Ozzy

 

 

AS USUAL, I finish my workout by trying to swim the entire length of the pool underwater. When my lungs feel like they’re about to burst, I break the surface, gasping for breath. Hard session. So much so, I almost forgot all about Teresa. Once again, I send praises through the universe to my PR team for burying the story—both its beginning and end.

Swimming over to the side, I place my hands on the deck, heave myself out of the water and stand. A gasp swings my attention toward the side entrance to the backyard. A short, curvy woman with black hair stares back at me. I wipe the water from my eyes.

McKenna?

A slow smile spreads across my face. Instead of grabbing my towel off the back of a nearby chair, I saunter over to where she stands. Her only movement is her hand flying to her mouth.

Stopping feet in front of her, I lick my lips. My exposed cock starts to stir in recognition—swimming in the buff has its benefits.

I raise my eyebrow. “Babes.”

She finds her voice and looks to my left, where Bans has entered the backyard through her doggie door. I was lucky to find a rental with both a pool and easy backdoor access for her. I refocus on the woman in front of me.

“Ozzy. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be naked. I mean, here. Well, of course I thought you’d be here, but not naked. And you have a dog. A very big, not naked dog. Oh my God. I’m going to shut up now.”

Bans bounds over to me carrying a stick this time, barking and wagging her tail. Some attack dog. But McKenna doesn’t seem to realize this, as she steps back with each advance Bans makes.

“She’s harmless.” I reach down and scratch her ears.

“Oh. Okay.” McKenna wraps her arms around her middle, now refusing to look at either my dog or me. “Would you please put some clothes on?”

I take the stick from Bans’s mouth and toss it over my shoulder. She scampers away in hot pursuit. “I don’t know. I’m pretty comfortable. And I’m at my own house, after all. Maybe you should consider getting a little more comfortable, yourself. I can only assume you’re here to finish what we started last night, although now that we’re back on solid ground, we won’t be able to join the Mile High club. Pity.”

She raises her chin and looks directly into my eyes for the first time. In an even voice, she says, “You must be a Mile High if you think that’s why I chased you down. Let me be very clear, I’m not here for that.” Her eyes travel down my torso, causing my cock to stir even more, then zoom back to my own. “But you’re correct, I do want to finish what we started last night. I need you to write the songs for the Project, and I’m damn sure going to keep hunting you down until you produce.”

I scratch my two-day stubble. “I’m not sure what you mean. But I do know I can produce,” I look southward. “Well, given a little more—stimulation.”

She exhales and walks around me to the chair and snatches up the towel. Holding it out to me while keeping her head facing away, she orders, “Put this on.”

Bans decides McKenna wants to play a new game. She drops the stick and races for the towel, latching onto it and shaking her head with a growl. McKenna shrieks and drops her end.

Laughing, I say, “Looks like Bans doesn’t agree with you.”

McKenna stomps her sandaled foot. When Bans tries to get her to play again by running at her with the towel in her mouth, she races around the table, the dog hot on her heels. En route, McKenna shouts, “Get her to stop!”

Bans wouldn’t hurt a fly, she just wants to play. But McKenna obviously didn’t get the memo. Deciding to put her out of her misery, I call out, “Bans, come.”

The dog stops on a dime and trots over to me, taking her place at my heel. “Good dog.” To McKenna, I say, “She’s playing.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t come here to play!”

Petting my dog, I repeat, “Then I don’t know why you bothered to come at all.”

“I’m going to go inside and wait for you to get dressed. Then, maybe, we can have a civilized conversation.” She turns on her heel. “And leave the playful furball out here.” She takes a couple of steps. “Please.”

She opens the French doors and enters my rental. Looking down at Bans, I say, “I don’t know what got into her, girl. She used to be a lot more fun.” Walking over to the stick that we were playing with before, I proceed to play fetch with her for a good fifteen minutes, sans clothes. Let McKenna stew. She came to my house.

