Kiss the Flame

The party was in full swing when Maia excused herself from the group of people she was talking with to go inside to find a restroom. She went inside the French doors and into the kitchen where people were milling about chitchatting. Nodding hello to those she knew she made her way through and climbed the stairs to the room she was staying in. Opening the door she walked into the room and went into the bathroom. Once inside she heard voices but didn’t pay attention to them until she heard Beth’s name being mentioned. All thoughts of going to the bathroom were lost as she pressed her ear to the door of the adjoining bedroom that shared this bath. Her eyes opened wide as she recognized Toby and Mike’s voices filtering through the wood.

Mike made his own way through the crowd as he scanned the faces looking for a certain someone. Catching the other’s eye Mike nodded his head toward the house and slowly made his way to meet up with the person he wanted to talk to. Toby joined up with Mike by the kitchen doors, “What’s up?” he asked the lean man beside him.

“You got a second? I want to talk to you about something.” Toby nodded his agreement to the question and followed Mike into the house and up the stairs. Mike stopped at a bedroom door and turned the knob to gain entrance then holding the door open for the older man to follow him inside.

When Mike closed the door the manager raised an eyebrow to him, “So what’s all the secrecy about? Why did you drag me up here?”

Mike glanced about as if to make sure they were alone before sighing and bringing his hand up to rub his eyes for a minute. Without dropping his hand he answered, “I want to talk about Beth and I didn’t want anyone to know.”

Toby’s mouth formed a silent ‘oh’ as things became clearer. “Okay, what about Beth?” he asked drawing out the conversation from Mike who seemed to not want to really talk about it.

“I talked to Rob a few days ago and he’s willing to sign Beth to Reprise but…”

“But she’ll have a shit fit if she finds out,” Toby finished for Mike who nodded. Looking thoughtfully for a moment Toby voiced his question, “Is it a good deal?”

Mike looked in surprise at Toby’s question before replying with one of his own. “Why do you care?”

Toby snorted at the slight jealous tone in Mike’s voice. “I talked with Beth tonight and asked her if I could become her manager. She agreed so I’m asking that question as her new manager.”

Mike let out the breath he must have been holding once he heard Toby’s explanation. “Yea, it’s a beginning artist development deal for one record. Once it’s out and Reprise sees how it goes, they’ll offer her a bigger contract. Rob knows she has the talent and wanted to sign her to a multi record deal but I knew that she would smell right through that and refuse so I talked him into a normal artist development deal.” Mike glanced to look at Toby and saw the man still had a question. With a smile Mike realized what it was so he continued, “Money wise it’s a normal amount befitting a new artist. She’ll be able to live comfortably anywhere she chooses and not have to worry about money again once the record comes out.”

“Okay, that’s fair enough. I’ll call Rob and get him to send over a copy of the contract. Now the question is how do we get Beth to take it without her knowing who was behind it,” Toby mused as he thought out loud.

“Honestly I think that she would’ve had no problem getting a deal on her own but I want to make sure she’ll not be taken advantage of by another record company. I trust Rob and Reprise.”

“Well I could mention to her that I told Rob that I was her new manager and then he offered something. It would be believable since Rob knows what she sounds like and whatnot since he has an ear for that sort of stuff. It might seem fast to her but she does have an advantage since she has performed prior to this on TV with Sabrina and that Rob has had plenty of chances to hear her music.” Toby glanced at the man beside him as he digested the information that the manager had shared. He watched as a smile inched its way onto the younger man’s face.

“It just might work Toby; it just might work.”

Maia stood and listened to the men talk about Beth and she knew that nothing good was going to come from this other than Beth becoming a recording artist. The woman stood there until she heard the sound of the door opening and the male voices disappear with the shutting of the door. She turned quickly and took care of what she was in the bathroom for to begin with. Washing her hands she quickly packed up her suitcase so she could stay with Beth tonight in case the shit hit the fan and her cousin needed a familiar face.

As the party wound down, people started to leave and Sabrina was ready to try to clean up. After shooing everyone out the door while smiling at their offers to help clean up but assuring them she was fine; Sabrina took a minute to sit down and have a drink before beginning to clean. She smiled at the fact that Tre offered to give TJ his bath and put him to bed. She could hear him singing some nonsense song to TJ in his high nasally voice and the responding coos and squeals from their son. She listened for a while until she heard him softy sing Macy’s Day Parade to him; signaling that TJ was being rocked before being put down for the night. Groaning Sabrina raised herself up from the chair and grabbed a empty garbage bag and proceeded to start cleaning up the cups and plates that folks hadn’t thrown out.

