“I just…” I felt my eyes mist over, panic bubbling up. “I don’t know how to navigate this.”
“You take your time. You don’t commit to anyone or anything.”
I snorted bitterly. “Yeah, well, that’s easy.”
He seemed to physically bite down on a response, the gist of which I could guess. His phone rang. “Mick, what’s up?” He listened, gave verbal affirmatives, and hung up. Back to me. “Mick has his top four picks for agents for you. All women, best in the field. He’s emailing me the info and I’ll share it with you. You pick from there, sign a contract, and let your new agent deal with everything. She’ll call the labels and tell them she’s your agent and to bring her any offers. You ignore all other calls except those from your family.”
“Do I have to sign with an agent?”
He shrugged. “It makes life easier, if nothing else. It’s a complicated world out there, in the music industry. She’ll be your guide through the murky, shark-infested waters.”
“I mean…what I…what if I don’t want to—to do this?”
He ground his teeth. “Don’t bullshit me, Lex. You’re scared, angry with me, and overwhelmed. I get it. But don’t act like you don’t want this.” He leaned across the table and took my hands. “Lex, think back to the times you’ve performed. Remember how you felt.”
I closed my eyes, and I was on that stage again in Tokyo, fifty thousand people accepting me, loving my music. Alive. Nothing else had mattered, in that moment.
“I remember,” I whispered.
“Deal with this,” he wiggled my phone, “and you get that. It’s why I put up with signing autographs and taking a thousand pictures with strangers, because they’re the reason I get to do this. I deal with press and media and attention and endorsements and money and managers and agents because it lets me be on stage doing the thing I love more than anything else in the fucking world—which is performing. It’s what I was born to do. I’ll die on stage when I’m a hundred years old, because it’s who I fucking am.” He poked my chest. “And it’s who you are, if you can summon the fucking courage to let yourself have it—the courage to believe in yourself and your abilities.”
“I don’t know if I have that courage.”
“Look deeper, Lex.” His voice was low and rough. “You do.”
“My own father didn’t believe in me.”
“And he was a damned fool. He was wrong.” He squeezed my hands so hard it hurt. “I fucking believe in you more than I’ve ever believed in anyone or anything, Lex.”
“I don’t deserve that.”
“Not for you to decide. I decide that.”
“You decide what I deserve?”
He laughed. “No—I decide what I feel for you, and how you feel about how I feel is irrelevant.” He sucked in a slow deep breath, let it out. “I accepted the end of us—the end of whatever us there could have been—when I put that video out there. I did it for you, because I believe in you and because I love you.”
I rocked backward. “I…I can’t. I can’t handle this.”
I shot out of the booth and bolted for the suite in the back. Shut and locked the door, and sobbed—out of sheer, overwhelmed confusion, if nothing else.
The plane landed, and I didn’t leave the cabin. Couldn’t.
Hours passed and what did I do in those hours?
Cry? Rage? Sleep?
No, I drank.
I escaped the only way I knew.
One bottle of wine.
Two.
I lost track after that.
The room spun around me, and I fell off the bed at some point. Hated myself for being this weak.
But it was too much.
I loved him.
He loved me.
But he didn’t know my secret.
And now—now the whole world wanted me.
Wanted my music.
Almost a hundred million people had watched me in my most vulnerable, intimate state, singing a lullaby I’d written for myself, to help me deal with unimaginable pain. That pain was on display, raw and real.
For the whole world to see.
I wanted to sing.
I wanted to let Myles love me.
I just didn’t know how.
And no matter how much wine I drank, I couldn’t drown that out.
Waking up was a slow, painful process. My tongue was a wooden stick glued to the roof of my mouth, which was filled with sand that was on fire. Someone had put my skull in a vise, poured molten lava into my brain cavity, and was using my temple as an anvil. My stomach felt like a vat of boiling acid.
I hurt.
I also stank—I could smell my own body odor, a rank jumble of smells emanating from my mouth, armpits, and vag.
