CLOSER (Taint Book 2)

by Carmen Jenner

  “Here’s hoping that’s a possibility.”

  “Oh, it’s a possibility. She’s fucking crazy about you.” She wraps her arms around me, and I breathe her in. I can’t remember a time when I held this woman and I wasn’t desperately in love with her. Guess times change. I let her go, and watch her walk back to her husband with tears in her eyes, and I slip out while they’re distracted.

  I suck at telling people how I feel. Sharing was never my strong suit, but I’m even worse at goodbyes. I meant what I said about staying as long as I have to, as long as it takes to get her back. Even if that means we have to record in France. I’m not leaving Paris until Brie is mine.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  THE CON ARTIST

  BRIELLE

  “Ça va, ma chérie?”

  I flinch away from Bastien’s touch and give him a tight smile. “Oui.”

  “You look exquisite in this dress, Brielle.”

  “This old thing?” I joke, but it falls flat because I do not care what this man—this leech—thinks of me. He may be conducting my orchestra because he is the best in all of France, but this is my concert, my stage, my audience, and he is my bitch now.

  “Have dinner with me tonight, after the show.” It isn’t a question, it’s a demand.

  “I do not think that would be a very good idea.”

  “You’re still upset over something that happened a year ago?” He tsks. I don’t know how I ever found this man attractive. He’s old, and grey. He’s a sad, pathetic cheater, and his balls are wrinkly. “Brielle, I thought you were a woman, not a little girl?”

  “Oh, but I am, Bastien. I’m a woman who your wrinkled little pin dick will never be inside again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a show to perform,” I say with a smile that is far brighter than I feel. I’m nervous. I’m sick to my stomach, and I wish I had not eaten before coming out here.

  The curtain rises. The applause from the audience fills the opera house, and I smile as I head out on stage and curtsey, before turning to take my bow and cello from the stand. I position myself and have to tune my instrument a little before I can begin thanks to the air conditioning.

  “Bonsoir!” I say into the microphone and look out across a sea of black faces. I cannot make out their expressions, thanks to the lights shining in my eyes, but I know I have their undivided attention, because you could hear a pin drop in the room. I still have no idea how I got here. Perhaps it was my video on YouTube that went viral, or maybe it had more to do with the headlines surrounding me and Levi’s attempted suicide. Either way, I am sitting in a sold-out opera house, so I suppose I have arrived.

  The audience claps as Bastien walks out on stage. He’s far too professional, and too proud to let our words behind the curtain affect the way he conducts the orchestra. I know I can rely on him for that one thing—at least.

  “My name is Brielle Kagawa, and I am honoured to be here to play for you tonight. This song is one of my own compositions. It’s titled L'artiste Con—The Con Artist.

  I wait for Bastien to count me in, and I slide my bow across the strings. I’m joined by the rest of the orchestra, and my heart swells with pride. I get lost in the rhythm, the melody, and the pain that is always an extension of me, as my bow saws across the strings in heart-wrenching strains. I try not to think of him. I cannot afford to think of him. The flash of his cold, pale flesh in the bathtub, his body so still, so lifeless when I pulled him out. As if he was just taking a nap. As if he hadn’t shattered my heart, and my world into a million pieces.

  Instead, I play.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  NUMBER ONE FAN

  LEVI

  It took four backstage passes and a two-hundred-euro tip to convince the usher to let me in. I watch the beauty on stage from the back of the room, slowly drawn closer step by step with each note she plays. She looks exactly the same, and yet she’s a completely different person. Stronger somehow, even more determined than before, and beautiful. So fucking beautiful. I can’t believe what a cock-fuck I was the last time I saw her. I’ve said and done the things to her that are unforgiveable. Even now, I can’t reconcile myself with the guy who’s standing here, watching her play, but I guess that’s what happens when you become an addict, you change. You do shit you never thought in a million years you’d do. You hurt the people you love. Just like I hurt Brie.

