Documentary

by Sand, A. J.

  When the musicians took a break, Kai signaled for Dylan to follow him, and she started filming again when they walked into a lounge on the upper-level of the recording studio. There were two navy-colored L shaped couches, a television and a kitchenette. Kai fell onto one of the couches and she sat a few cushions away. Who knew when Ashley would pop in?

  “I’m really nervous about that song. Gonna be playing it on the road.” Kai threw a smile at the camera before he dug into his pockets and retrieved a pen and a slip of paper no bigger than a receipt. He wrote something on it before pulling out several more pieces of paper that were already written on.

  “You like to try out new songs that aren’t on your album on the crowds in smaller venues before the arenas, like how comedians do at comedy clubs before going on tour,” she said. Even though she was filming, she kept moving her eyes frequently to look directly at him. The tousled dark hair, the square jaw with the just-coming-in facial hair and the way he licked his lips every few seconds, all of it was so incredibly sexy.

  “Yeah…someone’s bound to record it on their phone if they like it, and it’ll end up online.” Kai arranged the slips of paper like he was putting a shredded document back together. “It’s my own way of spreading my music to the people who can’t ordinarily afford tickets to the shows. Pisses my label off.” Instead of being concerned, Kai laughed pleasantly.

  “Why are you worried about this song so much?” she asked, lifting her eyes from the viewer on the camcorder door to watch what he was doing.

  “New muse…new direction,” he said absently, and he looked up so that their eyes met. “People aren’t always good with change, and I want to keep the fans I still have.” Dylan stiffened, remembering Nina’s revelation that he had started writing again since meeting her. She secretly thought it was sweet and it kind of made her weak in the knees.

  “So the feeling on stage is different when you sing a new song? How do you feel in general when you’re up there and all those eyes are on you, waiting and expecting you to let them escape everything for a few hours?”

  Kai rested his elbows on the top of the couch and nibbled on his bottom lip before he drew his forefinger across it. She tried not to zoom in on those lips, so she treated herself to the memory of kissing him. She still wanted to kiss him and was probably willing to make out right there on the couch.

  “It’s a lot of pressure. I feel that,” he said in an exhale. “It’s like the first time I was ever on stage in front of my fans, every time. It never gets old enough to where it feels routine. Being up there, a lot of people describe as a high, maybe even orgasmic.”

  Okay, please don’t take my mind farther into the depths, she thought, trying not to smile. Her gaze drifted to his lips again. Now those were orgasmic.

  “It’s not like that for me though. What I’m about to say will sound really cliché, but it’s the only way I can think to describe it. How often do you think about breathing?”

  Dylan furrowed her brow and bit her lip. “Not at all.”

  “Right. No one does because your body just does it. You don’t think about it until you’re in a situation where you can’t anymore, and then it becomes the only thing you want to do. It becomes the only thing you can think about. You become very aware in those moments that you literally can’t live without it.” Kai smiled and looked away from the camera. “That’s what being on stage is for me every time. It’s realizing that I need music in that way to survive.”

  “Wow. So in a way, you’re in thrall to it, ” she said.

  Kai nodded and kept smiling. “It’s my master, but it saved me in so many different ways, so I can deal with it.” Then he trained his gaze on the camcorder until she finally looked up at him. Kai scooted toward her until his face was out of frame but he didn’t stop looking at her.

  “Kai…you’re…” A shiver fired through her when his hand landed on her knee. Dylan instinctively turned her head toward the door, which she knew was still open. All she needed now was for Ashley to walk in, misinterpret the situation and report it back to Nina.

  “My turn,” he said, stroking her skin a little. Kai put his hand on top of hers on the camcorder, and pulled it out of her grip before turning it on her, leaning back to capture her face in the frame.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as her skin flushed, and she looked away from the camera.

  “When you look at this later, I guess I want you to see what I see.”

  “And what’s that?” she said, glancing quickly at him with a shy smile. Kai stood and swiveled the camera around to capture the front of her. He got under her skin so easily, she realized. Her body was already tingling, and there was a soft pulsing sensation between her thighs.

