Page 57 of The Sounds of Her
“Oh for God’s sake.”
She walks into the bedroom and stares at the bed again. From where I’m sitting I can see her as she steps back tugging the tie out of her hair, which falls out around her shoulders. She isn’t trying to be sexy. She’s making herself comfortable, but I kinda wish my fingers were running through those silken strands.
That in itself means one of us should take the couch. Fuck, I’m gonna have to be the gentleman.
“Fine, I’ll take the couch tonight.”
“Tonight?” she peers through the door at me.
“Well, seems only fair we take turns, right?”
She can’t argue with that and knows it. I flick on the TV while she moves her things around in the bedroom, going in and out of the bathroom. There is no point unpacking. We’ll be here tonight and tomorrow after the show, then we’re moving on.
“Do you always stay in places like this? You all get your own suites?” Brooke comes out of the bathroom wearing beige linen shorts with a tie at the waist and a t-shirt that hangs off one shoulder. I eye her legs as she moves around the couch to sit in the chair opposite me.
“I go where they tell me to go.”
She’s quiet for a bit while I watch an episode of Modern Family.
“Back at the airport, that was a controlled situation with barriers and security. How do you manage day to day?”
“With our security,” I lower the volume on the TV. “If we all go out somewhere together, especially. We get away with going out in New York because there are thousands of people who don’t give a shit about celebrities, but we try not to.”
“What if you need to go to the store?”
“We have people who do that for us. Or have things delivered. We’re normal people but we’ve adapted to an unnormal way of living.”
“I’m not sure how you do it. Jenna doesn’t seem phased by any of it.”
“She was at first,” I remind her. “Don’t worry about it. You only need to put up with it for seven days and most of that is going from the venue back to the hotel, or to the after party. There is one after the show tomorrow, a club somewhere. Dale will have the info. I guess that will be when we introduce our relationship to the world.”
“There is no show tonight?”
“Nope, the first one is tomorrow here in Sydney, then we’re going to Canberra and Melbourne over the next five days. We fly to New Zealand after that.” I pull up the email itinerary on my phone which our assistant sent us yesterday. “Australia is huge, so while we’re on the east coast, we’ll hop over to New Zealand, then we’ll go to western Australia on the way back.”
“Sounds tiring.”
“We’re used to it. Between the shows we have some press to do. There is a boat tour of the harbour tomorrow with some drink company, so we’ll do an interview and pictures.”
“I’m exhausted thinking about it.”
“We’re on the home stretch after the last show in Perth. Then it’s time to go home.” I sigh. It isn’t until I’ve reeled all the dates off it hits me, we are almost done.
An alert pops up on my phone and I click out of the itinerary. A grin spreads across my face. They never let me down. There is an article about who my new woman is already.
I skim it, noting they have nothing concrete, except I walked through the airport with a woman. The picture is fucking perfect. I don’t remember leaning in to her the way they’ve caught me in the shot. It looks as if I’m brushing her hair back and kissing her temple.
“Check this out.” I hand her my phone.
“Jesus, they don’t waste any time.”
“Nope. It’s what we want, right? Anything from your parents?”
“I haven’t turned my phone back on yet. I should reply. It’s been a week, and I haven’t spoken to them. Everything I know has come from Roman. I feel like I’m running away and that’s not who I am. I should deal with it instead of hiding and avoiding calls.”
“Do they deserve that from you?”
Her sigh is heavy. “I won’t like what they have to say, but I should hear them out. Maybe she’s changed her mind, and we don’t need to go through with all of this.”