Very quickly, in one region of Oliver’s mind, this scene played out differently. It was like he was twenty-one again and itching to “express himself” onto anyone who was dumb enough to say the wrong thing. He scanned Trey’s build and muscle mass and decided that while the guy could dance, he probably couldn’t fight. Not that Oliver’s brand of fighting required any knowledge of anything; he pretty much just threw fists. When you throw fists, the guy who punches first has the advantage. Then follow it up until the other guy starts crying.
At the same time, he remembered where he was, and what he didn’t have today that he had when he was twenty-one.
Everything.
Well, he had a thing or two. But not much.
Everyone else in the room was quiet, barely breathing, expecting him to snap back. But then the door behind him creaked open and Haley popped her head in.
“Is Mia here?” she asked breathlessly. “Have any of you seen Mia?”
“What?” Oliver said, thankful for the interruption.
“Um, I lost her,” Haley said. “Anyway. Excuse me.”
He followed her out of the room and shut the door behind him, and no further words were exchanged, no fists flew, and Trey’s face remained intact.
That showed excellent control on Oliver’s part. For what it was worth.
Chapter 22
Haley once “lost” a student before. It was her first time as a mentor so it wasn’t fun, but as a volunteer who had seen some artist meltdowns, she didn’t think it was that big a deal. The hotel wasn’t so huge, and there were enough people everywhere that it wasn’t easy to disappear. She eventually found twelve-year-old Annie in the second floor bathroom with a bad case of cramps.
She had a feeling that this was not the same thing afflicting Mia. Haley had last seen her at breakfast, hunched over her phone, reading something. She asked what it was, and Mia said, “Some blog about yesterday. I was ‘forgettable.’”
“No one’s blogging about the festival,” Haley said. “Not anymore at least. Victoria found the volunteer doing it and kicked her out.”
“Well, someone’s still at it!”
“This person couldn’t have been one of us. How are you sure she’s talking about you?”
Apparently the blogger didn’t name her but mentioned “that emo Alanis wannabe” and yeah, no one else fit that description. Haley told her to put the phone down and get something to eat.
But then she wasn’t at practice and didn’t seem to want to pick up any of Haley’s calls—or Victoria’s—either.
Now, Mia was sensitive and all, but she wasn’t likely to do anything drastic, would she?
“You checked her room?” Oliver was asking, falling into step beside her as they went down the hall to the other practice rooms.
“Yeah,” Haley said. “We had housekeeping clean there first, no sign of her.”
“Is she maybe practicing with someone else?”
Haley knocked and peeked into one of the rooms, no luck. “With someone else here? I doubt it. She barely talks to me, and I haven’t really seen her talk to anyone. Don’t you have practice of your own?”
He shook his head. “I needed to get some air.”
Oliver looked a little flushed to her, and not in a good way. “Everything all right?”
“One thing at a time.”
Haley’s phone started ringing. It was Victoria.
“I found your girl.” She sounded like she was yelling into the phone. “You’ll have to come out to the street to get her because I’m tied up somewhere else.”
For a second Haley wasn’t sure what Victoria even meant, but she started moving in that direction, nodding silently at Oliver to follow, until it dawned on her—Mia was outside. On the street. Fighting with some Trey Girls.
She wasn’t surprised by the small tent city that had sprung up there, but concern immediately bubbled up when she saw the huddle of teen girls at the very edge of the curb, a hair away from vehicular traffic. A paltry number of muscled guys in black, too few now to handle the expanding Trey Girl city and the disturbance, were keeping them away from actual harm.
“Don’t go in there,” Oliver warned.
“Mia!” Haley yelled, stopping only because of his arm restraining her. To Oliver, she went, “Really? What can the tweens do to me?”
“Plenty,” he said. “That’s a mob.”
It was no help for Haley to yell anyway, because Mia wasn’t going to be able to hear much. Mia was flushed and angry, busy arguing some point with a girl with blonde hair topped with a completely pink ponytail.
She had reserved some vitriol even for the security guys though.
“And you!” she said. “You’re supposed to keep them away from us! I joined this so I could make music in peace! Not for you to hear me over a wall and judge me on the Internet!”
“That’s enough, Mia,” Haley said, pushing an elbow into the crowd and then going in there herself. God, this took her back. They smelled of burgers, milkshakes, and citrus cologne, and maybe it was this particular tween girl she had gently nudged, but wow did that girl smell like…she smelled like the line when Haley had lined up at midnight to be the first to get Oliver’s first album…
The citrus cologne smell pushed back against her, but she managed to get an arm around Mia’s wrist.
“Why aren’t you taking her inside?” she asked the security guy on her left, but she was addressing them all, if they could hear her.
“We have it under control,” someone told her.
Mia struggled under Haley’s weak grip. “Because they’re not tearing her eyes out? This girl needs to be inside. I’m taking her inside if you’re not intending to do that for me. Mia!”
“What?”
“Mia, this isn’t going to help. Let’s go back in there now.”
“What do they know about music anyway!” Mia yelled to them, all pushed up around her like a wall of shirts with Trey’s face on them. “They idolize a fake! He is an absolute corporate created FAKE!”
