on the move, and music-biz people were always looking for the next hip place to help generate buzz, but still, she had been envisioning a venue like a smaller version of Joe’s Pub. What was this? No line fanning out to the sidewalk. No marquee announcing the night’s talent. There wasn’t even the requisite sullen girl with a clipboard, petulantly telling everyone to take a step back and wait his turn.
Brooke felt a small wave of anxiety until she heaved open the vaultlike door, stepped inside, and was enveloped in a warm cocoon of semidarkness and low laughter and the subtle but unmistakable scent of marijuana. The entire space was the size of a large living room, and everything – the walls, the sofas, even the paneling on the small corner bar – was swathed in plush burgundy velvet. A single lamp rested atop the piano and cast a soft light onto the empty stool. Hundreds of tiny votives were magnified by the mirrored tabletops and ceiling, a look that somehow managed to be impossibly sexy without so much as a twinge of eighties-throwback.
The crowd looked like they had been hand-plucked from a poolside cocktail party in Santa Barbara and dropped in New York City. Forty or fifty mostly young and attractive people milled about, sipping from lowball glasses and exhaling plumes of cigarette smoke in long, languorous wafts. The men were dressed almost uniformly in jeans, and the few who still wore their daytime suits had ditched their ties and loosened their top buttons. Almost none of the women wore stilettos or the short, tight black cocktail dresses that made up the Manhattan uniform; instead, they were all roaming about in beautifully printed tunics and tinkling beaded earrings and jeans so perfectly worn in that Brooke actually yearned to strip out of her black sweater dress then and there. Some had hippie-chic headbands around their foreheads and beautiful hair falling to their waists. No one appeared the least bit self-conscious or stressed out – another Manhattan unlikelihood – which of course made Brooke doubly anxious. This was a far cry from Julian’s usual audiences. Who were all these people and why did each and every one of them look a thousand times better than she did?
‘Breathe,’ Nola whispered in her ear.
‘If I’m this nervous, I can’t even imagine how Julian feels.’
‘Come on, let’s find ourselves some drinks,’ Nola flung her blonde hair over her shoulder and held out a hand for Brooke, but before they could move through the crowd, Brooke heard a familiar voice.
‘Red, white, or stronger?’ Trent asked, magically appearing next to them. He was one of the only men in a suit and looked uncomfortable. It was probably his first time away from the hospital in weeks.
‘Hey there!’ Brooke said, hugging him around the neck. ‘You remember Nola, right?’
Trent smiled. ‘Of course I do.’ He turned to Nola and kissed her on the cheek. There was something in his tone that said Of course I remember meeting you, because you randomly went home with my friend that night and he was very impressed with both your willingness and your creativity in the bedroom.
Not so with Nola. ‘How is Liam? God, he was fun,’ she said with a huge smile. ‘Like, really fun.’
Trent and Nola exchanged knowing looks and laughed.
Brooke held up a hand. ‘Okay then. Trent, congratulations on the engagement! When do we get to meet her?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say Fern’s name, didn’t trust herself to say it without laughing. What kind of name was Fern?
‘Considering we are almost never not at the hospital at the same time, possibly not until the wedding.’
The bartender motioned to Trent, who turned to the girls.
‘Red, please,’ they said in unison, and all three watched as the bartender poured from a bottle of California cabernet. Trent handed them each a glass and downed his own in two swift swallows.
He turned to Brooke with a sheepish look on his face. ‘I don’t get out much.’
Nola excused herself to do a loop of the room.
Brooke smiled at Trent. ‘So tell me about her. Where’s the wedding going to be?’
‘Well, Fern’s from Tennessee and has a huge family, so we’re probably just going to do it at her parents’ place. Next February, I think.’
‘Wow, moving right along. Well, that’s great news.’
‘Yeah, the only way we can be matched the same place for our residencies is if we’re married.’
‘So you’re both continuing on with gastro?’
‘Yeah, that’s the plan. My interests are more in the scoping and testing area – they’re doing some incredibly high-tech things these days – but Fern is more a Crohn’s/celiac kind of person.’ Trent paused for a moment and appeared to reflect on this before breaking into a wide smile. ‘She’s a great girl. I really think you’ll like her.’
‘Hey, buddy!’ Julian said, clapping Trent on the back. ‘Of course we’ll like her. She’s going to be your wife. How crazy is that?’ Julian leaned over and kissed Brooke full on the lips. He tasted delicious, like chocolate mint, and just seeing him was reassuring.
Trent laughed. ‘Not as crazy as the fact that my socially stunted cousin has had himself a wife for five years now, but it’s up there.’
The three had just clinked glasses – Julian only had water – and were about to get the full rundown on Fern when one of the best-looking guys Brooke had ever laid eyes on seemed to magically appear by her side. He was at least six inches taller than her, which immediately made Brooke feel girlishly slight and dainty. She wished for the umpteenth time that Julian were as tall as this mystery man but then forced the thought from her head; Julian probably wished Brooke’s body was more like Nola’s, so what right did she have? The guy wrapped an arm around Brooke’s back and squeezed her left shoulder, so close she could smell his cologne. Masculine, subtle, and expensive. She blushed.
‘You must be the wife,’ he said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, a gesture that felt oddly intimate and impersonal at the same time. His voice was not nearly as deep as Brooke would’ve expected from someone of his height and obvious level of fitness.
‘Leo, I’d like you to meet Brooke,’ Julian said. ‘Brooke, this is Leo, new manager extraordinaire.’
A gorgeous Asian girl walked by at that exact moment and both Brooke and Julian watched as Leo winked at her. Where the hell was Nola? She needed to warn her early and often that Leo was off-limits. It wasn’t going to be easy – Leo was exactly her type. His pink dress shirt was open one button more than most men would dare, and it highlighted his lovely tan – dark enough but without a hint of booth or aerosol. His pants were low-waisted and European slim. He dressed as though his hair should’ve been slicked back with heavy product, but he smartly let his thick, dark locks wave freely just over his eyes. The only flaw she could make out was a scar that bisected his right eyebrow in a hairless dividing line, but it actually worked to his benefit, taking away any hint of effeminate overgrooming or perfection. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on his entire body.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Leo,’ Brooke said. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’
He didn’t appear to hear. ‘Okay, listen,’ he said, turning to Julian. ‘I just got word that you’re scheduled as the final act. One down, one to go, then you.’ Leo peered intently over Julian’s shoulder as he talked.
‘Is that good news?’ Brooke asked politely. Julian had already told her that none of the other musicians scheduled to perform that night were in any real competition. One was an R&B group who everyone thought sounded like a modern-day Boyz II Men, and the other was a heavily tattooed female country singer who wore frilly dresses and pigtails.
She looked at Leo and saw that once again, his gaze had wandered. Brooke followed it and saw he was staring directly at Nola. Or, more precisely, Nola’s pencil-skirt-swathed bum. She made a mental note to threaten Nola with banishment and worse