She stared at him in disbelief. “What?”
“You need to relax, girl, or I’m going to run roughshod over you for the next two months. Come on. Let me show you around.”
“Sure,” she said, still wary. “So just to clarify, you do live here?”
“Technically, Malik and I live next door. Lila bought the brownstones on either side of this one to give her a bubble of privacy.”
“Oh, well, that’s smart and . . . extravagant.”
He laughed as he led her through the wood-paneled entryway, past a large staircase and formal study into a more open living area. “That’s our girl, smart and extravagant.”
“She does seem to have her way with things.” Cobie took in her surroundings from the ornate marble fireplace to the high ceilings with delicately carved crown molding. Impressed, she noted that while the space was grandiose and lavishly furnished in all white, nothing constituted over the top or garish. Lila knew style. Hell, she embodied it. “Is the lady of the house home?”
He turned to her. “Well, I like to think of myself as the lady of the house, but if you mean Lila, she’s in her studio on the third floor. I already let her know you’re here.”
But Lila hadn’t come down to welcome her. Too lost in her work? Too important to care? Or perhaps making a deliberate choice to keep Cobie in her place.
“This is the formal living room. We use it for entertaining. It’s sort of the public space of the house. Interviews, photo shoots, dignitaries, et cetera. We’re never in here when it’s just us.”
“Just us,” she repeated softly, wondering if that now included her.
“And this is the chef’s kitchen.” He walked her through another doorway to a huge kitchen with a white marble-topped bar and stainless steel appliances. “It’s fully stocked. If you leave a list of what you like on the chalkboard by the fridge, it will magically appear in a day or two.”
“Convenient.”
“People cook for us when folks come over, but there’s not a chef on staff full-time. Malik does make grilled cheeses on command, my command mostly, but if you’re nice to me, I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“Good to know.” She smiled. “Where do I sleep?”
He turned slowly, his eyes serious. “In Ms. Wilder’s bed, I presume.”
“Oh, right, I mean, of course I sleep with Ms. Wilder when other people ask, but . . .” Her face burned. “Oh, God, really?”
He laughed again. “You are so easy. How have you survived so long in Hollywood without getting eaten alive?”
She rolled her eyes. “Felipe! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But you’ll sleep in the same wing as Lila for convenience sake. It’s actually in the next brownstone over. We can get there through the dining room, but since you’ll be on the second floor, it’ll be easier to go up the front steps.”
She followed, carry-on suitcase in hand, as he led her back the way they’d come and up a flight of stairs. They went past a few open doors along the way, guest rooms, an office, and a sewing room, as well as several closed-off spaces that left her wondering what one person could do with so much room. As they cut through a less formal living space, she noticed French doors at the far side, in what she assumed was once the outer edge of the house. Felipe flung them wide with a dramatic flourish as he said, “This is your domain.”
Cobie was taken aback. The boxy broken-up spaces and hallways vanished in a single open room with lavish carpets, overstuffed chairs, and bright airy windows. Guitar cases lay open on the floor, and notes spilled off an enormous ottoman the size of a coffee table. In one corner near the windows stood a white baby grand piano draped in lush scarlet fabric samples. “Wow.”
“Right?” Felipe practically squealed. “Not a bad place to hole up for a while.”
“No, it’s so . . . so . . . Lila.”
“Oooh, you say her name so dreamy and romantic.” Felipe practically swooned.
Cobie wanted to say, “Did not,” but she got the sense that Felipe could sense drama like a shark could smell blood in the water. Not that there was any drama between her and Lila. They’d had virtually no contact since leaving Las Vegas last weekend. Even when they’d been in Sin City, they’d mostly stayed in their own corners ever since their abrupt departure from the club.
Cobie frowned, thinking of that moment for the hundredth time. It had only been a slight change in plans, nothing worth obsessing about, and the press hadn’t seemed to notice anything awry. The pictures of them from that night were still splashed across every major magazine and gossip site. She’d spent the entire next day in interviews with celebrity news outlets, while Lila had made the rounds at a radio DJ convention. The two of them had barely seen each other all day, but they’d talked of nothing else with anyone else.
By all accounts, the trip had been wildly successful. They’d accomplished everything they’d set out to and then some. Even Cobie had been impressed with the glossy images of them together. She looked good, suave and in charge, despite not feeling like any of those things at the time. Even knowing what she did about their power dynamic, she had a hard time seeing reports of them together without believing she had been the one to sweep Lila off her feet. Maybe that was the problem. There were a few moments throughout the course of the evening when she believed in the illusion too much. Those instances were few and fleeting, but they probably shouldn’t have happened at all.
“So, um . . .” Cobie shook her head slightly, aware that Felipe was still watching her closely. “Bedroom? Mine, not hers.”
He pointed to a door across the room. “That one’s all yours for a while. Go ahead and make yourself comfy.”
“Thanks,” she said, grateful he didn’t intend to follow her inside. She’d need a sanctuary to get through this experience. She pushed open the door slowly, and some of the tension from her shoulders relaxed. The space wasn’t ostentatious but rather oozed comfort, from the four-poster bed loaded with a cream-colored down comforter to the lush maroon drapes to deep mahogany dressers and night stands.
