“Oh yeah? What do you suggest?” What the hell did she want me to do? This was the reality of being a successful musician.
“Find a way to make being on tour livable or leave the tour. It’s not worth it.”
My laugh was harsher than I meant it to be. “You run a bunch of businesses, right? Multiple restaurants, catering, all that stuff?”
She threw her hands up. “Yeah, what does that have to do with it?”
“What if I told you that you’d fix your insomnia and your anxiety would get better, but you had to shut them all down and leave every last one of your employees out of a job. Everyone who depends on you. Everyone who has a reservation or a dinner planned would be out of luck. Would you even consider it?”
Her face fell. “You know the most telling part of what you just said? You didn’t make it about my love of cooking or of running my businesses. In your scenario, quitting is only a problem because it impacts other people. You can’t keep doing a thing that’s going to kill you just because it gives other people a job.”
“So you’re saying I should just walk away from it all?”
“I don’t know! I’m saying this is going to kill you. You don’t need the money. You could still play music but not on this scale.”
She was making too much sense and I hated it. This was all I had, the only life I’d made for myself. It wasn’t like she was saying she’d be there if I gave it up.
“What about you?” I said, lashing out. “You don’t need the money either, but you keep escorting. Why is that?”
“Because I love it,” she said, spreading her hands open. “And if you want to make that comparison or judge me for it, you should recognize that you’re selling your body way more than I am. I walk away from it in one piece. You’re chipping away at your soul.”
She let out a deep breath and sat on my lap, stroking her fingers through the hair at my temples. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t my business, but we’re friends in spite of everything, and I do care about you. Your well-being matters.”
Friends?
Is that what this is to her?
I knew exactly how well she could separate sex and feelings and it was turning me inside out. Was this friendship to her? Friendship with great sex and nothing more?
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m not a kid anymore, Maia. I don’t need you to try to step in and solve my problems. I’ve made commitments to people and I’ll honor them. This was just start of the tour jitters and I’ll be fine once I get on stage.”
She was quiet for a long moment before she said, “And if you’re not?”
I lifted her off my lap and stood up, needing to put some distance between us before I made a fool of myself.
“You won’t be here to have to deal with it.”
41
MAIA
Now
* * *
“So let’s start with a hard-hitting question for the British public,” the interviewer said. “Coffee or tea?”
It should’ve been a softball, but it took Zane an awkward second to muster a smile and produce a lackluster answer. I hadn’t been able to convince him not to finish out the rest of the morning interviews, but Kelly and Dan had thankfully insisted on doing them with him.
Their publicist eyed me warily from the other side of the room as I watched them record it.
I felt…protective. And that was bad. Angry and resentful were safe feelings. Protective was a gateway drug to far more complicated things.
I told myself it was fine. I felt protective of my employees too. It didn’t necessarily need to lead to anything more.
I was so deep in my thoughts I’d lost the thread of the interview, but jerked back to reality as the interviewer asked, “Where do you get the inspiration for your songs, Zane? Your most recent single, ‘You Deserve It’…feels kinda personal and there’s lots of speculation online about who it’s about.”
The interviewer was grinning like he’d just asked a fun question.
