Sofia lifted her head and looked up along Maddie’s body, seeing her smiling sexily back at her, her eyes still full of arousal. She moved herself slowly back up Maddie’s body, trailing kisses as she went, before lying down next to her, her own body tingling and throbbing with desire.
“Wow.” Maddie smiled at her. “I’m trying not to feel jealous that you’re not out of practice.”
“You shouldn’t be. This is just my body coming back to you and remembering just how good you taste. There’s no one else.” Sofia kissed Maddie and snuggled in even closer. Maddie wrapped her arms around her tightly. “Unless we’re including Claudine I mean.” Maddie grabbed at her and Sofia laughed and struggled until Maddie had her pinned to the bed. She kissed her possessively and then moved her mouth to Sofia’s ear.
“Luckily, my body remembers a thing or two about you as well and I know just the thing to help you forget Claudine.”
Chapter Seventeen
Maddie woke to the sound of someone knocking on the door and calling Sofi’s name softly. Next to her, Sofi hadn’t even stirred. But they were in Sofi’s room, and there was no way she was going to answer the door. There was no one in the hotel, except maybe Tanya, who would be happy to know the two of them had spent the night together. She lay there quietly, trying to keep the panic at bay, concentrating on the feel of Sofi pressed against her side, the soft snuffling of her breathing.
Almost as soon as the knocking subsided, Sofi’s phone began to ring. This time, Maddie nudged Sofi gently and couldn’t help but smile as she slowly pulled herself out of sleep, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand and stretching like a cat. Eventually, she opened her eyes.
“Morning, beautiful.” Sofi reached under the covers for her, pulling her closer, wrapping her arms and legs around Maddie’s body like a koala bear.
“Someone wants you.”
“I hope it’s you.” Maddie felt Sofi’s hand on her breast as she nuzzled her neck. She laughed while lifting the hand and putting it on top of the covers chastely.
“I’m serious. Someone was just knocking at the door and your phone was ringing.”
Sofi dragged herself up into a seated position and yawned. “What time is it?”
“Just after seven.”
“Jeez.” Sofi reached across to the bedside table to get her phone. “I’m exhausted. Someone refused to let me sleep.” She smiled at Maddie and placed a hand on her cheek and a soft kiss on her lips. Maddie felt her body respond.
She pulled away and reached for the handset next to her side of the bed and pushed the room service button. She ordered a pot of coffee and headed into the bathroom. They still had a long morning’s work to do on the scenes that Rick thought needed to be reshot. And then she had a flight back to Miami to catch. Without Sofi. The reality of the situation crashed in.
“Hey, Felix, what’s up?” Sofi spoke into her phone as Maddie stepped into the shower and turned it on.
Minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom to find Sofi sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over her phone, unmoving.
“What’s wrong?” Maddie felt a rising panic at seeing her like that. “What’s happened?”
“I have to go.” Sofi jumped off the bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She dropped her phone onto the bed and ran her hands through her hair anxiously. “I have to get ready.”
She headed for the bathroom.
“Sofi.” Maddie called after her. “What’s happened?”
She stopped and turned.
“I think, I mean, it seems like Noah…” She shook her head as if not quite believing it herself. “Felix said that Noah told Little Boy’s people that I’m making a ‘lesbian’ video,” she put speech marks around the word with her fingers, “and he’s pulling out of the collaboration because—although he personally respects it’s my choice—professionally, he doesn’t want to be associated with ‘that kind’ of artist.” She took in a deep breath. “Felix said I fucked up by making Noah mad.” Sofi took in a big breath and let it out again. Her body seemed full of tension, and Maddie guessed that talking about the detail of it with her was hard.
“What did he do?” She could feel her anger building.
“The contract stops us both from talking about our relationship, from telling anyone it wasn’t real, and it stops him from telling anyone I’m gay, but it obviously doesn’t stop him from telling Little Boy I’m doing a video like this. I mean, it’s gonna be in the public domain in a few days anyway. Felix thinks Noah told them you were making the video, that there were always rumors about us, that you already came out, that I was gonna do this gay ass video, and he left Little Boy’s team to join the dots. And they freaked out.”
“That homophobic little shit.” Maddie moved toward Sofi. “I’m so sorry, Sofi.” She wrapped Sofi in a hug. Sofi let her, but then pulled away.
“It’s an absolute disaster.” She pulled at her lip nervously with her fingers. “The record company wants us all on a call in thirty minutes. Felix is spinning out and has gone into full damage limitation mode. And none of us knows what Noah’s gonna do next.”
There was a knock at the door. Maddie took the tray of coffee and placed it on the table.
“It was never going to be easy. You knew that.”
Sofi nodded.
“Everyone said I was taking a risk with this. It wasn’t like I didn’t know. I just thought it’d be for me to decide what was said and when, and I thought—” Maddie saw tears in her eyes.
“What?”
“It’s crazy and it’s going to make me seem like I’m a coward, but I always worried that I’d only have the courage to do it if you were by my side to support me. But of course you won’t be.”
Maddie reached for Sofi’s hand.
“I have to go home. I have Mateo. You know that.”
“I know, it’s stupid. I just hope I can do it without you.”