  “When me and Sable are going at it, no one else matters. But all I could think about was you standing out there,” he said. He was filming her, but his stare was nailed to her actual face. “And how amazing you are. Couldn’t wait to get back out there to you.”

  “Kai, give it back.” She made a halfhearted effort to regain control of the camcorder when she walked up to him.

  Kai closed the camcorder door and set the camera down on a countertop. Dylan jumped when he put his hand on her waist, and she whipped her head around to check out the doorway. She liked him touching her, she couldn’t pretend otherwise, but Ashley was a short trot away. Kai didn’t touch her lip but ran his thumb just below it. She squeezed her thighs together to smother the pulsing, which seemed to intensify with every second he was touching her.

  Dylan exhaled quietly when he pulled her closer. She put her hands on his shoulders, knowing that she shouldn’t, and knowing that it would be impossible to deny herself what she wanted in a few minutes if they kept this up.

  “Kai, the door,” she said when his lips first tapped hers, but her hands were already threading into his hair. So much for depending on Ashley’s sheer presence to make things easier. Dylan pushed her mouth against his, and she moaned loudly as he gripped her sides beneath her top. His hands were warm and soft.

  “I got it,” he whispered against her lips. But he definitely didn’t have it. He was pulling them back to the couch, and soon she was straddling his lap instead. Kai’s hand eased up the back of her tank top and grazed her skin lightly.

  “In what way do you have it? ‘Cause we’re still on the couch. Are you one of the telekinetic X-Men?” Dylan said, smirking when she pulled away. She slid off his lap and started to walk toward the door, but Kai stood, too. He spun into her path, grabbed her face and they kissed again. Her heart was pounding, and her ears were perked to any sounds of footsteps, but she liked being kissed dangerously.

  “We should’ve done this last night…” he said when they took a break.

  Last night. Just two words, but they splintered her heart like a lightning bolt on black sky. She was afraid that he would bring that up, and images of Tiffany in that t-shirt, which probably smelled just like him, snaked into her thoughts. A burst of anger accompanied the memory, but it was everything else, too, that seemed to bubble up with it, like a trickle turning into a tsunami. He had left her in L.A. without explanation and then didn’t call her. He had slept with another girl and she couldn’t be with him in that way. She was trying not to hold that against him, especially because there would be more girls during the tour, but she needed to break free of his spell. She would never be able to date him with the kind of life she had now. This stupid crush. If she couldn’t keep her physical distance, she would have to create the emotional kind.

  “You mean the last night when you went home with another girl?” She crossed her arms over her chest. Kai furrowed his brow in surprise and stepped back.

  “Don’t do that. You threw her at me after you told me to fuck off, basically. Remember that part?”

  “Whatever,” she said. “And I’m being stupid right now. God. So stupid. You and I both know we can’t do this, and on top of that, there are no consequences for you. You get to have your fun without the sa
crifice. Maybe that’s why this is so easy for you.” She wasn’t even sure if she was talking about work.

  Kai growled in frustration but there was a veil of hurt on his face. Before he could speak, someone knocked on the open door behind him. “Hey, man, we get that you’d rather spend time with her, but we need to wrap this up,” one of the musicians said when he poked his head in.

  “Are we done?” Kai asked and she knew the question was loaded beyond just filming. She sighed. They had to be done because she actually had something to lose along with lots to gain. With Nina Sanchez and Professor Jordan in her corner, she would be better off professionally. With Kai? Secrets, secret hookups, ignoring each other in public, and a very embarrassing firing in the end. How could it be worth it? Except for the way he looks at me sometimes, that smile and when we talk. He’s also sexy as hell, but what choice do I have?

  “Yeah, we’re done. We’re definitely done,” she said. She didn’t bother to watch him as he walked out the door.

