by Weston, Dani
“Bea, when do you actually study?”
She mock-growled at me and pulled her textbooks out of her backpack. I smiled smugly at her defeat and dug back into my studies. But, five minutes later, when I was completely engrossed in a series of charts, she snapped my text shut and yanked me out of the room.
We headed to the mall, whirling in and out of shops at the speed of light. We loaded our arms with clothes, hit the dressing rooms and sashayed in front of the mirrors.
“No on the blue, yes on the red,” Bea and Kaitlin agreed about my outfit choices.
“Nice side-boob, Kaits, honestly,” I told her as she modeled a mock-neck tank dress. “And that pencil skirt is everything on your ass,” I told Bea.
After the sun went down, we landed at a scoop shop and ordered milkshakes. Our shopping bags huddled around our legs like pets. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk about anything except classes and music.”
“And work,” Kaitlin added.
“We could just talk about how good this milkshake is,” Bea said, with her lips around the straw. “Oh my God, yum.”
“I want to quit life for a while and just drink milkshakes and sit under massive umbrellas and listen to--.”
“No music!” Bea said.
“Audiobooks!” I laughed. “I can’t remember the last thing I read for fun.”
“Me, neither,” Kaitlin and Bea said at the same time. We all dissolved into giggles. It was nice, sitting there with my best friends, soaking in a slow, easy evening. Would life ever be like this again?
“We should go to Mexico,” I said.
Bea slurped her shake. “Right now?”
“Spring break. Make a pact that we will.”
“Done,” Kaitlin said. “I love tequila.”
Bea shook her head. “Oof, tequila hates me. But I love you two, so I’m in.”
“Sunsets over the beach. Parties all night. I’m ready now.” I sat back in my chair and crossed my legs, bringing my milkshake closer, and watched the shoppers go by. It was something to look forward to, Mexico with these amazing ladies, and would help the next months fly by, no matter what happened.
With anything.
*
The car to our meeting with Duncan and Jimmy waited for us outside the sorority.
“Hey, I know you!” I grinned, passing the driver, who held the door open for us. The intern from our first meeting rolled his eyes, but stood patiently as we got in the limo.
When Bea had called Jimmy to tell him our news, he’d said we needed to get past the whole meeting at the office thing, so why didn’t we head up to his house? Bea had given me a questioning look, as though searching for information about his house, but I bit my tongue and shrugged.
We looked amazing, I knew, in our new outfits. The red, snakeskin-like fabric I’d picked out stretched over my thighs as I sat. I knew my figure looked sexy in the fitted dress. I wore a row of bangles up both arms. Bea slid in after me, her black halter dress slit high up the thigh. Kaitlin had opted for filmy pants and a glittering bra top under her see through, white blouse.
The intern closed the door behind us and took the driver’s spot. My phone buzzed at me, so I dug it out of my bag to find an email from Local Jackson, who I’d kept up to date with all the details of our band progress. Knock ‘em dead, he wrote. I hid a smile.
Forty-five minutes later, we started up a wide street into the Hollywood hills. We all stared out the windows as though expecting a celebrity to be walking their dog on the sidewalk, or something. Even me. When I realized what I was doing, I sat back in my seat and tried to cool my nerves.
It was going to be the first time I’d seen him since brunch. Since I drew the line.
We reached his turn-off and got past the guard’s station to find a line of cars parked in the driveway leading up to his front door.
“All Jimmy’s?” Bea said to me, quietly. She folded and unfolded her hands in her lap.
“I don’t know,” I said. But some of the cars were duplicates and I couldn’t imagine what Jimmy Keats would do with two of any car. I cleared my throat. “No matter what, we’re professionals so let’s act like it.”
Kaitlin played with her chin. “It’ll be an act, that’s for sure.”
“Hey, we’ve earned this,” Bea said, catching my spirit. “We deserve to be here. We are as good as any of them. Never forget that.”
A man in a dark gray suit opened the car door for us and as we were climbing out, I nodded. “Exactly.”
