48. It’s All Coming Back To Me Now
CELINE DION
HELL WEEK: TUESDAY, DAY TWO
Day two.
We separate the weak from the naive.
It’s 4:59 a.m. I’m sitting at the breakfast table in the dark.
Don’t know how to work the $800 coffee machine, so I’m sipping cream and sugar out of a mug.
The rest of the assholes are asleep.
It’s quiet in the penthouse.
There’s a clock ticking somewhere.
Winter winds knock at the glass windows, trying to stop me. But there’s no stopping me.
I was born to ruin mornings.
(Breached and came out swinging.)
It’s almost showtime.
When the clock strikes five.
“Brooke,” I announce,
grinning into my creammee.
She blinks to life through the speaker.
AI Brooke: “Yes, Miss Allison?”
“It’s time.”
AI Brooke: “Now playing “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” by Celine Dion at maximum volume.”
The piano trickles in as I slide off the chair and tiptoe toward the counter to the intro, my sweats loose around my waist, eyes puffy from crying all night.
I pluck a spatula from a drawer.
Somewhere behind a door, a boy’s about to regret clicking I agree on the DocuSign.
After last night, Andrew thinks I’m something sad and soft, a girl who needs to be held, comforted.
But give me a Celine-level power ballad, and I transform into the most annoying bitch on earth.
One who’ll refuse you sleep during your eighty-hour workweek, who’ll make you dwell in remorse for not leaving sooner.
Every single thing men find sexy in me? I take it and crush it under the heel of a seven-minute, thirty-six-second vocal seizure.
I stand in front of my bathroom door,
waiting for the opening note.
The strings are rising,
piano’s shivering.
Then—
I kick my bathroom door open,
wait only a half-second more
before Celine’s voice detonates,
and the door slams against the wall with a BOOM—right on the downbeat, as if I rehearsed this shit.
(Which I didn’t. I’m just that good.)
Then I fucking unleash, belting the lyrics with Celine straight into the spatula, throat-shredding, eyes watering from the force of my own power.
Andrew startles,
hands scrambling across the marble,
his head flying back from his knees
and hitting the wall behind him,
hair wild, chest heaving,
eyes screaming what the fuck is happening.
Then he sees me,
sees the spatula,
and he collapses into his spine.
“Allison,” he groans, dragging my name through his hand with a yawn, throwing me a middle finger as he drops his head into his knees.
The song’s so loud it forgets it’s sad,
every lyric ricocheting off the marble.
He lifts his head again,
peeking over his knees.
And yeah, I’m still here, mid-performance, slumping back against the doorframe, hand to my forehead, sliding down after being shot in the heart by a Celine Dion lyric and relatability, where even her tear ducts throw in the towel.
Theatrical? Yes.
Excessive? Also yes.
Necessary? Absolutely yes.
But when the beat kicks again, I’m up, moving back into the living room, marching to the beat. Something between a Buckingham guard and a stomping Bieber.
Ben’s in the kitchen, searching the cabinets, mumbling curses—chest flexing, frustrated and miserable.
I hid his fancy blender.
He opens the freezer.
Closes it.
Checks his fruit basket.
Idiot.
Honor’s throwing a tantrum in the hall,
arms flailing madly,
eyes throwing bullets,
shirtless, sweatpants,
mouthing something about
murder and morning hours.
I catch “five” and “you’re not normal” before the music devours him.
And he’s right.
I am five and not normal.
Andrew steps into view from the opposite hallway corner, still in his creased bellhop dress pants, dress shirt unbuttoned and hanging open, arms crossed, hair crushed to one side, another stupid sleepy yawn breaking through.
Ben explodes from the kitchen, cupped hands over his mouth. “YO. WHAT’D YOU DO WITH MY VITAMIX A-THIRTY-FIVE-HUNDRED?!”
Honor turns to Ben,
hands waving to get his attention.
“BEN. BENJAMIN.
“DO SOMETHING, MAN.”
Ben slams another cabinet shut.
Honor has his hands in his hair.
“BEFORE SHE STARTS THE FUCKIN’ brIDGE.” He gestures a hand to the star in the room, who's sliding across the floor with the mic.
I mean spatula.