  The song is hers. I know it, though I’ve never heard it before. I know I’m the one who caused the kind of pain that’s pouring from her and across the strings. I know, because it sings to me. It draws me closer, and it speaks of all the horrible things I said and did. Her cello is my wrist and her bow is the scalpel. In a way, it feels as if cutting had been my vice, because every stroke is an open wound. It’s misery, and it echoes mine. I lean against the wall, because I can’t breathe. I close my eyes and just listen, just for a beat.

  I deserve this.

  I deserve to hear the hurt I caused, to feel it.

  But I’m here because I’m hoping that the new and improved Levi Quinn now deserves her forgiveness. I don’t know. I shouldn’t even be here. I should have waited until after the show, but I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t live without her. I can’t live without her.

  I move as silently as I can towards the front of the stage, and she glances up, her eyes lock with mine and her hands falter. Fuck. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have come.

  I melt back into the shadows as if I was never here, and leave the opera house. I look like a fucking arsehole in this expensive suit, in my shiny designer shoes that I’ve already scuffed. It’s summer in Paris, and the narrow streets are too hot for suits and ties. I walk for an hour, maybe more, past restaurants and clothing stores, and then I stumble across a bar. It’s dim lighting and cigarette smoke welcoming me the way alcohol, easy women, and joints like this have lured musicians since the beginning of time. I stand there on the street, listening to the sounds of the revellers, the sounds of glasses clinking in toasts, and music playing too loud.

  I want a drink.

  I want a drink so bad my balls ache. I let out a deep breath and summon her face. She stared right at me. Right at me, the long line of her throat exposed as she rested her head to the side and played her perfect sad song, and looped around her neck ... were my pearls. The ones I’d given her. The ones I used inside her to make her come. All this time she kept them, she wore them tonight. Fuck me. She could have thrown them out months ago. I would have thrown them out if I were in her shoes. She could have sold them—they’re worth a small fortune, any jeweller she might have taken them to would know that. Instead, she wore them to her first headlining concert.

  My feet move at a rapid pace. My legs piston as I weave my way through blocks of weekend crowds. Paris is still a goddamn maze to me. I have no idea where I am, but I have to get back. I have to see her. When I get to the opera house, the doors are closed, but I bang on the glass and the usher I’d bribed to let me in stares at me with a worried expression.

  He starts speaking in French and I shake my head. “English. S'il vous plait.”

  “Monsieur, we are closed. The concert is over.”

  Already? Damn, I’m in the wrong genre. “You gotta let me in. I gotta see her.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot do that. She is meeting with her fans.”

  She’s doing a fucking meet and greet? I didn’t know classical music had fans. Well, obviously, she does, but I didn’t know they sat around after a show taking pictures and getting her to sign autographs, though I guess ... why wouldn’t they? She’s incredible.

  “You have to let me in.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Please? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  The arsehole raises his brow. “Anything?”

  I nod, desperate now. “Anything.”

  That rat bastard.

  When he ushers me through the door, I’m down a fucking signed Slash guitar and plane tickets to Australia for two. Business class. It’s worth it though.
There’s a gathering of maybe thirty people milling around the centre of the stage. They’re crowding her. I can’t see her, but several people turn my way as they wait in line.

  “Brie,” I shout. More faces turn toward me with an annoyed expression. “Brie!”

  A hush falls over the crowd.

  “Brie!”

  A chair scrapes back and she stands, the crowd parts.

  “Levi. What are you doing here?” she bites out. I launch myself onto the stage. Not hard when you’ve been doing it as long as you’ve been playing guitar—though this time I use my left hand.

  “I couldn’t miss your first show.”

  She sighs impatiently. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You’re wearing my pearls.”

  She glances down as if she had no idea how they got there. “So what?”

  I grin. “So, you must have something to say.”

  She scoffs, “Leave. Before I call security. I don’t have anything left for you.”

