Page 26 of Play Me

Chapter Nine

CADENCE

“I have conditions.” I say when he opens the door to his hotel room three hours later. He sent a car when I called to say I wanted to talk and it’s brought me here.

I try to ignore the fact that he broke out into a huge grin as soon as he saw me. Fixating on that’s just going to make the swarm of butterflies in my stomach take flight. And I have to remind them, that this is just about the school and the kids.

“Come in and have a drink,” he reaches his hand out, and I pull back.

“Um, is there somewhere else we can talk? A little more out in the open?” I’m not sure which one of us I don’t trust when it comes to us being alone.

“Sure, but you can pay for the drinks then. In here, you can have anything, everything you want. And trust me, I have everything.”

Something about him makes me constantly want to challenge him, so I ask “What about some Choyo?” I name a rare Japanese plum wine.

“You want that heated up or cold?” He asks, without missing a beat, and turns back into the room towards a drinks cart.

I follow him, as if lured into the room by a magnetic force drawing me to him. “You have it?”

“Cadence, when are you going to stop questioning me?” He winks and pours a glass of wine and brings it over to me, taking my bag and jacket and laying them down on the couch.

The lounge of his suite is almost as big as my entire apartment. An entire side is windows and looks out to the Sydney city skyline. It’s a view I don’t see often, and it’s breathtaking. I walk over to press my hand against the glass, it’s cold and I pull my hand back, knocking the glass in my other hand over.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” I bend over to pick up the glass but he’s already there, taking it from my hands and pushing them away as I try to mop up the spill with the napkin he’d slipped under the glass.

“Don’t worry about it! It’ll just blend in with all the other drink spills I leave behind.”

Something about the opulence of the room has me a little unnerved and it takes me a little while to notice he’s still holding my hand.

I pull it away, and he looks a little surprised, hurt.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you just looked a little shaken up. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s OK. Um, let’s just get back to those conditions?”

“Yes, ma’am!” He sits down on the couch and gestures to the seat next to him.

I grab my bag and settle down in the settee across from him, and try to sound as confident as I can negotiating a deal that’s more money than I’ve ever had to handle.

“So, I have four conditions and I want them in a signed contract –“

“Ok, name ‘em.”

“Firstly, the rehearsal and recording time can’t interfere with my normal work at the school, which is mostly school hours and some Saturday time.”

“Done. We are night owls, we can practice at any time.”

“Oh. OK, good. Um, two. I imagine that you normally would pay a musician for playing on your record, an hourly rate or fixed rate or whatever –

“Yes.”

“But since you’ve agreed to the donation amount to the school, that will be the entirety of my fee.”

“Hang on a minute – that’s not fair to you.”

“No discussion. Yes or I walk right now.”

“Cadence.”