Andrea was sitting in on a marketing meeting being led by her head of marketing, with Tommy Dawson’s management team. Tommy Dawson, whilst publicly stating he would not be leaving his band, was taking some time to focus on a solo album. Andrea had heard some of the sample tracks and what was lacking due to the loss of the band, Tommy made up for with raw and emotional lyrics. In her opinion, it was a stripped-bare example of him and his music. She was more than happy to have him making the solo album under the Stellar label.
They were playing one of his new tracks in the meeting room. She took her coffee from the large oval table where his management team and several of her colleagues were sitting to stand in the window. She watched the clouds slowly glide through the horizon as Tommy sang about making changes to his life.
There had been a time she could have fallen for Tommy. They had always gotten along well, right from the early days. She had enjoyed working with him. More than once they had spent a few weeks ‘together’ and each time had been bliss between the sheets. He lived up to his reputation and then some in that department. When it was just them, lying naked in a hotel bed, their bodies entwined, his fingers gently stroking her skin as he spoke to her, there were moments of real soul to Tommy that did not present in the rock star version of him.
The problem was, Tommy’s rock star persona and Tommy’s real life were a blur and Andrea hadn’t needed a man in her life any of the times they had been together, so had no patience in waiting around for those fleeting moments of tenderness. Their random hook-ups since the last of those few intense weeks had been just that, hook-ups. Great sex until they were exhausted, then a test of will over who could politely leave quickest and get back to the important things in their lives.
But as she listened to his music now, the mellow beauty of the guitar, the slower pace of the tune, the soft husk of his voice, she wondered if he really did want to make changes. More than that, she wondered if it was time for her to make changes too. Starting with getting rid of Hunter.
As Tommy sang about being an innocent child before that innocence died, she wondered when she had changed. How she had gotten from a happy young girl to a sometimes ruthless woman who was capable of having an affair with a married man, the father of one of her best friends?
Could people really change? God, she hoped so. Could she be that smiling little girl again? That, she doubted. Those happy days, before her mom left her, were nothing more than faint memories. Since then, she had seen her father be a drunk, brought up her sister as best she could, taken control of the family business and now brought more responsibility upon herself as the CEO of Stellar.
There was a knock on the meeting room door, which interrupted her self-analysis. Hannah held it open.
‘Hi everyone, this one couldn’t stand you all talking behind his back.’
Tommy Dawson chuckled as he stepped into the room all black jeans, leather jacket and shades, with two large, suited security men in tow.
He glanced around the room, then his eyes fell on Andrea. He took off his shades and his cheekiness creased his bright eyes – noticeably brighter and cleaner than Andrea had seen them for a long time.
‘Bringing out the big guns for me, huh?’ he asked.
Andrea glared at him. ‘Too much of a star to be on time, huh?’
They both laughed and Tommy pulled out a seat at the table. His guard dogs stood like statues at the back of the room. Tommy greeted everyone as he poured himself a glass of water.
In times gone by, Tommy – if he came to a meeting at all – would have slouched in his seat, tapping out a beat with his foot and drumming his fingers on the table top as he wrote a melody in his mind. Then he would have asked for a whiskey on the rocks – a poison he and Andrea could agree on and which they had shared too much of in the past. He would not have taken off his shades, politely conversed with his management team and poured H-2-O. No siree.
Who was this man?
‘Guys, I gotta tell ya,’ Tommy said, ‘This album is my baby. I want to be heavily involved in every aspect of what we’re trying to achieve here.’
A general chorus of assurance followed.
‘I’ve had a few ideas,’ Tommy continued. He took a small black notebook from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and Andrea almost choked, for one of two reasons.
Either, he was about to share his little black book of women – which didn’t seem big enough to reflect the reality of his one-night stands, unless it contained only the ones he had been sober enough to remember. Or, he was a man who made business notes now. The second option was by far the most shocking.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not as full as my little black book,’ he joked, winking at Andrea as if she had spoken her thoughts aloud. Despite herself, she smirked.
He was still a rogue but perhaps a redeemable one in this moment.
Though she hadn’t intended to sit in on the entire meeting, two hours, two coffee runs and a plate of baked goods later, the meeting about Tommy’s solo album drew to close.
Hannah reappeared to show everyone out of the room and to the elevators. Andrea stood at the door, shaking hands as each person passed, as if she were part of a wedding line-up.
Tommy was last to leave. He waved his team off and asked Andrea, ‘You got a sec?’
‘Sure. Do you want to come along to my office? I think this room is booked out.’
