Easy Glamour

by Maggie Marr

  “Hi,” he said. His voice was all sex and whiskey. My toes curled and my nipples pebbled. Yep, still attracted to Rhett. “Darren said he thought he saw you go into this room. I told him that couldn’t be, but it is.” He spoke softly, quietly, as though he carried a fear that I’d run from him or slam the door in his face.

  “Hey, Babe, I checked in the mirror and I still think one ball is bigger than the other.”

  Oh shit. I closed my eyes. Rhett looked past me and I didn’t even have to turn to know what he saw. A naked Johnny, holding his cock and staring down at his balls.

  “This is not what it looks like,” I said.

  Rhett’s gaze returned to meet mine. “It never is.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s really not what it looks like.”

  “What’d you think of that orgy upstairs?” Johnny called from my room.

  “You’re doing orgies now?” Rhett nodded toward the interior of the room. “With him and his friends?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and looked up at the ceiling. “What do you think?”

  “Not that it’s any of my business, but I think it looks pretty damned suspicious. You with your hair wet and wearing nothing but that robe and Johnny your former lover walking around your room, bare-ass naked checking his balls and asking you about the orgy you just had in his room.”

  “He just had in his room. I simply had the misfortune of walking in on it.”

  “Right.” Rhett leaned his arm on the doorjamb and the muscle in his bicep flexed. I wanted to touch that arm, that muscle, caress it and kiss it and make it mine.

  “I could understand how this would seem suspicious to someone,” I said. “But this isn’t what it looks like. He came to my room without his clothes on. He showed up this way.”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar,” Rhett said. “The only difference is, that if you tell me that’s how it is, then I believe you.”

  There wasn’t any humor in Rhett’s eyes. I closed mine.

  Of course.

  I hadn’t believed him when a nearly naked woman was in his apartment, and now I expected him to believe me and my story while my naked ex-lover strolled through my room, dick in hand, talking about orgies.

  “Fine,” I said. “If you don’t believe me then just ask Johnny.” I turned toward the room. “Johnny, get your naked ass over here, please. Rhett has a question for you.” I turned back toward Rhett, but he was already gone.

  Chapter 19

  Rhett

  Heat unfolded in my chest. Wave after wave of irritation crashed into me. I slammed the door to my hotel room and paced forward and back. I pulled a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand. I put it between my lips but didn’t light it. I’d quit again, two days after Tasha had dumped my ass.

  My anger wasn’t because I believed that Tasha was sleeping with Johnny, because I didn’t. Tasha was too smart to travel down that dark winding road again. She knew herself better now, and she realized that Johnny wasn’t the guy she needed. No, the part that made me fucking angry, enough to rip up a hotel room, was that she hadn’t believed me but she expected me to believe her. Hypocrisy? Entitlement? What the fuck? My eyes closed and long deep breaths calmed my irritation. In the eight weeks we’d been apart, I’d dealt with some serious highs—Kimmel, the album, the tour—and some serious fucking lows—heartbreak, rage, Dad, and surrendering to the idea that Tasha and I wouldn’t be together again.

  Or I’d thought I’d surrendered to the idea that she was out of my life. When I’d entered the hotel after grabbing some dinner and seen her at the desk, my heart had stopped beating and anxiety mixed with desire had caused something to rip through my body.

  “Dude, is that Tasha Jones?” Darren asked.

  I’d fought back the urge to walk up behind her, wrap my arms around her waist, and inhale the sweet scents of magnolia and vanilla.

  “Looks like her,” Trevor said.

  “It’s her,” I said. My body responded in a way that was dedicated only to Tasha. Every muscle, every cell, every sinew, every neuron were suddenly alerted to her presence. There was no fight to be won in this battle; my heart and soul had already been lost.

  “Johnny’s in some deep shit,” Max said. He pushed the button for the elevator. “Two UGs and a bag of cocaine.”

