by J. Saman
Lyric, on the other hand, was seated next to Ethan—okay, obviously I’m cool with that one now—and fucking Harry Evans. Clearly the bastard is a better player than I thought, or maybe more interested because I’m sure he had to work some magic to be at her table. I spent the rest of the evening watching her from afar, loving that every few minutes, her eyes would find mine. Occasionally she’d blush, like she was embarrassed I busted her or—and this might be wishful thinking on my part—like she was having dirty thoughts about me.
I sure as shit was about her.
I ate my dinner like a good little boy, barely tasting any of it when douchetard Harry felt the need to put his arm along the back of her chair. I had one more drink than I should have and by the time dinner was over it was time for the silent auction. The woman on my right kept trying to engage me in conversation about her son that she was convinced I knew—I didn’t—and by the time I got back to Lyric, she was gone.
At least, I couldn’t find her anywhere. Ethan was also gone, so I assume she ran out early with him. And yeah, that stung. I wish she had stayed. I wish I had gotten to gloat to her face that I won her Malibu house for a week. I wish she had let me dance with her again and take her home. Even if I knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I was going to sleep with her.
I have plans for Lyric Rose. Big plans. And her not saying goodbye to me last night was not part of that. But maybe there are no more goodbyes for us. If I have to move to California, I will. If I have to open a branch of my company there, I will. I will do whatever it takes for her. The moment my father is fully out of the woods and back home with whatever care he needs, I’m on the next plane out there for good. And in the interim, I plan to make it impossible for her to push me aside. Even if she might try to.
It’s with that thought that I nearly drop my phone on the ground when I see her name blowing up my screen. I smile, pausing on the sidewalk and shifting off to the side of a building since I’m only a half a block from the restaurant. “Good morning, beautiful,” I say with a newly discovered playful tone.
I have an itching feeling what this call is about and when she screams, “What have you done, you bastard?” in my ear, I know I’m right.
“Could you be a bit clearer on that, baby? I have done a lot of things to be called a bastard over.”
She growls, evidently not as amused as I am. “You bid and won the week at my house in Malibu.”
It’s not a question, but I feel the need to answer her all the same. “Of course, I did, crazy girl. It was for charity. And I couldn’t resist the opportunity at spending a week with you.”
I hear her scoff into the phone. “Clearly, you didn’t read the fine print all that well then. It’s for the week of Fourth of July. I won’t be there. So even though you were very generous, I’m sorry to tell you that you’ll be staying there without me.”
Leaning my head back against the stone edifice of the building, I prop my foot up and think about what she just said. July fourth is like two months from now, and if she’s starting a new album with twat-lick Harry and his band of assholes, then why wouldn’t she be in her house? And now that I think on it, isn’t she supposed to be on an airplane back to California at this very moment?
I check my watch and sure enough, it’s just about noon. She told me her flight left at ten a.m. And now that I listen closely, I can hear the sounds of the city—my city—in the background through the phone. Which means she lied when she said she was leaving town this morning. And if she was lying about that, and is not planning on being home the week of July fourth—which I believe, since it was part of the auction—then maybe she’s not recording that album in California after all? Or she could just be on vacation that week and I’m completely misreading this.
Ah, Lyric Rose. Now I have a lot more digging to do on you.
“That’s a shame, but honestly, it’s not why I bid on your house. I did it to get your attention.” She growls again, but she doesn’t hang up. “What are you doing today, baby? I’m having brunch with the guys, but after that I was planning on going out to see my father. Wanna come with me? I mean, since you’re clearly not on an airplane heading back to LA?”
She hisses out a slew of curses under her breath and now my smile is so big, my goddamn cheeks hurt with it. “I have to go.” And then she hangs up on me.
In this moment, I am seriously regretting that I did not get that guy Ethan’s number. I need more information and I need it now, so I do what everyone does when they’re trying to stalk someone. I google her. But instead of just her name, I google the name of her label. And sure as death and taxes, Google comes through for me.
It makes me question how I missed this. Actually, I’m insanely pissed at myself for this one because not only did her label take over another New York based label a few years ago, she just finished a midtown office and recording studio. Which means, my girl is staying in the city. My city. As in, here with me.
Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I start walking toward the restaurant. A freaking hop in my step and a stupid grin on my face, but I don’t care. I can’t remember the last time I was filled with this sort of triumphant joy. I open the door to the restaurant, look around for my friends, and catch Travers when he throws a hand up in the air to signal me.
The moment I approach them, my two best friends exchange glances. Knowing glances at that. I ignore them. There isn’t a goddam thing that can dampen my mood. Cane slides his phone across the smooth light wood table, his back pressed against the forest green padding of the booth. Except this. This can definitely dampen my mood. Because what the motherfuck?
I stare at the phone in disbelief.
“It’s bullshit,” I say automatically, though a part of me is not entirely sure. They were dancing together last night. He was sitting next to her at dinner. His arm was slung over her chair and he made a point to comment on seeing her on Monday. And she told me she was leaving for California today even though she wasn’t. And she hung up on me after yelling at me about bidding on her house. Shit.
