Page 62 of Beautiful Noise
“How is that a good thing?”
“You’re trying to decide what’s next.”
“I’m not understanding.”
I placed my guitar on the floor next to her, leaned it against the sofa, and stood between her legs. “Poetry is what you love and poetry can pay the bills. Both are important, right?”
When she didn’t respond right away, I reached for her hands, yanked Kori from the sofa, and lifted her around my waist, walking to the bedroom where she ended up on her back with me between her thighs, chin resting on her stomach. “Right?”
“Fifty dollars a night to perform at local cafés isn’t exactly paying the bills.”
“But five grand a couple nights a week is roughly seven hundred grand a year. With a sixty percent operating cost, you’ll clear around two eighty. That’s definitely adequate bill money, Ri.”
“That was very random.”
“For you possibly, but the minute I noticed how everything about you changed while we were at SipLicity tonight, I started running numbers. It’s not unreasonable for you to have a place just like that in Atlanta. Poetry slams are big business. The idea is not unreasonable.”
“It’s very unreasonable. While you were running numbers, did you happen to do the math on what the startup for a place like SipLicity would cost? Building, furnishing the building, and hiring staff. There’s also supplies, marketing, and most importantly, a product to market. In case you’ve forgotten how we met, I’m homeless with zero funds in my bank account and…”
“A boyfriend with endless funds who is more than willing to be your silent partner.”
“No.” She shook her head, dismissing the idea.
“No, that’s it. No consideration at all.”
“Yes, that’s it. No consideration. I’m not…”
“Asking. I’m offering and it’s just a suggestion. Whatever you want to do is a possibility and very reasonable, Ri.” I lifted and moved up until my body was completely aligned with hers. “Let me help and not because you need a handout, simply because you’re someone I care about and it’s what I fucking want to do.”
She rolled her eyes, smiled, and lifted her head, gripping the back of my neck at the same time. “I don’t need you to fix my life, Ezren. Just be in it. That’s enough.” I was seconds away from objecting but she kissed the thought right out of my mouth and mind. I’d leave it alone for the moment, but we’d revisit the topic soon enough. For now, I was going to enjoy her efforts to distract me because Ri as a distraction was an experience I would never deny.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kori.
Ezren in his studio was intoxicating. Ezren on stage, in his element, lost to the music and driven by the crowd, was the ultimate high. This man was something beautiful.
Even the performances with Leijah were perfection.
Watching him bordered on erotic. The way he caressed the mic, holding it intimately between his large hands, hands I was very well acquainted with, had me squeezing my thighs together. The slow confident way he moved across the stage with a guitar strapped to his shoulder, occasionally posing like a king addressing his subjects, was incredibly sexy.
He was in rare form, which was sensual, sexy, and addictive. I completely understood how women bypassed paying rent, car notes, and credit card debt to be front row at one of his performances. Every second spent enjoying the beauty and talent this man possessed was worth every penny.
For the first half of his performance, I was jealous of those women in the front row. They had the better view, and while I was closer, standing a few hundred feet away to the left of the stage, they had all his attention. He performed for them, sang to them, and I wanted to murder each and every one. How wouldI survive a life sharing this man with the rest of the world? In no way would he ever be exclusively mine. The world craved and revered him as much as I did.
How did I end up here? Jealous of women who didn’t know or care about my existence. This was an experience for them. A fantasy.
But very real to me.
Still. Hearing his melodic, baritone croon lyrics of lust and sexual gratification had my body ablaze. I was drunk off the potency of him. His movements were calculated and he played off the words, engaging the women hanging on every syllable that eased effortlessly past those beautifully talented lips.
The entire time Ezren performed, my heart was pounding, waves of energy pulsed down my spine, and a stampede of bulls moved around my stomach. The man’s presence was so enormous, all consuming and simply everything. When he sang the lyrics to “Passion” one specific set of lines—she’ll never know anyone but me, because I’ve marked her with my soul, ruined her completely, but it doesn’t really matter because she’s mine for eternity—I wanted to be just like those women standing below him who had confidently bought into the fantasy ofEccentric.
“Relax, you get to go home with him, they don’t.”
I swung my head to the right and found Leijah at my side, grinning amusedly before she pointed to Ezren. “You look like you want to run out there and snatch him off stage.”
I presented my best effort not to smile and agree but she was right. I considered the thought a few times but realized it would go terribly wrong. “I thought I was doing a much better job of playing it cool.”