They made their way along the corridor, with Tommy’s personal security following closely behind and with Tommy turning the heads of every PA as they walked by. Andrea smiled to herself, remembering the early days, when Thomas Dawson was nothing more than a freeloader, sofa-surfing his friends, including, once or twice, Andrea. Turning up to Sanfia Records in the same pair of track pants day after day alongside his band members. He had been talented then but he didn’t know how good he was as a frontman.
Boy, how times had changed.
It was the remarkable thing about the music industry. Sure, there were mediocre artists, who could sing and play but couldn’t blow anyone away, whose lives never changed much from release to release. They earned a living doing what they loved. They had a steady fan base. Then there were the people like Tommy, who gave up everything to commit to their dream. Who had a spark, something magical in their music, and whose lives were projected by the industry from rock bottom to rock stars.
‘Nice digs,’ Tommy said, when Andrea showed him into her office, his security standing watch like mastiffs in the corridor.
Through the glass panes, the PAs continued to ogle Tommy, until Andrea threw them a scowl that was intended to have the effect of an ice-cold power hose on their horny libidos.
‘Make yourself at home,’ she told him, gesturing to the suede sofas that occupied one half of her office space.
Tommy walked beyond the sofas to the wall of shelves stacked with LPs that Andrea had collected over more than two decades and didn’t have space for in her apartment.
‘Would you like a real drink?’ she asked, moving to the bar table in the corner.
Tommy kept his eyes on the records, pulling out a Jimi Hendrix album, Band of Gypsys, and looking over the track list.
‘No, thanks, I’m trying to cut down,’ he said.
He turned quickly and added, ‘Not stopping. Just keeping it for dark.’
Andrea removed her hand from the bottle of Macallan whisky she had chosen and moved to Tommy’s side.
‘That was his best album,’ she said, nodding to Jimi Hendrix in bright colours on the record cover. ‘“Machine Gun” arguably did more for the industry than the King himself.’
‘Agreed,’ Tommy said, setting the album back on the shelf. ‘These days people take distortion and feedback for granted. Though I probably wouldn’t go around busting Elvis’s ass.’
Andrea smiled with amusement. ‘So, what did you want to see me about?’
‘I wasn’t expecting you to be in the meeting today.’ He moved to sit into one corner of the sofa as he spoke.
‘I hadn’t intended to stay, to be honest.’
Tommy looked around the room they were in, then took in Andrea, in her pencil skirt and tailored blouse, the high heels she had finally gotten used to wearing at work all day. Just as she felt he was scrutinising everything he saw, he shifted his attention to look out of the window, rubbing the gruff of his chin contemplatively.
‘Do you miss being in the studio?’ he asked.
She had been too busy recently to think about being in the studio but whenever she did, she definitely missed working with artists, being creative. More than that, she missed the early days, before she had become so heavily involved in the business management of Sanfia Records, when the big decisions at Sanfia were made by her dad and she was able to focus on the music. When she could turn up to work in jeans, a sweater and sneakers.
She nodded as she came to sit in the opposite corner of the sofa to Tommy. ‘I’m mostly too busy to think about it.’
‘Do you remember those first EPs we made together?’
She nodded again, smiling at the memory of being blown away by Tommy and his band. Back then he had a great sound but it was rough around the edges and he was shaggy looking, unintentionally, not like the polished, intentionally unkempt rock god he was now.
They had spent weeks in the studio, often working into the early hours, collaborating to make the kind of music that Andrea felt in her core.
‘It was fun, wasn’t it?’ Tommy continued.
‘Yeah. Yeah, it was. But, you know, you went on to bigger and better. And I did more and more of the business side of things at Sanfia and, now here, that’s pretty much all I do at Stellar. I guess we can’t have it both ways.’
He nodded, watching her a beat too long, until she squirmed in her seat. ‘So… you wanted to see me about…?’
Shifting his body to face her, he pulled a knee up to the cushions. ‘First, I want your view of the music. Honestly, what do you think of the sample track?’
Even Tommy Dawson has doubts, she thought.
‘Honestly? I’m blown away by it, Tommy. It’s stripped bare, it’s raw. It’s heartfelt and you’ve kept that… edge, or… electricity you have these days. It’s like early-days Tommy Dawson, pouring his heart into his lyrics with not two dimes to rub together, meets a seasoned artist, accomplished and fine-tuned. I… I love it.’
He didn’t smile or even seem to react, he simply kept staring at her.
When eventually he spoke, he said, ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
It took Andrea a second to get over the flattery of Tommy asking her to dinner. Not because of who he was but because he had never asked her to dinner before. In the past, they had ended up in bed after a long day in the studio, later, they had met at shows, shared impromptu drinks and screwed. Then, he or she always left and it would be months before they next saw each other.
