Nouveau

Chapter 39: Time

Laive

She was running.

Her dreams had come back more frequently now. But this time they were different. Laive was no longer dreaming of a physical connection when she closed her eyes. They had evolved to something much bigger than that. In the last dream, L had a sold out concert at the Staples Center for her personal headlining tour. The arena was empty as Laive was in hair and makeup getting ready the afternoon of the show. Her baby was restlessly playing and for some reason, the toddler had gotten loose and began to take off down the backstage hallways.

Laive remembered how happy she felt. How beautiful and warm the child's laughter sounded reaching her ears as she playfully chased behind them in her heels. When the double doors opened, her husband was there to raise the infant up under the arms and held them lovingly in the air before kissing it's cheek.

The lights had blinded her when the doors swung open. She really couldn't see his face, but Laive felt a certain energy radiating off of him.

And that scared her.

So, This morning....She went running.

Her Nike sneakers were hitting the dirt trail like slabs of concrete as sweat formed on her forehead underneath her cap. Her ponytail was fiercely whipping behind her as usual.

L was angry these days. Tremaine had dissed her a million times in person since everything happened. He humiliated her in the studio so bad one night Mack had to intervene and allow her to go to the restroom to get herself together. She had tried to apologize to him, that's all L wanted to do. As soon as he saw her, he showed no mercy.

The tracks were loaded as Tremaine came strolling in like Laive hadn't been waiting forever on him. L wasn't foolish, she used the extra time to revise and write new songs to record. Since their fall out, she had even taken her time to perfect her hand in piano so she could work on producing. Laive could definitely construct a song from scratch. She just wanted to be able to play the exact chords that were in her head, rather than constructing a sound and having someone else come in and play her the melodies.

But Tremaine seemed like he was in no mood for her writing when the appalled smirk appeared on his face as she sat by the mixing board.

"Why you not in the booth?"

"You just got here. I was waiting for you but-"

"Mack, did you tell her I wanted her to be in the booth when I got here?"

"I did. But-"

"If," Tremaine pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "If I hear another fucking 'but' from anybody else in this room...I'm a go the fuck off."

L understood why he was acting out. He'd been angry with her since the Lehr thing, but the stuff he was pulling was nonsense. Tremaine was making her angry.

Laive calmly responded, "Well I'm sorry I didn't wait in the booth for three hours. I figured I could be doing more important things...Like working on my album."

The entire room got quiet.

"When I'M paying fa shit, ain't nothing more important than what I ask you to fucking do."

Laive was getting madder by the second, "How much do I owe you?"

Tremaine laughed like she was joking.

"Hello?..."

Tremaine's eyebrows furrowed as he slowly stalked towards her. He stopped when he positioned himself  centimeters away from her lips while he seethed over her.