Sinner

“Let’s have a little discussion in your office,” she said, throwing a hand toward the bathroom. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

I closed the door behind us and, as she opened her mouth, held a finger to my lips. Joan and her camera had come into the apartment. My wolf hearing could pick up her breathing on the other side of the door and then the shuffling as she worked to get the boom microphone as close to our voices as possible.

Isabel went to the sink and turned the tap on full blast, the movement of her wrist crisp and vicious. I leaned into the shower and spun the knobs.

Then, with the hissing white noise of wasted water behind us, we gathered by the toilet, heads close.

“God, you smell nice,” I said, low and hushed, because someone had to say it, and to let some of my anxiety escape.

“You smell like —” Isabel stopped herself. She said, “What’s going on here, exactly?”

It was not at all the reaction I’d expected. Not much stopped Isabel in her tracks. I lifted my palm to my hand and inhaled.

Wolf.

Earth and musk, night and instinct.

I didn’t know why it was there, only that it was. It was as if the wolf in me seeped through my pores, released by my anxiety.

Part of me wistfully thought of that wolf body and how just a minute in it would instantly ease all of my jostled feelings.

“Isabel —”

“This is not okay,” she interrupted. “I’m not okay with any of this.”

“It wasn’t me. Baby —”

“I know it was Baby!”

“Then I don’t get it.”

We looked at each other. My fingers had that feeling like my arms had been asleep but now they were waking up. Somehow I was both obviously innocent and obviously in trouble. I still couldn’t tell from her face what she was thinking. She was wearing enough eyeliner to black out the finer points of most emotions.

“I will never feel good about walking into a room with you and three half-naked girls, Cole. I don’t want to see that ever again.”

The problem was that this was part of being me, part of being Cole St. Clair, part of having a band, signing up to be on a voyeuristic TV show. “I can only control myself.”

“Can you?”

“I just said it.”

“Can you control yourself ?”

Hadn’t I just? “Do you not trust me — is that what this is?”

Isabel opened her mouth and then shut it. She turned away, crossed her arms, scowled into the shower. “I haven’t been with one hundred other people, Cole. I haven’t seen a hundred other people naked. I don’t know what —”

She shook her head like she was mad. But I knew Isabel, and I knew that every one of her emotions looked like anger from the outside. It didn’t make this any fairer, because I hadn’t invited the girls over, nor had I known Isabel when I’d slept with all the others. But I’d known when I started this whole thing that we were different in this important way: Isabel had spent her teen years caring who touched her, and I hadn’t.

“I’m not here for anybody else,” I said. This seemed too earnest for her to handle, so I added, “Culpeper. I came here for you.”

She still didn’t look at me. The light came through her iceblond hair, lighting her cheek and chin and neck. I still wanted my gold star, even though I knew there was no way I was getting it tonight. She answered, “Me and that little show you’re doing.”

“That’s my job.”

“Hiding in bathrooms?”

“Making music.”

“I could handle dating someone whose job was making music,” Isabel said. “But I don’t think that’s what your job is.”

I thought I could remember having this conversation with Leyla, and I hadn’t liked it much better then.

“Nobody just makes music. You can’t make a living just making music. I thought this would be better than a label. I thought I’d have more control. You know what? I’ve said all these things. I can remember my face saying them.”

Isabel laughed, as mean and thin as she had when the girl spit, but I was relieved, because it seemed to somehow soften her. She pulled out Virtual Cole and began thumbing through screens. “You thought signing up with Baby North would be better than a label? Even though all of her people end up twitching and drooling on the floor. Nobody makes it out.”

“I’m not like anyone else.”

Isabel stopped scrolling. Her voice was wry and sexy as she said, “Thank God.”

We looked at each other. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were sky blue and unblinking. I hated that I could still feel the remnants of the anxiety batting around inside me. I didn’t want her to go, though I could tell by the way everything had happened and the way she was standing and the way Joan was outside trying to eavesdrop that she had to.

I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

I wanted to tell her Isabel, stay. And I wanted to tell her, Isabel, I love you.

I hadn’t said anything out loud, but Isabel shook her head a little, like don’t.

So I just said, “What about my gold star?”

“Ha!” Her laugh was bitter and annoyed. “Baby has taken your gold star. Breasts have taken your gold star.”

“Do you want, at least, to hear my brilliance? Like, as it is meant to be heard?”

She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t move. So I turned off the shower, wiped down the tiled seat inside with a towel, and folded another towel to act as a cushion. I tossed my useless battery-dead headphones into the sink. Then I sat on the shower seat, pulled my MP3 player from my back pocket, and patted the spot beside me.

“This has to stop,” she told me, but she joined me, crossing her epically long legs as she sat. God, she was so beautiful I couldn’t take it.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Earbuds?” She handed me her purse, and I rummaged for them (they were leopard print). Plugging them into my player, I put one bud in my right ear and one bud in her left ear. I scooted closer so that our shoulders were crushed together. As she readjusted the earbud, I checked the screen and then hit play.

For the first minute, she listened. Then her head moved, just a little, the memory of dancing. She could make even that look sexy. I watched her — her eyes were closed, she was just listening, her lips parted a little. I couldn’t get it. I felt like I could only pull off sexy when I thought about it, but I was just as attracted to her when she was trying to attract me as when she wasn’t.