Chapter Fifteen #3
Part of me had been worried about the red carpet, about smiling awkwardly, saying the wrong thing, or stumbling over my heels.
Brooks made it easy. When he wasn’t holding my hand, he had an arm around my waist. Posing for photographs with him was like dancing and he was leading, all the poise and experience to make us both look good.
I would have even forgotten to kiss him despite insisting on the bright lipstick, but this man dipped me.
And when I reached up to erase some of the lipstick on his lips, he playfully bit my thumb.
The internet would have a field day with those pictures.
And my heart gave a little flutter when he whispered, “Are you okay? Too much?” in my ear after that spectacle.
One of the attendants tried to shuffle me off to the side, so Brooks could do the live interview with the red-carpet hosts, but with the cameras on us, he took me onto the little podium with him, clasping my hand to his chest.
“Look, Adriana said yes, but I’m fully aware that she’s out of my league, and y’all have way too many hot new artists running around here for me to take any chances until we’re married,” he said before the interviewer could even comment on him pulling me along.
I laughed and playfully hid my face behind my hand, making sure the ring was on full display for the camera.
Mentally, I was taking notes. Because instead of asking about me, or even our engagement, the interviewer latched on to the hot new artists category Brooks had just given a shoutout to.
She was even professional enough to include me in the questions.
We talked about the nominees and their amazing albums, about Brooks’s impressive career, and our favorite songs of his.
Something old and familiar trembled along my nerves as we stepped off the podium and toward the theater.
Want. I wanted this. I enjoyed this when I wasn’t constantly on edge about how everything could go wrong again because it had gone wrong before.
I loved talking to people about music. I loved the vision behind every single nominated album.
And I loved that I knew about these albums and the people behind them and the songs on them, loved that I could quote lyrics and hum melodies even though I had nobody to discuss this with back home.
Inside, we were greeted with champagne flutes and directed from room to room filled with brilliant musicians and songwriters and producers.
Outside the double doors leading into the actual event hall, Brooks moved us to the side, half hidden between a giant fake plant and the emergency exit.
“Have I even told you how breathtaking you look tonight?”
“Oh my god,” I laughed, “I can’t believe that’s why you pulled me aside.”
“It’s important to me that you know.”
“Do we look a little too much like we’re dressing up as bride and groom? Something about our outfits feels off.”
“If something looks off, it has to be me, because you look perfect, Addie love.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You’re unbelievable in that dress. Genuinely, I don’t understand how you’re a real human being.” He grinned and wiggled his brows at me, fully aware of how thick he was layering it on. “You know what would make me like that dress even better?”
“Oh, I’ve heard that one before. You think the dress would look better on your bedroom floor, right?” I chuckled.
“No, actually.” He leaned in close, his breath fanning over my neck, and I was hyperaware of people walking past behind a plastic plant that wasn’t exactly a privacy screen. “I’d prefer to make you come while you’re wearing it.”
My insides clenched. Oh, I was so getting laid tonight.
A quiet little part of me was nervous, because this was Brooks.
My Brooks. Brooksy. There’d be no going back, no chance to wave off our make-out sessions as a blip caused by sharing my couch.
But a much louder part was ready to take that step.
I’d never been ashamed of the fact that I enjoyed sex, and I hadn’t been quiet about how attracted I was to Brooks.
And while I didn’t mind going completely monogamous for him even before our relationship had started to shift, dear god, I was so tired of being edged every night only for it to end in spooning.
“Well, let’s get this over with, then, so we can get to the after party,” I said.
We ducked out from our hideout, and I froze in place.
The man walked past and into the theater without even noticing us.
Three seconds, maybe four. Enough for me to recognize him by the shell of his ear and the slope of his shoulder.
I barely even caught a glimpse at his nose, but I knew every square inch of this man—my every instinct honed to make sure I always knew the way out, knew where to duck, knew to never be stuck with him in an enclosed space.
“Addie?” Brooks stepped in front of me, after I’d been staring too long at the doorway Peter Doyle, label head of Marble Audio, had just walked through.
My chest seized. I tried to respond, but I couldn’t even get air through my lungs, let alone words off my tongue. The panic attack was clawing at the edges of my vision.
Not now, oh god, please not now.
He couldn’t do anything to me. This was a big event. I was here with Brooks. We’d stay far away from him, never even cross his path. I was fine. This was fine.
Despite pleading with myself, my hands started shaking. Peter Doyle had triggered the flight mode in my brain, but my body chose deer-in-headlights mode, apparently.
“This is stupid,” I muttered, “I’m being stupid.”
“What’s going on? Adriana?” Brooks sounded worried, and I felt his hands on my face, but I didn’t really register him, because my vision had been replaced by flashes of Doyle fixing his pants in front of me, of his hand on my leg during what should have been business meetings, of his cheeks flushing redder and redder as he stared at my tits for minutes on end instead of actually listening to my music.
I was being stupid.
He’d ruined my life, but he’d never actually done anything to me.
All the stories you heard from women who had gone through hell, and I got panic attacks because I’d been confronted with the outline of an old man’s boner in his slacks once.
Theoretically, realistically, I knew that sexual coercion was traumatizing.
It didn’t have to turn into assault to fuck you up.
My old therapist had reminded me of that many times.
It was just kinda hard to remember when I was spinning out in public like this, completely ruining Brooks’s big night, and I couldn’t do anything to stop my brain.
“This way,” Brooks rasped, and I felt us moving. My feet seemed to work. I wasn’t really operating them though.
A gush of cool air washed over me, and then everything was a little too bright, and too tight, and too warm and too cold.
I blinked, and I was face-to-chest with Brooks.
He was crushing me against him, his arms wrapped tight around my torso.
I inhaled his rich woodsy scent, the warmth of it settling around me.
The room beyond his chest and shoulders slowly came into focus.
We were in an industrial kitchen. The kind I knew from the saloon.
Not just that, but the cold seeping into my back came from an open refrigerator we were standing in front of.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled against his shirt. “Why are we in the kitchen?”
“The other night you mentioned getting panic attacks. I googled how to help.”
Of course he’d googled.
Because he wasn’t perfect enough yet.
“You can let go,” I whispered.
Brooks loosened his arms but didn’t fully let go, searching my face, presumably for traces of another spiral.
“We should go back,” I said, avoiding his gaze.
“We’re not going back in there. I’ve texted Anthony that I won’t attend any more events that include Doyle or LJ. I’m sorry. I should have checked beforehand.”
“Brooks, no. You can’t accept your award from the kitchen.”
“I don’t give a shit about that award, Addie. Never have.” He reached past me into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne that cost enough to cover someone’s rent. “Let’s get out of here.”