Founded on Goodbye by Kat Singleton
I should just let her walk out the door.
It shouldn’t bother me that she’s storming out as if I’ve hurt her feelings or as if she’s pissed—probably both.
Yet here I am, quickly closing the distance between us until I meet her in the doorway.
My fingertips find the warmth of her stomach. “Nora, hold on a second.”
Her stomach muscles clench under my touch. To my surprise, she turns around, angling an aggravated gaze toward me. “What is it, Nash?”
There’s a small wrinkle between her eyebrows as she stares up, waiting for me to elaborate. When I don’t answer her right away, that wrinkle smooths as she lifts her eyebrows impatiently.
“You can’t just leave,” I finally repeat, inhaling and getting hit in the face with the scent of her. It smells just like roses should. Not that fake overpowering floral scent some women wear, but subtle enough to slowly yet madly take over my senses.
She looks at me, annoyed. “Why do you care? You’ve made it abundantly clear you don’t want this dance to be part of the tour lineup. Here’s your chance, Nash. Take it.”
She isn’t wrong. Two weeks ago, I hated the idea of doing this dance, but I can’t deny that the work we’ve put into it has paid off. What we’ve created…it works, and it works well. I have no doubt my fans will love it. I just hate that it feels so intimate to share this dance with her.
I bare my soul—the naked truth of myself—to my fans when I get on stage and sing my own lyrics. And now, sharing the stage with her and only her in a dance that drips of sex…well, it’s fucking with my head.
I hate the feeling of not being in control of my head.
I’ve been there before. I fell so deeply and passionately in love with a woman that only used my love for her against me. I have no desire to ever do it again. Sex at this point doesn’t even feel intimate to me. It’s a means to an end. Dancing with Nora feels intimate, though. It feels so much more intimate than when I’m inside of a girl. And that has all my alarms ringing.
“Are you going to answer me?” I can tell by her tone that she’s growing more irritated with me by the second. The problem is, I don’t want to answer her question truthfully.
My grip tightens, making me realize my hand is still placed on her waist. I pull it back, shocked I was even touching her for that long. I typically hate touching or being touched by people—a side effect of being groped by fans every time I come in contact with them.
I barely let women touch me when they get me off, only letting them touch what is needed. But after two weeks of having Nora touch me, and my hands roaming over her body repeatedly, it hasn’t bothered me in the slightest.
Even if I’ve made it seem as if I’ve hated it. It’s all been an act.
“Yeah, well, maybe the dance doesn’t suck as much as I thought it would.” I scratch my head, watching as her attention focuses on my bicep.
She pops a hip out, looking at me with an amused look. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Nervously looking around the room, I avoid her question for a moment. “I’m saying I’m technically your boss and thinking about what’s best for my tour, and this dance might be it.”
Taking a step closer to me, she looks up at me confidently. “Ask me nicely, boss.”
I try not to roll my eyes at the way she easily throws my words right back at me. She’s one of the only people who has the balls to do so. Typically, everyone but the people closest to me fall at my feet, acting as if every word I utter is gold.
Tracing along her naked shoulder, I think my words through carefully. I lean in closer to her, my lips just millimeters from the shell of her ear. When I look down, I’m almost positive I can see her thumping pulse beneath her fair skin.
“A little tip for you, Nora. I don’t ask for anything, and I sure as hell won’t ask for it nicely.”
She sucks in a breath, her collarbones jutting out with the movement. I revel in the fact that my words can cause that kind of a reaction from her.
Stepping away from her before I do something I regret, I make my way to the middle of the dance floor once again.
I spin the remote in my hands, watching her gather her thoughts. “Now, come back over here and let’s practice this dance that screams sex but isn’t near as fun as fucking.”
Nora sets her bag back on the dance floor, slipping off her sandals once again. “We’re just dancing, they’ll see that.”
I chuckle, running a hand through my hair. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Not humoring me with a response, she makes her way to where I stand. Without a second glance, she takes her spot behind me.
I can her feel her shoulders against the middle of my back, and I allow us a split second of silence before pressing play.
