11. Myome
MYOME
Icursed and let my head fall backward while I groaned loudly.
“Fuck.”
“You’re alright.” Charm hit me on my back. “You’re alright.”
“She’s not alright,” Retta snapped. “She’s half a second behind every hit.”
“Obviously if I fell out of line and just cursed about it, I can see the damn issue.” I gestured toward the floor-to-ceiling mirror.
“Try having less of an attitude with me and more energy while running this choreo.” Retta forced a smile.
I cut my eyes at her but didn’t threaten to slap the taste out of her mouth because she was right. I needed to focus on the choreography. I couldn’t really be mad at her when I was the one messing up.
“Anyway”—Charm shot her a look—“Let’s just run it from the top.”
“I have things to do and can’t dedicate my day to trying to make sure Myome can keep up. If she can’t—”
I cut her off. “Just go home if you want to go home. It’s not like you’re helping.”
Retta looked at the choreographer who nodded once and nudged her head toward the door.
“Yeah. You can go, Retta.”
“Thank you.” She spun on her heels and quickly waltzed over to her gym bag, plucking it up and walking out without another glance or word.
I immediately looked at Charm.
“I’m going to end up having to put hands and feet on her ass one of these days,” I stated.
Charm snickered.
“I wouldn’t even let it get that far. Come on. Let’s run through it again.”
“Alright.” I clapped my hands. “I’m ready.”
“I’ll stand in for Retta,” the choreographer offered.
She restarted our music and walked over to fall into the routine with us in Retta’s spot. I was starting to think Retta was the problem because I nailed the routine the first time we did it. The choreographer clapped.
“See, Myome, you’ve got this.”
“Thank you.” I took a deep breath. “Can we run it one more time?”
“Sure. Let’s do it.”
She restarted the music and we went through it a second time.
I lip synced as I went. Afterwards, we rehearsed one more time with Charm and me doing actual vocals before calling it a day.
We thanked and hugged the choreographer, and after she left, we ran through it once more before collapsing onto the ground to stretch.
“Retta might be a bitch but it is pretty obvious that you like Drix,” Charm said after a moment.
“What makes you think that?”
Charm pursed her lips. “Myome, please be for real. We watched that interview and I’m your girl. I know you ain’t that damn good of an actor.”
I laughed immediately. “I didn’t even say shit for real. I was so nervous. I just sat there, smiled, and nodded.”
“Well you looked good as hell doing it and you were looking at Drix like you had hearts in your eyes.”
“Was I really?” I sat up from stretching.
“I mean, yeah but relax. I don’t think he minded. He put that big ass ring on your finger when he definitely didn’t have to.”
“For optics.”
“Girl, he could have gotten you a ring half that size and men still would have been looking. Not to mention, Drix made it clear he don’t play about you. So people who notice you looking at him like you’re in love will know he fucks with you too.” She shrugged.
“Well at least I don’t look in love by myself.” I rolled my eyes.
“You don’t,” Charm assured me. “He looks smitten too… at least as smitten as a man like Drix can look.”
“He is a little aloof about most things, huh?”
“Just a little bit but he’s nice to us, so shit.” She laughed. “That doesn’t really have anything to do with us. Plus, you’re the type to like a man who isn’t too friendly.”
“Especially in this industry.” I leaned forward to start stretching again and Charm followed suit.
“So, you do like him?” she asked.
I sat with that question for a beat even though I already knew the answer.
“Yeah. I like him,” I admitted. “He’s… special…” I finished lamely. “And not just in the studio.”
“I love that for you.”
“Is that sarcasm?” I sat up again.
“Hell no.” Charm sat up too. “I’m serious.
I think you should ride this high until you can’t anymore.
He’s giving you free promo with the pictures and videos and interviews, free security because most people know he’s not right in the head, and eventually, if you really want it, he’ll be giving you good dick too. ”
“What?” My eyebrows knitted together.
“The way Niecy is acting, it has to be something serious.”
Charm looked at me. I looked at her. She lifted an eyebrow. I mirrored the reaction. Then we laughed in sync.
“You’re ridiculous,” I said.
“A little bit, but honestly, I just want you to be happy, girl. You deserve it.”
“Thank you.” I grabbed my feet and leaned forward again.
We went through our stretching then climbed to our feet.
“So, what are you about to get into?” Charm asked as she grabbed her workout bag.
“Honestly, I’m going to hang out here and do another few rounds to make sure I’ve got it. I can’t be the one to drag the group down.”
“Trust me, you won’t be. Don’t stay in here too late, alright?”
“Alright.”
We hugged each other briefly then Charm headed out and I locked the studio door to get back to practice. I focused on choreography for a while then did takes with the background track before merging into full out choreo and vocals.
My legs and lungs were starting to burn when my phone started ringing.
I finished the song I was working on anyway, letting the call go to voicemail in the process. It began ringing a second time, so I finally took a break and snatched it up.
It was a video call from Drix so I answered it almost instantly. He preferred to talk on the phone over texting but he didn’t usually video call me.
“What’s up?” I answered and collapsed onto my butt to try to catch my breath.
“You screening my calls now, Yo?” he asked.
