Chapter Twenty-Four. Luna
Chapter Twenty-Four
Luna
Our time in Mykonos is passing far too quickly. For our last full day on the island I rent us a catamaran and have Ashley send the captain an NDA. The hotel restaurant packs us enough food for five people, and in the morning we walk down to the hotel dock to catch our boat.
The boat is gleaming white with soft cream lounge chairs, a full bar, and a stack of inflatables.
It’s beautiful and romantic and maybe slightly over the top for just the two of us, but I want to give Riley everything.
I’ve never had anyone to spend money on, and last night when she tried to pay for dinner, I couldn’t push her card away fast enough.
With everything I’ve made this year from the tour and merch and streams, a dinner or a boat rental for the day is an inconsequential indulgence.
I didn’t become a singer for the money, but now that it’s here it’s fun to actually get to enjoy it.
It is different to be paying, since with guys I was always the one being treated, but I’m finding that I kind of love it.
And I don’t feel like I need to shrink myself down or force myself to fit a role so I don’t emasculate anyone. I can be as expansive as I want.
In private, anyway.
Once we’re far enough away from shore that no one could see what we’re doing, no matter how closely they look, I slip an arm around Riley’s waist. The warm weight of her against me is reassuring and solid.
As the boat takes us toward a beach near Naxos that our captain has assured us is secluded and serene, we lie out and she reads while I tinker with the songs I’ve been working on.
I’ve built out more of the song I started when Riley and I went to the Eiffel Tower, now that I feel a little freer to let it be whatever type of song it’s meant to be.
I think I may release it as a single since it’s a breakup song, and I’d rather my next album be a love album.
I don’t have enough passion for Hudson to write an entire breakup album.
I’ve just put the finishing touches on the bridge, and am singing it into my phone, when the captain announces we’ve arrived.
I look up and realize that at least an hour has passed. We’re anchored a few hundred meters from shore, where there’s a sandy beach surrounded by rocky cliffs. There’s no one else in sight, which is just what I was hoping for.
“How’s the song going?” Riley asks.
I smile at her as I pull off my cover-up, not worrying about whether I look goofy or “too happy” or silly or any of the things I usually think about. “Amazing. I need to get to a studio in London to record after the tour wraps. You should come with me.”
“What’s it like when you record?” Riley asks. She opens a bottle of sunscreen and squeezes the glitter-infused white liquid onto her hand. “Want me to do you?”
“Definitely.” Riley steps over to me and I sit on the lounger while she massages sunscreen onto my back.
I can feel how strong her hands are from working in the kitchen, and as she presses into my shoulders I get chills.
“Mmmm,” I moan. “That feels good. Recording is really fun—it’s very spontaneous.
I go into the studio with my producer, Charles, who plays basically every instrument, and he helps me take the song from a melody in my head to a fully actualized song.
I know basically the tune I want it to be, but he might set it to different instruments and things like that.
Sometimes we’ll rewrite sections altogether, on the spot. And then I record it live.”
“I still can’t believe you just think of songs spontaneously like that.” Riley’s hands travel forward, pulling me against her as she gently starts rubbing sunscreen onto my stomach and into the creases of my hips. It feels so good, it’s making it hard to focus.
“I’m sure it’s not that different from making a new recipe,” I gasp as she runs her finger along the top of my tiny string bikini bottom.
“A recipe is like the in-the-studio part. You have the base, and then you make it shine in your own way. But what you’re doing is like you invented a new ingredient and you’re pulling it out of thin air. It’s magical.”
I turn my head to the right and kiss her. “I think your food is magical.”
She kisses me back firmly. “I want my food to create magical experiences and memories. But I like that it’s not magic. I like that it’s more of a tangible science. I can leave all the magic to you.”
Riley offers me a hand and I get up, and we walk to the edge of the boat where there’s a platform to jump from when the boat is anchored.
We count to three then jump into the water, screaming as we hit it.
It’s the perfect temperature in the heat, just cool enough to feel refreshing but not so cold that we need to be in a rush to get out.