Ben tears open a protein bar, disgust marring his mouth. “Nah, bro. Can’t stop her. It’s Celine Dion.” He gestures vaguely to the chaos. “This song flips a switch in her. Baby to annoying-as-fuck after one beat, swear t’God. That ain’t even a girl no more. You just gotta let it run its course.”
I spin again, heart in pieces.
Honor’s glaring at me,
riled and repulsed.
Andrew’s staring, bored
with challenging eyes like—
you workin’ up to somethin’ or…
So when the chorus hits,
I walk toward him,
arms hanging limp,
chin to my chest, eyes satanic,
stopping right at his feet.
As the slow part drops—
the fake serious part—
my voice turns demonic.
Andrew’s brows bunch, a little frightened, unsure if he should peace the fuck out or punch me.
“She still make you weak in the knees, Joisey?” Ben calls from the kitchen, while I slow-motion thrust to the downbeat,
lip cocked into my nose, hips stiff,
bent elbows swinging back.
Ben points his protein bar at him.
“Know it’s real hard,
“but try not to bust a nut.”
Honor’s halfway gone,
back down the hall,
shaking his head,
saying, “I can’t fuckin’ do this.”
I run after him and drag him out from the hallway, pushing him back into the living room, arms doing the YMCA, hips doing the Electric Chair with haunted eyes.
Honor’s mouth twists as he takes one slow step away from me.
The instruments rush back in.
I turn, crossing the living room in the wide-legged Thriller prowl—
knees bent, arms on my thighs,
head twitching, dead but committed.
Every move says “don’t fuck me.”
Every beat says “please stop.”
I’m almost positive my ass and tits are embarrassed to be attached to me.
I throw the terrace doors open so hard
the glass rattles.
Cold air punches through,
the last lyrics tasting like tears.
I step out onto the fake grass, arms stretched open, the waking city as my stage as an invisible crowd tosses single-stemmed roses.
Wind slaps my cheeks, my hair thrashes into my mouth, and I sing the ending in a long, full-throated wail, the emotion scooped out from the bottom of my lungs.
“SHUT THE FUCK UUUUUP!”
Some pissed-off neighbor yells it from the skyline, thinking he’s the main character.
He’s not. I am.
So I do not shut up.
Each note gets uglier as I opera from a hoarse throat, from my ribcage, from my fucking soul.
I hit the final note,
mourning a husband I never had.
Then collapse.
Flat on my back.
Fake grass cold on my spine.
Lungs wheezing.
Chest heaving.
World spinning on its seesawing axis.
Breathless under the rising morning.
Mind emptied.
Except one thought:
I’m gonna have to step up my game.
// DEC 11, 3:28 AM //
Andrew Harding is a lot of things:
disarming, blue-collar tender,
Catholic-guilt romantic,
finger-licking filthy,
slow-mouthed sexy.
But when it comes to me, he’s
uncontrollably,
madly,
terribly
territorial.
That’s why tonight’s goal isn’t to seduce
but to provoke his possessiveness.
To piss him off.
Outplay the unperturbed.
Push him to his limits.
On the other side of the penthouse window, the moon’s hanging crooked, city lights blinking blue, restless, and suspicious of my intentions as I stand in the kitchen, digging into the wine fridge, looking for 14% alcohol to keep me company while I kill the cramps in a hot bath, and to keep the edge off, to keep my fingers off my screaming clit, to keep me from slipping into someone’s mouth—
The elevator dings.
I hear Andrew’s footsteps hit the marble before he’s rounding the corner, his head down, phone in hand, scrolling as he walks into the kitchen.
Then he looks up.
And freezes.
A statue under the arch,
breath stumbling away from him.
The merlot bottle ices my fingers as I shut the wine fridge door with my foot and cross the kitchen in only my black panties.
The cold’s biting my bare tits, my nipples hard and pointing right at him.
Then he turns to the counter,
his back to me,
and sets his things down one at a time.
His phone… his keys…
His shoulders roll under his black bar shirt, sleeves rolled up his forearms, hair screaming grab me.
He clocked out of the Clover twenty minutes ago, expecting to arrive at a dark and peaceful penthouse.
Got boobies instead.
His girl’s boobies.
In a house where other men live.
Yeah,
that Italian mouth’s about to go off in
three,
two…
He snaps his fingers as he turns to face me. “Fuckin’ reminds me.”
