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I met Dahlia for brunch on an early Sunday morning. The café was near our old place just a few blocks off the French Quarter. We had once rented a two-bedroom apartment with no AC and a leaky pipe for much more than it was worth; thinking about it now felt almost nostalgic.
I saw her coming down the street, wearing a tight dress and heels that made her legs look endless. Her dark hair was styled in loose waves, and she had her sunglasses on. I had a feeling she was coming straight from the club.
“Morning, babe,” she greeted, kissing me on the cheek before she joined me on the patio. I caught a whiff of cologne on her — something that very unsurprisingly reminded me of Killian.
“I already ordered for you,” I told her.
“Good. Because I’m starving,” Dahlia said, dropping into the chair with a dramatic sigh that told me everything. She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, revealing smudged eyeliner.
I slid the menu aside as the server brought over my mimosa and her Bloody Mary. “Rough night?”
“Rough morning, more like.” She took a long sip, eyes fluttering shut in bliss.
“Killian showed up after close. Said he ‘just wanted to talk.’” She air-quoted with her free hand, sun catching in the metallic sheen of her nails.
“We talked. For about five minutes. Then we didn’t talk for three hours. ”
I laughed into my drink. “So the NDA is still holding strong, huh?”
“Fuck the NDA,” she muttered. Then she sighed. “It’s honestly annoying how good we still are together.”
The server returned with our food — avocado toast piled high for me, a full Southern breakfast for Dahlia that could feed a small army.
“So, why did y’all break up? I know you couldn’t tell me because of the NDA, but if we’re saying fuck the NDA, I figure—”
Dahlia picked up the fork, wiping it down with a napkin. “You ever try dating a mama’s boy?”
“Can’t say that I have,” I said, taking a sip.
“Yeah, well, that’s how it is with Kill and the label.
His actual mama is an angel — bless her — but Opus Records?
Fuck them.” Dahlia stabbed a piece of sausage.
“The label basically raised Killian, you know. They’ve got him on this golden-boy leash — image, brand deals, the whole ‘wholesome heartthrob’ package.
Can’t have their favorite cash-cow caught up with some stripper. Bad for the optics.”
She said it casually, but I caught the bitterness underneath.
“So they made you sign an NDA and… what? Paid you off?” I asked, keeping my tone light even though my stomach twisted a little. The mimosa suddenly tasted too sweet.
Dahlia laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“They tried. I told them to shove it. The NDA was more about keeping me quiet after we broke up. No tell-alls, no social media hints, no ‘my rockstar ex’ drama — that sorta thing. Killian hated it too, but he’s deep in the machine.
His mom’s sick, the label’s footing some of her medical stuff… it’s complicated.”
I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
She shrugged, but her eyes softened. “It is what it is. They tried to pair him with some pop star a few years ago — didn’t work out. Kept coming back to me.” She let out a deep exhale. “I don’t know, baby. It all is so fucking complicated for no goddamn reason.”
“Amen to that,” I agreed, raising my mimosa glass. “Rockstars. Can’t live with them, can’t afford rent without them.”
Dahlia snorted, nearly choking on her Bloody Mary. “Speak for yourself, babe. I’m still shaking ass five nights a week.”
I winced, but she waved it off with a grin, already digging into her eggs. The sun was climbing higher, turning the patio into a humid little oven, but it felt good — normal. Like the old days when we’d split rent and cigarettes and had complained about shitty Tinder flings.
“Seriously though,” I said after a bite of avocado toast, “you and Killian… you still love him?”
She chewed slowly, staring at the street where tourists were already starting their day-drinking. “Yeah. Stupidly. But love doesn’t pay for his mom’s treatments. So here we are. Secret midnight fucks and pretending we’re just friends in public.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” She swallowed and pointed her fork at me. “How’s life as the official Baby Doll? Milo being a gentleman? Because if he’s not—” She dragged her thumb across her throat.
I laughed. “He’s… intense.” I thought about the broken glass on the floor the other night, the rough way he’d handled me. “Well… He gets jealous. Like, nuclear levels.”
“Cross? Jealous?” Dahlia’s eyebrows shot up. “That man used to have a different girl in his dressing room every night on tour. Guess you broke him.”
I traced the rim of my glass with my finger. That got me thinking about what would happen when he went back on tour. Still a different girl each night?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Dahlia said. “Don’t. Nothing you can do about it.”
“They all do it?”
“The groupies? Yeah.” She nodded, taking a sip. “Tour life is… different. Weird and… well, mostly weird.”