  “Bullshit,” I say. Several people gasp. I don’t give a shit. If she won’t talk to me, at least give me the opportunity to apologise, I’ll say everything I have to say in front of them. I’ll tell the whole motherfucking world. “I fucked up. I hurt you, and it killed me. It killed a part of me.”

  “It killed you?” Brie never could control her temper; it’s what I love most about her. At a tiny blue-haired girl’s insistence, Brie moves away from the crowd and into the wings. I follow.

  Blue-hair addresses the crowd behind us, but I tune them out.

  “It killed you?” she demands again, this time tears well in her eyes. “You left me in another country. You checked out. So obsessed with your drugs and your liquor. You didn’t need me, you had your grief, and your anger to bed down with at night. You didn’t need me. I was just someone else to get mad at, to torture you, to be selfish enough to ask you to put me, to put us first. You tried to kill yourself. It didn’t kill you, but it destroyed me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.” I grab her hand and pull her closer, but she wrenches away.

  “Do not touch me.”

  “Brie—”

  “Go home, Levi.”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere,” I say, resolute. She glares. “I don’t care if I have to wait outside every one of your shows. I don’t care if I have to stay right here in this theatre, I’ll wait forever if that’s what it takes. Until you talk to me.”

  “Then you will waste your life, because I have nothing to say to you.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.” I shake my head. “You still love me. I know it. You know it.”

  “Get out,” she hisses.

  The blue-haired pixie pops her head around the corner, and sing-songs, “We can still hear you.” She gives Brie the contorted smile of an angry manager when her act is being a bad girl, and subsequently, bad for business. I’m pretty familiar with that look. This must be Piaf. I make a mental note to buy her a new car, or a boat or a fucking crown because this girl is the reason I ever got close to Brie at all. “Go, go!”

  Brie heads off the stage completely into a narrow corridor. I follow because I can’t help it. I need her to know how sorry I am. “Brie, talk to me, please?”

  She whirls around and gets up in my face. “What should I say? That I hate you? That I can never forgive you?”

  “Say you’ll listen. Please, just say you’ll listen. If you don’t want to talk to me after that, then I’ll understand. I’ll leave you alone.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise. I can’t say I’ll like it, but I’ll do it. If I think that’s what will make you happy.”

  “Because you’re suddenly an expert on making people happy?” she scoffs. “You can’t even make yourself happy.”

  “I couldn’t. I agree.”

  “So, what? Now you’re fucking bozo the clown?” she snaps. “You’re all fixed?”

  “No, I’m not fixed. I’m still battling my shit every day. But I miss you.”

  “Too fucking bad. You made your bed.”

  “I know, and I set it on fire, but I love you, Brie. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”

  She sighs and stares up at me with forlorn eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You and I just aren’t meant to be. We’re hopeless together. We rip and tear one another to shreds.”

  “Yeah, but we also put one another back together again.”

  “Not this time.” She shakes her head. “Don’t come back here.”

  “Brie, don’t do this,” I say through my teeth. tamping down my anger. She’s always so fucking stubborn.

  “Why? Why shouldn’t I do this?”

  “Because, you love me. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be this upset right now.” I pause, roll my eyes over her from head to toe. Fuck, I miss her body, and her lips, and goddamit, I even miss her angry French girl attitude. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have put my necklace on tonight.”

  She sighs. “It went with this outfit. I didn’t think about it at all, or you.”

  “Bullshit.” I slide my hand into her hair and pull her closer. I don’t kiss her though. “I call bullshit. I know you feel it. I know you’re just as fucking miserable as I am.”

  I kiss her, a soft peck on her cherry red lips. I’m met with resistance. Not the response I was hoping for. “Just. Will you come to my hotel?” She shoots daggers at me with her glare, and yeah, I’ll admit, that could have come out better. “Not like that. I didn’t mean like that. I just mean. So we can talk?”

  “We’re talking right now.”

  “Please, Brielle. Please, just give me one night. Just one.”

