by Kate Stewart
Now Rhyson’s onstage introducing me, applauding with everyone else in the packed club as I join him. I can’t help but wonder if he ever thinks about the dreams we spoke into existence that day, the ones we worked into existence over the last decade.
“Here’s the man with the number one album on the charts,” Rhyson says, his smile wide and familiar. “How’s it feel, man?”
“Surreal,” I say into the mic. “I can’t even believe it.”
“Well, believe it,” he says. “You deserve it.”
And I don’t have to wonder if he thinks about that day, about those dreams. It’s sketched on his face. The pride in his eyes and the excitement that practically vibrates off him. It isn’t just my album. It’s his label, something we’re building together.
“Anything to say before you perform for us?”
“Just thanks to everyone for all the support.” I look out over the crowd, straining to pick faces out of the clumps of people. I shield my eyes with one hand from the glare of the lights. “My mom’s here somewhere.”
“Over here, baby!” she screams from the left corner, making everyone laugh.
“You believed in me against every odd, Ma.” I struggle to keep a smile in place, swallowing the emotion thickening in my throat. “There’s no telling where I’d be if it weren’t for you and every sacrifice you made so I could be here today.”
“I love you,” she yells back.
“Love you, too, Ma.” I scan the room, packed but not so big it doesn’t feel intimate. “Max and Sarah, all the engineering guys. Everyone who worked on the project, Prodigy’s first, you guys are amazing. Thank you for all your hard work. Let’s keep doing it.”
Whoops and cheers come from the corner of the room where I know a good portion of the Prodigy team are gathered.
I could leave it there, move right into the three-song set and get this over with, but I can’t. Even when we’re barely speaking, when I can hardly look at her without getting pissed off, I can’t ignore that so much of this night and of my debut album’s success, I owe to Bristol. I don’t have to scan the room or search the crowd. She’s the compass in every room. I always seem to know exactly where she is. Where she always is when I perform. Backstage left.
“And Bristol.” I swing my head around to that spot where she usually watches from backstage. She’s standing there, all business and sex in her suit, with her phone and those lips and those breasts and those heels that would dig into my ass with a sweet sting.
Hearing her name catches her off guard, and she doesn’t have time to pull that mask in place or blink away that vulnerability from her eyes. She’s waiting, unsure of what I’ll say considering how things stand.
“You take everything to another level,” I say softly into the mic, unable to look away from the promise of storm in her cloud-gray eyes. “You’re the hardest working, most committed person I know. Your passion for my work has been evident since the day we met. Tonight wouldn’t be tonight without you.”
“Thank you,” she mouths, blinking rapidly and biting her lip.
There’s no one in the room but her right now. We may as well be alone at the top of that Ferris wheel, lips seeking and hungry, trading breaths and heartbeats. The cheers, all eyes in the club on me, none of it registers. There’s a web that traps us together, silky and fine, tensile and fragile. A sticky mess I’ve never wanted to escape until now.
Maybe it’s time to let go . . .
I turn my attention back to the crowd before it gets awkward and make my smile as natural as possible. I have to shake this off. Truly this is the moment I’ve been waiting for and working for, and I’m not going to let my obstinate, misplaced feelings for Bristol ruin it.
“Where’s Qwest?” I boom into the mic.
The room explodes with wolf whistles and catcalls and suggestive remarks as Qwest swaggers onstage, one hand wrapped around a mic, the other hand wrapped around her hip. Oversized safety pins tenuously hold scraps of material together on her tight, curvy body. Very little is left to the imagination, and I bet every man in here is imagining.
Except Rhyson, of course. He’s backstage cuddled up with his wife, I’m sure.
The first hard beat of “Queen” drops, and it’s like opening the gate on a charging bull. As my first verse starts, Qwest circles me in a sensual stalk that elevates the sexual tension so high the whole audience is probably lightheaded. When I reach the chorus, she bends over in front of me and starts twerking. I can barely get the words out I’m laughing so hard, and the audience is eating it like dessert. Camera phones flash all over capturing this. It’ll be on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and anywhere else they can find to upload it before the night is through.
