by Cynthia Dane
Sex changed everything. Although she may be dressed in a T-shirt and gym shorts now, in a few days she would return to the label office dressed in her nicest jeans, jacket, and a casual T-shirt that wasn’t too scandalous but still showed off her assets. That would be the next time Rick saw her. What is he going to think? What will he even say? They had never exchanged phone numbers. They barely knew anything about each other’s lives. And yet we did that? Olivia couldn’t help but blame herself. Rick probably pulled this stunt with every dance partner who let him. What number was Olivia? She didn’t even want to think about it! That’s it, I’m getting tested. The birth control she had since she was a teenager riddled with acne would only get her so far.
The house was silent all around her. Her family was asleep, but she couldn’t be bothered. Sometime soon she would have to confront Rick again. Who knew what would happen? He would either ignore her and pretend that nothing had happened, or he would make her life hell.
Before her brain could take her that far, however, Olivia flopped back down onto her bed and remembered the skin tingling way he spoke during their moments of passion. Yup. Spanish is still sexy. A smile cracked on her face. Olivia had a hunch that if her grandmother were still alive, she would be the one person who didn’t judge what happened that day. At least that was able to assuage Olivia’s anxiety long enough to help her go back to sleep.
The only times Rick had trouble putting together a song in a timely manner was when he was too inspired. Of course, it was near impossible to whip up a hit song when he was utterly uninspired, but the opposite was true as well. And was he inspired that next morning, shortly after he woke up and realized his mind was still on Olivia.
His fingers stopped strumming his acoustic guitar as he lay half naked on his unmade bed. More thoughts of Olivia swam in his head. Beautiful, spirited Olivia. When he invited her to dance with him yesterday, he certainly had not intended on… well, what happened. It was sex, man. Yup. Definitely sex. That was sex, and they had it.
Rick sat up, setting aside his guitar and letting his feet dangle over the side of his bed. Until he fell asleep last night he didn’t think twice about what happened with Olivia. I mean, it happens. Especially when dancing. With a beautiful woman.
He wouldn’t lie, especially to himself. Olivia was an attractive woman. Rick thought that when she first walked into the audition wearing those jeans and that curve-hugging jacket. Usually he was able to separate his attractions from work. Contrary to popular belief, he could be professional, let alone with women. Just because he occasionally slept with his female coworkers… perks of the job.
There was one major problem, however. Well, two. The first was that women like Fiona preferred casual relationships and weren’t even interested in Rick’s fame and money, although they never said no to him treating them to dinner or paying their rent for the month. Women who liked to keep it casual were best for Rick, who was too busy with his booming career to have a proper relationship. Maybe after the tour was over. Rick liked having girlfriends to spoil in more ways than one.
Yet there was the other issue. Olivia. Who knew how she would react now that they not only kissed but acquired carnal knowledge of one another. Would she be the type to play it cool? Freak the hell out? Decide they were now getting married? Oh boy.
There’s a song in this somewhere. Rick picked up his guitar again and tried a G key. No, too hoppy-boppy. A-minor? Whoa, too serious. Too melancholy. He tried a D key. Happy, but not so much so that he needed a dentist.
Just before he found a rhythm to his liking, someone knocked on his door. Thomas. Only that man knocked like he was both going to bring him cookies and rip his spleen out.
Really, it was a warning knock. Thomas would damn well help himself into Rick’s abode. If anything, that knock was to make any woman in bed with Rick throw on some clothes. Not that women like Fiona ever heeded that knock.
“Good, you’re alone.” Thomas closed the door behind him and approached swiftly, his hat in his hand and a step to his gait. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Let’s get it over with.”
Rick, who was still shirtless with his guitar, held up his hands as if such a thought were preposterous. “Dare I ask which one I want first?”
“Doesn’t matter. Since you’re songwriting, I’ll give you the bad news first. Label’s decided to half-ass your fourth and final single for Midnight Tango. You’ll be lucky to pick it.”
“Joy.”
“Good news is that they want to start recording your second album the moment the tour’s over in a few months. So you better have some songs ready to go by then.”
“They’re wasting no time, eh?”
“You’re hot, Rick.” Thomas looked like a 1940’s reporter in the way he pointed his hat at his hapless charge. “Public loves you and wants more of you. More than ever we’ve got to put new material out so they remember who you are. That’s how you get asses in those seats.”
“Or we could focus on Brazil. I hear you can do anything and they’ll still love you.”
“Nossa Senhora. The things people say about Brazil these days.”
Rick shrugged. “Sorry. Don’t speak Portuguese.” Unlike Thomas, as Rick had come to discover over the past two years they worked together.
“We’re gonna fix that. Starting tomorrow, you’re getting Portuguese lessons.” Thomas put his hat back on. “Don’t groan. You’ve got five stops in Brazil this tour and you’re not gonna make an ass out of yourself. As you said…”
“And let me guess. Once we hit south of the border my name will magically change to Ricardo again?”
“Well it is your name, Ricky.”
“Ricardo Rodriguez sounds like whomever my mother named me after.” Rick put down his guitar a final time and searched for a shirt to put on. He wasn’t shy in front of his manager, but he’d rather direct attention away from the fact he was spending his morning freeloading in his own home.