When Bans flops down in the grass, I know she’s done. I scratch her belly and pick up the discarded towel, shake it and wrap it around my waist. Sighing, I walk into the house.

McKenna stands up from the sofa, a glass of prosecco in hand.

“Help yourself.”

“I did.”

“McKenna, this is my time. You came to my house and ordered me around. You clearly don’t want to go a few more rounds in bed with me, which I still can’t understand, so what gives?”

She sighs. “Here, I poured you one.”

She gives me a glass of bubbly. My hand slides over hers, causing electricity to scream up my arm. Her eyes widen, so I know she felt it too.

With a shaky voice, she starts, “Don’t you want to put something on?”

My hand falls to my waist and cinches the towel wrapped around it. “Why? It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. And tasted. And—”

Her hand flies up. “Stop it. I get it. But I’m not here for sex.”

I take a swallow of the prosecco and hold her gaze.

She puts her glass down on an ottoman and wipes her hands on her legs. Ones that could be put to much better use wrapped around my shoulders.

“I need to talk with you about your new songs.”

My fingers tighten around the stem of my glass. To prevent me from hurling it—again—I cross the room and deposit it next to hers, collapsing down on a chair facing her. “There’s not much to say.”

“Last night you said you don’t have anything new written.”

I nod.

“At all?”

I nod again. This is getting tiring. Restless, I stand and tower over her. “If you came all the way over here to yell at me to write more or faster or whatever, you wasted your fucking time.” I start toward the main hallway and the stairs. Might as well as end this farce before it escalates. One thought stops me short. I turn to face her. “How did you find out where I live?’

She worries her bottom lip. “I really need you to get writing.”

So does my bank account. My residency at the Jade is up in a month—and with it, my paycheck. “Yeah, well, telling me to sit down and take out a pencil isn’t doing it for me.”

We stare each other down.

“Can I talk with you?” She motions toward the living room. “Please?”

Fuck. She looks so sincere. Without saying another word, I return to the living room and sit down. “Talk.”

Sitting opposite me, she starts, “You know I was one of the graphic designers who the Artist Adventure Avenue Project hired to do the new designs for the music show.”

This again? I nod.

After a beat, she continues, “You also know you’re the final artist I need to work with before my presentation is completed.”

Nothing new here. “Okay?”

She reaches for her glass again but stops and drops her hand to her lap. “I need to finish this project, Ozzy. It means a lot to me and for my firm. The Project is a part of the national consortium of charities that raise money to foster youth programs for art. If my submission is the Project’s best, they’ll enter it into the national competition. Going on, and hopefully winning, the nationals has the potential to change my life.” She swallows. “I’m not like you. I’m not independently wealthy, living with private planes and humongous houses and my name in lights on the Strip. I need this project to make a name for myself.”

As she’s talking, it’s all I can do not to snort. Yeah, right. Independently wealthy, my ass. More like that bitch of my now ex-wife took me to the cleaners and if it weren’t for having prepaid my rent through the end of the year when I took the residency, I’d be living in the suite at the Jade. And private planes? Platinum let me use it so I would get back here for my concert tonight. And as an incentive to write more songs. But I’m not about to share all this with her.

“Listen, McKenna, I’m not holding out on you. I really don’t have any new stuff.”

Her eyes turn to slits. “Have you really been partying it up so much that you haven’t bothered to sit down and write?” She looks away. “At least your cock has been getting a workout.”

“Who I sleep with is none of your concern.” I finish off the rest of my drink.

Neither one of us speaks.

When McKenna and I hooked up before, she was a good listener in addition to being a standout sex partner. Maybe she can help me get through this block? If I want to turn this train around, something has to change. What have I got to lose? “For the record, I have been trying to write.”

She stares into my soul. “You have writer’s block?”

I cross my ankle over my knee, the towel flipping open to reveal my hairy thigh. “I guess you could call it that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

She runs her hand down her arm, which draws my attention to her nice-sized tits. Too bad she’s turned me down. It would have provided a nice diversion rather than admitting my failure to her. One of them, anyway. “But you had six number ones on your first album.”

