Page 495 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

his lip catching the shell of my ear.

“Right here—what’d we say, huh?

“No half volume, no half feelin’.”

My lips break into a smile.

His follows, hitting my cheek.

“She remembers,” he rasps into my skin.

Slowly, the rough wave settles.

The hot tension in my thighs melts away. I sink into him, my body shedding its armor.

“That song is ridiculous, Sonny.” He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, his hips nudging mine back into the wall. “Every fucked-up line better be about me.”

I shrug, trailing my hand down his side.

His chin dips back an inch.

“That’s it?

“You’re not gonna reassure me?

“There’s the panties line,” he adds.

“So I’m assumin’ I’m involved.”

I push off the wall,

reach for the control-room door.

Andrew backs up,

hands lifting at his sides.

“Oh, that’s cold.”

I pass him.

He catches the door before it swings open. “Just say it’s about me.”

I look over my shoulder.

“It’s about you.”

His face falls into a wounded squint. “Yeah, no. How’m I s’posed to believe you now?”

// DEC 30, 12:03 AM - ROCKEFELLER TREE - MIDTOWN, NYC //

Andrew gets called into work, and I say it’s fine. ‘Cause obviously I’m a big fan of lying—wrote an entire song about it.

I stand in my penthouse for eight minutes and decide, for the millionth time, alone’s not really my gig.

So I leave.

Midtown takes me in with both dirty hands. Sirens dragging their red tongues down the avenue. Drunk laughter dripping off red lipstick in front of hotels.