“Well. As long as he keeps feeding my credit card,” I said and we both laughed.
We talked for another hour — about the girls at the club, about how Burgundy was eyeing a new bouncer, about whether I should actually go to Black Psalm’s show next week. By the time we hugged goodbye, the mimosa had gone to my head in the best way, leaving me warm and loose.
When I returned to the penthouse, the first thing I heard was the piano. And then I saw him there, shirtless, working on some song.
The piano notes drifted through the penthouse, mingling with the smoke from the smoldering cigarette in the ashtray. The song wasn’t one of their radio hits; it sounded like a… ballad? A seductive ballad?
Was that Michael Jackson’s Dirty Diana?
I set my bag down quietly and kicked off my sandals. The mimosa buzz still warmed my blood — add in the way he looked sitting under that morning sun — and I was melting.
I tiptoed across the room, the hem of my sundress brushing my thighs, and stopped behind him, sliding my arms around his shoulder from behind. He didn’t stop playing but I could feel him relax into it.
“Dirty Diana?” I murmured against his neck, lips brushing the skull tattoo there.
“We used to play it years back,” he told me, his fingers flying across the keys in some elaborate arpeggio. I didn’t know much about music but I knew what he was doing to that piano sounded good.
“Sing it for me,” I said, running my nails across his chest.
He smirked; his fingers kept moving over the keys.
The melody shifted into something slower, dirtier — if a thing could even be dirtier than Dirty Diana.
The morning light poured through the windows, bouncing off the sweat beading along his spine and the tattoo of my name on his bicep, still healing under a shiny layer of whatever ointment he slathered on.
“She’s my Diana — the queen of the night,” Milo’s voice was low when he sang. “My Diana…”
The words curled around me like smoke. I pressed my breasts against his back, letting my hands roam lower.
“Keep going,” I whispered, lips brushing the shell of his ear.
He chuckled, but obeyed and his voice dropped into that gravelly register he used on stage when the lights were low and the crowd was screaming for an encore.
His fingers kept moving — chords, scales. “She’s my Diana — I’ll sell my soul just to have her say ‘mine’, oh, Diana…”
I let my hands slide lower, nails grazing down his abs until I reached the waistband of his sweatpants. I slipped one hand inside and felt him twitch against my palm.
“Mary,” he breathed; it wasn’t a part of the song.
I smiled against his neck and bit down lightly. “Don’t stop on my account, rockstar. Finish your song.”
His breath stuttered as I wrapped my fingers around him, stroking slowly from base to tip. The piercing at the head was warm, familiar now. I caressed it slowly, feeling his cock grow in my hand.
“Fuck the song,” he said, his hand slipping from the piano and wrapping around mine over the sweatpants. His fingers tightened, guiding me into a firmer stroke, showing me exactly how he liked it.
“Turn around. Don’t want to make a mess of your fancy piano.”
Milo spun on the bench so fast the wood creaked under him.
I sank to my knees and pushed his pants lower, freeing his cock. It was one of the better ones I’d seen in my life. A nice curve, thick veins and that piercing that went right through the head.
“It must’ve hurt like a bitch to get it,” I commented as I moved my hand.
“Try a motherfucker.” He grinned, leaning back against the piano. A discordant little melody chimed out under his weight.
“Give me your hand,” I said.
He did, and I wrapped his fingers around his shaft.
“Now show me how you were getting yourself off on that tour bus, thinking about me.”
Milo’s hand tightened around his cock, right under mine, and he started stroking. The thick shaft pulsed in his grip, veins standing out under his tattooed fingers.
“Keep going,” I said as I got up and dashed to the foyer.
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
“I said keep going!” I shouted back as I picked up my bag and found my phone in it. It unlocked with a small click, and I swiped to open the camera app as I walked back toward Milo.
He cocked an eyebrow when he saw the phone, but his hand didn’t stop moving. The silver piercing caught the light every time he twisted his wrist.
I hit the record and got back between his thighs.
He reached for the phone without another word, but I batted his hand away. “No. This is for me.”
“That so?” he muttered, shifting on the bench, getting more comfortable. His abs flexed with every stroke, sweat gleaming in the cut lines of his hips.
“That so,” I said, angling the phone to catch everything
— the way his fist worked that gorgeous dick, the way his chest rose and fell, the way his grey eyes burned down at me.
The camera loved him. Fuck, I loved him like this — raw, exposed, every filthy detail caught in 4K.