“That was then.”

“What happened?”

She’s the first person to ask me this question. Usually conversations like these go from “what have you written lately” to “we need your songs by the end of the year.” No one ever goes any deeper. Not even Aiden. Am I ready to share? I scratch my knee. Shrugging, I start, “Actually, a lot.”

She leans forward. “Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“I doubt it.”

“Let me try.”

Suddenly I feel naked before her. “Let me go change and we’ll talk, okay?”

“Sure.”

I bound up the stairs to my bedroom. Tossing the beach towel off my body, I hop in the shower and try to calm my nerves with liquid soap and shampoo. I change into a pair of shorts and a Jade T-shirt, then walk down the stairs. It has to be a good idea to share some of my truth with McKenna. Nothing else has worked.

Before I turn the corner, I hear her sweet voice. “I’m going to stay over here, and you stay over there. Got it?” In response, Bans barks. McKenna now pleads, “Please. I never did anything to you. Well, I did kinda invade your house, but your master invited me in. Sort of. Oh, I know.” Rustling from inside the room makes me wonder what’s going on, and then a doggie toy sails past me and lands in the kitchen. “Go get it!”

Bans races out of the living room to get her toy. Doesn’t McKenna know the dog’s going to pester her forever to keep playing? Before I can take control of the situation, McKenna barrels into my chest.

“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there.”

I wrap my arms around her and inhale her unique fruity scent. Mouth watering, I say, “I knew I’d get you to forego the professionalism eventually.”

At my feet, Bans barks and McKenna jumps. Keeping the woman snug to my chest, I address my dog. “Go lie down.” The golden retriever whimpers, but turns and goes to her bed. I better remember to give her a treat for making me look good in front of company.

McKenna tilts her head up so she can look at me. “I didn’t realize you were done getting ready.”

Dropping both my voice and my head, I suggest, “I can get out of these clothes in no time. I remember when you preferred me like that.” I nuzzle her hair. “And I’ll not say ‘no’ to you joining me.”

With a dry voice, she steps back and retorts, “Let’s go to the living room and finish our conversation.”

I let her go and follow her into the room, watching as she gives Bans wide berth. I grab our now empty glasses and refill them. Handing her the bubbly, I consider crowding McKenna on the sofa but opt for the chair. I’m going to need the distance to spill my guts.

McKenna directs all of her attention to me. Why did I think this was a good idea? Right—I need to break the cycle somehow. I clear my throat. Where to start? “So, when all of the songs for my first album were written, I was living in Puerto Rico. Where I was born. It took a couple of years to get each song the way we wanted them.”

“We?”

I inhale. “Yes. We. If you check the record sleeve, you’ll notice I co-wrote all of the songs with Luis Garcia. He used to be my best friend.”

“You wrote the music and he wrote the lyrics, or vice versa?”

“Good question. Actually, we both did everything. He’d come up with a riff and I’d add the words. Or, I would hum the melody and he’d put lyrics to it. It was a real collaboration.”

“Why don’t you call him up now and do it again?”

My hands go cold. “It’s not that easy.” No way am I telling her about him screwing Teresa while I was being faithful to her out on tour. Apparently, he thought the nature of our collaboration extended to my wife.

She takes a sip of her drink and asks, “Why not?”

“When Platinum discovered me, my band was playing at clubs in San Juan. Selling out, actually.”

She smiles. “I believe it.”

“Yeah, well, I was the lead singer and guitarist, while Luis played keys and couple of other buddies rounded out the group.”

“Are any of them still with you now?”

I shake my head. “No.”

She cocks her head. “Why not?”

How do I explain what happened all those years ago? “Platinum happened.”

“Your record label?”

“Yes. You see, they came up to me after one of our shows and told me they’d been following me for the better part of a year. They wanted to sign me. I was so excited. This was my big break.” Turned out to be an empty victory. I stall by taking a swig of the prosecco, not even tasting it on the way down.