Thomas frowned for a bit but quickly recovered himself. “Writing anything good? Label will want it as soon as you’re finished.”
“Come on, man.” Rick pulled a plain gray T-shirt over his head and fought to get the hem down his torso. I’m too tired for this shit. “I’ve barely started. Bit blocked.”
“Great! Who did you sleep with this time?”
Rolling his eyes, Rick stood up, stretched, and ambled toward the kitchen where he hoped to find something edible. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come off it, Ricky.” Boy, he was the only person in the world who got away with calling Rick that awful thing. “I know you well enough by now that when you’re in a funk like that you’re either stressed out or just got laid. Judging by the massive amount of smug I’m choking on right now, I’m guessing the latter.”
Could Rick’s eyes roll any farther back? He pulled a box of opened cereal off the shelf, sniffed it, and decided it wasn’t too stale to eat. The bowl, on the other hand, nearly broke when he slapped it on the dirty counter. “Technically I didn’t sleep with anyone. Just sex.”
“Even better. Must not have been Fiona then. That girl likes her sleepovers.”
‘No, it wasn’t Fiona.” Rick took a bite of the cereal, grimaced at the staleness, and kept eating anyway.
“Don’t tell me it was one of the other dancers. Last thing we need is you causing drama between your ladies.”
Why, because it’ll be your problem? Once the tour started, Papa Thomas was responsible for not just Rick but a good chunk of the dancers coming along. If they started fighting…
“Come on, give me a hint. I need to know who is going to despise you throughout the tour. Especially when you inevitably pick up some cute Venezuelan girl in Caracas.”
“You of so little faith.”
“With you? Yeah.”
Rick scouted the fridge for some milk but decided against it. Who knew how long it had been in there? “It was Olivia.”
Thomas stood in the middle of the apar
tment as if he had been told his dog was dead. “The girl who introduced the sole of her shoe to José’s face? The girl you’re partnered with for the tour? That Olivia?”
Rick swallowed some cereal. “The one and only.”
“For fuck’s sake!”
Thomas didn’t often drop the F-bomb, so when he did, Rick had to double-take. “Problem?”
“No, no, not at all.” Thomas straightened his jacket and took a step toward the door. “Wouldn’t be a day unless you were screwin’ around and making my life hell. Filho da puta. Er, not you.”
“Didn’t think you were talking about my mother.”
“Good.” All these linguistics were making Rick think of the Spanish exploding between him and Olivia the day before. Damn that was hot. He had no idea Olivia knew Spanish, let alone that kind of Spanish. Rick was as good as a native speaker, but he had no reason to believe Olivia grew up speaking it outside of high school Spanish class. Then again, she had that grandmother. Maybe Grandma Owens was raunchier than anyone else in the family let on.
“Besides, it’s not like that anyway. It sort of happened. One minute we were dancing and then the next…”
‘Yeah, yeah, I know how it works. You think I wasn’t young once?” Thomas went to the door and waved a dismissive hand in Rick’s direction. “Just don’t screw up the harmony of the dance team going into this tour. Please. Please.” He didn’t give Rick time to reply before walking through the door and shutting it behind him.
Rick thought he would finally get some peace to eat his stale breakfast. Then his phone rang, and he was convinced it was Thomas calling to berate him some more.
Yet his phone didn’t recognize the number. Almost enough to make Rick reject the call these days. Usually means it’s someone who has no business calling me. He answered anyway.
“Hello.” Olivia.
Rick couldn’t help but smile on his spoon. “And how did you get this number?”
“I called the office and asked them. They really like handing out your information.”
The fact that you were on an approved list had nothing to do with it, I’m sure. “And what can I do for you, Olivia? Afraid I’m not going out dancing today.”
“I wanted to talk about what happened yesterday.”
The spoon slipped out of Rick’s mouth and landed in his cereal. “Is that so?”
“Look, it’s gonna be awkward the next time we see each other, so I just want to say, before that happens, what happened is something that went on.”
“I think I can agree with that.”
“And it can stay there. In the past. No hard feelings, but no expectations. Let’s just dance.”
She hung up. Rick kept the phone pressed to his head before finally lowering it and looking at the number still flashing on the wide screen.
No expectations? No hard feelings? It almost seemed too good to be true. Because it is. For the moment Rick heard those words, he realized something. Something dire.
I like her. A professional, beautiful woman who had enough talent to back up her claims of being one of the very best? If Rick weren’t careful, he would start falling in love with a woman who said she wasn’t interested. Well, not interested in anything other than dance.
He went to his bed and picked up his guitar. There was a song in there somewhere. Somewhere in the samba they danced before falling deep into the fiery lust his family always sighed over.
The only proper follow up to a midnight tango was a samba by starlight. Rick began strumming, his heart thinking up the words before his brain had a chance to process them. Sort of what happened in the dance studio the day before.
I wonder if she’ll know this song is about her. Rick wasn’t going to reach someone like Olivia through pesky words and flowers at her door. A woman like that? She only responded to one thing, and that was the way the rhythm stimulated her body.
What a fun game this would be.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2
STARLIGHT SAMBA
COMING JUNE 22ND
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