by Reiss, CD
—Lobby—
—They’re on it—
“Where’s Justin?” I asked.
“Ken Braque came just as you went in,” Eddie said. “They went into an office down the hall. That way.”
“Thanks.” Before heading in that direction, I kissed Evelyn. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“I called the New Yorker like you suggested. I’m telling them everything.”
She was so brave. I wanted to be like her.
“I’ll come,” I said.
“Really?”
“Totally.”
She hugged me. “Thank you.”
“He’s not getting away with this anymore, sister.” I let her go. We nodded to each other, and I went down the narrow hall in my swooshing skirt, peeking past the open doors and into the little windows.
I found them in the last office. Justin sat in a black chair with wheels, feet spread apart and elbows on his knees as if he were really listening to the guy in the tailored suit sitting at the head of the table. He glanced up and noticed me through the glass.
When he got up to come to me, I felt cared for, protected. In two steps, he made me feel so alive that when he opened the door, I threw my arms around him.
“Whoa, Kayla,” he said, holding me tight. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, extending the moment as long as I could.
“Let’s talk,” Ken said from the other side of the world. Justin and I loosened our embrace. He kissed me and held me in his gaze.
“I’m not going to stop seeing him,” I said, lost in frost-blue eyes. His temple was scratched. Signorile must have gotten a good swipe in.
“Yeah,” Ken said. “I get that. Fine. But can we try to not end his career?”
With my body still toward Justin, I faced Ken.
“Nobody wants that.”
“You’re standing in the Roosevelt Hotel, where this guy, just a few months ago, was fully naked when he punched his bandmate. Today, he was only half-naked.”
“I didn’t punch him,” Justin said. “They got video.”
“Of that and more, apparently.”
“Him assaulting Evelyn is all you need,” I said.
“That’s not going to work.” Ken wagged his finger twice. “Our friend here burst in from the adjoining room, ass all over the place. That requires an explanation. One needs the other to make sense. So we’re suppressing all of it. You’re welcome.”
“No,” I said, then snapped my mouth closed. Did I want to give Justin grief? Ruin his career with a sex video? Just so I could have easy vengeance?
I took a few deep breaths in a stretched stay, shaking my head slowly. Evelyn. Justin. Evelyn. Justin.
“Kaylacakes,” Justin whispered. “What?”
“It’s . . .” If I explained, I’d be putting it all on him, but if I didn’t? That was as good as not trusting him. “The video could finally prove what Signorile does. But I know that if it comes out, you’ll lose your contracts—”
“Good!” Ken stood. “You get it.”
Having decided we agreed, he started to walk out.
“Yo,” Justin called. “Kenny?”
Ken spun. “I have an appointment.”
“Yeah, cool. It ain’t gonna take a second for me to fire you.”
“To what?” He was back to us in two steps.
“I don’t need you. I got this.”
“We have a contract.”
“And we both have lawyers. They’ll figure it out. But you don’t tell me what to do anymore, and you don’t call my girl ever again.”
“Justin . . .” Ken glanced at me as if he wanted me to disappear, then back at his client.
“Get off my work. Get off my life. Get your hands outta my pockets.”
“Without me, you’ll burn it all. You know that, right?”
“It’s mine to burn, bro. Been a good run. Sorry about your bonus, but not sorry.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but Ken did. A flash of surprise crossed his face, then disappeared as if it never happened.
“I never steered you wrong,” Ken said in his defense.
“You tell yourself your story.” Justin stuck out his hand. “I’ll tell mine.”
Reluctantly, Ken shook his hand. “This is going to be expensive.”
“If you say so.” Their hands separated, and Ken strode down the hall and disappeared.
“Asshole,” Justin muttered, squeezing my hand.
“I hope that wasn’t a mistake.”
“Nah.”
“You sure?”
“You know where you said you didn’t want all my shit becoming all your shit?”
“Yeah?”
“Now it won’t. Because that guy was never gonna let you be.”
He kissed me tenderly with a brush of the lips and his palm on my cheek, sealing a promise that my life was my life, and he’d do whatever it took to make sure our common problems were shared equally.
Our kiss was interrupted by a text from my lawyer.
—Where are you?—
“Crap.” I pulled Justin’s hand. “Come on.”
“Where—?”
I yanked him down the hall, through the door, around a table with a huge vase of flowers, through another door, and out to the lobby, where a half dozen guys in suits, another half dozen in police uniform, and a handful of reporters were filing past the revolving doors.
My gaze followed their path, and I was rewarded with a sight grander than Mount Rushmore, more delicious than a Lemon Shit, and finer than hundred-dollar-a-yard French lace.
Signorile was bent over halfway with his hands behind his back as a uniformed police officer snapped cuffs on him.
“Wait,” Justin said. “This happened like half an hour ago . . .”
“All week.” I pulled him forward with me so I’d be right in my old employer’s path. “I got a lawyer to file a civil suit. She called some contacts she had in New York and found out they were already pursuing him. When she told them he was leaving the country to go to Milan, they were all, ‘No he’s not,’ and coordinated with LAPD to meet him here. Look!”
