The Broker: Elijah (Kindle and ePub)

I get in the car, struggling through the door. I have the distinct impression it was a bad idea to leave the party the label organized and take a cab in the middle of Los Angeles. I slur the address to the man behind the wheel who has the worried look of someone afraid of having to clean up a stranger’s puke from the back of his car. I lean my head against the window and watch the lights of the city flash before my eyes. 

I miss New York, its tall buildings that surround you as if protecting you. Los Angeles looks so unfamiliar to me. Here, away from the heart of downtown, it’s a long stretch of low-rise houses and commercial warehouses. Neighborhood after neighborhood, you feel like you’re naked and exposed walking down wide streets lined with tall, narrow palm trees. In Manhattan, the buildings make you feel small, and the roads are like closed-in tunnels, protecting you from the world as you walk. It’s an overwhelming and reassuring feeling—one of the many paradoxes of that city.

I must have fallen asleep at some point along the way because what feels like only a few seconds later the driver slips his hand through the small partition between us and shakes my leg. I give him some money from one of my pockets, and when I see his eyes gleaning with surprise, I gesture to him with my hand to keep the change as well. He doesn’t make me say it twice; he puts the money in his pocket and indicates for me to get out.

At this moment I realize my first mistake: I didn’t call Max, the driver. A group of fans has been lurking near our hotel for two days. Max would have had access to the underground garage; this taxi driver dropped me directly in front of the shark tank.

“Holy shit!” I mutter to myself. “The paparazzi is gonna have a field day with this one.”

 I’ve stopped counting how many times I’ve been in the papers this month, but it’s not my fault someone’s constantly putting a glass of French wine in my hand that costs more than a car at these goddamn parties.

“You wouldn’t happen to be able to take me to the underground garage, would you?” I ask the cab driver, praying like a kid who wants to extend Saturday night curfew.

The man looks at me and waves me out again, more impatiently than the first time. I take a deep breath, hold on to the handle of the car, and grab on to the roof to drag myself out. I try to close the door as gracefully as possible, then I lower my head and let my long dark hair cover my face. 

One, two, I can’t even count to three before the girls start screaming and the paparazzi starts taking pictures over and over again. Two fucking wobbly steps and my cover’s already blown. Not that I had one, since I’m the lead singer of the most famous band in the world at the moment. I’m also 6’6” with broad shoulders, but I really hoped till the last moment I could have gotten away with it. Goddamn alcohol and the shit it makes me do.

I raise my head since there’s no point in hiding anymore, and try to locate the front door. It looks blurry so I squint my eyes a couple of times but it doesn’t get any better. After a few steps, I lean against a barrier which the girls are standing behind. One of them grabs me by the neck and pulls me toward her in a confused tangle of arms and hair. Their screams almost make my head explode. I lean against the cold metal of the barrier and try to get away, but a second girl grabs me, sticking her tongue in my mouth without warning. I push her away as gently as possible, trying to hold her in the “safe zone” in the upper part of the arms, but two others kiss me on the lips before one of the hotel security guards comes to help me out of the chaos I’ve brought on myself. 

It’s like this every time: I become the target to jump on, the mouth to stick a tongue into so they can tick the “I kissed the rock star” off their bucket list. Not Damian Jones, the person, but the celebrity, whoever he is. My lips are always sticky with some lipstick I’m struggling to wash off from a kiss I got without so much as a “How are you?” or “How was your day?”

Let’s face it, I’ve never had trouble getting the women I wanted, when I wanted, and especially for what I wanted: sex without emotional complications. Always consenting adults, always healthy adult sex—just without the drama. Our fans, however, are something entirely different. They’re often underage girls who dream of Prince Charming and are absolutely off-limits. Which is why this current scenario is a mess that I’m unlikely to come out of unscathed, especially with photographers who seem crazy for action.

I lean against the revolving doors of the hotel, and when I get to the other side I stumble on the carpet, falling face down, unleashing another burst of flashes. Great. The path from the floor to my bedroom is a series of confused and foggy images consisting of cream-colored walls and dark red carpet.

In the sitting room next to my bedroom door, I catch a glimpse of two confused silhouettes rising from the sofa. When they are one step away from me, I realize that they are two girls, one blonde, the other a brunette. I can hardly make out their features clearly, but I can tell they’re barely dressed.

“Do you feel like having some fun tonight?” the brunette asks, whispering in my ear and leaning against my side, while the blonde takes me by the other arm.

It takes me a while to realize she’s spoken to me, I’m too busy staggering and holding on while she grabs my shoulder. She’s petite, but manages to make me lose my balance as she leans her weight against my body.

“Look, I just want to go to my room,” I mumble. I’m having a hard time stringing words together.

“We’ll help you, don’t worry,” the blonde encourages me in a soothing voice.

I’m not one to back out of sex, but I also want to enjoy the moment. Just as I don’t take advantage of drunk women who can’t understand what they’re doing, I don’t want to be just half-conscious during a fuck.

“No, I’m going alone. Go away,” I say out loud. They get off me suddenly, making me sway.

“You think you’re the only one in the world with a dick? Yours isn’t golden, so don’t be such a show-off,” says the brunette, with her arms crossed.

I lean against the door, grab the magnetic card from my pocket after looking for it everywhere, and put it against the lock until I hear the buzzing sound signaling that it’s open. I stagger into the room and onto my bed, curling up as soon as I hit it. My head is spinning. I feel like vomiting. I try to keep my eyes closed and breathe deeply.

The mattress next to me lowers. I can feel my shirt rising, and with one hand, I try to lower it again, but someone takes my arm and holds it above my head. There’s something wrong with this situation, but I can’t get my brain to work enough to understand what’s going on. I can’t even open my eyes. All around me is black, muffled sounds, then silence.