He slides his wallet out of his front pocket, pulls out a hundred-dollar bill.
“Crazy night at the bar. Girl tipped a Benjamin, then get this shit—” He shakes his head.
“She tried bribin’ me with another if I let her feed me a cherry with her mouth.
” He passes me the bill across the counter.
“Didn’t entertain it. Easy ain’t my type.
But at least now we paid up.” He slaps his palm down on the counter. “I don’t like owin’ anyone.”
I freeze, staring down at the hundred-dollar bill. And the phone number looping across it, small hearts doodled around the digits.
Each one pierces right through me,
my stomach dropping,
and dropping,
and blowing a hole through the floor,
just to keep dropping.
He snaps his wallet shut.
I flinch as he shoves it back into his pocket.
Ben strolls in,
tossing an apple up and catching it.
When he sees me,
he slams to a stop mid-toss,
apple hitting his palm.
His eyes dart from me
to Andrew
to the hundred-dollar bill on the counter, smirk loading. “Baby with her tits out and Joisey makin’ it rain?” With a Cheshire grin, he drops into the stool at the counter. “Tell me you ain’t treatin’ her like a stripper, bro.”
“Nah,” Andrew says. “Strippers at least work for it.” He turns and opens the water fridge. “My interest costs a lot more than a pair of tits.”
Ben buries his laugh into his fist.
Every muscle in my face tenses.
The nerve.
In my own penthouse.
This is why women should keep their legs open and their hearts duct-taped shut. Men become dicks when they’re butthurt.
Honor strolls in from the hallway next,
then stalls, blinking hard at my chest.
“We—uh—ignorin’ the perfect tits—? Sorry. I mean—you know what I mean.”
Andrew closes the fridge,
twists off the cap.
“Ain’t nothin’ I haven’t seen before.”
I grind down on my teeth, yank open a drawer for the corkscrew, snatch it out, then shut the drawer so hard baby carrot Darryl is shaken from his nap.
Ben smirks as he takes a bite of his apple, juice running down his thumb.
He smacks his bite loud on purpose,
loving every second of this.
I expected a storm unleashed out of Andrew. Thunder. Panic. Tornadoes. Instead he gives me a gentle, stupid breeze.
This wasn’t the plan.
I wanted to draw jealousy, possession.
At the very least,
a vein popping in his neck.
But here I am: topless, a joke, standing between two guys staring at my tits and he doesn’t fucking care.
My hand shakes as I try to blade the foil around the lip of the bottle, not sure if it’s anger jittering through me or my body trying to trap in heat in this freezing-ass penthouse.
From the other side of the counter, Honor watches me with a wince, then jumps into action, rounding the counter and coming to my rescue.
“Aight, nah. Baby, you want wine tonight or next week? ‘Cause at this pace—” He steps in, slipping the bottle and corkscrew out of my hand. “C’mon, give it here. Before you slice off your damn finger.”
The cork squeaks as he twists,
veins like lightning strikes up his arm.
“That’s cute,” Ben coos. “Honor tryna be her husband already.”
“Mmhm,” Andrew grunts. “Keep at it, player, she might break sooner than you think.”
My shoulders snap rigid despite me.
Honor yanks the cork out with a pop.
“Yo, while I got everybody here,” Andrew says, then behind me, papers slide across the counter. “Need you three to sign somethin’.”
Ben eyes it, suspicious.
“You serious?”
Honor swipes it off the counter.
“What’s it for?”
“It’s an amendment,” Andrew says. “To her contract. Read it. Language’s real simple. Protects everyone.”
Then Andrew’s cell chirps across the counter. He slides over, snatches it up, his smile tugging as he reads the screen.
“Damn,” Ben muses, humor filling his eyes. “Boy’s more turned on by a text than by you.”
“Just sign the damn amendment,” Andrew says as he brushes past, his words raking over the counter as he leaves the kitchen, heading to the terrace, passing Ben on the way, whose grin stretches wider around the apple.
In that second,
I was skin.
I was tits.
I was nothing.
My heart begins to race,
slamming wildly against my sternum as I stand angry, a thin layer of sweat glazing the nape of my neck.
But just before Andrew opens the door,
his icy eyes fall over his shoulder,
his furious stare burning a path to me—
one second,
two—
Then he steps out into the night.