by Cecilia Tan
I handed it to Axel, who took the handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it over the cork so it wouldn’t fly loose, and then, while holding the cork still in one fist, twisted the bottle. There was an immediate pop sound, and Axel looked me in the eye as he said wryly, “Happy New Year.”
He poured a glass and handed it to me. I found it hard not to let my fingers linger where they touched his. After handing around champagne to the others, he set the open bottle in the holder in the bar shelf that was intended for the purpose. We each took a sip.
Then Axel spoke to me as if continuing a conversation, which I guess he was. “We’re up against some stiff competition tonight. Jamie Goode is incredibly talented. Kaptain Krunk are so unique, totally original. I’m a big fan of Duwanna, too.”
“May the best band win, then,” I said, and clinked glasses with him. “Though I still hope it’s you who gets it.”
He bowed his head slightly, averting those moss-green eyes and then looking at me again. “Thank you. But why?”
Because you’re a sexy beast and I’d better content myself with rooting for you since I know I can never actually have you. “Because I know you, and I don’t know any of the others,” I said, drawing a circle around the four of us with my index finger. Was I that desperate to create some kind of a connection between him and me? Yes. But I wanted a safe connection. “You’re our Grammy nominee now.”
The look in his eyes said he wanted a connection with me, too, and not a “safe” one at all. My hormones were making me dizzy. But I patted Grant on the arm and felt Axel back off. He shifted his weight back slightly, and he looked at Sakura instead of at me.
“How’s the champagne? Is it good?” Grant asked, then continued on without waiting for an answer. “It should be. I stole it out of the caterers’ stash where they’re setting up for my uncle’s after-party. It’s not like he’ll miss it.”
Both Sakura and Axel murmured that it was good. All champagne tasted pretty much the same to me, more like bubbles than like wine.
“It’ll go flat, you know, so we better drink up,” Grant said, waving the bottle. He drained his own glass and then set to filling them again.
“I’ve got plenty, Grant,” I told him.
“Come on, it’ll go flat,” he insisted, as if I might not have heard him the first time. “Drink up.”
If there was one thing I had learned to do, it was to humor a man when he was in his cups. I was getting an inkling that Grant was not exactly Prince Charming, but better the devil you know than the one you don’t, right? I resolutely took a very small sip and Grant splashed a tiny splash into the top of my glass to replenish it.
We were in line with the other limos waiting to pull up to the red carpet for a good thirty minutes, maybe longer, which gave Grant plenty of time to harangue me to drink more. I continued to take tiny sips and he continued to drain his glass and then fill it all the way again.
By the time the door opened, the bottle was empty. Grant stuck it upside down into the bottle well in the shelf with great ceremony. “Ta-da,” he declared solemnly.
I caught Axel’s eye suddenly. His expression was half sympathy that my date was now this boorish drunk and half disdain for him. At least I hoped the sympathy was for me and the disdain for Grant—my heart sank. Even though I kept telling myself I should steer clear of Axel Hawke, the last thing I wanted was for him to think I was anything like Grant Randolph. Spoiled, drunk, pushy, and an idiot. Maybe Grant wasn’t the best choice to be photographed with after all, I thought, even if the Blue Star PR department would have liked that.
A moment later a greeter opened the back door of the limo so we could exit, and Grant sped out like a kid off the monorail, throwing his arms wide as he blew kisses to no one in particular, then tripping over his own feet and landing face-first.
The rest of us could not really keep from laughing at that. It was simply too comical. Sakura and I both hid our faces from the open doorway with our hands. “Omigod,” she said. I could hear some cameras clicking and when I dared to peek I could see Grant was still facedown.
“I think my image consultant would say wait a minute before we get out,” Axel said.
Riggs, good old Riggs, was helping Grant to get up, then. Riggs was not a small man, a former bouncer as well as a former college linebacker, so Grant really had no choice about the matter.