She scoffed and brushed invisible dust from her skirt as she stood, walking toward her desk and coming to stand behind it, physically shielded from the man on her sofa. ‘No.’
He followed her, standing across the desk from her, his arms folded across his chest, his bottom lip almost protruding like a petulant child. ‘Why not?’
She matched his stance. ‘For one thing, you don’t mean dinner, you mean sex.’
‘Huh. Someone has a big opinion of herself, doesn’t she?’
Andrea raised an eyebrow, incredulously.
‘Okay, I take that back. But I asked you to dinner and I meant dinner. At my new place, not a hotel, and I’ll cook.’
Now she laughed. ‘You cook? Since when?’
‘All right, I’ll order in. But I’ll order in nice. I’ve told you, this is a new me. New home, new music, maybe even a few morals. It would just be nice to… hang out… talk music, catch up.’
She smiled. That did sound nice. But… ‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Let’s suppose you really mean dinner. So we’ll eat this great food you order in. We’ll drink some single malt on the rocks. We’ll sit by your open fire.’
‘I live in a penthouse apartment.’
‘Fine. We’ll sit by your electric fire. We’ll get talking. We’ll laugh. We’ll flirt. We’ll dance. Then we’ll sleep together.’
‘I mean, that kinda sounds… No, no, I’m just playing with ya. I promise no sleeping together.’
She smiled in response to his hands held out in surrender. ‘No, Tommy.’
‘You’re a hard woman to crack. Look, I’d really like it if you were involved in the new album, whatever way they’ll let you be but I get if you can’t make that happen. I just miss the old days, you know? Anyways, you’ve got my number. The offer stands.’
He started to walk away and Andrea said, ‘For how many seconds?’
She heard him laugh as he walked out of her office. She watched him lean on Hannah’s desk and say something to her, then tap his hand down and walk away.
‘Probably giving her his number,’ she mumbled, but found herself laughing.
If nothing else, Tommy’s visit had taken her mind off Hunter.
Who happened to be walking past Tommy in the opposite direction… toward her office.
What did he want? She had said everything she had to say to him. Now, what she really needed was space to get past him. Oh, but he was wearing her favourite light grey suit.
‘Psst, Hannah. Hannah. Hannah!’
Hannah jumped on the final shout, turning in her desk chair positioned outside Andrea’s office. Andrea ushered her in subtly with her hand.
Hannah glanced in the direction of Hunter then looked around her desk, grabbed a bunch of papers and hurried into Andrea’s office.
The women stood on either side of Andrea’s desk, staring and pointing at the paper stack between them. Andrea dared a discreet glance and saw Hunter was almost upon them.
‘You need to call, erm… ah… Sean Deacon, over at ah… the… ah…’ Hannah’s nerves were making Andrea more nervous. ‘At Platinum Management?’
‘Yes,’ Hannah said. ‘And don’t forget about the thing… the, ah, erm, urgent thing.’
‘The urgent thing?’ Hunter’s voice was as smooth and assured as ever. Clearly breaking off their affair hadn’t made him flounder at all. ‘Now that sounds very important.’
Andrea stifled a nervous laugh when Hannah said under her breath, ‘Dick.’
‘Ladies, how are you both?’ he said, swaggering into the room. Andrea had never noticed the familiarity of his swagger before. But it came to her now. It wasn’t sexy, at all. It was Liberace.
‘Very busy, Hunter, I’m afraid. Did you need something?’ Andrea spoke with her shoulders back and her chin high because, yes, finally, she was doing the right thing and taking the moral high ground.
He slipped a hand in the pocket of his tailored slacks, drawing Andrea’s gaze to his crotch. Damn it!
‘Right. With very urgent things. I do need to speak with you and this is urgent too.’
He eyed Hannah in a way that said, I don’t care if you’re my daughter’s friend or not, get the hell out.
Ultimately, he was the big boss so Andrea knew that Hannah could do nothing more than offer an apologetic look and pick up the math homework pages she had printed using the work printer, probably for her middle kid, from the desk between her and Andrea.
Hannah kept the office door open, which Andrea silently thanked her for.
‘What can I do for you, Hunter?’
‘I saw Tommy Dawson leaving your office.’
She folded her arms across her chest. Jealous, are we? ‘He had a meeting about his new album.’
‘In your office?’
She smiled at him in a way that told him she was on to him. ‘Was that all, because I really do have work to do?’
