7. Sonny
Sonny
The opening is going better than I ever expected.
The turn out for the soft opening has been amazing and I’m proud of the success that Oasis is already having.
I hoped it would be successful, to my core I knew it would be, but still as the day approached doubt began to seep in and I couldn’t shake the fear that this soft opening would be unsuccessful.
A flop. A tangible representation of my failure.
But it isn’t. My name isn’t publicly attached to Oasis, though it’s not a secret that I have been involved but I wanted Oasis to exist on its own and not just in conjunction with me or my popularity.
This soft opening was fueled only by word of mouth, both Tristan and I invited people to come and gave those people the ability to invite people they knew too.
We used this smaller opening as a test to see how things would go and see any areas where we needed to change or improve.
I rest my hand on the balcony overlooking the first floor, the other holds my drink, something from Oasis’s specials menu that I can’t remember the name of.
The DJ transitions into a classic hype song and the crowd goes crazy, the energy in the building electric.
Behind me my friends are taking another round of shots.
Some of them are from Chicago, some that flew out from LA, but for the most part everyone is getting along which is no small feat when you bring different friend groups together.
I slipped away from the group to take in this moment alone, to just soak in this success that is so foreign from what I’m used to.
Foreign altogether, these past few years.
A hand slips around my bicep and a warm body presses into me.
Essence looks up at me. Essence entered the music scene a few years ago, right around the time when I didn’t resign my contract with the label.
She dropped hit after hit and quickly gained success.
I wouldn’t say that we’re friends but the industry is small, we’re in the same circle.
“What’s got you over here all by yourself?” Essence asks.
Her close proximity to me allows me to hear her over my friends singing and rapping along to the song in our section.
“Just taking a minute to take it all in.”
“It’s a pretty great space. You did a good job.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I had a lot of help though so I can’t take all the credit.”
“You’ve been a hard man to get a hold of, lately.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“My manager has been trying to contact yours but he’s been getting the run around. And then you up and left LA, so its not like you’ve been around.”
“What is this about?”
“I think we’d be good together,” she says, her voice low and suggestive. “On a song I mean.”
I don’t miss the double meaning in her statement.
The sultry gaze she gives me while still wrapped against my arm makes it apparent but I don’t engage.
I don’t want a fling right now, the lack of emotional attachment hasn’t been appealing to me for a while now.
Not saying that I haven’t engaged in them when that itch is too much for me and my hand to solve on my own.
But one woman has been on my mind since I ran into her again after years and that woman isn’t Essence.
“I’m not releasing music right now Essence. You know that.”
“I know,” she replies, shifting closer into me. “But I just thought you might change your mind if I asked you myself.”
Over her head I see three figures coming up the stairs, Tristan first and then two women behind him.
I saw Tristan earlier in the night and can tell it's him but the women’s faces are shadowed from the low light and distance.
They don’t walk in my direction, the opposite actually as Tristan leads them towards the booth that he reserved for himself.
The woman in the back turns her head to the side, looking around upstairs, and recognition hits.
“Sonny?” Essence says, trying to get my attention.
“What?” I ask, taking my eyes off Laila to look at her.
“I said that I have a song that I would love for you to be on. But your manager keeps shutting mine down without even sending you the demo.”
I slide my arm out of Essence’s grasp and step back away from her.
“I appreciate it Essence, but the answer is still no. Excuse me.”
I step away from the railing and Essence, wholly uninterested in whatever she was trying to say to me.
On three separate occasions Laila and I have run into each other without any planning from either of us. I’m not usually a guy that subscribes to the idea of fate or something being meant to be, but I also don’t believe that these situations are all just by happenstance anymore either.
One time is chance.
Two times is coincidence.
Three times is …
I’m not sure of the last word for that saying but unintentionally running into Laila is something that I don’t want to just let pass.
So I follow this unexplainable pull that I have to this woman and make my way over to where she sits in the booth with Tristan and her friend that I now see is the same friend that I saw on her Instagram.
I slide into the booth next to Tristan, setting my glass down on the table.
