AISHE

We haven’t stayed in the same hotel for more than two nights since we came to Japan. It’s part of what makes it special to come back to the Regent Ritz Hotel for our third night in a row tonight. The guys are out and about, the crew is spread for leisurely activities, and Zoe and I have hit the department stores. Now, we’re back with loads of gorgeous clothes. More than I can afford, really.

“I’ll help you unpack,” Zoe says from the door.

“That’d mean I’d have to come help you unpack afterward, so no thank you, sweetheart!” I point at her even dozen bags. The bellman already insisted on helping “the most beautifulest wife of the clown-erupt!” but she shrugged him off with a few bills.

“So what are you wearing for dinner? You’re coming with us to Moon Tower, right? You should wear the gold lamé one, because, Lawdie, Lawdie, Troy would swallow his tongue.”

“And I’d want that why again?”

“He likes you, and you might not even realize this yourself, but you like him too. You totally look at him.”

Oh man. If that was all I did.

“I look at people,” I joke. “It’s one of my things.”

“You’re so funny. Anyway, you two have chemistry, and not only in bed.”

“Right, and isn’t it awesome that the whole world can make up their minds on whether or not we have chemistry in bed?” As I say it, I realize that this particular lament means less to me with each passing day. Sometime in a remote future, who knows: maybe I don’t care about having been leaked, orgasm and all, to the entire world.

“Meh, it is what it is,” Zoe says what she always says when this comes up. She doesn’t give a crap. It might be why I care less too.

“Also, think about it: imagine the crap-ton of people out there who’ve never been laid the way we did in that film. We had a blast, right? Some people don’t even have orgasms, and if they do, it’s with some wooden man doll of a guy who has no idea how to treat a woman.”

I burst out laughing. “A wooden man doll?”

She rolls her eyes. “Not, like, a real wooden doll.”

“Pinocchio!” I say.

“Oh God, that’s so gross! Pinocchio’s, like, the sweetest story. You totally just ruined it for me. I’ll never watch it again without thinking about terrible lovemaking and little wooden dicks!” She makes a cross with her index fingers, holding it up against me, as she backtracks toward the door. “Behold, Aishe is crazy. Need to leave before is too late.”

I follow her to the door, snickering. “What accent is that? Transylvanian?”

“Something like that.” She grins, saluting me with twelve shopping bags raised on her arms. “Come to Moon Tower, ’kay? You and Troy are the only ones always staying in your rooms when we do something fun. I’ll make Emil get Troy to come too, and we’ll all be there.”

“I’ll think about it,” I call after her, already knowing we have other plans. I’m not sure what we’re doing. Something Troy loved the last time he was in Nagoya. All I know is we have this plan because everyone else will be at the Moon Tower.

As I throw myself on the bed, I let out a sighed thank-you to The City of Nagoya. The place is home to several TV channels, and they’re shedding out big money to have Clown Irruption play.

Today was a TV day, and I haven’t seen Troy since this morning. Basically, none of the pretties went, because this hotel is the bomb and we’ve laid out by the pool and enjoyed complimentary spa treatments all day.

I feel fabulous. Albeit a little sweaty. Zoe doesn’t mess around when she shops, and we sure got a lot done in two hours.

I whip a pocket mirror out of my purse and hold it up over my face, so I can study myself from my prone position. My makeup is in place for the most part, but I’m definitely shiny. No lipstick, of course, because we had smoothies. Mmm, so good. I could get used to this.

Slowly, I sit up and wiggle my feet out of my shoes. Doing small circles with my ankles, I get the blood circulation back while I consider this happy feeling I’ve been harboring for a week now, ever since Troy and I came to our truce.

Maybe truce isn’t the right word. For a truce to come, there first needs to be enmity, and between Troy and me, there’s only been shock. Disbelief. Sadness. Grief. Guilt. And unfortunately, love.

I’m in love-fire with my disloyal friend. It’s why I still call this a truce, because isn’t there a saying that all is fair in love and war? I think that can be interpreted my way. As in however the heck I want.

I long to see him in the morning, to wake up before him and look down at his beautiful face from my elbow-high vantage point above him on his bed.

When his eyes open, the first thing he does is stare right into mine. I cherish the moment they change from confusion to tenderness, when they slide from unconscious into glimmering awareness.

