Keira

Score: R.E.M. - Ariana Grande

"Nobody saw them come through, right?" I ask Jack, as we are beelining for the lifts on the mezzanine floor, where the kitchens are.

"Right, our plan worked perfectly," he retorts with a smirk.

While Jack was working on the logistics of getting the band to the hotel, while limiting their encounters with the paparazzi to minimum, I had come up with the craziest idea: As this is the first show of the European leg of the tour, and they are coming here directly from the airport, where, according to Twitter and TikTok thousands of fans and paps have been camping for three days, we'd need to be extra cautious when it comes to the band's safety and discretion. Their Spanish agent has, of course, already rented a tour bus, as the band has eight more shows in Spain, however, a mammoth of a bus with blackened windows and three security Land Cruisers isn't exactly...subtle. So, I had suggested that we transport the band and their manager with the Lavet Barcelona Manager's private van.

Ruis and his beautiful wife, Leia, have four children and a Great Dane, so, a van is of utmost necessity in their household. It's an all-electric Volkswagen ID Buzz van, and, according to me, it's the coolest thing ever. Also, the back windows on the right side of the van are covered by Frozen sunshades, much to Ruis's three daughters' delight, and the left one at the very back has a Spider-Man in mid-flight, staring with his big, black eyes at the people outside on the street from his own sunshade, which Ruis's son, Simon, had claimed from his older sisters, when he turned four.

I think this makes up for a decent level of privacy, without the intimidation of the slick, blackened windows of the tour bus.

There's still a security guard with the band, and a professional chauffeur's driving them around, but, at least, they can go a little more undercover.

If that isn't genius, I don't know what is.

"Perfect," I smile, as the lift doors chime open in front of us. We walk in and Jack swipes his keycard over the reader right above the pannel with the floor buttons and presses six.

By the time I reached the kitchens, the band had already been secured to the sixth floor, so I wasn't able to meet them in person. I try to shove the slight pang of disappointment out of my thoughts. I have a scheduled briefing with them in an hour. Even though my anticipation to finally meet them has been growing exponentially over the past couple of weeks, I have been too busy to let my excitement take a hold of me. Heck, I've been so busy I haven't really had the chance to do proper research on them yet.

The folders up in my room do not hold a ton of personal information on the guys, except from their favourite bottled water brands and workout schedules, so I had planned on digging into the nitty-gritty-none-pretty details online once I had a day to myself. I did a quick Google Search, though, and, thanks to Wikipedia, now I know the names of all four of them, at least.

As the name of the band suggests, there's more than one Benjamin in the group. There's Benjamin Fox, vocalist and base player, Benjamin Murray, singer and lead guitarist, Garry Vale, drums, and Josh Howard, keys. What Wikipedia has also kindly provided is that "The band's massive success and world-wide fame is partially attributed to the fact that Benjamin Fox's mother is the famous Australian actress and model Alice Fox."

When I has read that, I had suddenly felt really old, because, of course I know Alice Fox and her career very well, but, until a month ago, I had never heard of her son and his band. Which, I guess, is fair enough, given the fact that these guys are teen idols, and are really fucking young, with Benjamin Murray being the youngest at twenty-one, while the rest of the boys are twenty-two.

There's no way I would have organically familiarized myself with their music. I don't normally listen to rock music and I have a Favourites playlist on Spotify that I only stray from when I'm going through break-ups, when I resort to my other Spotify Playlist, specially curated for that purpose, which is mainly Taylor Swift.

I have to admit, though, the songs I listened to the day I got the job, were pretty decent, with edgy, punk-rock vibes and really awesome lyrics, I think. I even got a favourite song already, Love the Dirty of You...

The elevator doors open at the first floor, disrupting my thoughts about The Flying Benjamins, and I all but drop to the floor of the cabin, when my gaze meets a certain pair of black, almond-shaped eyes.

"Now, I'm really gonna kill you!" Lisa's voice is a little more than a whisper, but the look in her eyes is enough to make me pee a little.

