“The guy who wrote it is suing us.”
My stomach dropped. I still didn’t quite get what the issue was, but this didn’t sound good.
“Huh? But that was years ago. And didn’t our management take care of all that?”
“I have no idea, mate. They said they did, but they could’ve told us anything back then. We were stupid kids. This joker says he’s going public. I reckon he’s just been biding his time. Exposing something like that when we were washed-up ex-boy band has-beens would’ve done nothing, but now the pair of us have legit rock careers, and this will do a shit-ton of damage.”
Ash sighed. It’d do more damage to him than to me, since he was the one in the limelight. I just played guitar.
I paced around the room. This was a problem I wanted to disappear, and it was a problem our ex-management should be dealing with, but if they’d screwed up in the first place, Ash and I would be better off handling it ourselves.
“Pay him off,” I said. “Whatever he wants, give it to him. Neither of us has time to piss around with something like this.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Because, Matty, there’s a lot more at stake here than just our reputations, don’t you see?”
“Huh?”
I didn’t understand what Ash hinted at.
“You can’t be in the media spotlight right now. Not with Fi in hospital. You’ll have reporters on your ass day and night, and once those reporters know you’re going to the hospital, they’ll be snooping around to find out why.”
“Oh, fuck.” The realization hit me like a punch in the gut.
If pictures of Fiona got out right now, it’d destroy her. And you could bet your life that if the press found out about the accident, there’d be pictures. I’d been way too lax, walking around the hospital, chatting with fans in the cafe. At the very least, I could put on a baseball cap and some sunglasses so I wouldn’t stand out so much.
I balanced the phone on my shoulder while I rummaged through my bags looking for a cap.
“I’m getting my lawyer to talk to this guy. Hopefully, he just wants a bundle of cash, but I thought I should let you know in case things don’t go to plan. It’s shitty. It’s really shitty. Right now, you should be focused on Fiona and nothing else.”
When I got off the phone, I spent a lot of time pacing the room.
Like Ash said, the guy probably just wanted cash. Most people doing shit like that had their hands out, but some people could be vindictive. They didn’t care about the money; they wanted to tear you down.
Ash had been going from strength to strength as a rocker, and some people hated him for that. They wanted to keep him in his pop singer box. I didn’t get the same kind of pushback because I wasn’t a front man. Occasionally, people would ask me if I was the guy from the boy band, but then they’d get over it. Even if I was in one of the most successful bands in the world, I was just the guitarist. Damo was the real star. But even that got me some shit.
When you have the “ex-boy band member” label on you, you’re meant to spend your days sitting around mourning your lost youth. People don’t just passively hate; they actively seek out ways to make you suffer, especially if you don’t crash and burn.
I thought about calling Damo and letting him know about this. After all, if this all came out, it’d affect the Freaks too.
Damn it. “Candy-Colored Kitten”. What a shit song. If it weren’t for all the other issues, I’d be happy for the world to know I’d had nothing to do with writing it. This guy had to have no shame if he wanted that exposed to the world. Sure, it’d been a number one hit, but it was possibly the most cringeworthy song ever written. Jesus, they’d made us wear kitten ears for the video clip, and I could still remember the stupid dance with cat hands.
Who’d have thought that would come back to bite us in the ass like this?
I had to shake those thoughts out of my head, though, and put on a smile. I didn’t want Fiona getting the slightest hint that something was wrong. It’d probably blow over, anyway.
I kept pacing the room. Until I could face her with a smile, it was better to stay away.
Chapter 18: Fiona
WHEN DR. ROCHE CAME to change the dressings on my face, he decided some of the bandages could be removed. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. The bandages might be ugly and uncomfortable, but who knew what was going on underneath them.
“Do I want to see?” I asked after he’d removed them.
“It’s not so bad. A bit of scar tissue, but you’re healing nicely. The swelling’s gone down quite a bit.”
I hadn’t looked in a mirror since that first time seeing myself. The sight of my face had freaked me out so much that I’d even covered the mirror in my bathroom so I couldn’t see myself when I brushed my teeth.
The doctor got me a hand mirror. I hesitated before looking at myself.
“Remember, a lot of the scarring will fade over time. And once you’re back to full health, we can discuss options for minimizing that. Don’t think of anything you see now as being the way your face will look forever.”
His words didn’t reassure me. Even if I’d look better in the future, I didn’t want to look horrible now.
I slowly raised the mirror, then set it back down without looking.
“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to,” the doctor said. “I’ll take the mirror away.”
He tried to take it from me, but I snatched it away. I needed to see what I looked like before I could face anyone else. I just needed some time.
I took a deep breath, then raised the mirror to look at myself. Red, angry marks crossed my cheek. He’d uncovered the left side, which made me think the right side was even more damaged.
“Can I put on makeup?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet. The pigment can make the scarring look worse. Maybe in a week or so, but you might need a silicon primer to help with healing beneath the makeup.”
