by Cassie Mae
“Where do you want the three o’clock?”
I groan. How about never? I’d be fine with that.
“I can handle it if you can’t,” Jerome says through a laugh. His condescending offer only hurts my head more. I run a hand over my face, casually scratching at the overgrowth along my jaw.
“Offer her studio time in lieu of going over marketing. I’m sure Jennifer will prefer it that way anyway.”
I get some kind of affirmative from him, but the sound is interrupted by a, “He’s not gonna like that,” before my office door whips open.
My eyes do a double take as Paige enters with a confident stride straight to my desk.
“Corrosive Bouquet,” she says, laying a flash drive on top of a pile of contracts in front of me. Her lip tilts up in an excited grin that I can only compare to the look Pepper gives me when I cook bacon. “They’re fantastic. Completely unique sound and from the crowd, looks like we’ve got a good following, too.”
“We?” I ask like a complete asshole, but Paige straightens up, her hands out like she doesn’t have time to give a shit about my attitude.
“We have to jump on them. I’ll set up a meeting. I spoke with the manager last night and—”
“You what?”
“Spoke with the manager.” She crosses her arms. “That drive is from him. This one…” She digs into the tight pocket of her skinny, holey jeans that make me temporarily lose my mind, and then drops another flash drive onto my desk. “Is from me. You’ve got to listen to this other band I found.”
My surprise is quickly stifled, replaced by something much more guilt-ridden—over something I haven’t even done yet, but I’m about to.
My gaze shifts from Paige to just over her shoulder, where Jerome is watching our exchange like a hawk. I let out a long breath through my nostrils.
“I don’t need that.” I put a single finger on the drive and push it back over to her.
Her brows knit together slightly, and her arms slowly uncross. “You don’t need business?”
“Not from someone who’s spends more time in a Hot Topic than they have here.” The comment makes my tongue swell as soon as it rolls off of it. I swallow hard to get rid of the sensation, refusing to look over at Jerome to see his reaction.
“But a scouting job’s okay to hand out to just anyone? That makes complete sense.”
I lean back in my seat, interlocking my fingers behind my head, mostly so they don’t see them tremble.
“An opinion isn’t part of your job description. I trusted you were capable of pressing a record button, since that’s all I wanted.”
I can actually feel the fiery effect my words have on her, red seeping up her pale neck and sprouting onto her cheeks. She clenches her jaw, the lip ring indenting her top lip. My gut drops, and I have to bite my own tongue before an apology slips out. Opinions have all but ruined my step into this life, and if I’m going to prove my damn self, I need everyone—including me—to know their place.
Her eyes fall to the extra drive on my desk, and she doesn’t move to pick it up. Through the tight part of her lips, she utters, “You’re less of an ass when you’re drunk.”
My brows lift, and I flash a quick glance at Jerome, who’s leaning forward, scribbling across his tablet with his finger, seemingly unaware of what Paige has just said.
“Out,” I say, and Paige takes a determined step back. “Not you.” I stop her, then level Jerome with the hardest look I can muster. He raises his brows at me before heading back to his desk. I shove myself from my high-back chair with enough force that it’s still swiveling when I push the door shut.
“I’m not taking it back,” Paige says, her arms folded once again.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“What? Just gotta look tough in front of your minions?”
Yes. I let out a small laugh, shaking my head at the floor as I cross over to her. “You’re one of my ‘minions.’”
“Like hell.”
“Then the door’s right there.”
She doesn’t answer, the metaphorical steam shooting from her ears answer enough.
I walk around her to my seat, pulling it up to the desk. “Don’t talk to a band’s manager again,” I tell her in a clear voice of dismissal. When she doesn’t move, I lift my eye to meet hers.
“You’re not even going to listen to it?”
I run a nervous hand over my chin before quickly dropping it to my desk. The glimpse of uncertainty I let slip through my hard exterior isn’t lost on her.
