Chapter Eleven
Max
There was some weird sort of comedy in that getting from the airport to our hotel took twice as long as the flight to New York. Apparently it wasn’t always like that, but Luca admitted it was often exactly like that.
I wasn’t super overwhelmed yet, but the traffic and all the people outside the Audi felt like a lot. I was relieved when the driver told us that we were about five minutes from the label headquarters.
Luca had wanted to rip the Band-Aid off, since the travel wasn’t too bad. He looked nice, but he’d told us that they’d primp and prime him at the label anyway. Their job was to make Luca look as good as he could and I could understand that.
By the time we got to the intimidating looking building and the driver told us he’d wait with our stuff like apparently previously agreed, the nerves ramped up significantly.
As we stepped out of the car, I looked around at the tall as fuck buildings and the amount of people everywhere. I… I wasn’t a fan.
I turned to Luca, who seemed to take everything in. He gave me a small, tight smile, then squeezed my hand before doing the same to Ben’s.
I felt my brother’s emotions as if they were my own. Or maybe they were. Everyone joked that we were one person, after all. In that moment, we were fine. We were here for Luca. We’d need to unwind something fierce once we got to the hotel later though.
Luca took a deep breath, then clearly braced himself. It was as if a mask dropped over his features. It was startling to see how what I recognized as his public persona just slid over him like that. Then he looked at us, nodded at the doors, and we went in.
The receptionist waved us through to the elevators and back. “Good to see you again, Luca!” she called out.
“You too, Jenny!”
Once we were in the elevator, going to the fifteenth floor, Luca sighed. “She’s great. Probably one of the few people here who aren’t looking at us with dollar signs in her eyes, you know.”
I squeezed his wrist. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good. Better than I thought. I just want to get this over with.”
Ben kissed his temple, and then we were at the correct floor.
As soon as we stepped out of it, a young woman with a clipboard peeked out from a nearby doorway.
“Oh, excellent! You’re early.” She beamed at us. “Let’s get you to wardrobe and makeup.”
Luca glanced at us with a distinct “here we go” look. “Hey, Willa. Of course.”
We followed her and Luca through the hallway of closed doors that seemed to be offices of different kinds. Then eventually, the space opened a bit and there were signs to hair, makeup, and wardrobe.
As soon as we got to the latter, the middle-aged, flamboyant human man squealed with excitement.
“Luca!” He practically ran to embrace Luca and they both ignored it when the woman told us she’d be back in a bit.
As they ended the hug, Luca turned to us and said, “This is Alexei, he’s the wardrobe wizard, says so on his name tag. Alexei, these are my partners, Max and Ben.”
Alexei clapped his hands excitedly. I wasn’t sure how he clocked vampirism so easily, but his words proved that he was very observant, when he said, “Oh my, Luca. You have gone through many changes since we last met, haven’t you?
” He held out his hand for me to shake, then Ben.
“It is obvious that you two adore him. It is all in your eyes.” His Russian accent was delightful in his slightly higher voice.
“It’s definitely all mutual,” Luca said, giving us heart eyes.
I chuckled and rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly.
Ben laughed. “Definitely mutual.”
“Okay, okay, time to get you into something… not that,” Alexei gestured at Luca’s comfortable jeans and hoodie he’d chosen to travel in. His expression made it clear that what Luca wore was distasteful.
“Do you still have tea in your nook?” Luca asked him.
“Oh, yes I do. Come!” He looked at Ben and I, then started to march through the large room filled with racks of clothing.
It was almost like what I would’ve expected a theater to have, so I said as much.
“We do our in-house photoshoots and provide a lot of the looks for the artists for their other press and sometimes even tours.” He led us into a little alcove in the back, to a couch, an armchair, and a tiny little kitchenette. “Here. Have some tea.”
There was a weird looking gadget that seemed like a combination of kettle with a smaller tea pot sitting on top of it. There was water in the kettle, and the pot had some sort of tea in it.
“It is called ‘samovar,’” Alexei said. “This is a very modern version of what my grandmother used to have in Leningrad.”
“It looks fun,” Ben said. “Go make Luca even prettier. We’ll figure it out.”
Alexei gave him a little smile and a tilt of his head, then left us with the tea.
Ben poured us mugs of tea and we sat down. The next half an hour was a whirlwind of tea, laughter as we heard Alexei and Luca arguing about clothing, and just… awe.
At one point I got out my phone and googled samovar. “Oh wow, the old ones look really interesting.”
