Falling out of Hate with You: Hate - Love Duet Book One

by Rowe, Lauren

  Again, the room stares at Savage, prompting him to blurt, “Why is everyone looking at me? Laila’s the one who jumps from relationship to relationship, from basketball player to fitness trainer, without pausing to catch her breath.”

  I glower at him. “Hello, pot. Meet kettle.”

  “Actually, I’ve been a monk this past month. Since we got back from the tour, I’ve been keeping crazy hours in the studio, recording our new album.”

  “Well, that’s a lucky break,” Nadine says. “Talk about dancing through raindrops! Laila? How about you?”

  I can’t find my voice. Savage hasn’t been with anyone since we got back from touring a full month ago? I shouldn’t do it. But I have to know. I ask, “You mean everyone you’ve been with this past month has already signed an NDA, so you’re all set?”

  “No, I mean I haven’t been with anyone. I’ve practically been living in the studio, except for when I flew home to Chicago for a short visit. I’ve barely had time to work out this past month, let alone screw around.”

  I make a face that says, Color me shocked.

  “Laila?” Nadine repeats. “Can you make that timeline work on your end?”

  Crap. I’ve so enjoyed letting Savage think I had a torrid fling with Charlie the Personal Trainer during the tour—and that, maybe, said fling has continued since then, right up until last night. But, oh well. I’ve got no choice. On the bright side, Nadine only asked about this past month. If I had to admit the full truth, that I haven’t had sex with anyone, other than Savage, over the past six months, I’m certain I’d die of humiliation.

  I clear my throat. “I’m all clear for the past month, too. I’ve been really busy myself.”

  Savage’s face is lit up like the Fourth of July. “You’ve been busy doing what?” he asks. Surely, he knows I haven’t been hard at work on my next album. Not this soon, when my current album is still spitting out singles. Luckily, though, I’ve got a fairly credible answer at the ready. One rooted in truth, even if it’s not entirely true.

  “I’ve been working a ton on a couple of side projects,” I reply. “A collaboration with 22 Goats and a duet with Alessandra Tennison—the one from the video shoot? Her single is doing so well, she got a full-album deal.”

  “Good for her,” Savage says, apparently believing my every word.

  I sigh with relief. The projects I’ve mentioned are real. But while I’ve laid down vocals for both tracks this past month, the time commitment for both projects combined amounted to only two sessions in the vocal booth. Hardly enough time to claim I’ve been “working a ton” this past month. In reality, I’ve been decompressing from the tour. Hanging out with my family, binge-watching shows, working out, and making weird butter dishes, bowls, and vases on my pottery wheel for friends and family who’ll never use them. But there’s no way I’m letting Savage know I’ve been a lazy bum this past month, with ample time, but zero interest, in dating.

  “So, have we heard all your terms, Nadine?” Daria asks.

  “Yes,” Nadine confirms. “Are Savage and Laila prepared to agree to all of them?”

  Looks are exchanged on our end of the call. Nonverbal confirmations given.

  Daria announces, “Yes. Savage and Laila agree to everything.”

  A cheer erupts on Nadine’s end of the call.

  “Wonderful!” Nadine says. “We’ll email the contracts to you within the hour and—"

  “Whoa,” Daria interjects, holding up her palm, despite Nadine not being here to witness the hand gesture. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still need to deal with the small matter of Laila’s salary before—”

  “Laila’s salary?” Nadine booms, sounding genuinely flabbergasted.

  Daria furrows her brow. “Of course. Now that Savage and Laila have agreed to your terms, the next item on the agenda is negotiating—"

  “Fucking hell, it is!” Nadine shouts, going from zero to sixty in a heartbeat. “This whole conversation, we’ve been assuming Savage and Laila had already worked out Laila’s additional compensation on their end!”

  “What?” Eli shouts. “Of course, not!”

  Nadine counters, “Of course! We assumed you called us to offer two judges for the price of one!”

  Well, that’s it. Eli loses his mind, going off on a diatribe that makes Daria sit back in her chair, calmly steeple her fingers, and smile. And that’s how I know this isn’t a glitch. This isn’t a sign that everything is falling apart. That, in fact, as far as my brilliant and conniving agent is concerned, everything is going exactly according to plan.

