BEST. NIGHT. EVER.

This was thought that flashed through Leona’s mind as another bottle free champagne was served to the table where she, Edric King and the rest of his entourage sat in Temptations, Pandora’s premiere night club. The free drinks were just the tip of the iceberg that had been a fun, eventful evening.

Leona killed it as a vocalist. As soon as she walked out on stage that evening and saw the large crowd, her nerves dissipated and she imagined they were cheering for her. Singing with such confidence, and also keeping up with Edric’s insane key changes like they had practiced earlier in the day—what seemed a lifetime ago now—made a noticeable positive difference in the music. Everyone she had talked to after the set said so at least. The roadies, the opening bands, and even the fans on their way out of the theater area. Well, she thought so at least, it was hard to tell with all screaming girls when Edric passed.

Luke, Edric’s manager, was especially happy for the improvement and had sung her praises nearly every chance he got which they could see grated on Edric's nerves a bit.

“This after party is wicked,” Edric said and poured himself another glass of champagne, and looked to Caroline, “You gotta send Biacotti my thanks before we get back on the road.”

“Noted,” Caroline replied, “But it’s not much of an after-party without dancing.”

She and the band’s guitarist then excused themselves to go dance to the beats being spun by a DJ in the next room.

“Speaking of which,” Luke turned to Leona, “I’d like to offer you a full-time position lending vocals to Edric’s live concerts and even feature you on his next album.”


Leona felt goosebumps erupt from her shoulders to her legs. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

“A feature?” Edric raised one of his brows and leaned in closer as if he hadn’t heard correctly, “you mean her name will be on the cover?”

That would be flipping fantastic and Leona didn’t like how Edric seemed so flabbergasted at such an idea. Putting her name anywhere wouldn’t diminish his popularity one bit but springboard her closer to her dream.

“Shouldn’t you wait until she at least earns it?”

“I think she has,” Luke said, tapping through his phone, seeming to be looking for something.

“What are you talking about? She’s only performed one show…” Edric continued to gripe but Luke held up his phone to show them some stats.

“Your next show in West Clayton was at only sixty percent total of ticket sales at the opening of your show tonight. As of forty-five minutes ago, it sold out. I can’t account for that uptick in remaining sales as anything but your performance tonight with Miss Hillenburg’s vocal support. ”

Luke flipped his phone back into his pocket and grinned at Edric as if his point was made. Leona was good for business.

“My concert here sold out! And that was before having additional vocals in the show was even a consideration,” Edric crossed his arms. Leona frowned, not liking Edric’s tone or attitude he was taking. He seemed like a petulant child that wasn’t getting his way.

“Yes, but it didn’t sell out so fast after your previous show. Maybe you shouldn’t worry about ticket sales and leave that aspect to your manager. We’ll talk more about this later. For now, I think we should take an example from Caroline…” Luke scooted himself out of the booth and held his hand out for Leona to take, “May I?”

Edric grabbed the champagne bottle and bent his head back to catch a stream of alcohol straight from the opening and into his mouth. After a few gulps, he set the bottle down and followed them toward the dance room of the club.


The DJ for the private after-party pleased the crowd with fast techno beats that flowed into re-sampled hip-hop tracks that Leona often sang in her bedroom as a teenager. She was purely enjoying herself and felt a little sad that Alarie and Illyana couldn’t be there with her. However, it was short-lived because as Luke danced with her, it wasn’t anything short of entertaining since the man had barely any rhythm.

At one point, Edric instructed the bouncer to let in any of the people waiting outside into the club. This significantly increased the body count on the dance floor and sent the room to an even hotter temperature. Leona felt a sheen of perspiration on her face and excused herself from dancing. She climbed a spiral staircase straight to the top floor where there was a convenient bar—she was parched.

“Wine. Zinfandel,” she leaned against the bar and ordered, noting her feet were starting to feel sore and the high heels didn't help that one bit.

“Want me to open a tab?”

“Put it on Edric King’s,” Leona said, not caring. He could afford it and she wasn’t that pleased with him at the moment for his insulting behavior.

“Add a Heineken and put both on Antony Biacotti’s tab,” Leona heard Caroline say from behind her. She turned and sure enough Edric’s PA was there. Had Caroline followed her? Was she like Edric’s spy too?


The bartender uncapped Caroline’s beer and handed it over before pouring the wine into a flute and sliding it toward Leona.

“So, it got a little too hot down there for you too?” Caroline asked and took a drink.

“Yeah, I thought this was supposed to be a private after party?” Leona asked and emphasized the word.

Caroline laughed, her voice was starting to sound raspy from shouting over the music downstairs to communicate. “It was but Mr. King is a very social person, the more the merrier is his style.”

“Unless he has to share the spotlight, right?” Leona grumbled and leaned her seat against the bar, taking a generous sip of her wine.

“Mr. King can be a decent guy when he wants to. He just is averse to change. Trust me, when Heis got a new guitar, Mr. King hassled him a week before accepting it was a better instrument. He’ll come around and see if having you on his team will benefit him in the long run. Luke was right to offer you the job.”

