by Kayley Cole
"However many people it takes," he says. I'd tell him to not be stupid or to leave me alone, but I know it's pointless.
Sometimes protection doesn't come with a shield or armor. Sometimes protection comes with a lion— a lion that knows the darkest parts of his territory— but it's hard to know when you've caught the eye of a predator until it's too late. And if there's one thing I know about Jake, it's that the animal inside him is always ravenous.
Jake
Ellie and I walk through the Garden of the Gods, a public park in Colorado Springs that makes every other park look like a clump of dirt with some grass on it. There are rock formations that vary from a dark red to pink and white contrasted with the rich green of the flora.
I watch Ellie look up at the rocks, a faint smile on her face, and, somehow, she is a natural wonder. Her red hair fits in with our environment, but her blue eyes stand out like gems. I wish I had brought my camera.
She tucks some strands of her hair behind her ear and looks over at me.
"I've never been here," she says. "Isn't that weird? I've lived in Colorado my whole life, and I've never come here."
"You've had a busy life," I say, readjusting her guitar case strap on my shoulder.
"You're a famous director. You're much busier than I am."
"I blew off school my sophomore year to come here. You were a bit more dedicated to your academics."
She sits down on a small boulder, tugging her feet up on top of it. She holds her hands out and I hand her the guitar. She unzips the case and takes out the guitar. Every movement she makes is graceful, and as she pulls the guitar on her lap, a sense of serenity radiates on her face.
There's not enough room on the boulder for me, so I lean against the front of the boulder, my chest parallel to her feet. She's wearing jeans that flawlessly shows the shape of her legs. She plays a few chords.
"So, you said coming to a beautiful place would help us come up with an idea for this music video. Is your brain churning new ideas yet?" she asks. Her red lipstick contrasts beautifully against her pale skin, but I just imagine myself with my thumb against her bottom lip, rubbing it off.
"I thought we could use places like this," I say. "A lot of beauty shown of the country isn't related to the Midwest. It would be nice to show the heart of Colorado."
She nods. "I like that. Colorado has a lot of different geography too— the Rocky Mountains, the Eastern Plains, the forests, the canyons, uh…the deserts and the dunes. It would be cool to show all of Colorado."
"We would need a way to show various locations then. We could have their eyes reflecting different locations."
She plays a few notes on her guitar. "That could be good. Or maybe there's a puddle underneath them, and it reflects different parts of Colorado."
"Both ideas feel a bit static. They need to interact with the setting."
"What if the guys start in one location— like The Rocky Mountains— and we depict them moving through the other locations. Like, they reach the top of the mountains, but once they reach the top of the mountain, the top of the mountain is the Eastern Plains. They walk through the plains until they reach the canyons."
"They also shouldn't be wandering. They should be acting like they're desperate," I add, my heart beating faster as I feel our idea forming. "They'd look weathered down like they've been traveling for a long time through rough terrain."
"Then, they end up in Saffron to their loved ones."
"But the tornado hasn't happened yet in town. The wind is getting stronger, and it keeps getting stronger as the bridge of the song starts…”
"We could end with footage of the tornado," she finishes. "I know some people did manage to film it."
I nod. "That's good. It could be the tornado that was chasing them."
"It should be more symbolic than that," she says. "We could connect the force of nature with human nature."
I rub my jaw. "What if they started the journey as young kids— like ten or eleven? They get older with every new place they end up in and they get more dirty and disgruntled as they get older. While they're traveling, they're carrying something reflective— a mirror, a piece of glass, something metal— and in the reflection is some aspect of Saffron. By the time they get to Saffron, they're the ages they are now. It would symbolize the aspect of human nature where we return to a place of comfort."
She grins down at me. "See? You barely even needed me."
I place my hand over her sneaker, giving her foot a quick squeeze. "You came up with most of that. I told you I needed you around."
She slides back down the boulder. I have to take a step back to let her slide the whole way down, but her body still ends up pressed against mine. She's between a rock and a hard place.
She's dropped her guitar beside us. I hear it fall, but her eyes are blazing blue flames. Her peach vanilla scent wafts over me, mixed with the invigorating pine air. Her lips are slightly parted, and the top curve of her bra is peeking over the top of her shirt.
God, I want her. My cock is straining against my slacks.
I press my hands on the boulder, leaning against it. There is a small, rational voice in my head, telling me to not kiss her, but my mouth is already against hers, tasting the faintest flavor of raspberries. I feel her hands on my waist as I rub against her,
My hands slip into her hair, silkier than I remember. Her breath hitches as I nibble her earlobe. She presses her body against mine, her hips swaying slowly like there's a ballad playing in her head and maybe there is.
My foot hits against her guitar, creating an echo of sound. She jerks away from me, scraping her hair away from her neck. She slides against the boulder, moving away from me.
"We can't do this," she croaks out. "You know we can't."
"It's been nearly a decade," I say, the intensity leaving me with a sharp pain. "It wouldn't need to mean anything. It shouldn't mean anything."
"Do you actually believe that?" she asks.
"You know my actions don’t depend on my beliefs. My actions depend on facts, and the fact is that I'm willing to forget our past for the moment."