“No,” I say, my voice low. It’s not for the reason she thinks, either. There is still a drawer full of unheard bands and talent I can’t seem to get through.
She swipes the drive up off the desk and stalks to the door. I let her go without asking for a much needed coffee. I think I’m safer of getting a spit-free cup if I just get the damn thing myself.
***
A low buzzing rattles my blacked out mind. I blink my eyes open, confusion pulling at my brain. I expected to wake up to my bedroom’s view—alarm clock, black and sheer curtains, my overweight dog begging for food… Instead, I’m met with the lights from the city gleaming into my office windows. The darkness creates shadows across my large shag rug.
A jolt straightens my spine and spins me in my chair. A good case of vertigo hits, and I’m nearly knocked to the floor.
My cell is going off against the wood of my desk, and I reach up to rub the sleep from my eyes, loosening a Post-it that’s clinging to my cheek.
“He—” I clear my throat. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you? It’s only nine-thirty.” My mother’s voice is throaty and tired, like it once contained a feminine vibrancy that has been smothered in nicotine over the years.
“Working late.” I push a thumb and forefinger into my eyes, rubbing them free of my longer-than-intended nap. “How’re you doing, Mom?”
“Not good,” she says over a dry, relentless cough. “Had to go back in.”
My hand fumbles for my keys. I’m so groggy that my movements are hilariously uncoordinated. “Same hospital?”
“Mmhmm.” She pauses, a long, wet gulp echoing through the receiver. “It isn’t something you need to worry over.”
I snap off my computer and shove away from my desk. “It’s like you don’t know me at all,” I joke over the line. I may be trying to emulate my father behind the desk, but with Mom, I don’t want to be anything like that man. I can’t count the times he’d stay at the office while she’d smoked her way back into the hospital.
“There’s a wreck right off the highway,” she warns, and I shake my head at the fact that she’s watching the news instead of something a bit more uplifting. Mom’s always been drawn to the drama of the world. Another hospital stay doesn’t faze her, and when my father died, she barely blinked—but that may be due to the Botox.
“I’ll be there in a half hour, give or take.”
“I may be asleep.”
“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” I smirk, locking up my office door. I hang up with her as I step up to my private elevator. There are still people running around downstairs, most likely. We book studio time well past office hours to cater to our high-level artists. My old man would normally stay, listen in on a few, but I’ve yet to find the strength to last a full session—a weakness I should probably get the hell over, especially if and when the newest artist takes my offer. She specifically requested I sit in on her recording sessions for immediate feedback. Like I know what the hell I’m talking about.
The elevator stops at the lobby level, and I walk past the empty front desk and out the glass doors. As soon as I’m out, the stifling weight on my shoulders evaporates. That place is ruining me, and I can’t find a way to crawl out to the person I was, other than to focus on the only thing I know that I still am—a son.
Refusing the car service, I walk toward my place a few blocks away. I’ll take my own car, drive myself to the hospital like I’ve done countles
s times in the past. Reg used to joke how it was really him who drew the camera-happy crowd, since I avoided the paparazzi like a pro when I drove myself around, but whenever he chauffeured, I’d end up in a magazine somewhere. Funny how different a guy can look when he’s not stepping out of a Bentley.
I shed my tie halfway there, stuffing it into the pocket of my slacks. A low whistle echoes from across the street when I start undoing the top buttons on my shirt. My eyes follow the sound, an amused grin tilting my lips upward until I recognize the whistler.
Sitting at the bus stop, the screen of her phone lighting up her features, is Paige, and the shake of her shoulders tells me she’s having a laugh at my expense.
The weight of my job title crashes back down, nearly flattening me to the ground. I don’t want to act, don’t feel like pretending right now, and I don’t want to be an ass just to make a point. It’s exhausting trying to navigate these new waters while slowly trying to figure out who I am and who I should be, and I turn my head, determined to keep on walking without getting distracted.