Leona felt oddly touched at hearing those words from Caroline. Caroline seemed like she knew a lot about Edric and it made Leona wonder how long Caroline had been his personal assistant. They moseyed back down the spiral stairs to the landing on the second story that overlooked the dance floor.


“So how long have you known Edric?” Leona wondered.

“I got this gig about two years ago when he was an opening act for bigger pop groups. The record label that assigned Luke as Mr. King’s manager also assigned me to be his PA so that’s how long I’ve been getting him coffee, telling him he’s pretty, and making him sign paperwork,” she laughed and peered over the balcony.


They saw Edric giving all his attention to a sultry beauty in barely any clothes. They were dancing very close and it had attracted a group of women that seemed to surround the pair like vultures, waiting for a turn to catch his attention. Leona raised a brow and made a face; there was no doubt he was an attractive man but she was so put off by his attitude that it canceled out any type of swooning she would have done otherwise.

Leona wondered more about the record label and then wondered if the benefactor for this party was related in any way to it. If so, she would need to commit to finding this man and meeting with him at some point if he was so important.

“Caroline?”

“Hmm?”

“Who is Antony Biacotti?”

Caroline turned to Leona with a look of surprise, “You’ve never heard of Kashmire’s King Midas?”

Leona shook her head and her intrigue shot through the roof. But before Caroline could explain they were interrupted.


“So this is where you’ve two wandered off to,” Luke said from behind them and they whirled around in surprise. The music had been so loud they didn’t hear him sneak up on them.

“Mr. Ziegler, what do you need?” Caroline asked.

“That paperwork I had you write up this afternoon, can you please fetch it for me?” Luke said and Caroline rolled her eyes.

“With all due respect, Mr. Zeigler, shouldn’t that business wait until morning when we’re all a bit soberer?”

Luke narrowed his eyes, “We’re on the road at nine a.m. tomorrow and I don’t want to make Miss Hillenburg wait any longer than she has to.”

His vague comment was clear to Leona: he wanted her to sign a contract tonight for that full-time position. Even though Leona had drunk two glasses of champagne and was currently sipping white wine, she didn’t consider herself too buzzed to do business. Caroline gave in to retrieving the paperwork and left them without any other protest. Her reluctance made Leona really wonder if Caroline thought bringing her onto the team was a good idea or if she was just saying that before to appear nice.

It seemed like the only person who really wanted her around was the manager, but she already trusted Luke Ziegler above anyone else as his goals seemed to align with her own.

“Let’s move somewhere quieter,” Luke suggested and they went back upstairs, where Leona topped off her wine glass from the same bartender, and then they emerged out on the rooftop terrace. The desert air was dry and chilly. Leona shivered a bit in her red, sequined, dress that the concert stylist had picked out of her.

“Shouldn’t I contact my agent before I sign anything?” Leona asked.

“I’ve spoken to Ms. Drake, and the compensation package outlined in the contract is to her satisfaction,” Luke explained.

“What about my satisfaction,” Leona crossed her arms, “Will the numbers be right this time?”

“That was a clerical error that was corrected, and I’ve personally triple-checked the figures for this one. You shouldn’t be disappointed.”

Leona had less doubt when Luke gave her the assurance that the record label wasn’t screwing her over. That was the moment Caroline joined them and handed Luke her clipboard. Attached was a much thicker stack of papers than the paperwork Leona had signed that afternoon after Caroline gave her the form with the corrected pay figure for the show she sang that very evening.

Luke handed it to her and she set her drink down on a low table and lowered herself onto an outdoor chair to look over it.

Ugh! She didn’t want to read through all of it. If Luke already worked it out with Naomi then Leona didn’t see why she had to go through it all over again. Naomi was paid to watch out for her best interests. Leona flipped through the pages and found the figure she was looking for.

She gave a low whistle.

That was more than she had expected but she wasn’t about to say that. She also found the contract’s duration and saw it was for four years. This was exactly what she had wanted. She didn’t need college anymore as a fallback plan. If she signed now she wouldn’t have to worry about school, or tests, or joining that stupid robotics program and running numbers for them in order to secure a passing grade. She was on her way to doing what she loved.

She set the contract back onto the clipboard and held out her hand, “Pen.”

Luke was ready with one and handed it over. A chilly burst of night wind blew across them as she signed her name to the paper that would change her life moving forward.


Luke informed her that she could join them in West Clayton at her earliest convenience for the concert in two days, or even join them on the tour bus in the morning if she wanted. She knew she had to talk to Illyana and Alarie before she made a decision on whether or not she would do that.

After the deal was done, they all went back downstairs to dance and spent the rest of the time dancing. Edric was too far gone by the early morning hours to give a care whether or not Leona had officially become his vocalist. She caught sight of him making out with a few different women throughout the night, and her opinion of him lowered already more than it had over the evening. Eventually, the after-party wound down and the club closed.

Leona was feeling high on success and buzzed from all the free drinks as she hailed a cab to get back to the hotel. As she entered the backseat, the door on the opposite side opened up and Edric shoved his way in, nearly tripping over himself.

“Excuse you,” Leona snapped.

Edric rolled on his shoulder against the seat and grabbed his seatbelt while trying to buckle himself in, “You’re already riding on the coattails of my fame, why not ride in my cab too?”