The captain throws a floatie that’s attached to the boat with a rope out to us, and Riley and I try to both climb onto it.
I climb on first, but then when I try to pull Riley on after me, I capsize us. Next, Riley climbs on and keeps her weight all to one side of the float, while I climb on the other, only for us to capsize right after I get on as we try to get into a better position.
Riley emerges from the water, sputtering. “I feel like this is our Titanic moment.”
“Well, now that you put it like that, we really have to both get on this floatie.”
After a few more failed attempts and falls into the water, I’m finally able to pull Riley up onto the float in one fluid motion that ends with her completely on top of me. She rests her head on my chest and sighs. “I like it here.”
I wrap my arms around her. “Good, because I’m not letting you leave.”
She lowers her mouth to mine and I kiss her back languidly, relishing the feeling of taking our time and enjoying the moment instead of stealing secret kisses that we hope are too fast for anyone to notice.
Eventually Riley hikes her leg over mine and I wrap my arm around her, and we nestle into each other in a way that feels so incredible, it’s like a narcotic.
I’m half asleep when I hear my phone ringing from the boat.
“Should you get that?” Riley murmurs sleepily.
“Let it ring.” I stroke her hair while I wait for it to stop.
But it doesn’t. It just keeps ringing and ringing.
Nothing good is on the other end of the line when someone has tried you that many times in a row, and I don’t want to ruin this moment.
I want to keep pretending that I’m always this chill and carefree, when in reality in the weeks leading up to this tour I spent four hours a day at the gym, was in countless meetings strategizing every social media post and outfit, had hours of beauty and hair treatments each day, and was so tired that I would fall asleep at nine o’clock.
I have no chill when it comes to my work and I’ve pushed aside everything to make room for it and for just one afternoon I don’t want to.
But after the fifth time through, Riley lifts her head to look at me. “I think it may be important.”
I squeeze her tighter. “What could be more important than this?” But when it rings yet another time, I sigh. “I’ll be right back—don’t move.”
“I need more sunscreen anyway; I’ll come up with you,” Riley says, which I doubt is true. While my tan is of the spray-on variety, Riley’s skin has a deep natural tan that she must have year-round because she was already like that when I ran into her that day on the plane.
We leave the floatie in the water and climb the ladder up the side of the boat, where I snatch my phone immediately, relieved to put a stop to the irritating ringing. I’m going to start leaving it on silent at all times.
“Thank god you picked up,” Ashley says the moment I answer.
I can hear the stress in her voice, and instantly the hair on my arms stands up despite the heat and I get a sinking feeling in my gut.
I’ve only heard her sound like this once before, when she was giving me the news that my mom had collapsed and was in the hospital and that I should pull out of the show I was supposed to open for that weekend.
When she said that, I knew that what she was really saying was that my mom was going to die.
“What is it?” I can’t think of anything that would be this bad. Ashley is clearly alive; Riley is with me. Maybe Ashley’s sick? There’s some sort of national emergency back in the States? “What?”
“Someone took pictures of you and Riley kissing and sold them to TMZ. They’re everywhere. And you look naked in them.”
I put her on speaker and google myself. Because what if we are naked in them?
That would be the end of my career. I’m supposed to be the good girl, the all-American girl next door who everyone loves, and I don’t think I can come back from pictures of me naked, having almost sex on our hotel suite’s lounge chair.
With a woman, when the world thinks I’m dating their favorite bad boy turned good.
The pictures are the first thing to come up, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“We’re not naked. I just had a strapless bikini.
You can kind of see it if you zoom in.” I click out of it, looking at the headlines.
And then I see why Ashley is so upset. It’s not just that I’ve been outed and I looked naked.
It’s that Hudson was quoted saying that I’m a cheater. “That fucking asshole.”
Riley takes my phone from me and starts looking through the pictures and headlines, then pulls out her own phone and starts texting furiously.
“Luna, you know better than this,” says Ashley.
“This wasn’t the plan. I told you that if you were going to Greece, you two needed to stay at the resort.
