Silence descended around the table. Lila, however, didn’t seem to notice.
“We think conceptually that this might be just the song to shoot the band into superstardom. Think of what ‘Cherry Pie’ did to Warrant back in—”
“What? Now we’re taking our cues from freaking hair bands?” Nick slapped his palms on the table. “Newsflash, lady, Oblivion isn’t Poison rebooted. Simon’s lips are way too small.”
“Hey.” Simon touched his fingers to his mouth. “Don’t hate on the pout.”
Deak leaned forward. “Lila, I’m not sure this is the direction we want to proceed. ‘Sugar Kiss’ is already an extremely sexual song. To add a salacious video—”
“I’m certain we don’t want to proceed that way,” Gray snapped. “Jazz isn’t a sex doll.”
Lila pursed her lips. “A doll, huh? I didn’t think of that angle.”
Abruptly, Gray let go of Jazz’s hand and crossed his arms. “Not. Happening.”
Jazz twined her fingers together in her lap and tried not to let Gray’s sudden distance bother her. She understood he didn’t want her to be sexualized, but what did he expect, writing a song like that? That they’d braid her hair and have her skip down a hill of flowers like in Mary Poppins?
“This is your song,” she said quietly, unsurprised when he didn’t look her way. “You came up with it, now you’re mad that Lila wants to capitalize on it?”
She stared at his stony countenance and frowned. He’d totally shut down.
“It’s not entirely his song,” Nick said. “I improved upon it. Simon named it. And yes, it’s highly sexual, and yes, the crowd loved it. But couldn’t we go with a different concept than the typical naked chick vid? Didn’t that jump the shark in oh, about 1992?”
“What do you propose then? Jasmine in a pinafore, maybe, and the rest of you in suits? I know, I know.” Lila snapped her fingers. “How about Robert Palmer-style videos? Hot babes in classy black dresses? Then it just implies sex without pushing the envelope?”
“Who the fuck is Robert Palmer?” Simon asked.
Nick ignored him. “So you want us to be like every other band out there.”
“No, I want you to deliver on the promise you made by creating a song like ‘Sugar Kiss’. Jasmine is a beautiful woman. There’s no reason she should be hidden behind—”
“I don’t want her to hide, but I also don’t think she should be objectified.”
“More objectified than what you did by writing that kind of song?” Jazz shoved her hands under her thighs so she wouldn’t lean over and whack Gray in the head. As much as she loved him, he could be a pigheaded chauvinist at times. Sure, it was so wrong for her to decide to be sexual—if she did, she still hadn’t agreed to do it yet—but it was fine if he made that decision for her. “Maybe you shouldn’t have shared that with Nick if you really wanted to keep me under lock and key, huh?”
“I didn’t share anything with Nick that you hadn’t decided to share first.”
She sucked in a breath. The pain came fast, as it always did. Pain that she’d hurt him, even unintentionally. And the deeper pain that the threesome they’d had would remain a splinter in their sides, a weapon to be dragged out in arguments probably for the rest of their lives. “It always comes back to that with you, doesn’t it?”
“Kids,” Nick said from the other end of the table. “I think we’re getting off-topic.”
“It comes back to it because everything seems to keep shoving it in my face. And no, I didn’t share it with Nick. I was going to,” he acknowledged, “but I hadn’t gotten that far. I was still writing it when he grabbed my notebook and called Simon.”
She pushed her hands through her hair, sending the beads at the ends of her braids clinking. When she’d done them that morning, she’d grinned at her reflection in the mirror, so stupidly happy that she couldn’t stop from beaming at herself. Gray had come into the bathroom and hugged her from behind, pressing kisses on the back of her neck she could still feel if she concentrated.
Now they were arguing about nothing.
“I don’t really want to be powdered in sugar,” she admitted.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Simon said, laughing when Nick kicked him again. “I meant me. I’d be fine with being turned into a piece of fried dough. As long as there’s a hot girl to lick me clean.”
Nick snorted. “Lick yourself.”