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“Nice!” he practically yells, stepping closer to me, but keeps his eyes on the front of the building. “I wasn’t sure my tipoff was going to pan out.”
“Tipoff?”
He nods enthusiastically. “I hit up this small blogger I know. Told him you’d be at Rich Records today to hopefully get you some good exposure.”
My face drops. Looking at the security guard, I notice he seems as shocked as I feel.
I jab a finger into Bret’s chest. “You tipped off the paparazzi? Bret, what is wrong with you?”
“What?” he asks, and he’s genuinely confused. “Babe, the media exposure will get people talking. You want a buzz to be built around this, and you want it started early. Who knows, when you release this album, it might—”
“Bret!” I shout, stamping my foot. “I can’t believe you! You know this isn’t something I’m doing for a release. What is wrong with you?” He still looks confused. “You know what? Forget it.” I wave him off. “Come on, Lily.”
I hurry past him when he grabs my wrist, turning me around. “Jade, are you seriously mad at me? I thought I was helping.”
“Helping?” I shout at him. “Bret, you did this for yourself. You knew—you knew—I wanted this thing to be private. You were at the meeting when I—”
“Babe, I was only—”
“No! Don’t babe me! Just leave me alone.” Turning back around, I catch sight of the security guard, watching the entire drama play out before him. Guilt pours through me. He has a small, silver name tag. “Shawn?” He nods nervously. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t … I’m just sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It’s all good. You’re all set up in your studio.”
“Thank you.”
“Babe? Jade!” Bret yells again, but I wave him off with my back to him.
“Just leave, Bret!”
He doesn’t call back, and I release a deep sigh, trying to get to the studio as fast as possible. Getting into the studio, I sit in front of the mixing board, hanging my head back over the chair. Another long breath seeps out of me. Pulling a chair closer, Lily takes a seat next to me and reaches over, holding my arm.
“You okay?”
I shake my head and stare at the small lights lining the ceiling of the room. “Why? Why, Lily, why? He does things like that all the time, and I just forgive him. He knew I wanted to keep this as low profile as I could! And now who knows how long those freaks with the cameras will be hounding the building.”
“You know he’s always looking for a break for his band.”
“I know that, but I’m doing what I can to help with that. For crying out loud, I took this entire gig of recording here for him. He’s getting a potential record deal out of it because Richards thinks he’ll be able to sleaze his way into my life and sign me. He won’t, but I figured as long as he thinks he can, I can help Bret out. But then he goes and pulls things like this. Sometimes …”
The words trail off, and I shake my head. I’ve never let the words slip out, but I’ve thought them on more than one occasion. Sometimes I wonder if this relationship is worth the trouble.
Bret has this cute, sexy thing to him. He’s always dressed the part of a rock star with skinny jeans that are ripped, a snuggly fit shirt, at least four necklaces wrapped around his neck, and different-sized leather bracelets around his wrists. His pitch-back hair is usually either combed down in front of his face, a style his entire band has adopted, or wildly out of control—not in a way that he doesn’t pay attention to it, but in a way that he styles it specifically so he looks crazy. I’ve known him only a little longer than we’ve gone out, which is almost a year, and for all of that time, he’s wanted nothing more than for his band to make it.
“Okay, okay,” Lily speaks up, slapping my shoulder. “Enough about all that. We’re here to record some music, right?”
Eyeing her carefully, I nod.
“So let’s do it, girl!”
