Commitment (10 page)

He stopped himself mid-thought and got ready as quickly as he could. If he wanted the show to go well, he would have to clear his mind, even of thoughts of her. The Staples Center was the one of his biggest venues and there were lots of cues that he had to remember for the show to go off
without a hitch.

He would spend the next two hours on sound check and a final rehearsal and only get a breather when his opening act was on. If you could call it a breather. In reality, that was when his adrenaline began to flow, as he listened to the music and the crowd and saw the flashing lights. 

Brendan was in the lobby when he got downstairs, impatiently flipping through a magazine.

“You’re late, man,” he said.

“Then why we standing here for?” Shawn said good-naturedly. “Let’s roll, dawg.”

“
So I guess Riley made it in alright
?”
Brendan
asked
as they pulled away from the hotel. “You got your fix?”

“Shut up, man.”

“You want me to send a car for her or what?”

“Yeah. But make sure you call her first. Oh, and she
’s
got a friend with her too.”

“Oh yeah?” Brendan looked interested now.

“Exactly your type.”

“Sounding better every second. What’s her name?”

“Tracy. A little stuck up, but you like that shit.”

Brendan laughed. “Riley ain’t exactly from ‘round the way either, Shawn.”

Shawn nodded. “True, but wherever she’s from, ain’t another like her.”

“
Whoa
,” Brendan said. “Ain’t another like . . ? This is starting to sound like something more than a piece of New York booty to me.”

“Watch your mouth,
man
.”

Brendan looked at him, serious now. “Shawn, you’re the one who told me she’s got
somebody
. I mean, this is just a little something-something. Right?”

“I don’t know,” he said
, almost to himself
.
“I don’t know what it is.”

g

That the show was sold out was no surprise but Riley hadn’t been prepared for the all-out exuberance of the crowd. Teenagers were there of course, but also men and women that looked to be in their
late-
forties, all of them practically vibrating with excitement. Shawn had offered her and Tracy a spot backstage, but she wanted to experience it the way everyone
else did.
A car had picked them up at the hotel
a
s
soon as they arrived at the arena they were ushered to seats that gave them an enviable view of center stage. Riley hadn’t heard from Shawn since he left her asleep in his suite that afternoon and hadn’t expected to. He’d once told her that when he was getting ready for a show, he had to get into what he called ‘The Zone’, emptying his mind completely of everything other than the music and what he had to do. 

Like a boxer?
s
he
’d
asked, teasing him. 

And he grinned at her for just a flash then grew serious.

Yeah
, he said
, as though he hadn’t thought about it before
.
Exactly like a boxer
.

The stage was much larger than she expected, with complicated scaffolding and lighting set up on either side. She’d been to concerts before of course, but never with seats this good. From this vantage point, the scale and scope of what went into the production was difficult to ignore. When she looked over her shoulder, Riley was staggered
by the sight of the full house.
Some people were so far away from the stage, they were practically specks in the distance. And yet they still wanted to be here to see Shawn perform
live
.

“This is
insane
,” Tracy said, as though she’d read her mind. 

A live band played as even more people came streaming in, and gradually the tempo grew more and more urgent. Then unexpectedly and abruptly, it stopped altogether and the stage went completely black. Lights flashed and popped onstage and overhead, creating the illusion of fireworks, and the audience screamed, beginning a chant for K
Smooth
.
W
hen the
music began again, this time
it
with a deep bass beat, followed by the openin
g chords of a song that Riley was not familiar with.
Two young men came out, introduced by a disembodied voice as “Glock, the hottest new artists on the hop-hop scene.”

Their lyrics were rough and rage-filled, raw and mesmerizing. Even Tracy, who didn’t like just about any rap music, was moving to the beat. They looked so young; too young to be this angry, or this talented. Soon they were both sweating, and beginning to sound slightly hoarse, but by the time they were done, the crowd had been whipped into the appropriate state of frenzy and was even more insistent in their demand for K
Smooth
.

Pyrotechnics were followed by a sudden silence as the stage went completely dark once again. The crowd seemed to hold their collective
breaths. This time it was a beat everyone in the audience knew and they screamed in recognition. And then as if out of nowhere, there was Shawn.

He strode onstage, his head
defiantly
cocked to one side and chin pointing in the direction of the audience. He stood there for a moment, soaking in their adulation before raising the mike to his lips. Just that gesture was enough to trigger the screams and whistles once again. For a moment, he turned away from the audience and spoke to his sound crew.
There was silence
, and when he faced them once again, he
was grinning from ear to ear. The
women in the audience shrieked their appreciation as a close-up of his face was projected at them from the JumboTron.

“
You ready to do this?
” he said
,
and the music began again.

He swayed to the music, one hand holding the waistband of his jeans. They were baggy
but not ridiculously so; they sagged
in the seat and puddled about his ankles. With the jeans, he wore a plain red
shirt
with a dark knit cap pulled down over his head, so low it
almost
covered his eyebrows. He paced the stage, swaying back and forth as he rhymed, face hard and focused, voice strong and deep. As he disappeared into the music, he gestured with one hand, the other gripping the microphone.

