Grumpalicious by Mia Faye
Chapter 20
CAYDEN
I wasn’t sure how Genni was doing. She seemed a little distant waking up, but I knew it was just her nerves and perhaps worry that last night hadn’t meant as much to me as it might have meant to her. I wasn’t going to let her get too deep into her thoughts because the night had been amazing. She was amazing, so responsive, so beautiful. I cared more than I thought I would for her, and I wanted her to know that nothing had really changed between us. We were still on our six-month trial, still venturing into the unknown and she was, whether she wanted to be or not, a way for me to clean up my reputation.
“So,” I walked into the living area completely naked, knowing how odd it might be for me to be so comfortable with her, but if we were going to do this, she had to get used to me. “Ready for a shower?” I asked, keeping things light.
She looked at me and laughed, that was a good sign, right? She was wearing a sheet from the bed and looked a little lost in the voluminous space.
“Sure.” She stood up and situated the sheet more tightly around her and walked toward me.
I made sure to slap her sheet-clad ass as she walked by. “You were such a trouper last night, Genni. I loved every minute.”
She looked back at me and smiled. “Good.”
Hmmm, that's all I was going to get, I guess. I came up behind her and gently removed her hands from the sheet she was clutching to her breast.
“You can’t wear this in the shower,” I teased, and she laughed nervously. “Should we address the elephant that just came in with us? Or do you want to wait till after we shower?” I hoped she knew what I meant.
She suddenly seemed distant, which happened often when virgins were no longer that, though I’d hardly call Genni a virgin exactly, but she made a deeper commitment to me than she had anyone else, and in truth, I was just doing my thing. I hadn’t given her any more of myself than I would any woman I slept with, but with her, knowing how much was at stake, it was different, and I wanted her to know that.
“Sure.”
“Okay, so you gave up the big V last night. Are you having any regrets?” I just dove right in.
“Are you?” She turned back to me and looked a little lost.
My fiery diva was just a little smoky that morning. “Why would I?” I gave her a warm kiss on her cheek. “It was beautiful, everything about you is beautiful; even the way you make love.”
This seemed to soften her up. “But I didn’t really do anything for you,” she said quietly.
“Other than give me something you held very dear. I didn’t need anything more than that. And if you want my advice, let’s not make too much more of this. Let’s just let it all be as it is. We’ll take a shower, have breakfast, and check in with Taylor’s people about your duet because we don’t want that opportunity to pass. Okay?”
“Okay.” She relaxed a little and we got into the shower, the only trouble was as soon as we were in the shower I wanted to fuck her again.
“So how are you feeling?” I asked as I placed a finger delicately on her newly opened sex.
“A little sore.”
“A screaming orgasm can help with that.” I started to swirl my fingers around her and played a little then kissed her neck as water cascaded over us.
“Oh, you think so?” There she was…
She giggled and laughed as I finger fucked her into a nice little orgasm. She returned the favor with a hand job that had me spouting off pretty quickly.
I loved being with her. She was fun and didn’t take herself too seriously. I realized that I’d absconded with her, leaving her nothing to wear, so she put on a pair of my track pants and a T-shirt that her perfect body swam in, making her look even more adorable. She grabbed one of my baseball hats on her way out the door, completing the look. As soon as we got into the car, I opened my phone for the first time that morning. It was only eight, it wasn’t like I was slacking but my phone must have been blowing up all night. While I loved having the time to devote solely to Genni, in the future, I’d have to make sure my phone was on, so I didn’t miss anything important.
There were thousands of emails from Taylor’s manager and from Kevin all telling me that Genni needed to meet at Taylor’s suite at ten. We had plenty of time to get Genni ready for that meeting, so we swung by Starbucks and I gave them our drink order and had our coffees and muffins brought to the car.
“You are so extra,” she said with a mustache of cappuccino foam on her upper lip.
“Oh, you really want to see me go in there while we are on a time schedule? I don’t go into normal places.” I didn’t care how bougie it made me sound, it was the truth.
“Ugh, you are such a princess.”
That had me raising my eyebrows, no one had ever called me a princess before. “I like you, Genni. You live dangerously and aren’t afraid that I might kill you for saying that.” I laughed, but really no one else would ever dare.
“I know I like things wild, like sleeping with a man who has a reputation for rolling through the ladies.”
“Yep, that’s me and that’s why you’re here to help me clear up my little PR challenges. You make me look good.” Yep, shouldn’t have said any of that.
“Glad to be of service.” She took a drink of her coffee and shut down.
It wasn’t a full-on slammed door, but she had that distant stare again. Frankly, I didn’t have time for it. We had to get her into hair and makeup and make sure she was ready for her big moment. As soon as we got to the hotel, my people were there to whisk her away.
“Remember, this is fun,” I said as I kissed her, and they took her to her hotel suite to get her prepared.
What she didn’t know was that I’d spent most of the time that she was silent in the car frantically texting Kevin to call the stylists to make a mad dash to the hotel. We had hair and makeup in the building because we had a studio where we often filmed live shoots. I had stylists pull clothes, hair extensions, make-up, shoes, everything Genni would need to step up her game. Not that she wasn’t a natural beauty, but in the cut-throat music industry, natural beauty wasn’t enough. While Genni was being primped and prepped up in her suite, I met Kevin in the lounge.
“So, how is operation ‘clean up my act’ going?” I asked him.
“From a public relations angle, you two are looking good. I saw the dailies from the show and Allie comes off as a bigger dick than you do, so that’s a win.” Kevin had worked with me forever; he knew the game almost better than I did.
