by Roxy Reid
“The rest of it rhymes!”
I think half-naked Charlie scolding me for bad song structure is my new kink.
“When I tell my fans why, they’ll understand.”
She gasps, “Finn Ryan. You are not telling anyone how we wrote this song.”
I lunge for her, laughing, and we end up back in the chair in a tangle of limbs. I kiss her nipple, then start sucking in earnest, until her breath is a soft staccato rhythm that’s sinking into my skin, driving me mad.
I need to get inside her. I need to finish this song. I start to pull away, but she buries her hands in my hair, holding me in place, and who am I to argue?
I eagerly lose track of time. It’s disorienting when she suddenly pulls away, reaching for the notepad and pencil I tossed aside.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Writing your other verse,” she answers as she jots down some lines in the notebook.
“That’s cheating,” I peer over her shoulder at the notebook. Her verse actually rhymes. Show-off. “You never used to help me out.”
“I used to care more about your growth as a person. Now I just want your mouth,” Charlie tosses the notebook aside and falls on my lips. Her tongue’s in my mouth, tasting me like I’m the one driving her wild, and I’m holding her so tight I think I’m going to leave bruises on her hips.
I lose myself in her textures: the softness of her skin, the silk of her hair, the delicious dig of her nails into my neck.
She breaks away, putting a hand on my chest to stop me from following. My heart is racing under her hand. I don’t know why it’s going so fast—I’ve dated women, I’ve had sex, and hell, it’s been good sex. Except this is Charlie, and my heart always speeds up for her.
I reach out and put my palm over her heart, because suddenly I need to know if I’m alone in this.
But her heart is speeding just as fast as mine.
Charlie peels my hand off her heart, like she’s self-conscious.
She’s sitting half naked in my lap after practically devouring me, and the thing that makes her shy is me knowing that, at least right now, her heart speeds up for me.
“I guess I have a bridge to write,” I say, feeling the weight of the moment, because I know what happens after I write the bridge.
Slowly, Charlie nods. She starts to stand up, but everything in me revolts at the loss of contact, so I catch her and tug her back, so that she’s sitting with her back pressed to my chest. I wrap my arms around her, holding the notebook in front of us. “Ok. What should the bridge be about?”
“How quickly it gets awkward once you’re the only one who’s shirtless,” Charlie says, so I pull my t-shirt off and slip it over Charlie’s head.
She makes a little sound of contentment and cuddles into me, and that … that does something to me. Her in my shirt. Treating me like I’m her safe-space.
“I’m thinking we do a key change on the bridge, but keep the basic melody the same,” I say. “Slow down the guitar rhythm.”
“Don’t slow it down too much. It’ll kill the momentum.”
“We can do double time on the percussion.” It’s not a particularly original idea, but it’s a classic for a reason.
“So now you just need an idea for your lyrics.”
“You already came up with an idea,” I say.
I can practically feel Charlie’s eye-roll. She mumbles, “A real idea.”
I tuck my chin against her shoulder and sing, slowly working my way through the song, “Did I say too much/ Did I leave us exposed/ Cause I put it all out there but your smile says no/ So if I’m going too fast/ Honey take my shirt/ Write this fucked up song with me/ Darling just say the word.”
Charlie stills against me, and I wonder if she hates it. But all she says is, “You’ll need more lyrics for how long the bridge is.”
“I’ll just riff on the last line. Darling, just say the word/ Say the word/ Oh baby come on, it’s half a rhyme without you/ baby give me your word,” I sing.
Charlie turns around to stare at me.
“I mean, it’s not set yet, obviously,” I say, defensively. “I can do better.”
Charlie slugs me in the arm, “Finn. You just wrote a song in what, an hour? Two? And it doesn’t suck. You’re a good songwriter. Why did you ever think you needed Zane?”
Because it wasn’t this easy without you, I think. But I don’t say that. I just smile.
It feels almost too good to be true. After months of doubt and fear and, frankly, hating that part of me that couldn’t fucking write, I finally wrote a song.