“Ugh. You guys go. I’ll stay in the car and come in the side entrance,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” Sakura said. “Look, Riggs is dragging him off to the side now. There’s quite a distance to go before we hit the actual public area of the carpet, you know. Let’s just waltz along, the three of us, before anyone really notices we were supposed to be with him.”
“Won’t it look odd that I don’t have a date, though?” I asked.
“No, because you’re each going to take one of my arms,” Axel said. “That is, if you’re okay with helping me play the playboy, Ms. Hamilton.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked, though I was really asking myself whether I was ready to go through with that.
“It’ll be fun,” Sakura prodded.
Everyone wanted to be out of that limo by then; the handler was peering in trying to figure out what was taking so long, and I really wanted to be away from the cameras before Grant caught up with us. I had a sudden panic that the Blue Star PR department might blame me if the two of us—Blue Star’s favorite son and their newest hot hire—were photographed with Grant puking onto my off-white dress. “Oh, all right. Let’s go.”
We joined a queue of others in a staging area, while production assistants managed the line and took names and checked credentials.
Finally it was time to step out into the spotlight, though. An usher gave me a hand around the rope, while shutters snapped wildly. Axel followed, provoking shrieks from the spectators. He’d donned dark sunglasses, which made him look more like a killer in a Hong Kong film than a rock star to me, and he held his hand out for Sakura to take.
As she glued herself to his hip, he slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me snug against his other side. To keep my balance, my hand landed on his stomach. Wow. The tuxedo was hiding how muscled he was, how strong his arms were.
With the two of us attached, Axel made his way through the gauntlet of news cameras, pausing for a few quick interviews. The lights were very bright and I marveled at how he didn’t flinch when someone held a microphone right up to his mouth.
“Axel Hawke, so glad we could catch you. The Rough is the hottest new act.”
“Thank you,” he said with an all-teeth smile.
“We heard that ‘The Rough’ wasn’t the first name of the band?”
“Oh, definitely not. We tried a bunch of things before we agreed on that. I kind of liked Bandit, but there used to be a band called that. My next suggestion was Ass Bandit, but our manager didn’t think that one would fly.”
Sakura was trying hard not to laugh out loud.
“Is it true you were homeless as a teenager?”
Axel did laugh briefly, as he joked, “No, I just looked like a homeless teenager in our early photo shoots.” Then he spoke more seriously, almost vehemently. “Don’t disrespect the actual youth out there trying to survive by comparing it to my situation. Being a runaway is no joke and I’m grateful to everyone who has helped me get where I am today.”
A little farther down we were stopped by another one who asked, “‘Kidnap My Heart’ is at number one in three countries now. What will the follow-up single be?”
“Oh, you’d have to ask the record company but my guess is either ‘Razor Sharp’ or ‘Knockout.’ ”
I wondered if any of these sound bites were going to make it to air. I just smiled and appreciated how deftly he was able to handle so many different questions in such a short space of time. As soon as he had passed the last interviewer, he let go of Sakura for a moment, whipped off the sunglasses, and tossed them like a Frisbee into the delirious cr
owd. As we turned to go up the steps into the theater, though, I lost my footing and nearly fell.
That iron-strong arm around my waist kept me from going down and probably saved me a sprained ankle in the process. The heel had broken clear off one of my shoes, as we could all see when Sakura snatched it off my foot and held it up with distaste. “Oh for the love of … and these heels cost more than that bottle of champagne, I bet.”
Axel still had not let go of me. He glanced back the way we had come, where I could hear a raised voice I feared was Grant’s.
Axel cleared his throat. “If you’ll allow me, Ms. Hamilton?” He picked me up before I quite realized that was what he was asking for. He didn’t seem like that big a man, but I had already felt the steel strength of one arm—now it was two, one under my knees, one behind my back. With the whiteness of my dress and the blackness of his tuxedo contrasting, we looked almost like newlyweds crossing a threshold. I put my arms around his neck like I couldn’t help myself.
In fact, I couldn’t.
I laughed as he carried me the rest of the way, Sakura following behind twirling the dead shoe. “My hero,” I said.
