“What are you doing?” Lexi asks, surprised at my gesture.

“I’m gonna pay for the coffee.”

“Where are you going? We haven’t even spoken properly—”

“I used to think you were perfect,” I interrupt, putting the money on the table and looking straight at her, “so when you left all that time ago, I thought it had to be me that was the problem. I thought Davis knew something I didn’t. That maybe I couldn’t make you a star like he could. But now I know I was right all along.”

“It’s not like that—”

“You wanted this, Lexi. You wanted to be bigger than the music,” I growl, all New York City reserved anger, “well now you are.”

“Brando,” Lexi pleads, putting a hand on mine as I stand up, “don’t go. Please. I don’t have anyone else right now.”

“Then it’s too late,” I say, pulling my arm away, “because I do.”

It’s just a hunch. She’s not supposed to be at the studio for another couple of hours, and she has coffee shifts pretty much every day. Still, Josh is staying at the studio, and at the very least I figure we can share a beer until she arrives. When I pull up on the path outside the studio, however, I can hear my hunch is right.

It’s loud and raucous. Fast and vibrant. The muffled sound of guitars and drums emanating from deep within the house. I step out of the car and make my way inside, the sound getting clearer and louder like a fog dissipating, dirt being cleaned away.

She’s the first thing I notice when I step inside the studio, and she’s the first to notice me, even though she’s singing into the mic with every breath in her body, stamping her feet, playing the hell out of her guitar. Her tight tank top squeezes her breasts, ripped jeans show the firm flesh of her thighs. I watch the way she winds her curves, and can almost feel them squeezing against my hardening cock.

She winks at me and smiles, and I can hear her smile in the words.

I walk up beside Josh, who’s rocking his head and watching so energetically from behind the partition he doesn’t notice me until I’m right beside him. When he does he looks at me, he gives a thumbs up. I nod a reply. We both understand.

This is not just good. This is fucking amazing.

There are three other musicians in the studio playing, and all of them seem energized by Haley in the middle, a dancing, powerful, beautiful presence. Our eyes stay locked together and I begin to realize I’ve never seen anyone so alive, so sexy, so talented.

Something falls into place deep inside of me. I’m going to make Haley a star. Not for a bet. Not for Lexi. Not even for myself. I’m going to do it because she deserves it.

Chapter 10

Haley

Coffee beans being grinded. Radio blaring another bland pop tune. The cash register that sounds like it’s from the forties. The same customers having the same conversations about morning traffic and work. The rush hour shift is nothing if not consistent.

“What can I get you ma’am?”

“…he keeps changing the set. We’re nearly at the end of the run, and he’s still moving the walls a little bit to the left, shove the table over there, put the drawers a little closer…”

“Would you like cream?”

“It’s Death of a Salesman for God’s sake! It’s not like it hasn’t been done a million times before! But every night it’s ‘Whoops! Stubbed my toe again!’ or ‘Whoops! I’m exiting the stage on the wrong side again!’”

“Will that be tall, medio, or venti?”

“I think the only reason people are still coming is to see what new, weird arrangement the set’s going to be in rather than the actual play.”

And that’s when it happens. Just as I’m taking a ten dollar bill for a customer’s medio caramel frappucino with cream. In the middle of Jenna’s rant about her current play.

That’s when my song comes on the radio.

That’s when my life changes.

My mouth drops open, my body freezes, and then I stiffly turn around to see that Jenna has done exactly the same. I drop the bill, Jenna drops the cup she’s holding, and we scream. Suddenly we’re in each other’s arms, jumping to the beat, half-dancing, half-hugging. I gasp over and over again, as if I’m flying too high to breathe while Jenna shouts across the coffee shop.

“This is my friend’s song! This is her song playing on the radio!”

I freeze again, listening once more to make doubly sure, positive that it must be a mistake. Another similar-sounding song, a mistake by the radio DJ, my cd finding its way into the coffee shop stereo. The song ends.

“…and that last song you heard was Chasing Ghosts by Haley Grace Cooke. Great song there. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of this talented singer-songwriter in the coming months.”

Jenna and I turn to each other and scream again.

I try to stick out the rest of my shift but my head feels like a swarm of bees are trapped inside it. Eventually, Jenna convinces me to leave early so that I can see Brando. She knows how much I want to.

I’m no calmer when I walk into Brando’s apartment.

“I can’t believe it! They played it twice! I was searching online and I’m in the rotation! Not just that station, but a bunch of them! There must be some mistake. I don’t even know how they got ahold of the song!”

“I leaked it online,” Brando says, stretching out on the sofa.

“Just like that?” I say, pacing around in front of him.

“You don’t need tricks. The song speaks for itself. I just put it online, asked a few friends at stations to listen and make up their own minds, and there it is.”

I stop to look at him – really look at him. Maybe something’s changed in one of us, maybe both, but I see someone different. He’s not the loud-mouthed New Yorker disrupting my open mic set; not the slick, indifferent manager who promised me the world and tried to turn me into a pop idol; he’s not even the impossibly hot, fuckable stranger who made me orgasm my nerves away; he’s Brando.

“You really believe in me, don’t you?” I say, stepping towards him slowly.

“More than anyone,” he says, low and steady, his eyes not moving an inch from mine.

Suddenly it all makes sense. The fucking, the music, the airplay. Everything I ever wanted, all at the same time, all made possible by the man sitting slouched on the sofa in front of me. All because he didn’t give up on me.

I throw myself on him, wrapping my legs around his hard hips, shoving my tongue between those flawless lips. It’s the first time I’ve ever kissed him without hesitating; the first time I haven’t held back. But it’s bigger than me, the force that makes my body press against him, makes my hands explore the muscles in his neck, squeeze his hips between my thighs.

Big, powerful hands grab at my ass cheeks as I grind myself against the front of his jeans, slowly at first, his bulge hardening quickly, then faster, rougher. Our lips stay locked while I work his shirt buttons, tongues knotting in a fury of wet lust. He bites and bucks ferociously under my hands, an animal I’m keeping under control with the movement of my hips.

I unbutton his shirt and pull back, devouring the view of his torso. His chest is fucking glorious. Hard, taut muscles perfectly arranged in front of me like a landscape. Time seems to stop for a second while I contemplate it, running my fingers down the groove between his pecs, delicately fingering his six-pack, a million ideas flowing through my mind.

“You look like you’ve never seen a man before,” Brando says, a slow smile playing out on his lips.

“Not like you.”

Brando laughs just before I feel his hands around my waist. Suddenly he throws me down to the floor, just gentle enough, just hard enough. He holds himself over me, triceps tightening as he crawls upward, burying the masculine grate of his stubble into the nape of my neck. I push and pull against his immovable body, scrambling to pull off my clothes while he feasts on my neck. I press my face into his shoulder, his shirt hanging off it loosely, the smell of his testosterone driving me wild.