She pushed into the seat behind the driver, next to him, and glared, “Is that what you think this is?”

“I know it,” Edric didn’t sound angry but he had a smart-ass grin on his painfully handsome face as he accused her.

“Where to?” The driver interrupted.

“Pandora’s Box Hotel and Casino,” Leona snapped in frustration. Edric was still having trouble buckling his seatbelt with his drunken coordination so Leona grabbed it for him and snapped it in.

She had a lot of angry words but she refrained from screaming at him. He made her so mad. She was in for a long four years if this was how he regarded her. She had earned her place singing with him, and he would reap the benefits of her talents so she wasn’t ‘riding his coattails’ at all!

They didn’t say another word to each other on the way back. She supposed Edric was staying at the hotel too because he didn’t give any additional locations to the driver and besides, there was only one fancy hotel in the area. The other lodging options were shady, nearly broken-down motels—nothing suitable of such a pop star as Edric King. Though, she also wondered what the point of a tour bus was if he didn't sleep in it.

There was even more awkward silence as Leona and Edric exited the cab at their destination, walked through hotel lobby and casino floor which were sparse at the early hour of people besides themselves, and the worst was they had to ride the elevator together. She ignored him, offended by him, but she doubted he would apologize—he didn’t seem the type to ever apologize to anyone.

She decided it best to find her hotel key to prepare and leave as fast as possible before the elevator stopped on her floor. She rustled through her purse, moving aside makeup, receipts, and other bric-a-brac that her purse was home to. Yet, she couldn’t find that damn key card. She knew she had put it in there when she left for lunch at the Oasis. How the heck had it gotten lost?

She softly cursed in her breath which got Edric’s attention.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t find my key,” Leona sighed, continuing to vigorously dig through the contents of her purse. She took out her wallet and looked through the cards in there but it wasn’t among them. She hated to have to wake Alarie or Illyana but it looked like she would need them to let her into the room. She found her phone at least, but when she pressed the button to unlock it, the screen remained black.

“What the Hell?” She grumbled, pressing it again with the same result and then realized that it had run out of battery as she hadn’t charged it since the night before.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. She couldn’t get off the elevator fast enough, and she didn’t elect to even bid Edric farewell before she was at the door of the hotel suite, knocking and pulling at the door handle, calling for Alarie and Illyana to let her in. No one answered.


“You’re gonna get security called on you if you keep up that racket,” Edric popped his head out and held his arm in front of the doors to keep them from closing again.

“My phone is dead, and I don’t have my key so the only way I’m going to get into my room is if my friends let me in,” Leona hissed, finally facing him for the first time since they first got into the cab.

“Or you could just come crash in my room and let them sleep,” Edric offered with a yawn, gesturing her forward back into the elevator.

“There’s no way I am sharing a room with you!” Leona glared at him.

“I guess you’ll just have to sleep in the hallway then. Goodnight,” Edric removed his arm and the elevator doors began to close.

That didn’t sound ideal either, “Wait!”

He quickly held his arm out again and gave her a smug smile as she rejoined him.

“Why don’t you sleep on the tour bus?” she finally voiced her earlier question.

“It’s not the sleeper kind. It’s just for riding. The record label puts us up in hotels in the concert cities,” he answered, seeming bored, tired, or both.

“So, your room has two beds?”

“Nah just one,” he replied and she shot daggers at him. If he was even remotely considering them sharing the bed then he was in for a rude awakening. He seemed to be finding her predicament hilarious though what with his stupid drunken smile still pasted on his face.

His room was on the top floor. She followed him to the door where he inserted his key and they entered a nice room. A bunch of his clothes were on the floor and he had more luggage than Leona even. She noticed quite a bit of alcohol bottles on the nightstand and table as well. She wondered if he had a drinking problem.

There was the problem of just the one bed still. She looked to him with a frown before sitting down on it and stating, “I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Give me some credit, I’m a professional. I’m not gonna make any moves on someone I work with,” he said to her utter relief, and backed against the room’s sofa, before falling back onto it. “I’ll just sleep here. No big deal.”


She frowned; he was acting like nothing but a total ass earlier but now he was being tolerable? What was his deal? He grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels from the table in front of the TV and drank it straight. If he was looking for a nightcap he was overdoing it.

Leona unclasped the straps of her high heels and sighed at the comfort of her feet finding freedom. She’d gotten better at wearing them over the years but still relished the feeling of taking them off after wearing them for a long time. She rubbed her aching toes before shuffling under the bed covers. It wasn’t until she put her head on the pillow that she noticed how exhausted she was. This was much better than sleeping in the hallway.

She was in Edric King’s hotel bed. Some girls would kill for that kind of opportunity but she had her sights set on something greater and more worthwhile.

“G'night,” she heard him mumble as he shifted his weight on the sofa.

He really didn’t have to offer her this small luxury, especially considering how he didn’t even seem to like her that much. Caroline was right, he could be decent when he wanted to be.

“Night,” Leona replied and flipped off the light, leaving them blanketed in darkness. After a moment she added, “and thank you.”

But Edric was already passed out.