“Genni is perfect.” I was oddly protective of her as if I didn’t really want to play the game anymore, not with her.
“Great. Well, this Taylor Rayne thing is going to be epic. That should blow her right up. You guys ready to go full throttle?”
I had to laugh because hadn’t we just finally gone full throttle the night before?
“Yes. Let’s see where this lands.” It was only nine-thirty in the morning and already I wanted a drink.
Genni emerged a few minutes later looking fresh-faced and stunning. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a breezy blouse, and looked effortlessly beautiful, however, she had not been preened as I’d expected she might be. I tried not to look angered as she walked over to me.
“Hey, love. Did the makeup people not make it on time?” I shouldn’t have asked, I knew it the moment I did, I was in for a Mount Vesuvius moment.
“Oh, the makeup people,” the sound of her voice was scary; it was a mix of condescending and mean. “I didn’t open my door, so I’m not sure what happened to them. I just turned on my jam and lost myself in myself. I need to be on my A-game, and they would kill my vibe. I did happen to bump into Taylor in the hall though. We had a minute to chat and we’re moving this party to her suite. I just came down here to tell you. We’re ready to start singing so if you want to come up and hang out with her entourage that would be great, otherwise, you do you for a while so we can get something on lock.” She was already speaking like a pro.
“I’ll come up. I can’t wait to hear what you two are cooking up.” And I wanted to make sure her country charm wasn’t too charming. I didn’t need her giving us away by sweet and sincerely blowing our cover.
When I walked into the suite with Genni, the place was a madhouse. Taylor whisked her away before I could even offer words of caution. Boom, she was gone, leaving me to the wolves; not a comfortable place to be. I braved them to the best of my ability and was glad Kevin had come along. He had honed evasive non-speak into an artform. Taylor’s curious ‘people’ got nothing more than the basics about where I found Genni if I was dating her, if I was signing her, if we were more than just casual...all of the answers to questions that were starting to pepper the internet were never really answered. It took a couple of hours and soon we all went to our own corners to do our things.
I legitimately had work to do as I did have other artists, many of them ready to drop records so I had to listen to final mixes, make notes on new songs, etc., it was a lot of work, and the stuff I’d been avoiding had really piled up. I started to get engrossed when Genni emerged with her new bestie beaming.
“So,” Taylor started also glowing in euphoric; you’d think the two of them had spent hours screwing each other. “We dropped it.” I loved the pissed look on her manager's face because he wasn’t the only one in the room ready to roar.
“What do you mean you dropped it?” he asked cautiously.
“An acoustic of ‘Angel.’ Genevieve and I just did a YouTube video together. We were fire,” she laughed with that sweet country charm of hers and I realized that Genni and Taylor could have been sisters, they both had that kind breezy attitude and my stomach sank.
The world was going to devour Genni, not because she was so innocent, she wasn’t really that naive, but they were going to clamor for her wanting her every breath.
“And you didn’t run it by me?” Her manager’s voice pitched with stress.
“We’re running it by you now.” Taylor picked up a remote to the gigantic TV in the living room and it sprang to life.
She casually ran through the channels to YouTube and typed in Taylor Rayne and the new video popped up with four hundred views. Now you can’t just post to the internet and have it all start moving within an hour unless it is a Livestream. And there it was on the bottom of the screen, live-streamed five minutes ago. Whatever was on that video it was out to the world already and the press was probably just getting a sniff at the same time we were.
“Hi, everyone.” The video started with Taylor speaking to the camera and Genni sitting next to her on a dining room chair, both had guitars and microphones. “This is Genevieve Green. We’ve just recorded her new song, “Angel.” I'm so excited about this song, but instead of going on and on about it, why don’t we just play it for you, and then Gen can tell you all about the song after?” She looked to Genni and asked, “That cool with you?”
“Yes,” Genni said as her expression burst into a smile, much like the many I’d seen the night before, loving, bright-eyed...happy.
The two women looked at one another and then Genni started to play her guitar, her voice was strong and melodic. The mastery of her own sound and expression had always impressed me, but few in the room had ever heard her sing. As the video played, Taylor looked at her with a big sisterly grin and the two women sat down on the couch triumphantly watching themselves play. On the video, Taylor joined in for the harmony and it was the kind of sound that melted your heart. It was like liquid sex from two incredibly beautiful, talented, soulful singers. I had to admit I was mesmerized. I don’t care if there was no makeup and Genni looked a little washed out in the shit lighting. The amateur-style video was heartfelt, exquisite, and emotional. When the song ended everyone was silent listening to Genni explain the song’s meaning.
“I wrote the song for my grandmother when I was eleven years old. It’s a poem I composed after her passing. She’d fought hard against cancer and I watched this woman who had worked her whole life after her husband left her to raise four kids alone and to build a future for them. She was this strong woman who didn’t let anything knock her down until cancer finally did. I just thought if there was anyone who deserved to be an angel she did. So, I thought, If I was going to have a heavenly being in my corner I would want it to be my Grandma so that line, ‘Step up next to me and help me see what’s on the periphery so that I don’t lose sight of my destiny’ is for all the times when I didn’t know what is going to happen, but I had trust in my guardian angel to make sure that whatever it was, I’d be okay.”
“That is so beautiful,” Taylor added. “And it just, I don’t know… it just gives us a sense of hope, right, that we can make a choice and just know that despite whether our choice was right or wrong, an angel’s got our back.”
I watched the views double in the span of ten minutes.
“Okay, okay.” Taylor’s manager sighed letting out a million tons of stress. “This is gonna go viral. This is good. This is so good. Where did you come from?” he looked at Genni and asked.