  The House of Blues in Boston was standing room only, and that was a huge boost of confidence for everyone in Kai’s entourage. Dylan had filmed their joyous, anxious conversation backstage and all the chaos that preceded the show when they had arrived in four tour buses. Kai mostly depended on the in-house stage crews, but he still traveled with a stage manager, who dealt with the lighting and sound crew at the venues. Also, he brought along his “promo guy,” who handled merchandise, a guitar and drum tech (the only other person he trusted with Sable and Sage), roadies to load and unload the instruments and equipment, a stylist, a barber, a few other people whose exact jobs Dylan was having a hard time pinpointing—but who were all very busy backstage—and some other people who just seemed to be there because they had nothing else to do, though she hesitated to call them groupies. And there was Ashley, of course, whose responsibilities seemed to be “a catch-all” of whatever was left in addition to keeping things running smoothly, and she was constantly bellowing out about schedules and tardiness.

  Dylan looked out from behind the violet curtain as Kai’s actual band members, Heath, the bassist, and Xavier, the drummer, did a light warm up with the sound tech, even though they’d had a soundcheck earlier in the day. The crowd, washed in purple and blue lighting, emitted garbled chatter. It was mostly young women and their bored boyfriends. Heath’s eyes caught her motion and he waved to her. He was a cutie—tall, long dreads and dark eyes—and a really nice guy. She had spent most of the bus ride over chatting with him.

  She jumped when a hard tap landed on her shoulder. When she turned, Ashley was staring at her, looking peeved. “Have you seen Kai?” A clipboard was shoved into her armpit. “He’s on in, like, five minutes! I need to talk to the drivers about departure time for Philly and make sure the buses have what the musicians need and send all the assistants off to take care of things…” Her expectant eyes indicated that she intended for Dylan to go find him (hadn’t she just mentioned assistants?), a request Dylan wasn’t too happy to oblige.

  “I got it,” Dylan said flatly and watched Ashley slip away down some steps. She let out a sigh. Kai had barely spoken to her since the recording session. They had spent three more days in Lahaina, where he had participated in a lot of “R&R”—surfing, drinking, partying, and visiting with friends—before flying to Massachusetts for tonight’s performance. She had been trailing him for filming purposes, but she felt like a neglected puppy. The silence hurt more than she had anticipated. At least she had gotten to know Odette and Jamie better during those few days. They had spent the nights talking, drinking and laughing. Maybe the distance with Kai would put her in a place where it wouldn’t feel bad to dig into the truth behind his fight with Jeremy. Because she still couldn’t bring herself to unearth his secrets at all.

  Dylan weaved through the crowd and didn’t see him until she stepped outside through a side door, which she propped open to allow re-entry. She felt uneasy. The last time Kai did this, he had ended up in jail. Illuminated by the glow of a streetlight, his back was to her, and he was on the phone. She approached him slowly, shivering as much from the cold air as from her anxiety with interacting with him. He had given her as much thought as his shadow the past few days. In theory, she wanted friendship but would’ve settled for civility, except she didn’t want a friendship at all; she wanted more.

  “I don’t want to talk about the tour, E. I miss you,” he said as he paced a few steps. “Nothing is the same without you.”

  E. He’s talking to Erica. “Kai?” Dylan whispered and he turned with his eyebrows raised. “It’s time to go on.”

  He was surprised to see her, and without a smile, he nodded his head once. He stayed looking at her for a few seconds, then darted his gaze to the door and back to her, a signal that he wanted her to go. He seemed like he was looking right through her. Gulping down her hurt feelings, she turned to go without another word, determined not to react on the surface.

  “I miss you too, E. More than I can even say. Yeah. Yup. You too. Bye,” she heard him say and she clenched her teeth. It shouldn’t have bothered her, but it wasn’t like she could control the twinge in her stomach. Mind your business. It’s not your problem or your worry, she thought.

  Dylan hurried to the door when he ended his phone call, fearing they would run into each other there. She slipped back into the club and didn’t turn when the door clicked open and then shut behind her. Dylan made up her mind that she would have a good night and enjoy his music anyway. Kai was up on the stage in a few minutes, slinging his guitar around his neck. After the lowering of the lights on the crowd and hollering from some girls, Kai apologized, making a joke that it was all Sable’s fault, and that he’d had to wait for her to get ready.

