"Thank you." I step inside and move into the foyer. The kitchen/dining room/living room combo is dark. It takes my eyes a minute to adjust. "Where should I put my stuff?"
"Where do you want to do this?" His voice is even.
Which is good.
We're both professionals.
We're here to work.
"It's your place. Wherever is comfortable." Fuck. That still sounds like an invitation for sex. Not that I'd turn him down if he asked.
It's been such a long time since I've been fucked. No, I don't think I've ever been fucked. I've only been with Adam. Our sex was sometimes good but it was never great. It's never blown my mind. It's never made my entire body buzz the way it buzzed in Mal's bed.
He presses the door closed. "Kitchen is good."
"Sure. Kitchen is good." I set my camera bag next to the counter and set my messenger bag on top of the ceramic surface. This is nice tile. It's clean. The entire kitchen is sparkling.
The entire room is disturbingly clean. No cups or plates on the coffee table. No clothes or blankets on the big leather couch. No consoles or DVD cases on the floor in front of the widescreen TV.
And the deck.
"Is that a deck with a view of the beach?" It is. It's beautiful. I want to be there. I want to permanently live there.
"Last time I checked."
"Oh. Well. We should work." I turn back to the kitchen and start unpacking my bag.
"We have all day. Fuck, I'm free until next Saturday."
"Hot date?"
"Me and a few hundred screaming women."
"You have a show next week?"
He nods. "You sound surprised."
I clear my throat. It's not like I follow Dangerous Noise news religiously. More… casually. Like someone who only goes to church on Christmas and Easter. "I thought that would come up. During my research."
"It's a secret appearance. One set, four songs. We get in and out."
"Sounds fun."
He moves into the kitchen. His eyes fix on mine. "It could go that way."
"You don't have fun performing?"
"The twenty minutes on stage, yeah. But the other shit…" He shakes his head with distaste. His expression is still impossibly even.
"The other shit…?"
"Musicians are all drama. You must know that."
I laugh. I do know that. "You don't seem like the type."
"You can't avoid it."
You can't. I open my laptop and pull up the video. Truth be told, I don't need to be here to show Mal this footage. I don't need to be here to discuss our new concepts—we've more or less got them outlined. I'm changing one of them, but I could easily pitch that in email or over the phone.