When our song is over, Qwest wears my outer shirt as usual tied around her waist. At least tonight I’m wearing a T-shirt under it. I don’t want to perform this next song with chest and abs out. “Bruise” means too much. I don’t want to set it up, explain it, excuse it, defend it, or make either side of the black and blue debate feel better or worse.
“This song is called ‘Bruise,’ I say simply and quietly once Qwest has left the stage. “It’s my next single, and I hope the lyrics speak for themselves. I hope they speak up for the kids in my neighborhood who get pulled over for nothing or whose dignity is dinged and chipped from the time they understand what those flashing blue lights mean. I hope my words rise up on behalf of my cousin Greg and other cops who put themselves in the line of fire every day, running toward the dangers the rest of us flee. I hope this song is a dirge for lives lost on both sides of a debate that has divided us, when we should unite. I hope this song is common ground.”
The last chorus is more spoken word than rap, with the music and the beat falling away. Acapella. When the final word leaves my mouth, disappearing into thin air, it lands in the total silence I’ve come to expect when people hear the song for the first time. A silence loaded with contemplation. The sound of walls dropping and assumptions combusting. Ignorance running from the room. The trickle of applause swells to the loudest it’s been all night in here, and now, my smile is real. That dream I sketched in the air with Rhyson, suspended above a theatre, to be a voice for my generation, that just happened.
I check stage right where I saw Rhyson last. He wears the same look he did the first time he heard “Bruise”, like his eyes open wider every time. He grins and tosses his chin up. Amir stands just behind him, and I’m struck by the two friends who have been mainstays in my life. They come from completely different paths and are completely different types of men, but they are both exactly what I need them to be.
Seguing from “Bruise” into the last song I’d ever want to perform tonight is tough. I’d usually talk a little about the story behind the song, but “Top of the World” is no one’s business but mine and Bristol’s. Or I’d share what it was like to write it, but it wrote itself on a night when I couldn’t sleep. I’d fucked some random chick, whose name I’m ashamed I can’t even remember. The smell of her perfume clung to my sheets, hung on my body. She lay curled up beside me, sweaty, naked, and sated. Disgust and frustration and loneliness and longing waged a blood war in my veins while I wondered what Bristol was doing at that very moment. If she was in bed with some other guy, thinking of me. Or if she was in bed with some other guy, and I wasn’t on her mind at all. And, yeah, I hated her. For a sliver of a second, I hated her for throwing up road blocks and smoke screens and barriers every time I got close enough to see she felt the same way. And there was just enough hate and too much passion to hold in. So, I’d rolled out of bed, lit a joint, and these words puffed from my lungs and fell from the burnt tips of my fingers.
I can’t say any of that, so I just signal the drummer to drop the beat. And my tongue is a stiletto that breaks the seal of my lips. It cuts the lining of my jaw, every word slitting my throat. I’m bleeding out over the infectious sample of Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” in a room full of people, and none of them know.
/> I exit the stage with the sound of their applause battering my ears. I hope the executives are happy with the pound of flesh I just carved out of myself for them. I hope Bristol’s happy, too, hearing my feelings spread out and tied down on an altar like a still-breathing sacrifice for slaughter. I brush past her in the wings, deliberately not looking at her face. It’s the first time I’ve performed the song live, and I hate it as much as I did the night I wrote it. And I love it just as much, too.
With the hard part—the performance—behind me, I’m determined not to waste another moment brooding over the woman who wants someone else, or at the very least, doesn’t want me. We’re popping bottles and celebrating in earnest. Only my mother would look right at home in VIP and with her very own bottle of Ace of Spades.
“Baby, I’m so proud of you.” She takes a delicate sip straight from her bottle. “When Marlon was growing up, I always said my baby won’t have any strikes. That was all I wanted. My dream for him was just staying out of jail and not having a bunch of nappy headed kids running wild all over the neighborhood.”