We have a routine now, Troy and I. In a new hotel, I start out by making a mess in Waris and my room. She never even comes by anyway, and I’m only here initially. I take my first shower and dress up. At this point, I don’t even bring my essentials to Troy’s room. It’s a strange thing when you go mushy on the inside thinking about what someone has done for you.

A week ago in Tokyo, I squirmed out of bed late. “I’d pay an arm and a leg to lay around for a while longer,” I’d said.

“You make the rules, moxchia,” he murmured, and I told him, again, to not use that word for me. His answer was a disarming smile.

“No, I don’t. Troll does, and we have to be down for breakfast,” I said.

“True, but we’d have twenty minutes extra if it weren’t for you needing to pack up your bombed room before breakfast.” He came up behind me in the bathroom mirror. Warm, he brushed against me, droplets still trickling between his pecs after our shower.

I was already dressed. Hair thoroughly brushed—which takes forever—I was hooking my red and gold feather pendants into my ears when he pushed against me.

Instinctively, I tipped my head to the side so he had better access to my neck, and he pressed soft kisses up the length of it like we were lovers. I remember the goosebumps he gave me, the need rising in my body, the beat pulsating in me with each caress and how I hated having to run to my room.

“Look,” he murmured. “Why don’t you just move into my hotel room? No one will say anything. Heck, they’ll be happy for us.”

“Except Hailey,” I said with a slightly evil smirk.

“Who cares what she thinks?”

“I know, but no. I… I love this, with you.” I found his eyes in the mirror. “But everything would change then. I need my backup plan if the Drago Fuoc makes me into something I don’t want to be.”

Troy cradled my face in his hand and steadied it until we stared at our reflection in the mirror. He leaned his chin on the top of my head. “How do you feel right now? Are you something you want to be in this moment?”

I pffed like I’d been doing a lot with him lately. “Yeah, but if I go bruxiante, you’ll have a crazy person on your hands.” Gently, I started collecting my essentials. Shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, makeup. My perfume, body lotion, and all the good stuff a girl needs when she wakes up in the morning no matter where she is.

He watched me work, a small towel the only fabric covering him. “If that happened, you’d be my favorite werecat.”

“You just don’t get how horrible I’d be.” I couldn’t help enjoying the mischievous side-eye he gave me.

“I’ve seen you, baby. Not so scary to me.”

“Oh you’re comparing this to when I was making Emil’s life hell?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Or have you gone werecat on other guys too?”

“No, but don’t trust what you saw! I could get way worse.” My toothpaste dropped to the floor, and I picked it up. When I rose to my feet again, Troy was zipping my biggest beauty bag closed.

“All I saw, Aishe, was a beautiful woman trying to give herself to Emil. You wanted to give him all of your love and attention, and frankly, I’m no chicken shit. I’m not afraid, and if that’s what bruixante means to you, I’ll be over here clapping my hands, with my arms open to catch you.”

He put down the beauty bag and did exactly that. He even bent his knees to take the impact of someone heavy. And there I went again, laughing.

How does he always make me laugh?

“You’re crazy, Troy Armstrong,” I said. “Bruxiante can work differently on different people, so who knows what I’d turn into with you.” My smile evaporated as I added, “I’ll just have to do what I do. Keep my room. See you when you want to see me.”

“As in always,” he husked, gathered up my second beauty bag too, and walked out of the bathroom.

“Hey! Where are you going with those?”

“I’m putting them in my suitcase.”

“What? But that’s my stuff.”

“I promise not to use any of it.”

I ducked my head out of the bathroom and found him smirking at me from the desk. Closing the suitcase, he pressed his palm flat against the lid and locked it. “It’ll be easier. You have to bring all of this over here anyway, so why not keep it with me?”

I smile. Wrap my arms around myself, thinking of Troy’s determination that morning. With the exception of a few tour-bus nights where he’s had to sneak my stash into my bunkbed, it’s worked out great. Now, the only products I keep in my fake room is whatever I carry around in my purse.

I could wait for him in his room. He’s not there yet—he would have called me if he was. One more look at my sweaty self in the pocket mirror, and I decide to shower here. The hotel soap is delicious on me anyway, Troy thinks.

Goosebumps rise on my arms as I recall the sensation of him sniffing along my nape and into my cleavage. I close my eyes, smirking to myself like someone lovesick. I guess I’ll be stealing a few of these cherry-and-almond-scented bottles when we leave.

In the shower, my thoughts stray to our bed. For eight days, we’ve done this, shared a room without really sharing it, going to bed early, hugging, touching, but never touching enough. In the beginning, I tried to keep my nightshirt on, but it’s hard when gentle hands and cinnamon kisses help you out of it.

