“I don’t get stronger when you shield me from things, but I can draw strength from you if you walk with me through them. The way you came into the meeting today and claimed us; not acting like it was something to be ashamed of, or I was something to hide; how you showed them you were fine if they know we’re together? That made me feel like I wasn’t in this alone.”
“You’re not alone. I want this, Neevah.” He sighs, tightening his grip on me possessively, comfortingly. “I don’t want outside forces wrecking us before we even get off the ground.”
“Oh, we are off the ground, Mr. Holt. After how you put it down tonight,” I say, laughing and throwing my head back, “I’m way off the ground on cloud nine.”
He shakes his head and grins, rolling his eyes. The doorbell rings and he pulls on his T-shirt.
“I got it. That’s probably the food.” He tosses me his phone. “Meanwhile, you wanna look at these new lines?”
I dive for the phone like a baby seal performing tricks. I want as much of a head start as I can get learning any new material. Tomorrow is a travel day, even though Santa Barbara is less than two hours away, so the crew will have to get us set up. We’ll rehearse the upcoming scenes, but not actually film anything. I’m nervous, though, because with all the dance numbers behind me, this will be my first scene singing. We’re saving the lion’s share of vocal performances for the very last part of production since they mostly only affect me, Trey and the musicians. Those scenes will be filmed primarily on our studio back lots, but this one needs to be captured on our French Riviera set.
Monk arrives tomorrow and we’ll start working on the song while production gets everything set up. It’s an original he wrote for the time Dessi and the band spent touring Europe, doing a residency at a hotel in the French Riviera. Monk sent the song to me a few weeks ago, and I’ve practiced on my own. I want to do it justice.
Which means this voice needs to rest.
My vocal coach sent a regimen in preparation for this song and the more vocal-intensive portion of the end of production. She shared the recipe for an elixir she concocted that’s “guaranteed” to get your voice ready for anything. I’ll be sipping on that for the next few days and getting plenty of vocal rest.
“Food’s here,” Canon yells from the living room.
I’ll have to kick him out as soon as he eats. How am I supposed to concentrate with him here?
When I pad barefoot out of my bedroom and up the hall, he has our food and two place settings in the small dining room. He looks distracted half the time, like his mind is somewhere else. Like you don’t have all of him, and the part you have wishes it were somewhere else.
Not right now.
With a hectic two weeks ahead of us on location, with rewrites burning a hole in his email, with a dozen things on his list I bet he needs to do before he sleeps, his eyes, when he looks up, are fully set on me. He’s all there . . . for me. I hold his undivided attention, even if only for the next hour, and it is like stretching out under the sun at its highest. It is warm and illuminating.
There aren’t candles on the table like there were our first night making love in Santa Barbara, but we make our own glow. Today Camille tried to steal it, to ruin it with her antics. The world tried to pick it apart, to mock it, to figure out what’s real and what is true. This is real—eating, laughing with him right now. Talking with the ease of summer breezes until we have to tear ourselves away from each other. Stealing the last kisses of the day and having to push him out the door because we both want him to stay, but know he has to go. This is true. And leaning against the door after he leaves, my heart aches and swells with the unexpected sweetness of it.
47
Canon
It’s hard not to spend the whole night with Neevah; to stay and have her again; try to slake this quenchless thirst. Not only for sex, but for her closeness and the intimacy when my body relinquishes hers and we talk, our heads on one pillow. Our fingers linked on my chest. Laughing and touching in the dark where we don’t hide anything from each other. Even in this, the most hectic stretch of our shooting schedule, I want that. Bad. Ignoring her answering desire and the hands reluctant to let me go, I leave her at the door. I need to make a call.