Promotion Comes With Strings Attached

They stayed that way until it was time to leave.

At home, Coby didn't even hang around; she announced as soon as we got in the door, "I'm going to bed." There was no warmth in her words, it was just a statement of intent.

I opened a beer as I heard the bedroom door close. Another couple of beers later, combined with the drinks from the auction, and I was asleep.

The morning arrived, as most LA mornings did, bright and sunny. I went in for a shower and to get changed. I found Coby still in bed. When I walked in, she pulled the sheets up over herself. Not before I heard her sobbing.

With my shower complete and changed, I walked out. It broke my heart to hear her crying under the covers. I wanted to pull her into my arms and say, "It'll be okay, honey." The problem was, I felt so stressed and angry. This situation was of her own doing.

I made coffee and toast. Turning on my phone for the first time since the previous afternoon. It lit up with a series of missed messages from the realtor. I gave her a call and she had a bunch of buildings for the recording studio for me to look at. We agreed to meet at the first one in about an hour.

I was just about to walk out the front door when Coby walked out. "Where are you going?"

Distractedly, I replied, "To meet the realtor; she's got some buildings she wants to show me."

I was surprised when she said, "Can I come along?"

"Why? Last night you didn't even want to talk to me, let alone anything else."

She sighed. "I'm sorry, I was just pissed at the way you treated Wyatt. Christ, Darren, the way you behaved last night. God almighty, you were like a petulant sulky child."

"Yeah, he brings out the worst in me, that's for sure."

"Why? That's what I don't understand."

"I don't want to go over it again. I'm sick of hearing his name."

I turned to walk out, and she said loudly. "You didn't answer. Can I come along?"

"Yeah, you'll have to hurry; I'm running late now."

She rushed off to change and I waited in the truck. As we drove off, She said. "I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have gone to bed angry. I had such high hopes for last night. Our first event like that. I wanted us to mix and mingle with everybody. Introduce my husband to everybody. I wanted it to be special."

"You're living in fantasy land, Coby. No man is going to be able to put up with a situation like that. When he asked you to dance, without even looking at me, that was him marking his territory again. He did that to say, fuck you, Darren."

The frustration in her voice was evident as she mumbled, "No, you're wrong. He did that because you refused to shake his hand, talk to or acknowledge him. If you had been polite, so would he. You were both at fault. Yes, I agree he shouldn't have done that, and I will tell him so."

"Don't bother, he doesn't give a fuck."

We met the agent, went from building to building and it got worse as we went along.

It was like she hadn't even listened to my brief. On the drive home, I snarled, "Jesus, she's hopeless. Nothing she showed us was anything like I asked for."

We talked about what I was looking for, and she said, "Can I make a suggestion, without you biting my head off?"

"Yeah, lets hear it."

"I could mention it to Wyatt. He knows lots of agents. He has a large property portfolio himself."

I was horrified, and as she glanced out of the corner of her eye, she knew she had said the wrong thing. "Don't you dare. This has got nothing to do with him. Now it's you who wasn't listening to me. I said, I don't want him knowing my personal business."

She winced, and crossed her arms across her breasts, her mouth set in an angry pout. The rest of the drive was completed in silence.

At home, I headed straight for the laptop and Coby started preparing dinner.

We sat silently eating our dinner, when she said. "I'm sorry if you can't see the sense in using the tools at your disposal. Wyatt knows a lot of very influential people. He has a ton of property, and he understands the market. I know damned well he would love to help you."

"No." I snarled louder than I intended, but it was impossible to hide my anger. "What is it that you don't get about this, Coby? I don't want him involved."

"I'm trying to get you to see you have options. When you have somebody with experience in a particular field, it makes sense to utilize it. If you are going to have any chance of making a success of this, you need to start acting like a professional."

"I would rather it crash and burn than have him involved."

"The way you're going about it, I think it probably will." She sighed before adding. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It's just in business, we have to work with people we don't like. You can interact politely with people without being friends with them."

"Coby, trust me, I've got this. Just have a little faith."

That was it until bedtime. We did sleep together, but there was no intimacy, no warmth.

I was quite happy to go to work. Thankfully, it was busy and It kept me occupied, which was a damn fine thing.

