Southern Gentleman's Club

Lay Low

Present Day; Two years later

"Where y'all at, Lu?" Marcus spoke in the earbuds as he got dressed for the evening.

"Still on tour, Marcus. I told you this. You never listen to me." she started fussing. Luna was over repeating herself.

"Oh okay, yeah. You said that. How's the shawt?"

Luna turned around to look at her sister's dressing room. "She's not herself. I can't put my finger on it, babe. She's different."

"Hmm...okay. Y'all pulling out after her last set, right?"

"Yes. Now stop wit da questions, you know how I feel about that."

"And you can take the bass out ya voice, act like I won't pull up. But I'm respectin ya job, Lu."

Luna rubbed her temples. "See you in a few hours, babe."

"I love you."

"I bet." And with that, she hung up the phone.

"Trouble in paradise?" Meadow popped up with a smirk on her face. Her headset firmly placed on the top of her fro.

"His lil balls heavy." Luna grabbed her iPad with a shake of her head.

"How much longer are you going to be doing this?"

"What? Touring with Freya?"

Meadow started to falter over her words. "Just...everything?" she looked at her sister in concern.

"As long as she needs me to. Marcus knew what it was when he proposed a monogamous relationship with me." Luna signed in and checked logistics quickly. "I didn't say anything when he went to Europe for a year straight for training, so I'll never understand the battle. He never stopped his shit, so why should I?"

Meadow faltered over her words again. "Because, love?"

"...maybe." Luna leaves her sister in the private hallway. Meadow sighed, worrying over her stubborn sisters.

Luna sticks her head in the doorway. She catches a glimpse of that watch. "Hey, show time in 5 minutes." She makes her presence known. Freya jumped up and nodded her head, hiding the watch in the drawer. Luna noticeably frowned for a moment. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just taking a making a little time for me."

"Okay well, just letting you know." Luna closes the door on that note. Luna pulls her own artifact of her love from her necklace. A locket with their first selfie in it.

Luna pushes the argument out of her mind for the time being, grabs Flame's trademark mic and waited for Freya to emerge from the room.

Five minutes later, on the dot, Freya stood in front of the rabid crowd screaming her name. Shedding Freya one more time, Flame made her appearance. Elaborate wigs, makeup, and costumes. Fans screaming her stage name, thousands crying at just the sight of her, and quite a few sitting on the front row passing out before she could get a note out.

She just stood there moving her head every so often, each time the crowd getting more and more inconsolable. "Gimme my damn beat!" she yelled in the mic.

"It should be illegal to have this much effect on people." Meadow commented while watching after several people got carted off after fainting.

"Look, look, doom." Luna pointed out a pair of fans passing out before the chorus was even sang. "All in a day's work." Luna's hard work leaves her satisfied.

Freya finishes her concert. Her makeup long gone. Elaborate wigs packed away for the day. Now she sat in a generic white tee and grey sweats. How she preferred to look anyway. She stands at the backstage vanity alone and pulls out the watch to hold against her skin one more time before putting in the case it originally came in.

Luna and Meadow stood in the hallway, comparing data when Freya's boyfriend walked up. "Great show!" he clapped in satisfaction. "Glad to see she's taking my advice."

"She was fine the way she was." Luna defends her sister.

"You're just a personal assistant. I would expect you to say that." he lightly pushes past her to open the door to Freya's dressing room. Meadow holds her sister back, waving her hand not to start anything.

The door opens and enters in the Freeman sisters with Freya's boyfriend, movie megastar, Demetri B. Jordan. Luna notices that Freya quickly closed the drawer again. "What a night." Meadow flops on the sofa in genuine exhaustion. "How many more do we have to go?"

"Exhausted." Freya slips the box in her personal bag. "What a night though! So many happy fans." her smile spreads across her lips as she sits in her boyfriend's lap.

Luna widens her eyes. "Speaking of happy fans!" She laughed. "I could say the same shit to you guh! The hospitals had a little caravan of folk just now waking up."

Freya's eyes widened in guilt. "Can we send autographed pictures to them before we leave? I would hate for them not to have something but a ticket stub from tonight."

"Already on it." Meadow nodded her head. "The plane is getting ready for Atlanta as we speak."

Demetri throws his arms over her shoulder. "Enjoyed every minute, Flame."

"I'm glad you did Demetri. But like I've told you before, Freya is fine." She smiled. A smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Meanwhile, Marcus found himself drowning in his thoughts. The argument with Luna was unnecessary as hell. So much so that he didn't even realize what he'd said to start it in the first place. He'd noticed that they'd been doing that a lot lately.

Marcus sat in the passenger seat while his triplet brother, Titan drove through the streets of Atlanta to do a meet and greet with their star client, Ace Carter. "Gotta love All-Star weekend." His brother's voice brought him back to the present.

"Shid, I don't. Too many got damn people." Marcus shook his head. "But shit, at least we got a good halftime show this year."

"Yeah, Freya's performing." He didn't miss the pride in his brother's voice when he spoke.

"Haven't heard that name in years." Marcus looks over at him out the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, she's Flame now." Titan didn't even realize how smitten he sounded.

"She'll always be just Freya to us, Marcus." Titan frowned.

"That's true." He sighed. His mind continued to go over the argument with his own love but he shook his head to get rid of the thoughts. "Have you talked to Ace?"

"Yeah, he said him and some friends gon link after the Game if you interested."

"I was just making sure he told you the same shit." The pair of brothers hop out of the car and head into the hotel, relatively undetected. They decided to rest before the festivities began because during the Weekend, sleep becomes an afterthought.

"So, you really gon act like I don't listen to you?" Marcus couldn't resist calling Luna just before takeoff.

"Because you don't. I generally give you an idea of what's going on weeks in advance and it always goes out one ear!"

"That's not true, Lu. I just forgot."

"Like you forget most things."

"Like what then?"

Luna sighed. "We're boarding now." Her voice is clipped. "I'll see you in Atlanta. If you remembered the hotel we're staying at."

"Man! Lu!" he felt the heat rise. "Bet."