ME AND AFG

LEVI

Sometime around noon, I finally get up, throw on a pair of jeans—no shirt, no shoes—and leave my room. I have plans for painkillers and more booze, but I hear Angry French Girl muttering to herself in the ballroom and I push open the door and watch her as she studies the cello in its stand.

“You know the first sign of madness is—”

“Talking to yourself, I know.”

“Actually, I was going to say it’s flying halfway across the country to stay in a complete stranger’s chateau, but talking to yourself works too.”

That earns me another glare. She could make an Olympic sport out of that shit. She’d win gold every time.

“You shouldn’t leave a cello out in the open like this. The lack of humidity can crack the wood, especially when it’s cold.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she snaps, and then schools her features into something like neutrality. “Shall we get started?”

“You don’t waste any time do you, AFG?” She shoots me a look, like she doesn’t understand my new nickname for her. Good. Women love dark and mysterious. “I thought we’d at least have a drink first.”

“It’s noon.”

“And I woke up thirsty.” I don’t say for what.

“You’re paying me to play, so where do you want me?”

Bent over my piano.

“That’s a joke, right?”

“No. If it were a joke, I would have started it with why does the chicken cross the road?”

I chuckle. “Oh, AFG, I want you everywhere, and anywhere. On the bed, the floor, in the pool, up against that wall.” I point to the flaking wallpaper behind her. “Bent over my piano with that pert little arse stuck up in the air, but since we’re on the subject, why does the chicken cross the road?”

“To peck the cocky rock star half to death.”

“Only half?”

“Oui.” Her mouth tips up in the shadow of a smile. “She realises halfway through that he isn’t worth her time.”

“Ouch, that’s cold.” I clutch my hand to my chest and feign heartbreak. “Hey, while we’re on the subject of frigid bitches, tell me about you, Angry French Girl. Why aren’t you playing sell-out tours?”

“Because even in France assholes with teeny tiny little pin dicks feel threatened by strong women.”

My responding smile is huge. “You fucked the wrong guy, didn’t you?”

She lets out an exasperated breath. “I am not discussing my private life with you.”

“And here I thought we were discussing business? I knew it was because of cock. I was right. I usually always am when it comes to fucking.”

“Fine, yes, I slept with the wrong man, and screwed my career in the process. Are you happy?”

“No. Talent like yours should be shared with the world.”

“Yes, well, sleeping with the wrong man in the industry has only led to me sharing my talent at weddings and playing on the street for coins.”

“What if we could change that?”

“Let me guess, if I fuck you, you will take me under your wing, introduce me to all the right people, and put me on the map. Did I miss any other clichés?”

I nod. “Yeah, the one where the tough female protagonist thinks every man is out to get her.”

“Well, unlike your fangirls, I do not care what you think of me. I’m just here to play and get paid.” She pulls the piano stool closer to the cello and picks up a case from the ground that I hadn’t noticed before. Angry French Girl pulls out a bow, not unlike the one she beat me with at Ryan’s wedding. It’s sleek, refined, burnt umber, with a head that curves into a wicked sharp point.

“And if you can shove my balls in a vice and get paid for it, then you’re winning, right?”

“Why is it that men are so threatened by strong women?” Brie removes a tiny tin from her case and opens it, pulling out a cloth with a rich red cake of what looks like soap and begins sliding it along the hairs of the bow. She gives it a small flick and rests the bow on her lap as she pulls the cello from the stand.

“I’m not threatened. I love strong women. I think they’re hot.”

She opens her legs. I cock my head to the side, but the long dress she wears means I can’t see a damn thing anyway. Brie shakes her head and sighs. “Tu est ridicule.”

“Merci beaucoup.”

“I thought you did not speak French?”

“I don’t.” I cross the room and pick up the whisky I left on top of the piano several nights ago. My head thrums like the strings on her cello as she tunes the instrument. I park my arse on the floor in front of her, twist the lid off the bottle, and gulp back several long pulls as my gut churns and my chest aches—with the afterburn of alcohol or something else, I don’t know. “I know maybe five words.”

One perfectly made-up brow arches. “And yet you now own a piece of France?”

“Yeah ...” I glance at the crumbling ceiling. “I guess I do.”

“Then perhaps you should learn to speak our language.”

“Perhaps you should teach me.”

“J'ai déja mon lot de connerie à gérer, tu ne penses pas?”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that wasn’t you telling me you’d be happy to. Am I right?”

“Tout à fait.” Her smile is cunning, and so fucking hot.

“Ouch.” I rub at my chest, pretending to feel, but at the moment, I’m completely numb. “So mean. I should warn you, I like that in a woman.”

“Why am I not surprised by this?” She shakes her head, but there’s the barest hint of a smile on her lips. “You’re like a naughty toddler.”

“You’re right, and I could use a spanking.” I grin, but the smile disappears.

“I should get back to playing music, non?”