Well, Charlie and her kisses wrote a song. I just tried to keep up.
Which brings me back to our game. And now I’m feeling straight up euphoric. I wrote a song, and now I get to kiss Charlie where she needs it most.
I grin, and her eyes widen. Like she can tell some of what I’m thinking.
“Get on the bed,” I say.
“You said if we do this on the bed neither of us are stopping.”
“I did say that, yes.”
Charlie stands, and backs toward the bed.
“Jeans off,” I say, and she stumbles a little, catching herself on the bed.
“You want them off, you take them off,” Charlie says.
So I do.
I strip her jeans off, enjoying her sigh when I run my fingers underneath the lace trim on her cute polka dotted panties. I press her into the bed, shoving my t-shirt up above her breasts. I cup the breast I’ve neglected and lower my mouth.
“Um. Not to critique. But there are other places you could kiss. And you only have one kiss left.”
“Nope. Two,” I say, grinning at her confusion. “I finished before dawn.”
Charlie starts laughing, falling back into the pillows, “Oh you absolute fucker.”
I like her laughing, but right now I want her gasping, so I nip at her breast and get my wish. I kiss and bite and lick until she’s arching and moaning and calling my name, all thoughts of games and counting kisses gone from her head.
At least I hope they’re gone from her head, because I can’t wait anymore.
I ease down her body and kiss her through her underwear.
“More,” Charlie moans.
So I give her more. I slip her panties off, grip her soft, wonderful ass, and kiss her clit.
And Charlie pretty much shoots through the roof.
So I stay, working her until her hips are bucking and she’s making inarticulate noises. When I don’t think she can take anymore, I slide two fingers inside her, curling them in a beckoning motion, until I find a place that takes her from hot to wild.
“Finn—Finn, I can’t—I’m going to come, it’s too much, I can’t—” she breaks off with a moan that’s somewhere between despair and hope.
This is where a gentle lover would soothe her. Slow his pace. Reassure her.
But I am not a gentle lover. I’m selfish as fuck, and it’s been too long since I watched Charlie De Luca cum. So I thrust my fingers harder, nip her clit, hold her down with my other arm so she has no choice but to take everything I give her.
It’s a matter of seconds before she breaks. First in sharp jerks, then rolling waves, seizing around my fingers in a way that makes me desperate to bury myself in her and fuck her blind. Her cries are the best music this room has heard all night.
I kiss Charlie’s hip gently as she finishes the last of the aftershocks, and crawl up the bed to lie next to her.
“That was … wow,” Charlie lifts a shaky hand to pull the hair back from her face. “You got better at that. A lot better. Please send a nice thank you note to the woman who taught you how to do that, because I sure didn’t.”
“I wasn’t that bad.”
“Well, you’re that good now,” Charlie looks over at me with the blissful smirk of the newly-orgasmed.
I like that look on her. I like that look a lot.
I reach over to tuck her hair behind her ears, and then remember my hand is st
icky from making her cum.
“What?” Charlie asks, catching my hesitation.
“Want to clean this off for me?” I tease, mostly to see her blush. I love Charlie’s blushes. I love them even better in bed.
But Charlie doesn’t blush. Instead, she gives me a sly look. Then she puts my fingers in her mouth and sucks, and I feel my world tilt on its axis.
I’m not the only one who’s changed in ten years.
And suddenly I’m desperate to know all the other ways she’s changed and all the ways she hasn’t changed at all.
“Charlie, I need to be inside you,” I say, my voice raspy. “I know that’s not part of the game, so if you don’t want that—” I’ll fucking die, “—it’s absolutely fine.”
Charlie rolls away from me, and my heart sinks as she stands and crosses the room.
But she’s just pulling out a condom from the top left pocket of my suitcase.
I blink, “How …”
“You haven’t changed that much,” Charlie says.
And then she’s back in bed with me, and she’s sliding the condom on me, and I’m pinning her down and rocking into her, loving her little cries, and the way she clutches at me, and the way she arches and rolls her head away when I hit a sensitive spot.