It was a good thing to say. As gray-suit man closed the car door behind us, I watched Bea and Kaitlin’s spines straighten. Their shoulders relax. Their hands clutch their bags a little more casually. The same thing was happening in my own body. I forgot to feel self-conscious about my makeup or my dress and instead focused on the way the butterflies in my stomach were settling into sleep.
We picked our way over the entry stones, careful to not catch our heels, and up the small flight of stairs to the front door. There, a woman, also in gray, opened the door just before we got there and welcomed us in a breathy voice.
“They’re waiting for you in the lounge. This way, please.”
We passed the impersonal entryway and were led to a staircase rounding to a lower floor. The steps opened out into a great room. Floor to ceiling windows offered a breathtaking view of the city from one side and the ocean from the other. Bea gave me a questioning look, as though asking if this all looked familiar. It did, even though I hadn’t been downstairs, but even so, I was taken back, for a moment, to the view I’d shared with Kevin on the top of UCLA. That was gorgeous, and there was something about having the breeze over my arms and Kevin to keep me warm. This was different. Muted and warm. Luxurious, rather than elemental.
“And the guests of honor have arrived.” Jimmy Keats raised a glass in the air, and the thirty or so people around him did the same. “Welcome.”
“Welcome,” the unfamiliar faces chanted. And…the familiar ones. Payton Smalls, who stared at us suspiciously under hooded eyes. Yeah, we were untested, but I promised myself that we would prove ourselves to him and anyone else who doubted our talent. And, for fuck’s sake: standing near the windows, Julia Wood, Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend. My throat clutched.
All three of us Ladies in Waiting halted for a moment. We didn’t know this was going to be a party. But then Bea’s words flickered in our minds—we deserve to be herel—and we came to life, smiles popping up to replace confusion. To replace the tightening in my chest at the sight of Jimmy. To force me to start breathing again, after I saw Julia Wood. I swallowed.
Jimmy Keats held his arm out to Bea and she smoothly slid her hand to rest on the crook of his elbow. Her face lit up. In a corner near an impressive bar set-up, Duncan Prospect caught my eye and gave me a gruff grin. He raised his glass and sipped at his beer.
I broke off from my bandmates and made my way over to him.
“We didn’t mean to surprise you,” he said. “There were just a few people who caught wind of Jimmy’s…project…and had to see it for themselves.”
I wondered if he project referred strictly to Ladies in Waiting, or if he was also talking about those photos from Lalique.
“That’s going to be a thing, isn’t it?” I said. “We’re Jimmy’s project.”
He nodded at the bar. “Grab a drink, Courtney, and let it go. It’s a start. And it’s not the worst start in the world. Be patient and you’ll stand on your own legs soon enough.”
I appreciated Duncan’s words. They were simple, honest, and to the point. As the bartender poured me a martini, I tumbled them over and over in my head. Be patient. He was right. Even when it seemed to people on the outside that an act had skyrocketed to fame overnight, the reality probably was that they’d put years into it. Even Ladies in Waiting had hundreds of shows played at dark, dank, boozy bars and clubs under our belt. This felt like it was coming fast and hard, but it had taken us years of work to get to this point.
As my fingers c
urled around my martini glass stem, I felt a breath on my shoulder.
“Liquid courage?” Jimmy Keats spoke so quietly I almost missed his comment before it floated away toward the view out the windows.
“I was just chatting to Duncan,” I replied, looking for the manager. But he’d escaped while my back was turned.
“I kept introducing your band to my friends, but there were only two. I felt like such an idiot saying your name when you weren’t there.”
A bubble of laughter escaped, but I cut it off with a snip. My eyes went to Julia Wood, backlit by the sexy city lights, looking polished in a way I could only ever hope to look. A dark monster in my belly reared its ugly head. “You? Feel like an idiot?”
He flashed his wide smile and the air went out of me. All the sexy, smoldering eyes, all the deep, languid voice, all the hot, hard body and his smile was what really caught me. It brought him out of fantasy and back to reality. He was human. With a laugh, with a grin.
