The First Night

I walked past Nate’s room, 403, as well as my room, 404, on my way to find Kiia’s door ajar, as expected. I didn’t hear Nate’s door turn in after I walked past him in the hallway, so he was waiting to see where I was going after I passed my room. I didn’t hesitate as I turned into 405 and let the door close behind me.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but Kiia was sitting up in her bed reading an E-book with only a small lamp on. She had a blanket covering her feet. She was wearing a white top and long black pajama bottoms.

I was processing as much of the situation as I could before speaking.

“Wow, you look adorable,” I let out after enough careful thought.

“Thanks,” she said softly, looking up from her book. “This is what I always wear to bed.”

I knew that. We both knew that I knew that. In all of the chaos, I forgot that I used to fall asleep at her apartment all the time. I’d seen her unguarded like this before, so why was I being so weird about it now?

“That’s right,” I laughed. “I guess I’m not worried about keeping my thoughts internal anymore.”

“So, does that mean you always thought I looked adorable in my PJs back home?” She pushed, taking advantage of my rattled state.

The obvious answer to this was yes, but how would she react?

“Yeah, you always looked adorable back home…I was just torn between not always paying attention and not being in a position to say something.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. You did have your share of space outs back in Rhode Island,” she bit her lip, contemplating if she was going to mess with me.

She looked me up and down before giving a wider smile.

“God, if this is all it takes to get you stirring, then what’s going to happen when I actually dress to the male gaze?”

All I could do was laugh.

“I don’t know, this is all kind of uncharted territory for me at this point…I’ve had partners in the past, but I’ve never felt like this,” I said, not holding anything back.

“Cy Rondeau, the heartthrob of every girl for almost a decade, who dated supermodels when he was in his teens, is weak at the knees for me?” She said in an affectionately condescending tone.

“Yeah, it’s not a secret that I was a young and reckless teenager, trying to get whatever attention that he could,” I admitted, not afraid to tear myself down.

She used her smile to taunt me if nothing else.

“You and I really lived opposite lives in the same world.”

“Are you saying that you never let yourself fulfill someone else’s fantasies?” I asked, half-joking.

“No, as a woman in this business, that’s basically career suicide…you know this,” she pouted. “That’s the main reason this took so long. If I was going to take a risk like this, it couldn’t be a quick fling…”

There was a new tension between us, her eyes watering, but not quite crying.

“Unlike you, the only time I could let myself try to find a connection, it had to be a girlish pursuit of true love…if I was going to risk everything, I could only do it once.”

The weight of her words crashed down upon me. I’d been so concerned about the public blowback for our relationship, but I was ignorant to the depth of its impact on her. She was right.

I spent intimate moments with hundreds of women when I was younger. I was in the spotlight, but all I got for my troubling behavior was a bad reputation. If I hadn’t closed myself off after Tara, I would have still been able to have relations with troublesome women, but my career was perennially unchanged by my antics.

“I’m sorry, Kiia, I’m glad you told me now instead of later.” I sat on the bed next to her, wrapping my arm around her waist. “I won’t take any of these small, intimate moments lightly.”

“Thank you,” she said, leaning her head against my chest.

I wished we could have stretched this moment for longer.

As the minutes passed after our exhausting night, we were laying together in the hotel bed. She had snuggled her face and arms into my chest while I ran my fingers through her hair. I knew that we were going to have a whole new slew of challenges and pressures on us after tonight.

I was in love with Kiia, and that scared me. The pressure from the public and the media was going to be challenging for both of us, but especially for her. All of the allegations about her sudden rise would be tied to this relationship, and even if it wasn’t true, she would internalize it. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself for how this situation came together, I had to be better than the scared boy I once was.

For the first time in my life, I was holding onto something that I was afraid to lose. I was more than willing to let my career in music die three years ago, I didn’t care for fame, and I proved I could find happiness in the doldrums of everyday work. I even learned to live alone. As much as it destroyed me, losing everyone I had felt like a small price to pay after BTR, but the thought of losing what I have with Kiia created a rot in the pit of my chest.

The critics were right about me. The more I appreciated this small happiness I found, the more I realized that all of my success was manufactured by others, that I was just the benefactor of the sacrifices of others. Feeling this mutual love with her felt like the first thing in my life that I worked for, that I had earned. There was a feeling in my soul that if I gave all of my best energies to this relationship, that would be enough. Matching energy with her was enough to make me happy.

I couldn’t take my eyes off how peaceful she looked as she slept. I knew that she was battling more demons than I was behind her beautiful, exhausted smile. After the abrupt ending to my solo tour in 2019, I laid awake at night for years wondering if I would have been better off if I died that night instead, and I never came to a conclusive answer.

This fleeting moment with Kiia was the first time since then that I was happy to be alive.