels away my confidence. ‘You nervous?’

  His own smile is dismissive, distracted. ‘No. It’s not my first time.’

  ‘No, of course.’

  We’re on safer ground, and I’m grateful, but the awkwardness of our conversation is still between us, lumpy and insistent. I hate it. I hate it that we’ve argued. I hate it that he probably thinks I’m either completely crazy or completely weird.

  ‘You’ve been doing this a long time, I guess?’

  He sighs. Wearily.

  Weary of me?

  Warning bells flash.

  I’m messing everything up.

  Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why I’m fighting to keep my emotions out of this?

  ‘Yeah.’

  I sidestep his touch. Our intimacy is gone. We’re just two strangers in a cold room full of misunderstanding. My dress is by the door. I move towards it on legs that are shaking, lift it up with the tips of my fingers and pull it on. When I turn around he’s watching me, with that same look of confusion on his handsome face.

  God, he deserves better than this.

  I swallow, looking towards the window, uneasy and uncertain.

  ‘You’re not wrong.’

  The words are so soft they’re almost a whisper; I don’t even realise I’m going to say them until I hear the way they float across the room towards him.

  ‘About what?’

  I clear my throat. ‘Before you, I hadn’t... It had been a while since I’d been with anyone e
lse.’

  ‘But there was someone important before me?’ he prompts.

  I nod, my eyes locking to his, showing the depth of my emotion and the ache of my pain. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it didn’t work out?’

  He says it gently, like teasing a knot out of a rope.

  I shake my head and those stupid, stupid tears are back, hot in my eyes. I blink furiously, wiping them away without touching my face.

  ‘What happened?’

  He asks the question with such kindness that I think I could collapse.

  I don’t.

  I’m not going to be weakened by Jeremy any more. I’m stronger now. Stronger than when I first met him and I believed in fairy tales and happily-ever-after and soulmates. What a load of nonsense.

  Ethan takes my silence for an unwillingness to discuss it.

  ‘Look...’ He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. ‘You don’t have to talk about it. But don’t run away from me, Alicia. Just...stay and have more fun.’

  My body jerks at the prospect. It’s what I need and want. More than anything.

  ‘Why don’t you have a bath? Relax. I’ll call you when dinner gets here.’

  He’s being so kind and it’s hurting my heart to experience that, knowing the limitations of what we are.

  I nod, though, and move towards the enormous bathroom before he can see the emotions on my face. And before I can make sense of them.

  Because they’re scaring me half to death.

  * * *

  We have devoured almost the whole tray of room service food. Despite the fact I said I wasn’t hungry, it turns out that incredible, mind-blowing, multiple orgasm sex is enough to give anyone an appetite.

  ‘Things with me and Sienna hadn’t been working for a long time...’

  I am torn. Morbid curiosity is at the forefront of my mind, but so too is the knowledge that this discussion is dangerous.

  ‘Why not?’

  Curiosity, apparently, wins.

  He reaches for a chip and eats it thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know.’ His smile is disarming. ‘Maybe we were never right together. But, man, we hated each other by the end. Still, for her to be engaged to someone else months later...’

  I wince at his description and again I think of Jeremy. Of that afternoon.

  ‘Is this what you do? You farm me off to my mother’s, with our kids, so you can screw her?’

  ‘Come on, Fiona! Why wouldn’t I be fucking around behind your back? You’re as cold as ice and I’m bored. We never see each other any more. I don’t remember the last time we actually fucked.’

  The memory makes my heart hurt.

  ‘I guess relationships change. People change. Love is complicated,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Do you know the guy?’

  ‘Tom Banks?’ He grimaces. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s so much worse,’ I say softly. ‘Do you like him?’

  Ethan shrugs. ‘The thing is, I kind of thought something was going on between them. She told me I was imagining it.’

  My stomach twists. Lies. Love and lies. How common—and complex—it is.

  ‘How long were you guys together?’

  ‘On and off around six years,’ he says.

  As though that’s nothing. As though that doesn’t change everything. Honestly, if he’d told me they’d had twins together I’d have been less shocked.

  That’s a hell of a long time. He’s only twenty-eight. So they started dating when he was in his early twenties. I blink at him, but he doesn’t seem to realise how spun out I am.

  ‘We were friends for another six or so years before that.’

  It’s Jeremy and Fiona all over again. A shiver runs down my spine—that same trickling sense of being an outsider, running over me like a rash. But for some reason this almost seems worse, and I can’t say why.

  ‘All this...the fame thing...it’s a tricky son of a bitch. I guess because I knew Sienna before. Before I made it...before she made it... I thought that somehow future-proofed us. I thought that made us more real.’

  Does he know how hard this is to hear? Of course not. I’ve told him I want nothing from him. So we’re people who fuck...and apparently now I’m his therapist as well.

  I’m tempted to establish some kind of barrier here. A line in the sand meaning we don’t talk about Sienna or Jeremy. But my morbid curiosity is still thick inside me and I find it impossible to ignore.