“You can, Sofi. You’re ready for this. You said it yourself. It’s time to stop hiding. It’s not making you happy, and if it costs you a chance with Little Boy, then fuck him.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Sofi avoided her eyes.
The comment hurt. None of this was easy for her.
“It’s not just something I’d say. It’s something you said once. But maybe you don’t remember. You said that if your fans turn their back on you for being gay then maybe they’re not the fans that you want.”
“I remember. But even then I thought I’d have you with me and you weren’t.”
Maddie stroked Sofi’s hand before letting it go. This wasn’t a time for the past.
“Have a shower, have some coffee, go and see how bad it looks, and I’ll see you on set in a little while.”
Sofi didn’t move.
“This should make you angry, Sofi, not defeated. And yes, I know it’s easy for me to say, but you’re the one they’re trying to push around. They’re trying to make you live a life you don’t want to live anymore. Go and tell them that.” Maddie had no trouble locating her own anger. She just wished she could give some of it to Sofi.
Sofi nodded. “I’ll try.”
Maddie let her go into the bathroom. She poured herself a coffee and sat on the edge of the bed where a couple of hours before she and Sofi had been making love oblivious to all of this. The wonder of the sex obliterating any sense of how difficult this was always going to be. She couldn’t regret it. She’d waited for Sofi for so long. She just had to hope that Sofi felt the same way.
* * *
Sofia sat in the armchair in Felix’s suite and watched him pacing up and down. She could only hear his side of the conversation, but she couldn’t even make herself tune in to that. Her mom had gone to get some breakfast, and Sofia had declined the offer of going along. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t bear to hear her mom say I-told-you-so one more time without losing her mind, it was that she couldn’t imagine eating a thing. She was angry, stressed, and anxious. Mostly, her anger was directed at Noah, for being
vindictive and immature enough to stir this whole thing up. But then she’d gotten mad at Little Boy for being too scared to work with an artist that might make him somehow look like anything other than the homophobic asshole that he clearly was. The stress and anxiety was all her own. They’d warned her this video was a risk, and she knew coming out might cost her, but she hadn’t expected it to hit so fast and so hard.
She reached across and topped up her coffee. It wasn’t helping the rancid feeling in her stomach, but it was helping to keep her awake when she’d barely had two hours of sleep. And when all she really wanted to do was go find Maddie, curl up with her in bed, and pretend none of this was happening.
Half an hour ago, she’d gone to Maddie’s room to let her know what was going on, hoping to catch her before she left with Rick to set things up for the shoot, but she’d been too late so she had to content herself with a text:
We’re trying to fix things. Everyone is pretty mad. But it’s okay, I think. I’ll see you soon. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it but I love you x
She’d added a sentence about how utterly amazing spending the night together had been but then deleted it for fear of it being too much somehow. They definitely needed to talk some more about what happened next, but this shitstorm meant they hadn’t had the chance. Even from another continent, Noah was doing his best to ruin things for her and Maddie.
“Okay, okay, we get it. Noon. Definitely. No problem. Yeah, that could work. Yeah. She’s with me now. I’ll be in touch soon. Thanks. Okay, bye.” Even when she bothered to listen, it made no sense. Felix put his phone in his pocket and sat in the armchair opposite her.
“We have until noon to do something about this. We’ve got two options that work. Three if you count Justin’s suggestion that we ditch this song release altogether, which I’m guessing from your reaction during the call earlier is not something you’re going to entertain?”
“You seriously put a question mark at the end of that sentence?”
Felix and her mom seemed like they were competing to see who could piss her off the most today.
“Just checking.” He held up his hands defensively. “This is the kind of problem that might have changed your mind.”
“My mind hasn’t changed, Felix. What are the options?”
“Option one. We delay releasing ‘Not This Time’ until after we release the Little Boy collaboration. And,” Sofia could tell he was choosing his words carefully, “we say nothing that might associate you with the LGBT community until at least three months after the song has been released. You both get the buzz of the collaboration, but he’s long gone by the time you start talking about why you’re now kissing French women in your videos.” He cleared his throat. “His people think that if you guys can get it recorded tomorrow, they can have it out by the end of the month, and timing-wise, you could still release ‘Not This Time’ in time for the Grammys—if you still want to.” Felix looked pleased with what he was saying. Like he’d just discovered a cure for something.
Not for the first time lately, Sofia wondered what the hell she was doing with her life. No one listened to her, what she wanted didn’t seem to count for anything, and everywhere she turned things just seemed so fucking toxic.
“I can’t wait to hear option two.” She ran a hand through her hair, the tight feeling building in her chest was familiar. She put down the coffee.
“Option two is maybe better. Less disruptive anyway. You release ‘Not This Time’ now as we planned—so all the promo can go ahead as intended—but the video has a different theme, no kissing women, and therefore no need for you to be talking to anyone about why you might be kissing women. And you can do the collaboration with Little Boy as planned, no harm done.” He sat back in the chair. “I already spoke to Rick about this. Most of your scenes are already in the can. He thinks that he’d need tonight and tomorrow to reshoot Claudine’s scenes with a male actor and today should be enough time to reshoot the scenes at the house that involve you both so you can still get to London tonight.” He spoke quickly. “Carly had the genius idea of using the guy whose house we were filming at. He’s pretty handsome and he’s the right age. Rick said he’d see if he was interested and screen test him early today. If it doesn’t work, then we can go back to the agency that provided Claudine and ask them for someone urgently.”