  Savage leans into me. “Sorry it didn’t work out for you, Fitzy. Honestly, I was pulling for you.”

  “Thanks for trying,” I say. And it’s all I can do not to smile wickedly as I say it. I don’t know what Daria is up to, exactly. But whatever it is, I’m here for it.

  After much shouting on the phone call, Nadine says to Eli, “I told you, quite clearly this morning, we don’t have another cent in the budget to add to Laila’s salary. We offered her a deal where she’d be Savage’s mentor for three episodes, and that’s all the money we’ve got at our disposal. Any compensation Laila requires in order to be promoted to a full-fledged judge this season—which, by the way, would give her the kind of publicity money simply can’t buy—would need to come out of Savage’s pocket, not ours.”

  Well, that gets Savage’s attention. He jolts to standing and barks, “There’s no way I’m paying Laila a dime of my salary. I was willing to support her crazy idea, as a favor to her, as long as it didn’t affect me, but—"

  I jump up, matching Savage’s angry body language. “As a favor to me, my ass. You did it to save yourself! If anyone is doing a favor here, it’s me doing one for you!”

  “Bullshit,” he grits out. “You know you’ve got me between a rock and a hard place, and you’re shamelessly exploiting me.”

  “Exploiting you?” I retort. “You’re the one who breached his morality clause, not me. You’re the one who needs a fake girlfriend to ‘redeem’ your stupid fuckboy ass this season. You’d already be fired right now, if it weren’t for me and the world’s bizarre obsession with us being a couple.”

  Savage scoffs. “Gee, Laila. I wonder how the world got obsessed with that idea? Could it be you purposely fanned the flames of that rumor on Sylvia, for your own benefit?”

  “I did not!” I shout. “I tried to put the fire out on Sylvia! I literally denied we’re a couple!”

  His tone dripping with sarcasm, Savage says, “Yeah, and you did it sooo convincingly.” He rolls his eyes. “Ninety percent of all human communication is nonverbal, Laila. And guess what your nonverbal communication screamed on Sylvia? ‘Hell, yes, we’re totally fucking!’”

  I gasp like this is news to me, even though countless friends texted me after that interview to razz me about that very thing. But good friends can tease me about that—not assholes I hate! Assholes who texted me their room number, begging me to show up so they could finally taste me, so they could “eat me from every angle,” and then, minutes later, brought yet another groupie to their room.

  “People were already obsessed with us being a couple before my interview,” I insist. “That’s why Sylvia brought up your name. And you should be grateful she did, because that interview going viral is what convinced Nadine to hire you as Hugh’s replacement in the first place. Right, Nadine?”

  “No comment.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Savage says. “You shamelessly used me as click-bait on Sylvia to further your own career, and you want me to thank you for doing it?”

  “Oh, you mean, kinda like how you used my name as click-bait last night, with that Instagrammer?”

  Savage pulls a face like I’ve just barfed straight into his mouth. “I didn’t even mention your name to that Instagrammer last night! I said I needed to ‘lay low’ because of the show.”

  “Sure, Jan,” I say, invoking a famous meme from The Brady Bunch.

 
Savage says, “If you think a single word of what that Instagrammer said was true, then you’re either crazy or projecting, or both.”

  “Projecting what?”

  “Your obsession with me onto me!”

  I roll my entire head, not only my eyes. “Oh, please. I haven’t given you a moment’s thought since the tour ended.”

  “Sure, Jan,” he says, throwing my comment back to me.

  “Was last night some kind of a staged set-up?” I ask.

  Savage’s features contort with disdain. “You’re asking if I conspired with a random Instagrammer I’d just met at a party to post a crazy story about you and me . . . for publicity?”

  It sounds even crazier when he says it back to me. But I persist. “Maybe. You had to know she’s got a huge following.”

  “I didn’t, actually.”

  “And you also had to know she constantly posts about her infatuation with you. She’s practically president of your fan club! So, I don’t think it’s crazy to assume you knew she’d post about her interaction with you, however insignificant—see exhibits one through a million on Twitter—and you decided to give her something to post about. Something you knew would go viral.”