That of course didn’t go over well.
The wall of Trey Girls closed in on her, and Mia yelped, trying to move closer to Haley.
“Shit. End this now.” It was Oliver’s familiar voice behind her, and then he was beside her as he squeezed in as well and grabbed Mia’s arm, pulling her now-willing self toward them. His body a shield, he maneuvered both Haley and Mia out and back onto the street and toward the hotel.
“Trey haters are the real fakers! Trey haters are the real fakers!” The chant followed them as they ran back inside, but thankfully the security guys managed to keep no one else from doing so.
“Are they for real?” Haley gasped, catching her breath only when they stepped back inside the safety of the Lake Star. “Did they come up with that just now?”
“They’re quick,” Oliver said, already smiling.
Mia was not in good shape. She looked like she was starting to allow herself to cry.
She looks so young, Haley thought, now with a pang of regret. She didn’t know Mia at all, but it was unfair to expect that she should be as unaffected about criticism to her music as the next student—they all had a right to be whatever they wanted to be. Even if they were this sensitive.
She never did this before, but she grabbed her student in a hug. “Hey.”
“Maybe I’m not ready for this,” Mia said, her voice small.
“Why, because you fought with people who posted stupid opinions on the Internet?” Oliver said, and Haley muffled a laugh against the back of her hand. “Everyone does that at least once.”
“I don’t know what to do for today’s performances. Or tomorrow. God, a concert where everyone’s going to watch…” Mia admitted, settling in more comfortably into Haley’s hug.
“Honey, do whatever you want,” Haley said, sighing. “I’m serious. Forget everything I said about finding you. Do whatever you want, and then I’ll help you figure out the rest later.”
Chapter 23
/> “Stop talking about her. It's weird.”
Later, after they had taken Mia back to her room and left her there to practice with the door open and Trey-sponsored security out in the hall, they went back up to their floor. His room. And after exchanging some “what the hell was that about” and “you did great there,” Oliver promptly and pleasantly found himself pushed back against the wall, the same wall he shared with pop star Trey, and Haley’s mouth was on him. On his neck, his Adam’s apple, his chin, his jaw, finally his mouth.
He was in the middle of saying that he talked to Victoria, and he thought that maybe it would be better if he and Haley remained friends. Friends who didn't have sex except for that one time and a half or did anything else that might lead to rash life decisions. But he tried to say it while her tongue was teasing the roof of his mouth, so it didn't come out right. And then he forgot what he meant to say for a while and became responsible for half or more of the groping and kissing.
“I meant,” he said, using all of his strength to get themselves back at an arm's length distance from each other's mouths. “That she reminded me that I should be a responsible adult about this.”
“In case I'm not?” She was smiling. In this light her hair was a shade darker, every lock out of place and yet framing her face perfectly. His fingers had done that. They had gone into what was perfection and didn’t ruin it. “I'm way ahead of her. I've worked out exactly what I need from you this weekend.”
He wished they were the same things that he needed. “That would be?”
“Logan's special dinner is tonight, after the performances. He told me where it’ll be and I said I'll meet him there, when everything’s done for the day. I'm taking a car, and I want you to go with me.”
“He won't like it if he finds out he's paying for dinner for three.”
She shook her head. “It's a big place. You don't have to be right there with us. Go around and entertain yourself. And then when I tell him what I have to tell him, I'll need the getaway vehicle.”
“It seems like you just need a car for this and not me.”
“I need you nearby in case he gets...testy. Bring your phone.”
If anything was unusual about this plan, he couldn't tell, because she was too close, lodged right between his legs. “I'm with you so far.”
“And you won't hear from me after this weekend. Don't contact me either.”
Something tugged at his gut when he heard that. “Don't say that just because you think it's what I want to hear.”
Her eyes met his, and they were clear. She'd already given this some thought. “Don't think I'm saying it for you. It's not smart for me to think that this can be anything beyond this weekend. I won't let myself fall for that.”
“All right,” he said. “Show up tonight. Don't call. Anything else?”
“Yes, a couple.” Her hands made her way down, slipping under the waistband of his jeans. “Any objections? Do we have to go get Victoria's approval?”
“No, no, no objections, absolutely not,” he said, drawing in a sharp breath.
***
Haley did figure out what she wanted from Oliver, mere minutes ago, as they walked Mia to her room.
The first thing? That she was not going to let this chance pass her by. How smart did people think she was? Well, maybe she wasn’t, because for as long she and Oliver were in the same damn hotel, separated by a flimsy wall, she was going to have sex with him if he wanted to. She just was.
Deciding that felt good, felt right, like some external judging panel had given her the okay to do something. The last thing she wanted was to feel guilty about being with the guy she had wanted for as long as she had feelings of want.
Burden of guilt lifted, she felt really good about her hands going for his jeans. About going down on her knees and unbuttoning his jeans, pulling down the zipper fly, and reaching inside for the cock that throbbed inside her last night but she didn’t get to touch, or taste.
