I don’t need any perks, thank you very much, she’d said.
What perks? I’m thinking about keeping you from getting mugged on the subway platform at five in the fucking morning, he’d retorted.
Shawn, she said, in a tone that made it clear her answer was final. I think I’ve got this.
She would never take anything material, but treated every one of his phone calls like a gift as though she never knew whether he would come back to her and was a little surprised when he did. It used to be that he was surprised too. He had access to some the most beautiful women out there and yet he was drawn over and over again to this cute, annoyingly independent hippie chick. He’d asked for Riley’s articles because he wanted to know more about her but information about her mother would probably tell him more than every single thing she wrote combined.
“I need a computer,” he said, almost to himself.
“Do you know what kind you want? We could run over and get one,” Dylan suggested.
Shawn considered for a moment. The chances that he could make his way unmolested through an electronics store, especially on the day of his show were slim to none. “If you went on your own how long will it take you to pick me out a high-end laptop?”
“All the bells and whistles?”
“Everything,” Shawn confirmed. “High-speed, lots of memory. The whole nine.”
“Mac or PC?”
“Whatever you think is best, man.”
“I can head over to a place about four miles from here. Take me about an hour and a-half tops to bring you something back.”
“Cool. And Dylan?”
“Yes sir?”
“I keep telling you, call me Shawn.”
Dylan smiled, flipping his long, blonde hair out of his eyes. “Yes sir. I mean, Shawn.”
“Pick yourself up something as well.”
Dylan looked incredulous. “You mean . . .”
“A computer. Yeah. In college you can always use a new computer, right?”
“Yeah! Thank you so much.”
“Don’t get happy. Just get back here before I have to leave for the show,” Shawn said reaching for his phone. “I’ll get B to hook you up with enough cash. And don’t count it till you’re at the register. Wouldn’t want you getting robbed.”
Kicking back and emptying his mind before the show at the Staples Center was about all he was supposed to be doing right now, but the binder full of Riley’s work lay open next to him. So he’d reached for it and began reading. It was just as he’d suspected. She wrote about politics and politicians, but her favorite theme was hypocrisy in all its forms. People who claimed to be one thing and were exposed as another. People who gained trust and then threw it away.
Riley had written all this. He knew she was smart and had imagined that she came from the kind of family that valued that kind of thing, but a mother who was known internationally as a thinker and writer was way more than he would have guessed at.
And now, the confirmation was in his hands that Riley herself pondered the world a lot more than he ever had. This pretty much sealed it. She was from the other Black America; the one he had glimpsed when he was growing up in DC but had never been a part of. The one that was populated by what seemed like mythical creatures straight out of the Cosby Show.
Shawn set the binder aside and lay back on the bed, strangely anxious and jumpy. It made sense now that there was someone else in her life.
Without ever having seen the dude, Shawn was sure he could describe him right down to the shoes on his feet. He would be a professional of some kind – a doctor, stockbroker or lawyer. Around the end of the year, he would show his commitment by taking Riley home with him for Thanksgiving to meet the family. He was the kind of brother who had a five-year plan for his life, because there had never been a time when he had to consider that he might not live that long.
No matter how many ways Shawn turned it over and over in his mind, the fact that she was in this little arrangement with him for this long didn’t make sense. Even though most women found him at least somewhat attractive, for the ones who were lawyers, bankers and professionals, he was their personal little adventure, like going on ghetto safari.
They got a thrill from visiting his world but most of them didn’t want to live there – they were always very clear about that unless they were gold-diggers. And Riley was no gold-digger. So maybe all he was to her was a nine-month adventure before she settled into the life she was meant to have.
A series of rhythmic knocks on the door to the suite startled him into a sitting position. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, annoyed. One of these days, he would have to tell B that he wasn’t a seventeen-year-old knucklehead anymore, and didn’t need someone to sit around and watch him, just to make sure he made it to his own concert.
The door swung open and it took him a few seconds to process the fact that it wasn’t Brendan but Riley standing there. There was no time to compose his features or pretend he was anything other than overjoyed to see her. She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Surprise,” she said, so quietly it was practically a whisper. “We got an earlier flight.”
Shawn lifted her off her feet and she wrapped her legs about his hips as he backed into the room. He was about to kick the door shut when he noticed someone standing a few feet away in the corridor, surveying them with open curiosity and a hint of something resembling disapproval. Her burnt sienna hair was almost shoulder-length and she had large liquid eyes, full lips and legs for days swathed in close-fitting dark jeans. Her hazel eyes met Shawn’s and she gave him a thin smile. Riley unwrapped herself from him and turned.
“Shawn, this is Tracy,” she said.
“Hey Tracy,” he held out a hand which she stepped forward to take it, barely holding his fingers before dropping them again.
“Thanks for the upgrade,” she said.
“Oh. Yeah. No problem.”
Shawn had instructed the hotel to automatically bump their booking to a suite on the same floor as his when they checked in.
“That was sweet, thank you,” Riley echoed.
“Just want you to be comfortable,” he said, turning his attention to her again.
