1 | Black Belt #2
The refrigerator door had been left open by an inch, which felt like evidence of Kadir’s involvement, but the room itself was empty.
So were the game room and the small library beside it.
The studio door stood open at the end of the hall, revealing a mixing console, several guitars already waiting on stands, and enough recording equipment to remind me how much money the label was willing to spend before admitting one of its investments might be failing.
No musicians.
I returned to the living room and caught movement through the wall of windows. Three dark shapes were gathered around a firepit on the back terrace.
They had been in the house for less than twenty minutes and had already found somewhere to break a rule.
The terrace ran the length of the lodge, sheltered by an overhanging roof but open to the mountains.
Snow crowded the edges, untouched except for three trails of footprints leading toward a sectional arranged around a cold stone firepit.
Leo sat in the middle with one arm stretched along the back cushions.
Wesley had taken the corner beside him, his feet propped on the low table.
Kadir occupied an entire chair by himself, his broad shoulders bent forward as he held a joint between two tattooed fingers.
Smoke drifted above them.
They were laughing.
Kadir’s head was lowered, his hair falling across his face. Wesley was trying to speak and failing. Even Leo looked less calculated than usual.
I stopped inside the glass door.
They had spent the drive barely speaking unless it was to annoy one another, but give them ten minutes without supervision and weed, and suddenly they remembered they were friends.
That should have been encouraging.
But deep down, I was irritated that marijuana had accomplished something several label executives expected me to reproduce sober.
I slid open the door.
Cold air rushed around me. All three men looked over, their laughter fading with an impressive lack of guilt.
“I’m fairly certain the label specifically said not to bring any substances.”
Wesley lowered his feet from the table. Kadir kept the joint resting beside his knee. Leo looked me over slowly, taking in the thin sweater and socks I had worn outside because apparently I had sacrificed basic judgment the moment I accepted this assignment.
“You’re going to freeze,” Wesley said.
“Thank you. That addressed my concern perfectly.”
He gave me an apologetic smile that would have worked better if smoke hadn’t escaped his mouth when he exhaled.
I stepped onto the terrace and closed the door behind me. The cold immediately came through my socks, but going back for boots would have weakened the entrance. I folded my arms instead.
“Who brought it?”
The question settled over them.
Leo glanced at Wesley. Wesley glanced at Kadir. Kadir looked down at the joint in his own hand as though he had only recently discovered it.
No one spoke.
Their loyalty was admirable in theory. In practice, they were protecting a man who was still physically holding the evidence.
“I’m not asking so I can report anyone,” I said. “I need to know which one of you ignored a direct instruction before we reached the property.”
Leo pushed first. “Those sound like the same thing.”
“They aren’t.”
“What happens when someone admits it?”
“Depends who it was.”
Wesley leaned back. “That doesn’t make confession sound very appealing.”
I looked between them. They had fallen into formation without discussing it.
Leo distracted. Wesley softened. Kadir remained silent and waited for the subject to die.
It was probably the same structure they used when dealing with interviewers, executives, police officers, and anyone else unfortunate enough to ask a question they didn’t intend to answer.
They might not have been able to agree on music, but they could still coordinate an obstruction.
That was useful information.
“I won’t tell the label,” I said. “I’m not interested in starting this retreat by reporting anyone. But if I’m gonna be your manager, you all need to learn to be honest with me.”
Nothing.
Leo appeared openly entertained now. Wesley studied the snow with excessive concentration. Kadir lifted the joint to his mouth, took another slow drag, and made it almost three seconds before he started laughing.
His shoulders shook first. Then he covered his face with one hand while the other two turned on him.
“Kadir,” Wesley complained.
“You lasted thirty seconds,” Leo said.
“I was holding it.” Kadir’s voice came out rough with laughter. “She was staring directly at me.”
“You could have denied it.”
“With it in my hand?”
I stared at them until Kadir finally looked up. His eyes were warm brown and glassy, his expression more open than it had been at any point during the trip.
“Yeah. It was mine,” he said.
“I had gathered that.”
He held the joint out to me.
I looked at it, then at him.