And so she did, touch it. She cradled its warm strength, felt it grow and thicken in her hand. And then she tasted it, tentatively, a light brush on her tongue against the head, a swirl against her lips. He spasmed slightly, pushing into her mouth, but she kept him right where he was.
And then she tasted more, opening her mouth to take in the head, a little bit more.
“Haley,” he groaned, fingers now back in her hair.
She groaned right back, taking him in deeper. He was hard and big against her mouth and yet vulnerable all over. If she did this more and faster she would hear him beg, she knew it, and even the thought of it excited her. So she did it faster, with both hands now, trying to take him deeper each time, pulling back up and finishing with a lazy lick around the head, loving how his hips pumped into her. His breathing quickened, and she wondered how she would actually take him if he came right there, but he managed to pull her up on her feet and then it was her back against the wall.
While he scrambled for his condom, she reached under her dress and removed her panties. Yeah, like this, she thought, right there, right against the wall. It seemed right somehow. Because she had decided on the terms, on how this was going to be, she felt right about this. Every sordid part of it.
When he was sheathed and ready, she lifted her leg and guided him inside, and it was easy. Easy for him to push up into her, for her to lift her other leg and wrap both around him, for him to grab on and pound into her, pound them right into the wall, faster and faster. He was trying to hang on for her, she could tell, because he was probably so close already, but he did everything right too, rubbed right against the part of her that needed him, filled her right up to the spot that tingled as he pumped.
He came first, she knew, because he made the strangled noise against her ear first, but then all she had to do was bend back and it triggered her own orgasm, and she was clinging on to him so tightly, gasping as the waves of pleasure, his and hers, overcame her.
The second thing that she had decided, mere minutes ago, was that she was not an Olivette anymore.
She was obviously not above sleeping with Oliver the first chance she got. But she wasn’t going to delude herself, like all these citizens of the Trey Girl tent city, the new generation of Olivettes, that her idol was her true love and was going to be madly in love with her too.
So if the choice was between the groupie who got to sleep with the rock star and move on and the starry-eyed fangirl who expected roses and a commitment, she knew which one she wanted to be.
The one that was a lot less heartbreaking.
Chapter 24
Oliver knew objectively that it was probably wrong of him to leave the café and the midday performance right after Kari and John had played. It was also objectively wrong to have skipped out specifically to make out with Haley in the library. This was on his mind as he left the room, five minutes after she did, and promptly ran into the siblings.
“Hey,” he said, mind scrambling for an excuse.
“Wasn’t Haley in here too?” John asked.
Kari elbowed him. “That’s not what we’re here for.” Her voice dropped to whisper levels. “Oliver, Ash wants…she wants you to help her out with something.”
“Ash, Trey’s Ash?”
“Quiet,” Kari hissed. “She’s up in her room crying right now, so messed up. I told her you’d be able to work out one of her verses for tonight. She’s not comfortable with Trey’s direction for her.”
Well, this was new. And interesting.
Also, not surprising. Kari and John had killed it at lunch. Their Livin’ on a Prayer had been energetic and fun, and though he saw how the song revealed the limits of John’s vocals, he made up for it by being so damn into it. Kari admirably stayed out of his spotlight but managed to prop him up with a reliable keyboard arrangement (that stayed mostly on point even as she tried to veer off into improv) and the kind of cheery backup vocal that everyone else was tempted to sing along to.
He got another fist bump from Mr. Bolton. Infl
uential, powerful Mr. Bolton. Awesome.
“What time is it?” Oliver asked.
John actually had a watch. “Ten after two.”
“Our next session starts at three, right? I’ll help her, but I’m not going up to her room to help her in secret. We work this out in session, in our practice room, all of us.”
Kari’s eyes widened. “But Trey will find out.”
So what?
And as he thought that, Oliver realized that this was not the first time he had been made to feel this way. He’d always been one grade shy of the obvious choice for people. Unlikely winner of talent show. Unlikely member of the symphony orchestra. Unlikely rock star. He’d done all of this, but with skepticism welcoming every move. He had always thought, so what? and proceeded to prove them wrong, but that was the root of his recent problems, wasn’t it? Proving people wrong was the harder job.
“No,” he told Kari. “I’m not stealing Trey’s student. If she wants me to help, we do it in the open, and Trey can go suck it.”
Tomorrow’s Talent was not going to like that he said that. But they weren’t here.
And if they shut down tomorrow because he failed to woo a pop star into a desperate collaboration, then so fucking what? Did he really think that a piece of shit song with the kid was going to save him, his best friend, and everyone else who depended on them?
***
“I think this afternoon we’re going to talk a bit,” Haley said as Mia walked into the library. “And you’re going to tell me about the song choice.”
Mia had spent the morning by herself, by choice, and showed up at the lunch performance to sing Chasing Pavements by Adele. It was her least affected performance yet, but Haley had to wonder if it was because she was feeling it for the first time, singing about giving up and all.
“It’s just a song,” Mia answered, but the corner of her mouth turned up wryly. “It’s not a message to you or anything.”
Playing Autumn (Breathe Rockstar Romance Book 1) Page 13