Tre softly closed the door to the nursery and turned to look down into the kitchen. He saw Sabrina taking care of the leftover food as a radio placed softly in the background. Smiling he watched her move gracefully as she worked on her task. His eyes softened at the sight of her. He sighed at the thought that they weren’t together and that he had to leave this house to go home to Jill. Shrugging his shoulders he pushed back the thoughts and went down the stairs to join Sabrina in the kitchen.

Sabrina looked up at the sound of foot steps and smiled at Tre as he sat down at one the bar stools next to where she was standing. “Is TJ okay?” she asked him as she put hot dog buns back into a bag.

“Yea. He’s down for the count. He was falling asleep as I fed him his bottle.”

“Good. Thanks Tre for helping me with TJ. I was able to do a good chunk of the cleaning.”

“Anytime Sab. I enjoy being around my son and I want to be here as much as possible.”

Sabrina frowned at his words and bit back the retort that was brewing up. Tre noticed his facial expression and sighed again. He knew what she was thinking and he wished that it was different; that he didn’t have to go. He said the only thing he knew he could, “I’m sorry Sabrina.”

Her head jerked up at what he said. Snorting her disgust she shook her head and ignored him as he came up next to her. When he placed his arms are her shoulders she was stopped and held there without either of them saying a word. Slowly Tre turned her around to face him and took one of his hands and brought her face up to look him in the eyes. He saw the unshed tears threatening to overflow.

Sabrina looked at him and saw the regret, love and sorrow in his eyes. All the things that he wanted; his eyes showed his soul and Sabrina knew she wasn’t going to be able to resist him. As the tears spilled down her cheeks her shoulders shook and she found her voice, “Damn you Tre for leaving me, for leaving TJ.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured as he pulled her into his arms and held on to her as the tears flowed and she sobbed. He just held on to the woman he loved as she cried for the loss of their life together. When she finally began to quiet down he turned her face to his and lightly brushed his lips to hers. He felt her sharp intake of breath at the intrusion of his touch but within a second she relaxed. Taking for granted her lack of shouting to what he did, Tre took it a little further. He kissed her again but settled on her lips for a little longer. The man felt his body tighten at the sound of her moan and he then deepened the kiss.

Sabrina’s mind was going a million miles an hour. Her body was a traitor by responding to his kiss and she didn’t know what to do. Part of her craved his touch in any way that he would give it and the other part of her knew this was wrong and it would just muddle things up more. As her mind waged war with itself he body took over. With no conscious effort she leaned into his body and wound her hands through his hair. Hearing his moan to her touch her body blocked out her mind and totally took over.

Tre’s mind was wheeling as Sabrina responded to his touch. He wasn’t expecting this but welcomed it none the less. He ran his hands down her back and cupped her ass. Her moan was swallowed by his mouth as he pulled her into his body and she felt his arousal against her own source of heat.

Sabrina was lost as the desire flowed through her veins. It settled in the pit of her stomach as she craved for him to ease the ache. She ran her hands down his back and up under his shirt; dragging her fingernails across his bare skin. She felt the goose bumps rise at her touch and she smiled into his mouth. She broke away from his mouth as she left a kiss of wet kisses down his neck as she lightly bit him at the base of his throat.

When Tre felt her nip his neck he lost all sense as he growled and in one quick motion he cupped Sabrina’s ass again and lifted her up to sit on the counter top. He claimed her mouth again as moved his hand to unbutton her shirt. He opened the first couple of buttons and slipped his hand over her bra.

Sabrina hissed as he touched her sensitive breast. Since she still was breast feeding still she was very sensitive to anything touching her. She jerked away from his touch and pulled back from him. Her breathing was erratic as she tried to get control of her senses. She looked at Tre standing there breathing raggedly as a confused look came over his face. “We can’t…” she mumbled trailing off.

“Why not?” he begged.

“Tre, we can’t. You left me and are with Jill. I can’t keep doing this… this ‘I’m only good enough to fuck’ scene. It’s not what I want. I want all of you and if I can’t have that then you don’t get any from me.” Sabrina then pushed him backwards and jumped off of the counter and walked away from Tre, leaving him there standing.