Signorile was being led out under the bright camera lights, and I just stood there smiling like a clown, willing him to see me, just for a moment. But he held his head low as he was pushed out, and, as he passed, I figured it could wait for the courtroom.
Just as he was almost gone, one of the cops said something, and Signorile turned to answer, looking up just enough to catch my eye and know from my smile that I was free.
And like that, he was gone, leaving a crowd of onlookers posting their videos. A girl no older than sixteen looked at Justin, put her hand over her mouth, and screamed.
“Where’s Carter?” I asked.
“My grandmother’s party.”
A flash went off. The crowd’s faces ranged from excited to ecstatic as pens, pencils, notebooks, and little slips of paper were extracted from bags and pockets.
“You’re going to need him,” I said.
“Nah,” he said. “I got this.”
“They love you.”
“Just like the old days,” he said, taking a pen.
CHAPTER 24
JUSTIN
After half an hour of selfies and signatures, hotel security eventually got me behind the counter where Kayla was waiting for me. I kissed her, putting my arm around her as we walked down the back hall, side by side.
“That was intense,” she said.
“Yeah.” I pulled her close. “Sorry.”
Her makeup had worn off. Mascara left gray shadows around her eyes, and her smile had only a little pink at the edges. She was a knockout, even half-done.
“I took over your life again,” I said.
“Comes with the package, I guess.”
“Victor’s sending a limo. Where am I taking you?”
“I should get home.”
“I’m taking you at
your house,” I said, texting Victor the deets. “Got it.”
She smiled with a raised eyebrow, as if she got my meaning but hadn’t decided whether it was cool or not.
“What?” I asked, ready to type her address in.
“Don’t you have a birthday party?”
“It’s over.”
“You missed it?”
“No sweat. I can still eat cake tonight.”
She rolled her eyes, and taking that as an okay, I sent Vic the info.
The car was already waiting in the valet. The two of us piled in the back as if we’d climbed a mountain in costume. When the doors closed, we were safe behind tinted windows on both sides. The driver knew where to go, so as soon as I felt us moving, I closed the window between us.
“We should talk about the video,” she said.
I pulled her onto my lap, hitching up her skirt so she could straddle me.
“Why?”
“We haven’t even seen it.”
My hands moved from behind her knees to cupping her bare butt. I was hard before I was halfway there.
“My guys won’t do anything until you and Evelyn give the thumbs-up.”
“Maybe you should see how it looks for you.”
I slid my fingertips between her legs and slid down enough to push my dick against her. She bowed, eyelids flicking like butterfly wings.
“You like that?” I asked, pushing harder. “You’re wet already.”
“I don’t want to ruin your life,” she groaned into my neck, reaching for my waistband button.
“Then stay mine.”
She didn’t say anything. She just released my dick and lined herself against its length, moving her body so we slid together without me getting inside her.
“That’s very serious, Justin,” she said with her nose against mine.
“What is?” I moved her in a rhythm along me.
“Saying that I can ruin your life. You shouldn’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it. Everything got taken away, and I tried to grab it back. But I grabbed the wrong things. I let my friends go so I could hold my career. I’m not doing it again. Not with you. Say you’ll let me hold on to you. If I have to let go of that future, say you’ll let me be part of yours.”
“Yes, but . . .” She was lost in a groan as I slid her along the shaft of my cock.
“But what?”
“I don’t have a future.”
“Yeah, you do. You’re coming in this limo.”
Her hands on my shoulders, she let me guide the pace and pressure. The best moments with her were feeling her submit to me, and that pleasure went right from the base of my skull to the base of my balls, adding to the pressure behind them.
“You know what I mean,” she whispered. “Your future is . . . Oh . . .”
Fisting the hair in the back of her head, I made her look at me. Her face was slack. Eyes half-closed.
She made a noise that wasn’t a vowel or consonant and couldn’t keep her eyes open. I felt her pussy twitch against me, and I couldn’t hold it.
“Watch me come,” I said from deep in my throat.
I pushed away so her clit was at the base of my cock and my explosion landed on me, not her. She reached down and took me in her fist, expanding the friction into a new dimension. My neck arched involuntarily, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the moon steady in the flowing roll of the night sky.
She collapsed against me, and I held her.
“Your phone’s buzzing,” she said. “I can feel it on my leg.”
“Nah. Fuck them.”
“We’re almost there.” She rolled off me. “I have a cramp in my calf anyway.”
“Fine.” The mess on my shirt was exposed. I’d have to get it dry-cleaned before I returned it to Eddie, for sure.
I dug the phone out of my pocket. Shane.
“You going to answer it?”
I slid the answer button, but I was half a second too late. The connection cut just as the car stopped. Kayla tipped her head to see out the back window.
“We’re in the alley,” she said.
“Yeah, I—” My phone dinged in my hand.
—Chad wants to see you if you’re around—
The text was followed by the address of the place.
“That them?” Kayla asked.
“Yeah. He’s in Pomona.” I put the phone in my jacket pocket and got my dick in my pants before the driver came around.
“Is that far?”
“Too far.”
