crowd, who dove into the piano, letting her fingers tickle the ivory while she created perfection, because she is fucking good enough? The guy dressed in all black to have his voice and the notes he belts out to be his ultimate orgasm? The—”
“Yeah,” I cut her off at orgasm, because I couldn’t take that shit right now and stay in the moment. “Damn, you remembered that pretty much verbatim.”
“I have a great memory,” she says, a slight frown forming. She shakes whatever it is from her head. “But, as sexual as it was, it was also a pretty powerful statement, so yeah, I remembered.”
“Like minds, Savvy Sutton.” I raise my cup in mock toast then take a drink.
“You think?” she asks thoughtfully. “Like, you really think that?”
I nod.
“Then explain, please.”
“We both want to lift people up.”
She nods once. “Go on.”
“Yeah, before I do that, we can agree to disagree, right?”
She arches a brow. “I suppose.”
“Keep in mind, a different lens.”
“I’ll try.”
“Respect the fuck out of what you’re going to do. Gives hope to people who need it, deserve it. And if one in twenty people whose lives you touch change, that’s fucking epic. How’s that saying go? If you give a woman seeds, she’ll grow a garden; sperm, she’ll grow a nation?”
A pillow flies at me, and I duck.
“That’s not the saying.” She laughs.
“Well, you know what I mean. Women truly shape humanity.”
“Oh my God, I am so ready to disagree.”
“Hold that objection. You may not agree with what comes next either, and you can just blast me for both at once.”
“You’re something else.” She shakes her head while lifting the cup in front of her face … to hide her smile.
“I want to find the artist with passion and talent, who will wipe the charts free of the mediocre talent with Daddy’s black card, selling someone else’s song, with filtered voices and computerized beats, who bought his way to the top and can’t do a live show without lip syncing. I wanna bring in the rebels, the pissed-off, angry talent, and deprogram them from hating on everyone, spreading that around like an STD. Someone so angry that they weren’t born to privileged that it holds them back from being who they are supposed to be—epic. I want to make him or her redirect that anger into passion, so that others can see them doing what they should have been doing all along. I wanna hold their damn hand until they are ready to fly. Then I want him or her to do the shit Mom and Dad’s artists are doing. STD and Brand Falcon give millions to people, not charities that don’t do shit but take donations to pay their suits and spew how much money they’ve earned for said people who are still struggling while they’re living high off the hog. Those people pay it forward, one person at a time. The world’s gonna change, Savvy. I wanna be part of that, while still living my passion for music.”
“You sound a bit bitter about being born into money. Do you resent your privilege, as you call it?”
“No, I resent those who deserve to wear that badge and, at times, yeah, I resent that it gets slapped on me. Until I came to Seashore, I didn’t know shit like that app, Seashore Sound, run by those legit shitbags fucking with my cousins. And here’s the kicker …” I shake my head and sit back. “I know Kiki and Truth are strong, I know they’re capable of taking care of themselves, but wanting to bash in your buddy Tobias’s head because—”
“First, I have no friends. Well, now I guess you, but whatever.” She waves the thought away. “Tobias is not like Harrison, Kai, or Miles. He’s here on scholarship and can’t wait to get out. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“So, you like this”—I bite back asshole and use his real name—“Tobias?”
She shrugs. “He did me a solid. Well, two, I guess.”
I run my hands through my hair. “I guess.”
“I think I’m a pretty good judge of character.” She shrugs. “I mean, I obviously trust you, or I wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m glad.”
“But just tell them to ignore the shit. It’s a whole money thing. The parties, the invite list, the fights. I don’t go to any of that shit, but anyone else who gets an invite does. And those who don’t, well, they take it to heart, which is insane. I mean, they pay big bucks to go