I nodded. I definitely didn’t want to make things worse.
“So, about the sex?” I asked him.
“Ah. I was going to send someone to talk to you about that. At the moment, you shouldn’t move too much, or it can undo the healing. But maybe there are ways... They’ll discuss that with you. I’ve got to get going. Other patients to see.”
I chucked as he left. That guy was so uncomfortable about sex.
After I had my breakfast, I waited for Matty. He was late. Maybe he needed to do stuff with his parents, but I’d come to rely on his visits.
While I waited, a woman came in to see me.
“I’m Stacy,” she said. “Officially, I’m Dr. Marengo, but Stacy is much better. I’ve come to talk to you about your vagina.”
I stifled a laugh. Already, I liked Stacy.
“I keep asking how long until I can have sex, and no one will give me an answer.”
Stacy sat down on the chair beside me. “It’s hard to know in these cases. We don’t want to give you a fixed time frame, because the body heals at different rates. You have a lot of healing to do. But on the bright side, the fact that you’re asking is good. It means you’re not dead yet.”
She laughed until I had to laugh too.
“Seriously, when someone’s in a lot of pain, the last thing they feel like doing is shagging,” she said. “So, you must be starting to feel better.”
I wondered if shagging was an official medical term.
Stacy smiled. “Anything not too energetic is okay. The trouble is, once you get aroused, it’s hard to be... well, not energetic. That rush of lust can overrule any signs of pain in your body, and the next thing you know, you’re thrusting and humping to the point of setting the healing process back.”
“So, tell me what I can do.”
She sucked on her bottom lip and looked up at the ceiling. “Oral should be okay so long as you’re in a comfortable position for it. It’s not the act itself, but the way you hold your body. Like, this is no good.” She made a gesture like hunching over to suc
k cock. “Because you’d be putting pressure on the damaged areas. And you can’t lie on your stomach. Maybe if you’re sitting and he’s standing, that would work. But you need to stop if anything twinges or hurts.”
She twisted her hands into various shapes as though they were in sex positions, then shook her head.
“It’s tough,” she said. “When you get near orgasm, that’s the danger zone. Maybe I should talk to your partner about ways to handle that, because you obviously want to get shagging, and you’ll turn into a ball of sexual tension if you don’t do something about it. Exploding because you can’t come isn’t exactly good for your recovery, either.”
I laughed, totally understanding what she meant.
“Don’t laugh too hard,” she said. “That’ll wreck your insides too.”
“So, blow jobs and hand jobs are okay,” I said. “But no penetration and no orgasms for me?”
“That’s pretty much it for now. Sorry.”
She gave me her number and told me to get Matt to call her when he came in. Where the hell was he?
Before he arrived, Nurse Lucy came in. “Tonight’s the night,” she said. “Makeover night.”
I’d completely forgotten about that, but it wasn’t like I had a lot else going on.
“What time does your shift finish?” I asked her.
“Six,” she said.
We got that organized, and still no Matty. My phone had been wrecked in the crash, and I’d meant to ask Matty to get me a replacement, but that hadn’t been a big deal when I was in ICU. Now that I had my own room, though, I missed having a phone.
Maybe he’d gone out sightseeing with his parents. That would be good for him, and he needed to spend time with them. I knew that, but deep down, I resented him for going out and having fun while I was stuck here with nothing to do.
It wasn’t like I could go off having fun adventures. I tried to be reasonable, but he hadn’t even said anything about being late today.
What if he didn’t visit at all? It must get incredibly boring for him, hanging out here with me, holding hands even if there was the occasional hand job thrown in. Even if he said he didn’t feel any differently about me, I wondered. There would never be a time when I wasn’t insecure about how I looked, and even if it was damned unreasonable, I wanted Matty here to reassure me.
Chapter 19: Matty
I FINALLY MADE IT TO the hospital. “Sorry I’m late,” I said.
“That’s okay. I’m sure you had things to do,” Fiona said. “I can’t hog all your time.”
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t like that, but without going into details, I couldn’t really reassure her.
“You’ve had your bandages removed,” I said, wanting to change the subject. “Wow, that must feel more comfortable.”
She nodded but turned her face away from me. “It looks vile,” she said.
“It’s a scar. It’s not anything to be ashamed of, Fi.” I moved to her and took her hand. “If you don’t want me to look, I won’t, but a scar on your face isn’t going to change my feelings for you. If I let something like that influence my feelings, I would’ve been wrong to say ‘I love you’ in the first place, because that wouldn’t be anything like love.”
She smiled. With those bandages removed, I could see the corner of her mouth curl. It became a real smile and not something hinted at by the movement of her face and the light in her eyes.
“You have a way with words, Matty. That’s why you write the love songs.”
It was my turn to look away. Why did she have to say that? I’d been trying not to think about that stupid mess.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Damn. I’d hoped she wouldn’t pick up on that. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
I sat by her bed and reached for her hand. She pulled it away from me.
