Vanessa seemed happy, but I knew there were still unresolved doubts that were plaguing her about us. I could feel her indecision every now and then. Whenever I would mention the future, her expression would shift and her eyes would dart away. Sometimes, when she thought I wasn’t noticing, she’d get a faraway look on her face. She never said anything to discourage me, but it felt like at times she was only humoring me.
That’s why I shouldn’t have been surprised when, the day before the launch party for Axial Tilt’s video release, she finally said something.
“Ian,” Vanessa asked me as we were lazing around after one of our more acrobatic sex sessions, “when are you going on the second leg of the tour?”
I looked over at her, feeling my blood go cold. “Huh?”
She smiled, but it wasn’t very warm. “The tour. When are you leaving?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“But it’s probably going to happen.” Her voice was even and serious, and her expression matched. I wanted to change the subject, but I could tell she wanted an answer, and, of course, she deserved one. If she were the one who was going to rush off for weeks or months, I’d want an answer too.
“Maybe, yeah.” I’d waited to go on a real tour with Axial Tilt for my entire adult life. I should have been ecstatic. But I wasn’t.
“An additional six cities?”
I took a deep, slow breath.
I screwed up my courage, and then I screwed up my life.
“It might be more.” You would have thought I was going to jail by the sound of my voice. I’d never been as unhappy to achieve a lifelong dream.
She froze and her eyes went wide. She propped herself up on her elbow. God, she looked good against my white sheets. Even in a moment like this she was so beautiful it was hard to concentrate. “How many more?” She looked almost as afraid to ask for it as I was to answer it. My stomach twisted.
“I’m not sure yet,” I hedged. My heart hurt. Was it breaking? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to tell Vanessa the truth, but I wasn’t willing to lie.
“But you have an idea,” she said, frowning and staring at me intently. “Don’t you?
I nodded and swallowed. “It might be a long tour,” I told her. “It could be a few months. Three or so.”
Her breath hissed out of her. “Oh,” she said.
Three months was a very long time at the beginning of a relationship. Too long. A prison sentence might actually have been easier, because at least Vanessa could easily come to visit me. Being out of the country, sleeping in hotel rooms and riding on buses and then getting on the stage every night, night after night, alone? It would be torture.
“I can--,” I told her.
She shook her head. “You have to go,” she said. “This is your dream.”
It was my dream. That was true. But my dream was starting to change.
“I’m not—” I started.
She shook her head back and forth. Her expression was horrified. “No. Stop. You have to go.” Vanessa scrambled out of the bed, grasping for her clothes. “I know you have to go. When were you planning on telling me? The day before?”
“No! I just didn’t want to tell you before it was settled.”
“I should just go.”
I sat up, confused. I wasn’t wearing any clothes, which made me feel doubly vulnerable. This conversation wouldn’t be improved by clothes, but it was more difficult without them. Was she leaving? Just like that?
“Wait—” I stammered. “Vanessa, please wait.”
She just continued shaking her head, pulling her skirt back up her hips and smoothing her hair. I’d never seen anyone get dressed so fast. “I don’t want to pretend anymore,” she said. “Let’s stop.”
“Stop?” I repeated lamely. Stop loving her? Impossible.
“Stop whatever it is we’re doing,” she said. “Before I—” she couldn’t finish her sentence. My heart leapt, and then fell. Her eyes went even wider, until there was a slim ring of white all the way around her blue-green pupils. “I should go.”
44
Vanessa
Three months? Three months was a lifetime. Three months was long enough to kill what we were just starting to create. In three months, Ian would forget all about me. But I’d never forget about him, that was sure.
After leaving Ian’s house, I drove home in a daze. This is what I got for pretending that there was a chance of anything real with Ian. I’d brought this entirely on myself. But even though I knew I’d walked right into it, it still hurt to know that my time with Ian was basically over. I cried myself to sleep that night.
The day of the launch dawned bright and sunny and I resented the beautiful weather. The birds were singing outside my window and I wanted to buy myself a cat just to kill them. It should have been raining. It should have been stormy, hailing, and dark to match my mood.
The worst part, even worse than my shattered, broken heart, was that I had to see Ian again that night. I should have kept my dumb mouth shut for one more day. Because this way, I would have to face him and pretend that everything was normal.
I guess I could have skipped the launch party. I could have been a coward. But that wasn’t me. So, at about three o’clock, I started getting ready to torture myself and see the man I was in love with.
My hair was the easy part, at least, once I got finished dying it back to the right shade of red. Part of my physical therapy regime had included quite a bit of hair dryer holding (turns out it’s a good weight, and easily maneuverable). I came out of my rehabilitation with some mad blow-out skills. Even in my worst moment, my hair was going to look fucking fantastic.
The dress was harder, both to select and to wriggle into once chosen. Back before my accident I’d worn a lot of pink and blue. These days I wore a lot of black and grey. I guess I’d gotten edgy or something. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted to make Ian regret leaving me, but for some reason, I found myself reaching for the one thing in my closet that was red.
