Everyone wanted to stay up and talk, but I excused myself to my room and curled up with Ryan’s tee-shirt, inhaling deeply and smiling as I thought about him. I managed to fall asleep and stayed that way until four a.m. Then I got up and hit the weight room down stairs, with plans to hit the pool afterwards. I was pumping some light iron when I realized I wasn’t alone; Sadarius had joined me.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked.
“I don’t sleep very well when I’m away from-home.” I almost said Ryan.
“How about you? Are you normally an early riser?”
“Sometimes, it just depends on what I did the night before. I’ve been wanting to ask you something and I don’t want to like scare you off or anything, but are you and Ryan real serious? I mean, you haven’t been bringing him along so I wondered.”
“He’s my very best friend, but he actually has a girlfriend-just please don’t mention that to anyone else-like the press.”
“No way, girl. I don’t talk to those people willingly. But, if you and him aren’t dating, I was wondering if you’d like to go out some time?”
“Ah-no, I-I don’t date,” I answered uneasily. I wasn’t willing to explain my reasoning to him because this conversation would lead to exposing some private matters.
“You don’t have an issue with color, do you?” he didn’t say it rudely. He seemed genuinely interested in knowing if I had racial preferences.
“No, I have husband issues,” I said softly as I put the barbell carefully back into the cradle and sat up on the bench.
His eyebrows went up, “I thought you ran off from him?”
“I did, but it is more complicated than what I want to get into.”
“I read that he was like some big shot in the mob. Is that true?”
“He was out at the time, but he’s back in the mob and… I really don’t want to discuss it. I’m sorry, I just can’t.” My eyes were giving away the pain that was piercing me.
“Hey, it’s cool. You seem to treat your friends pretty good, so how about just being friends?”
I smiled, “I kind of thought of you as a friend already.”
He straddled the neighboring bench and began doing curls with the dumbbells, “Are you coming to watch the guys practice today?”
“Should I?”
“Akon is gonna be in the studio helping me with my song for tomorrow.”
“Which one are you doing?”
“Beautiful,” he simply stated.
“Ah, I love that song. Yeah, I’d like to come to the practice.”
“And then we could have lunch together-just as friends, of course.”
Boy, I got suckered into that one. I grinned and sighed, “Yeah, I think we could manage lunch.”
Chapter Twenty
“Are these all the cameras we have in the studio?”
“Yes sir, boss man, but I can install more if you want. I can put them anywhere and no one will know.” Cedric watched the owner as he focused on one particular female contestant, “I could even put one in her dressing room, if you like,” he grinned. “She needs someone to keep an eye on her because I think she’s going to get into trouble in the big city.”
“Why is that?”
Cedric backed the video to the last taped episode. He pulled up the feed where he caught Leese buying drugs from Thomas, and then watched the owner’s face grow furiously dark.
“What the hell did he sell her?”
“I’m not sure, but she paid five hundred dollars for it, so it must have been something good.”
“I want him fired-today-within the hour, and I want to know what he sold her.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
The owner gave him a mildly annoyed glance, but continued to study her, “If you put a camera in her dressing room, that feed better run only to my office, nowhere else, is that understood?”
Cedric had actually been kidding, but it wouldn’t be the first time in this business someone wanted to be a voyeur. He almost wished he hadn’t mentioned it; he liked Leese. She was a sweet girl and not fake like so many of the women he had met in this business. But, she wasn’t the one making sure the bills got paid around here, so what would it hurt to let the boss get a little peek? “I’ll install it tonight.”
He and the owner watched the cameras as Sadarius began rehearsing the song ‘Beautiful’ by Akon.
“Capture that,” the owner said quickly, pointing to camera twenty-seven.
Cedric brought the camera view to full screen as he watched what had intrigued the owner, actually it would intrigue anyone with an ounce of sex drive. Leese had begun to dance backstage as the music pumped through the studio. She was wearing a pair of straight-leg jeans with high heels and a button up the front white cotton shirt with the first three buttons undone and a nice view of her cleavage. She was laughing and smiling, running her fingers through her hair as her body swung and swayed to the beat of the music. She was dancing like some kind of lithe nymph high on life. Sadarius was, of course, oblivious as to what was happening backstage, but every time he would sing the repetitive verse, “You’re so beautiful, so damn beautiful,” the two men watching would reflexively moan their approval.
“I want that playing on the screen behind Sadarius when he sings tomorrow night. Work your magic on it so the backstage is blended out and it’s mostly just her.”
“Boss, I don’t know if that’s gonna be cool with Sadarius. I mean it’s his song and she’s going to be stealing the spotlight.”
He could tell from the look on the owner’s face that he didn’t care what Sadarius would think about it.
“Don’t you have something else to do, right now?”
The hint was quickly taken that the boss wanted to watch her privately so Cedric left the room.
“You are beautiful,” the man replied as he watched his personal dancer, “So damn beautiful.”
It was a sold out live show as the men took to the stage to sing. There were full bands tonight to enhance the performances, and Sadarius had drawn the final slot for the night. Leese sat with the other women, although she was about to come out of her seat as the music began; she loved the song.
The audience was having quite a reaction as they cheered and screamed while he perfectly executed the lyrics.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kitkat exclaimed.
Leese looked up and suddenly realized what was taking everyone by surprise. There she was, full screen behind Sadarius dancing to the song.
“Ah, crap!” she exclaimed, but there was nothing she could do about it.
They called the women on stage for the voting results from Tuesday’s show, and Nicole had the least amount of votes and was eliminated. The women’s final four had been determined.
The show ended as everyone met back stage, and it didn’t take long for Sadarius to find Don. “Hey man, that was not too cool to put my competition looking sharp behind me when I’m singing.”
Don would have told Sadarius that he absolutely agreed, but he had nothing to do with it. Producers may run the show, but the money that pays the producers calls the shots. “You did a great job and I don’t think her performance is going to lower your votes, if anything I think she’ll give you a boost.
About that moment, Leese approached the two of them. “Sadarius, I had no idea they filmed me yesterday, I’m so sorry-”
“It’s okay, baby-doll,” he said as he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in for a light hug, “I didn’t figure you had anything to do with it. And damn, girl, the only problem it caused for me was the fact that I kept wanting to turn around and watch you dance,” he smirked.
“Don, did you plan this?”
“No, Leese. But, you signed the contract allowing us to film you and who knows, this may work out well for both of you,” he stated trying to keep a positive spin on things.
Later that night Cedric finished the install of the hidden camera in Leese’s dressing room, making sure it was angled properly for the widest possible shot. He thought about running the feed to his panel as well and simply keeping it turned off except for times when he knew the boss wasn’t around, but getting caught was a very unpleasant thought. The feed went to the boss’s office as instructed.