Until I reach room 1015.
Korey snatches the door back as if he has been waiting near it since our call. His face softens as he pulls me in.
“Damn. Are you OK?”
He yokes me into a hug. Not just any hug, the type of hug that feels like metal and magnets slamming together, desperate for each other.
“What are you doing in Jersey?” It’s the only thing I can think to ask.
“You’re in shock,” he says, leading me to the sofa. “Come. Sit. Drink this.”
He eases a glass of clear liquid into my hand that doesn’t smell a thing like water. I don’t resist, even though I know I shouldn’t be drinking. But there are lots of things I shouldn’t be doing right now.
I take a sip, then another.
“Thanks,” I mumble, glancing around.
His suite is massive. A giant, plush cream living room with a balcony facing the New York skyline across the Hudson River.
Korey is dressed in heather-gray sweats and a white T-shirt. Casual and comfortable, yet somehow sexy. Yes, that’s the word I want to use. Feels funny to even think it.
“What happened?”
I tell him about Creighton, my hands shaking, reliving the moment, an out-of-body experience. Korey listens, pensive but calm. Calmer than Daddy would’ve been if I told him some boy pushed up on me. But I guess that’s the difference—Korey doesn’t treat me like a kid. He treats me . . . regular, I guess.
“It’s aight. You’re safe now,” he says, rubbing my shoulder. “Boys be like that, you know? Be mad thirsty to get some buns.”
“You . . . you think he wanted to . . .”
“Oh, no doubt! That’s all them little knuckleheads be thinking about. They never take the time to get to know you. To ask how your day was. To talk about your favorite Disney movie.” He chuckles. “Can’t believe you be hating on Pocahontas like that.”
I let out a laugh, my chest feeling lighter.
“And I didn’t lead him on or nothing, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Sometimes . . . that’s what people think. That a girl wanted it.”
Korey shakes his head. “That ain’t your style, Bright Eyes. Trust me, one day you’ll realize it ain’t you and it got everything to do with the other person.”
I try to relax with that fact, thumbing the edges of my glass.
“Besides, don’t see what dudes get out of drugging and forcing themselves on chicks. I like my ladies awake and enjoying themselves. I don’t know—maybe I’m different.”
I hold my breath. “Or just a good person.”
He blinks at me then shakes the ice around in his glass.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
We sit there, drinking each other in, his hand resting on my knee. When did that get there? Chimes burst out of the Bluetooth speaker beside me, the start of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack’s “The Closer I Get to You.”
“Mmm,” I say. “I love this song!”
“Oh, word? What you know about this?”
He reaches over me to turn up the volume and I sneak a sniff of his neck. Don’t know if it’s cologne or just his natural scent, but the butterflies in my stomach go bananas.
He leans back and starts singing along.
“The closer I get to you
The more you make me see”
The alcohol’s making me brave. Bold. I clear my throat and join him.
“Over and over again
I tried to tell myself that we
Could never be more than friends . . .”
Korey’s eyes sparkle as he lets out a laugh. “Damn, so you really are into the classics. Your parents put you on?”
My phone buzzes. A text message from Shea.
Where are you?
I don’t want to lie to her, but I don’t want her looking for me either.
With Creighton.
“Hey, why you all in your phone?” Korey snarls, seeming almost annoyed. “Only person you need to talk to right now is right here.”
Quickly, I put the phone away.
“S-sorry. I’m sorry,” I babble. “Um . . . so my granny used to take care of me and the Littles. She used to play all this music from back in the day, then make me perform it. Had to hit all them notes just like Whitney. I guess you can say she was my first teacher. My only teacher.”
He smiles. “My grandma used to play her records like that. Helped her get through the day. That and Father God.”
We keep singing. I hit a note and Korey whistles.
“Damn, girl, them pipes of yours! Yo, we gotta get you in the studio for real for real.”
“You think . . . I mean, studio time, that’s a lot of money.”
“Prff! Man, not when you own it.”
Chapter 18
Lesson Plan
Don’t know how he convinced Mom of the idea, but the next Saturday, I’m in Korey Fields’s penthouse music studio on the Upper West Side.
“And we’re well secured,” Korey says to Mom during our tour of the facility. “Cameras around the perimeter, and my assistant Jessica works the front desk.”
Korey offered to give me free private singing lessons. An offer impossible to turn down, but my parents insisted upon being within the vicinity.
“I know he’s a superstar, but he’s still a stranger,” Daddy said. I brought up all the swim meets I’d gone to solo and the countless hours I’ve watched the Littles by myself, but there was no convincing them I could go alone.
“Be respectful,” Mom warns before taking the elevator back down to the car. “Act like a lady, like you got some home training. Listen to everything he tells you.”
Mom goes to wait in the car. An invisible hourglass flips.
We have three hours. Just us two.
I’ve dreamed of the day I’d enter a real studio. The day I’d be able to touch the soundboards, the mics, rub my fingers along the booth foam. But I never ever thought it would be with Korey Fields. I take a quiet moment to relish it all, like a delicious piece of cake you want to savor with every last bite. My songbook sits heavy in my bag, itching to be released.
Korey leans against the wall by the various instruments—guitars, congas, drum set—face glowing, eyes following my every step. Not watching me like a kid about to break something, but more cherishing the moment as well.
“I built this after my third album went triple platinum,” Korey says, hinting at the plaques on the wall. “I wanted a place where I could create and not be on anyone’s time. A place to just . . . be myself.”
There’s a sadness in his eyes, something left unsaid between his words.
“Must be nice, so much room to . . . breathe.”
He nods then tickles his keyboard, the notes ringing out of the overhead speakers.
“You know how to play?”
“Not enough to say I really can,” I laugh. “I’ve always wanted to play that duet that everybody does. You know that ‘Dun dun DUN DUN dun dun . . .’”
He laughs. “‘Heart and Soul’? Come here. I’ll teach you. It ain’t as complicated as it looks.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re the musical genius.”