Meet Me Backstage

5. High Hopes

JACKS

"You didn't," Dré says with a look of disbelief.

"Oh, I did."

"You invited your little engaged girlfriend on tour? You're cracked."

"She's a good photographer and she wants to get into tour photography. I would've offered regardless."

Dré sighs and leans onto the kitchen counter, resting his head in his hands.

"I know you like to be the guy who gives everybody their shot," he says with a sigh, "but this girl? You're too far into this, man—you're gonna get yourself hurt. How did you even end up seeing her again?"

"I may have booked a photoshoot with her." I give him my best charming smile, mostly to curb the scolding I'm about to receive.

"A photoshoot? What photoshoot? When?"

"A boudoir photoshoot. Yesterday."

"The fuck?" He rests his palms on the counter and looks at me with wide eyes. "What is a boob-oir photoshoot?"

"Boud-oir. It's like, sexy photos."

"You had the engaged girl..."

"Skye."

"You had Skye—the engaged girl—take sexy photos of you? I take it that's the type of photography she does?"

"Yeah, she's great at it too. It was a little awkward, but fun."

Dré bursts into laughter and runs his hands over the bit of stubble covering his once-shaved head.

"I'll tell you what, man, you're always entertaining. Only you would fall for an engaged woman one week and have her taking naked photos of you the next. Wait—we are talking naked, right?"

"In my underwear."

He continues to laugh and shake his head.

"What was that like?"

"It was interesting. There were a couple points where I may have had to pose, um... creatively."

"How so?"

"Do I really have to say it?"

"Say what?"

"She's hot and she's telling me to take off my clothes and basically straddling me at one point, okay? I was trying to avoid taking the shoot from PG-13 to R rated."

"Ha!" He lets out an outburst of laughter and I shoot him a glare. "You had to hide your wood from this girl in the middle of a photoshoot in your underwear? That's some hilarious shit."

"Need I bring up the pool incident?"

"Hey, hey, that's uncalled for."

"I'm just saying."

"In my defense, Maria was in a bikini and I did not expect Terrell to rope me into a chicken fight."

He walks over to the couch and sits down.

"So did she say yes?" he asks.

"I told her to take some time to think about it."

"No chance in hell the fiancé is gonna let her go on tour with a bunch of rowdy, half-naked musicians."

"She's her own person."

"Come on, would you let her go on tour with you?"

"If that's what she wanted, yeah."

"Well you're an idiot. But hey, maybe he's an idiot too and he'll actually let his girlfriend go away for several months with a world-famous popstar and panty-dropper."