I found that I loved sitting there with Ben, drinking very tasty tea, while on occasion Luca would breeze to us, wearing this or that, asking if it was “too vampire” or “not enough rockstar chic” whatever that meant.
In the end, he ended up wearing black on black on black.
“How do I look?” he asked, stopping in front of the couch.
I swallowed hard. “Uh….”
He had on black slacks, a black corset clearly made for the male body, and a black dress shirt underneath. When he came closer, we could see the subtle silver embroidery all over the corset.
“Holy shit, Luca,” Ben blurted out.
Luca did a little twirl. “These shoes make my ass look amazing, too.”
My throat clicked as I swallowed. “I’d say.”
The black heeled boots changed his posture just enough with the corset that his ass looked incredible.
“Okay, I think this is it. The funeral outfit,” he joked, but I could see there was a sadness in his eyes, too.
Alexei heard him and gave him a sad smile, his eyes filling with tears.
We got off the couch and went to hug Luca close.
“It’s gonna be okay. It might be the end of Kaiju, but we know why we’re here,” I murmured against his hair.
“Once this is done, we’ve visited your grandma, and done whatever else we come up with while we’re in town, we’ll go home,” Ben spoke softly, knowing that he needed to hear the obvious right then.
Luca sniffled. “Home. I… I like that.” He gave us a tremulous smile. “I feel safe there.”
I pecked his lips. “We do, too.” These days.
We could hear steps approaching, and then Willa reappeared.
“You done here?” she asked, smiling as he looked at Luca’s attire. “That’s gorgeous.”
Luca looked at Alexei for confirmation.
The man smiled. “We are done. I worked my magic, and he looks like a prince.”
“Excellent. Let’s get your makeup done.”
We started after Luca and Willa, but Alexei halted us with a hand on my arm.
“Take care of him. He is special.”
I nodded solemnly. “We promise.”
“Good.” He wiped his eyes, then continued, “Once he is done with the dog and pony show downstairs, he will need to change back to his other clothes. So if things get too much, you can always come here to hide with me. Oh, and the suits… they will not like his new… accessories.” He gestured at his mouth.
“Thank you for the heads up.” Ben squeezed Alexei’s arm.
We caught up with Luca and Willa at the doors to the hair and makeup department, or whatever it was called.
This time, there were three women fussing over Luca. They made sure his face wouldn’t look shiny and that all makeup would look perfect for his new skin tone. They also gave him black eyeliner and some shimmery silver stuff to highlight his eyelids and his cheekbones.
The hair people were sad and missing his longer hair, but then he chatted with them while another person brought over some silver jewelry and accessories.
He looked stunning by the time they were done with him.
When the time came to get back onto the elevator and down a few floors, Luca wasn’t our Luca anymore. He was the man I’d seen online in interviews and music videos. He was effortlessly charismatic and sensual in a way that made him the rockstar he’d been.
He was everything I’d thought I’d wanted for years before I even met him. But he wasn’t my Luca, and I couldn’t wait to get my version back.
“Okay, here we go,” he said on an exhale when the elevator ticked down another floor. “These people are assholes. Don’t take it personally.”
Willa, who stood in front of us, chuckled, then held her fist to the side for Luca to bump.
Okay, I liked her even more now.
The doors opened, and a couple of suit types were waiting for us.
“Luca! It’s so good to see you!” The older one said, immediately grabbing Luca’s hand to shake it.
“Thorne,” Luca said in a frosty tone, then looked at the other man. “Walt.” He nodded in greeting and shook his hand, too. “Can we get this all over with?”
“Yes, of course. This way.” Thorne gestured with a hint of something frantic in his expression and body language.
“They’re going to try to get him to stay,” Ben murmured to me as we walked several steps behind everyone else.
Shit. Of course they would try to pull something like that.
Before I had time to think about it more, we were at the conference room door. Thorne stopped and opened it, then seemed to realize Ben and I were there.
“Oh… uh….”
“These are my partners,” Luca said in a tone that was still cold as hell. “They are coming in with us.”
“But—”
“They could sit outside, but frankly, they’re werewolves, which means they’d hear everything anyway,” he said in such a deadpan tone that I almost snickered. He wasn’t wrong.
Thorne got even more flustered, and part of it was clearly speciesism. I could see that ever familiar glint in his droopy eyes. “Oh… oh right. Let’s all go in, then.”
As we took our seats in the fancy conference room, it struck me that I hadn’t seen any vampires or wolves in the whole building. Everyone on staff seemed to be human.