Seven Minutes 'til Midnight

by Sunniva Dee

  “They found you over there?” Emil asks, eyes wild and sunny.

  “Yeah. They were waiting at my hotel too. Full siege.”

  “Total dick wads,” I add, which actually makes her laugh. Then I chuckle, and Elias joins us.

  “Did they have families to feed and you needed to stand still for the cameras?” Bo suggests gravely.

  Nadia snorts, and that starts an avalanche of humor through our group. “You should’ve kissed for them. They have hungry children, remember?”

  “We were going to, only Aishe started pummeling them, so I had to get her out of there.”

  “Did not!” Aishe pipes up.

  “No? What was all that then?” I mime a lazy windmill with my arms, hands fisted.

  “She did that?” Zoe’s eyes are glossy with hilarity. “Damn, girl!”

  “That is so not pummeling!” Aishe straightens in half-real, half-mock righteousness.

  “No? Did I or did I not have to carry you out of there?”

  “You did not.”

  “So how did we escape the paparazzi siege, then? Now, I’m interested.” I make a show of accommodating my arms over my chest, getting comfy against the backrest.

  “You chose to toss me over your shoulder—which is different—like some fairy-tale thing. You were, like, the troll who stole the princess, and I was screaming the whole time.”

  “More like moaning,” I chuckle, and that dries out her laughter.

  “Anyway,” I say. “A beer?”

  AISHE

  Zoe tells me I can sleep on the couch in Emil and her suite. Nadia offers too. They can move Selena from the extra bedroom. I decline both, of course. These people return to being family so easily, it’s like we were never apart. A stone settles in my stomach at how much I’ve missed being around them. They’re fantastic in their wild, wild ways, and I wish things were different.

  Troy’s eyes burn on me, and I know if I asked, he’d open his arms and his room for me. Hell, with one look from me, he’d have slept on the floor if he had to. Elias is offering up his own bed, now, brows waggling slyly and making it difficult for me to look admonishing. “It’s a big bed, and I’m feeling generous. Also, on an unrelated note, I’d have a hot little Gypsy between my sheets any day. Or night,” he corrects himself. “Especially night.”

  “Cut the crap, dude,” Troy mutters.

  “No seriously, I’m fine. I’ll get out of your hair as soon as the press stops barricading the hotel,” I say. “I’ll just hang in the bar for now. You guys go to bed. Look at her.” I nod to Selena, who’s letting out tiny baby snores under her father’s chin. He kisses her head.

  “Troll,” Bo says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you book Aishe a room? Something nice. She needs somewhere with peace and quiet. We’ll put it on the incidentals.”

  “Sure thing, man.” Troll lumbers toward the exit, flipping his Diet Coke can open.

  “Bo, please. You don’t have to worry about me, okay? I’m not on your payroll. Plus, if I can’t get out of here tonight, I’ll pay for myself.”

  “Damn, but it’s so expensive here, girl,” Zoe says, and Emil bobs his head slowly.

  “She’s right. No worries, Aishe. We’re doing just fine and can afford it, m’kay?”

  “M’kay’s right.” Elias flares a cheery smile my way, and I roll my eyes. The guy’s something else no matter how you twist and bend it.

  I get up. Walk to the windows. They have shutters on the inside, bolted closed for the sake of the theater.

  “They’re still there.” That’s the impersonation of warm amber speaking. Or spices. More specifically, cinnamon, tarragon, Artemisia, and freaking thyme. Jesus, he needs to stop being how he is.

  I shoot up in bed at the loud blare of the hotel phone. Blinking, I stare at the alarm clock. Red digits read ten a.m., and I instantly feel guilty. I did nothing last night, except lament the fact that I’d been booted off The Thalias’ crew in the worst possible way. Unceremoniously so. Crudely so. It was as blatant as the performance that got me booted out.

  There’s also the guilt of having slept too long. I’ve got stuff to do. I need to call my cousin, Shandor. Goddamn, he’s on tour with Tracing Holland as we speak, and what if he’s already picked up a magazine with me on the cover?