We make it to the end of the routine easily, making it to the most complicated part we only learned a week ago. The very end of the song has more technique than I’m used to, something I’ll have to adjust to while also making sure I’m singing.
She launches her body at me, wrapping her legs around my middle. From there, her body falls backward. I can feel the strength in her legs as she holds onto me tightly, unable to depend on me holding her there as my hands skirt down her middle.
Her palms meet the wood and she lets go with her legs, effortlessly rolling onto the floor. I reach out and grab her hand, pulling fast enough that between my effort and her jumping she soars into the air.
Catching her by the waist, I lift her above my head. The last words of the song are being sung as I lower her, her body dragging against mine.
The music stops briefly before it picks back up once again, the song being left on repeat. Except this time, neither of us move to do it again. We’re lost in a fleeting moment, almost every inch of our bodies touching.
My fingertips are still resting against her ribcage. I can feel every inhale and exhale she takes. Her hazel eyes stare up at me, the fluorescent lighting not doing the unique color of them any justice.
“How was that?” she asks, her hands tightening on my biceps.
“Can’t say I hated it,” I answer, slightly out of breath. I’m shocked by how straining this has been. I have a personal trainer, Zach, who travels on tour with me. He makes sure I’m hitting the gym five times a week, even if most of the time it means I’m hungover and pissed. But somehow, this dance is still kicking my ass.
She laughs, noticing we’re still touching in the next moment and stepping away. Lifting the bottom of her shirt, the shirt that isn’t even long enough to cover all of her toned stomach, she wipes at her face. “After your attitude a couple of weeks ago, I can honestly say I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, I’m allowed to change my mind. Things change.”
Nodding, she gives me a taunting smile. “Oh, yeah? What changed?”
You.
“I like making money. And what we’re doing with this dance,” I cock my head toward the rest of the dance floor, “that’ll sell.”
“Am I going to have thousands of screaming girls jealous of me during those three minutes?” she asks, expertly securing her long hair into a bun at the top of her head.
“No. They’ll be jealous of you for three minutes and forty-six seconds. You ready for that?” I ask, reminding her right down to the second.
In truth, I wish more people would’ve prepared me for fame. For what extreme fame entails. I can’t go pick up my coffee order without cameras snapping in my face. Or without complete strangers asking me extremely personal questions.
Nora shrugs haphazardly. “Obviously. I’m just doing my job, after all. There’s nothing going on for them to be jealous about.”
You have my attention, I want to say. That’s something not many people get, and millions would be jealous of.
I make sure I have her attention before I speak. “If I look at a model I’m shooting with for more than two seconds, the Internet goes crazy, wondering if she’s my secret girlfriend or hookup. Those women get blasted by the media. Rabid fans come out of the woodwork and point out every single flaw of these models who are just doing their job. Be prepared, Nora. We may just be working, but once people get a glimpse of what we’re doing, you’ll be next.”
The truth sucks, and more often than not, the women I hook up with want the spotlight. They seek me out to be the girl on my arm for a night. I let it happen. It’s better having the media think I’m a playboy than being in the position I was in years ago after my breakup with my ex.
I’d much rather them think I’m a heartbreaker than the one with the broken heart.
I have to hand it to her; she doesn’t look nervous from my words. All she does is glance up at the ceiling briefly before clapping her hands together. “Let’s run it again.”
So, we do. We do it over and over until I’m confident I could do it in my sleep.
The two of us eventually fall to the floor in exhaustion, our bodies landing next to our things. It’s silent except for the both of us gulping down our waters now that we’ve sat up. My shirt disappeared five tries ago and the cold wall against my back is doing wonders in helping to bring my body temperature down.
Nora tosses her empty water bottle on top of her bag, her head falling back and resting against the wall. “I think we nailed it,” she gets out between heavy breaths.
I nod, finishing off my own water. Wiping my lips, I look over at her. “I’ll tell Monica the dance stays.”
Nora’s eyes light up, her teeth peeking out with a wide smile. “I don’t know her that well, but something tells me she’s going to be shocked by your decision.”