“And here I thought we were,” I whisper. She remains unimpressed and I drink my whisky as her fingers glide along the fingerboard and her bow saws across the strings, creating some of the most sorrowful sounds I’ve ever heard. I listen, and I drink, and all the while the anger, the sadness, the hollowness and bitter desperation I feel is slowly pulled from me by her hands. As if she were a siren, and the cello was her voice, and I was just another man at sea whose soul she longed to consume.

Maybe I’m still drunk, maybe I’m just fucked up, but when she’s finished playing, she stares at me. It’s as if she doesn’t know what to make of the utterly decimated man at her feet. A man she just ruined with her skilled hands, without ever laying a finger on him. A half smile tips up the corner of her mouth and she gets up and leaves the room, cold and lonelier, and yet somehow fuller than when she arrived.

***

I don’t see Brie for the rest of the day. She doesn’t eat with Margaux, Dog, and me that night. Instead, she takes her dinner to her room, as if she were being held captive, as if she were my prisoner. A million different fantasies run through my head, but as much as I’d love her on her knees submitting her body to me, a woman like this does not submit. And I am too broken to make her.

I head back to the music room and tinker with the keys of the piano. It has to be close to midnight before I see her again. She stands in the doorway, watching me in the dark.

I feel her there, though I don’t acknowledge her presence. When I bring the song to a close, she moves into the room and stops just a few feet shy of me.

“That is beautiful. What is it?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m thinking of calling it ‘Why Won’t You Fuck Me and Put Me Out of My Misery’. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Well, I suppose it depends on who it was written for.”

“For you, actually.”

She laughs softly. “Liar.”

“You got me.”

“So, a woman broke your heart—”

“How do you know it wasn’t a man? That seems a little gender bigoted.”

“A man then?” she asks with a question in her eyes.

“Maybe it was both,” I say, matter of fact, as I play a minor chord that hits me right where it hurts. “Maybe a man broke my heart by asking a woman to marry him. And a woman broke my heart by saying yes.”

“I’m confused.”

“Welcome to the club, princess,” I say and then grin. “How do you not know this? The whole world knows.”

“Perhaps not everything revolves around you. Perhaps you just think it does.”

I squint at her shadowy form in the dark. “Where did you come from?”

“Paris.” She rolls her tongue around the word and ends it with an ree sound, rather than an s. Lust curls around the base of my spine and thickens my cock. I’ve fucked French women before, but none as enigmatic as Brielle Kagawa. Her arrogance is actually a turn on. I like that she’s probably the one woman in the world who won’t spread her legs for me. I’m sure I’ll come to hate it, given time, but then I’m also confident that I’ll wear her down. I have a way of growing on people.

Like mould.

I can still see that stubborn set of Ali’s jaw as she glared at me across the club, and then the way her lips parted in a grin as I fucked her at a Vegas party. My hands falter over the keys and I sit quietly, staring down at the ivory. I see her body splayed beneath Coop and me, between us. Always between us. I remember the way her hair smelled on her wedding day when I danced with her in their suite. Now Cooper is the only one who gets that. Who gets to feel her beneath him, who gets to smell her shampoo, and hold her, and I get nothing. Nothing but a pickled liver and an angry French girl.

“Levi,” Angry French girl says. I like the way my name sounds on her tongue. “You should go to bed.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Non. It’s an order.”

I grin. I’m drunk, heartsore, and all kinds of fucked up. If I had any sense left, I might be embarrassed. Good thing I drank all my sense away.

“Come get some rest.” She holds her hand out to me, and I reach for it, but I miss. Brielle frowns, and helps me to my feet by placing her shoulder under my arm. She begins walking slowly down the hall and I walk with her. I’m just about to ask why she’s being so nice when she says, “In the morning she will still be married.”

I turn my head to glare at her, but it swims. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Non. Nothing will make you feel better, but sleep,” she says. “Some detoxification wouldn’t hurt either.”

“Sleep won’t fix shit,” I mumble. “As for drying out? Forget it. But fucking might.” I raise a finger as if making a point and stab the air between us. 

“When has fucking ever fixed anything?”

“It fixes my boner.” We come to the end of the hall, and it’s tricky, but she manoeuvres us so she’s still supporting some of my weight while the stone wall takes the rest.

“Can you even get hard with this much liquor in your system?”

“I can get hard any place, any liquor, any time,” I slur as we reach the bottom stair and enter my room. “Want me to show you?”

“I really don’t.” She drops me on the bed and walks away.

“Brie?”

She turns. I can’t see her face, but she’s no doubt glaring at me. She’s always glaring at me. “What, Levi?”

“I’m not always this much of an arse.”

“We both know that’s not true.” I hear the smile in her voice, more than see it, because I can’t see a fucking thing in this room.

“You gotta stop that,” I warn. “I told you I like the mean ones.”

“And I told you, never going to happen. Dors, tu es fou, bel homme.”

“I don’t speak French.”

“I know,” she says and disappears up the stairs.