She's standing in front of the lift, the knuckles of her right hand white from gripping too tightly the top handle of a massive suitcase, way bigger than her two-night-stay demands, her lips squeezed into a thin line, her jaw flexed, one foot tapping nervously on the shiny marvel floor. She looks way more intimidating than her five-foot-three frame allows for, and the way she drops the backpack, flung over her shoulder, to the floor, sends me into fight-ot-flight, despite her hilarious appearance, with her hair gathered into a ridiculous, messy bun on the top of her head, and are those pyjamas she's wearing?

Jack's body tenses at my side, which I can feel very prominently, due to the fact that the man is a fucking six-foot-six mountain of dense muscle, and I whip my head around in his direction in an attempt to escape Lisa's glare, just in time to see his eyebrows shoot up and his pro-security instincts come alive, as he squeezes his hands into fists at his sides.

"Relax, it's fine," I say, reaching out and gently grabbing his arm. "I know her. I'll be up in a minute," I tell him, as I step out of the elevator.

"Are you sure?" He asks, frowning, as he holds the elevator door open.

"Yes, it's OK, don't worry," I tell him with a grin, and then I summon my inner strength, before I turn on my heels to face Lisa again.

I am immediately met with her frowning face.

"Heyy, babe," I grin at her, and then I extend my arms out and pull her into a smothering hug.

She can't be mad at me, while I'm hugging her, right? Right?!

She tenses for a brief moment in my arms, but then lets out an exasperated breath, her body slumping in my arms, and I know I have won.

Yes! Works like clockwork. Every. Single. Time.

"Alright, alright, let me go," she says, pushing me away, and I squeeze her small body a little tighter, before I let her go.

Lisa's black, almond-shaped eyes lock with mine as soon as I break the embrace.

"I assume you've checked in already," I say, glancing at Reception behind my back.

"I did," Lisa says, fanning the two key cards in her hand under my nose. When I made the reservation, I asked for the VIP suite on the fifth floor, where the indoor pool and the hotel SPA is located.

"Just so you know, all is not forgiven," she says, lifting her backpack from the floor and dropping in into my arms. I stagger under its weight, but I quickly gather my balance back and sling it over my shoulder, hoping that my knees won't give.

"Jeez, what the fuck are you carrying in this bag?" I ask, wondering how Lisa's 100 pounds can carry around so much extra weight.

Her eyebrows pull into a frown, as she says:

"I don't know! Why don't you ask Tony, your fucking bestie, whom you've been conspiring with against me behind my back? He practically shoved the suitcase and backpack in my hands, as he was rushing me out the front door, while the town car was waiting for me on the street."

Is that what you consider a fucking overnight bag, Tony?

I'll need to have a serious conversation with him, when we Face Time again.

The elevator doors slide open in front of us and we walk in, and I send a quiet prayer that, after Lisa sees her suite and has had the chance to freshen up, her mood will improve considerably.

Thankfully, my prayers are answered, and, forty minutes later, after a couple of Oohs, Aahs, and 'Oh-My-God-This-Shower-Is-Bigger-Than-My-Living-Room's, Lisa seems way happier, and I finally manage to relax a little.

I still haven't told her about the concert. I was planning on giving her her ticket over dinner tonight, but I might be expected to have dinner with the team tonight, so, I might as well give it to her after my meeting with the band, which is in - What-the-fuck?! - less than fifteen minutes.

"...and he doesn't want to hear about it! Can you imagine?" Lisa turns around to face me, tightening the belt of her fluffy, white bath robe, the logo of Lavet Hotels embroided in gold thread over her chest. She's been telling me a story about her brother and his wife's honey moon, that I haven't been paying much attention to. I am awfully distracted by this meeting.

"Hey, babe, you must be starving," I say, standing to my feet from my seat at the foot of her king-size bed. "You can order anything you want, or you can go and have some brunch in the lobby bar. Whatever you want, treat yourself, you deserve it."

"Actually, this is a great idea," she says, her face instantly lighting up, as the bath robe comes off, until she's standing in nothing but her underwear and a hair towel in front of the vanity. She crouches next to her suitcase and fumbles with what her finance has packed for her, mumbling something about "fucking useless" under her breath. "A couple of Mimosas are exactly what I need right now. And, you can tell me what the fuck is actually going on over breakfast."