This was the exact point where a competent manager would confiscate it. Possibly dispose of it. Definitely say something about productivity, liability, and the terms of the label’s rental agreement.
I took it from his fingers and inhaled.
The three men watched me.
I held the smoke for a moment, passed the joint back to Kadir, and sat on the empty end of the sectional.
Relief moved through the group so quickly. Wesley’s smile returned first. Kadir settled back in his chair. Leo tipped his head, studying me as though I had just contradicted something he had decided about me.
“I don’t care if you smoke,” I said. “I care if you become impossible to manage.”
Leo stretched one leg beneath the table. “What if we were already impossible?”
“Then I need you to at least be functional. You’ve submitted four unfinished songs in seven months.”
“That’s a creative issue.”
“Kadir stopped attending writing sessions.”
Kadir took the joint from his mouth. “They weren’t writing sessions.”
“Wesley scheduled a drum recording during a music festival in Lisbon.”
“I already had tickets,” Wesley said.
I looked at Leo. “And you fired your last manager through a group text.”
“He was in the group chat.”
The men laughed again. It came easily now that I had stopped standing over them like a representative from human resources.
I took the joint when it returned to me, though only because refusing it after the first hit would have looked performative. The smoke burned less this time. Snow covered the trees beyond the terrace, turning the mountain still and colorless, while warm light spilled from the lodge behind us.
It could have been peaceful if I had been sitting with three different people.
“How come the only time you three get along is when you’re smoking?”
Wesley considered the question seriously. Kadir looked toward Leo, which should have warned me.
“Because it pisses you off,” Leo said. “And you being a bitch gives us something to bond over.”
I kicked him. It wasn’t a proper tae kwon do kick. I was sitting sideways on a couch in socks, and I only intended to catch his shin.
Leo caught my foot before it landed.
His hand closed around my ankle, fast enough that I didn’t realize what had happened until my leg was stretched across the cushion between us. His fingers were warm against the skin above my sock.
“You were saying something about a black belt,” he said.
“Let go.”
His thumb moved once over the inside of my ankle.
It was a small touch. Barely a touch at all. Still, my body reacted with the immediate disloyalty of something that had never attended a workplace conduct seminar.
Leo saw it. His gaze dropped to where he held me, then returned to my face. He had stopped smiling quite so broadly.
“Wait a minute,” Wesley said, but he sounded more curious than concerned.
Kadir watched from across the firepit, the joint resting forgotten between his fingers.
I should have pulled away immediately. But I froze for one second too long, aware of Leo’s palm around my ankle and the easy strength in his grip.
Then he turned my foot slightly and pressed his mouth to the bare skin just above my sock.
His tongue touched my ankle.
Heat went straight up my leg.
“Leo! What the fuck?”
He smiled against my skin.
I kicked at him with my other foot. He caught that one too, laughing as he pulled both of my legs toward him. My body slid several inches across the couch before I grabbed the cushion beside me.
“Are you insane?”
“I’m disappointed in your Tae Kwon Do skills, Miss Black Belt.”
Wesley was laughing again, but Kadir remained quiet. He watched Leo’s hands around my ankles with an expression I couldn’t read, all of his earlier amusement condensed into something more attentive.
That was enough.
I yanked one foot free, planted it against Leo’s thigh, and shoved. He released me before I could put any real force behind it.
I stood, tugging my sweater back into place even though it hadn’t moved.
This was precisely why I had given myself rules upstairs. Professional distance lasted less than an hour when one of the people involved was Leo, who treated boundaries like puzzles designed for his personal entertainment.
Worse, he hadn’t embarrassed me because I disliked it.
He had embarrassed me because I had liked it quickly enough for three men to notice.
“I’m going inside.”
Leo settled back against the couch, pleased with himself. “To practice?”
“To find the section of your contract that explains how easily the label can replace a singer.”
“Nah. You’d miss me.”
I crossed the terrace before he could say anything more. The cold had numbed my feet, though not enough to erase the lingering heat around my ankle.
Behind me, Wesley said something low. Leo laughed. Kadir was silent.
I closed the glass door harder than necessary and stood in the warm living room, staring at my reflection.
Six weeks.
I had been alone with them for less than a day.