“Ma, in your stories, why my imaginary kids always gotta have nappy heads?” I tease her with a grin, drawing from the bottle of Cristal on the table beside me.
“Because your imaginary baby’s mama has no idea what to do with their hair.” She cackles and passes a fresh bottle to Amir. “Then Grandma has to come in with bows and brushes to save the day.”
Everyone cracks up. Kai and Qwest sit on either side of my mom, and her hilarious commentary keeps them in stitches. Luke, our friend since high school and a certified pop star in his own right, has been in the studio non-stop recording his next album, so he looks like a convict on furlough. He signed to Prodigy shortly after Kai. Bristol manages them both.
“Luke, where’s Jimmi?” I ask. “I miss her crazy ass.”
“She’s in London.” Luke’s blue eyes are slightly glazed, maybe from smoking a little something. “She’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Hates she missed it.”
“She texted me, but I haven’t had a chance to open it,” I tell him.
“She’s actually back next week,” Bristol pipes up from the corner of the velvet sectional taking up the entire wall of the VIP section.
Jimmi is the only non-Prodigy artist Bristol manages. They met on that fateful spring break trip, too, years ago and have been close ever since. If there’s trouble to be gotten into, they’ll get into it together. Jim’s one of the few people who can corrupt Bristol into outrageous behavior.
Like walking naked into the ocean at midnight.
I didn’t ask for the image of Bristol’s long, slim body nearly naked plunging into the Pacific between waves and moonlight, but it floats to me unbidden. I wonder if she ever thinks about that night. About that string of nights when she pulled me into her unexpected depths where I’ve been drowning ever since.
“Well, if it isn’t The One!” a slightly accented voice yells from a few feet away.
Hector, the owner of my favorite strip club in New York, Pirouette, crosses the space with sure, swift strides. His real name is Martin, but “Hector” suits his image of the first-generation Cuban-American who pulled himself up by the proverbial boot straps. He launched his first high-end strip club in Miami, and New York soon followed. “Hector” has become infamous. His own mama probably doesn’t call him Martin anymore.
“This is amazing, Grip.” Hector squeezes into a small space between Amir and me, gaining a deep frown from my friend/bodyguard/babysitter. “Feels like just yesterday you were in the strip club spinning for my grand opening in New York.”
“That didn’t even feel like work.” I laugh because it’s been a long time since I deejayed, and I miss it. “I haven’t done it in forever.”
“Come do it again!” Hector pushes an impatient hand through the dark hair that keeps flopping into his eyes. “You know we’re opening a Pirouette here in LA in two weeks.”
“For real?” I take another swill of my drink. “You doing big things.”
“Be bigger if I had Mr. Number One spinning on opening night.” Hector’s already-impassioned expression brightens even more if that’s possible. “And you and Qwest could perform ‘Queen.’”
His VIP visit feels less spontaneous and more calculated with every idea he unpacks. I glance over at Qwest, but she’s so deep in conversation with my mom, she didn’t hear Hector’s proposition.
Great.
Now I’ll never convince Ma that Qwest and I aren’t planning weddings and baby showers.
“We’ll have to check Qwest’s schedule.” I take another look around our group. “I don’t see her manager Will right now, but I can put you in touch.”
“I hear Qwest’s people drive a hard bargain,” Hector says.
“Not as hard as Grip’s people do,” Bristol inserts, scooting down so she can hear the conversation.
“Well, hello there, mami.” Hector’s eyes touch every inch of Bristol from her bare shoulders to the heels stretching her already-long legs out even farther. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Hector, this is my manager Bristol,” I say, my tone void of any warmth. I know Hector. I may not get to have Bristol, but there’s no way I’m letting a sleaze bag like Hector anywhere near her.
“Nice to meet you.” Bristol extends her hand, giving me an “is this guy for real” look when he lingers over her hand with a kiss. “When does your club open?”