Lunch time was when my day turned to shit. I checked my phone to see there were a couple of missed calls from a number I didn't recognize. Out of curiosity, I rang the number.

Hello, Leanna, speaking."

"Hi, I've got a missed call from this number?"

"Oh, is this Darren?"

"Yep, that's me."

"Right, cool. The reason for my call was, I think I have the perfect building for your recording studio."

"Excuse me, who are you?"

She laughed like she was sharing a secret. "Wyatt Henderson contacted me. I have assisted Wyatt in finding property in the past. When he gave me your requirements, I thought, I have the perfect building. Would you be free today to go and look through it?"

Angry? God that doesn't sum it up. I was furious.

"Leanna, I don't want you help. If you're talking with Wyatt in the future, tell him from me that he can kiss my ass."

After disconnecting, I screamed at the sky. One of the guys walked past, saw me kicking rocks and yelling my fool head off, and asked if I had a problem. As we talked, he said he thought he might have a solution for me.

His cousin had purchased a run down old firehouse in town, and it might be what I was looking for. When he described it, I was interested. It sounded big enough, had off-street parking, plenty of storage.

After work, we went for a look and I was blown away. It was perfect. Yeah, it was dilapidated, in need of a full makeover, but the bones were there: structurally, it was sound. It had big rooms, high ceilings. It already had toilets, showers and a kitchen. In short, it was ideal.

There was another benefit, and this was a biggie: it was for sale, not lease. I previously hadn't considered purchasing anything, but with the price sitting somewhere around eighty thousand, it was doable. I could actually own it.

I talked to his cousin, and we settled on seventy-five thousand. The next part was getting the financing. I would have dearly loved Coby's help with this part. Finance was her thing. She was great with numbers and financial proposals.

After she got Wyatt involved, I was so angry with her I didn't want her anywhere near it.

I put together the proposal documents, rang my bank and organized a meeting with the loan officer. I had enough cash I could buy it, but then had nothing left for the mods. I needed a mortgage.

It was nerve wracking, but I walked out that afternoon with a seventy-five thousand dollar mortgage.

I was feeling better than I had in a long time. At home, I sat down with pen and paper and started laying out the plans: what went where, conduit runs, fiber, electricity.

I didn't realize how deeply I had fallen into the rabbit hole. I had so many lists, the beginnings of a project plan, sketches.

I didn't even hear the door open. All I heard was her scream, there was no hello, no how was your day, just. "What the fuck were you thinking. Oh my god, you obnoxious shit. He was just trying to help. That poor woman, she was totally insulted."

Her anger only fired me up, and I barked angrily in response. "Coby, I asked you explicitly not to say anything to Wyatt. I'm the one who has the right to be furious, and I am. So get off your high fucking horse."

She walked slowly over to where I was seated, and said contritely, "I was only trying to help. You hadn't been able to make any progress. Wyatt was able to call in a couple of favors. The building Leanna found is perfect."

"Fuck Leanna, and fuck Wyatt. I'm not interested."

She flopped down beside me, obviously frustrated. "This is what I was saying yesterday. If you're going to make a go of it, you have to be professional. You aren't going to make it otherwise."

"Then I will fail, but I'll at least have the satisfaction of knowing I didn't fuck my way to the top. I worked for it."

Her face paled, her eyes bulged and I could see the steam issuing from her ears. "You lousy prick. We both signed that contract. Your signature's there as well as mine. You sure haven't had any issues spending the fucking money, have you?"

"I'll give you your fucking money back, Coby. You can have it all. I don't want it."

"Hypocrite, you took the money, and now you keep throwing back in my face how I earned it. This was supposed to be a happy time. We both got our dreams fulfilled. I wanted us to work side by side, I want to help you, Darren. I can help you."

"I would love your help," I said softly, "if you stopped pushing Wyatt in my face, if you tried to understand this from my perspective, rather than yours, I would be happy to include you."

"Wyatt isn't a bad guy, Darren. When I told him about the trouble you were having finding the right premises, he wanted to help, which is why he called Leanna. If you just opened your mind, gave up acting like a victim, stopped playing the martyr..."

I just shook my head and reclined back in the couch.