I heard seagulls, and that was wrong somehow, but the lava-drum that was my brain was far from operational, and I couldn’t figure out why I was hearing seagulls in the distance.
I also heard waves crashing, and tried to put two and two together. We must be in Oslo or somewhere near the water.
The world was swaying. Back, forth…back, forth. Lulling. Soothing.
And nauseating.
Suddenly my stomach was heaving and I was gonna hork.
I grunted, trying to at least roll over instead of vomiting on myself. I managed to flop sideways, and the swaying worsened, as if I was on a boat.
“Oops, don’t fall out.” A voice. Male. Deep. Familiar. A voice that somehow meant hugs and kisses and snuggles and comfort. “Here, I got you.”
“Puke.” It was all I could manage, and my voice sounded like a raven with a sore throat.
I heard movement, felt a hand at the back of my neck, holding my hair aside. Something touched my forehead, the rim of a bucket or something…just in time. Out came the hot filthy acidic flood, my stomach twisting itself inside out. Grit, bile, liquid guilt and shame.
“There you go. Get it all out.”
I thought I was done and tried to breathe. Got a breath, and then my stomach churned, twisted, and it started all over again in a gushing bitter stink.
After a few moments without any more vomiting, I heard a bottle cap twist and felt something pressed to my lips.
“Here. Water. Sip it, rinse and spit.” I knew him. Brain wouldn’t offer up a name, not even my own, but I knew him. Trusted him.
I tried to obey, but swishing was beyond my abilities, and it spurted out of my mouth. I heard a male chuckle. “Babe, you are still so fucked up.” A towel touched my mouth, chin, throat. “There. Now try again.”
I did, and managed to rinse my mouth and spit it out. I took a sip, and then more, and then more. Then the bottle of water was pulled away. “Best take it slow until you see how it sits.”
“Uuuurrrgggghh, god, I feel awful.”
“Yeah, I bet you do, but you’ll be all right. I’m here.”
Somehow, hearing that soothed me. If he was here, I’d be all right. I wanted to cry, from everything, but I couldn’t. Staying awake impossible.
* * *
I woke again, and felt a little better, I felt less tired and my stomach was more settled.
“Gonna puke again?” I heard him say.
I shook my head. “Don’t…don’t think so.”
“Hey, you can actually talk. We’re gettin’ somewhere.”
“What happened? How much did I drink? Jesus.”
“I found two empty wine bottles, and my bottle of Johnnie Blue was significantly less full. So, a fuckin’ lot.”
“Shit. I don’t even remember the whiskey.”
I felt his hand on my head, affectionate, checking my temperature. “I was worried you were gonna have to see a doctor. You had alcohol poisoning, for sure. Thank god it wasn’t lethal, but it definitely did a number on you. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for days.”
“Oh my god. I can’t believe it. Where are we?”
“Don’t worry about that. When you can function normally, we can talk. I’m gonna give you some Tylenol
and you’re gonna sleep again.”
I took two pills with more water, but this time the water had a flavor to it. “What was that?” I tried to open my eyes—the brilliant sunlight hurt like hell, so I closed them again.
“Water with electrolytes. I’m trying to rehydrate you.”
“Didn’t taste like Gatorade.”
“Fuck that. That shit’s sugar water. This is some shit Jupiter uses, no sugar, no junk, just straight electrolytes and natural flavoring.”
“Oh.”
Except for the sound of seagulls and crashing waves, silence enveloped me, and I was drifting off to sleep.
“Myles?”
His hand on my cheek. “Yeah, darlin’?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“This?” My attempt at a rueful laugh ended in a pained moan. “For me. For everything I’ve put you through.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
That made my eyes burn. “I don’t wanna be rid of you, either.”
“Coulda fooled me,” he said, and then sighed. “Quit worryin’ about it, Lex. Just rest. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
That wasn’t right either, but my faculties were still offline and I couldn’t figure out why.
I fell back asleep.