He exhaled heavily, the way a flame-breathing dragon might. Then he extracted a familiar velvet box from his inside pocket and set it down on the desk. Andrea glanced to the corridor outside her office, thankfully finding no one was watching them.
She nudged the box back to Hunter. ‘We’ve discussed this and I have nothing more to say on the matter.’
His lips curled up like a cunning fox. ‘You’re still taking a tantrum, then?’
Her hands trembled with fury she couldn’t unleash. ‘I’m not a child, Hunter.’
‘Then stop behaving like one. Take the gift.’
‘Have your circumstances changed since the last time we spoke?’ Damn it, why was she even asking this? But she waited for the answer, holding her breath, her stomach tied up. What if he said yes?
His silence was the only response she needed and she found herself relieved.
‘If there’s nothing else…’ She looked toward the exit.
‘I’ll come to your place tonight and we can discuss this like adults.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I’m busy tonight.’
He snorted. A grotesque sound. ‘What, like, washing your hair?’
She scowled. Didn’t she have anything else in her life besides work and her illicit affair with her boss? Was she that predictable? ‘Yes, I will be washing my hair, right before I go out. See, I have a date.’
‘A date? With who?’
‘It’s with whom.’
‘Touché. With whom do you have a date?’
Oh God, she was such a shitty liar, except, apparently, when it came to banging Hunter. ‘A man.’
He laughed in a way that made her want to bring her trembling hand across his cheek. ‘Which man?’
‘You don’t know him.’
‘Okay, Andi. Well, if your date doesn’t transpire, I’ll be at your place around eight.’
She watched him leave. Fuck him. Fuck him so. Damned. Hard.
Urgh, she was so angry her eyes were stinging and her body was shaking. He was so… arrogant. What had she ever seen in him? Maybe Hannah had called it spot on. Andrea went with Hunter because he was off limits and now, she realised, not a man she could have ever fallen for seriously enough to get her heart broken.
She stomped to her window, hoping if she watched the Hudson for long enough she would calm down. And all she could think about was how, all her life, men had been telling her what to do. That it didn’t matter whether she was now a CEO of a label because her ultimate boss and ex-lover still held the power. That it hadn’t mattered when she was running her own indie recording label because she was the one who was told to look after the business – by her father, even by her sister’s new husband. That it hadn’t mattered when she was just a girl who deserved to have her own independence, she had been told to look after her kid sister and take her everywhere.
‘So, you have a date tonight, huh?’
Hannah’s voice was tentative. She could read Andrea as easily as she could read a highway sign.
Andrea kept watching the Hudson and the ripples that followed a power boat. ‘You heard that?’
‘Yes. But I was intentionally eavesdropping and the other girls have their headphones in, so they didn’t hear anything.’
Andrea nodded once, sternly.
‘You did good, Andi. I’m proud of you.’
Her porcupine prickles softened slightly. ‘I don’t think proud is a word you could use in the same sentence with my name and Hunter’s.’
Hannah came to her side. ‘You’re doing the right thing, now. Here.’
Andrea looked at the small piece of paper Hannah held out with a phone number on it. ‘What’s that, the number of a good therapist?’
Hannah smiled. ‘Tommy left it on his way out. In case you changed your mind and don’t have his new number. I figure, since you need a date tonight…’
Tommy’s penthouse apartment was amongst the quieter streets of downtown, in the Tribeca district, nestled, Andrea knew, alongside other A-listers, like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Taylor Swift. Celebrities in New York tended to congregate in clusters, where their security could almost be shared.
She paid the cab driver and headed inside the building after being buzzed in and presumably checked off a list at the front desk, Tommy Dawson Girl Number Six Thousand, tick!
The concierge at the front desk told her to wait in the vestibule, where she was met by one of Tommy’s security who had been at the office earlier today. ‘Ms Williams, I’ll take you up.’
She rolled her eyes. These guys must be versed in picking up women at the front desk for Tommy. ‘It’s Andrea, or Andi. And you are?’
‘Mike,’ he said, turning his back on her and pressing the button to call the elevator.
‘Well, it’s nice to see you for the second time in a day, Mike.’ Her heels clicked on the marble floor tiles as she followed him into the elevator. ‘Nice to learn your name, too.’
They rode five floors in silence. Andrea slipped off her leather jacket, fussed with her first-time-on blouse, and checked her skinny jeans were sitting right against her strappy shoes. ‘Just so you know, Mike, I’m not like the other girls. I’ve known Tommy for years. We used to work together.’
Mike was unresponsive, his hands held together in front of him, his suit from earlier today having been replaced by a black, long-sleeved top and black slacks that showed his impeccably muscled frame.