  I’m feeling panicky about now. My cousin has always been protective. We’re the only ones full-time in America from our clan. The rest travel in Europe, settling in different places for days or weeks at a time the old-fashioned Gypsy way before moving on. I’m not afraid they’ll find out what I did, but my cousin is a different story.

  Shandor has given up so much to protect me. He was my safety away from the clan for years, until he took his chances and said yes to his dream job, leaving me to myself. Shandor isn’t just someone’s guitar tech anymore. No, he’s a full-fledged member of Tracing Holland. To be their guitarist, he had to trust that he could leave me to my own devices, take care of myself. By leaving, he’s given me an independence I’ve unconsciously craved for years.

  The phone! It keeps blaring. I hope it’s not him. No, how would he have found me already?

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” replies a voice too intimate for me to listen to. I pull my nightie higher over my boobs.

  “Uh-huh, I’m up,” is the first thing coming out of my mouth.

  “Okay,” Troy murmurs. “Janet is here. She’s our publicist. I don’t think you met her back when. She wants to go over shit with us. You want to meet up in Bo’s room? We’ve ordered some breakfast fixings.”

  “What? No, I need to get going. The inner workings of Clown Irruption–”

  “—is none of your business? We get that. But you’re going to need support right now. The video is being blown completely out of proportion. We’re on all the morning shows, every news channel side by side with an earthquake in Sudan and the president’s latest threat. It’s nuts, Aishe.”

  “Oh God.”

  “I know.”

  “I need to call Shandor…” I trail off, swallowing.

  “I can do it if you want.”

  “For real, Troy? How much does he want to kill you again? Not that this is going to make it worse or anything, right? He has no idea what I’ve done.”

  “I don’t care. If you want me to, I’ll talk with him.” He breathes on the other end, and it’s almost a sigh.

  I can smell him. It’s hard to have an answer for someone who derails you like this.

  “Just come up, Aishe. Top floor, first penthouse to the left. Twelve-oh-one. We have to sort out this shit, okay?”

  I hesitate just for a moment. Then, I relent. “Just don’t call Shandor. He has a new number too, by the way.” I invent the last part on impulse.

  It makes Troy laugh in a slow, deep roll.

  Troy opens the door to Bo and Nadia’s suite. Fresh from the shower, he smiles a cream-and-ivory, straight-teethed smile that stirs me low in the stomach. We walk through the lobby—because this thing has a lobby—and everyone’s here already, like he said, greeting me.

  I’ve never been in one of the Gargoyle penthouses before, and Mother of God is it sprawling. I’d have been fine sleeping on this couch. It’s white and soft and so large it could have accommodated the whole band side by side. Well, maybe not side by side, but it’s a humungous L-shape, and I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Emil is here. I still feel a little strange around him, while what we had—or what I tried for us to have—has completely disappeared into his vault of yesterdays. Emil got his girl, and he literally acts like we’re longtime friends. Now, he’s this close to slapping my shoulder in one of his jovial, Du-u-ude-you’re-heres!

  Beyond the living room, a veranda extends over the city. Yeah, it’s so large I couldn’t dream of calling it a balcony. Maybe it’s part
of the rooftop? We’re inside, though. The breakfast staff arrives too. They start spreading plates and steamy goodness on a twelve-person dining table complete with chairs that have crown-topped backrests.

  The band baby crawls toward me on hands and knees. Toothlessly, she smiles at me. Until yesterday, I hadn’t even seen Selena, and that’s a little bit wild considering how close Nadia and I were during those months on tour.

  “Hi there. Aishe?”

  I let my eyes go to a skinny, blonde woman in a business suit. Her hair is plaited in a short braid that ends at her collarbone. Thin lips draw into a professional smile. The red frames of her glasses match her lipstick to perfection. She’s busy volleying her glance between the guys for confirmation to her question.

  “Nice to meet you. Janet, correct?” I ask.

  “Janet Twain. Welcome to the jungle,” she adds as if the situation is funny to her. Maybe it is. Maybe this is what publicists feed off of.

  “Twain, as in…?” I ask, because sometimes things fall out of your mouth.