“We figured,” Travers says, looking to Cane for backup on that. Cane stays silent and sometimes, I wish the guy wasn’t so freaking honest. Wish he gave more fucks than he typically does. “It’s at a distance and an angle. And these paparazzi guys are paid to make nothing look like something.”
Something indeed. Because Harry Evans has his arms around Lyric. My Lyric. Not only that, it looks like she’s smiling up at him as he stares lovingly into her eyes. My chest tightens and my fists clench and I’m so sick with this.
“Maybe you’re too late after all,” Cane says with a shrug, and in one minute, my clenched fist is going to end up breaking his nose.
The headline reads, “Love at the Rainbow Ball”. Not all that original if you ask me. Below that it says that the two have been working together for years and are about to start their third collaborative project at her new studio in New York.
Damn, everyone knows this shit but me.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say both to them and to myself, sliding the phone with the picture that just stole my appetite away. Because it doesn’t matter. Lyric is mine. She kissed me last night. Or at least she kissed me back. Right? I didn’t misread that. No way.
“Go find her,” Cane says, taking a sip of his Bloody Mary and looking around the room aimlessly. “Stalk her ass down and show up at her building.”
“Definitely,” Travers agrees. “You can’t let that prick Harry get her. She’s ours. Well, yours, I guess. But she always felt like ours.”
“I have no idea how to do that.”
Travers shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me and silence descends upon us as our waiter takes this bleak moment to interrupt us with specials. I order the first one he says. I don’t even know what it is. I also order myself a Bloody Mary, because I think I need one.
“My assistant is gay,” Cane says out of absolutely nowhere. Travers glances at me and then we both look to him
with equally puzzled expressions. “Ethan, right? Her BFF. He’s gay.”
“And?” I draw out, wondering what one has to do with the other.
“If you’re about to say that all gay people know each other, I’m going to punch you on behalf of gay people everywhere,” Travers says.
“It’s worth an ask.” I don’t know how to argue with that. Even if it’s somehow offensive and makes little sense. He shoots his PA a text anyway. Because that’s Cane for you. “Do you guys know what hypnobirthing is?”
Travers and I just stare at him. Cane takes a large pull of his Bloody Mary and when he sets it down, he leans forward, pressing his chest against the table and pinning us both with the most serious expression I’ve ever seen on him.
“Greta says she doesn’t want an epidural. She wants to do this child-birthing thing au natural and thinks that if we take a hypnobirthing class, she won’t feel the pain of pushing a watermelon out of her lemon because that’s how it looked in the YouTube videos. Those mothers were barely making a noise and looked all placid and shit. It’s a freaking racket.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, because I have no idea how to react to that. Birthing babies is way out of my jurisdiction.
“It’s not okay,” he protests, slapping his palm on the table just as my drink is delivered. Our waiter scurries away, a little afraid, I think. “Drugs were invented for a reason. So that smart, sane women can take them during the birth of their children. But there is no arguing with her. I don’t know if it’s hormones or she’s genuinely trying to bust my balls or what. But we’ve been taking this class and it’s all about deep breathing and finding a rainbow of colors or some crap. I don’t know, because I end up falling asleep during the meditation or hypnosis part or whatever. And then she gets angry at me for that because I’m supposed to be learning how to help guide her to find her relaxation color and giving touch massage. I feel like I’m going to fail at this child-birthing thing.”
“When did we become an episode of Sex and the City?” Travers asks, twisting back and forth between both of us, a little freaked out by the conversation at hand.
Honestly, I’m not too far off. Actually, I’m wondering how I got to this point in my life when I’m only twenty-six. We’re talking birthing babies and hypnobirthing at brunch when we should be talking about weekend pussy and which bar we hit up last night. But we’re not. I’m broken up about my ex possibly being with a famous rock star and my friend is talking about his wife’s vagina. Obscurely, I’ll give you that, but let’s call a spade a spade here.
“Yeah, I was sorta wondering the same thing,” I admit.
“Screw you both, this is serious,” Cane says, losing the last shred of his composure. Clearly, this is a real issue for him. This would almost be amusing if he weren’t so worked up about it. Women were like an endless bowl of peanut M&Ms to us once upon a time. Each one just a little different and once you had one, it was impossible not to pick up another and eat it. Now, Travers is the only one who regularly indulges in the variety life has to offer. But I don’t miss the variety. I miss the girl who makes all the other M&Ms look like Pez or Smarties or some other candy that you really liked as a kid, but once you grew up, realized weren’t all that great.
“You’re the support system, right?” I ask, bringing my mind back to Cane’s dilemma.
“I can’t handle my wife being in pain,” he says, and I can’t stop my resulting smile. “Stop looking at me like that, dude. I’m not playing around. We’re getting scarily close to go time and she’s talking about deep breathing instead of drugs.”
“Then you let her squeeze your hand until it breaks,” Travers says with a shrug that indicates the situation is not nearly as dire as Cane is making it out to be. “It’s childbirth, not open-heart surgery. Women have been doing it forever.”