  I kept my shades on and while I listened to my bandmates toss around the details of Johnny’s drunken rage-fest in his room, and his run-in with the Philly police, my eyes stayed locked on Tasha. She looked good. She looked the same. She looked like the only woman I would ever love.

  Fuck.

  The doors opened and the four of us entered the elevator.

  “I hear he’s pissed because this guy,” Max hitched his thumb toward me, “won’t fucking party anymore.”

  The elevator doors closed and I turned to Max. “How does me not partying affect Johnny Tucker? That’s bullshit. He’s pissed because our album is kicking his ass. He’s just not man enough to admit the real reason he’s pissed.”

  I’d heard the scuttlebutt about Johnny’s disappointment over me not partying while on tour from people on Johnny’s team. How was my going back to the hotel or the bus after the concert ruining Johnny’s mojo?

  Fuck Johnny’s mojo.

  Him and his “rocker DNA” theory plus his bad behavior and some absolutely shitty timing on my part had fucked my relationship with Tasha. Partying on tour wasn’t what I needed. I’d figured out that easy pussy was just that: easy and nothing more.

  “Dude, you have been a little quiet,” Trevor said. “You never go out, you don’t party, what the fuck? Are you good?”

  I glanced at Trevor’s reflection in the elevator doors. His curly scrubby blonde hair jetted out at crazy angles.

  “I’ve got half of the next album written. How good is that?”

  “Pretty fuckin’ good,” Darren said. “New album release right on the heels of this one and we’ll be golden.”

  “Exactly,” I said. Forget the parties and the pussy; my rock god status was going to be built on hits and sales. I knew what I wanted and I didn’t need all that other bullshit to get to my goals.

  The elevator doors opened and we each walked to our respective rooms.

  “Think I can come by later and hear the songs?” Darren called from his door. “I got a couple ideas I wrote that might work with your stuff.”

  “Whenever you want,” I said. “I’ll be in here working the rest of the evening. And that had been my intention, but I’d just seen Tasha and she was here, in this hotel, in Philly, and so was I. Thoughts of Tasha wouldn’t leave my head no matter how many chords I strummed, or how many tunes I hummed, or how many unlit cigarettes I put in my mouth.

  I’d waited for nearly two hours before I finally gave the front desk a c-note to get her room number, walked to her door, and knocked.

  My heart in my throat, adrenaline pumped through my body. I hadn’t talked to her since the night she found Larissa in my apartment. She’d told me then that our relationship was now only business. Well, we had business things to discuss, didn’t we? Over the last eight weeks she’d done the usual executive bullshit things of sending champagne and congratulations notes when our single “Dead Man” charted. She’d even shown up when the album went platinum. I didn’t talk to her and she didn’t talk to me. The distance was mutual and necessary. I wouldn’t ever get over Tasha. I would simply learn to get around the fact, and live with the knowledge that she was no longer mine. Guess Johnny Tucker and I had that little heart-shredder in common.

  When she answered the door in a robe with her amber-colored locks wet and slicked back, fresh from the shower, thoughts of Malibu and her shower flooded my mind. My heart, my fucking heart cracked behind my ribs. Two steps and I could be next to her, sliding my hands under her robe, my lips taking hers.

  That fucking privilege was gone.

  I couldn’t touch Tasha. I could barely stand two feet away from her without fucking falling to my knees and begging her
to please understand, to please take me back, to please believe me when I said nothing fucking happened.

  And then she had to say those words to me. With a naked ex-lover rock star in her room. And she expected me to believe her when she had failed to believe me.

  Yeah. I was pissed. Pissed enough to need to leave so I didn’t say words and do things that could cause the president of Left Coast to release my ass from her label. I threw the unlit cigarette in the trashcan.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  My throat tightened. That had to be her. She had to see the hypocrisy. She had to apologize for expecting me to believe her and not believe me. She had to know that I had changed, that I understood her concerns, that I knew to my core what type of guy I wanted to be and could be when I was with her. Adrenaline poured through me. This was the moment. This was the moment I had wanted, where we got to talk, and hopefully, God, hopefully we could work all this bullshit out. I opened the door.