“What are you doing here?” Laila says, a scowl on her face when she sees that it’s me.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I reply, locking eyes with her. We hold each other's gaze for a long moment. I want to reach out and smooth her scrunched eyebrows but I don’t, instead I take a sip from my glass before setting it back down on the table.
I break eye contact and turn to Tristan. “It seems like everything is going well.”
“I told you it would, there was no doubt about it,” he replies.
“That’s not an answer,” Laila interrupts.
I turn my focus back to Laila and take her in.
Her hair is loose in natural curls flowing over her shoulders and down her back and at this moment I decide that it’s my favorite way that she’s worn her hair that I’ve seen so far.
Her dark brown eyes glare at me waiting for a response, some sort of explanation for why I’ve invited myself to their table.
“Tristan and I opened Oasis together,” I finally reply. “A joint venture if you will. And I thought I’d come say hello.”
“You two know each other?” Tristan asks.
“Something like that,” I reply, my gaze focused on Laila. “Somehow we keep running into each other.”
“Keep?” her friend questions.
“Yeah, keep,” I reply holding my hand out to her. “I’m Sonny by the way.”
She takes my hand and gives it a soft shake. “Zara.”
“I ran into Bryce when I went to that bar downtown a few weeks ago,” Laila says pointedly towards Zara.
Zara’s eyes go wide. “Wait is that when you were -”
“Yep.” Laila cuts her off.
Bryce .
I like the way my name sounds coming from her lips.
There are very few people in my life who call me Bryce and that number of people goes down drastically if you subtract my family from the picture.
It’s not often that I introduce myself because people usually already know who I am, but even when I do I use ‘Sonny’ and not ‘Bryce’.
But with Laila all those years ago I offered my government name freely.
Tristan reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out his phone, checking the name of the caller.
“Excuse me I have to take this,” Tristan says, bringing the phone to his ear and standing from the booth.
As Tristan leaves, one of the VIP servers stops at our booth and asks if she can get us anything. I decline, happy with the half full drink that I still have but Zara and Laila order another round for themselves.
“Soooo Sonny, or is it Bryce,” Zara says with a mischievous grin in Laila’s direction.
“Sonny is fine,” I reply smiling, catching on to the emphasis that Zara is putting on to the fact that Laila calls me Bryce.
“Right, Sonny, I didn’t realize you and my dear friend knew each other so well,” Zara says.
“I wouldn’t say that we know each other well. Maybe just the beginning. But your friend here tends to be busy and isn’t the best at returning texts so I thought I would come over and say hello.”
“Oh really,” Zara replies, intrigued.
Our server stops by our table, dropping off the drinks they ordered and then disappearing again.
“Yeah but I guess I should have anticipated that. She didn’t really want to take my number in the first place.”
“She is stubborn as hell.”
“I can tell,” I say, chuckling.
“Y’all do know I’m sitting right here, right?” Laila says, looking between Zara and me.
“Yes, but you like to keep all the juicy details to yourself.”
“Juicy details?! There is nothing juicy to tell,” Laila argues.
“You’re sitting here calling this man by his government name and you wanna say there’s nothing to tell?! Girl please.”
I chuckle because her friend does have a point.
Zara turns to me and props her elbows on the table and folds her hands. “So how long has this thing been going on between the two of you.”
“A little while,” I reply with a shrug.
“Well I guess I’ll give you two some time to catch up then.”
Zara turns and whispers something in Laila’s ear and then Laila whispers something back. Zara stands from the table and picks up her drink. She doesn’t say anything to me but the fierce look she sends in my direction expresses her message loud and clear.
Don’t fuck with my friend.
“Continuing to stalk me?” I say with a smirk.
“Stalk you!?!” Laila asks incredulously. “I didn’t even know you were going to be here. And you’re the one who came over here.”
“Touché. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming here tonight?”
“It wasn’t my idea, Zara wanted to come.”
I lean forward, placing my elbows on the table. “Do you believe in fate, Laila?”
She scrunches up her nose at my question. “What?”