"Babe, the way you've been behaving, you sulk around, blaming Wyatt for everything that goes wrong with your life. We have eighteen months, that's all. If you accepted the situation rather than fought against it, things could be so much easier."

"So that's it, I just accept your affair."

"Yes, I'm away with him for three nights out off fourteen. That's all, I want us to have a normal life. Christ, when I'm home, we could be having so much fun. At that damn auction, you were rude to Wyatt, and Kailami. She said she asked you to dance and you refused and snapped at her. Damn it. Every man there wanted to dance with her."

"Yeah, well if she wasn't such a vacuous self-centered bitch. I probably would have." Seeing the anger in her, I figured I wasn't getting any tonight anyway, I spat out. "Although, if I'd known how hot his girlfriend was, maybe we could work out some kind of swap thing. While you're away with him, she could come around and keep me company."

The look on her face was worth the shit she flung at me. Wow, I didn't know she knew that many cuss words.

Slowly, as she ran out of steam, she said, "If this is the way the next eighteen months are going to be, we'll never survive. Can we try to forget what has happened. Put it in the past and try again?"

My hope of getting some was reignited, I nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, we could try."

The rest of the week passed quietly. I waited impatiently for the settlement from the bank. Thursday, I had them in my hot little hand; I was free to take possession. I actually owned something, for the first time in my life. I owned something, it wasn't rented or leased. It was mine.

Thursday was also the night Coby told me we would be attending a casual dinner at Wyatt's apartment Saturday night. It was his team-binding session. All the senior execs were invited with their partners.

I felt his grip soften with my acceptance. "Good to see you, Darren." I didn't respond, but he was happy with the handshake. He redid all the introductions, and we collected drinks from the bar.

I fell into conversation with one of the senior staffers and his wife. He had worked his way through college working construction, so he had a good understanding of the role.

One of the other managers played in a band in college, which meant we had something to talk about. Coby talked mostly with Kailami. Strangely, they got on well. I didn't understand that, they were both fucking the same guy. I wondered whether Kailami knew.

Wyatt couldn't help himself, he had to push. "Have you spoken to Leanna about the building for your studio?"

I couldn't decide whether he was playing the big man, or genuinely interested. I decided to just shut it down. "No, I looked online. It wasn't what I was looking for."

He seemed shocked. "Really? From what Coby said, it seemed like a perfect fit."

"Nope."

"She's damned good at her job. I'm sure if you talked to her she would track you down something."

"I've got my own agent on it."

I was rescued by the guy who played in the band. Unfortunately, he had some recordings from his old band days saved on his phone. He saved me from Jabba, but it meant listening to them. I wanted to say, "Don't give up your day job," but bit my tongue.

The night was going pretty well; Wyatt stayed out of my way. I was able to find ways to talk to many of the attendees. I thought I was even holding my own, conversation wise.

The caterers served up the food, and we sat around the table talking. Coby, who had been talking to Kailami, said loudly, "You know, Darren, Kailami is looking to record her debut album. Maybe you should talk to her. She could be your first signing."

"Yeah, maybe," I said, completely disinterested. I was confident she didn't have anything.

Wyatt had to jump in. "You could do worse, Darren. She's pretty good."

"I'm sure she is," I said mockingly.

Coby jumped back on board the Kailami express. "She has some recordings here. You should have a listen."

"Later, perhaps."

Suddenly, the table erupted with loud hip-hop. This voice, which wasn't as bad as I thought, echoed out, with Melodyne infused beats. It was horrific. The tracks were short and unfinished. It echoed everything I hated about today's music.

After the third one. I couldn't take it any more. I held my hand up. "Whoa, stop, you're killing me here. Sorry, that is not what Rebellion Records is looking for."

Kailami gave me the dirtiest look. Obviously insulted, she hissed, "I already have three real labels interested."

"Good for you." I growled harshly. "Go with them before they change their minds."

Coby glared at me angrily again. The rest of the table looked uncomfortably from one to another. Yeah, okay, maybe I could have chosen to let her down softly, and if she wasn't banging Wyatt, I probably would have.

It took a while before the conversation restarted. After dinner, with a beer in hand, I walked out onto the balcony to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere.

