Aloha says, “Aw, Laila. I could be wrong. After the night of the hot tub, was there any indication Savage was feeling ‘something’ he didn’t want to feel toward you? Think back.”
Images flood me. Savage’s arm slung over that groupie’s shoulders. A booze bottle dangling in his free hand. The woman’s obvious excitement that Savage had deigned to choose her. I hear her voice saying, “Let me at that famous body!” And every molecule in my body recoils and shudders at the memory. “No,” I reply, my spirit heavy. “On the contrary, the only indication was that Savage felt the same thing men always feel for me: nothing but lust.” I take a deep breath to regulate the pang of embarrassment twisting my core. How on earth did I hear “Hate Sex High” and turn it into a confessional about Savage catching feelings for me, when the truth is so damned obvious?
Aloha juts her lower lip in sympathy. “Aw, honey. Who cares what I think? I wasn’t there, and you were. Trust your gut.”
“I do. And my gut is telling me you’re right. It’s telling me I heard what I wanted to hear in the song, not what was actually there.”
Sighing, Aloha gets up from her chair and hugs me. “Oh, sweet Laila. You and your horrible taste in men.” She kisses my hair. “Why can’t you ever fall for guys who aren’t players and heartbreakers, girlie?”
I nuzzle into Aloha’s dark hair and exhale. “It’s my fatal flaw. I see a guy with multiple red flags sticking out of his hair and ears and asshole, and I run towards him, at full speed, rather than away.”
Aloha chuckles, while I groan in misery.
“I don’t even like Savage, as a person,” I say softly. “He’s an arrogant jerk. It’s like he’s cast a spell on me. Like I’m a drug addict and he’s my drug. I know he’s bad for me, but I can’t stop wanting him.”
Aloha pulls back from our embrace to level me with her green eyes. “Do you really want him—or do you want him to want you?”
“I want him to want me!” I shout, without hesitation. “Why doesn’t he want me, Aloha?”
Aloha chuckles. “Well, it seems pretty clear, from what I heard coming out of Savage’s room last night, you both want each other—physically, anyway.” She smooths my hair, presses a kiss to my forehead, and resumes her chair. “Buckle up, Buttercup. It sounds like the next three months are going to be a wild ride for you. You’re going to be living and working with Savage, and probably having amazing sex with him every night, too, if those sounds I heard last night were any indication. So, do yourself a favor and make sure you’re not projecting feelings onto him that might not be there. Or else, the next three months could really mess with your heart.”
I sigh. “Don’t worry. I’ve got my head on straight now. Savage has no idea Malik was nothing to me. I made him think I was with Malik for weeks after I’d already kicked him to the curb in New York. Obviously, it drove Savage crazy to think there was one woman on planet earth who was resistant to his charms. That’s what the song is about.”
The makeup artist sticks her head inside the door. “Ready for me?”
Aloha raises her eyebrows, asking me if I’m good.
“Yeah, come in,” I reply, flashing a wistful smile at Aloha. “We’re done here.”
“I’m always here for you,” Aloha says softly.
“Thank you. I’m good. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll hide out here for a bit. I promised Kendrick I’d listen to the whole album, and I don’t want to go out there and bump into You Know Who while I’m doing that.”
“Stay as long as you like—provided you let me know if there’s another song about you.”
“God help me,” I mutter, before leaning back and shoving my earbuds in again. But, thankfully, as I listen to the rest of the album, I don’t hear another song that contains my name buried in the mix or a single lyric that feels even remotely like it was inspired by me.
Two
Savage
As I exit Reed’s guest house following my conversation with Laila about “Hate Sex High,” the makeup artist I’d asked to step outside on my way in is standing outside the door, looking stressed. Clearly, the poor woman has a tight schedule before the press conference and the last thing she needed was some asshole rock star showing up and asking her to step outside.
“Sorry about that,” I mutter. “You can go back in now.”
“No worries. Have a good one.”
“You, too.”
As the woman heads inside to return to Laila, I begin traipsing up the pathway toward Reed’s gigantic main house, physically shaking with adrenaline. I think I persuaded Laila, pretty convincingly, not to put too much stock in my lyrics. In fact, by the time I left the guest house, I think I had Laila pretty well convinced “Hate Sex High” is mostly fiction, other than the obvious references in the verses. Obviously, there’s no getting around the fact that Laila was the one who chased a hate sex high with me, all the way to three orgasms. But, thankfully, I think I persuaded Laila not to freak out about the chorus—specifically, the one lyric I didn’t want her to hear the most.
If I’d had the balls to tell Laila the truth about that particular lyric a moment ago, the one in which I confessed I was feeling something I didn’t want to feel for her, I would have had to tell her I was flat-out obsessed with her by the time I stumbled upon her in that hot tub. I would have had to tell her I became even more obsessed with her after finding out sex with her was hotter than my hottest fantasy. I would have had to tell her my obsession with her morphed into downright madness, once she’d started ignoring me and all my texts, in city after city, beginning in Las Vegas. And that my madness only amplified when she started showing up everywhere with motherfucking Charlie the Fitness Trainer, looking like she’d just finished sucking his dick. But I couldn’t tell Laila any of that. Not yet, anyway. Not now.
After rounding a corner, I come upon Kendrick, sitting in the same spot on Reed’s patio where I left him earlier, his MacBook open and his headphones on.
When my best friend sees me approaching, he rips off his headphones. “Well?”
I come to a stop in front of Kendrick and exhale. “When I walked in, Laila was in the middle of listening to ‘Hate Sex High’—a fact I knew, instantly, because of the look on her face.” I mimic Laila’s expression, making the same sort of look people make during a jump-scare in a horror movie.
Kendrick grimaces. “What’d she say about the song?”
I take a chair and tell Kendrick the whole story, in great detail, concluding with, “Thankfully, by the time I left, I think I had her pretty well convinced the song is just, you know, inspired by her, but with lots of artistic license taken, especially in relation to the chorus. The part that matters the most.”
Kendrick sighs. “Well, it’s a relief you were able to talk to her right away, so the situation didn’t spiral out of control on you.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, simply because, the minute Kendrick says the word relief, I realize that’s not the predominant emotion I’m feeling. That, in fact, I’m feeling mostly disappointment that Laila believed my bullshit about the song not being completely true. Did I secretly hope Laila would see right through my lies and force me to come clean and confess everything to her? No. That’s a ludicrous thought, especially since I don’t even know what “coming clean” and “confessing everything” would mean in this situation. What do I honestly feel for Laila? I know Laila blasted her way into my sexual fantasies when I saw her music video during the international leg of our tour, and that she cast one hell of a spell on me when I laid eyes on her at Reed’s party. But like Kendrick’s said to me in the past, I think it’s highly possible I’ve only wanted what I can’t have. Is Laila nothing but a sex kitten fantasy for me, and the real Laila, if I got to know her, wouldn’t interest me at all? Honestly, I don’t know. And until I do, I’m sticking to my story that “Hate Sex High” is only based on the truth.