  Savage shakes his head. “You know you sound like a deranged lunatic right now, right?”

  He’s right. I do. I’m a stone-cold nutter. But I don’t care. I’m a runaway train. “It’s not any crazier than believing you told her you had to ‘lay low’ and she heard ‘Laila.” Come on, Savage. We both know you said my name. And you knew, with all the publicity we’ve had lately—we’re a freaking meme, dude!—that mentioning my name would be like throwing a lit match onto a puddle of gasoline!”

  “I didn’t say your name, for the love of fuck!” he roars, absolutely beside himself with frustration. “Thanks to your stupid interview on Sylvia, she assumed we must be fucking—just like everyone else assumes it! Do you have any idea how many friends texted me after seeing that interview? They were like, ‘Dude, if you two aren’t already having sex, then buy yourself a huge box of condoms, pronto, because Laila’s gonna show up on your doorstep any day now, demanding to fuck you for a solid week straight!’?”

  I gasp loudly.

  “Don’t even bother fake gasping with me, Laila Fitzgerald,” Savage says. “I spent three months on the road with you. I know nothing fazes you.”

  He’s right. That gasp was totally fake. And, unfortunately, a little over the top. But I don’t care. I gasp again and say, “Nobody sent you a text about me after Sylvia. You’re a liar.”

  “Everybody did,” he replies.

  “And by ‘everybody,’ you mean Kendrick and Kai?”

  “Kendrick and Kai and lots more. C-Bomb . . .”

  “And . . .?”

  “Lots of people.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Swear to God.

  “Prove it.”

  “I can.” He pulls out his phone and starts swiping angrily. “I saved all their texts, in case I’d ever have the opportunity to rub them in your smug little face.”

  I snort. “Ha! That was a trap, Einstein, and you walked right into it. If your goal is to convince me you’re not totally obsessed with me, then admitting you saved a bunch of texts about us being secret fuck buddies isn’t helping your cause.”

  “I didn’t save the texts,” Savage insists. “I never deleted them, because I didn’t get around to it.”

  “Wow, shocker. Yet another thing I can’t stand about you. All your unread texts! Look at your inbox right now and tell me how many you have. I bet it’s more than a thousand.”

  He looks down and makes a face that tells me I’ve guessed right. “They’re not all unread. Just because I haven’t clicked on them doesn’t mean I haven’t seen them in the preview pane or—"

  “Hey, guys,” Nadine interjects on speaker phone, and we both freeze. She continues, “This is highly entertaining. Truly, it is. But I’ve gotta stop you now.” As Savage and I exchange a look I’d call, Well, that’s embarrassing, Nadine chuckles and says, “Damn, I wish I had a big bowl of popcorn right now. Or maybe a vibrator.”

  Everyone on Nadine’s end of the call explodes with laughter, as Savage and I return to our seats and exchange angry looks that say, This is all your fault!

  “You two really would be ratings gold,” Nadine says wistfully. “Great job, guys. If this ‘fight’ was your clever way of coaxing us to throw some more money into the pot for Laila, consider your tactic a success. We really don’t have another dime in the budget to offer, but in an effort to close the deal, we’re willing to offer Laila a performance slot in the finale.”

  Whoa.

  That’s the brass ring. The kind of publicity that catapults any song straight into the Top Ten, if not to Number One.

  I look at Daria and she winks, yet again confirming everything is going exactly according to plan.

  Eli interjects, “Savage would require a performance slot, as well.”

  Nadine exhales with annoyance. “Hold, please.” She places the call on hold for an eternal moment, during which Savage and I exchange dirty looks to the beat of the elevator version of “Fuck You” by CeeLo Green. Finally, Nadine returns to the call and declares, “Okay. We’ll give Savage and Laila a shared performance slot in the finale. They can do a mash-up of their respective singles, or anything else they come up with. But we only have one performance slot to offer the happy couple, collectively. So they’ll have to learn to share.”

  Savage and I look at each other, conciliation slowly passing between us. It’s not ideal, granted. But we could make it work. We might both have been posturing like peacocks with splayed tails for the past few minutes, but there’s no denying a performance slot in the finale, even a shared one, is too big a perk to pass up.