“At my core, I’m just a small town boy from the South.”
“So how do you handle this, day in and day out?”
He held a hand out to me. “By escaping regularly.”
That smile of his faded to be replaced by a seriousness that flowed to his deep eyes. He ensnared me in his gaze and without a second thought, I placed my hand in his.
*
I could feel eyes on the back of me as Jimmy led me up the stairs, but I ignored them. I knew what I was doing. Music stuff. Furthering our band. Talking ideas. And, at first, that’s what it was. Jimmy took me to a room on the main floor and closed the door. Instruments and sheet music covered every surface, including the top of the grand piano near the windows.
“This is where I create,” he said.
“How much of your group’s music do you write?”
“Some. Not too much. No top ten hits.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.” I laughed at the face he pulled. It was fun teasing him. But then he got serious again.
“I told someone about you.”
“Who?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to dodge paparazzi.
“My grammy.” He laughed. “She keeps up on all my celeb gossip. It’s embarrassing sometimes. But she wanted to know who you were. So I told her about New Orleans, about Local Jackson, about how amazing you are.”
He stood near the doorway, one hand in the pocket of his blue suit, the other smoothing down his thin tie, watching me touch a clarinet, then a trumpet, as he talked. Checking out his instruments gave me time to process that he told his family about me. That he’d just called me amazing. When I saw the bass guitar on its stand, I headed in that direction and picked it up.
“I like the way you do that. Taking what you think is yours. Putting the strap over you like it belongs. A fluid, natural movement.” He crossed to room, grabbing a folder on the way over to me. “Take a look. This is your first single.”
I bristled at that. Ladies in Waiting had our own songs. He saw the way my body tightened and my mouth closed in a fine line, but he didn’t take anything back. I reached for the folder and opened it, prepared to rail against what I saw there. But it wasn’t horrible. In fact, it was one of my songs, rearranged. My eyes quickly read down the page, taking in the chord changes, the slight adjustment to the words. My name in the top right corner with his just beneath. I swallowed.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“Your recording.”
“You put this together from the recording?”
“I couldn’t have done it any other way.”
I stared at Jimmy wonderingly. It wasn’t impossible to write sheet music from a recording. It’s not even particularly hard. But when had he found the time?
“I feel better that you know how to write music.”
“Were you feeling bad before?” He raised his eyebrows and I flushed. His fingers were so close to mine, drifting along the second bar, while mine were on the fifth. Only a little music stood between us. My breathing began to accelerate. My heart went from slow and steady to a little uncertain, a little erratic. My brain followed. I tried to control the air in the room, but he seemed to have control of everything. This was his home, he was comfortable here. And he knew he didn’t have anything to lose.
And that’s what made me draw back, pressing myself against the chair. The dynamic was wrong. I was powerless, here. I couldn’t let the way my legs went weak and my hips tingle make a mess of what we had achieved so far. What we hoped to achieve. If something crazy started with Jimmy Keats and then went south? We were screwed.
I smoothed my hair and pursed my lips, thinking about his stunning ex-girlfriend downstairs, freezing the heat between us.
“Okay, play what you have so far for me.” I leaned forward, ready to hear his work. He paused for a second, then went to the piano. His posture was stiff and tall and it could have been because that’s how he liked to play, but I thought there might have been something more to those strong, broad shoulders. He put his fingers—the ones I’d wanted on me, still—on the keys.
The first chords split the silence in the room. He went on slowly before picking up the pace and adding flourishes. I closed my eyes and listened for a few bars, moving my fingers along the neck of my guitar like ghosts of sound, hearing in my mind the music it would all combine into. I nodded in time to the beat, a bass riff forming in my head as he played. He’d changed the song a bit. Found a middle ground between what Ladies in Waiting used to play, and what I knew we had to play to become popular. The melody cradled me, the song familiar enough to relax me. I came in with the words at the right time.