* * *
The next time I woke up, I was me again, but with a terrible headache and a cotton mouth and an oily, acidic stomach. I even opened my eyes.
Overhead were…leaves? The ceiling of the room was like straw, thick and woven together, coming to a point. Beams of hand-hewn tree branches supported the roof, and the walls were somehow different. Mostly I could see open space through which was impossibly blue water that went on forever. I realized I was in a hammock, which explained the swaying.
There wasn’t much in the room. A bed, a small three-drawer bureau. Bedside table. A partially ajar door leading to a bathroom. The room was open concept—bedroom, sitting room, and kitchen all in one. It was simple and rustic, in a tropical way.
There were sunglasses—my own—on the bedside table. A note: Put these on. And a smiley face. An arrow pointing toward the bureau. Look in there. Wear what you find. ––M
The letter of his initial was done with a swooping series of loops and flourishes.
I put the sunglasses on, because even in here, it was bright. I realized I was naked, which could be explained by me having barfed on myself at some point, but also it was Myles and he liked me naked, and knew I slept better nude.
I made it to my feet and found myself surprisingly steady. The bureau contained four bikinis in various colors and styles, all in my size; none of them actually mine, all with tags. A gauzy floral cover-up dress, what appeared to be a sarong of some sort, and…that was it. Four bathing suits, two cover-ups. Oh, and a pair of flip-flops on the floor by the bureau.
I saw no bags, neither mine nor his.
Nor did I see him.
I chose a bathing suit—royal blue and very small. Basically just a sliver of fabric just wide enough to cover my nipples and not much else, with ties that went around my neck and back. The bottom was a triangle that mostly covered my vagina, but if I wiggled wrong, my hoo-ha would swallow the fabric. I mean, damn. He was not sending any subtle messages with this, was he?
I could rock it, though. And look killer doing it—there was a full-length mirror, and despite gross, oily, tangled hair and smeared makeup and an overall haggard appearance, my body looked pretty damn fine.
Sunglasses, bikini, flip-flops…a fresh bottle of water from the fridge. Which, I noticed, contained whole, healthy, natural foods and no booze. Probably for the best.
I stepped outside onto the porch of the hut, which, I discovered, ran around the entire perimeter of the hut. I mean…where the hell was I? This was a tropical paradise for sure. Fiji? Bali? Somewhere like that. If the door facing the ocean was the front of the hut, an island was behind it, low and hilly and jungle covered. No walkway, no pier, no connection to the mainland. Just this one hut, on stilts, on the water.
And nothing else.
The seagulls were calling, and the ocean surf crashed against the island shore in the distance. There was a constant, gentle, warm breeze. The sun was hot and bright and invigorating.
I saw a ripple in the distance—I watched, and after a few minutes, I knew it was Myles, breast-stroking through the water straight toward me. There was a ladder descending into the water, and he swam to it and climbed up.
Naked as a jaybird.
“You were swimming out there, alone, naked, in broad daylight?” I asked.
He grinned, shook his head to fling the water off, wiped his face. “Yep.” He gestured around. “A producer friend of mine is friends with some billionaire tech dude. He owns this.” He gestured at the hut. “Meaning, the island as well. It’s one of the most solitary, remote places on earth. There’s a diesel generator on the island, which we can crank up if we need electricity, but we won’t. Plumbing is covered. Propane stove. Plenty of food and water.”
“And this is…where?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. We’re on an island in Indonesia. That’s all I can tell you. I asked my friend if we could crash here, and his friend gave our pilots the coordinates.”
“When did we get here?”
He chuckled. “Yesterday morning.”
“How did we get here?”
“Plane from…wherever the fuck we were in Europe, can’t remember right now—to an airport a few hours from here, and then we rented a seaplane and Callahan flew us here.”
“And we’re here…why?”
He shrugged. “To take the bull by the horns.”
I felt my heart skip. “What’s that mean?”
