But instead, we were in a lounge in public, and the emotion in his eyes dimmed as he let go of my hand.
But I noticed it didn’t disappear.
Not completely.
“Okay,” he finally said, finished his drink, and slipped back on his sunglasses. “Let’s go meet the rest of the band.”
3
We walked out of the bar and through the lobby. I looked towards the bank of elevators passing by on our left. “Aren’t we going up?”
“Yeah, but ours is over here,” he said, pointing past the check-in desk.
“You have your own private elevator?”
“Well, they didn’t build it just for me, you know.”
“Where does it go?”
He smirked at me. “The penthouse. We are rock stars, after all.”
“The penthouse has its own private – ”
“I haven’t seen you for four years, and you want to talk about elevators?” he teased me.
“Fine,” I huffed. “What do you want to talk about?”
He shrugged. “I dunno… you graduated, I’m assuming?”
“Yes.”
“Syracuse, wasn’t it?”
Now it was my turn to be impressed. “Good memory.”
“What else have you done?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, what other big things have you written?”
I thought he was making fun of me, so I said sarcastically, “The last Time magazine Person of the Year article.”
He looked over at me, stunned. “What? Really?”
I gave him a bitter look. “No, of course not. I did, however, write a piece on artisanal beers for an independent weekly. I even got paid $50 for it.”
He looked at me, startled – then began to laugh.
“What?” I asked belligerently.
“You haven’t written anything big before this?!”
“Not for lack of trying.”
He just kept laughing, like he found this inexplicably hilarious.
“We haven’t all been as successful as you, Derek,” I said angrily.
“I’m sorry… it’s just… all that crap back there in the bar about me using women… and here you are, using me.”
“I’m not using you!” I snapped.
“Yeah, right,” he said, wiping his eyes as he continued to chuckle.
“I’m not!”
“Come on, Kaitlyn,” he said in a Cut the bullshit tone of voice.
We reached the elevator – a single door all by itself, made of gold, set in the marble walls. If I was going to bail, now was my last opportunity to do it.
“Fine, if that’s the way you feel, I’ll just leave and you can get somebody else to write the damn article – ”
I started to pull away – no real plan, just wanting to get the hell away from him –
He grabbed my arm, and a thrill shot through my entire body as he swung me around to face him.
“No, I want you to stay,” he said gently.
I just stared up at him, my heart racing as he stared back down at me.
Neither of us spoke for a long moment… until he finally let go of my arm.
“I seem to remember saying that another time,” he smiled.
“I seem to remember a song about it, too,” I muttered, not wanting to go back to our earlier discussion of who hurt who worse.
He suddenly got an anxious look on his face. “Did you like it?”
You mean, did I sit on the side of the road and bawl my eyes out when I heard it?
“I like all your songs, Derek,” I said softly.
He searched my eyes, looking for a trick. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ve followed you the entire time. It’s just… some are a little more painful than others.”
He nodded like he understood completely. “…yeah…”
For the second time in five minutes, I felt like he might kiss me – and I felt like I might kiss him back.
But then the elevator opened and a British voice rang out, “Where the fuck ‘av you been?”
4
I looked over expecting to see Killian Lee, the guitarist for the band – and was shocked instead to see a short, black, well-dressed man scowling in the elevator.
Wait – Killian Lee’s not black.
I knew that because of the story Derek had told so long ago in Ryan’s basement. Plus, I’d seen plenty of photos of the band since Killian joined. He was white, early 30’s, hair in a ponytail, always wearing John Lennon-style round sunglasses, always dressed in black.
This guy was really dark-skinned, with a long, ugly scar across his right cheek that was lighter than the rest of his face. He wasn’t shaved bald, but his hair was so closely cropped next to his head that he might as well have been. His angry eyes flitted back and forth like they were on a seek-and-destroy mission. He was dressed in a shark-skin suit, an electric blue tie, and a white shirt so crisp you could have cut yourself on the edges of the collar. He looked a little like Don Cheadle, if Don Cheadle were perpetually pissed-off and dressed like a gangster in a Guy Ritchie movie.