“In two weeks.” Hector drops his glance to Bristol’s chest. She pretends not to notice but slides a few inches away from him and discreetly wipes her hand against the side of her pants.
“We’ll be just getting back from Dubai.” Bristol frowns and squints one eye. “But we may be able to make it work. I’ll talk with Will to check Qwest’s schedule.”
“Did I hear my name?” Qwest excuses herself from the conversation with my mom and Kai, heading over to our corner where she plops on my knee. On reflex my hands go to her hips, steadying her. Bristol’s eyes linger on my hands touching Qwest, but I refuse to read into it like I’ve done in the past. I refuse to think it bothers her.
“I have a few things I need to check.” Bristol stands, smoothing a few wrinkles from her pants. “I’ll reach out. Grip has your info, right?”
“He does, but I don’t have yours.” Hector’s glance slides from her breasts and over her hips and legs before crawling back up to her face.
“Like I said, I’ll reach out,” she says wryly before turning to walk away.
Hector leans back to watch her go.
“Damn, Grip,” he mutters, eyes still glued to Bristol crossing the room. “Your manager is fine as fuck. She like a little color in her life?”
He rubs his chin and waggles his eyebrows. “Like the color brown?”
“Not happening.” The words come out like pellets, and irritation tightens my hands on Qwest’s hips. She turns her head to study my face, which I know must look like a tundra.
Hector eyes Qwest in my lap.
“Seems to me you got your hands full, bruh.” He laughs. “If you ain’t hitting that, somebody needs to.”
“She’s got a man.” Qwest leans back on my chest so her head snuggles into my neck. “She’s dating Charles Parker. Right, Grip?”
Hector’s face lights up with a cocky grin. “I got something for her I bet he ain’t giving her.”
“The hell you do,” I snap. “Don’t even think about it, Hector. Keep your greasy hands and beady eyes to yourself.”
For a few seconds, our tight circle goes quiet. I feel Qwest studying me closely. The rein I’ve had on myself all night, all week, is slipping. I want to get out of here and take this face off. Take these reins off and just . . . rage in my loft playing something angry like Public Enemy at full blast. As much as I want to ignore it, forget about it, I’m still mad as hell that Bristol isn’t mine. And pretending I don’t care is wearing my ass out.
“She’s Rhyson’s sister and my friend.” I
harden my eyes when they meet Hector’s. “And if you want me performing at your opening, take her off your hit list.”
“You got it.” Hector’s hands go up defensively. “I wouldn’t be a red-blooded male if I didn’t try. You say she’s off limits, she’s off limits.”
I jerk my head in a nod and gulp down a mouthful of Cristal and irritation.
“You okay, baby?” Qwest leans back and turns her head so she can whisper in my ear, her back pressed to my chest, her ass pressed into my crotch.
“Yeah. I’m good. Just tired.” I roll my neck against the tension vicing it. “It’s been a long week.”
I rub her arm, regret nipping at my insides because I don’t think I can let this thing go on with Qwest much longer. It’s gone deeper than it was supposed to. She’s gone deeper than she was supposed to, and the longer I put this off, the worse it will be.
“I’ve got something to make you smile.” She sits up, clapping as Will comes into our section. “You made it!”
“Yes, barely.” Will hands her a black velvet box. “Traffic was a beast because of some accident.”
“Thank you.” Qwest takes the box and then turns to me. “A little gift to celebrate the number one spot.”
“Oh, wow.” A surprised breath escapes my lips. “I didn’t expect anything. You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to, and don’t say wow ’til you’ve seen it.” Qwest puts the box in my hands, eyes lit with anticipation. “Go ahead. Open it.”
It’s gotten quiet, and everyone’s conversations have died out as they watch and wait for me to open the box. When I pop open the lid, I’m nearly blinded by the bling.
“Shit.” My jaw drops. A diamond and platinum watch glints against the black velvet bed. “What the . . . Qwest, you really didn’t have to do this.”