CHAPTER 5 ALEXIS
I’m sitting in the green room backstage at the Wynn when I glance at the clock and see I still have an entire hour before I have to take the stage.
Brooks is here, too, but I don’t really have much to say to him as I think through my playlist. He’s tapping away on his laptop, anyway. He’s a manager at his father’s artist management agency, though his roster of clients is rather small to allow him time to travel around with me.
My security guard is off getting dinner with Brooks’s promise that I would stay put, so I’m stuck for the moment.
I’d never try to outrun Gregory, anyway. He’s former military and he takes exactly zero shit, which is exactly why I chose him.
I’m only singing a handful of songs tonight as I open the show for Vail, one of the world’s biggest acts with the newest Vegas residency.
I’ve known the lead singer, Mark Ashton, and his wife for years, and they’re good people and good friends.
So when Mark invited me to open a few shows for them as a surprise to their guests, I was eager to get involved however I could.
Mark and I will sing a song together toward the end of Vail’s act, too, and I’m excited for the chance at a duet.
And then I’ll head back home to Los Angeles, where everything will slip back into monotony before we head out on tour in another few weeks.
I don’t want it to slip there, though.
I’ve enjoyed this time in Vegas, and I want to get back to the ballpark to catch another game. The Heat won opening day yesterday and it was a beautiful thing to witness, and I know they only have tonight’s game and tomorrow before they head out of town for a week.
Okay, fine.
If I’m laying all my cards on the table, I don’t care about catching another game as much as I care about the chance to run into Danny again.
A knock at the door takes me out of my train of thought, which is fine since I’m not really doing much and I still have forty minutes before I need to warm up my voice. I pick up my cup of tea as Brooks heads over to see who it is, and I stand as Mark’s wife walks into the room.
“Reese,” I say, walking across the room for a hug.
“Alexis! It’s so good to see you.” She squeezes me tightly and glances over at Brooks. “Mind if I have a moment?”
Brooks shakes his head. “She has to stay in here until Gregory returns,” he says, and Reese nods.
“I won’t let her out of my sight.”
I giggle as Brooks narrows his eyes at her, and then he walks out.
“Did you get my DM?”
My brows dip together. “DM?”
“Direct message. You know, on Instagram?”
I shrug. “My team handles my social media. I don’t even know how to check my DMs on my public accounts, to be honest.”
She rolls her eyes. “You musicians are all the same, I swear. I had to train Mark how to use Instagram once upon a time.”
“And now you run it for all of Vail. What a life.”
She laughs. “Yeah, when I’m not chasing the kids around.”
“Where are they now?” I ignore the little feeling in my chest that maybe I want a couple of those myself.
I can’t. It would tank my career. I wouldn’t be able to go on tour if I was pregnant or had a newborn, and I wouldn’t be able to star in movies, either.
My body would change, and my priorities would change, and I can’t afford either of those things if I want to continue on the career track I’m currently on.
Sure, women do it every day, and women bounce back to the careers they’ve always had after having babies. But few of them are singers and actresses because, simply put, it’s hard. Life can be too much to balance and juggle as it is. Add mom brain into the mix? Forget it.
“They’re at my parents’ house. I had to come get the deets on your day at the ballpark since I wasn’t there. So spill it, Bodega. A, what was it like to be in the clubhouse with Cooper Freaking Noah, and B, what did Brooks-ee-poo have to say about it?”
“Brooks-ee-poo? You’ve been hanging out with your kids too much.”
She giggles. “Yeah, I have. It’s been a long week, okay? And I don’t have all day to wait for this tea. Spill.”
I suck in a deep breath. She’s not the first person to ask me about what those ballplayers were like in person, but she’s the first person I trust who has asked.
I stand and pace a little.
“Oh, man. This is going to be good if you’re up and pacing.” She’s waiting on pins and needles, and I finally turn to face her.
“It was…” I shake my head and trail off. “Cooper’s hot, right? But Danny Brewer…man. He’s something else.”
Her brows dip together. “What about Brooks?”
“You know the truth about us…right?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I kind of assumed, but we’ve never really talked about it.”
I sigh, and I wonder how much to tell her.
When I told my father I think Brooks is attractive, and he’s nice enough, but he’s not the man of my dreams, he reminded me that I chose the career of my dreams over any man at all—that I agreed when I was sixteen that he could orchestrate my image in whatever way he saw fit.
I’ve never spoken the words aloud to anyone other than my father, but Reese and I have a history. We go back far enough that I’d trust her to keep anything I tell her to herself.
I hold up a pinky. “Promise I can trust you?”
She links her pinky through mine. “Promise.”
I sigh. “It’s a media ploy. But when Danny’s eyes connected with mine…” I trail off as I drift off somewhere to dreamland. “It was something magical. You ever had that feeling?”
“Every damn time my husband walks in the room,” she admits.
“Still?”
She presses her lips together and nods. “Yeah. Still.”
“Wow…Well what Brooks and I have is—”
The door opens, and Gregory appears with a Styrofoam container filled with food, cutting me off from finishing that sentence even though if there’s anyone in the world who knows Brooks and I aren’t really a thing, it’s most definitely Gregory.
I shut my mouth and press my lips together, and Reese doesn’t hide her disappointment.
“I guess I’ll let you get to warming up that voice,” she says. “Break a leg tonight, Bodega.”
“Thanks, Fox,” I say, calling her by her real last name rather than the stage name her husband uses.
She wiggles her fingers to wave goodbye as she walks out the door, and Brooks walks back in at her exit.
“How do I check my DMs?” I ask Brooks.
“Hell if I know,” he says, and he sits back down at his laptop to continue working.
I blow out a breath as I realize one very important thing.
If Reese can see through Brooks and me, I’m not sure it’ll be long before the rest of the world can see through it, too.
And that could be a major problem.