My phone chimes in my hand. I look at the screen and see a reminder from Jeanine that there's a meeting in thirteen minutes in the big conference room on the ground floor and my presence is expected.

"Yeah, about that," I begin, trying hard not to break into a run, as Lisa's piercing gaze zeroes in on me, as her head pops through the neckline of a white t-shirt.

***

"I'll be right with you before you know it," I say for maybe the fifth time in the last three minutes, as Lisa and I stand in front of the lift, waiting to go down. I already know I'm going to be late for my meeting, which is giving me anxiety almost as much as Lisa's hand, raised between us.

"Just...don't." Lisa sighs, without even looking at me. Which is even worse than when she does look at me. "You drag me to fucking Spain, and you don't even bother taking any time off to spend with me, and you won't even tell me what's going on. Now, excuse me, while I get drunk off my face by myself at eleven in the morning, in the lobby bar of a fucking hotel, like a complete and total loser, while you are sitting in your very important and very secret meeting," she says, drawing quotation marks with her fingers in the air after both "important" and "secret."

I let out an exasperated sigh and glue my gaze to my shoes, because I realize she's not wrong.

The lift arrives to our floor, saving me from Lisa's wrath. I lift my eyes just as the doors slide open and my eyes meet a set of familiar bright-green ones.

"Strange Hot Guy!" I blurt out before my brain can perform any type of censorship over my mouth, and, at the same time, I hear Lisa gasp at my side. I want to turn and look at her, but I can't draw my gaze away from the captivating eyes of the man in front of me. He's leaning with his shoulders against the wall of the lift, his hands in his pockets and legs crossed at the ankles, and he looks...mouthwatering.

Memories of that night in Paris and his mouth on mine flood my brain and I feel sudden heat spread through my body. It feels like a lifetime ago, and yet in no time at all, as I hands down stare at him, standing there in the elevator, just like that night, before the lift in Lavet Paris took him away from me.

An awkward beat passes, then another, and the elevator doors begin to slide closed, but he quickly presses the doors hold button and the doors slide back open.

A mischievous smile stretches his handsome features and only now I notice he's wearing the same baseball cap as he did in Paris, but that's about the only resemblance to his appearance from that night. He looks...different. Yet, that same feeling of familiarity that I had felt the first time we talked in Paris hits me, only way, way stronger, which I attribute to the fact that he had his tongue down my throat four weeks ago. It kind of feels like seeing someone on the Tube that you know you know from somewhere, but you just don't know where from, until it hits you that you went to primary school together.

Today, he's wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, and the way his hands are tucked into his pockets provides for a full-on display of  the intricate tattoos, winding down both of his muscular, tanned arms, which had remained fully covered during our previous encounter.

I realize I'm staring only when it's too late...

I move my eyes away from his arms and raise them to meet his again, and the spark in his gaze fans the heat, spreading through my body into a full-blown wildfire...My mouth suddenly goes dry.

Lisa lets out a small squeal at my side and the spell breaks, as both Strange Hot Guy and I move our eyes to her.

She's staring at him with her mouth wide open, looking as if she's seen a ghost. Their eyes meet briefly and hers widen even further, if that's humanly possible, and her eyebrows shoot into her hairline.

A frown pulls my eyebrows in. I reach out and grab my friend's forearm gently, pulling her into the elevator. Lisa moves as if on autopilot, her eyes not leaving Strange Hot Guy even for a second.

What the hell? I know he's hot, but he's not that hot.

We stand in the lift, me in the middle, between Strange Hot Guy and an uncharacteristically speechless Lisa, as the elevator makes its descent toward the ground floor. I try to discretely slide my gaze in Strange Hot Guy's direction, but my attempt at secrecy fails completely, when my eyes collide with his.

The amused smile is still stretching his lips.

"Strange Hot Guy, eh?" He says, and, if his accent wasn't setting small fires across my skin already, I'd have combusted spontaneously from embarrassment. "It's nice to see you, too, Miss Vough."