“You can do this,” she whispered to herself as she tossed her suitcase on the bed and forced herself not to wonder how many others had stayed here before her.
She unzipped the carry-on and pulled back a sweater to reveal two framed photographs. One showed her parents, smiling and happy, the other framed her and Emma laughing at something silly. She couldn’t remember the joke, but she could still recall the feeling it sparked, and that’s what she wanted to hold onto. She set both pictures on a nightstand next to the bed and stood back. Now this place was at least as good as the hotels she’d spent too much time in. She could do this. She could cohabitate with a woman in order to make her dreams come true.
She laughed in spite of her remaining unease. Under other circumstances, living with a bright, talented, beautiful woman would have been a dream come true in and of itself. Maybe she needed to be a little more specific in her wishful thinking.
She resisted the urge to crawl into bed and stay there all day. She would not complain or cave to self-pity. She had a job to do, and no one would feel sorry for her because she had to live in a fully appointed mansion for a while. And this place had a kitchen, which made it infinitely better than her last hotel. Maybe she could go get a grilled cheese lesson from Malik.
She headed back through Lila’s living room, as she already thought of it, and into the hallway, but when she reached the stairs, something stopped her. She inclined her ear and realized she heard the faintest strains of music coming from somewhere above. The melody was unfamiliar but intriguing, and without thinking, she climbed the stairs to get closer to the sound.
The first door she came to was closed but not latched. A small sliver of space allowed the rich chords to waft out and over her. At first she couldn’t tell what she was listening to as two distinct sounds met her ears, but after a second, she understood someone was playing a guitar and a harmonica. She starte
d to back away, realizing someone else was in there with Lila, but the person playing the harmonica let fly a long soulful riff, and something in Cobie’s chest soared. She didn’t know whether to dance or cry. If she closed her eyes, she could have been on Bourbon Street instead of in a New York brownstone.
She moved toward the music like a mosquito toward a blue bug-zapper, and for a moment the result might have been the same as well, because as soon as Lila’s intense eyes landed on her, the music stopped with a low hum of electricity still buzzing in the air.
“Hello, Cobie,” she said, in a low dangerous tone. “Welcome to my home. This room is by invitation only.”
“Sorry.” She said the only word she could think of as she took in the full picture of Lila perched on a plain wooden stool with a beautiful black Les Paul guitar across her bare knees and a shiny copper harmonica hanging from a metal holder around her neck. “I’m sorry I interrupted. Sorry you stopped. I’m sorry I underestimated you.”
One of Lila’s eyebrows arched, and then she pursed her lips.
She was clearly treading a dangerous path, but the music still coursed through her, calling her to either bravery or insanity. “What were you playing?”
“Nothing important.”
She nodded absently. “Play it again?”
Lila shook her head slowly.
“Please.”
Lila’s eyes flashed and her mouth opened, but instead of tearing into her, she brought the harmonica to her lips, and her fingers twitched into action. For the next three minutes, Cobie stood transfixed as her heartbeat provided a solid drum component to the riffs and wails burning up her consciousness. Her mind floated from dark alleys to humid bayous and out across soggy deltas.
The tune faded, and Lila stilled as the last low hum hung in the air. Cobie opened her eyes and smiled slowly. “Thank you.”
Lila removed the harmonica holder and set it atop a piano before pulling the guitar off her lap. “This can’t become a habit, Cobie.”
“Why?”
“Because my home studio has to be a safe space for me.”
“I meant why don’t you play music like that anywhere but in here?”
She laughed and rose, cradling the guitar in its stand. “It’s not part of the plan.”
Cobie cocked her head to the side and waited for more, but as Lila began to gather a few notes, she realized she wasn’t going to offer any more explanation. “What plan?”
“The plan to rule the world,” Lila said lightly.
“Right.” She drew out the word, still not sure what she’d stepped into.
Lila finally sighed. “You know I got my start in country music, right?”
She nodded. She hadn’t given any thought to the fact before now, but she did indeed remember Lila breaking onto the scene in sundresses and cowgirl boots. “But then you grew out of the genre? Or did your tastes change?”
“Both. Neither. I can’t be limited by labels someone else has defined. I’m bigger than a genre,” Lila said matter-of-factly. “I still love country music. If I were only playing in this room, I’d probably sound more like June Carter or Reba McEntire, but playing in this room doesn’t make me money, and playing those songs won’t build me an empire.”
“I don’t know. June and Reba seemed to do just fine for themselves.”
“But I want to go farther. I want to have my finger on the pulse of America for decades, and to do that I need to be on the cutting edge, never ahead of it, never behind it. Ten to twelve years ago, country music saw a boom, and it offered the best outlet for a sixteen-year-old girl to sell records about first crushes and loyal friendship.”
“Sounds about right,” Cobie admitted. “Just like I got my start in teen movies.”
“Exactly, but just like you’re not seventeen anymore, neither am I. The girls who listened to country music when I started are now in their twenties. They’re making their own way in the world. They have entry-level jobs and lovers and drama. They want to be taken seriously, and they want to think they are on the road to someplace better. I want to give them a voice.”