He was utterly serious, eyes burning and intense. “It means I postponed all my shows for the rest of the tour. Refunds to all who ask, vouchers for upgraded seats to everyone who kept theirs. It means there’s no way off this island for two weeks. No boat, no plane. No phone service, no internet. Just you and me, and our issues, and all the time in the world.”
“Myles…”
“You damn near drank yourself to death, Lex, and that’s no joke. I had a doctor check you out before we left Europe. He wanted to admit you, intubate you, and IV you, but said as long as I watched you carefully and made sure you were hydrated when you recovered, you’d be okay.” He was frowning, hard. “I ain’t no stranger to partyin’ harder than I should. I’ve woken up with hangovers from hell. Done shit I shouldn’t. But this? This was different.”
I rested my forearms on the railing, watched the sun glinting off the waves. “Yeah, it was. I’ve gotten crazy wasted before, but I’ve never been passed out for days.”
“Well, to be fair, I don’t think you’d been sleeping much before that.”
I shook my head. “No, not for more than a few hours a night.” I hesitated, swallowed. “Too…too much of everything to be able to sleep.”
“I needed a time-out. You needed a time-out. I can make up the shows. I can afford to refund the tickets.” He gestured. “So, here we are. Hell of a place for a time-out, huh?”
I sighed. Tried a smile, and failed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s beautiful, all right. Peaceful.” I turned, rested a hip against the rail, and faced him. “So. Where do we start?”
He eyed me, his expression neutral. “Well?” He knelt, slid my flip-flops off my feet, stood and plucked my sunglasses off my face, setting both aside. I got excited, despite still feeling like shit, because things had been off between us lately and I hated it. And this felt like him making the move on me I so desperately wanted.
His hands clutched my waist.
His lips touched mine. Soft, quick. Not a kiss, just a touch.
“First thing is…this.” And he tossed me off the side of the balcony into the water. I hit with a splash, sprawling into warm ocean brine, gentle waves rolling over me. I heard a splash nearby, and surfaced to see Myles bes
ide me, hair in his eyes and a grin on his face.
“I’m way too hungover to swim, Myles.”
He laughed. “Nah, best thing for you.” He wrinkled his nose. “Plus, you stink.”
I laughed, then sniffed my pit, and reared back, gagging. “Yikes. I may need more than a dunk in the ocean.”
“Yeah, like soap and a toothbrush. And shampoo.” He kicked to get closer to me, wrapped an arm around me and twisted to his back, taking me onto his front as he floated, kicking away with me on his chest. “But for right now? Just chill. You got nowhere to be, no one to answer to, no one to perform for.”
“Except you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t owe me shit, Lex. We ain’t here for me to force a story out of you. I was worried about you, so I took you away from everything.” He spat water out of his mouth, one hand on my ass, the other pulling at the water, his legs kicking steadily. “You wanna fuck, we’ll fuck. You wanna talk, we’ll talk. You wanna dig out your secrets and let me help you carry them, I’ll listen and I’ll cry for whatever pain has you so fucked up, and I’ll hold you and help you figure out the way forward. You don’t want to do any of that? We won’t.”
“What if I just want to go home?”
His eyes pierced mine. “And where would home be for you, Lex?”
I clung to his shoulders and swallowed hard. “I…I don’t know.”
“You can leave anytime you want, but the only place to go aside from the hut is the island, and there ain’t much there but the generator hut and other mechanical shit, a little caretaker’s hut, a storeroom for backup supplies, and a storm shelter. Other than that, it’s just a little rock in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, with perfect weather and a little hut to sleep in.”
“We’re really stranded here for two weeks?”
“Yep.”
“What if there’s a hurricane?”
“Well, it ain’t typhoon season, I’m told, and if there was, we’d ride it out in the shelter. It’s stocked with rations to keep four people alive for a week.”
“Oh.”
“Any other questions?”
“Why are you naked?”
He grinned. “Well, I only been skinny-dipping once before, and it was at night in a lake and I was a kid. There ain’t nobody for a couple hundred miles, and I figured hell, why not? It’s fun. Freeing.”