Issey gave her name to the new girl behind the check in desk but Jacob the manager heard her voice and came out from his office. "So good to have you back with us Ms. Mooney. I have your room key right here. The suite should be as you like it, if you require anything Clarissa is your butler this afternoon, Marianna will take over at 8." As he spoke he took her rolling bag from her hand and walked to the elevator, swiping the room key to allow them to access the specialty floor. "Your young man has already arrived."

Issey always took the One 80 Suite at the Red Rock. It was 20 minutes away from the Vegas strip which made for a beautiful view but no immediate distractions for her clients. The place was huge, designed for entertaining large groups, important not so much because she normally had so many clients at the same time, but more because the space allowed her to make a large amount of noise without disturbing other patrons of the hotel. She loved the balcony which wrapped around the building and had views of the Red Rock Canyons, spectacular in early morning, and of the Vegas Strip, best at night. It had a hot tub she had never used, a rotating sofa that she tried to ignore, and a day bed that she frequently sat in and listened to clients while staring out over the city. She always had the piano placed on the balcony because she loved working outside, and even if the heat was sometimes stifling it was easier to warm vocal chords this way than in the canned, frigid hotel air. She also loved the textures of the rooms, buttery leathers, faux fur lined walls and more. It was a visual and physical landscape that inspired her. It was also $15,000 a night, but money never concerned her.

Inside the suite she tipped Jacob and went to the kitchen to check that the lemons were in water at room temperature, losing her shoes under the sofa along the way. Presumably the music she could hear was being created by "Blaine" at the piano. He had talent; the playing gave her more hope than the video had. Ryan told her that Blaine's was the highest selling single they'd had with Glee but when she listened the song was clearly not in his vocal range. This was the main, though not the only reason, he was getting special attention.

She was not surprised he was early. She knew Blaine was a character but you could smell the community theater coming directly through the television. He was too eager, needed to be reeled in, taught to create subtle performances. Aside from that the fact that he was kind of slick looking, gelled hair, and very clean cut and preppy worried her. She could usually tell, the grungier the artist the readier they were to work on sound, the prettier the readier they were to be seen, not heard.

She took a deep breath and slid the door to the balcony open, enjoying the feeling of hot desert air on her skin. The music stopped and a bearded, barefoot dude with an impressive mess of curly hair turned to smile at her. His eyes were sparkling and interested but other than that there was no trace of the preppy puppy she expected.

"Hi, I'm Isabella, nice to meet you. You play beautifully."

He hit a few keys, embarrassed. "Oh, I was just, y'know…"

"Have you run any vocal scales yet?" Best to get to work right away, there was very little time to get a lot of work done and she found it was generally best to set the tone quickly.

"Not yet, wasn't sure when you'd get here."

She grabbed her laptop and looked longingly at the day bed, in the past 5 days she'd had a total of 10 hours sleep. She just wanted to sit somewhere she could be comfortable. He was already at the piano, where she would have gone automatically so she took the chance, "Are you okay on your own for scales or do you want me to come play for you?"

"I got it; you look like a multi-tasker." He smirked and she decided she liked this guy. "Straight scales or do you want fancy?"

It was Issey's turn to smirk, "Start slow boy. We'll get to fancy, when and if I think you're ready."

"Oh, if." He laughed and turned back to the piano.

She cruised posts on Tumblr; it was a great way to take the pulse of any fandom. You can talk to artists, writers, and producers all day but if you really want to build a successful show you listen at least in part to the fans, they will always guide you where you need to be.

So engrossed was she in her reading she didn't realize Darren had been singing sentences to her as conversational scales. "This is the most ah-may-zing place I have ev-er seen." He breathed out the word/notes staccato.

"It's big enough to rehearse everyone together." Issey responded without looking up.

"Thank you for let- ting me stay here while we work." His down scale.

"You're welcome. It would be a waste not to use the extra bedroom and I'll be working you well into the night."

He started another ascending scale. "That sounds di – ir - ir- ty"

"You wish, and stop it, you can go much lower. You're getting lazy."

He stopped for a belly laugh, and then began his scales much lower.

"You wish" is what she said, "I wish" is what she thought. Issey didn't mess around with people she worked with. It wasn't always easy because when you work as closely as she did with people you tended to develop bonds. Her attraction to artists was what drew her to her job in the first place but she learned a long time ago that her reputation was her paycheck and she needed to protect that.

This is not to say she didn't slip up, it was hard not to when the only people you have time to meet are people you work with. When she did digress from the plan it was almost never more than a sloppy drunken make out on the last night of a tour. She learned early on that reputation and paycheck were very closely tied in this business and that was enough to keep her libido in check.

This kid though, was gonna make it difficult. She liked his easy humor, and the fact that he looked a mess. She was a careful, disciplined person. She rarely drank beyond a glass of wine and unlike many people on the road avoided drugs completely but when she watched Darren at the piano, the red rocks of the canyon in the background, there was a part of her that wanted to get high and have sex outside at some music festival in the desert with him.

She laughed at her own vivid imagination, always throwing scenarios at her that she would never act on and retrained her mind to the task at hand. She had left him running scales for over an hour; it was time to rest him and get to know him. It was part of her process to get inside the heads of her clients, finding what motivated them helped her to keep them on point when distractions on the road made them sloppy.

"Okay, take a break, let's go inside and get you some water."

They settled in the sitting room, she pulled up his EP from her IPod and put it on the wall speakers playing low. "Tell me your story."

He lifted the glass to his lips and looked at her over the rim, his wild curls falling into h is eyes "I'm frenetic. I work all the time. I write, I sing, I play, I don't sleep. There's just too much inside me that needs to be let out and not enough hours in the day."

"What feels better, finishing a song or playing it for someone?"

It's a loaded question and one of her favorites. Either answer told her a wealth of information about the person she was dealing with but no one had ever answered the way Darren did.

"Interesting. Trying to get inside my head. You're more than a vocal coach huh?"

"You're the first artist to ever turn the question back on me. You think of yourself more as an actor than a musician?"

"You think of yourself more as a psychologist than a coach."

He smiled a wide genuine smile that made the edges of his eyes crinkle which made him look wise beyond his years. This one was fun to play with, too smart for her usual tricks, she'd have to really step up her game for him.

"You scared to be analyzed?"

He opened his arms, "I'm an open book. Ask me anything." He sipped his tea with a smirk, his eyes dancing.

"Do you flirt with everyone this aggressively?"

"You think I'm flirting with you?"

"I know you're flirting with me. Answer the question."

"I flirt, yes. It's not usually this much fun, but yes, I flirt with everyone."

"Good. That will help. What have you done for theater?"

The switch of her tone from flirtatious to all business threw him a little and he straightened in his seat.

"Stuff I wrote mostly. I mean, I did stuff with school, my degree is in acting…"

She cut him off, "So you do think of yourself more as an actor."

He laughed, "Right into your trap."

She smiled, "I'm sneaky. You'll get used to it."