God, she’s beautiful. I know there are other women in the world. I know that technically. But in this moment my world has narrowed to Charlie. The heat and sounds and scent of her. The way her eyes lock with mine just before she cums again. The rough holy pleasure of it when I do too.
I collapse on top of her. I know I should move. I’m too heavy for her.
But Charlie trails her hand idly through my hair, across my neck. I’m worried if I move she’ll realize what she’s doing and stop. And it feels so damn good. I could fall asleep like this.
“You’re about to fall asleep, aren’t you?” she asks, and there’s amusement in her voice.
“If I did, you’d have to stay,” I say, and the hand running over me stills.
“Do you want me to stay?” Charlie asks cautiously.
I hesitate. I know I should come up with a joke. Make it sound like it doesn’t matter one way or another. That’s how it is between us now. We don’t do simple sincerity. We don’t leave our hearts wide open like that.
Instead I say, “Yes. I want you to stay.”
I know Charlie’s smiling, because I can feel her whole body relaxing. “Ok,” she says. Her hand starts trailing through my hair again, like I’m hers to touch. And after months of fear and stress, I finally relax too.
10
Charlie
I wake up in soft sheets that smell like Finn. The sun is warm on my cheek, and there’s the soft picking of a guitar coming from the far side of the room, near the window. My eyelashes lift just enough to see Finn sitting in a pool of sunlight, clad only in his boxers, curled around his guitar. He’s singing softly under his breath. At first, I assume he’s playing someone else’s song, because it doesn’t sound anything like the stuff he sings from the stage at night. It’s soft and delicate, and the lyrics are simple, unvarnished, about a man waiting for dawn with the woman he loves. About being so incredibly happy, but also knowing it’s doomed to end.
Finn stops abruptly, shakes his head then tries that last part again with different lyrics. Then with a bit more freedom in the melody. That’s when I realize Finn’s writing a song in front of me.
I close my eyes, and let the music sink into my skin. I feel like an animal storing warmth for the cold winter ahead. I don’t know if it’s the song or the moment, but my chest feels tight. If I was designing my heaven? It would be something like this. A little sanctuary filled with soft, clean morning light and the man I love.
Not that I love Finn. Not anymore. Not ever again. Sure, he’s not the villain I made him out to be after the break-up. He was an ass, but he was also a kid, just like I was.
And yes, we still have chemistry.
So. Much. Chemistry.
But that’s not enough. When it comes down to it, I’m not the kind of woman who lets a man break her heart twice.
So I keep my eyes closed and try to memorize everything about this room - the rumpled sheets, the soft carpet, the blue of the sky.
And the man in the corner. A scruffy, tattooed man whose hands create miracles. A man who looks out for the people around him but has trouble believing in himself. A man who can walk on stage in front of thousands of people without a hint of fear, but who needs me to hold his hand while he writes a song alone in his room.
Although maybe he doesn’t need me anymore. He seems to be doing fine now. More than fine. You’d never know that less than 24 hours ago he had no hope of finishing his album and was begging his personal nemesis for help.
I shift in bed, as if I can roll away from that thought. Because that’s my story, right there. If I’m going to do the job False Prophet hired me to do, that’s what I tell everyone. I can see the headline now. The Secret Story of How Finn Ryan’s New Album Almost Didn’t Happen. Add in the part about Finn hiring his ex-girlfriend in a desperate attempt to write again, an ex-girlfriend who was an undercover journalist, and the story’s almost worth the $20,000 they’re paying me for it.
My stomach sinks as I realize I’ve got the recordings of him trying to write his first song in years on my phone. That’s the kind of content that goes viral.
I physically tense against the idea. I can’t do this to Finn. I can’t.
But can I really give up money that could literally change my life and give me a chance to do my dream project, just because of one night with an ex-boyfriend? An ex with a history of abandoning me to follow his own dreams? An ex who hasn’t said anything about dating, or the future, or hell, even staying friends after the tour is over?