  “Exactly. Not related,” she quips. Then, she claps her hands together, leaving them locked before she floats her gaze over everyone present. “Ready to go?”

  Murmured agreement.

  “All right, here’s today’s agenda: one, Isaias di Nascimbeni, owner of Lucid Entertainment, will be here at eleven thirty. He’s bringing his director, Gianni Alexie. They’ll get us up to speed on where they’re at in their investigation and what they’ll do for damage control on their end. Twelve thirty: meeting with our team of lawyers. Again, it’s about damage control. However.”

  She ends the word with a raised index finger, swiping over us with small, mascara-crusted eyes before our awe moment. I forget to breathe for a second, until she says, “However, they’ve already warned me this video isn’t vanishing all that easily.”

  Bo groans.

  “Okay, guys, I’ll be honest: we’ll have a hard time making this go away. We’re going to get it off the legal sites, but then there’re the hacker sites, most of them not even hosted in the U.S.”

  “Everyone has websites. There’re the high school kids dabbling in stuff,” Zoe says.

  “High school kids?” Elias blinks. “Those little dudes? Aww, please no.”

  “What did you think, Elias? Pretty self-explanatory, I’d say. When you were a little dude, what did you do, surf the internet nonstop, right?”

  “Yep, should’ve thought of that before,” Troll says. “Remember I warned you? I told you not to do this, that it’d come back and bite you in the ass.”

  “Guys.” Bo straightens in his seat, eyes somehow on everyone. He does this at the same time as nimble guitar fingers find his daughter and pull her diaper-clad butt away from Janet’s purse. Selena lets out a disappointed squeak. “Let’s move on. We need to down some breakfast before Isaias comes, and after the lawyers, there’s the press conference.”

  “The what?” My eyes feel too big for my head right now.

  “Oh man, so many surprises around here,” Troll mutters. “You didn’t think Clown Irruption”—he waves a hand magnanimously over Bo and Emil—“gets off without having to talk to the press, did you?”

  “Troll, did you get the ballroom?” Janet presses pink fingertips against her weird little side braid.

  “About that. Turns out it wasn’t as easily accomplished as I thought. Kygo’s here, and he’s got it booked for some sponsor event.”

  “Oh no! Why didn’t you tell me? What do we do?” Janet might feed off the fast-paced reality of a publicist, but I can see her lose it quickly too. Heels as pink as her nails rise out of the soles of her Louboutins.

  “Not really my problemo, am I right?” Troll stands, shoving his thumbs into his front pockets. Odd, because in my experience, Troll is never less than fully dedicated to the band. He tips forward a little, enjoying the moment.

  “I’m aware, but I thought you had it under control! Is there anywhere else nearby?”

  “Nice.” Emil gets up and stretches. With a small smile on his lips, he draws Zoe into a standing position too, and the two of them slip over to the table. Emil pops an olive into Zoe’s mouth, then a few into his own before chasing them with orange juice.

  “Cut the crap, Troll,” Bo says. “Tell her.”

  “’Course.” Troll wolf-smiles at Janet. “Kygo’s people gave us the ballroom. They’ve moved their event to the top penthouse.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Janet stands too, nervously smoothing her business skirt. “One of these days, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

  AISHE

  Janet is supposedly good at what she does. The band trusts her. The ballroom at the Gargoyle is smack full of people, and the panel she’s lined up holds Isaias, all the guys, and none of the girls in the video. We’re here, though, hidden on the sidelines, even Elias’ partner-in-crime in the video.

  Statuesque and calm as a lake, Waris came with Isaias di Nascimbeni for the first meeting this morning. She didn’t say much, just winked at Elias, all, I-remember-you-little-boy-and-everything’ll-be-all-right, before she settled into the couch with a mimosa.

  The first question flung into the room is, “Troy! The girl you performed sexually explicit acts with on the video has been identified as Aishe Xodyar, a former employee of the band. How did that choice come to be?”

  Janet is the one holding out the microphone to the journalist. Now, she retracts it, floating her look from the guy to Troy.

