Blame It on the Bass (16 page)

She caught her bottom lip. If she weren’t so angry with him, she’d walk over to him and hug him, whether he wanted her to or not.

But she
was
angry with him. Not just because she was suddenly famous because of him, but because he’d reduced her position in his life to just a sexual partner with a few choice words. The Levi Levistan she’d fallen in love with at school would never have been so cutting or crude. This new Levi, the famous one…he was different. His brush-off of her concern only ticked her off more. Besides, it was no longer her place to comfort him when he was hurting. That was Corbin’s job now. She looked at the American beside her. Saw worry and pain etch his face as he regarded his lover.

“Then have a good flight,” Corbin said and took her hand in his.

Christ
, Sonja thought.
They’re more messed up than I am
.

He looked at her, his smile…wobbly. “C’mon, Sonja. Let’s go.”

He led her from the apartment, his palm warm against hers. Sonja let him. She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because there was something calming about Corbin, even in the midst of such insanity. Something nice.

They walked away from the wharf, Corbin not in the least concerned with the two members of the paparazzi who skulked along behind them, capturing their every move with furious clicking. Sonja wanted to grab both the men’s cameras and smash them on the ground, but she took Corbin’s lead and ignored them.

“Do you ever get used to it?” She threw the stalking photographers a dark scowl.

Corbin chuckled. “Hell, no. But you learn to deal with them. Australian paparazzi are a different breed to their US brethren. Your guys are much more dogged and sneaky. The British pap, however, now
those
guys are just plain maniacal.”

She gave him a sideways look, enjoying the morning autumn sun on her face. “So the image that was on the front page of the
Sunday Telegraph
today doesn’t stress you out?”

“Why? What was on the front page?”

“The photo of the three of us.” Sonja’s throat grew thick. “You haven’t seen it? You and me kissing outside the Do Re Me while Levi held my hand? The implication in the headline we are a threesome?
Ménage a Who?
”

He winced. “Damn, that’s a woeful pun.”

Despite her ire, Sonja laughed. “You’re damn right.”

He cast her a quizzical look even as he adjusted his hold on her hand. “How do
you
feel about it?”

Sonja frowned, digesting the question. “Pissed.”

“Because your privacy’s been invaded? Or because you were caught doing something you didn’t want to be caught doing?”

She gnawed on her bottom lip.

“Or was it because what you saw on the front page turned you on?”

The last option sent a sizzling tingle of tight heat into the pit of her belly. She swallowed, unsettled by Corbin’s insight. “All three,” she confessed, watching her feet move beneath her.

“Good thing the café we’re going to has complimentary copies of the
Sunday Telegraph
.”

She raised her head and cocked an eyebrow at him.

He grinned. “Hey, I’m just telling the truth. I want to see you aroused again like you were last night.”

“Do you now?”

“Hell, yeah. Something tells me I’m going to be affected the same way.”

She shot him a sideways look. “I honestly have no idea if you’re flirting with me or if you’re genuinely just this upbeat and cheerful.”

He winked. “Both.”

Sonja laughed. And rolled her eyes.

A few minutes later, they were seated at a back corner table of an intimate coffee shop overlooking the harbour. Corbin and Levi obviously went there often, given all the staff seemed to know Corbin’s name. Their waiter—a hipster wannabe in black horn-rims—asked Corbin if he wanted just the usual before beaming at Sonja. “And for you, ma’am?”

Her stomach chose that very second to rumble and it dawned on her she hadn’t eaten breakfast. She peered askew at Corbin. “You said it was your shout, right?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

Turning back to their waiter, she gave her order. “Eggs, scrambled. Multigrain toast, no butter. Bacon. Tomatoes and do you have those funky little sausages?”

Their waiter smiled. “We do. Both chicken and pork varieties.”

She licked her lips. “Can I some of those as well, please? And the biggest flat white you have.”

Lips twitching, their waiter nodded at them both, took their menus and hurried away.

“Flat white,” Corbin echoed, reaching for his glass of ice water. “Y’know, I’ve been living here in Australia with Levi for almost three years and I still can’t get my head around a flat white.”

Sonja reached for her own water, sipped, and then licked the leftover moisture from her lips. “It’s simple. It’s a coffee made with milk, without the extraneous foam of a cappuccino. There’s a thin layer of dense foam at the top but it must never rise above the rim of the cup and never be dusted with chocolate powder. Flat. White. See? A true flat white is made with lightly roasted coffee beans, not dark roast, and the milk is folded through the coffee to give it a rich, velvety texture.”

Corbin grinned. “Do I detect the faint stirrings of a coffee snob?”

“Fuck, no.” She slumped back in her seat and hooked her elbow over the back of the chair. “I just want to know everything I can about things I like.”

Leaning his elbows on the table, Corbin fixed her with a laughing stare. “That means you want to know everything about me?”

“Who says I like you? I thought we were here for the brainstorming?” She narrowed her eyes in a melodramatic squint. “Did you trick me?”

Corbin took a sip of his water and then chuckled. “You like me. I can tell.”

“Oh, okay. A little. You did list The Beatle’s
White Album
as your favourite, after all.”

“I did. And it is. Want to know my second? AC/DC’s
Back in Black
. Followed by Imagine Dragons’
Night Visions
. Oh, and my second favourite movie is
Jaws
. And my second favourite book is
Catch-22
.”

“Favourite food?”

“Grilled cheese.”

Sonja wriggled her finger at him in an admonishing side-to-side blur. “Uh-ah, you’re living in Australia now, Hollywood. We call it a toasted-cheese sandwich, or a toasty, not a grilled cheese. Did you know toasted-cheese sandwiches are Nick Blackthorne’s favourite meal, by the way?”

Corbin’s frown was puzzled. “Why on earth do you know that?”