Mike, Beth and Maia were driving across town to Mike’s place when Beth’s cell went off. Wrinkling her nose at the call she clicked it open and answered the call. “Hello?”

“Hey Beth; its Toby. I need to talk with you about something important.”

“Okay shoot.”

“No it needs to be in person.”

“Ummm, hold on,” she said as she turned to look at Mike. “Toby needs to talk with me in person.”

“Tell him to come over to our place,” Mike responded.

Maia sat and stared at Mike’s unconscious slip of calling his house ‘our place’. She looked to see if Beth caught it but it didn’t appear so. Beth just nodded her head and returned to her phone conversation. Like a chipmunk, Maia stored that little bit of info for a later date.

The trio arrived at the house to find that Toby was already there and waiting for them. The manager had an excited look on his face and both Mike and Maia knew what was up. They went into the house and gathered at the kitchen table where Toby pulled out a paper from a file he was holding. Placing it on the table he pushed it toward Beth.

“What’s this?” she asked as she picked up the paper.

“A recording contract.” the man replied simply.

‘What?” Beth stammered.

“Well you know Rob Cavallo right?” he asked of Beth. She looked blankly at Toby before nodding her answer. Smiling Toby continued, “Well he knows how you sing and knows what you can do so he offered up a record deal to you. It’s only a development deal though.”

“Huh?” Beth replied while starting to feel overwhelmed at what was happening. That naïve feeling came over her again as Toby seemed to be speaking Greek and not English.

Mike saw the confusion on Beth’s face and wanted to say something but he knew if he opened his mouth it would ruin the chance of Beth actually taking the deal offered her. The man bit his lip literally as he waited for Toby to ease her confusion.

Maia watched the three people around her and felt like shit about what was happening. Though agreeing with why Mike and Toby were doing this since Beth was one of the most stubborn people she had ever met. She didn’t like how they were going about it. Shaking her head slightly she leaned back in her seat and watched the drama unfold right in front of her.

Toby waited for a moment before explaining what was going on. “A development deal is just a one record deal. It’s like testing the water before jumping in. Reprise wants to see how you’ll do before they offer something bigger to you. You are still an unknown even though you have had a huge amount of exposure being with Sabrina and on the Green Day tour.”

“When did this conversation take place and why didn’t Rob come to me?” Beth wondered out loud starting to get annoyed at being out of the loop especially when it was her life everyone was talking about.

“Because I’m your manager and everything goes through me first before I present it to you.”

Narrowing her eyes Beth looked at Toby, “But how did he know that you were my manager. It just happened tonight.”

“I went over to spread the news to folks and Rob came over to me and discussed the deal. We went inside and he had everything faxed to Sab’s so I could give it you.” Toby looked right at Beth as he told this little white lie. In actuality Mike and Rob had taken care of everything days ago, though it was the truth that the manager got the paperwork at the party. He said a silent prayer to the gods that Beth would buy what he was selling. “I also took the liberty of sending both this contract and my manger contract to Dan, Sabrina’s lawyer who looked everything over and approved it. He also sent back a third contract for him to represent you. You need to have a lawyer to look over contracts and the like for you.”

Beth just sat there speechless. This morning she was just a back up player in Sabrina’s band; well not even that since Sabrina retired and now she had a manager a lawyer and a record deal. She got up from the table and walked over to the window over the sink. Staring out into the back yard she wasn’t really seeing anything as much as just standing there. She suddenly realized another presence as she stood there as Mike came up behind her and wound his arms around her middle and pulled her into his body.

“Are you okay?” he asked her quietly into her hair.

“Mmmm.”

“Little overwhelmed?” He felt her head bob up and down answering his question. “It will be okay. Toby won’t steer you wrong and I would trust Rob with my life.”

Sighing Beth felt a little better that Mike vocalized what she knew but she just needed to hear another person say it. Turning around to face Mike she looked up into his face. “This is what I wanted… you know in the back of my mind but I never expected it to happen like this. I have no idea of how to start this. I mean what do I do or rather how do I do it?”

“Don’t worry Beth; you have a huge support system here in me, Sab, Billie, Rob, Toby and even Tre. We will help you in any way you need. We’ve all have done this record thing a time or two,” he said with a smile on his lips.

Beth looked into his eyes and saw he was telling the truth; that he would be there to help her and she felt a little less alone as she made her decision in becoming another cog in the well oiled machine that was called the music business. Looking back to Toby she smiled, “Where do I sign?”