“Go on.”

“Platinum only wanted me. They said they had other musicians who would form my band.”

“How awful. What did you tell Luis and your other friends?”

“I explained everything to them. My drummer and bass player were cool with it—they both had kids on the island and didn’t want to go out on tour.”

“But Luis?”

I try to take another swallow, surprised to find my glass empty. “We had several rounds of discussions. I wanted to make sure he got credit for co-writing our songs, which he did.”

“I don’t understand. If you and Luis were sort of a package deal, why did Platinum want to break you up?”

“In a word? He didn’t have ‘the look.’” I make finger quotes around the term that Platinum used to justify leaving Luis out of the bigger part of the deal.

“The look?”

“Yes.” I shift in my seat. “Let me paint a picture. Luis is short, a little underweight and doesn’t work out. He always wears bandanas or hats to cover his thinning hair. Ladies weren’t exactly throwing their panties at him on stage.”

“So you’re, well, you, and Luis didn’t add to your mystique.”

I roll my eyes. “I guess you can put it that way.”

“But, you said Platinum gave him writing credit on the album. So why can’t you collaborate together, like Bernie Taupin and Elton John?”

I chuckle. “We’re no Bernie and Elton.”

“You are in your own way.”

Her belief in me shocks me. “Aw, McKenna, I didn’t know you cared.”

“I’ve always enjoyed your music.”

“And here I thought you were after me for my other talents.” I rock my hips.

“C’mon, Ozzy. Be serious. Why don’t you just call up Luis and start to collaborate again?”

Because the fucker jumped in bed with my wife the first time my back was turned. But I’m not about to share that with her. So I offer another truth. “I haven’t talked with him since I signed the contract with Platinum. It was his decision.” I run my hand through my hair. My writer’s block stems from my lack of a partner, but it’s more than that.

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to lose touch with a best friend. Rose and I went our separate ways after college and, even though we didn’t have a falling out like you two did, I know how difficult it was for me.”

“At least your story has a happy ending.”

She beams at me. “It’s all because of you, you know.”

I quirk my eyebrow. “Come again?”

“One night in Vegas a year or so ago, you had finished up your concert where Cole jumped on stage and previewed ‘No One to Hold.’ I was in your suite for an afterparty and went into your bedroom to, ah, to look for the bathroom.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, Rose was in there, crying her eyes out. That’s when we got reacquainted.”

I remember Rose coming to my room, her luggage trailing behind her, looking like a wet cat. “And the rest is history.”

“Yeah.”

Silence descends.

“Well, I sincerely doubt I’m going to end up at a party with Luis.” No. Fucking. Way.

“You could call him.”

“No.” More like no-fucking-way-am-I-ever-going-to-talk-to-that-asshole-ever-again. But “no” will suffice.

She sighs. “Alright. If what you did before isn’t an option now, what ideas do you have to get your writing back on track?”

I laugh. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be in this situation, would I?” I start to drop the word “babes,” but stop myself. Somehow the nickname I always use with women is starting to ring hollow when applied to McKenna.

She smiles. “No, I guess not.”

While she takes another sip of the prosecco, my alarm goes off. “It’s dinnertime. Want to join me?”

“Dinner?” She checks her watch. “It’s barely even afternoon.”

“With my performing schedule, I prefer to eat my big meal midday. Gives time for digestion before I get up on stage. Plus, I’m over at the Jade around normal dinnertime anyway, practicing and getting ready.”

She stands. “I don’t want to intrude.”

I snort. “Says the woman who broke into my backyard.”

Shrugging, she says, “I was motivated.”

“Speaking of which, who do I have to fire for giving out my home address?”

She raises her hand and makes a zipping motion across her mouth. “I’m no tattletale.”

“I’ll get the info out of you one way or another. C’mon.” I stand. “I’m making dinner and you’re helping.”