Riley was wearing black tights and a gray turtleneck, both garments more snug on her frame than he was accustomed to seeing. Shawn suspected that Tracy had had a hand in choosing the outfit. The only thing Riley would be concerned about on a six-hour plane ride was comfort but if Tracy’s meticulously composed exterior was any indication, she would be preoccupied with looking good and not having a traveling partner who might cramp her style.
“So I’m not staying in here with you?” she asked, her voice low.
Shawn looked at her. “You better.”
Almost involuntarily, his eyes scanned Riley from head to toe once again. As always the pull toward her was overwhelming and this time all the more surprising since he’d just looked at Tracy and felt nothing like that, despite her obvious assets. Riley took one step closer to him so that they were less than a hair apart and her chest almost pressed against his.
“So, I just wanted to meet you and say thank you in person,” Tracy said from the hallway. “But I’ll leave you guys to it and go get rested up for later. If I don’t see you, Shawn, have a great show.”
She had a very slight Southern accent that he recognized as Buckhead bourgeois. She gave Riley a small wave before turning to head down the corridor.
This time Shawn did kick the door shut, and turned his full attention to his girl.
“Go ahead and say it,” she coaxed. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s perfectly fine.”
“What?”
“Tracy. I know she’s beautiful. Lord knows, I’ve heard it from a million guys.”
Shawn made a scoffing noise. “I didn’t notice.”
“You’re a lousy liar, Shawn Gardner,” she said.
“Okay, so I noticed. But I didn’t care.”
&nbs
p; “Hey,” she said her voice suddenly more alert as she pulled away. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?” Shawn said, pulling her back toward him.
“This.” Riley twisted out of his arms once again and reached down to the bed.
When Shawn looked around she was holding the binder Dylan had put together for him. Busted. It was open, and she must have caught sight of her own photo and byline.
“That’s . . . something I had my intern put together,” he admitted.
Riley sat on the bed and flipped through the pages as Shawn watched her, tensely awaiting her reaction. She stopped after a moment, her head down, and was so still that Shawn crouched next to her.
“I was just trying to . . .” He tipped her chin up and completely lost his train of thought when he saw her face.
“God, I’d forgotten about some of these,” she said almost to herself.
He expected suspicion, or if she misinterpreted what he was trying to do, maybe even anger. Instead, she drew in her lower lip and for a second he thought there might actually be tears pooled in her eyes.
“You wanted to read all my stuff?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I just thought that . . .”
But he didn’t get to finish, because she shut him up with a kiss.
g
Riley was still sleeping when he had to drag himself out of bed to head over to the arena. Lying on her side, head tilted back, she was snoring softly. Shawn forced himself to walk away from her and hit the shower. This was the first time he could remember leaving her in bed rather than the other way around. He wouldn’t mind this arrangement if he could be sure she would always be there when he got back.
He stopped himself mid-thought and got ready as quickly as he could. If he wanted the show to go well, he would have to clear his mind, even of thoughts of her. The Staples Center was the one of his biggest venues and there were lots of cues that he had to remember for the show to go off without a hitch.
He would spend the next two hours on sound check and a final rehearsal and only get a breather when his opening act was on. If you could call it a breather. In reality, that was when his adrenaline began to flow, as he listened to the music and the crowd and saw the flashing lights.
Brendan was in the lobby when he got downstairs, impatiently flipping through a magazine.
“You’re late, man,” he said.
“Then why we standing here for?” Shawn said good-naturedly. “Let’s roll, dawg.”
“So I guess Riley made it in alright?” Brendan asked as they pulled away from the hotel. “You got your fix?”
“Shut up, man.”
“You want me to send a car for her or what?”
“Yeah. But make sure you call her first. Oh, and she’s got a friend with her too.”
“Oh yeah?” Brendan looked interested now.
“Exactly your type.”
“Sounding better every second. What’s her name?”
“Tracy. A little stuck up, but you like that shit.”
Brendan laughed. “Riley ain’t exactly from ‘round the way either, Shawn.”
Shawn nodded. “True, but wherever she’s from, ain’t another like her.”
“Whoa,” Brendan said. “Ain’t another like . . ? This is starting to sound like something more than a piece of New York booty to me.”
“Watch your mouth, man.”
Brendan looked at him, serious now. “Shawn, you’re the one who told me she’s got somebody. I mean, this is just a little something-something. Right?”
“I don’t know,” he said, almost to himself. “I don’t know what it is.”
g
That the show was sold out was no surprise but Riley hadn’t been prepared for the all-out exuberance of the crowd. Teenagers were there of course, but also men and women that looked to be in their late-forties, all of them practically vibrating with excitement. Shawn had offered her and Tracy a spot backstage, but she wanted to experience it the way everyone else did. A car had picked them up at the hotel as soon as they arrived at the arena they were ushered to seats that gave them an enviable view of center stage. Riley hadn’t heard from Shawn since he left her asleep in his suite that afternoon and hadn’t expected to. He’d once told her that when he was getting ready for a show, he had to get into what he called ‘The Zone’, emptying his mind completely of everything other than the music and what he had to do.