“No. I just missed the first one.”
Drix looked down at his phone screen. It was obvious he was sitting in his truck. He had a blunt in his mouth, staring down at me. For some reason I felt like this man got finer by the day.
“Where you at? Show me.”
I lifted my phone higher and flipped the camera so he could see me seated on the floor in front of the large mirrors.
“I’m still in the studio.”
“For what?”
“I messed up at practice and need to have my moves locked in before our performance.”
“Practicing too much is just as bad as not practicing enough. Wrap that shit up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Berlin, did you need something?”
“Yeah. For my wife to have her pretty ass at my house when I get to that mothafucka.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I smiled even as I said it, butterflies building in the bottom of my stomach.
Ever since Drix and I had slept together, things had definitely shifted between us.
Even without us labeling anything exclusively, we were acting like a regular couple.
We’d already been staggering nights between our houses but now we shared a bed.
Drix was a gentleman in public, opening my doors and making sure my hand never touched my card while in his presence.
We kissed and touched each other like it was natural, and honestly, I liked it.
The little random touches we shared were almost as good as the sex and the sex was life changing.
I knew that even from us only having done it twice.
“Yeah, yeah, nothing. You better meet me home before I come take you out of that studio kicking and screaming.”
“And why aren’t you in the studio?”
Drix chuckled softly. “Every beat I agreed to make is made except what I want to contribute to Rome’s album but he’s been working with someone else too so he’s tied up enough for me to wait until the home studio is done being renovated.”
“You have a studio in your house?” I asked. “How didn’t I know that?”
“Yeah. I only use it when I work with Rome or to edit from the crib because I can’t have people just walking around my crib, but it’s basically in the basement. You’ve never had a reason to go down there.”
“Will I get wifely privileges to use the studio?” I wagged my eyebrows.
“I mean, it’s in yo’ crib, so yeah, Myome. You can use it whenever.” He chuckled. “Ay, I got to go. Rome is calling. I’ll see you when you get to the crib.”
“Okay.”
I hung up the call, tossed my phone back on my bag, got a drink of water ,and went back to practicing.
Even though Retta was being annoying, I consistently heard her telling me I needed to step it up, and as irritating as it was, she was right. Those were the same words my parents had thrown at me.
I paused choreo practice and sang through the track list we picked out. Then I stretched again since the back of my leg felt stiff. I wiped sweat from my face and slowly dragged myself up.
Immediately, I got lightheaded. I lowered myself to the ground and let my back rest against the mirror. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.
I yelped and my eyes flew open when I heard a bang then glass falling to the floor. My head jerked to the side and I watched with wide eyes while Drix walked into the studio and made a beeline for me.
He dropped to a knee in front of me, a bottle of water in hand.
I blinked a few times while he twisted the top off and offered it to me.
“You good?”
“Yeah. My head is just throbbing.”
“What did I tell you about rehearsing too much?”
I ignored his question.
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you I was going to come drag you out of here kicking and screaming and I still gave you an hour.”
“An hour?” My voice rose.
“Two. I gave you an hour from the time I got home.”
He offered me the water bottle which I gratefully accepted. I gulped more than half the bottle down then set it beside myself. I hadn’t realized how dehydrated I was until this moment. I exhaled and reached for my phone.
Drix wasn’t being dramatic. A little more than two hours had gone by since we’d spoken.
“I guess time just got away from me,” I admitted quietly.
“Don’t make that shit a habit,” Drix deadpanned and climbed to his feet.
“What? I have a curfew now?”
“Nah, but your body needs a break, Myome. The same way you take care of your vocals, you need to take care of every other part of yourself. If you can’t perform, your stock goes down significantly, especially when concert tickets for the upcoming album haven’t even been announced.
You care about social media and shit. You should know it takes one bad video of you fucking up to make them sales not move. ”
“Which is why I’ve been practicing.” I groaned as I pushed myself up.
“And now you’re out of commission to keep practicing because when you wake up tomorrow you won’t be able to move your fucking legs,” he deadpanned. “You perfect performances in rehearsals and with consistency, not by treating your body badly. You’ll perform better when your body is at its best.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t say okay because you want me to shut up. Say okay because you hear me and understand what I’m telling you, Myome. I ain’t gon’ tell you no shit I don’t know for fact, a’ight?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright. Come on.” He nudged his head toward the door and plucked up my bag.
I trailed him to the door and did a double take.
“You broke the studio door?”
“Elbowed that shit out,” he said simply. “Watch the glass.”
“Berlin, you can’t just smash out studio doors.”
“Man, I saw you sitting on the fucking floor looking passed out, Yo. Hell yeah I broke that lil raggedy ass door.” He offered me his hand and carefully helped me walk over the glass out of the room.
“We’re going to get banned from here,” I sighed.
“Nah. I’ll pay for it.”
Drix didn’t let my hand go as we walked down the hall. I looked back at the broken door and glass on the floor then up at him. I set my other hand on his, making him turn and look down at me.
“Thank you for checking on me,” I said softly.
“I got you.”
“I know.”
I enclosed my other hand around his too and leaned my head against his arm while we headed out of the building.