  “Why?” Tears prick her eyes, but she’s so stubborn she refuses to let them fall. “Why should I give you anything when you took everything from me?”

  “Because I love you, and I’m pretty sure you still love me. Please come. 213.” I hand her my hotel room key; it’s easy enough to get another from reception when I head back. “You’ll come?”

  “I don’t know. My mother is with me.”

  “Where? Let me meet her.”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “You cannot meet her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, it would give her ideas, and you cannot just show up here and expect everything to go back to the way it was.”

  “Okay, I get that. I know I have a lot to answer for. I know I hurt you—”

  “You think?”

  “Please, Brie. Please come.”

  She tucks the hotel key into her palm. With a sigh, she rests her head against the wall and closes her eyes. I leave her to her adoring fans and pray like hell she has time to see one more later tonight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  FRENCH FRIES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

  BRIELLE

  After I signed my last CD, Piaf drove us home. I could tell it was driving her insane not to ask me what had happened backstage. I decided she could afford to go crazy for pimping me out to Levi in the first place. I get changed into my pyjamas, snuggle my cat, and sit on the couch with my feet up. All I can think about is him. All I see is how pink and alive his skin was, and how I wanted to pull him close in that corridor, and never let him go. But thinking that way is dangerous.

  My mother picks up the hotel key card from the coffee table and turns it over in her hands. “What is this?”

  “It’s a hotel key.”

  “The Shangri-La Hotel, Paris ...” Her shrewd gaze pins me to my seat. “Whose hotel key is this?”

  “It’s Levi’s.”

  She sits down beside me, and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut against the tears that threaten to spill over. God, I’m so sick of crying all the time. “Oh ma fille. Why are you punishing yourself?”

  “I’m not punishing myself.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  I fold my arms over my chest, and Monsieur Chat springs away with an agitated meow. “I’m punishing him.”

  “Which in tu
rn hurts you.”

  “It’s not as simple as that. He is chaos, Maman. I cannot afford chaos now. I do not want chaos. I want a man who will stand by me when life is hard, not drown himself in a bathtub with liquor and pills.”

  “Brielle, do you think living with your père was always easy?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “There was a lot of pressure on that man for a long time. I practically had to schedule time to make love in order to conceive you, but strong and stubborn as he was, I realised he needed someone stronger. He needed me to be his rock.”

  “Levi is not mon père.”

  “No, but are you trying to tell me he isn’t the love of your life?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I love him. I cannot be with him wondering if he’s going to take a long bath that he never wakes up from if I’m not there.”

  “Then you need to tell him, you at least owe him that.”

  “I do not owe him anything.”

  “Brielle Kagawa, you owe him that, and a little bit more, I imagine.” Maman gives me a stern look that tells me not to mess with her, and I sigh and snatch the key card from her hands.

  ***

  I’m bone weary. I should not be here, and yet, my mother was right, I at least owe him an explanation for why we can no longer be together. I raise my hand and knock quietly. There is no answer, no noise from the other side of the door. I knock louder, worried I have the wrong room, but I try the key and the mechanism beeps, the light flashes green as the lock flicks back. I rest my hand on the knob and turn, half afraid I’ll find him indisposed or worse, naked with another woman, but when I push inside the room, all the breath leaves my lungs in a rush. Levi is on the bed, shirt off, dress pants slung low across his hips, his eyes softly closed, and the TV blaring Plus belle la vie—the French soap opera Margaux used to watch.

  I don’t want to wake him, a part of me wants to leave and never have to talk to him again, but another part wants to curl up next to him, and that is a very dangerous idea.

  I don’t realise I’ve moved closer to the bed until I’m standing right beside him. He looks so young in sleep, off guard, and childlike. My heart gives a painful tug, and I pull the covers up over his chest. The remote is clutched tightly in his hand. I reach for it and slide it from his grasp, only to have my wrist caught in his long fingers. I gasp. He tugs me closer, and I lose my footing and wind up sprawled on top of him.