  Dylan worked her way through the crowd, surreptitiously recording them with her iPhone and only taking a few glances up at Kai once he started playing. She had to admit that he was magnificent up there. He made light conversation and joked in between songs, and even drank a little. She totally understood why he had used the breathing analogy as she watched him play. She trembled as she wondered if he could somehow see her, or if he cared to. She wanted him to and she hated that. The crowd was swaying and singing along to Kai’s raspy voice and eating up all of his stage presence, especially when he sat on the edge with Sage and sang to a woman in the front. Her friends were hardly coy with their jealousy. Everyone was definitely entranced. I know the feeling, Dylan thought with a sigh.

  “Dylan Carroll!!” A slim arm slipped around her waist. “What the heck are you doing here?” Dylan gasped happily when she found the face and threw her arms around his neck. It was her classmate, Brian, from CSFC.

  “Hey! I’m working! Oh my gosh, I didn’t know you were from Boston!”

  “I’m not…but he is.” Brian motioned at the guy he was sitting with. “This is my boyfriend, Eddie. I’m just visiting. He’s a huge Kai White fan. And I think I am now, too.”

  I’m probably in the minority at the moment. Except deep down, she knew that wasn’t true. Eddie opened his coat and revealed one of the shirts she had seen the promo guy selling in the hallway outside the Music Hall.

  “He had on an Evernight one earlier. Saw that one, paid $40 for it and changed in the bathroom.” Brian shook his head in playful disgust. “You’re working here?” he asked. “At the House of Blues?”

  “No, with Kai,” she said, and Eddie’s mouth dropped open as they shook hands. His expression looked like the precursor to a catatonic state. Jesus. Women and men were apparently powerless to resist him.

  “So can we meet him or what?” Brian asked, nudging her with his elbow. Eddie got a hopeful gleam in his eye and Brian looked at her anxiously. She couldn’t remember if Kai planned to mingle with the audience after the show, though she expected that he would.

  “I’ll see what I can do. Let me go talk to the tour manager,” Dylan muttered quickly when she spotted Ashley. It was a polite way to dodge the question. She waved to Brian and Eddie before she slash
ed across the room. Ashley greeted her with a bounce of her eyebrows. She didn’t plan to ask her about a meet-and-greet session, but there was something else she wanted to know.

  “Ashley, how long have you been working with Kai? Were you here when Erica was?” Dylan asked.

  Ashley narrowed her eyes on her. “Slight overlap. She had already resigned and was just finishing up some last minute duties when I got here.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  Ashley’s eyebrows came together. “Just that she was close friends with Jeremy Bunyan and Kai. She had pictures of them both on her desk in L.A. I saw them in a box when I interviewed for the position.” Ashley sighed and pressed her lips together, making her boredom and irritation known. “Look, knowing other people’s business really isn’t in my job description.” She finally smiled but it lacked genuine amusement or kindness. “Unless, of course, it’s inappropriate.”

  Two Minutes – Chapter 12

  When the show ended, many in the audience, including Eddie, rushed Kai for pictures and autographs. Someone started a chant of “encore,” and Kai had gotten a standing ovation from the crowd. One girl had him sign her bare breast, while another unfurled her tongue on his cheek as her friend snapped a photo with an iPhone. He was groped and prodded and licked and kissed for several very long minutes. Dylan’s jealousy raged from the pit of her stomach, and she wanted to punch all of them. The scene played out wonderfully in her mind: diving over tables, hair pulling, and sitting on a pile of beat up girls victoriously. But she understood their enthusiasm.

  There had been some concern about who would turn up to his shows. Heath had told her that Jeremy’s fans, or people who had simply taken up his cause following the fight, had started coming to Kai’s performances and appearances to cause trouble. The band expected the same kind of antagonism on the tour.