“Sure. You brought it up, though.” He takes a sip from his mug, completely unfazed by our conversational detour.
“Right.” I cough a few more times and throw him a dirty look. “We’re supposed to be taking care of our throats, not making them worse.”
“Noted. Now’s not the time to work on deep throating.”
I splutter again, but at least this time it’s only my own spit I’m choking on, so I’m able to clear it faster. “I don’t remember that being on the agenda anyway.”
He shoots me a saucy grin. “Hope springs eternal.”
Rolling my eyes, I take a careful sip of my tea, watching him over the rim to make sure he doesn’t say anything else outrageous. When he doesn’t, I swallow and clear my throat. “Anyway. You were saying. Both of us could cover our privates with a guitar body.”
He nods like this isn’t a ridiculous conversation. “Right. We can. Because while I’m perfectly adequate, I don’t have a monster cock—”
“Thank god,” I interject.
“—so I’ll fit behind a guitar, even fully erect.” He doesn’t even pause to acknowledge my interruption. “You’ll have to stay seated the whole time, of course. But we could do naked recordings. If we wanted to. And they wouldn’t have to be on a porn site.” He takes another sip of his tea, draining the last of it and setting it on the coffee table, his face smooth and normal, like this is a real idea.
And I don’t miss the way he uses will—as in he will fit behind a guitar and I will stay seated—like it’s a future event we’re actually planning, and not would, as though this were some hypothetical situation.
“What about being on brand?” I ask, like I’m actually taking this seriously too. But inside my brain is screaming, What the hell are you talking about? Abort! Abort!
Colt scratches his chin, his brows wrinkling together. “Well, we’re still in the process of building a brand, so it’s up to us to decide whether it fits or not. It’d be fun and silly. And it could play into the lovebirds who can’t keep their hands off each other narrative we’ve been building whether we intended to or not, from our first public appearance to our elopement on the beach. Then we’ve been holed up in here for weeks. There’ve been some comments about that fact online, especially after our performance last week.”
I really have no response to that. When the thought of naked video performances of our songs came to mind, I immediately dismissed it. The only reason I even mentioned it to Colt is because a) he asked and b) I thought we’d both get a laugh out of it.
But he’s serious?
I don’t even know how to respond. But it seems I don’t have to, because Colt leans over and looks in my mug. “Finish your tea,” he says, his voice deeper. Darker. Commanding in the most delicious way.
I might not like being bossed around in general. But when Colt looks at me that way, his eyes hooded, his gaze lustful as it touches me, broadcasting his intentions as clearly as words? Yes, please. Boss me around all you like.
But because I’m contrary by nature—and I know Colt likes it when I defy him as much as I like it when he bosses me around like this—I take my sweet time finishing the last of my tea. When I finally drain the last few drops, he yanks the cup out of my hand with a low, feral growl.
Pretty soon, neither of us is wearing clothes, and all is right with the world once more.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Colt
When Alexis and I aren’t rehearsing or recording, I’m reaching out to every contact I have in the southern California, including my brother Brendan. I’ve never really considered trying to carve out a place as an indie artist before, but after the success of that first concert and the growing number of followers and subscribers we’re getting online, it seems stupid not to. Like Alexis said, we’re tired of waiting for someone else’s permission to do what we love.
And maybe … just maybe … if we go indie, Alexis can quit obsessing about losing those last five pounds. Even though she’s lost four, she still says she needs to lose five more. It’s a never ending cycle, despite her pancake splurge after the show.
We need another venue, but the bigger ones want a deposit that’s fifty percent higher than standard, and I’m trying to talk them down. I can swing it, and I’m reasonably confident we’ll make it back, but I don’t like getting screwed over. Which means a lot of my free time is spent doing social media management—posting selfies and outtakes, interacting in the comments, even investing in a few ads to draw more eyeballs.
I leave a message for Brendan, a little annoyed he doesn’t answer. But the guy’s busy. And it’s not like I answered on the first ring every time he called while I was working for Jonathan. Or at all since I married Alexis. He’ll call back. Eventually.
Alexis is gone, meeting with Delores about next steps. When she announced the appointment, I had to bite my tongue, because I thought I was working on the next steps. But Delores is Alexis’s agent, and it’s possible Alexis sees going indie as a backup plan in case the label never changes their maybe to a yes. If I had an agent, I doubt I’d be so quick to jump ship and give up my last chance of having a standard contract with a label that has nationwide store and radio distribution deals.
Yeah, you get to keep a larger portion of your royalties as an indie, but you have to work a lot harder to grow your fan base too. There’s no done-for-you promotion. And while I have contacts with bookers and promoters, as I’m discovering, they’re hesitant to take a risk on an indie,