Well, whether he responded or not, she knew herself that she wasn’t like the other girls. She wasn’t just coming here for a lay. No, she was coming here to chat. To catch up with an old friend. And, above all else, to give her a genuine excuse to avoid a certain person whose name would not cross her lips tonight.
There were only two doors on the top floor of the building. Mike lead the way to one, knocked and opened the door. Before she even stepped inside, Andrea heard the unmistakable sound of U2 and B.B. King’s ‘When Love Comes to Town’. Ironic, given magazines had, on more than one occasion, likened Tommy to the greatness of Bono.
‘Damn, I love this song.’ Mike took her leather jacket, in silence, and hung it on a coat stand by the door. ‘You know, they recorded this track in Sun Studios, Memphis. The old-fashioned way.’
‘And you were just a little girl with pigtails in your hair when this was recorded.’ She turned to see Tommy, barefoot, which was something of an irrational turn-on. He came toward her wiping his hands on a towel, wearing stonewash jeans and a black fitted T-shirt with a chain hanging down the front and his usual leather bracelets around his wrist.
‘You’re giving away my age,’ she said coyly.
‘Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t I know it. You ought to be twice your age for everything you’ve accomplished.’
She laughed. ‘Starting with compliments. I thought I told you this wasn’t a date. What’s with the towel?’
‘I was breaking ice and it was fucking freezing.’
‘You don’t say,’ she said, chuckling.
‘Come on, smart ass, I’ll show you around my office.’
He headed down the rosewood floor of the corridor, the white walls of which were covered in framed prints. She glanced behind her to see where Mike was but he had vanished. ‘Where’d the guard dog go?’ she called out, slowly making her way past each of the prints.
‘The team lives in the apartment next door,’ Tommy called back.
‘Sure, they do,’ she muttered to herself.
Her shoulders moved of their own volition in time to the music as she took in the framed images – Jimi Hendrix playing at Woodstock, the Rolling Stones live at Earls Court, Led Zeppelin at the Los Angeles Forum. She followed the prints to the end of the corridor, where she inhaled the scent of something spiced and exotic, her stomach rumbling in response.
She tried not to look in awe as she stepped into the vast open space of the apartment, with views as far as New Jersey. The theme of whitewash walls and music memorabilia continued. The space was big and had little furniture but something about it felt comfortable, homey even. Perhaps it was the smell of food. Or the fact Tommy really did have an electric fire on one wall in front of two large L-shape sofas that formed a broken U around a cow-skin rug.
She had been in celebrity homes, frequented more charlie parties in celebrity homes than she could count, such was the industry. But Tommy’s pad was impressive.
‘Ouch, fuck!’
She spun quickly from where she had been looking over a picture of Tommy on stage at the Super Bowl two years ago and saw Tommy wafting his burnt hand in the air.
‘You never did cook?’ she said, rushing over to him.
She took hold of his hand and saw a small red mark. ‘That’s fine you big baby, just run it under cold water for a minute.’
He did as she instructed and Andrea closed the cooker door.
‘No, I ordered in, the best,’ he said. ‘I was just stirring it. I thought you’d want a drink first?’
She found herself laughing, again. ‘Only you could burn yourself on takeout.’
‘It’s not just any takeout. That’s a biryani and a tikka masala from the best Indian restaurant in the city.’ He dried off his wound and handed her a crystal glass of liquor on ice from the marble top kitchen counter. ‘Macallan single malt,’ he said.
They carried their drinks as Tommy showed her around the impressive penthouse. She noted the super-king-size bed set with satin sheets in the master bedroom. The hot tub in the main bathroom. And the awards for platinum albums, million-copy sales, best rock artist, best single decorating the ‘office’.
Once the tour was done, Tommy poured them both a second drink and they came to sit on the sofas by the fire. ‘I had this installed today, after your comment,’ Tommy said, pulling his legs up onto the sofa so they were lazily spread in front of him as he reclined against the sofa cushions.
‘You’re lying,’ Andrea said, mirroring his pose after unbuckling and slipping off her heels. Boy, it was nice to take a load off. No work. No randy boss. Great music playing in the background – now Tracy Chapman’s ‘Give Me One Reason’.
Tommy smiled in response. ‘This track always makes me want to pick up the guitar.’
‘It makes me want to go sit in a bar on Beale Street and drink Tennessee bourbon.’
‘You get down there much these days?’