My thoughts muddle as I move forward, curiosity creeping into my brain. She lives close enough to the label to walk—so why is she sitting at the bus stop? Without being able to control myself, I glance over my shoulder and catch her closing her eyes, resting her chin on one of her propped knees. She seems to have a soft grasp on her phone, her headphone cord snaking up and disappearing into her bright red hair.
Music… of course. Some people—most people—can still lose themselves in it.
I shake my head and turn the corner, trying to put her behind me in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Yet, after catching eyes with a sketchy group of men at the end of the block, my paranoia and curiosity get the better of me.
“Damn it,” I curse under my breath, and I turn around and march straight back to her.
She doesn’t open her eyes as I take a spot on the bench, and I scoot even closer as the group of men pass, a protective monster growling in my chest until they’ve rounded the corner. Paige seems blissfully unaware of everything outside of her music, and a weird wave of jealousy weaves its way into my thoughts as her lips mouth the words of the song. My eyes drift over her chest as it rises and falls so steadily, peacefully. I’d like nothing more than to dive into that sweet oblivion right alongside her.
A minute or so later, she shifts, her eyes opening as her thumb swipes over the pause button. There’s not an ounce of surprise in her expression that I’m next to her. “Usually people wait till they get home to start stripping out of their work clothes.” Her eyebrow tilts up at my tie-less neck as she wraps her earphones around her fingers. “You can’t make it three blocks.”
“Don’t have much time to change,” I say, using an excuse that is partly true. “Thought I’d get a jump on it.”
“Then why are you sitting here with me?” she asks with a speck of ice in her voice. Given the way I spoke to her earlier, it’s completely warranted.
“Curiosity,” I tell her truthfully. “Where are you headed?” I nod at the bus stop sign, and her shoulders lift in a shrug.
“Not headed anywhere.”
“You just ride buses for the hell of it?”
She doesn’t answer, and I can’t really blame her. I’m not exactly answering her questions either. There’s this awkward air around us that keeps going from blazing hot to frigidly cold, and I start wondering if she’s feeling it, too, or if it’s just my mind going haywire like it always seems to do when she’s around. I shove off the bench, cursing myself yet again for letting myself get pulled in by a woman I can’t be thinking about the way that I do.
“I’m not an idiot,” she says to my back, and I can’t help but tilt a confused eyebrow in her direction, her lips pressed in a flat line. “I know my music. And I get that I’ve got to work for it, so just tell me what the hell I’ve got to do to earn a little trust.”
I let out a small, humorless laugh, but not directed at her—no, this one is all for me. I could say the same thing; I’m not an idiot, despite what everyone around here thinks. I went to an Ivy League school, graduated near the top of my class. Yeah, I throw money at everything, I have no real relationships outside the one with my dog, and even though I know my music, it haunts my every waking moment. All I want is someone to trust me, but so far, the only way I’ve gotten a smidge of it is by being someone I’m not, someone I feel like I have to be.
My eyes meet hers, and all I see is determination, pride, hope, everything I’m too tired to feel myself, or maybe something I’ve never before felt.
“My office, tomorrow, five o’clock,” I tell her. “If you want some trust, start by working after hours.”
Her propped knee drops, her foot flattening against the pavement. I’m more fascinated by the length of her legs than I should be. My mind jumps to how soft they’d feel under my hands.
“You’ll listen to the demo?”
And there she is, with an assumption again, thankfully taking me out of my dangerous thought patterns.
“No.” The word guts me as I watch her shoulders slump and a grimace appear on her red lips. “You have a way home?” I ask, swiftly ending the conversation.
She jerks a hand to her feet. “Yep.”
“Well, in case you don’t feel like walking…” I hold out Reg’s card for the car service, knowing he’s probably only a few blocks away. I’d rather not worry over whether or not she got home safely.
When she doesn’t take it, I set it down on the bench, and then start back toward my place. My heart doesn’t rest until I get a call from Reg to verify Paige’s ride, but I’m far from feeling at ease.
