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“She might as well be.” Alyssa laughs again. “She’s my best friend from back home. She joined me when I first came to L.A. to sign with the label. And when I realized that I was going to be staying for a while, she decided that she was going to stay with me, too.”
“I suppose that’s nice of her,” I reply.
“Oh, it’s not about being nice.” Alyssa grins. “Marina has plans of her own, trust me. With the way she’s been hitting the town for work, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s up for an Oscar by next year. Seriously, I invited her out tonight and she told me she was too busy working on a self-tape for some new sitcom.”
“What a shame,” I lie, perfectly pleased that no boyfriend has been referred to as of yet, and the aforementioned friend now has a female name.
Alyssa then pauses for a moment as she scans the bar. When she’s finished, she looks back over at me, a disappointment written all over her face. “…The rest of the band aren’t coming, are they?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Come on, don’t you think it’s pretty obvious at this point?” Her little nose scrunches but I can see the pain in her amber eyes. “Because Van wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near me,” she answers slowly, like she’s explaining to a kid. “And Cameron…I mean, I don’t think he hates me, but I don’t think he likes me, either.”
“Cameron’s a nice guy, he’s just a little too… cautious,” I explain. “As for Van…well, truthfully, Van’s always been kind of an asshole. Don’t take it personally.”
Alyssa chuckles at my response. My heart leaps a little to see the pain has dissipated from those beautiful eyes. “Okay. I can see that.”
She moves a little closer to me before she goes on, her sweet perfume wrapping me in a warm feeling that quickly moves straight to my crotch. “If I’m honest, I don’t know how you guys got together in the first place.”
I pull back. These are my best mates, after all. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t mean anything bad by it.” She shrugs. “It’s just that you all seem so…different, it’s hard to see how you mesh. I know everyone has their own personality, I’m just not sure how it all fits together.” Alyssa’s eyes are downcast, her words coming out as a whisper. “Hell, maybe I’m really just thinking about how I fit in with you all. Which is to say maybe I don’t. The more we try it, the less sense it seems to make.”
“You fit, Alyssa.”
“How so?” She shoots me a questioning look.
“Because if you didn’t, you never would’ve lasted five seconds around Van,” I answer. “And Cameron would’ve been campaigning a lot harder to replace you if he really thought you weren’t going to be a long-term solution.”
“Hang on a second. Is Cameron campaigning to replace me?”
“Not yet, and that’s an awfully good sign.” I grin over at her. “So I wouldn’t worry about it so much, if I were you.”
“You’re the only one who’s nice to me, you know,” she replies with a small smile. “Even though I’m pretty sure it’s just because you want to sleep with me.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m shocked!” I playfully clutch my hands to my heart, face aghast. “Who said anything about sleeping together?”
“You, pretty much all the time.” She runs a hand through her hair as she laughs. “It’s pretty much all you talk about, Rhys.”
“You don’t think my conversation is sparkling?” I grin, and her eyes twinkle for a second before she shuts down again.
“I just wonder about it, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean, Rhys,” she says. “You are absolutely gorgeous. Clearly, you can have any girl in the world. Literally. Any girl in the whole world. I just don’t get why you spend so much energy trying to flirt with me during our studio sessions.”
I regard her for a moment, her face both innocent and sexy, slight dimples in her cheeks, her hair tumbling over her shoulders… She’s gorgeous. But it’s not just that. Why do I like her so much? It’s the way she holds her pad where she writes her lyrics, end of her pen tracing her lower lip as she concentrates. Cool, and yet so honest and authentic. Those other girls might be as good-looking—hell, some of them are the best-looking women in the world—but Alyssa is miles ahead of them because of what’s behind those amber eyes. A genuine person whose heart is on her sleeve. But obviously I can’t say all of that.
“…Because you’re different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Different.” I smirk, and weakly I go for a joke, just to avoid the topic. “Unimpressed with me?”
“Are you saying you only like it when girls are unimpressed with you?” she counters. “That seems like something you might want to unpack with a therapist. I could do it, but you’d owe me $125 an hour.”
“Ouch.” I let out a mock-pained chuckle. “Way to hit below the belt.”