I’ve been good, though. Good about keeping myself under control. Good about leaving Troy groaning with hot, masculine frustration. His need for me is so big sometimes it turns me into a string of desire. I tell him I take care of myself when he’s not around. He tells me there’s not much he’d like more than to take care of me himself. That’s when I say he can take care of himself instead, and he responds that that’s not nearly as fun.

God, the feeling when his embrace tightens and his voice finds my throat in a hot, exasperated groan. My desire turns to lava, and I’m so close I could almost come without his touch.

The sweetness of kissing his forehead, of turning my back to him and not shying away when he nestles against me, the bare length of him settling against my backside.

The impatience of my heart when it doesn’t calm down, when it sprints, sprints until sunrise teases the curtains and I’ve only napped in moments because I want him so much.

The happiness of waking up on his chest, of being the first one lifting my head, supporting it in my palm, and staring at him with all my bottled-up obsession. Of letting my reins go, quietly, silently unleashing myself and simply drinking him in.

Cherry-blossom-and-almond soap gives me slick release in the shower, and I’m still wearing a dreamy smile as I wipe the fog off the mirror and dry up. Troy said to wear something nice, and I’m hoping what we’re doing involves dinner. But “nice” means dress, and maybe I’ll follow Zoe’s suggestion of wearing the new gold lamé dress. When did Troy last see me in something other than my long skirts and bodices?

The dress has thin straps over my shoulders and the neckline plunges lower in the back than in the front. Without being tight, it accentuates the shape of my boobs, and by swinging outward instead of inward, it insinuates the curves of my waist and hips instead of flaunting them.

My dreamy smirk spreads into a smile as I rock my body to a beat in my head. Before I know it, I find myself singing a few lines of an old Clown Irruption song. I’m not a smile-in-the-mirror kind of girl. I’ve been too practical, too focused on survival. But here I am, grinning at myself because of a dress, and because, as I back away from the mirror, I see my legs beneath the dress.

This dress is short. And when I say short, I mean short-short. It reaches my upper thighs, and because of the width of the skirt, it sways with my shifts, threatening to show more than a man ever expects outside of the bedroom.

I study myself as I bend forward. Swinging my butt toward the mirror, I test how deep I can go without showing black lace beneath it. I’m excited to see that it’s farther than I think.

My favorite platform pumps are a similar shade of gold. High and subtly square at the front, they give me legs for miles, a one-and-a-half-inch boost when I step into them. I’m still in the mirror checking out my own legs when someone knocks on my door.

“Psst. Aishe? Are you there?” A female voice, and she’s whispering loudly against the surface of the door.

“One sec,” I call out and hop out of my pumps before opening.

“Hey. Can I come in?”

I frown. My Halloween doppelganger is at my door, and she’s using the eyes she generally keeps for Troy on me. Wide and innocent, she makes them plead with me. Before I can reply, she even forms praying hands between us.

“What for?” I mutter but retreat anyway. “I was getting ready for dinner.”

Her gaze runs over my dress, taking inventory for her next shopping trip, I bet. I step into my pumps, liking the thought of legs for miles. Has nothing to do with the inches I now have on her.

“Listen, something happened, and I just needed to tell you before it’s all over the news and stuff.” She blows out a breath like she’s been running.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh God. I mean, I know you have a thing for Troy and all. I didn’t want you to have to lose face in front of the others, but basically, Troy and I sort of had one of our moments while shopping just now. And then, one thing led to another, and before we knew it the paparazzi came out of the woodwork. Like, out of nowhere! It was totally weird.”

“You had a what, now?”

“A moment, you know—I’m so sorry you had to find out this way how it is. Troy and I try to keep things under wraps because of the band, the tape, and what-have-you. So many reasons. Also, I don’t want to be that girl. I’m no Yoko Ono. Ha!”

I shake my head, staring. She’s kidding, right?

A knock on the door. It’s a triple rap in a beat only a drummer would make.

Hailey visibly recoils. “Don’t open! He’ll be pissed I told you. He’s such, su-u-uch a nice guy, he’ll probably try to explain it in some weird way to not hurt your feelings, and he’ll be mad I was honest. I believe in honesty!” She hisses the last part out. “Don’t you?”

I don’t even answer. It only takes seconds for my incredulity to morph into indignation. Ready as hell, I stride to the door.