  “Dude, you ready to knock out the rest of that album?”

  No. Fucking. Way.

  “Not a good time?” Darren asked.

  My heart folded in on itself. Tasha wasn’t the woman I thought she was, because the woman I’d known and loved would be standing at my hotel room door apologizing for what had just happened. She would see the connection and know that she had to come talk to me. I shook my head.

  “No, man, it’s the perfect time. Come on in.” I stepped back into my room. I had my band, I had my music, but I most definitely did not have Tasha Jones anymore. Then again, right now, after what I’d seen and how she’d acted, I wasn’t so certain I did want her.

  Tasha

  Rhett would stay on Johnny’s tour. Johnny would attempt to contain his douchebaggery and accept that, right now, the person who was keeping the Johnny Tucker World Tour alive was Rhett Legend and act accordingly. My fingers were crossed, but I wasn’t holding my breath. I anticipated another call from our tour manager around week ten or eleven with more antics from Johnny. The charges in Philly against Johnny were dropped and the guys moved on to the next town.

  I walked into the recording studio on Sunset. A flash of the first time I’d heard Rhett sing went through my mind. I hadn’t apologized to Rhett. I owed him an apology, but who liked to admit when they were wrong? Plus he’d disappeared. I hung my head. There was no fooling myself; I’d simply not wanted to admit that he was right. The scenarios were similar and I expected him to behave in a way that I was incapable of behaving. Like I wanted to admit the fact that Rhett Legend had the moral high ground.

  Aileen and Terrell’s backs were to me as they played back Aileen’s last take. On it she was strumming her guitar and riffing a soulsy sound. I dropped my purse on the couch and walked over to them.

  “Hey, girl,” Aileen said and wrapped me into a hug. “Welcome home.” She pulled back and searched my face with her eyes. “How those really bad boys doing on the road?” She slipped me a smile that acknowledged that I’d just had to spend two days, fly two thousand miles, and talk to a slew of cops and lawyers because an adult man was behaving worse than a three-year-old.

  Ah, the music industry.

  “Johnny is doing his thing,” I said. There was no further explanation necessary. “But Rhett and his band are doing really well for their first tour. And thanks to this guy”—I rested my hand on Terrell’s shoulder—“Left Coast has a platinum album and another huge star.”

  “Not me, Tash,” Terrell said. “Those boys have talent and a good sound. Your boy came into this studio ready to rock. He writes some smooth tunes and he’s got the pipes to deliver the sound.”

  My boy. Yes, not too long ago, Rhett had been mine, but now he wasn’t. Another piece of my heart broke at the thought.

  “I hear that one, Rhett Legend, he’s all about business on the road. Nice change, right? A man who is about the music and the fans and not the booze and the girls.”

  “Wasn’t like that when he first came into the studio,” Terrell said. “He’s a changed man.” His gaze slid to meet mine. “Not certain why he’s changed his ways, but I’m hearing he has.” Terrell’s voice held hints of innuendo. There was a question in his voice that he seemed to indicate he already knew the answer why.

  “My tour manager is on the road with them,” Aileen said. “I know for a fact that boy has been going home after the concert and working on his next album. You better get ready, Terrell. Soon as those boys get home from the road, they’ll be looking for you. Ready to lay down their next sound.”

  “He’s finished his next album?” I asked.

  “From what I hear,” Aileen said. She straightened from leaning against the soundboard. Mikey, the sound guy, entered the room.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “You know I am,” Aileen said and turned toward the recording studio. I followed her to the door. She turned back to me and leaned in, her voice near a whisper. “You know, if you want a rocker, Rhett Legend might be the type who’d be right for you.”

  Oh, Rhett was the right guy for me. But, unfortunately, we’d done enough damage to each other that I couldn’t see a way back for us to be together again.