“Fate. Destiny. A higher power. God. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it.”
Laila looks at me confused with where I’m going with my line of questioning so I continue.
“I wouldn’t consider myself religious. A believer maybe, but my family were one of the ones who went to church for Christmas and Easter at most. I don’t usually put a lot of weight into the idea of things like fate. But I think my feelings are changing.”
“And why is that?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you,” I reply taking a sip of my drink.
“This gorgeous ass girl who I keep running into in ways that shouldn’t happen.
Hell, until a few weeks ago I didn’t even live here.
Yet on three separate occasions we’ve crossed paths.
Unintentionally on both of our parts. And I just can’t accept that it means nothing. ”
Laila’s gaze is focused on the table in front of her as she plays with one of her curls, stretching it and then letting it bounce back into itself. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Coincidences happen all the time.”
“They do, but I think this is different.”
“Of course you do,” Laila says.
“What does that mean?”
Laila finally looks up and locks eyes with me. “I’m sure this whole ‘you’re different’ talk works often for you, but I’m not interested so you don’t have to waste your time.”
Her words bring a grin of amusement to my face. She thought I was running game. Just trying to say anything to get some pussy. But I honestly wasn’t. Laila intrigued me and I wanted to explore that. Would I fuck her if that’s what she wanted, absolutely, but I wanted more than that.
“Whoever let you believe that any time spent with you is being wasted, deserves his ass kicked,” I reply simply.
“Something we agree on,” Laila says. “But I’m still not interested in being one of the many women you have in cities all around the world. I’m also not delusional enough to compete with anyone else.”
“There is no competition.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“There is no competition,” I repeat. “Do I enjoy the company of a woman from time to time? I’m single, so of course. But when I’m in a relationship and someone is mine, they get all of me, no sharing. I would never disrespect a woman by cheating on her.”
Laila stares in my eyes trying to gauge whether I’m telling the truth or not. I hold her gaze, showing her the sincerity of my words until she breaks eye contact and looks away.
“Let’s make a deal,” I say, grabbing her attention again.
“I’m not looking for anything from you, Bryce.”
“You haven’t even heard what I’m offering,” I say, finishing off my drink.
“What are you offering?”
“Friendship. Let’s be friends.”
Laila scowls at me, most likely in disbelief that my intentions are actually to just get to know her.
“No.”
She says it with finality in her tone and the brutal honesty of it takes me by surprise.
Of any outcome I would have come to, Laila turning me down was not one I expected.
Though I guess that is a mistake on my part seeing as Laila has been nothing but direct and honest from the very first moment I met her.
In fact it’s been one of the things that has drawn me most to her, along with the fact that she’s fucking beautiful.
“Why not?”
The shock must be evident on my face.
“You really aren’t used to people turning you down huh?” she says, sitting back with a smug look on her face.
“One, I find it hard to believe that you have very many platonic friends who are women,” she continues.
I open my mouth to argue that point but I come up empty. “Alright you might be right. But that doesn’t mean I can’t start now.”
“Two, if we become friends that means I become a part of your orbit. I’ll be on the radar in connection with you and I don’t want that. I don’t want people following me around all in my business. I just want to live my life.
Before I can respond I hear my name called out from the other side of the room.
“SONNY! Bring your ass over here!” One of my friends calls out from the group of tables that I abandoned to come to Laila’s booth.
I look over to my friends and see one of them with his arms up, trying to get my attention.
Shots are being passed out and by the smiles on everyone’s faces, they’re having a good time.
“Go,” Laila says as someone yells out for me again.
“Join me.”
“Nah, not my vibe,” she says, shaking her head.
I nod and stand. I grab her hand, feeling the softness and warmth of her fingers in mine, trying my best to commit the feeling to memory.
I desperately want to bring Laila along with me, to extend the time of her being here with me but I also respect her too much to try to force her to do something she doesn’t want to do.
“I hear you, but it doesn’t have to be like that. You won’t have to be in the spotlight at all. Just think about it,” I say, squeezing her hand softly before I let it go.