Discretion, remember? This is very bad.” Since Riley’s name needed to be on the jet’s manifest, I had to tell Ashley I was taking her here.
But I also swore up and down nothing was happening between us, not yet, which I knew even then was a lie. I didn’t want to be told no.
“Well, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if Hudson hadn’t fucked me here.
He could have just said he’d dumped me, but no, he had to ruin me to make himself look a little bit better.
” I sound petulant. But I can’t seem to stop myself, even though I know I did break my agreement with him.
But I would never be this cruel to him! I go to text Hudson and see I already have five texts and several calls from him.
Luna, I’m sorry
It was a private conversation with my sponsor, no one was meant to hear it
I’d never give a quote like that about you
Please don’t hate me
Just tell me what to do
“Hudson says it was an accident,” I say quietly. “That’s something, at least.”
“I know, his manager called me,” Ashley says. “He’ll help you, but we need to decide how to play this. This is very bad. People haven’t found out that Riley is your employee, but when they do, it won’t be a good look. You can’t hook up with your staff. I told you that, Luna.”
“We’re not hooking up,” I spit back. “Ashley, this is real. This is not about Hudson or work. This is my real life!”
“It better be real,” Ashley says firmly. “Because I do not want to give a statement saying you had casual sex with someone on your payroll. A relationship we can do damage control on. A fling? Very bad.”
I pinch my eyes shut. This is tainting everything.
“Is Riley there now?” Ashley continues.
Riley glances at me, then responds dutifully. “Yes. I’m here.”
“Please remember your NDA,” Ashley commands. “Luna—”
“Oh my god, Ashley!” I interrupt.
“It’s my job to protect you, Luna,” Ashley retorts. “I have to say it, even if—”
Riley cuts her off. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I understand. And, Luna, I’m with you.” Riley wraps an arm around my waist protectively. “Just tell me what you need.”
“Thank you,” I whisper to her. And then, because no matter how mad I am, I know Ashley has my best interests at heart, so I ask her: “What do you think we should do?”
“Wait! What about the breakup song?” Riley says suddenly. “Release the breakup song. It basically says the relationship was already over.”
“What was that?” Ashley asks.
“I wrote a breakup song about Hudson. I started it the first night of tour. I could release a screenshot of the notes app that has the date of when I started it? I was going to pretend I wrote it way later, but it’s not like he’s given me a lot of options.
And maybe he and I can release a joint statement? ”
“Luna, that’s a start. But it won’t fix things. This is going to get a lot uglier before it gets better.”
I sigh and drop into the lounge chair. Riley rubs circles on my back, and despite trying to keep it together, I start to cry.
“I don’t want this to be what I’m crucified for.
” This is the first thing I’ve felt sure of in so long.
I hate that our perfect weekend, my weekend of firsts, is being tainted like this and called something ugly.
“Can’t we just tell the truth?” My words are choked by tears.
“Sources close to Leya say it was over weeks ago. I release the song. Then say I’m actually really happy? ”
“We’ll do that—I’ll do it right now,” Ashley says.
“I’ll book you a flight out tonight. You can record the song tomorrow.
But he said what he said, even if it was meant to be private, and that means even though you’re telling the truth, people may not believe you.
People probably don’t want to believe you. ”
“If I were a man, they wouldn’t hate it so much,” Riley mutters.
I turn to her. “Do you really think that’s true? I feel like things have come such a long way.”
“Yes,” Riley says sharply. “Things haven’t come as far as you think. It’s easier to think things are good when you’re not in a position to experience anything hateful. You just … weren’t in a position before to see how people can be.”
“Will this hurt my chances at the Grammy?” I ask Ashley.
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Ashley says quickly, and suddenly it feels like my world is falling apart. Nothing is worth losing the Grammy. The Grammy is all I’ve ever been striving toward. No one is worth losing out on a Grammy.
And when Riley kisses my shoulder and squeezes my hand reassuringly, I feel guilty for even thinking that.
I want to choose her and my happiness and living a full life.
I really do. But for some reason I feel uncomfortable even thinking about doing anything but putting my career above everything else.