Like a boxer? she’d asked, teasing him.
And he grinned at her for just a flash then grew serious.
Yeah, he said, as though he hadn’t thought about it before. Exactly like a boxer.
The stage was much larger than she expected, with complicated scaffolding and lighting set up on either side. She’d been to concerts before of course, but never with seats this good. From this vantage point, the scale and scope of what went into the production was difficult to ignore. When she looked over her shoulder, Riley was staggered by the sight of the full house. Some people were so far away from the stage, they were practically specks in the distance. And yet they still wanted to be here to see Shawn perform live.
“This is insane,” Tracy said, as though she’d read her mind.
A live band played as even more people came streaming in, and gradually the tempo grew more and more urgent. Then unexpectedly and abruptly, it stopped altogether and the stage went completely black. Lights flashed and popped onstage and overhead, creating the illusion of fireworks, and the audience screamed, beginning a chant for K Smooth. When the music began again, this time it with a deep bass beat, followed by the opening chords of a song that Riley was not familiar with. Two young men came out, introduced by a disembodied voice as “Glock, the hottest new artists on the hop-hop scene.”
Their lyrics were rough and rage-filled, raw and mesmerizing. Even Tracy, who didn’t like just about any rap music, was moving to the beat. They looked so young; too young to be this angry, or this talented. Soon they were both sweating, and beginning to sound slightly hoarse, but by the time they were done, the crowd had been whipped into the appropriate state of frenzy and was even more insistent in their demand for K Smooth.
Pyrotechnics were followed by a sudden silence as the stage went completely dark once again. The crowd seemed to hold their collective breaths. This time it was a beat everyone in the audience knew and they screamed in recognition. And then as if out of nowhere, there was Shawn.
He strode onstage, his head defiantly cocked to one side and chin pointing in the direction of the audience. He stood there for a moment, soaking in their adulation before raising the mike to his lips. Just that gesture was enough to trigger the screams and whistles once again. For a moment, he turned away from the audience and spoke to his sound crew. There was silence, and when he faced them once again, he was grinning from ear to ear. The women in the audience shrieked their appreciation as a close-up of his face was projected at them from the JumboTron.
“You ready to do this?” he said, and the music began again.
He swayed to the music, one hand holding the waistband of his jeans. They were baggy but not ridiculously so; they sagged in the seat and puddled about his ankles. With the jeans, he wore a plain red shirt with a dark knit cap pulled down over his head, so low it almost covered his eyebrows. He paced the stage, swaying back and forth as he rhymed, face hard and focused, voice strong and deep. As he disappeared into the music, he gestured with one hand, the other gripping the microphone.
Shawn often closed his eyes, and threw his head back, as though he was alone. She could see it; what he’d talked about – he was definitely in a Zone and the crowd loved it. They didn’t allow him to get through a single rhyme without joining in. He paced the breadth of the stage with what seemed like impossible stamina, his voice always strong, always insistent.
Twenty minutes in and he was perspiring heavily, finally removing his shirt and hat, much to the delight of the women in the crowd. When he turned away for a moment, the camera zeroed
in on his back muscles, capitalizing on the audience response, and Riley spotted the deep red welt, a scratch across his back. She’d made the mark just this afternoon. Seeing it magnified up there on the enormous monitor caused an unfamiliar and profound wave of possessiveness to course through her.
About three songs in, he spotted her in the front row and Riley noted a change in his eyes and around his mouth that would have been barely perceptible to anyone else, like the beginnings of a smile that he didn’t allow himself to complete.
He walked across the stage until he was standing just above her and as he rapped, not missing a beat; he stared directly into her eyes. Then he moved to the other end of the stage, belonging to everyone else once again.
When he was done, he smashed the mike onstage in his signature K Smooth move, and was gone. The audience kept cheering long after he was gone. By the time the music stopped, Riley had to remind herself to breathe. He was more than a good performer, he was a powerhouse. She didn’t have time to turn to Tracy for her reaction because as soon as the last chord was struck, an usher had come to lead them backstage, bypassing the crowds and public exits. It seemed like only minutes had gone by since they’d gotten there, but Riley saw now that it had been more than two and a half hours.
“How’d you like the show?”
Brendan was walking toward them and to his credit he only missed half a step when he caught sight of Tracy.
“Brendan, Tracy,” Riley said, quickly getting the introduction out of the way.
As they exchanged pleasantries, she looked behind him toward the dressing rooms where dancers were coming down from the high of being onstage, talking and laughing among themselves.
“The reception’s just around the corner,” Brendan was saying. “He’ll meet us there.”
“Oh. Okay. Let’s go then,” Riley said.
Brendan laughed at her obvious eagerness. “It’ll take him a little while to get ready, but yeah, let’s head on over.”
At least a hundred people were at the reception, and it was clear to Riley from the moment they walked in that it would be work for Shawn, just as surely as attending a press conference was work for her. Brendan set them up with drinks and then worked the room, greeting executives, fans and other celebrities.
Commitment Page 6