"You're…”
“…an asshole, I know. Save your pillow talk for another time."
She crosses her arms over her chest before reaching down and grabbing her guitar. She slides down against the boulder before beginning to sing.
"I'd tell you to take me home/but home is a state of mind/A state of grace/and after everything is taken and I reap what I sow/My home is in the tornado."
She shoves her guitar back into her case.
"Ellie…” I say.
"Take me home," she states, heaving her guitar case onto her back. I look away from her. I walk back the same way that we came.
Ellie
Arboix Hotel is the most prestigious and expensive hotel in Colorado. It was built to look like the Ritz Hotel in London, but it was built about fifteen years ago and has consistently upgraded to the latest technology.
As I sit across from Jake, I imagine he'd justify buying out the whole hotel restaurant by saying he wants to impress Body Satellite, but we both know his name is enough to impress them by itself. This just feels like a power move— a reminder of who has money and who doesn't.
"I was talking to your brother last night," Jake says as we wait for the band members to arrive. We sit at a long table, covered in a crimson tablecloth, six chairs and six glasses of water separating the table into sections. A giant chandelier hangs above us and all the light seems to shine down on me like a condemnation.
"Remember that Tim is the lead singer," I say. "He has the long dark hair. He'll probably be wearing ripped jeans even here. He's taller than everyone else too."
"And your brother mentioned that you've never been in a relationship," he says. "He insinuated that he didn't think you had lost your virginity."
"The drummer, Karl, is the one with all the stupid tattoos," I continue. "It looks like kid's drawings. Sometimes it looks cool. Most times i
t looks like he just wanted a lot of tattoos."
"Ellie," he says. "You implied you slept with Greg. Why would you do that if you didn't?"
"Why do you assume my brother knows about my sex life?"
"I don't," he says. "But the way you acted yesterday makes me think that you haven't slept with anyone."
"Just because I didn't want to sleep with you?"
"Because you did want to sleep with me and you acted like it was the first time."
I shake my head. When it comes to relationships, I imagined I matured faster than other people. Jake and I had a fast, tumultuous relationship. He was older than me and every word he said to me seemed deep and brilliant.
After we broke up, I understood the crux of a break-up was that two people went into a relationship, forming a promise to remain this mirage version of themselves, and when that mirage broke, so did everything else.
So, I didn't date again. I was careful. I am one of the few twenty-three year old virgins in Colorado that isn't held back by the fear of Hell.
"It has nothing to do with you."
"Your virginity or you pretending that you slept with Greg?" There's a knock on the door. Jake keeps his eyes on me. "Come in."
The band members of Body Satellite come in like a rowdy classroom. There's only four of them— Tim, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Karl, the drummer, Allen, the lead guitarist, and Mike, the bassist— but when they're not making music or performing, they all turn into eight-year-old boys.
Tim walks up to me but reaches across the table to shake Jake's hand. Jake finally breaks his gaze with me but doesn't shake Tim's hand. Tim drops his hand.
"It's such an honor to meet you," Tim blurts. "I loved Cold Crash before you started working with them, but after you started doing their music videos, you brought their music to a new level. The music video for Collective blew my mind. Get it? Because the guy blew his head off."
Jake glances back at me. I cover my mouth to stop myself from laughing. I can hear his thoughts as loudly as if they're my own: why did you bring these idiots into my life?
"Body Satellite reminds me a lot of Cold Crash," Jake says, still looking at me.
"That's such a massive compliment," Tim gushes. "A reviewer last year said the same thing. I mean, we don't want to be derivative, but they're such an influential band and they changed up the game. If we were going to be compared to any band, I'm hyped that it's them."
"Right." Jake gestures to the other chairs at the table. "Why don't you sit down? I arranged it so that our lunch would arrive a couple of minutes after our meeting started, so we should start talking now."
"You can do that? Did you really buy out this whole restaurant? That had to be mad expensive," Tim says. The rest of the band members sit down, but Tim remains standing. It didn't occur to me until now how close he had to stand to me to reach across the table and shake Jake's hand. As Jake's eyes linger, he seems to notice at the same time.
"Sit down," Jake repeats, his voice taking a sharp edge to it. Tim obliges, taking the chair next to me. Tim smells like hairspray like he always does. "So, Ellie came up with this idea, and I think it would work incredibly well."
He explains the premise of our idea to the men. As he finishes, three waitresses arrive, putting small salads in front of us. I nibble on the salad, but the way that Jake is changing his words into images is enthralling. It's like he's a god— a Creator— and his words spin objects and events into reality.
I loved this man so much. I just wish I could trust him.
"And then the last image would be the tornado, preferably one that shows it heading toward the camera."
"Wow," Karl mouths.
"That will be a beast," Tim says. "And you want to do it right away?"
"Yes," Jake says. "We need to get it out to get help as quickly as possible."
"Don't you have the money to just give to Saffron?" Karl asks.