The dress was actually something I’d never worn out before, but only because I had no occasion. I loved it. It was a gorgeous dress; tight, red, satin, and sleeveless. I’d bought it during my post-accident, pre-financial trouble phase. Back when I’d had daddy’s credit card to bail me out of any issues. Those weren’t exactly better times, but they did lend themselves to a lot of retail therapy in between the physical therapy sessions.
I stared at myself in the mirror, torn between feeling good about my reflection and feeling terrible about my future. Letting Ian into my heart had backfired. And I’d known that it would happen all along, but I didn’t do anything to stop it.
The party was at Tom’s house. I could barely believe I had the right address. He lived in a big mansion out in Westlake, the only member of Axial Tilt to actually purchase what I would consider to be a proper rock star home. Tonight, it was full of people.
My short time in Axial Tilt’s entourage had taught me a couple of excellent coping methods when it came to crowds of people. First, always pretend that you’re on the way to something and no one will question you. Next, there’s nothing wrong with stuffing your face with food to avoid social interaction. And finally, if all else fails, pretend to be on your phone.
Unfortunately, at this party, people seemed to want to interact with me. When I was just skulking on the edges of the Axial Tilt afterparties, no one really paid me any mind. Tonight, however, I was apparently very, very interesting.
“So, what’s your next project?” people kept asking me.
I didn’t have an answer. I still had more projects than I knew what to do with, but I hadn’t even begun to sort through them yet. I was pretty sure that I wanted to shoot another music video, but other than that vague half-answer, I didn’t know what to say. I was repeating the same answer for probably the tenth time when Rosie swooped in to throw me for a loop.
“How about mine?” she asked me, looking ridiculously cool and trendy in a full-on sequined
jumpsuit that I could never pull off in a thousand years. “I’m going to need one for my new single.”
My heart was shattered, but it still raced. I gaped like a fish but covered it up with a generous sip of the champagne that was being liberally distributed. “Really?” I asked her. “Are you being serious?”
She grinned at me. Her blonde hair was cut in a short, asymmetric style and it bounced around her ears. “Deadly serious,” she replied. “I really like your work.”
“I’d love to shoot your video,” I told her, feeling like I’d just won the indie-music-video-direction lottery, even though my heart was breaking. “What did you have in mind?”
Rosie shrugged her narrow shoulders and the sequins sparkled. “I’m not picky. Why don’t you come around and listen to the song later this week and we can figure something out.”
I nodded, still feeling out of my body. “You’ve got a deal.”
We shook hands, and I couldn’t deny the slightest twinge of satisfaction made it through my Ian-induced misery. I might be single, but I wasn’t going to starve.
It was right about then that I caught sight of Ian through the crowd. He was alone. I’m not sure why, but part of me worried that he’d bring some beautiful woman as a date. It wasn’t like he’d have a problem finding one. There were plenty.
I took one look at him and excused myself from the conversation with Rosie, begging off to go to the bathroom. I needed to get away before Ian saw me. Because I knew if I didn’t, I’d probably break down and end up making out with him or something similarly humiliating to my pride. I’d broken up with him because he was leaving, and I wasn’t going to be the woman who held onto a fling past the expiration date. I refused to be desperate.
45
Ian
Jessica Rabbit. She looked like Jessica fucking Rabbit. Her hair was red again, and in a tight little red satin dress that looked like it was painted on, Vanessa was easily the most beautiful woman at the party. She looked like she owned the place, and the hearts of every man in it. And every man there wanted to talk to her.
She was avoiding me. Every time I walked into a room, she walked out of it, frequently chased by a group of thirsty-looking men too scared to talk to her. To make matters worse, there were about a billion people at this damn party and every single one of them wanted to talk to me and congratulate me.
I hated parties like this.
I’d learned a long time ago that the sort of people that were invited to parties like this were not to be trusted. Even though Clay Withers was not on the guest list (and security would through him out if he did show his weasel face), a lot of the invited guests were friends-of-friends-of-friends or industry influencers or just out for a photo opportunity and a good story. They were the type of people who would be happy to congratulate you when you were up and step over you when you were down. Having been down plenty in my time, I’d seen this game for what it was. I wanted no part of it anymore.
Except, perhaps, the free champagne.
For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely tempted to have a drink. It wasn’t because of Vanessa. It wasn’t her fault at all. It was actually the prospect of being at parties like this, more or less nonstop, for the next nine months. Going on tour was basically signing up for endless afterparties with people just as useless, joyless, and soulless as the ones at this party. And I was going to trade my shot at Vanessa for this? I was starting to have some serious indecision about my major life choices.
Indecision is the enemy of willpower. For the past few years, it had been my unwavering, absolute focus on achieving basically exactly what I had now that made me able to recover from my addictions. The desire to succeed and finally achieve my dream of touring with and being a member of Axial Tilt had defined my recovery. And now that I was there, the achievement was empty. And it was empty because I was alone.
