Chapter 6
6
Love is like a faucet. It turns off and on.
Billie Holiday
9 and a half years ago
Elliot holds my hand as he leads me through the throbbing crush of pulsing bodies on the dance floor toward the back of a club where a reserved booth nestled between thick red curtains waits for us. Butterflies on acid flutter frantically in my stomach, making it hard to catch my breath as I struggle to adjust to the surrealness of the night.
We’ve just finished our third session at Wyclef Jean’s Platinum Sound recording studio in Chelsea, and I think we nailed what Elliot’s convinced will be my first single—once we have the label’s buy-in. A grueling ten-hour day spent in the booth running every line over and over, grasping for that elusive perfection I can only seem to achieve when Elliot says so. Now, just after midnight, we’re out to celebrate and unwind before doing it all over again tomorrow.
Just as we reach the table, Elliot gently tugs me forward, bringing our clasped hands to the small of my back. He draws me close at his side and leans into my neck. “Easy there, tiger,” he purrs in my ear, bringing my hand up to his mouth to kiss, “your grip is like a vise. Why so nervous?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, my face flaming with embarrassment. I glance around us. “I just feel like…everyone’s watching us.”
He shrugs and quickly scans our surroundings too. But unlike me, jittery and shy, he’s aloof and smug and sexy as hell. “And?” he says. “So what if they are?”
Maybe one day I’ll get used to living in a fishbowl. I suppose I’ll have to if I plan on being as successful with my music as I’ve always dreamed I’d be.
Elliot slips us into the booth, and seconds later, two servers materialize with supplicant smiles. He orders our drinks, whiskey for him, club soda and lime for me—because I’m old enough to do everything with him but drink. His long fingers massage the back of my neck as the sultry opening saxophone chords from “Is It a Crime” penetrate the space around us . In spite of myself, and my nerves, I instinctively begin to sway.
“Ah, so she likes Sade.” Elliot sighs with a small smirk curving his mouth.
“Mm-hmm,” I confirm, and my eyes drift shut just as she sings her tortured confession about missing a forbidden lover. “She’s top five for me. Hands down.”
“Tell me,” he says, “what is it about her that makes you move like that?” And when I finally open my eyes again, he’s staring at me so intently it steals my breath away.
Still, I manage to reply. Sitting up a little straighter, I square my shoulders and blurt out, “It’s everything! Her tone. Her musicality and the almost electric sense of chemistry she has with her band. How expressive their artistry is when it’s combined. How no one in the world sounds like her.” I pump the brakes, feeling self-conscious about my intensity. I want Elliot to see me as an artist, not a fangirl.
But he surprises me with his response. His eyes flick over my face, drifting down to my neck and shoulders, caressing the swath of brown skin exposed by the blue strappy dress I’m wearing. “You remind me of her,” he says. “Your style. Your voice.” Then he wraps a tendril of my curly shoulder-length hair around his finger while staring deeply in my eyes. Chills instantly scatter across my skin.
More than handsome, Elliot Majors is what I’d call striking. He’s got these dark, enchanting eyes that float like jewels on the elegantly sharp planes of his face. With the most buttery, flawless medium brown complexion, interrupted only by intricate tattoos that kiss the base of his neck and dance down his chest and arms. He’s tall but super lean—like a man who considers the recording studio his gym, because he was once a kid who spent nights and weekends at home listening to records on vinyl and making beats on his Roland drum machine rather than at basketball or football practice.
Apparently it all worked out for him too. He’s got over a decade of industry cred to his name and a string of platinum records to prove it. And when we walked in here, every head turned and some cameras even flashed. So now that I’m sitting here, practically in his lap, with Sade’s sultry voice asking if it’s a crime to want someone to want you, it’s all so utterly intoxicating I can hardly believe it’s real.
Taking me by surprise, he starts to sing. The tone of his voice isn’t anything to write home about. But he’s got perfect pitch and harmonizes flawlessly with Sade as she personifies her love—describing it as wide and tall, singing about how it dives, and jumps, and ripples like the deepest ocean. Elliot Majors is serenading me, and I feel like I’m on fire.
Then, as if doused in a bucket of cold water, I’m reminded of the self–pep talk I’ve been rehearsing ever since Elliot and I started fooling around after recording sessions. How I have to temper my hopes and expectations around him. How he probably sings like this to all the girls the first time he takes them out. How he probably says the things he knows will flatter them the most. How this is likely just Old Faithful for him—a tried-and-true feature of his repertoire. Make me feel special. Like I’m the only one capable of being his true muse. Like I’m the only one who gets more from him than his musical genius.
Drawing myself back into the present moment, I mentally shake those nagging thoughts away. Because despite what might have gone down with other girls, Elliot Majors is here with me now.
But he must have noticed my shift in mood because at some point during my mental tangent, he stopped singing. “Hey,” he says now, after taking a sip of his whiskey and gingerly replacing the glass on the table. “What’s spinning in that head of yours?”
“It’s this song,” I say, deflecting but not entirely shielding the truth. “I’ve always loved it…but I guess I just never really thought about how tragic it is.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Tragic, you think?” He adjusts in the booth, squaring off with me like he’s preparing to pose an argument. “I see it this way—she’s presenting her heart to her lover on a silver platter, offering herself to him, telling him she wants him. Begging him to want her back.” He pauses a beat, seeking agreement in my eyes. But all that’s there is quiet curiosity. So, undeterred, he presses on. “Look at it this way,” he says. “It’s the kind of love that’s so vast and so willing that it can be molded and shaped.” Talking with his hands now, Elliot’s eyes sparkle. He takes a sip of his drink. “It’s a love that can bend. If that’s tragic, wouldn’t you call that tragically beautiful?”
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, he’s leaning in for a kiss.