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I narrowed my eyes. “People like me?”
“People who don’t have years of hard graft under their belt. People who didn’t spend years doing gigs in shitty bars. People who haven’t experienced the highs and lows that come with the journey to success. You got where you are by winning a TV talent contest.”
“So, what, you see that as cheating or something?”
“What I’m saying is that you didn’t pay your dues, and so you’ll struggle to get a real foothold in this industry. It’s a harsh place. It will chew you up and spit you out. That’s if you don’t wane in popularity once the next contest winner releases a single. That’s usually how it goes. So enjoy this while it lasts. Which will be a year, at most. Then you’ll fade into obscurity like so many winners and find yourself back where you came from.”
Ouch.It was tempting to rip him a new one. And I would have done it if I’d thought that he meant to be cruel just because. But I could sense that he wasn’t aiming to cut me. No, he was—in his rude, tactless way—calling the situation exactly how he saw it. In his genuine opinion, I’d set myself up for failure, and he figured that I was better off knowing it.
To be fair, things often did end that way for talent contest winners. He wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know. Still, his words hurt. His complete lack of faith in my ability to be successful in the long-term hurt. How could it not, given that he’d been my idol for so long?
It was said that it wasn’t good to meet your hero. There was something to that. Because in just one short conversation, he’d upturned my world.
My inner pre-teen’s silly but harmless romantic fantasies instantly shriveled, as did my dumb hopes of one day collaborating with him on a song. Maybe he meant wellin hisway, but he hadn’t needed to be so harsh. Kaiser Wolfe would always be someone I admired and respected as an artist, but that was as far as it would go.
Refusing to let him see just how deeply his words had sliced me, I gave him a bright smile. “Right. Well it’s beendelightfulmeeting you. A true honor. But there’s a few other people I want to say a quick hello to, so I’m gonna head off.”
His brow pinched slightly, suspicion flickering in his eyes. He clearly wasn’t buying that I was unaffected by what could be loosely called advice.
Holding my head up high, I walked past him. After taking a few steps, I stopped and looked over my shoulder, finding him still watching me. “There’ll come a time when you realize that you were wrong about me. Maybe it’ll be in a few years. Maybe it’ll be in a few decades. Because Iwillstill be around then, and Iwillhave carved a true place for myself in the rock music business. And you’ll always remember how you idiotically told me that I’d crash and burn and fade into nothing. Won’t that be fun for you?”
Chapter Two
Present day
Ilifted my glass. “Now let’s make a toast.”
“To what?” asked Cat.
I hesitated as nothing came to mind. I shrugged at the beautiful, leggy blonde. “I don’t know. You think of something.”
“We could toast that we’re the most awesome group of friends in the history of ever.”
Sitting opposite me at the table, Izzy raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
“Me, too,” said Briar beside me, absently flicking aside her sleek, champagne-pink bangs.
We all gently clinked glasses and sipped our drinks.
I pursed my lips. “And maybe we could also toast that our girl Briar has been lucky enough to experience taking a cock up both holes at the same time.”
Cat sighed at me, but her stunning green eyes glimmered with a reluctant amusement. “We were having a moment. You ruined it.”
I glanced at each face. “So no one else is thinking that such luck deserves a toast?” I highly doubted it.
After a moment, Izzy shrugged one shoulder. “All right, we can toast to that as well.”
So we did.
Beneath the table, I adjusted the hem of my ruched turquoise dress that crisscrossed around my stomach and then smiled at Briar. “Now be a dear and tell us which of your boys has the longest—”
“Inaya,” hissed Cat.
I widened my eyes. “What? I was going to say ‘recovery time.’ Really, Cat, your mind is always in the gutter.”
Briar huffed, her slanted blue-green eyes twinkling. “Now you’re just deflecting.”
“I’d rather be dancing.” I knocked back the last of my drink. “We gonna hit the dome or what?” A cross between a bar, a club, and a ballroom, the dome was the heart of the basement—a floor beneath the Vault, a twenty-four/hour exclusive nightclub that attracted the rich and famous.