She shook her head. Her mother was buried in Nashville and she had spent her early years there when her mom still performed in the bars on Broadway, before her dad moved them back to his home town in New Jersey and set up Sanfia Records. At Sanfia she had ventured south fairly regularly for concerts, recordings and the CMAs. But in recent years, she’d had no reason to go.
‘And leave the office?’ she said. ‘How could I?’
He fell silent and she wondered if he was also remembering their backstage romp after he played at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time, back when the band’s sound was more country rock than mainstream.
‘So, tell me, Tommy Dawson, Rock God, notorious bad boy, are the new lyrics honest, are you really changing?’
‘Slowly, yes.’
At that moment, four paws came running from the hallway, not breaking stride as they leaped onto Tommy’s sofa and started furiously licking his face. Tommy laughed like a child, making Andrea laugh, too.
‘All right, boy. It’s good to see you, too, buddy.’
‘I take it he’s yours?’
Andrea wasn’t up on her dog breeds but she could admit Tommy’s four-legged friend was a good-looking hound. It was dark brown, with a shiny coat and white fur that looked like socks on its feet. It was chiselled and looked well-walked, the structure of its face almost good enough for Vogue.
Tommy set his drink on the floor and wrestled the mutt, taking hold of it and carrying it over to Andrea. She leaned back as it tried to lick her face. Tommy held the dog’s paw and offered it to Andrea who, after a pause for thought, took hold of it and shook it. ‘Hello, dog.’
‘This is Rocky.’
‘As in Balboa?’
‘As in rock star,’ Tommy said with a cheeky glint in his eye.
Andrea laughed again, something she hadn’t anticipated from their evening based on her recent mood. Tommy set Rocky the rock star down and sent him on a hunt for his food bowl.
‘Where did he appear from?’ Andrea asked, perplexed.
Tommy resumed his position on the sofa – reclined, drink in hand. ‘One of the guys next door will have walked him and brought him back.’
‘Right, the staff.’
Tommy smiled through her insolence. ‘I usually walk him myself but tonight we made an exception for you.’
‘I’m flattered,’ she said, in good humour. ‘So, I hate to ask this but I mean, was he, like, an accident?’
Tommy chuckled. ‘I got him about six months ago. Adopted, not self-made, though noted that you likened me to a hound.’
‘Or the mother.’
‘Ouch! No, he was recommended to me, or at least the idea of getting a pet was recommended to me, by my therapist.’
Andrea almost spat out her next mouthful of whisky. ‘Tommy Dawson has a therapist?’
‘Is it so strange?’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘Well…’ He scratched his head, as if pondering his next words. ‘I just couldn’t find myself, or remember who I really was, I guess. I’d been on the road for two years straight. I didn’t have any roots anywhere. I’d lost touch with most people I knew before…’ He gestured to the expansive space around them. ‘Before all of this. I was drinking too much. Not that I couldn’t stop, just that, it was the accepted protocol, you know? Drink before stage, during stage, after stage. Drink through the night, sleep through the day. Rinse and repeat.
‘I’d been having these… I don’t know… moments of uncertainty, I guess. Like, I wasn’t sure any more what was the point of it all.’
‘The music?’
‘Anything. I’d just lost any sense of perspective.’
‘So you decided to see someone?’
‘Not straight away. Around the same time, we found out that my old man had dementia.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear that, Tommy.’ She had met his dad once at a concert and thought he was a true gent.
‘Yeah, it pretty much sucks. He’s already in a care home. Too much for my sister and my mom and I’m never around much.’
‘Is that why you moved back to New York?’
‘I think so. Mostly. It’s easier to see him from here but I probably could have visited from anywhere. I think the combination of everything just took its toll. My writing started to change and it wasn’t a match for the band’s sound but it felt so right to me. Natural. Anyway, through it all, I decided I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t invested in me. It felt like no one would just talk to me on a level because they all wanted something from me. The band wanted the rock star and the carefree lyrics. My sister wanted help with Mom and Dad. The road team wanted me to stay on the road.’
‘I wish… I mean, I know we’re not that close any more but I hope you know you can talk to me. I used to like you keeping me in the studio until the early hours talking my right ear off.’ She smiled, which was reflected by Tommy.
‘I actually think having someone who didn’t know me at all and who really couldn’t give a fuck about my career was helpful. It definitely was. It made me realise that there’s more to life. I love music but the trimmings – the parties, the booze, even the women – they mean nothing. I don’t want to be lying on my death bed wondering why I went for one more lay or one more drink, and why I don’t have people I love around me.’