My head falls a few feet away from hers, a smile on my face. “I’m sometimes hard-headed with her. She’ll probably be shocked and ask me if I have any ulterior motives.”
She pushes my shoulder teasingly. “Sometimes? I’d put money on all the time.”
Running a hand over my mouth to cover my smile, I shrug. “I’m a moody popstar. Comes with the territory.”
Nora pulls her legs in closer to her, resting her forearms on her knees and angling her body toward mine. Even after running the song through many times, she still smells amazing, that scent of hers hitting my senses with each of her shifting movements.
“You know, you don’t have to always pretend to be an asshole. People might like you more if you didn’t pretend to be such a dick,” she says.
Her eyes roam over my face as she waits for my response. My brain sifts through the different answers I could give. Some of them sugar-coated, some of them fucking depressing.
“In this world, people form opinions on you no matter what you do. I could be the fucking pope and they’d still fault me for something. It’s easier to just not give a shit.”
“Do you, though? Not give a shit?”
I look away from her, staring instead across the empty floor in front of us. The small window at the top of one of the walls show that we’ve been here long enough for the sun to fully set. The fluorescent lights create a reflection against the polished hardwood.
“After so long, it’s hard to care. Some days you care too much and the need to please every person who supports you is suffocating. So suffocating that I feel like every expectation of me is pushing into my windpipe, cutting off any hope of me getting air. And then other days you realize the expectations of you are smothering you, and your only option is to not give a shit. I often try to opt for the latter.”
She’s quiet as she mulls over my words. “How do you deal with that?”
Usually when people ask me how I handle the fame, I pose the question to them: how would you handle it? That typically gets the interviewer, radio host, whoever, to pause. I then ask: how should I be handling it?
They always skirt around both questions, which is ironic. They can throw the most personal questions my way, even when my team puts them on the no-ask list beforehand, but not answer one of mine. It’s a question I hate being asked. It feels invasive and redundant. They can pick up any magazine and see how I handle it, or how I want people to see me handling it.
“Easy,” I answer, looking at her once again, finding her eyes already on me. “I get drunk. I have sex. I’ve done drugs. I go numb, I take my mind off it. Numbing out the expectations, the pressure, everything…it’s how I cope.”
My eyes trace the splatter of freckles on the tops of her cheeks. The way her nose upturns, the blush on her face. “It’s worked for me so far.”
My fingers twitch in my lap, wanting to reach out and place a stray hair behind her ear. I want to have some kind of contact with her again. My hands were all over her body during the hours we were practicing. Now it feels odd not to be touching her.
I want to do all these things, but there needs to be a line drawn between us. I might not have to be as big of a dick to her as I have been, but I also don’t want to let her in. She can’t see the shell of a man behind the Nash Pierce persona. No one should.
My phone starts vibrating next to me, the sound ricocheting off the walls. The text message reminds me I have plans tonight—plans that were completely forgotten until now.
“Well, I’ve got to get going. Places to be.” I stand up, stretching my arms over my head before pulling my shirt on once again.
“Minds to numb?” she throws out, her eyes locking on my abdomen, before flicking up to meet my eyes.
I lean forward, lightly tapping her nose. “Exactly. You catch on quick, Rose. I’ll catch you later.”
Then I breeze out of there, sneaking out the back door. I find Sebastian thumbing through his phone on a bench in the hallway. As soon as I come out, he follows me out of the building, hot on my heels.
Somehow, my fans haven’t found me at this studio yet. Thank fuck. I’m able to easily slide in the back of the SUV, no cameras flashing and no one yelling my name.
* * *
Later that night or early the next morning, I couldn’t tell you thanks to how fuzzy my mind is, I find myself leaving a popular club with a girl whose name I can’t even remember. I know she’s the daughter of someone famous, but the name has slipped from my mind.
The paparazzi might be yelling her name, in fact I think they are, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. There’s too much alcohol in my blood stream.
I do know when we climb into the back of the waiting car, and the car door slams and hides us from the world, the feeling of her hand snaking under my shirt doesn’t feel remotely the same as the touch I felt hours ago.
It feels gross and unwelcome. And that pisses me off more than anything else.