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  His eyes latch to mine and his smile spreads across his face slowly. But there is resignation in that look, too. ‘I seem to have found the perfect Band-Aid.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘LOOKING FOR SOMEONE?’

  I tweak the E-string, play a chord, closing my eyes as I find every single note. They are floating through space and I am able to see them from every angle—but, more than that, they reverberate in my blood, hitting a frequency that I know intimately.

  Then I hear the question. Carl has toured with me for years; he knows me well. In that moment, I think he knows me better than I would like.

  ‘Nah.’

  It’s a lie. I keep wondering if she’ll come. Thinking how annoying it is that she hasn’t.

  Why does it piss me off so much? Hard to say.

  ‘Sienna here?’

  Sienna? Is that who he thinks I’m scouring the audience for? ‘Nah. We broke up, remember?’

  ‘Fuck. Sorry, mate.’

  I grimace, turning back to the guitar. I play the beginning of ‘Wild Silver’, sing a few lines into the mic and then stop abruptly. I wrote this song for Sienna. With Sienna. The memory is like a ball, bobbing on the horizon of a stormy ocean. I can see it, but it keeps fading away and there’s no way I can reach it.

  How many of my memories will be like this? Inextricably linked to her but no longer tangible?

  ‘Did you hear about the tickets?’

  I blink, focusing my attention back on Carl. On the now. Only there’s a different mirage on the horizon now. One that makes me smile rather than frown.

  If Ally’s not here, where is she?

  I picture her naked in my suite. In the shower, lathered up, slippery and sweet, singing in that sweet off-key way she has. All of me is pulled. I want to be with her. Fuck the concert.

  ‘Nah. What about them?’

  ‘Someone’s scalping seats for a thousand bucks.’

  I arch a brow, yet I’m not totally surprised. The concert was booked out in under thirty minutes. My management refused a second show.

  ‘Jesus...’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Carl hands me another of my guitars. I pass the Fender over and begin to tune the Gibson.

  ‘You all good for drinks after?’

  Shit. I’d forgotten about that. Our tradition. I always take the crew out for a post-concert wind-down.

  But... Ally. Naked in my shower. In my bed.

  I’m saved from needing to answer by the arrival of Grayson and my manager, Paul. I smile at them, but in my mind I’m already back at the hotel, and Ally’s eating out of the palm of my hand...

  * * *

  I tell myself I made the right decision. I’m not a groupie and I think it would be weird to see Ethan up on stage, larger than life, as Ethan Rock God Ash.

  So why am I sitting glued to my phone, stalking the Twitter hashtag #ethanashNYC? Which is trending—of course.

  There are videos of the concert being uploaded and I watch them almost faster than they can appear.

  There’s his beautiful acoustic cover of ‘Hallelujah,’ which sends goosebumps into every part of my body, like shooting stars chasing their natural end. Then there are his faster, earlier songs, full of youth and enthusiasm. There’s a few ballads. He performs a song with Hunter Smith and Esther Scott, of Scott Smith—only
my favourite band ever.

  He looks amazing.

  I mean, amazing.

  And like himself as well.

  Only it’s so hard to reconcile Ethan—my Ethan—with this guy. This guy who’s performing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. Women who are passing out. Who are shouting his name, waving their hands, holding posters that cry out their love for him. And he’s so...cool. So effortless. He waves. He sings. He wanders from one side of the stage to the other, sauntering with his trademark nonchalance, and my pulse is raging.

  My God.

  He is so hot.

  And he is mine.

  Shh! I silence the grumpy part of my mind that constantly wants to remind me not to get too possessive or invested.

  I seem to have found the perfect Band-Aid.

  Those words have chased themselves around my head, and finally I can admit that they spark relief in me. They free me. Because they show me that he is indeed using me as a crutch. On the rebound while he gets over Sienna. And that means I can relax. This isn’t serious for him.

  Which means this is okay.

  It’s okay that I am waiting for him.

  That I am in his hotel room and that he knows I am here, that he has promised to hurry back. That he told me he’d be counting the minutes.

  Because I’m just a Band-Aid. And he’s just hot sex. It’s simple. Easy. I’m in control. Our boundaries are established and we are staying firmly within them.

  Anticipation rolls through me. I look around his suite, checking all the details with a small smile. Candles. Music. Dinner.

  Me in a slinky black negligee and nothing underneath.

  I curl up on the sofa, dragging my finger down my phone obsessively, refreshing my feed as though my life depends on it.

  And finally the concert is over.

  It can’t be long now, right?

  How long?

  I stare at my phone, contemplate messaging him but decide not to. I know that I’m desperate to see him; he doesn’t need to.

  It’s almost an hour later when I hear noises outside the hotel room. And with the moment upon me I am nervous suddenly! I stand up uneasily, running my hands down the front of my lingerie, my eyes fixed to the door. I fan my hair from my face quickly, just to give it body, and then I wait.