If he hadn’t been creatively blocked, I probably would have never seen him again. He needed me, and I needed him, and at the end of this he’ll have an album and I’ll have $20,000. It should feel like a fair trade, but instead, it just feels ugly.
Finn stops playing, and there’s muffled footsteps, followed by the bed shifting as he sits down next to me.
“Hey,” he says softly, smoothing out my frown with his thumb. “Shh. It’s alright. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you. I’ve got you, Charlie.”
I blink my eyes open, to see his face above me, concerned.
“Hey, she’s awake,” Finn’s face clears, and he drops a kiss on my forehead. “You’ve been having bad dreams for the past three hours.”
“And you just … what? Hung out for three hours writing a love song and watching over me while I slept?”
Finn laughs, “Sure. Let’s go with that. I definitely didn’t leave to go get you donuts and coffee from that place the bellhop was raving about yesterday.”
“Oh you beautiful, beautiful man,” I take his face and give him a quick kiss, before rolling away to find my clothes and get some donuts.
He hasn’t said anything about actually caring about me. But he asked me to stay and brought me donuts. And for right now, that’s all the encouragement I need to shove False Prophet to the back of my mind.
A week later I’m crouching at the side of the stage while Finn tears through a guitar solo that has the crowd roaring. It’s our second concert in Chicago. Tomorrow we fly to San Francisco. It hasn’t been that long since I joined the tour, but I feel like I’m part of the team now. Mariana and I exercise together in the morning, speed-walking around the city like a couple of sprightly grandmas, before rewarding ourselves with donuts. Karmine gives me lectures about how I should be taking better care of my clothes. Owen shows me photos of his cat, and gives me a daily play by play of which of his cat’s kittens have been adopted so far. I know I’ve made it into his good graces when he tells me I could have one if I wanted.
I even heard Bridget tell a joke the other day. I mean, she didn’t tell it to me. But she said it in my presence, so I think we’re getting closer.
Actually, I’m getting
closer to everyone. Now that I know what Finn’s secret is, I don’t have to dig for a story anymore. I can just get to know people.
I forgot how much fun it is to have coworkers. Not clients. Coworkers.
And then after rehearsal, Finn and I write songs. Sometimes we roam the city so I can take photos, and he can get fresh ideas. Other times we hole up in his room, him working things out on his guitar, me editing photos. Neither one of us need the Study Game anymore, but somehow we always end up in his bed. Even when one of us works until four a.m., and we’re too tired to have sex, I still stay the night.
He doesn’t ask me to stay. He just leaves the t-shirt of his I’ve been sleeping in on my side of the bed, neatly folded. At first I thought it was just the hotel maids tidying up the room, but I caught him carefully putting it out a few days ago.
Thinking of it makes something in my chest flutter.
If I’m telling the truth, I haven’t been this happy in a really, really long time. And I know it won’t last. I’ve been ducking Shaun’s calls, but when the tour ends, I’ll need to give him a story, or give up half a year’s salary and burn a bridge with one of my most reliable clients. And even if I do decide not to betray Finn, how much longer would that even buy me, once Finn’s finished the album, and I’m not shooting for him? We might have grown up on the same block, but we live in fundamentally different worlds, and it’s only a matter of time before Finn remembers that. Hell, before I remember that.
Whatever. That’s what denial is for.
I narrow my focus to what’s on the other side of my lens and let every other worry fall away.
It’s exhilarating, to lose myself in the moment. To capture Owen’s quiet smile when he finishes a solo, Mariana’s blur of motion as she hits the cymbal. Not to mention all the fans at the foot of the stage, so happy to be alive and here and singing along to these songs.
Of course, the best part is shooting Finn. I’m getting pretty good at it too. I’m not just getting the decent shots any good photographer could get. I’m getting the shots that show him. Bold and commanding on the stage, but intensely introspective when he’s writing. Teasing his bandmates, and giving directions to tourists who have no idea who he is. Fighting with me for the pure pleasure of it. That look on his face right before he shoves the camera out of my hands and kisses me silly.