“So those are the songs you sing them?”
“Those are also the songs I sell them,” Lila said. “I sell them snapshots of where they are, their hopes and dreams and their fears, but I also sell them glimpses of where they want to be, where they believe they should be. I sell glamour, power, love, a sense of connection amid the disjointed isolation of their lives.”
“What will you do when they reach their mid-thirties?”
“I’ll sing power ballads and love lyrics about finding the one. I’ll write the songs people will play at their weddings. I’ll sing about not having enough time and thinking we’d have gone farther by now,” Lila explained evenly. “And when we’re forty, I’ll break out retrospectives and nostalgia and break-up songs about feeling betrayed by the world and people who promised to be there forever. And always feminism.”
“Feminism?”
“Songs to women in power, women who take charge, women who know what they want and never settle for less, because those songs will resonate with women across generations. They deserve those songs. They deserve those messages. They deserve to be reminded every day that they don’t have to compromise or apologize for who they are.”
“You seem to do that very well,” Cobie said with a hint of a smile.
“But?” Lila asked.
“But nothing,” she admitted, impressed that Lila actually cared so much about her message to plot it out long-term. “You’re good at your job. I should probably be more like you.”
“But?” Lila prodded again.
She shrugged. “I just thought it could all be organic, you know? Like I would grow up and my audience would grow with me, and we could make and watch what we wanted in any given moment because we shouldn’t answer to the market. The market should answer to us. Like I could just be a good actress and make good movies, and we’d all get judged on our merits.”
“That’s not how it works,” Lila said softly. “Unless you want to be a starving artist or a hobby artist, you have to have a market, and to have a market you have two choices: you can find one or you can create one.”
“You do both.”
Lila smiled proudly. “I do. That’s why you’re here. It’s time for my career to move onto a new stage, one where I spread the message that all options are open and no one gets to define me but me.”
“It’s working,” Cobie said. “You’ve impressed the press. Your fans are tweeting out against conversion therapy. You’re ushering in a new era of lesbian chic.”
“I’m also building a sense of anticipation for my next album. If I’m this unpredictable in my love life, just imagine what I’ll do in the recording studio.”
“But you won’t produce any zydeco or bayou blues?”
She laughed. “Not that unpredictable, but I may be darker or angrier or softer or more wistful. No one knows.”
“No one except you.”
Lila’s smile grew tight. “Either way, we’ve gotten off topic. The point is what happens in this room isn’t for sale until I say so. Here I play for me, off market. It’s my space. No expectations, no explanations.”
“For love, for craft, for fun.” Cobie got it. She understood the need to get back to the joy of her work. She hadn’t had enough of that lately. “I’m sorry if I interrupted your creative time. I just really liked what I heard. And maybe I’m a little envious that you have that kind of outlet.”
“You could too.”
Cobie laughed. “I guess I could go ahead and play Hamlet aloud in my bedroom by myself, but it doesn’t seem quite the same.”
“Maybe not, but you want to play Vale, right?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Lila frowned so briefly Cobie almost missed it, but before the thought could fully register, Lila began to circle. Blue eyes raked over her until the corners of Lila’s mouth curled slowly up once more.
“Uh-oh,”
Cobie said. “I’m starting to recognize that look, and I don’t usually like what follows.”
“You want your chance to play for a captive audience. Now you’ve got one. You can play powerful or seductive or brooding or captivating, and we’ll all play along while you hold us spellbound.”
Her eyes narrowed. It sounded too good to be true. “How?”
“Tomorrow we’re going to play ‘what would Vale do.’ You can practice your character study on us, and we can help you hone your power.”
“Why tomorrow?” Cobie asked, though she meant “Why can’t we start right now?”
Lila’s smile widened. “Because today you’re busy getting a makeover.”
“Wait. What? No.” What had happened to honing power and holding people spellbound? “I’m not sure what you think lesbians do when we move in together, but it’s generally not a hair and make-up type of slumber party.”
“Nice try.” Lila shook her head, then with a sure hand ran her fingers tantalizingly through Cobie’s hair. “Humor can’t save you now. You’re my captive.”
The words were all wrong, but the unexpected touch sent a shiver of pleasure along her spine. Lila was so close, the heat of her body raised Cobie’s own temperature. What had she just said? Something about captive? When had the conversation shifted into Lila’s domain, and shouldn’t she do something to turn it back around? Instead of protesting, Cobie closed her eyes and muttered, “Um, okay.”
Not her best or strongest answer ever, but there was something about being in Lila’s space, under the spell of her fingers, with the promise of power hanging in the air that made her forget everything but what she wanted right then and there. And in this moment, she wanted whatever Lila wanted.
• • •
“God, your hair is amazingly soft,” Lila gushed in a moment of pure admiration. She ran her fingers through the long luscious strands as warm water cascaded over Cobie’s head.
“Yeah, I keep it that way by not dumping a bunch of toxic chemicals on it.”
“The dye is only toxic if you drink it.” Lila squeezed some shampoo into her hand and began to work it into Cobie’s hair. The suds were rich and aromatic as they multiplied.
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