His accent wasn’t upper-class, that was for sure. He sounded Cockney… I guess. I’m basically only familiar with the posh accent that Ian McKellan and British royals have, and Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. (I know there’s a whole spectrum in between, but, hey, I haven’t begun my world travels yet.) This guy fell a hell of a lot closer to Cockney.
I thought he was yelling at me. I didn’t know who he was, but I just assumed it was my fault. Maybe he was the publicist, I was supposed to meet him, and then I’d gotten waylaid by Derek instead.
I opened my mouth to say something –
But Derek beat me to it. “Meeting the press.”
The black guy’s eyes widened as he looked at me. The anger in his voice dialed back a notch as he asked, “Are you Kaitlyn Reynolds?”
It sounded more like Aw yew Kaitlyn Reynolds?
“Y-yes,” I said nervously.
The guy looked at Derek. “This is the one, then?”
“Yup,” Derek smiled. “In the flesh.”
I frowned and looked at Derek. “What does that mean?”
He gave me what I can only describe as an enigmatic smile. “You’ll see.”
The guy stuck out his hand to me aggressively, almost like he was going to attack me. “Miles Sumner. The band’s manager.” Miles Sum-nah. The band’s manage-uh.
“Oh… hi,” I said, and shook his hand.
Miles looked at Derek in disgust. “Christ, I tol’ you to lay off the drink.”
“You’re not my wet nurse, Miles,” Derek said in a bored voice, as though he’d heard all this a thousand times before.
“You need a fuckin’ wet nurse, spoutin’ scotch out of ‘er tits, the way you drink,” Miles snarled.
“That’s Riley you’re thinking of.”
Riley… the drummer… the little punk-rock chick…
“Riley can handle her booze. You can’t, you stupid git.”
Riley can ‘andle ‘er booze. Yew can’t, yew stewpid git.
Then he turned to me. “I assume you’re comin’ up to meet the band?”
“Yes,” I nodded, a little afraid of getting him angry at me.
Too late, he already was.
He was probably born angry.
“Well, come on, then!” he snapped. “Get on the lift!”
I hurried into the elevator. Derek sauntered along behind me.
Miles hit the ‘Close’ button on the control panel once we were inside, then turned to me as soon as the door was shut and we were in motion.
Like he’d been waiting to get me trapped.
“There’s some ground rules, Ms. Reynolds.”
“Um… okay…” I said, though I looked at Derek as I said it.
Derek smiled indulgently. “It’s Miles’s world. We just play music in it.”
“An’ don’t you forget it,” Miles said, jabbing a stubby finger at Derek’s chest. Then he turned to me and stared me down. “First off, you fuck with the band, you fuck with me. And nobody fucks with me.”
I looked at Derek with more than a little trepidation.
“Miles is like a Great White shark in a suit,” Derek explained. “Except he’s our Great White.”
“Not the band, I’m assuming,” I said, trying for a little joke about the 80’s metal group.
Derek caught it and grinned. “No. He’d have longer hair if that were the case.”
“A great BLACK shark, an’ don’t you forget it,” Miles said to me. “You fuck with this band, I’ll bury you. You fuck with their music? I’ll bury you. You fuck with their schedule? I’ll – ”
“ – bury me. Got it.”
I was losing my fear of him with the constant repetition. I mean, he was almost a caricature, he was so ridiculously over the top.
But as soon as I talked back to him, his eyes narrowed into slits, and I could see the muscles in his jaws clench.
I looked over at Derek, who gave me a cool, slightly amused shake of his head like, That was not a very smart move.
The elevator came to a smooth halt and the door slid open. I moved to exit – to get anywhere, so long as it was away from Miles – but he shot out one hand and punched the ‘Open’ button and then held his arm there, blocking my path.
“You think I’m joking,” Miles said in a cold, controlled voice. “Do you think I’m joking?”