Shawn often closed his eyes, and threw his head back, as though he was alone. She could see it; what he’d talked about – he was definitely in a Zone and the crowd loved it. They didn’t allow him to get through a single rhyme without joining in.
He paced the breadth of the stage w
i
th what seemed like
impossible
stamina, his voice always strong, always insistent.

Twenty minutes in and he was perspiring heavily, finally removing his shirt and hat, much to the delight of the women in the crowd. When he turned away for a moment,
the camera zeroed in on his back muscles, capitalizing on the audience response, and
Riley spotted the deep red welt, a scratch across his back
.
She’d
made
the mark
just
this
afternoon. Seeing it magnified up there on the enormous monitor caused an unfamiliar and profound wave of possessiveness to course through her. 

About three songs in, he spotted her in the front row and Riley noted a change in his eyes and around his
mouth that
would have been barely perceptible to anyone else
, like the beginnings of a smile that he didn’t allow himself to complete.

He walked across the stage until he was standing just above her and as he rapped, not missing a
beat;
he stared directly into her eyes. Then he moved to the other end of the stage, belonging to everyone else once again.

When he
was
done, he smashed the
mike onstage
in his
signature
K Smooth
move
,
and was gone
. The audience kept cheering long after he was gone. By the time the music stopped, Riley had to remind herself to breathe. He was more than a good performer, he was a powerhouse. She didn’t have time to turn to Tracy for her reaction because as soon as the last chord was struck,
an usher
had come to lead them backstage, bypassing the crowds and public exits. It seemed like only minutes had gone by since they’d gotten there, but Riley saw now that it had been more than two and a half hours.

“How’d you like the show?”

Brendan was walking toward them and to his credit he only missed half a step when he caught sight of Tracy.

“Brendan, Tracy,” Riley said
,
quickly getting the introduction out of the way. 

As they exchanged pleasantries, she looked behind him toward the dressing rooms where dancers were coming down from the high of being onstage, talking and laughing among themselves.

“The reception’s just around the corner,” Brendan was saying. “He’ll meet us there.”

“Oh. Okay. Let’s go then,” Riley said.

Brendan laughed at her obvious eagerness. “It’ll take him a little while to get ready, but yeah, let’s head on over.”

At least a hundred people were at the reception, and it was clear to Riley from the moment they walked in that it would be work for Shawn, just as surely as attending a press conference was work for her. Brendan set them up with drinks and then worked the room, greeting executives, fans and other celebrities.

Shawn showed up about forty minutes in, looking like he’d taken a shower, wearing faded jeans and an L.A. Lakers jersey over a crisp white long-sleeved t-shirt. Riley watched as he flashed smiles at everyone who approached him, but he was distracted and his eyes scanned the room even as he tried to pay attention to the conversations he was having. He was looking for her.

And when he finally spotted her, he barely excused himself before walking away mid-conversation
with a woman holding a champagne flute.
Riley met him halfway and he stopped a couple feet away, taking her in with his eyes before finally pulling her into a hug and pressing his lips
briefly to her forehead.

“Now I see what all the fuss is about,” she said from the enclosure of his arms. “You’re pretty incredible when you’re up there.”

“Just when I’m up there?” he asked, teasing.

“No. You’re always incredible. But when you’re up there, you’re
really
incredible.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She’d expected some of the brash, over-confidence that the public was used to seeing but he
just
seemed
happy she’d liked
it.
And if she didn’t know better, she thought he might even have blushed a little bit.

“I need to go talk to s
ome people for a little while,”
he said
quietly. “You
’ll be
okay for a few minutes
?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “You go do your thing.”

“It won’t take too long.” Then he turned to Tracy. “Enjoyed the show?”

“It was great,” she said coolly. “Much better than I expected.”

Shawn laughed as he walked away. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Riley turned and shot her a look.

“What?” Tracy feigned innocence. “It’s true. It was better than I expected.”

“Tracy. He’s been nothing but nice to you.”

“I don’t care how nice he is to me. How he treats you is what matters.” Tracy seemed to think about what she’d said for a moment. “Okay, fine. So that look on his face when he saw you outside his hotel room cannot be faked. I’ll give you that.”

“So then be nice,” Riley warned.

“I am just
dying
to see how you resolve this
,
”
Tracy shook her head, taking a sip of her wine.

Riley looked across the room where Shawn was talking to the two young performers who had opened for him. 

“There’s nothing to resolve,” she said lightly. “Shawn and Brian are two completely different people who each bring something unique to my life.”

“Putting aside for the moment that that’s your mother
,
the polyamorous feminist theorist
,
speaking and not you?” Tracy said. “I’ll tell you why you have to resolve it, Riley. You’re lying to Brian, who we both know deserves more than that. And besides; will you look at that man?”

Riley looked. Shawn was working the crowd with his usual quiet, commanding brand of self-confidence.