  Chapter 20

  Rhett

  After ten weeks on tour I understood the term road-weary. The Uber dropped me off at Amanda’s pad in the Palisades. I dragged my overnight bag, my guitar case, and my tired ass up the steps to her house. There was a five-day break in our schedule before we all headed to Japan for the Asian leg of the tour. Johnny was huge in Japan. So were we. Amanda had offered to let me crash at her place because when the album had hit and we left for the tour we gave up the lease on the biohazard apartment. Once the tour ended I had to decide where to live, but little sis had offered up her pad and spare bedroom until I was permanently home from the road.

  Staying at Amanda’s house was easier than hanging at Sterling’s. Ryan was in South Africa for the next twelve weeks on a film, so it was just us two sibs hanging out. I’d made peace with Sterling. In fact I might even call him my friend, but he was shacked up in pre-wedded bliss with Rhiannon, and while I thought she was pretty fucking cool, my heart wasn’t ready to be the lone crow in a cage filled with two lovebirds.

  I punched in the security code for Amanda’s door and turned the knob. Voila! I was in. She’d gone to Palm Springs two days before and said she’d be back tomorrow. Little sis left me a note saying that the fridge was full of beer, food, and wine. Just what I wanted. I pulled open the fridge door: Ice. Cold. Stella. Amanda knew the way to my heart.

  I popped the cap and hauled my bags up the stairs to the spare bedroom. Living large. The room looked like it’d been decorated by a chick, using pinks and purples and some lace around the edges, but everything I needed was here. A bed. A closet. A couch. A desk. She’d even put music composition sheets and pencils on top of the desk for me. My own bathroom and TV. I could stay up here for the next five days. Though Amanda wouldn’t let me. She’d been checking up on my ass ever since the Kimmel show. She knew the breakup was bad for me. She knew my heart was broken. And, I guessed, she knew how fucking fragile my damaged ego actually was.

  I was lucky to have her. I plopped on the bed and sucked on my beer. I pulled my boots off and grabbed for my guitar case. I stood and looked out my balcony windows at the pool in the backyard. The sun was setting, the air was cooling, and the pool beckoned. I stripped, grabbed a towel, my guitar, and my phone just in case I scored a riff I needed to record, and headed downstairs.

  Dusk darkened the yard. I lit the candles and then did a header into the pool. Crisp but not cold. The silence beneath the water reminded me of my laryngitis. I broke the surface and shook the water from my hair and ran my fingertips over my face. I had two songs left to finish for the next album. This fucker was better than the first. Next tour we were gonna headline. I climbed from the pool bare-assed naked and walked toward the house for my towel.

  Fuck. I left the towel in the kitchen.

  I pulled on the back door.r />
  No. Fucking. Way.

  A half hour later I’d run through every contact in my phone. Every contact but one. I clasped my hand to my forehead. Yeah, well, I was her recording artist and I had saved her fucking company. The least she could do was come by on her way from Left Coast’s offices and save me from walking through Amanda’s neighborhood without a stitch of clothes.

  Tasha

  “You’re what?”

  “I said, I am bare-ass naked and locked out of Amanda’s house.”

  “If this is a come-on line it really sucks.”

  Silence. Rhett didn’t see any humor in my retort. He wouldn’t. He was still pissed at me.

  “I’ve called a hundred and seventy-nine people. They don’t answer or they’re out of town for the weekend. Believe me, Tasha, you’re my last call.”

  My heart dropped to my belly. I’d sunk from being the most important thing in Rhett’s life to being at the bottom of the pile. The final person he turned to in an emergency instead of the first.

  “I was just leaving the office,” I lied. “I can be there in fifteen.”

  “Great,” he said. Though the tone in his voice didn’t fit his words. “See you then. Bring a towel if you’ve got one, otherwise, it’s a show that you don’t want to see.”

  *

  I parked in front of Amanda’s home and grabbed a towel I’d swiped from the workout room at Left Coast. Rhett naked was not a show I didn’t want to see, Rhett naked was a show that he no longer wished to provide.