He just made a hum of agreement, almost a purr, and I might have tightened my grip around his neck when he did. I wanted to bury my nose in his collar and just breathe his scent and imagine he was carrying me somewhere dark and private to do bad-boy things to me. Enjoy it while you can, I told myself.
Once we were well inside the lobby, where a massive pre-event reception was taking place, Sakura took my other shoe, too, and Axel set me gently onto my stocking feet. “Surely you can’t be the first person this has ever happened to,” he said, looking around, then waving to someone.
A woman of some Asian American extraction hurried over to us and gave him a quick hug. “Ah, you made it! Good.”
Axel introduced her to me and Sakura as his manager, Christina Pempengco, and she gushed at us for a few moments, then said, “What size shoe do you wear?”
“I’m a seven and a half, why?”
“Wait right here. I have shoes for you.”
“Wha—?”
Axel laughed as Christina rushed away into the crowd. He also waved off a caterer coming toward us with a tray of full champagne flutes before the guy even had a chance to get near. “Christina is a high-energy problem solver, which is why she’s a great manager,” he explained. “It doesn’t even have to be her problem and she’ll still solve it.”
We stayed where we were, my shoeless feet hidden by the fact that without my towering high heels, my dress now dragged on the floor. Axel eventually corralled some non-alcoholic drinks into our hands and ensured a steady stream of catered hors d’oeuvres flowed past us.
“I swear, it’s like he has magic eye contact,” Sakura whispered to me at one point.
I know what you mean, I thought.
“There’s Mal,” Axel said. “He’s the one over there who looks like he waltzed out of a vampire flick.”
I couldn’t see who he meant, since without heels I couldn’t see over most of the people in the crowd. But then a tall man with long black hair joined us. He and Axel hugged like brothers and the man gave Axel an up-and-down look. “What’s the expression? You cleaned up nice.”
“Mal, meet Ricki Hamilton, and of course you already know Sakura.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Mal said. He had a deep voice and a mildly British accent, and his tuxedo was subtly piped with silver and green. “Have you seen Chino? I seem to have lost both him and our dates.”
“No. You’re the tall one,” Axel chided. “What do you see from up there?”
“Ah. There he is.” Mal waved to someone else, and a moment later a shorter man with black spiky hair and a woman on each arm came up to us. He was grinning from ear to ear, but before I could be properly introduced to him or the women, Christina dashed back.
In her hands she had a pair of pumps miraculously almost the same color as my dress. “Here, try these.”
I slipped them on. They weren’t quite as tall as my previous shoes, and they were slightly too small, but they would do to get me to and from my seat. “Excellent. Thank you.”
“No problem. It’s so awesome to meet you, by the way. I’m the treasurer of AWESM, the Association of Women in Entertainment Studios and Media, and I wanted to thank you for your generous donation!”
“My pleasure,” I said. “It’s a valuable organization.”
“Have you heard about the fashion show we’re doing before Valentine’s Day? We’ll have VIP seating for our top donors! You probably have an invite in your mail!”
I smiled at her. “I’ll look for it, I’m sure.” Sakura had been mentioning the show, too: some of her designer pals were showing in it. Paul, my assistant, probably had the invitation in a file of low-priority things for me to look at.
“Now, Axel, I’m trying to find Errold Rothschild so you can make a good impression on him.”
“Remind me who that is?” Axel asked with a skeptical look on his face.
Christina rolled her eyes. “The head of the UK division? I want him to be impressed by how fantastic you all look.” She gave me a quick smile. I got the impression she was happy Axel might be seen with me. Interesting.
She dashed off again to find the record company executive but she hadn’t returned by the time the ushers were urging us to go into the auditorium.
By the time we reached our seats I was very ready to disappear into the audience. I’ve never particularly liked being in the spotlight and even though no one was really paying attention to us once we’d left the red carpet, I had felt like everyone was staring at me.
