Page 57 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
“I don’t think he sees it that way. Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you unreleased tracks.”
“Doesn’t matter. Remember the cat and yarn-ball analogy? Right now he just pounced. Which means it’s time to yank it away. But not too far. Keep it too far, he quits playing.”
“Too far out of his reach?” I echoed. “We’re talking about a man who’s been on the ‘Sexiest Men Alive’ list ten years straight.”
“So what? His brain’s made of the same gray matter as the humblest servant. Strip down a Ferrari and a beat-up Beetle, and underneath it’s the same stuff—pistons, radiator, oil circuit, brakes, four wheels. Sure, the engines have different horsepower, I’ll give you that. But a good mechanic knows where to put his hands on both.”
“So by turning down Friday’s invite, you’re pulling the yarn-ball away… but how do you plan to dangle it in front of him again?”
“I’ll tell him the tracks are good—but not quitethere. Not in so many words, of course. But that’ll be the subtext. Lukewarm encouragement.”
“Doesn’t that risk making you seem completely out of reach? I know it sounds insane to even say that but… yeah.”
“Iamout of reach, Bea. But within reach? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? One thing he’s already figured out, though: I’m different.”
“So what’s your next move?”
“Simple. I’ll decline the concert invite, but I’ll leave the door cracked. Something like, my roommate and I might be free when his tour hits Florida.”
“And why exactly amIinvolved?”
“He can’t think we’re already at some exclusive-intimacy level. He needs to stay in the fog, in that perfect little uncertainty: she accepted the invite—but she brought her friend. Does she like me? Or am I just a buddy?”
“I doubt Zane Ryder has ever been friend-zoned in his life.”
“That’s the point, darling…”
Her smile unfurled slowly, like a lock that only opens for the right combination.
31
More days of waiting.
“Waiting isn’t wasted time. It’s the golden thread that weaves desire,” Tess declared, her voice pitched like she was performing for an invisible audience. “If you win him quickly, you’ll have a man. If you make him wait, you’ll have an obsession.”
At that point, though,wewere the obsessed ones.
Would Ryder really take the bait and invite us both to his Florida show? Or would he just crumple Tess’s reply into a ball, sink it in the trash can like an NBA veteran, and move on with his life?
Too many variables. Way too many.
He could’ve received it high out of his mind, lost in one of his so-called creative trances, the letter dissolving into the chaos of a hotel suite “destroyed for inspiration.” Or, even if it somehow reached his hands, it might get swallowed by a memory already shredded by powders and liquids of questionableorigin.
And even if he read it sober, there was always the “post-night-with-a-supermodel” scenario: wake up, reassess, and realize maybe it wasn’t worth his time to chase a Brooklyn girl who’d never done anything remotely epic.
In short… the odds weren’t exactly stacked in our favor.
I laid out every possibility to Tess like a lawyer presenting damning evidence.
“Stop contaminating my seductive aura with your doubts,” Tess snapped. “It’ll be fine. The emotional blow he got that night was so violent it already shifted the course of his life. Didn’t you notice? Maybe it’s imperceptible now… It’s like a straight line stretching toward infinity suddenly veering off by 0.01%. At first you can’t tell the difference, but weeks, months, years later—he’s in a completely different destination than if he’d stayed the course. Honestly, Bea, you really didn’t see it? After just one evening of hints—and that’s all it was, I never evensaidanything—he did the rest. And now, just to earn my respect, he’s already trying to change his entire musical style.”
“He said he was already working on a Mirov-inspired album.”
Tess burst out laughing, wild and sharp. “And you believed him? Really? Okay, okay… let’s say for argument’s sake hewasdabbling with Mirovinfluences. But the point is: after that night here, he went back to his hotel and pushed harder, worked to make that shift even stronger. For me! Just to winmyadmiration. And the proof is right there—he sent me the record and asked for my opinion!”
“Your opinion… you, who knows nothing about music.”
“Exactly!” Tess cackled. “E-xactly! Without even lifting a finger, I’m already pushing the highest-paid musician in the world—Forbes said so last year!—into copying a washed-up jazz player from the sixties. Do you get what that 0.01% deviation means? I can already see it: a year from now—assuming I haven’t dumped him yet—his new album bombs. Total flop. And he’s a humiliated man, once obsessed with me and his music… and by then, his obsession will beonlyme.”