“Could you at least pretend to be having fun?” Jason asked me when I found him surrounded by admirers in the living room. “You look miserable.”
I shrugged. “You’d be in a bad mood, too, if you were me.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What, did you accidentally eat a piece of chicken or something?”
I frowned at him. “No. Vanessa dumped me.” It felt terrible to admit it but being in denial was worse.
His eyes widened. “Oh. Shit. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged at him. “Yeah, it turns out that going on a world tour isn’t something that a new girlfriend would be particularly thrilled about.” Not that I blamed her. It would be a deal-killer for just about anyone.
Jason cocked his head to the side. “You could bring her along. Wendy and I think we have it figured out now after the trial run. Just bring her with us.”
Jason had already told me about his plans for making the tour work for his growing family. It was a level of crazy that I admired, because it sounded like something I would do. But while I admired his dedication to crazy, and Wendy was a damn saint for agreeing to his insane plan, schlepping around an entire support staff to make things bearable sounded like more trouble than it was worth.
The two of them had the entire tour mapped in total, excruciating detail. Wendy and the baby wouldn’t travel on the tour bus. They’d go ahead by themselves, traveling by plane and meeting Jason at hotels with their nanny and basically making their entire lives mobile. They were even going to bring Bambi and Thumper along for the ride. It sounded like it was going to work, and I was happy for them, but it wasn’t going to help me any.
“I don’t think that’s the answer,” I told him. “Vanessa’s got a career here that she’s trying to build. I can’t uproot her for nine months because it would be more convenient for me.”
Jason frowned. “I guess that makes sense, but it sure does suck.”
I fought my rising irritation back with the understanding that Jason meant it unsarcastically. He genuinely felt bad for me. My reply was still dry.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I can do that. Vanessa’s headed toward the kitchen,” he said.
We locked eyes and I nodded. “Thanks, man.”
“Good luck, Ian.” I could tell by his expression that he didn’t see a way for Vanessa and me to make it work. I didn’t see a solution either. I had a lot more questions than answers at the moment, but I needed to talk to her. The first step was to find her.
Somewhere at this damn party, Vanessa was being chatted up by some asshole that wasn’t me. All I needed to do was find her and convince her that I was a better choice.
If only I could find her. How the knockout in the bright red dress could be hard to find in a party like this was truly a testament to how goddamn many people Tom had crammed into his gigantic, embarrassingly large house. Who needed a house this big? Not Tom. And yet it was practically standing room only in here.
Vanessa must absolutely hate it. She didn’t even like being on the tour bus when everyone was on it at once. This party must be just about killing her.
“Have you seen Vanessa?” I asked Rosie when I ran into her in Tom’s palatial kitchen. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
Rosie shook her head back and forth and gave me a pitying look. She looked like a human disco ball tonight in head-to-toe sequins. It was a look that only she could pull off without giving off crazy person vibes. She had a penchant for the dramatic, which made sense given the fact that she was a pop star. “I saw her a while ago,” she told me, “but she said something about it being too crowded and needing some fresh air. I think she might be outside?”
“Did you tell her about your video?” I asked hopefully.
Rosie nodded and smiled at me. “Yes. You and Ryan were right. She said she would do it.”
Ryan and I had both thought that Vanessa was the obvious choice to direct the video for Rosie’s next single. Rosie didn’t take much convincing once she saw Vanessa’s work on Axial Tilt’s concert footage. But even she hadn’t seen the final video for ‘This One’s For You.�
�� Only Vanessa and Don had seen it. At least, for another hour or so.
I grinned, but it was short-lived. Vanessa was already preparing to move on with her life. I needed to make sure I was a part of it. Rosie noticed the change in my expression and hers became serious. Ryan, of course, had told Rosie that Vanessa dumped me. Ryan told Rosie everything. I didn’t even need to ask if he had told her, because it was just obvious from her pitying expression. She pointed toward the back door.
“Go,” she told me, turning me by the shoulders and giving me a little push. “Go find her. She should be right out there.”
It was as good a lead as I’d had all night. I headed out the back door, out to the patio where a screen was set up to watch the video later. Sitting alone in front of it was Vanessa. She was crying.
46
Vanessa
“I’m being eaten alive by these goddamn bugs,” I told Ian through my tears when he sat down next to me. “Sometimes I hate this town.”
It had been a beautiful day and it was a beautiful night. Absolutely picturesque. Aside from the clouds of hungry mosquitos, that is. Austin, Texas basically became the mosquito capital of the world in the late spring. The awful little bastards were absolutely everywhere.
Outside on the patio, I’d been swatting at my ankles and sobbing for the past twenty minutes when I heard a door open. I almost didn’t even glance behind me because I pretty much psychically knew who it was. Somehow, I just knew. But I looked anyway. And it was Ian.
This One’s For You Page 18