“You were just talking about choosing the wrong things,” Kayla said. Behind her, the door opened. “Going to see him is a right thing.”
“You’re forward. You. This is getting pulled backward.”
“No.” She kissed me. “It’s pulling him forward.”
I walked her to the door, but she wouldn’t let me in.
“I’m gonna call you,” I said.
“Go.” She pushed my chest. “I’ll be here.”
“Promise?” I stepped back.
“Promise.” She looked up as if she’d heard something. The blinds on a second-floor window swayed.
As if we’d practiced this dance a hundred times, she and I simultaneously flipped the person behind the window two fat birds. Our middle fingers would end up on DMZ by morning, and we laughed, because it didn’t matter.
I stopped home to change my clothes and pick up my other car—a Mercedes without Kayla on the GPS—then I shot over to Pomona Mental Health Associates. Sunset Boys had done a show at the college years back, but I hadn’t been out there since. The main drags were all parking lots, floodlights, and box stores. The houses had three-car garages behind wide white doors with windows spaced like movie reel notches.
The facility looked like a strip mall where everyone lost their lease.
The waiting room was small with mismatched furniture that had old copies of Us and Star piled on the tables. A receptionist had a landline wedged between her shoulder and ear as she typed on an ancient computer with clacky keys. Shane and Gordon were sitting across from each other, talking. They stood up when they saw me, as if I were some kind of foreign dignitary.
“Yo,” I said, flipping my car key ring around my index finger. “What up?”
“Kathy and George are in with him,” Shane said, jerking his thumb to a set of swinging double doors that Chad’s parents had gone through. His gray Elysian Park Elementary sweatshirt was open to show his Black Flag T-shirt, and his purple Converse were shredded. It had always been a pain in the ass to get him to pay attention to his clothes.
“Cool, cool.” I flipped my keys in Gordon’s general direction. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Gordon sat down. His shirt fit, and his shoes weren’t doodled on, but he looked more tired than he had a few hours before.
Shane and I sat. We were all at opposite angles. A triangle in what should have been a square.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“You know.” Gordon ran his fingers through his hair. “Stress messes him up. So they make him sleep and take it easy. No access to drugs.” He snapped his fingers. “Miracle cure.”
“Hardly.” I lodged my foot on the table and slid down the seat with my hands draped over the armrests. “He been here the whole time?”
“A week, give or take,” Gordon said. “They’re releasing him tonight. You heard from him on the way outta Vegas?”
“Yeah. Then . . . poof . . . he ghosted me. I didn’t know crap from shit. Was he using again? Or another breakdown?”
“Using, then a breakdown,” Shane said. “Living on the street, talking to parking meters.”
“Damn.” I shook my head.
“He wasn’t cut out for this,” Gordon said. “You guys want a soda or something?”
“Something with caffeine,” Shane said, reaching for his wallet.
“I got it.” Gordon pointed at me. “You?”
“Water.”
“Cool.” Gordon went through a do
or next to reception where I could see a vending machine through the glass.
“Thanks for calling me,” I said.
Shane shrugged. “Felt weird not to.”
“Excuse me, sir?” the receptionist said, looking right at me. “No feet on the table.”
“Sorry.” I took my foot off. She was the right age group to be an original Sunset Boys fan, but either she didn’t recognize us, or she didn’t care. That was cool.
“How’s the music coming?” I asked Shane. Behind the door, vending machine bottles thumped.
“Great.”
“Yeah?”
“Nah.” He twisted a silver skull ring around his middle finger. “I like listening to the harder stuff, but making it’s a different story. When I go all out with the drop tuning and crank the gains, it sounds like a cat getting killed with a buzz saw.”
“It all sounds like that.”
“Ignorant much?”
“Get out of harmonic minor if you want to go broad.”
“When I try to make it more commercial, I sound like one-quarter of a boy band.”
“You got any on you? Let me check it out.”
Gordon came back. He dropped an energy drink in Shane’s lap and tossed me a bottle of water before flopping back in his chair with a container of juice.
“Justin thinks he wants to hear my new stuff,” Shane said.
“Nah.” Gordon cracked the top of his juice. “You don’t. Dude. It’s a wreck.”
“Bet all together we could make it good,” I said without thinking. Getting us back together wasn’t exactly on my radar, but I was too tired to deny what I wanted most. So though I’d braced myself for blowback and dismissive laughter, I got neither. I took it as a cue to continue. “It’s not as marketable, but maybe smaller’s okay, you know? Better for Chad.”
“Chad had the best hooks,” Shane mumbled into his energy drink.
“Justin doesn’t do vocal fry,” Gordon said without looking at me.
“Kinda do,” I said. “New thing.”
The first level of obstacles had been casually overcome. In the silence that followed, the air-conditioning droned like a truck idling on the side of the road, and the receptionist’s typing clickety-clacked like a long-nailed puppy running on a tile floor.
“Talked to Chad,” Gordon said, looking at me for the first time since I got there. “He remembers that night. At the Roosevelt. Says you weren’t in bed with Heidi when I came in. He thinks I should know you better.”