"Karl, can't you see the genius of this?" Tim asks. "Not only could this raise a lot of money, this could get more people to come by Saffron. It will get us a shit ton of exposure too. Plus, that theme of running away from who you were, where you're from, or away from danger when you should be running toward it— for the sake of loved ones— that's such an awesome theme. It could help other people."
The hypocrisy of the theme never truly hit me until this moment. I glance over at Jake, but he drinks from his glass of water, his face apathetic.
Two waitresses come out, each setting a plate on either side of the table.
"For appetizers, we start with crab and lobster stuffed mushrooms, and our award-winning gourmet gougère."
"French cheese pastries," Jake says. "Thank you, Miss…"
"Lutwin. Miss Lutwin." The waitress blushes before quickly scurrying away. Jake picks up the plate with the crab and lobster stuffed mushrooms. He uses a small pair of tongs to put two on my plate.
"What if I didn't want mushrooms?" I ask.
"It wouldn't matter because I know you love crab and lobster."
It's true— my family and I could never afford seafood, but I'd had it a couple of times when I was with friends and once on my birthday at a buffet, but I'd never forgotten how good it tasted.
"I'm surprised you remembered," I say.
"I told you I'd buy you a seafood dinner when I was rich. I didn't specify exactly when, but I'm fulfilling my promise tonight."
All these years of being careful, of not letting my heart slip under another man's foot, and it's going to be the same man who causes a civil war in my head. All this time of being careful and I know I'm going to make the same mistake.
Jake
If I said I chose a hotel for honorable reasons, I wouldn't be an honorable man. But even I'm surprised when I tell Ellie I've reserved a room and she asks to see it.
As I open the door to the suite, I think of all the warning signs— all the motifs I saw that indicated she would wreck me— and I let them all fade away. This is the dream of a director: to make someone feel so invested in and surrounded by a scene that they forget everything else in their lives.
My head is always filled with thoughts— pulling apart everything I see, hoping to be inspired for current or future projects— but the sense of awe on Ellie's face as she looks around the room.
"Did you choose this one because it reminds you of California?" she asks, gesturing to the mural of the ocean on the wall. The rest of the room is mostly sand-colored— there is a cherry wood table and desk, a couple of pieces of burgundy red furniture, and a wide screen TV that stands out like a square-shaped black hole.
"Maybe," I say. "I just like that all these rooms let you look out at the city."
I move next to her, where we both look out of the massive windows that shows a Denver skyline. It's not as lit up as LA, but there's something more honest in a city that doesn't pretend to be a city of angels. There are patches of darkness, but at least Denver doesn't pretend it's not there.
"It must be nice to always be this high up," she says.
"Is that another dig at me being famous?"
She laughs. "For once, no. I mean it. It's just…it's so different to see the world from here. I look at the world from Saffron and it's easy to forget that there's a whole world out there, doing a billion different things. There are thousands of people out on those streets tonight. Someone is being proposed to down there. Someone is finding out they were hired. Someone is getting robbed. I could be down there, and anything could happen to me."
"I wouldn't let anything like that happen to you."
She turns to me. "You're thinking about my stalker, but good things could happen too. Just listening to you tonight…I've thought a thousand times of going to you, asking you for help with my career, but I didn't. I knew you were angry with me and I didn't want to base my career on a high school sweetheart."
"If you had asked, I would have helped, and it wouldn't have been because we have a history. It's because I know you're good."
; She sits down on the edge of the bed. The large comforter barely deflates under her. She looks up at me, her blue eyes making the painted ocean look dull in comparison.
"I want it to be you," she says. I slide my hands into my slack pockets.
"What do you want to be me?"
"You know. My virginity."
My breath gets caught in my throat, but I quickly force it out.
"Ellie, I didn't mean to bring that up to shame you," I say. "I just didn't want to think that what we had changed something for you— maybe it made you jaded or…I don't know, scared or something."
"Even if it did, that wouldn't be your problem."
"If it's your problem, it's my problem. It's the same with the stalker."
"Well, now you can fix one problem," she says.
"You seemed adamant at the Garden of the Gods that you didn't want to do anything with me."
"I changed my mind. Tell me you don't want me."
"I don't know if you've heard all the whispers," I say, trying to keep the sarcasm from overwhelming my voice. "But I recently got into some trouble for getting involved with a young woman and people presuming that I was pressuring her into sleeping with me."
"I'm not like that model," she says. "And I'm certainly not on drugs."
"You're not curious about what really happened?"
"I believe you."
Those words— a miracle in LA without an enormous amount of disclaimers added on— are enough to break through my grudge and all my morals.
I grab her around the waist, pulling her up higher on the bed. My lips crash against hers like an ocean wave making another mark on the beach. She kisses me back in the same way, her lips feeling softer than satin. I press my lips against her throat. She tastes even better than she smells.
I lean back. I peel off my shirt. She reaches up, her fingers tracing over my lion tattoo, but her eyes scan the rest of my chest, taking in all the other tattoos I've gained since she last saw me— a polar bear on my other shoulder, a sapling for the first music video I did for Cold Crash, a streak of red paint, several flames, a stone lion, a dagger with a rose engraved in the handle, barbed wire twisted into the shape of a crane, and slashes of various colors between them all.