“Are you serious?” Sofia asked the question, but she didn’t need to. Felix had no sense of humor. And from the way he was looking at her, she could tell he had no idea just how objectionable it all was.
“It’s the best I can do. Little Boy’s people are being pretty unreasonable.”
“I’ve been fighting everyone in support of this video, in support of this song, since the beginning. I’ve told you all a thousand times why it’s important to me. You really think I’m going to just roll over and agree to reshoot the video with a man because some rapper I’ve never met wants me to seem less gay? Have you listened to a word I’ve been saying this past month?”
“I know you’re not happy about it, but it’s the only way we can save the collaboration.” He rubbed his face. “It might not always seem like I’m on your side, but I am. Justin’s idea was to bring Noah in to play opposite you in the video. He thinks it kills two birds with one stone because it calms Noah down and gives Little Boy what he wants. He told me to talk you into it and I haven’t even tried.”
She stood, feeling just about ready to explode.
“Do you work for me?”
Felix blinked at her.
“Do you work for me?” She repeated the question.
“Of course I do. Look, Sofi, I—”
“You’re supposed to be my manager, Felix. The person who makes things happen for me—for me, not Noah and not Little Boy. You’re supposed to help me make a success of the career I want. And right now, the career I want does not involve me abandoning the song, delaying its release, or reshooting the video because Little Boy has turned out to be so fragile in his masculinity that he thinks being associated with a woman who loves women makes him look like less of a stud. Do you honestly think I would do that? That I’m that desperate for this collaboration?”
Felix looked shocked. He sat staring at her.
“And I hope you told Justin to go fuck himself at the idea of Noah being within a hundred feet of me. Not only would I never shoot a video with him, but I want you to sit down with his people and make it clear that if he does anything else to try to harm my career, I will go to the media and tell them about the whole thing and I don’t care if it costs me half a million dollars to do it. It’ll be worth every cent. If I have to, I’ll tell everyone that I faked it with Noah because I was scared of coming out and I’ll make it clear that he was an asshole who took advantage of that and caused me so much stress that I collapsed. He needs to start thinking about how he’s going to explain all that because it’s all he’ll get asked about for the next six months.”
Sofia should have been angrier, but instead, she felt all the stress and tension of earlier draining away. Somehow saying this stuff to Felix, taking control for once in her life, felt righteous and the righteousness calmed her.
“The record company won’t let you do that. They’re not happy with you, Sofi. You’ve got to know that. They didn’t sign you as an angry LGBT artist, they signed you to be their very own Disney princess. A singing Latina Disney princess but still a fucking princess. They expect you to behave a certain way. This whole experiment has left them worried. I’ve sheltered you from a lot of what they’ve been saying, but…” He waved his hand as if to say he could only do so much.
She walked toward the door and back again, trying to regulate her breathing, trying to say what it was she needed to say.
“It’s not an ‘experiment,’ Felix. It’s my life. And it’s a life I’m determined to live a lot more truthfully. And maybe it won’t make the record company happy, but I hope it’ll be good for me. I’ve wasted a lot of time pretending to be someone I’m no
t and caring about all the wrong things, and I need to find a way to stop. I need to live for me and the people I love before it’s too late.” She stopped in front of him. “And in case I’m not being clear enough, your options aren’t options as far as I’m concerned and I can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to even present them to me. I have a better option—one that works for me and probably works for the record company too. I want you to sit, listen, and do exactly what I say. And if you decide you don’t want to, that’s fine. You can issue yourself a dismissal notice. And please don’t make it difficult by trying to talk me out of any of it because I’m already late on set.”
She sat opposite him, and when she closed her eyes briefly, she could see Maddie sitting on the deck with her guitar on her knee in the soft shining light of the setting sun. She could feel Mateo pressed next to her as they watched Maddie sing. Her whole body smiled and she felt a lightness in her chest. With Maddie at her side, she could do this.
* * *
Maddie disconnected the call with a sigh as she reached Sofi’s voice mail for the third time. She typed out a text:
I guess you’re still in meetings. I hope it’s all okay. I’m thinking of you (and of ways to dispose of Noah’s body). We obviously need to do some talking, but I love you too. And last night was wonderfully, beautifully, incredibly…tiring! And a lot like coming home. I’ll see you soon xx
She could have been self-conscious about sending it, but she wasn’t. Things felt different now and she was letting herself hope. Waiting for Sofi to finish the tour would be difficult, but since it seemed as if she really meant for them to be together somehow, Maddie would cope. She’d waited for five years, what was four months?
She looked out the window on what was another fine and cold Parisian day and realized that the car had brought her back to Muette. She hadn’t even noticed until they’d pulled into the street where “Claudine’s house” was located.
“I don’t think this is the right place.”
“It is the address I was given for you, madam.” Even the drivers spoke perfect English.
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