My car service was waiting for me, and I handed the driver the address Malcolm had sent. It was somewhere in Midtown, and I assumed it was the place he’d been hanging his hat. But when I got out of the car, I glanced up, shook my head, and chuckled.
The Melon Ball was a strip club. I’d been there a few years back with Malcolm and the guys after a gig. It had been a crazy night. I slung my bag over my shoulder, paid my cover, and headed inside.
The place was a throwback to the eighties—the decade that coined the phrase “go big or go home.” Everything in here was over the top. Loud music. Plush seating. Neon lighting. Gorgeous women. I spotted Malcolm almost immediately. He was belly up to the bar, chatting with a blonde waitress who had a hell of a lot more hair than clothes. She looked over as I approached, and Malcolm turned around with a grin.
“You’re right on time,” he said, raising a shot glass in the air.
“Yeah?” I accepted one from the waitress. “Tequila?”
“What else?” Malcolm replied.
We downed the shot, and I tossed my bag onto the floor, claiming the stool beside my friend. The bartender, a guy who looked like he should be walking some runway in Paris instead of slugging beer, offered a polite smile and two more shots of tequila.
Malcolm laughed, eyes on me, a wicked glint lighting them up. “I figured I’d hear from you sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
One eyebrow shot up. “Echo Mansfield? Why else are you here in New York? You hate the city.”
“I don’t hate the city. I just like it in small doses.” I frowned, deciding to play it cool. “What’s this about Echo?”
“You serious?” he sputtered, his other eyebrow joining the first. “Everyone knows you guys were holed up in the Catskills. Someone passed along that tidbit to the tabloids. They’re like a pack of rabid dogs. They’ve been hounding me for days now. The paparazzi are crazy as shit here. All of them asking about you.”
Uncomfortable, I was silent for few moments. Great. There went the whole flying-under-the-radar thing.
“The pictures were all over the place. I can’t believe you didn’t see them.”
“What pictures?” My head shot up, and I frowned.
“The pictures of Echo. She showed up at her place wearing the sweatshirt you had Tyler Oberman sign. Didn’t take them long to figure it out. Less than a day later, they were running stories with a picture of you in that sweatshirt after his last game, alongside Echo walking into her building wearing fucking men’s pajamas and the same sweatshirt.”
“Shit,” I muttered. Now I knew why my publicist had been emailing and texting and calling for the last few days. I figured it had something to do with the album that hadn’t even been recorded yet, so I’d blown her off. My mood darkened. There’d been that missed call from Axel the day before.
Malcolm whipped out his phone, that stupid grin still in place, and showed me a photo along with the headline: ECHO & BOYD SHARING MORE THAN CLOTHES? FOR FULL DETAILS, CLICK HERE.
“You gonna spill or what?” Malcolm asked.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Bullshit.”
I wasn’t going to tell him his bullshit meter was bang on. Instead, I shrugged and kept playing it cool. Not that it was working for me, but what else did I have? “It’s not what you think.”
“What did you do to piss her off?”
I yanked my head back. Malcolm didn’t know shit about what had gone down between us all those years ago. That was something I hadn’t shared with anyone. And as far as I knew, neither had Echo.
“It’s complicated,” I finally managed to say.
Malcolm nodded. “It always is, brother. Especially with women like Echo Mansfield.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hey, no offense. I just mean she’s not like ninety-five percent of the women you meet. She’s not gonna throw herself at you. She’s not going to bang you just because you’re Boyd fucking Appleton. She’s got studs lined up out the door for that shit.”
I scowled and ordered us another round of tequila just as a couple of dancers approached. Both blonde. Both stacked. And both half-naked.
“Hey, boys,” the one on the right said. “I’m Brandy.”