Page 18 of Revelry

“I already talked to Vanessa. If you don’t come on the tour, you’ll no longer have a position with Harbour Records.”

“Dude, what the fuck?” Zed asks. Clearly he’s as blindsided by this information as I am.

I grit my teeth, take a deep breath and say, “That’s extortion.”

Coop leans back in his seat, cool and unruffled, but his dark gaze never leaves mine. “No, it’s an opportunity.”

“Levi, move,” I say, and I must sound like I mean business because both he and Ash vacate the booth to let me out.

Levi grabs my arm as I pass and jerks me back to him, producing my keys that he’d confiscated earlier from his pocket. He dangles them before me. “Just think about it, Red.”

“Fuck you.”

“Or you could think about that, too,” Levi says, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. I snatch the keys from his hand and turn back to the table.

“You know what? Fuck all of you. I didn’t sign up for this.” I turn, walking briskly through the bar and out into the temperate May night. For a moment I just stare up at the stars and breathe, and then the door opens behind me and Cooper is on the phone, giving what I assume is the street address of the bar to someone. I have no patience left for this man tonight, so I begin walking away from him. I’m pretty sure I can find my way back to the studio from here.I hope.

“I called a taxi.”

“I’m fine walking.”

He laughs, but there’s no humour to it. “Jesus, are you always this stubborn?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” I fold my arms over my chest and turn to face him. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the inside of his jacket, sticks one in his mouth and lights up.Good God. What is it about this man?It’s like he just oozes sex, from his tense yet oddly cool posture, the full lips pursing around his cigarette, to those blue-grey eyes that seem to read me entirely too well. Everything about him makes me want to take my clothes off. He’s cunning and smart, and I don’t trust a man who can make me wet with a single smirk.No good can ever come of that.

I’m staring too long. Coop flashes his stupid, sexy smirk again, as if he knows what I’m thinking.Damn it.

He surprises me by saying, “I want you on this tour, Ali.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I want you in my debt,” he says. “I think you’re going to make one hell of a manager one day, and I want to be able to come to you and ask you to manage us.”

“Why would you want me in that position? You know nothing about me.”

“I know enough,” he whispers. “Surely the concept isn’t that unbelievable to you?”

“I just … I’m not like Deb or Vanessa. I worked hard to get here, but I’m a blip on the radar. I’m a fucking coffee girl, Cooper.” I shake my head and exhale deeply. “Shouldn’t you want someone more experienced than me?”

“You’ll have experience.” He grins, sensing my hesitation. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

I open my mouth, but the words fall short, because he’s right. What is the worst that could happen? It’s just a tour. I mean, anything has to be better than where I am right now. And it would be an invaluable experience to see how it all works from the inside.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Where is the angry girl that called me a rock wannabe? The one who stood up to Guidelli?”

“She learnt to appreciate the idea of a paying job.”

He tilts his head to the side, studying me as if I’m a damn science project. “Can she learn to appreciate the idea of someone giving her a break?”

“You think that’s what you’re doing? Giving me a break?” I study him with the same level of curiosity.

Headlights roll over us from the approaching taxi and Cooper squints, bringing his arm up to shield his eyes. He takes another long pull of his cigarette and drops it to the ground, stubbing it out with his boot. The driver pulls up alongside us and Coop pulls his wallet from his jeans and leans through the window, handing the cabbie a fifty-dollar note. “Take her anywhere she wants to go.”

“As long as I’m not driving all the way to Timbuktu, you got it, mate.” He smiles and tucks the money in his change pouch.

Coop straightens and turns to me, practically wedging me between him and the cab door and I’m finding it incredibly difficult to breathe all of a sudden. “I think we could learn a lot from one another.”

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