I didn’t know what to say.
“Smart thinking, getting that girl to post that video.” He finally looked at me, and I could tell he was hurt, angry, and at a loss for words.
“She saw me sitting on a bench and wanted a selfie with me.” I laughed. “I was about to say how weird and awkward it was, but then I just watched you do it for an hour straight.”
He gave a sort of half laugh. “First taste of fame, huh? Get used to it. Before long, you’ll be doing that,” he said, gesturing behind us.
I didn’t want to argue, so I said nothing in response to that. “Thank you for coming to get me. I’m so sorry to have put you through that.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
Finally, after forty-five minutes through brutal traffic, we arrived at the hotel.
That had been the worst, most uncomfortable silence of my life.
The silence continued as we took a private elevator up to the suite .
We arrived directly into a massive penthouse with a multi-million-dollar view of Tokyo spread out below. Ultramodern, all stark lines and contrasting black and white and chrome with pops of color and muted shades of gray.
There was food waiting—a huge spread of food. Seeing it made me realize how hungry I was.
Myles made up plates for us and we ate…in silence.
I had no clue what to say, or how to break the silence without bringing up questions and creating more arguments. Myles didn’t deserve that. So I kept silent and Myles seemed content to let it be, as well.
For the first time since I met him, we went to bed without sex.
Awkward, tense. The knowledge of so much unspoken between us.
So much he wanted that I had no clue how to give.
So much he deserved to know that I couldn’t tell him.
So, he went to bed, and I sat in the bed beside him, exhausted and utterly unable to sleep.
I heard him snoring, and hated myself for everything.
Myles
I woke somewhere near dawn, for reasons unknown. I didn’t have to pee, I wasn’t thirsty, wasn’t hungover. Just…awake.
At 5:01 a.m. local time.
Jet lag, maybe, but I was used to that, and I could generally fall asleep whenever I needed to. And god knew after the show, the hours of hunting Tokyo for Lexie, and then signing autographs and posing, the awkward silent drive, the tense silence in the penthouse here—I should have been dead beat. But I was wide awake.
And that’s when I heard it.
Lexie—singing, playing a guitar.
I saw her, on the balcony off the master suite. Sitting in a chair, leaning back on two legs with the chair back resting against the corner and her feet on the railing. Guitar across her thigh. City light bathed her in a dozen shades of glowing shadow. She was nude, under the guitar, from my angle, I could see the swell of her breast pressed against the guitar, the curve of her thigh as it rounded under on the chair. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back, and she was singing the saddest song I’d ever heard.
There were no words, just a haunting aria of loneliness and brokenness, laced through with a low delicate melody on the smaller, higher strings—no fancy chords or finger work, just a slow melody that carved a hole in your heart and left the bitter taste of sadness its place.
I grabbed my phone, brought up the external camera, no flash, and hit record. I could just make out her outline; see that she was naked without seeing anything except her and the guitar.
I recorded until she stopped, hands squealing on the strings, and I heard her sniffle. She was playing my first guitar, an old Yamaha I’d gotten thirdhand; I could tell by the sound of it. It was old and battered and hard to keep in tune, but I’d written some of my best songs on it, and still liked to play it when I was feeling melancholy. Interesting that she’d chosen it—Betty-Lou was with me, unlocked at the moment, as I’d spent a few minutes playing before I went to bed; Na’ura was here in the hotel, too, also unlocked as I hadn’t gotten a more protective case for her yet.
She opened her eyes, perhaps alerted by that sixth sense that told her she was being observed—looked over and saw me sitting up on the bed.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” I wasn’t sure if I should tell her I’d recorded her and decided against it. I would figure out what to do with it later.
For now, I couldn’t take any more awkwardness. I left the bed and went out onto the balcony—it hot and humid outside. I was naked, like her; we were both habitual nude sleepers, and had established that early on.
She watched me, holding the guitar in place across her torso. “You heard?”
I nodded. “It was beautiful. Haunting.”
She shrugged. “I wrote it when I had some things to express, but no words for what I wanted to say.”
“Well, you said it loud and clear.” I hesitated. “And I guess I just…I’m sorry for whatever happened to cause you to feel that way.”
She shrugged. “Thanks, but it’s just life, I guess.”
I was leaning against the railing, facing her. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Shook her head. “Not a wink.”
“Lex, I…”
She carefully set the guitar aside. Set the chair down on all fours. Sat up, hands on her thighs, naked, gazing up at me. “Myles, can you just, please, for right now, just don’t––”
I knelt and tipped the chair back up on the hind legs and balanced it as she’d been; she squealed in surprise, and then found her balance. I slid my fingers around one dangling ankle, lifted her foot, and draped it on my thigh. Then the other. Held her eyes. She understood what I was offering: distraction. Another avoidance of the topic. I ached to know the source of her pain, but I knew she had to offer the story on her own terms.
When—or IF––she would ever be ready.
Until then,