She smirked. “Told you. I like to know everything about anything I like, and I like Nick Blackthorne’s music.”

“So, did you ever go see him in concert?”

She shook her head. “Never.”

“Why? Because of Levi?”

The question took her by surprise. She’d never really thought about it. She’d seen every major rock band she loved live in concert, some three or four times, but not once had she attended a Nick Blackthorne concert, not even his farewell concert in Sydney six years ago. There’d always been a reason, something stopping her. But now that she thought about it, she realized none of those reasons had ever been really serious. In fact, she was pretty certain she’d declined an invitation from her ex-personal trainer to attend the farewell concert, long before she’d discovered he was married, because she was dying her hair electric blue.

Which meant she’d stayed away from Nick Blackthorne concerts for an entirely different reason.

Levi.

Lifting her glass of ice water to her lips, she took another sip, her mouth dry. Wow, the realization was kind of…unnerving.

“How long were you and Levi boyfriend and girlfriend?”

She let her gaze move back to Corbin’s face.

It dawned on her she was in a swanky café surrounded by people in expensive clothes and she was wearing purple tracksuit pants, a
Sex Pistols
tank top and flip-flops. With, now she came to think of it, Kermit-green painted toenails. She should have felt uncomfortable, but she didn’t. Nor did she feel uncomfortable talking to Corbin. Which was both weird and lovely. He was her ex-boyfriend’s lover, after all. A gay man who’d been quite open in his interest to not only have sex with her, but to have sex with Levi at the same time. The whole thing should have made her uncomfortable. “On and off for two years,” she answered, ignoring the elephant in the room. “I was in year nine, he was in year eleven when we started”

“Which is…?”

She snorted. “You American.”

He grinned, accepting her jibe with a good-natured shrug. “True.”

“I was fifteen and he was seventeen when we first kissed. Out the back of the school soccer fields during the second half of lunch. Term Two, Tuesday, week seven.”

“Wow, you remember to that detail?”

She nodded. “We got busted by Mr. Edmonds, the school careers advisor. Levi was squeezing my right boob and I had my left leg wrapped around his hip. Mum grounded me for the rest of the term.”

Corbin whistled. “Tough mom. How long was that?”

“Three weeks. It was hell. I had to climb out my bedroom window every damn night after ten to see Stan.”

Corbin laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “That I would have loved to see. What did Levi’s mom do?”

A numb pressure wrapped around Sonja’s chest at the question. She fiddled with the edge of her coaster, chewing on her bottom lip. Levi had never explained why he’d missed school for the rest of week seven, only saying he’d been needed at home, assuring her the fading bruise on his cheek had been the result of falling down the stairs. It wasn’t until a year later, when she’d walked in on his father
dealing with him
in the garage over a minute scratch on Neil Levistan’s car that she realized the reason for so many of Levi’s absences. And just what exactly
punishment
meant in his family. Fists, punches and kicks to the ribs.

It wasn’t until months after that that she’d grown to suspect there was even more to Neil’s wrong treatment of his son. So much more. And all of it beyond wrong.

“Sonja?”

She blinked at Corbin’s voice, aware she’d vagued out. “Sorry,” she said, reaching for her glass. She took a sip. Swallowed. Returned the glass to the table. “How much of Levi’s life do you know about? The stuff before he met you?”

Corbin shook his head. “Not much, to be honest. He doesn’t talk about it. Never meeting his parents, despite the fact they’re still alive tells me more than words can.”

A thick lump filled Sonja’s throat. She studied her water, unsure what to say. It wasn’t her place to tell Corbin what little she knew of Levi’s life. Levi had been a secretive teenager who guarded his wounds, his emotions and his heart like they were the only things of worth he had. In her naïve youth, she’d hated that secrecy, believing his inability to open up to her a slight on their relationship. It wasn’t until years later, when she’d found herself thinking about him one night while listening to a Nick Blackthorne album, that she’d understood it for what it was—protection. She only wished then, as she did now, she’d known how to help him.

Looking at Corbin, the man Levi loved, she wondered if Corbin had it in him to help Levi beat his demons. Did anyone?

Before she could contemplate the bleakness of that thought, their waiter arrived. “Parmesan and spinach egg-white omelet,” he said, placing a large white plate with a tiny green and white lump in the middle in front of Corbin. “And protein-overload with tomatoes for the lady.”

He placed a plate loaded with fluffy yellow eggs, fat sausages, a pile of toast, strips of bacon and a full tomato cut in half and grilled to juicy perfection in front of Sonja. “Enjoy.”

“Now that…” Corbin picked up his knife and fork as he nodded at Sonja’s meal, “…is a breakfast. Good to see you’re not afraid of calories.”

Sonja laughed, glad for the arrival of their food. She didn’t want to think about Levi’s childhood. If she thought of his childhood, it made her think of the pain in his eyes that morning in his bedroom. She didn’t want to think about that at all. She’d made up her mind about his suggestion of a threesome, which meant after this breakfast with Corbin she was going back to being a part of his history, not a part of his present or future. Besides, she didn’t like the idea of being on the front page of a paper again, which would most likely happen if she kept hanging around with them. “Calories don’t scare me,” she said, scooping up a forkful of eggs. “I went for a run this morning.”

“Did you know,” Corbin said around a mouthful of omelet, “twenty minutes of hard sex will burn off six-hundred calories.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Is this you flirting with me again? Or just typical breakfast conversation for you?”

He smirked at her. “Both.”

Sonja’s bucket of coffee arrived, saving her from an answer. Which was good, because she didn’t have one.

Thankfully, Corbin decided it was time to talk shop. “So,” he said, his attention on his omelet. “I need to add sexual tension to the last act of
Dead Even 2
and my head just isn’t playing ball.”

“Have you thought of adding a third member to the sexual shenanigans?”