She processed what he said. It was right, of course, and made her think, what would her last thought be? Would it be that she wished she’d spent more time in the office or more time sleeping with married men? She didn’t want to get into those thoughts now. She brushed them aside and asked, brightly, ‘And the dog?’
Right on cue, the dog came back to them, wagging its tail at Andrea then jumping onto the sofa and curling up by her feet. Meh, he was kind of cute, even if she wasn’t an animal lover. If nothing else, her feet were warmer with him snuggled on top of them.
‘The idea is, he gives me responsibility, for myself. Now it’s strange being in this place without hearing his feet pitter-pattering on the floor. He makes me feel like I have a home. And when I’m travelling, he comes with me. I know he needs to be walked, fed, played with and so I have a reason to say no to another drink or another party.’
‘He’s like a guide dog for the drunk.’
Tommy laughed. ‘Hey now, I’m not a drunk. And, on that note, do you want another?’
She looked at her glass, surprised it was empty. ‘Sure, but I’m not ready to move now that my toes are warm.’
‘How about dinner on the sofa?’
No Hunter. No work. Laughing. Lounging on the sofa with Tommy’s dog on her feet. Oddly, she was in.
Tommy insisted she stay where she was whilst he brought another round of drinks and – sans more skin burns – laid out the Indian meal: poppadums, naan breads, dips, curries and all on a coffee table he manoeuvred to the rug in front of them.
‘Oh my God, this biryani is to die for,’ Andrea said, lost in a world of slow-cooked-lamb-bliss.
‘I told you, it’s the best Indian food in the city,’ Tommy said, not bothering to pause between bites.
They worked their way down seventy per cent of the meal before they called it quits and gave the dog the scraps he was allowed to eat.
They lay back on their sofas, groaning about their gluttony and consequent bloating, and bickering about which song they should listen to next.
Andrea couldn’t remember the last time she had spent a night like this. Fully relaxed, in company she truly enjoyed. It was a shame it would be six-to-twelve months – based on historic experience – before she saw Tommy again. She liked the new him, who was very much like the old him except a little more mature and worldly.
They were playing a game of one person naming an artist or band and the other choosing their best song. Currently, Bon Jovi’s ‘Bed of Roses’ was playing, which Andrea considered to be the band’s best track. Tommy wholly disagreed.
‘It’s hands down “Always”,’ he said.
‘No way. “Bed of Roses” is incredible. The melody, Jon’s voice. That build right before the chorus. Would you just listen to that, please?’
‘I’m listening, baby, and I’m saying you called it wrong.’
There was something about the way he called her ‘baby’ that made her think about Hunter for the first time in hours. In hindsight, she couldn’t stand the way he had called her ‘kiddo’ all the time, especially in a post-coital moment. What was that? Some kind of reference to her being his daughter’s friend? Some kind of power play?
The way Tommy called her ‘baby’ right then was nothing like the same. It was affectionate, familiar, not intended to be demeaning at all, despite the fact they were bickering.
‘Hey, you still here?’ Tommy asked.
She realised she had been lost in her own thoughts. ‘Sorry, yeah, I’m here. Ah, who next…? Chris Stapleton.’
‘That’s easy. “Millionaire”.’
‘I disagree. His best is “Broken Halo” but I’ll let you have it since I happen to have a soft spot for most Chris Stapleton music.’ She drained her drink as the song began to play into the apartment.
‘“Broken Halo”, huh? And I thought I had problems.’ He gave her a mocking look. ‘So, in the theme of being honest, are you going to tell me why you changed your mind to come here tonight?’
She pulled up her legs, needing the comfort of wrapping her arms around her knees in the absence of the dog on her feet. She shouldn’t say anything about Hunter. No one could find out. Wasn’t that the main reason she ended it? But if anyone would listen to her promiscuous indiscretions without judgement, it was the man sitting opposite her.
‘Honestly? Please don’t take this the wrong way because I’m having a nice time tonight.’
‘But?’
‘I got out of a relationship of sorts this week and I thought maybe spending time with someone else would take my mind off it.’
He seemed to nod as he looked at her, not giving much away. Had she offended him? From memory, Tommy didn’t offend easily.
‘I get that,’ he said, eventually. ‘I didn’t realise you were with anyone.’
She took a breath for courage. ‘That was sort of the point. No one could know.’
‘Ah. Got ya. Who ended it?’
‘Me.’
‘How long?’
‘Six months-ish.’
‘Messy?’
‘Very. Like, work-colleague-meets-father-of-a-friend-bad.’
He whistled. ‘That’s covering a lot of bases.’
‘Yup.’ She held up her empty glass. ‘My turn.’