  “I could make that work,” Savage murmurs.

  I nod and look away, letting him know I agree, but only barely.

  “Laila is on board, too,” Daria says. “Unhappy about it but on board.”

  “Wonderful,” Nadine says. “So, can I finally send over the contracts, then?”

  “Not quite yet,” Daria replies. “We have a deal, as far as you’re concerned. But we still need to reach an agreement on our end about Laila’s compensation.”

  “Jesus Christ, Daria,” Eli snaps. “Savage isn’t going to pay Laila a dime out of his pocket!”

  Daria shrugs nonchalantly. “Then I’m sorry to say the deal is dead.” She smiles ruefully at the phone on her desk. “Thank you for your time, everyone. We’re sorry we couldn’t make this work, but Laila is still thrilled to be Aloha’s mentor for one episode this season.”

  “Eli!” Nadine barks. “Don’t be a fool! Negotiate with Laila about her compensation. For the love of all things holy, Savage is the one who screwed everything up here—so, if someone has to lose an ass cheek to make this work, it’s going to be him!”

  Savage and his agent exchange a look, and I know, in my bones, Savage realizes the truth of what Nadine said. It’s a surprising development, to say the least, to witness Savage being so willing to make this work. Especially given what I know he thinks of this show. He said himself, in Philadelphia, he thinks it’s cringey-ass. So, why did he say yes to being Hugh’s replacement in the first place? And why is he fighting so hard to keep his job now? All I can think is the show must have offered Savage an arm, a leg, and two huge butt cheeks to do the show—some amount of money that made Savage willing to endure the “hives” he’s sure to contract every time he steps on-set.

  I look at Daria and it’s instantly clear she’s thinking what I’m thinking. How much money did the show offer Savage to get him to say yes?

  “Hey, Nadine,” Daria says, leaning over the phone on her desk. “What’s Savage’s salary this season?”

  “Don’t answer that,” Savage’s agent barks. “That’s none of her business.”

  “I can’t divulge that,” Nadine confirms.

  Daria places her palms on her desk, on either
side of her phone. “I know what Aloha is making this season. Ten mill.” She looks up at Savage, apparently trying to gauge his reaction. “I’m guessing, all things considered, Savage’s deal would be significantly less than that. Maybe . . . a third of that?”

  “Say nothing, Nadine,” Eli shouts.

  “I can’t confirm or deny,” Nadine replies. But something in her tone feels a whole lot like she’s screaming, “Confirm, confirm, confirm!” Daria turns her dark, sultry eyes on Eli. “Come on, Mr. McKenzie,” she coos. “Let’s get this deal done. Both of our clients stand to make a shit-ton of money from endorsements and increased music sales after the season.”

  The adults in the room begin sparring, and while they do that, Savage sidles up to me at the proverbial kiddie table, his body language cocky and decidedly sexual. He takes an empty armchair next to me.

  “Hey, Fitzy,” he says, like we’re back in Providence, sharing a bottle of booze outside the twins’ birthday party in the moonlight.

  “You can’t charm me into taking less money,” I say flatly.

  Savage bites his lower lip, well aware he looks irresistible when he does that. “I’m not trying to charm you into doing anything. I’m merely pointing out that, if we do this, we’ll be stuck together in a kickass house—with a hot tub—for three months.” He licks his lips in a way I’ve seen him do many, many times. Like he’s thinking about performing oral sex. “I’m saying all the orgasms I could give you during our fake romance should be factored into your calculations. I’d think they’d be worth something.”

  I roll my eyes, even as every inch of my skin erupts in lustful goosebumps. “Not gonna happen. I told you that was a one-time thing that will never happen again.”

  Savage straightens up, all hint of seduction gone. “I’m not paying you a dime, Laila. Everything Daria’s already negotiated for you is well beyond anything you dreamed was possible when you woke up this morning. So, stop being greedy.”

  I clench my jaw. “I’m not being greedy. This is business, and I’m letting my agent get me the best deal possible, which is exactly what your agent initially did for you, and what he’s also doing now. Don’t think, even for a minute, your donkey dick is some kind of dangling carrot for me.”