What’s unsettling is the fact that she’s weaving her way under my skin, and I’m not sure if I care enough to stop it.
I get to Ethan’s office at five o’clock on the dot. I know he’s expecting me because Jerome waves me right on through. However, I don’t knock right away. I look at my phone and wait for a minute to pass.
Jerome eyes me curiously, a dark eyebrow arched. “Just knock and go in,” he says.
“I will, but since he always assumes I’m going to be late, I figured I wouldn’t disappoint.”
Jerome shakes his head. “You’re a smartass,” he says, and I freeze because the man is completely unreadable. I wonder if he moonlights as a poker player. He may just be an assistant, but I’m an intern and beneath him. A smile spreads across his face, and he laughs. “I like it.”
I shrug mainly in relief. “Someone has to keep him on his toes,” I say, hitching my thumb over my shoulder.
Jerome grabs a bunch of papers and shoves them into a soft leather briefcase before standing and running a hand down his bold purple tie. “Tell me about it,” he mumbles, and the words hold more than their meaning. “It’s a minute after. You should be good now.”
“Thanks. Have a good night.”
I give a light tap on the door and push in when I hear Ethan telling me to come in.
He doesn’t look up when I enter, hunched over a stack of papers with his dirty blond hair sticking up in all directions. His tie is askew, and he has tiny wrinkles forming on the bridge of his nose as he continues to scan over the documents in front of him. If a rough day had a look, this would be it.
“You’re late,” he says, putting his hand on the stack of papers and finally looking up. He has dark bags under his eyes, and I can only guess he barely slept last night. Then the thought of him stumbling drunk into my apartment with Marcia pops into my head, and any sympathy I feel flees.
“Only living up to my expectations.”
He looks like he has a snarky comment on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back. If he wasn’t hiding behind the suit and tie would he let his thoughts flow more freely.
“Have a seat.” He motions to the two black leather chairs across from him, and I slide into the one closest to me.
I let my bag fall to my lap and rest my hands on top of it.
“I assume you made it home
okay last night,” he says, and I curse in my head. I didn’t want to take his darn car service, but after a long day of doing coffee runs and standing in the same place filing contract after contract, my feet needed a break. It was the reason I was sitting at the bus stop in the first place. I was trying to muster the energy to make the trek home.
The offer was too good for me to pass up even if I hated the thought of letting him have something to hold over my head.
“I did. Thank you,” I say, purposely not mentioning how comfy the leather seats of the Bentley were, or how that car was a godsend. Though I do decide to compliment the driver. “Reg was nice.”
“He’s a good guy,” Ethan says without a moment of hesitation.
He leans back in his chair, and I wait for him to tell me why I’m here, but he doesn’t speak. My eyes lock with his, and it’s hard to deny their beauty. The dark gray is like the sky before a storm, full of mystery and suspense yet there’s an odd sense of calmness.
Warmth floods my body as his intense stare stays on me. I cross my legs trying to suppress the heat from flowing there. “So I’m here. What do you want to do to me?” I ask, and his eyes widen just as I realize how dirty that sounded. I mentally slap myself and try to back track, ignoring those damn eyes, but my gaze lands on his hands. Hands that look more than capable of bringing me to pure ecstasy. Stop it! I take a deep breath and try to find my bearings. “I mean, what do you want me to do for you?” He tugs at the tie around his neck, and I drown in my own embarrassment. What the hell is wrong with me? I take another deep breath and smack my hands down on my bag as if that is going to help me get through this horribly uncomfortable situation. “What I mean is,” I say slowly so I don’t have a chance to mess this up again. “I’m ready to work. Ready to prove to you I have what it takes and that I belong in this industry. Whatever it is, I’m your girl.”
He straightens in his seat and lets out a rush of air before bending down under his desk. Seconds later he surfaces holding a good-sized box. He drops it on his desk, causing a few papers to flutter and whatever in the box to clang together.
