"IT FEEL LIKE that when the others fucked you?" Eyes that had been burning fiery blue with passion had cooled. His arms crossed again, he was already fully dressed. I balanced on a drift of lumpy coats in heels, trying to put my dress back in order. I didn’t even want to think about how difficult it was going to be to straighten out my life without Lucky after having had him again.
"I told you it doesn’t. It never has." I met his chilled gaze and shook my head sadly. With him I didn’t have to pretend. With him I could be myself. With him everything was real.
"Raven." Marsha called, knocking on the other side of the door. "Come out. Hurry," she hissed. "Suzanne Smith is here, and she’s right on my heels.” I smoothed the satin back into place. The dress was noticeably wrinkled but I hoped not otherwise harmed.
"Where are you going?" Lucky grasped my arm as I tried to move past him.
"Back to the party. My boss is here."
"No. That’s through. The JGB thing is resolved. You don’t have to do the Rock Fuck Club thing anymore. You and I have things to work out."
Marsha rapped on the door again. I gulped when I saw the unrelenting lines on Lucky's handsome face.
"You don’t understand." I tried to get my heart rate to slow, a very difficult task to accomplish anytime he was near.
"Explain it to me then."
"I want to, but I don’t have time."
"Make the time." He blocked my path to the door.
"Let me out, please. Don’t make a scene. There are stipulations in my WMO contract. I had to deny that anything happened with you and me. I can’t be involved with anyone until I fuck ten different men. Ten different rock stars. I need that money. Marsha is broke. She has medical bills that are my responsibility. I wasn’t there for her once when she needed me. I won’t fail her now. I can’t."
“You’re seeking absolution like with your brother. But Marsha wouldn't have you sacrifice your own happiness to secure her own." Observant. Insightful. Astoundingly so when it involved me.
"What happiness?" I retorted.
"Yours and mine. You're afraid to take a chance on us. I understand that now." He framed my face in his hands. "But is this really working for you, Angel? Do you really want to keep denying what you know to be the truth? You just told me it’s different between us. I agree. I see it in your eyes. I feel it in the way you respond to me.” His gaze noticeably darkened. “I’ve watched the teaser videos. Most probably don’t look beneath all the skin, but I do. I know the difference between theater and reality because I’ve experienced it. It’s evident right now in the way you look at me. I let you walk away once. I wasn't sure. And you seemed so opposed. But nothing’s felt right since you left. I promised myself if I came here and I was wrong, if things had changed between us, I would let you go for good somehow. But I’m not wrong, am I, Angel? No more pretending." He stroked the corner of my mouth with the pad of his thumb. I felt the warmth. The rough drag. The low flutter in my belly as desire stirred again. And I saw the undeniable, irresistible sincerity blazing from his eyes. Those eyes shined on that secret part of me, the real me, the woman I could truly be with him. "Take a chance on us, Raven. Beyond one night. Beyond a tryst in a coat closet."
"I can’t." I whispered, beseeching him with my own eyes to understand. "I’m stuck in this contract. I’m not free to accept what I want."
"You always have a choice. Everything changes if you only acknowledge what’s impossible to deny."
"Raven Winters." Loud raps accompanied Suzanne Smith’s insistent voice. I held my breath. If she opened it the choice would be taken from me. I might gain Lucky but I would fail Marsha again. "We have a press conference about RFC. You need to come out right now."
"I’m sorry,” I whispered to Lucky. He released me as soon as I said the words. My body went ice cold without his heat. I dropped my gaze. My lips trembled. "I wish things were different. But I have to go."
I pulled open the door, smoothed my hair and pasted on a smile for the exec as she tried to peer past me. I caught the concerned look of my best friend. My one friend now. "Sorry." I clicked the door closed behind me. "I lost my wrap." What I really meant was I squandered the small chance I didn’t really deserve and couldn’t get back again. "I tried to find it. I really wanted to. It was the best wrap I ever had, probably will ever have," I said loudly, hoping he would understand and forgive me. "But I’ll just have to go on without it."
I SUCKED AT the press conference. My heart wasn’t in it. I’d left it back there in the coat closet.
Smith wore a frown as the flurry of questions slowed to a trickle and then stopped altogether. "You could have sounded a little more enthusiastic." She pursed her lips at me as we exited the small conference room together.
Yeah, I thought. You try to kiss ass and pretend you have it all together after you walked away from a guy as great as Lucky while reporters pepper you with questions that make you feel like a cheap hooker.
Which I probably was in the eyes of the world.
Fuck ‘em. I have a good reason to keep the RFC going, I told myself, reaching for and squeezing Marsha's hand. Eyes full of empathy, she squeezed my hand back. Lucky was mistaken. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your own happiness for your friends. Hadn’t Marsha done that by keeping her pregnancy secret from me? She had walked that road alone because she thought I was in love with Ivan and didn’t want to ruin my relationship with him by revealing that he was the father of her child.
"We'll just have to prep you better for the media blitz before the series airs." The VP lifted her chin to acknowledge Ignacio and the rest of the film crew out in the hall. "Get Raven ready. The Noir after after-party is in suite 909. I have a couple of people I need to talk to first, but I’ll meet you there later." She gave me a firm glance that made me wonder how much she knew about what had happened in the coat closet. "Don’t mess that up. Your future is on the line as is mine. The cross marketing with a group of Noir's caliber will almost assuredly ensure the success of the series."
AN HOUR LATER after makeup, a costume change and a couple shots of tequila, I entered Suite 909. Smith and the film crew were already inside. I ignored the stares, the nudity, the drugs and the rest. It was only a stage for what needed to be done. But this night’s skit, the dance and the words of Twenty-One Pilots' "Holding Onto You" were just for me. The lyrics declared that if I were a different person, if I knew how, if it were up to me, I would have held onto Lucky. I would have done right by him. I had chosen this number even before the Dragons’ frontman had reappeared tonight. I knew the difference between what Lucky and I had shared and what I did as the RFC girl. What made sex mediocre or mind blowing didn’t have to do with positions or proclivities. What made sex mundane or magnificent was who you did it with and how you felt about that person. And that revelation led to another. I had never truly loved Ivan, and he had never truly loved me. The sex between us had been just a manifestation of our lack of true feeling for each other.
Scarves covered my body, tear away types. I peeled them away revealing my breasts in a nude bra, my hips in a matching thong, all of my body but nothing of the real me. That I would keep for myself. I symbolized that by having Marsha cover me with a large piece of see through plastic at the end. She draped it over my body as I crouched on the floor. The music tapered off. I waited. One beat. Then two. Maybe Ryland wouldn’t approach me. Maybe I would have a night off to regroup. To file down the sharp edges inside of me. But it wasn’t to be. The drape slid away. I lifted my head. My hope sank. Lucky is already long gone, I told my heart that had wished desperately for it to be him. After only a slight hesitation perhaps that was only noticeable to me, I took the hand the Noir guitarist stretched down toward me.