I stood outside an hour after last call,
Needing to go home, not wanting to exist at all.
It wasn’t until the chorus when I realized he was singing harmony, practically under his breath. His low sultry sound wrapped around me. I felt his singing like I felt the bass – in my muscles, in my bones. Just a hint of rough around the edges, enough to make it sound like a second voice was whispering only to me. The music pulled us together and I knew, no matter what else happened between us, that we would always have this.
I quickly regained control of myself and my guitar, thinking harder about my fingering, about how to coordinate with his sound. If I focused on what I was doing, the knots in my chest unraveled.
Our voices blended beautifully, dancing together like a waltz. I strummed the bass guitar in my arms, adding one more layer to our song and, in turn, he laid off the lower keys.
Will you hold me if I cry o’er my broken heart?
Can you love me even as I’m falling apart?
And when the song was over, he didn’t play any flourishes. He simply stopped and let sound fade into the hush of the room. Closed the piano. Stood and strode over to me. Pulled the guitar over my head and set it to the side. Gazed at me under his dark lashes the whole time, as if daring me to leave. But I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to. His eyes were beautiful, yes, but it was the way he looked at me that made me want to melt in his arms: focused, wanting, like I was the only thing in the room.
He leaned over me, his knee pressed into the cushion between my legs, his hands on the arms of the chair.
“You keep nice rhythm,” he said in a low voice.
“I’m good at what I do,” I whispered, forcing my words, even, to be steady. They didn’t want to be. My whole body was like a machine gone haywire. My legs trembled, my lungs felt tight, my center longed for him to come even closer. I licked my lips and his glance dropped for a moment before returning to mine.
“You like letting go a little, though. I like that.”
Despite all my reservations, I wanted to scream yes. Letting go was exactly what I wanted. I was so steady in every other aspect of my life: school, friends—except for the one fight Bea and I had last week—family. I’d always felt pressure to do things the “right” way. I even chose an instrument that functioned to keep music steady, on track.
But in this one part of my l
ife, I wanted to let someone else take the reins. It would be something that, deep down, I knew was safe, but that held enough danger to get me excited, over my head. And Jimmy Keats got me excited. Dampness grew between my legs, every muscle stood at attention for him, for the way his expression challenged me. In every other aspect of our relationship, I wanted things to be professional. I wanted to win arguments and ensure things went in my band’s favor. But in this, I wanted to trust Jimmy, let him have whatever he wanted.
I parted my lips, ready to tell him. But we weren’t the only people in the room anymore. Duncan Prospect stood in the doorway. He cleared his throat. Jimmy didn’t look away, still fixed on me, but I did. Duncan zipped his jacket.
“I’m out for the night, Jimmy. People have been asking for Courtney.” And then he walked away. But it was enough to bring me back to reality.
“Let me up,” I said to Jimmy. He hesitated just long enough to let me know he didn’t have to move, then pushed aside. I followed Duncan quickly.
“Where’s the restroom?” I asked his retreating back. On this floor, I didn’t add. Because I knew where the one upstairs, attached to Jimmy’s bedroom, was.
He turned around, watching me for a moment, maybe deciding if he wanted to say more than directions to the bathroom. But he didn’t. He just pointed. “Down the hall. Second door on the left.”
I swirled away and locked myself in the bathroom. Even it was luxurious, with marble floors and counters and a huge copper basin sink. I stared at the woman in the mirror and narrowed my eyes.
“You are stupid,” I berated her. “Are you trying to ruin things for everyone? Chicks before dicks, Courtney.”
I grabbed a tissue and tidied up the smudged eyeliner under my bottom lashes, rubbed a bit of tropical smelling lotion into my hands and took a deep breath. Then I went downstairs. I shook Payton’s hand, even though he didn’t looked pleased to see me, and managed to force a smile when I was introduced to Julia Wood. Three strong drinks in, I was charming them all. Three strong drinks…it was the only way I could possibly deal with how Jimmy Keats’ eyes followed my every move.