We were in the orchestra section, between twenty and thirty rows back, near the aisle in case Axel’s band won anything and he had to go on stage. There were three empty seats next to us, though, that made me wonder. Grant’s and who else?
I got my answer when two more guys hurried down the aisle together and were enthusiastically greeted by Chino and Axel. Axel introduced them to me and Sakura as “Samson, our keyboard player” and “Ford, bass.” Ford had his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail but shook it free before he sat down. Samson had brown hair, blue eyes, and a quiet smile. They both had firm handshakes even though they looked pretty overwhelmed by the whole setting.
Chino seemed to be the one having the most fun. “Who do you think sat in this seat last time, eh? Madonna? Beyoncé?” He wiggled in his chair. “I’m going to pretend my booty is long-distance time-traveling touching the seat that Beyoncé’s booty touched.”
Mal rolled his eyes. “Honestly.”
But Axel laughed. “How about you, Sakura? Who sat in your chair? You still have that fantasy about David Bowie?”
“Oh, please, he’s like three times my age,” Sakura said, but she blushed a little.
“Mal? How ’bout you?”
Mal gave his friend a dark glare. “Celebrities are the last people I’d want to fuck.”
I teased Axel, then. “What about you? Whose chair do you want?”
Axel drew himself up to his full height. “No, really the question is who wants to sit in my seat.” It felt like sex god vibes were pouring off him in waves.
Or maybe I was the only one who felt that way. The rest of them were used to being around him, I guess. They shrugged it off when a short while later he made everyone get up and change seats, supposedly to make it even easier for the band members to reach the aisle. But I did notice I ended up in the seat he had been in. It was as warm as if he had rested his hand on my back.
The lights went down then for the start of the show and I settled back as the intro music began to play. Fairly early in the ceremony a category came up that included one of the band’s songs and I noticed that Ford held Axel’s hand so tight I thought both of their fingers must be going numb. Alas, the song did not win. Axel patted Ford’s arm and told him that they’d have to hold out for Best New Artist.
And then a short while later the whole band was spi
rited away by a handler. I gave Sakura a questioning look.
“They’re performing a number,” she explained.
Well, I thought, at least something’ll be worth seeing at this show.
CHAPTER TWO
SHORT FUSE
AXEL
Is it a cliché to talk about how good a woman smells? When I swept Ricki up into my arms I got a good lungful of the nose candy that was her scent. If that was what cocaine smelled like, I could see why people got addicted. I didn’t want to put her down. I wanted to carry her right to a dressing room in the back and see if she tasted as good as she smelled.
Sakura, that lion-tamer, gave me a “down boy” look as I set Ms. Hamilton onto her petite feet, though. Okay, fine. I reminded myself I was there to work, not to play, and this wasn’t some groupie: this was a woman who could buy and sell me and my band ten times over.
She was still a woman, though—not a robot or made of actual ice even if she had an ice-queen reputation. I caught her looking at me a few times. I caught her leaning toward me.
Maybe the playboy image had something going for it, after all.
Fantasizing about her was a great way to distract myself from anxiety about the awards. When her date didn’t make it to the seats before showtime began, I felt fully justified rearranging everyone’s seats and making sure she was conveniently next to me. The show handlers filled in the empty seat with someone I didn’t know and didn’t pay attention to. I paid attention to the way Ricki’s slender, bare shoulder looked nibble-able. Her evening gown left her neck and arms bare except for the diamonds she wore, which I assumed were real. That didn’t stop me from dreaming about tearing her necklace away so I could get at the tender places on her neck that would make her sigh, make her moan. Down, boy.
How was I supposed to keep my libido in check when it was, literally, my job to be sex on wheels tonight?
Before I knew it they were taking us backstage to get ready to perform. I changed out of my tuxedo and into what was waiting for me.
Christina looked critically at the way the skintight faux leather clung to my legs, making me turn in a circle to inspect my ass. I crossed my arms. “If they’re not tight enough the only alternative I can think of is to actually paint them on next time,” I said.