OLDER MEN | THE WEEKND

04

04

He locks the door behind them before she can utter a word. And then, Bella realizes that she's alone in the bathroom with Abel Tesfaye.

There's furious knocking on the door of the bathroom, and Bella can hear the water from the running waterfall-like faucet hitting the marble of the sink. That, and his ragged, feral breathing.

He looks at her as if she's a swan in a horse race. When he speaks, his voice is a rough groan, hitched and torn. "Why the fuck are you wearing sunglasses at my concert?"

She's too shaken up by the entire ordeal to utter a word. No — she just stares.

She's noticing everything about his face — from the noticeable black beard he's sporting, to the furrowed brows on his elegantly and at the same time roughly chiseled face. To the eyes, which are placed on her.

She rips off the sunglasses with a shaking hand and places them on the sink. Abel leans against the door and closes his eyes.

"Are you high?" Bella asks, and after his voice in her ears, her own sounds like the voice of a mouse caught in a mouse-trap.

He doesn't open his eyes for a few seconds after that, letting her contemplate the entire wrongfulness of her question. Her heart's beating erratically.

"Come closer." He beckons, his eyes still closed. She doesn't move. He opens them and looks at her.

The look he gives can wreck ships. So Bella does.

His eyes slip over her face like black gloves. "Nice lipstick," he husks. Closer, he smells like expensive whiskey and leather. Bella knows that scent anywhere. It's Jo Malone's Wood Sage and Sea Salt and Hermès' Jardin De Monsieur Li. It's the scent of cumquats and jasmine and citrus and cigars.

"You are high," Bella says finally, for she's too numb to feel embarrassment, enthrallment or fascination with the man in front of her.

She's lying. The man in front of her had definitely enthralled her.

"You're intoxicated." She says. "At your own concert."

He doesn't respond. His pupils are so dilated that one can think that his eyes are inherently the colour if the starless sky. Instead, his hand shoots out — she's too paralyzed to stop him — and he's grabbing her neck from the back, and he's forcing her closer towards him, so that their faces are almost touching.

  "I don't give a shit." He whispers into her ear, his breathing cold and hot at the same time, scalding her, burning her. "Doll," He adds, and then lets go, and she tears herself away from him as if he's poison.

   "Open the door." She says firmly. Well; tries to — her own tone fails her. It's almost as if she's pleading, and there's a gleam of amusement in his eyes.

   "Why aren't you screaming or taking photos? It's me." He finally asks, in full seriousness.

  If she wasn't so scared, Bella would laugh.

But there's something in him that scares her. Something she cannot put her finger on or doesn't want to. It's the air of aristocratic threat, something dark lurking beneath a frame, like a python in a suit.

   "I didn't know about you until yesterday," Bella confesses — victoriously, she notes, for she likes the idea of playing with his ego. Her words, however, don't phase him. "I've never even heard your music. And now that you're drunk or high at your concert, I won't really be able to, will I?" She's the one smirking now.

  "I know you," he says suddenly, and Bella freezes, for something cold runs through her — the air of anonymity is what gave her the initial strength to interrogate The Weeknd in the flesh.

  "I'm pretty sure you don't."

  There are furious knocks on the door.

"Open the door, Abel," Bella tries again, her demand more firm and much more desperate, and, to her utter confusion and relief, he abides. Gigi and what seems to be the man form stage burst into the bathroom, Gi darting towards Bella and the man towards the singer.

  "OhmygodohmygodohmyGOD," Gigi's whispering quickly into her ear as she hugs her, "Forget all about Maxim, I've just talked to his agent or whatever, he's such a cutie— wait, was that The Weeknd with you in the bathroom—?"

  "I hope," Bella hisses, and in her peripheral she can see The Weeknd and his agent bickering about something in the entrance to the bathroom, "I hope you haven't told him who you are."

Gigi flushes. "I just gave him my number, that's all."

  Bella rolls her eyes. "You're insufferable," she mutters. She watches as the artist finally straightens his broad shoulders and pats the other man on the back. Then, his eyes dart back to where they're standing.

  "Let's go, Gi," Bella entreats and grabs her sister by the forearm. At the same time, however, she doesn't move.

He's watching her like a black panther. The electric soft lights of the bathroom illuminate his face in the most angelic of ways, however, all she can see is the cheshire smile he's sporting.

  And then, he stirs towards her. It's a moment of weakness for him, it seems, as he's pushed back by an invisible force right after.
Don't move, his posture seems to say. Don't move or—

She turns away from his eyes and begins moving towards the door. It seems as though she's moving through tension so thick it's as sticky as honey and just as sweetened, and he's next to her now, and she can sense cumquats and leather again, that leather which seems to envelop her whole, and he stops her just as she's about to exit.

  "I haven't finished with you, doll." He purrs. Purrs. Bella stares at his face. She tries not to stare into his eyes. "Kiss me if I'm wrong but— you're a Hadid."