The Tour. | +18 | BWWM

𝄞 07 | Russian Roulette - Part 3

"Going to finish writing about me?" He asks.

"Yes?" It was a question, but it was an answer to. I was, but I wasn't brazen enough to do it right in front of him. It would be like stripping down to my panties while he watched. I can't even totally blame him for reading it in the van's backseat. It wasn't spacious like the limo that took us to the hotel. The van wasn't super cramped either, but there's not a lot of space to choose from. "No?"

"I have a journal too." It's not a surprise many artists do. Someone robbed Eminem of his and tried to steal all the rhymes. He pulls out his tiny leather-bound journal. It was sandwiched between an iPhone and another leather folio. The leather cord, holding the three things together, he unwinds. He turns the folio end over in such a practiced way of long habit. A smokey spicy scent permeates from the folio. "Let's make a deal. I show you one page of mine and you should show me one page of yours." It was I show you mine, you show me yours. We weren't little kids, and the offer had to weigh and it implied other things. Darky, sexy, things that made me want to squeeze my thighs together. But maybe it was just my imagination. The tiny card size journal seemed like an unfair trade. It felt like emotional Russian roulette. The bases cringey things exist in my journal. As well as simple notes, university assignments, and normal things. There's a very good chance he could hit one of those raw, emotionally exposed pages. His journal is the size of an iPhone, not a good trade.

"I'll give you two pages, I already read yours." I wanted to know more about him, but I would prefer he gives me that information. If we are going to work together, we should get along. Yes, if you keep convincing yourself B, you'll walk right into a trap. Look at that cocky smirk on his too handsome face. But it was something more intangible that pulled me.

"What do you mean by give?" It felt dangerous negotiating with Asher. The man is trouble. That sexy, cocky smirk was addictive. It was seductively inviting, like how the snake offered the apple to Eve. But instead of a snake offering me the apple, a beautiful red-tailed hawk was instead. Does it make it any less dangerous?

"Give... as in a free look without having to reciprocate. Just don't tell me the page." He says.

I'm so deep in the legalese and fuckery of playing with fire. Yeah, Asher is the fire. With his big leather jacket surrounded by the smell of burnt honey and smoke, I squirmed. It was too much fuckery, too much for someone who was basically a music teacher in training. If we were singing nursery rhymes, I'd be your girl, but this was the apple that got you in trouble. A juicy delicious apple, the kind you get at a farmers' market with the name that came out of the 1900s. Its flavor is remarkable. But then you realize that if you want more of this devilry... a little bit more wickedness is going to be expensive. And he was telling me to bite. He really was in full temptation mode. But it could be all on my end. I wiggle against the back bench seat. And hope to god Asher didn't catch it. He slides out the cigar. It's bigger than a cigarette butt longer and almost as thick as a cigar out of the folio. Then he dropped the journal into my lap. My eyebrow raises at the cigar.

"It's a vice to control a vice. Not effective management, but it works." He tilts the cigar at me. I realize he's asking if it's ok. I nod at him. Then cuts and he lights the cigar. Moving it slowly back and forth between his fingers, rolling it, toasting the end. The ritual was mesmerizing, and I could see he knew what he was doing. "I own the company that makes the cigars. My brother and I started it five years ago. Club 27, it was a bad joke." Yeah, considering his brother died at that age like so many music artists, it was a bad joke. "The company is one of the major sponsors of The Tour." He had a way about him. Something that couldn't be denied so easily. Magneticness that pulled all the time. Smoke swirls around me lifting and to the starry sky. Part of me wanted him to turn down sexy. But I had a feeling that this was like a wave. The sexy part of him is the sexy part of him and it is what it is. The spicy cigar with him humming as he pulls and draws on the cigar. It gave me the shivers this air of seduction and menace. Those smokey clouds rising off into the stars were something I wish I could take out my phone and take a picture of. He really was the nebulous star I called him.

Asher's journal was burning a hole in my lap with my need to play the game with him. But.... curiosity might have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. I open the journal with shaky hands in the back of the smoky van. The lyrics of the song weren't finished, but it was so beautiful. I wanted to ask him about it. Is this for the next album? In my mind, I sang it with the notes and it had so much heart. I flipped to a random page, and it was a song about...

My brain stopped working, and my eyes flipped up to him, blowing smoke up out of the van. It was a song about sex. The kind of dirty panty-burning, life-changing sex. It's another unfinished song, but it was sensuous. Fucking filthy in all the right damn ways.

I push my book to him. All the polka dots made it look pretty when he it picked it up. He turned the pages without looking at them closely and stopped on a page. I expected him to read it and this little round of Russian roulette would come to an end, but instead...

The cylinder of the revolver spins, click, click, click. And the trigger pulls.

"Tell me about this out loud," Asher asks. Bang. I didn't even look at the page to know this was going to be embarrassing.

A/n: We getting spicy now. Don't forget to add the show to your booklist :) Just a hint of spice.