Looking out over the city skyline, I was startled by a voice. "Why don't you like me?"

I turned to see Kailami, staring intently at me.

"I don't like pretentiousness in people. I prefer honesty, people like you annoy me."

Obviously insulted, she huffed condescendingly. "Why are you being so mean? I am not pretentious."

"Get off the grass, you're the epitome of artificial. If you looked up plastic in the dictionary, there'd be a photo of you. You're like all wealthy kids, blessed with good looks and living off them. You talk down to people, you think you're special because you're good looking. You expect every man to just fall at your feet, grovelling for your attention."

"Good god, you're such an arrogant ass. I don't know why you think you're so special. You haven't even got a recording studio."

"That's true, but I will have, and the music I release will be real. Not that crazy electronica bullshit. Real music, played by real musicians."

"I bet you can't even play anything." She sneered derisively.

I didn't realize Coby was listening. "Actually, he's pretty good, Kailami," she interjected.

Wyatt walked out to stand behind Coby. "I have an old guitar hanging on the wall in there. What say you give us a few tunes? Now I'm interested to hear if you can live up too the hype. Coby has given you pretty glowing reviews.'

He turned and walked inside, and Coby walked over and gave me a little kiss. "You better be good, babe. You were really harsh on her." She led me inside. Wyatt walked up carrying an old Kalamazoo guitar, which he held out to me.

My pleasant evening was going down the toilet. The last thing I wanted to do was share my music with this bunch. Still, now there was no escaping it. At least the guitar was in good condition and easy to tune.

As I tuned up, Wyatt quietened down the chatter with a wave of his hand. "Can we have some quiet please. Darren is going to entertain us with a few tunes."

The chatter stopped and they all gathered around. I started out with a couple of my earlier songs, and watching the faces as I performed was interesting. Wyatt looked completely stunned. Kailami stood beside him looking equally surprised.

Brian, the guy who used to play in a band, smiled broadly, his foot tapping and his head nodding.

Coby swayed in time with her eyes closed and a huge smile. Watching her transported me back to that first gig, where she stood dancing in front of the stage staring up at me.

Kailami, well she looked pissed. I guess she was hoping to see me crash and burn.

At the end of the song, everyone broke into a rowdy applause, and somebody called for more. I ended up playing and singing for about half an hour. By then, I had enough and handed Wyatt back his guitar.

Coby rushed up and jumped into my arms. "That was brilliant, babe. Oh, it's so nice to hear you perform again. I have missed that.

"Yeah, I forgot how much I loved it."

At least I was back in black.

That night, Coby was insatiable; we made love with a ferocity recently lost. Her mouth sucked, licked, nibbled, and generally feasted on me like a downed gazelle, and she was the huntress lion.

Her pussy sucked my cock into her sodden depths with a cannibalistic savagery.

My balls ached when we finished.

"Oh god, what a fabulous night," Coby gushed. "If you hadn't been so cruel to Kailami, it would have been the perfect night. Thank you for trying so hard and being nice to Wyatt."

I don't know if she felt my body tense up at the mention of his name, but there was that underlying anger. Just the mention of his name irked.

It didn't get any better when she started going on about phoning Leanna. When I didn't respond, she kept on about how I needed to learn about business and let people in to help in areas where I was weak. When she said Wyatt might be a good mentor as he had really helped her, that was it. I exploded in an angry tirade that totally destroyed the wonderful passionate ending to our night. We again slept as far apart as two people could be sharing a bed.

I was up early the next morning, and I left Coby in bed sleeping. It was time to get my hands dirty. At the fire station, I got my plans out and started measuring everything, just to verify I had everything right. Then it was clean-up time. I couldn't actually do that much. There was so much crap piled in there. I didn't have the tools, or dumpsters.

It did feel good, though, and maybe because of Coby's lack of belief in me, my determination levels were high. I was going to make this work come hell or high water.

I got home about five in the afternoon, and Coby was livid. "Where the hell have you been?"

Right then I could have diffused the whole thing. I could have just told her the truth, but the fact she didn't think I could made me go down a totally different route. "Work," I lied. "There was an emergency. Some scaffold collapsed and we had to fix it." I guess my filthy clothes and dirt covered face convinced her.