Commitment (73 page)

Shawn nodded. “Uh huh? How ya like me now?” he said.

Riley laughed out loud. “Okay, you may be on to something here. I’ll admit that this definitely puts Jasmine Garden on notice.”

Shawn nodded. “
Damn right
.
” Then glancing above her head, he jumped up. “Shit! It’s twelve-fifteen. We have that thing at one. Brendan must be losing his mind right about now.”

Riley stood right away, a little disappointed that their time alone together was over already.
She’d forgotten that
this was pretty much a business trip. Shawn had career obligations to fulfill and it was her job this weekend to help him fulfill them.

“We can drive really fast in your really fast car,” Riley teased, following him as he dropped some cash on the table and headed outside.

“Okay, so it’s a little flashy, but this is L.A.
No one does
understated in L.A.”

“So I see,” Riley said as she got into the car. “
I mean, for instance, a
re
all
the women like Nadine? All done-up like that?”

Shawn
didn’t respond but paused
for a moment and
looked at her
, expressionless, and
then he was walking around to his side of the car
.
He got in and started the engine and soon they were on their way to the hotel.
Neither of them spoke for what seemed like a really long time, while Riley tried to figure out what had changed.
One minute they were joking and laughing and the next he’d closed himself off to her like shutting a steel door.

“
So you think I would know what L.A. women are like,” Shawn said
when he finally spoke
. “Like I’d be an expert or something?”

“
What
?”
she asked, confused. “No! I didn’t mean . . .”

But by then they were pulling up in front of the hotel and Shawn got out and tossed the keys to the valet. When he opened the door for her, Riley tried to catch his eye, but he was avoiding looking at her. They walked into the lobby in silence, Shawn a few paces ahead of her. Out of nowhere, a young woman stepped into his path.

“Oh my god!” she said. “I can’t believe it’s you! I
love
you!”

Shawn stepped around her as though she wasn’t there and continued walking toward the elevators. The young woman looked crestfallen and a little embarrassed. Riley cringed, knowing that she was responsible for his change in mood, however inadvertently. She jogged a little to catch up with him, standing next to him and waiting until they were in the elevator before turning to him.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said firmly. “But
let’s face it. You don’t have a right to be righteously indignant even if it was what I meant.”

Shawn turned to look at her. “As far as I know, I’m still married. If you want to know what women are like in L.A., maybe you should ask Brendan. Oh, and you know, Chris might know as well. He likes to sample the local flavors when he’s out here.”

Riley rolled her eyes and looked straight ahead. “
In case you forget, y
ou were married when you
slept with that girl
as well
, but that didn’t seem to stop you
!
” she said through her teeth.

The elevator opened on their floor and she walked out ahead of him, picking up the pace as she neared her suite. She was almost home-free when Shawn grabbed her arm and pulled her back toward him.

Shawn walked a few steps forward, still holding her against him, so that she was forced to walk backwards. She was pressed against the wall of the hallway and he had placed a hand on either side of her
.
Having him that close had an immediate effect. She clenched her thighs together.
He leaned in, and Riley was sure he was going to kiss her. She wanted him to. But instead he spoke into her ear.

“When are you going to stop punishing me?” he asked.

And his voice sounded so anguished, so unlike him
,
that Riley blinked in surprise. Before she could begin to formulate a thought in reply, Shawn
had pressed his forehead to hers and then just as suddenly was walking away. By the time she looked up, he had opened the door to his suite and gone inside.

g

Shawn was already downstairs in the lobby when she finally
went
down wearing the retro jeans and D&G jacket she’d picked out w
ith Nadine.
He was dressed in an oversized rugby shirt, and of course the obligatory baggy jeans and bo
ots with the laces hanging out.
Shawn stood when he saw her, and smiled as though everythi
ng between them was hunky-dory.
It was surreal; like she was the wife of a politician or something, putting on a good face, posing with her husband for the public and then going back to separate homes, separate lives
.

“You look
nice
,” he
said, looking
her
over.

Riley tur
ned up the corners of her lips.
“T
hanks.
You too.” 

The truth was, she hated the way he looked when he went to these things; that exaggerated ‘ghettofied’ image that really had nothing to do with who he was and ever
ything to do with selling CDs.
It used to fascinate her, the way he and Brendan could switc
h from one demeanor to the next—
one minute they were genuine ‘boys from the hood’ and the next, they were no more ‘street’ than her or Tracy. Sometimes it was hard to figure o
ut what was real in this world.
She
was beginning to understand why Shawn and Brendan called it the rap “game
.”

“You nervous?”
he asked her now, as they waited out front for Brendan to bring the car around.