Cane opens his mouth to protest when his phone dings on the table and the three of us jump forward simultaneously. “Ah,” he says with a smug grin, “will you look at that. Who’s the asshole now?” He leans back once more in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest. “My boy knows your boy, bitch.”
And then my phone rings. I suppress my hopeful thoughts in thinking it’s either Ethan or Lyric, but it’s not. It’s some odd California number. I look cautiously between my two friends and then I slide my finger across the phone to accept the call.
“You need to remember something, Jameson Woods,” the very familiar female voice barks into the phone before I can even say hello. I blink, my brain a few seconds behind and then a startled laugh passes my lips.
“Cassia?”
She sighs heavily like she doesn’t have the patience to deal with me. “I will gut you like a fish if you hurt her. I will cut you up piece by piece and I will start with your penis. My husband is LAPD and in case you miss the national news, those people do not care. You hear me, douchebag? They do. Not. Care.”
“Um. Okay?”
“No. It’s not okay. Because you have my high-school friend texting Ethan about Lyric.”
My eyebrows knit together, my head shaking in total bewilderment. “It’s like you’re speaking in encrypted Chinese to me, doll. I’m about ten paces behind.”
She does that heavy sigh thing again and if we weren’t in a crowded restaurant on Park Avenue waiting for a meal and drinks that cost more than some people’s weekly paychecks, I’d put this on speaker. As is it, both Cane and Travers are laughing. They think it’s freaking hysterical that Cassia is calling me. I do, too, if I’m being honest. “Not surprising. But here’s the thing, gumdrop, your friend’s assistant is a guy I went to high school with. Small world and all that crap. When Ethan moved to New York, I gave them each other’s numbers. You know, so they could connect and shit. Anyway, Howard just sent me a text that Cane sent him about getting Lyric’s address. I assume it’s because you saw the tabloids and I assume it’s because you’re uber pissed about it.”
“Cassia,” I say, my grin still intact. “I miss you, too. It’s been ages. I’m doing great. Glad to hear you are, too. Now that we have formalities out of the way…” She bites out a sarcastic laugh. “Yes, I’ve seen the tabloids, but that’s not why I want to find her. If you need my declaration of undying love for Lee while I’m at brunch with Cane and Travers, I’ll do it. I’m just that sort of man. But the truth is, she loves me back and you know it and Ethan knows it and Cane and Travers know it. It’s happening, Cass. So please, help an old college friend out and text me my girl’s address so we can just skip three steps ahead and avoid a lot of back and forth.”
Silence. She’s silent, but I know that means she’s thinking this through. I give her those few seconds as I sip on my unfortunately not-very-alcoholic drink and take a bite of my…steak and eggs with some sort of sauce? Yeah, I think that’s what this is. Anyway, I wait, and the guys wait, both quiet as they eat and watch me, waiting for the verdict.
“What sort of guy gets a crepe?” Travers asks Cane and Cane just shrugs as he shovels another bite of his delicate pastry into his mouth. This deliberation is taking too damn long.
“Tell Howard the Duck I’ll fire his ass if he doesn’t help out,” Cane yells, with a nodding grin like that will seal the deal. We get looks from the people on either side of us, but they back off quickly after Cane throws them a few menacing glances.
“God, I forgot how much Cane sucks,” Cass mutters into the phone and I laugh, because fucking Cass, right? She’s everywhere even when she’s not. “Fine. I’ll text you her New York address. But I meant what I said about my husband and the LAPD and the zero fucks that they give.”
“Got it,” I assure her.
“And you’re going to have to give this your all, Jameson. She’s been trying to talk herself out of you since she got your first text. Hell, for the last four years.”
“Noted,” I say even though that hurts. “Thanks for sugar coating it for me.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Okay. I appreciate the help.”
/>
“Just so you know, she cannot stand Harry Evans.”
The phone disconnects and five seconds later, it pings with a text that shows an upper west side address. I grin like the happy bastard I am, and as I eat my delicious brunch, life is good once again. “Eat up, boys,” I say. “Time to go and get my girl back. And I know just how to do it.”
Chapter 28
Lyric
* * *
“You do realize it looks like he’s snagging your ass, right?” Melody asks as I stare out the window of my apartment, half-afraid to go out since that stupid tabloid posted that stupid picture of Harry and me at the Rainbow Ball, where I was thanking him for his generous bid on my father’s autographed guitar. “And your dress is super sexy, so that only adds to this whole thing.”
“Yep,” I say, not even caring that my answers have been nothing but short with her. She’s undeterred and seems to be eating up the gossip with a spoon. I can practically hear her clicking on websites through the phone.
“I bet his PR people are loving this,” she says with a small laugh. “I mean, you’re the daughter of Gabriel Rose and you’re his producer. It’s all so publicly perfect for him. CEO and producer with an impeccably clean history. Harry was getting a lot of backlash after that DUI. He lost a few endorsements because of it. I’d be willing to bet this is all just one big set up.”
I nod. I’d thought of that. Harry plays like he’s interested, but I have to wonder if it’s genuine or not. He’s certainly turned up the charm since the arrest. “Do I make a comment?” I ask, chewing on the corner of my lip. “Deny it?”