She helped herself around his kitchen making them drinks as Tommy talked to her from the sofa. ‘Would I know him?’
‘Would it matter if you did?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘I’m just curious to know if the scowl Hunter gave me as I walked past him in your office today is anything to do with this.’
She froze, mid putting the top back on the bottle of Macallan. ‘Was it that obvious?’
‘He’s pissed. He’s missed out on a great woman.’
She scoffed. ‘Yeah, for his wife. I should never, ever have gone there. It just sort of happened.’
She handed Tommy a fresh drink and he patted the sofa next to him. She sat with her back pressed to his shoulder, their legs stretched along different sides of the L-shaped sofa.
‘Do you think I’m a terrible person?’
He pressed his cheek to her head and she made no move away. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had comforted her. Not that she deserved to be comforted, she knew.
‘I think you made a mistake,’ he said. ‘That isn’t an automatic pathway to Hell. God knows I’ve made plenty. We all do.’
‘Some are worse than others, Tommy.’
‘Yes.’ He draped his arm across her shoulder and she leaned deeper into him. ‘You’re no saint, Andi. You’re a human being. That means we fuck up, we recognise the errors of our ways, we make amends as best we can.’
‘That sounds like it came directly from your therapist.’
She felt his humour as his chest chugged against her. ‘Food, whisky and therapy. Baby, you can’t afford me tonight.’
She closed her eyes and hummed as Chris Stapleton’s ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ started to play.
She felt Tommy suck in a breath before he started to sing, ‘You’re as smooth as a Tennessee whiskey.’
Chris Stapleton and Tommy Dawson, she couldn’t have screwed up that badly because she had been allowed into Heaven. Stapleton’s words and Tommy’s voice traversed her veins just like the Macallan had been doing for hours.
‘Dance with me?’ he asked.
She shouldn’t. She had turned up at the new Tommy Dawson’s house. They had drunk liquor, too much liquor. Now, he was singing to her, and if they danced…
He stood and took her drink from her, setting both glasses down on the coffee table. Then he offered her his hand.
She looked up to him. An incredibly handsome man. ‘Will you keep singing if I do?’
One side of his lips curved up and she already knew how they would end the night before she slipped her hand into his and before he pulled her in close to him. Before he wrapped his arms around her and sang, as she laid her head against his chest.
She nudged into his neck, smelling his musk that was all man. When she pressed her lips to his skin, he lifted his head. As he sang, she kissed his throat, his jaw.
He swayed them in time to the music. ‘You should know, if I kiss you, tonight is only ending one way.’
She looked into his eyes and let him know she heard his intentions. She wanted him, too.
He pressed his mouth to hers and stretched his fingers into her hair. He parted her lips and she tasted the way he wore his whisky.
He swayed them again, singing to her as her hands roamed his back, his chest, beneath his T-shirt. She slid the fabric up, kissing his skin as she went. He raised his arms and took the T-shirt over his head, kissing her as soon as it was off, pressing his warm torso against her. God, she wanted to feel his skin on hers.
He took off her blouse and expertly released her bra. When her naked breasts pressed against him, she moaned, the touch teasing her already hard nipples.
She felt his pleasure coursing through her own alcohol-rich blood. This felt like more of a sin than anything she had done with Hunter. It was the ultimate guilty pleasure and she couldn’t get enough.
Her times with Tommy had always been good but this was… different. Slower, deeper, a smooth ride to heaven.
Afterwards, Tommy collapsed against her chest until their breathing calmed. ‘Stay?’
She nodded in response, knowing he couldn’t hear her answer but that he somehow knew it was yes.
Sometime later, they took the bottle of Macallan to the satin sheets of his bedroom and made love again, and again.
She had fallen into a sated sleep and woken under the weight of Tommy’s arm, with a head that felt like it was made of concrete and a throat so dry it felt like someone had taken a razor blade to it.
What had she been thinking? Nothing beyond needing to be taken out of her head, out of her thoughts of Hunter, for one night. Tommy had been a gentleman last night but the saying went ‘a leopard can’t change its spots’, didn’t it?
Tommy had been the perfect hook-up. Now, what she needed was a cab, an aspirin and a long black coffee.
She slipped out of his bed and found her clothes in the lounge. She hushed the dog with a finger across her lips as she tiptoed past it, carrying her shoes. Unhooking her coat, she snuck out of the door and back out of Tommy’s life. This time, it would be for good. He had talked about change, well, it was about time she made some changes too. No more promiscuous Andi. No more sex until she meant it. No more of the stuff that had her head in turmoil. Just no more.
At least not until she got her shit together.