“What for?”
Riley
shrugged.
“I
just need to stand there and smile, right?”

Shawn looked at her as though trying to
read her face.
“Thanks for
doing
this,” he said finally.
“I
know
you hate this shit
.”

“Was there ever any questi
on that I’d do it if you asked?”
she asked impatiently.

“
No
, but it’s not li
ke we’ve been talking
every day
.
Or talking at all . . .”

Just
then
Brendan pulled up and they climbed into the SUV.
Shawn
sat up front with Brendan and Riley in the rear, staring unseeingly out
the window
at
the ugly
L.A.
freeway.
They said nothing
for the
ten
-minute drive.
When finally
they
exited the vehicle
they
were greeted by flashbulbs and
a wall of
photographers.
Behind the photogs
and two barricades that had been erected,
wer
e fans, screaming Shawn’s name.
Brendan shielded them as they headed for the entrance and
Shawn reached out to
Riley
, gripping her hand and pulling her close so that she was walking
just ahead of him
, his arm encircling her waist.
Almost as soon as he was inside there were industry people pulling him away.

There was an enormous poster against one wall with the name of
Shawn’s
new label, and a table with press
kits
.
He
stood
in front of the poster
and shook hands with record executives
posing for photos
from different angles.
Occasionally,
photographers
would shout out instructions, asking him to turn this way and that and Shawn would oblige. 

Riley
stood
to the rear of the room watc
h
ing
, marveling at it all.
Shawn’s eyes found her
but
he
kept
his tough guy face intact
.
Then
something in
his
eyes
changed
just enough for
several in the
bank of photographers
to
turn to see who he was looking at and then begin taking
pictures of her
.
Brendan
shoved
her
to the front of the room
and
Shawn pulled her up onto the dais
.
More
out of shyness
than
anyt
h
ing else, s
he
leaned back into him
. Shawn placed
his arms over her shoulders and
clasped at
her waist.

Riley squinted at all the flashbulbs, tried to focus on
a spot
above everyone’s head
s.
It was strange, heady stuff, to be t
he focus of all this attention.
She smiled until it hurt and soon the clicking of the cameras, the flash and the
people all seemed to disappear.
Now she
understood a little of what Shawn meant when he
talked about going into a Zone. You had to; otherwise t
he sensory overload would drive you insane.

When
there were no more pictures to take, the record executives began mixing with the press, answering questions, distracting them so that Shawn could be spirited out a side door
and back into the car.
The whole thing had taken no more than
thirty
-five
minutes.
It seemed incredible that those few minutes were worth millions in sales and publicity.

“I was starting to get vertigo from all those flashbulbs
,
”
Riley said as they pulled away.

“You get used to it.”

“I don’
t think I ever would,” she said.

“He
loves that shit,” Brendan said.
“The first time he did one of those, you should’ve seen him.”

Shawn laughed.
“I was seventeen
.
I never got that kind of attention before
.”

“Yeah, but you still get a high off all that, admit it.”

“
A little high,” Shawn said. “But just a little
one
.”

Something about the way he said that reminded Riley of that time, what seemed like millions of years ago
,
when she’d interviewed him and got him to admit that he liked parts of his celebrity lifestyle.

Brendan
grinned
.
“
How ‘bout you, Riley? You get a contact high?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Sorry. Not even a little one.”

“Well, you get to skip out on the next thing,” Brendan said. “
I’ll drop you off before we go over to the  . . .”

“No, I want to come.”

“
He’s
just looking at storyboards for the v
ideo,” Brendan warned her.
“It’ll
be boring.”

“
Still.
I want to come.
Just to see what it’s about.
”

A boardroom had been reserved in Arista’s downtown offices for the meeting and when Riley walked in with Brendan and Shawn, the six or so people waiting already had copies of what looked like
a comic strip in front of them.
Shawn introduced her around and Riley smile
d, barely processing the names.
Someone handed her
a copy of the storyboard and she sat
next to Shawn
, listening as they discussed the sequence of the shots, the lighting,
how many wardrobe changes he would have and
, how many hours they estimated the shoot would take.

It was all so
technical;
every miniscu
le detail seemed to be planned.
One shot that seemed like it would be impossible to orchestrate would be of a bead of sweat rolling down Shawn’s brow.  Riley had always seen
music videos as a kind of catch-as-catch-
can enterprise, but
it clearly wasn’t that at all.
Everyone in the room was taking extremely seriously something she
had always considered trivial.
O
ne of the reasons she wasn’t previously interested in his work was that she’d never quite believed that it
was
work. Had he suspected as much?