  The A/C is blasting, but I still feel a trickle between my shoulder blades. Maybe I should hang out somewhere else.

  “Good question!” Emil flares a smile to the audience, not just to the journalist. “But isn’t it obvious from the video? They’ve got some serious chemistry, don’t you think?”

  Laughter scatters through the room, the mood lifting a little.

  Another journalist leans over Janet’s microphone as she passes, briefly clutching it in his hand. “Troy, what’s your take on it, though? Yeah, you were hot together. I’m the first to admit that”—he looks around, drawing a few chuckles—“but why Aishe Xodyar?”

  “He owed her a good time! Can’t leave a girl hangin’.” Emil is in his element, smile going brighter with each laugh he draws from his audience.

  “But on video for everyone to see?” someone shouts back.

  “We’re performers!” Emil replies. “We do everything for all of you to see. We live for this shit. Which reminds me: have you seen our potty video yet? Bo’s daughter is in training, so we all take turns now. Plan is to release the official—edited—Clown Irruption potty video in a few months, after the tour, ya know, but who knows? If the unfiltered version leaks out first, I trust you’ll let us know, yes?”

  Troy sits back in his chair, small smirk playing on his mouth, like he’s with Emil in his approach. I read him, though, and his gaze has darkened. If safari-green could go steely, that’s what I’m seeing now.

  Bo’s arms are crossed tight, and judging by the clenched jaw, it’s hard for the leader of this band to not be today’s spokesperson. There’s no way they’ll get off the hook without some real answers, though. Janet must know that. Even I know that.

  “Are you mute today, Troy Armstrong?” a female journalist purrs into the microphone. He taps at his Adam’s apple, faking pain. Then he opens in a signature straight-toothed ivory smile. He lifts a finger in the air as if he’s about to speak. Then shakes his head when he supposedly can’t.

  Some laugh. Others groan with impatience. “This is a farce. We’re getting no answers here. Listen, you have a ton of under-aged fans. What is the message you’re sending them, you think, by releasing a pornographic video of yourselves? Do any of you have a serious statement to that? And if you don’t care about other people’s children, how about your own?”

  The woman speaking has a voice that’s sharper than a kit
chen knife. She cuts it through the air, slicing not only the band, but us behind the curtains too.

  “Bo, I know your daughter is just a baby, but she’ll be Googling you when she gets old enough. And the rest of you, don’t you plan to have kids one day?”

  At my side, the only person who’s unaffected is Waris. I can’t help that my stare lingers on her for a moment. She lifts her brows in peaceful arcs and smiles a little. I do envy that calm. It’s easier for her though; it’s not like Lucid Entertainment will fire her for going all out in a video. Heck, she’s probably getting a bonus for this.

  Emil leans forward, cradling the microphone in his hands. Slowly, his light eyes move upward, fixing their amusement on the woman with the harsh questions. Then, he begins a low snicker. It lasts long enough for a flicker of uncertainty to stir in Bo’s eyes. Janet definitely looks worried. Zoe, though… Zoe is smiling big, and there’s no hesitation in the look she sends her husband.

  “O-oh yeah. Zoe and I’ve talked about it tons of times, and see, why should anyone be ashamed of how much they love another person and how much they enjoy being with them? You saw us, right? Did you? Did you study us?” His nod toward the audience is void of judgment. Instead, that open face of his, the one I once thought I’d fallen for, radiates curiosity.

  “Yeah, I watched you, all right,” a deep voice booms up from the rows. Others join him, brave too now that he’s fessed up.

  “See how much fun I had, there?”

  “Oh yes, sirree, you had fun,” someone mocks. Even so, their tone isn’t void of humor.

  “Here’s the thing, man.” Emil slaps his hands together, keeping them there. Impossibly, he leans closer to the microphone, until his lips touch its steel. “You think my Zoay had fun?”

  “That’s beside the point!” a woman shouts. “Answer the question.”

  “She loo-o-oved it. Didn’t you, darling?” Emil stares at the curtain we’re hidden behind, and Zoe bites down on her grin as she steps away from us and out in the open. This was planned. No way it wasn’t.