“It’s kind of awkward when that’s my only good hand,” she said. “I can’t do anything if you’re holding it.”
I nodded. Maybe I should’ve thought of that before. Of course she wouldn’t want me holding her hand all the time.
“Mom keeps asking if she can come in to see you,” I said. “It’s up to you. I don’t want you to force yourself if you’re not comfortable.”
“Why wouldn’t I be comfortable?” she snapped. “I want to see your mom.”
She hadn’t said that the last time I’d asked. She’d said she wanted a day or two, but I didn’t press it. She was still taking medication, so it might’ve slipped her mind, and being in hospital this long would make anyone a bit cranky.
“I’ll tell her. Is tomorrow okay?”
Fiona nodded.
We sat in silence for a while, but the silence wasn’t as comfortable as it had been. It was a silence of unspoken words and jumbled intentions.
“Do you want me to brush your hair?” I asked.
“Not now.”
I went back to the silence. Sometimes, when Fiona got into one of these moods, I wasn’t sure if it was better to leave her alone or to stay with her. I felt like she wanted to test me, to see if she could push me away.
“Oh,” she said. “I just remembered. There’s this doctor, Stacy. She wanted you to call her so you can discuss sex things with her.”
I arched a brow. “Sex things?” I assumed that Fiona didn’t mean this doctor wanted to talk dirty to me.
“Sex things like what we can and can’t do. You should do that today, because it might be awkward to explain rushing off to discuss our sex life when your mother is here.”
“True.”
“Also, I need a phone. I don’t have one.”
I nodded. I should’ve thought of that earlier. “I’ll call Dad and see if he can get one for you while they’re sightseeing. You do have the land line.”
“Huh?” Fiona looked around. “Where?”
I pointed to the phone behind the vase of flowers on the table beside her.
She rolled her eyes. “How was I supposed to see that there? It’s not like I can get up and walk around. Really, Matty, you should think of these things.”
I stood up. “I’ll go call the doctor,” I said.
I got outside the room and leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath. Fiona was right. I should’ve thought of that, but sometimes her moods could be hard to take. I’d make this call and then get some fresh air. I didn’t want to return her snappiness with my own irritation, so it was better to walk it off.
When I called Stacy, she said to come straight up and see her, so that worked out well. It’d give me a break. I popped my head back in Fiona’s room and let her know.
When I got to Dr. Stacy’s office, she called me in.
“Take a seat. This is a special day for me,” she said. “It’s not often I get to discuss the sex life of my teenage crush. I was such a huge StarX fan.”
I groaned. That didn’t make me more comfortable. I took a seat and looked around. Some bobblehead figures from popular TV shows sat amongst the medical books on the shelves, making the room seem more personal. On the desk, she had those models of body parts that doctors always have, but when I looked closer, I saw that she’d put them in some strange positions.
I glanced up at her. “You look like you’d be more into Savage,” I said.
“Nah, he’s a total meathead. Oh, shit, sorry. I forgot you know him in real life and not just as a star. Of course, he might be totally different from his image. I’m just projecting.”
“That’s okay,” I told her. “Meathead sounds about right.”
I chuckled, and she grinned back. Then we got down to the nitty-gritty.
“Fiona thinks she’s all ready to go, but I’m afraid the reality might not meet up to her expectations.”
I leaned back in my seat. “Huh? What are you saying about my performance?” I asked her with a grin.
She laughed. “Fiona doesn’t have a lot to occupy her at the moment, so everything becomes exaggerated in her mind. At the moment, she’s fixated on her sex life, which
isn’t a bad thing, but that could be mixed up with all kinds of feelings about her self-worth and attractiveness.”
“So, basically, you’re saying I’m walking through a minefield.”
“You could put it like that. On the one hand, you don’t want her to feel rejected, and on the other, you’re going to have to be careful not to hurt her.”
She went on to explain various techniques I could use to ensure we did things without exacerbating Fiona’s injuries.
I interrupted her explanation. “Seriously, if we get to that point and I stop, she’ll kill me.”
Stacey laughed. “Yep, that’s entirely possible, but the main thing is to keep her satisfied without letting her lose too much control. You get the idea.”
I nodded.
By the time I left Stacy’s office, I felt way more confident. Not that I’d needed the sex education in general, just information on what I could do with Fiona right now. Being told to take care or to be gentle was way too vague, and Stacy certainly didn’t do vague.
I just hoped that by the time I got back to her room, Fiona’s bad mood would have passed.
Chapter 20: Matty
WHEN I CHECKED MY MESSAGES, I discovered that Dad had contacted me to say he’d gotten a phone for Fiona. That would make her happier. There was no message from Ash, so I took that as a good sign. No news was good news, I hoped.
Fiona was asleep when I reached her room, so I waited for her to wake up. While I waited, I moved the phone so it wasn’t behind the flowers and was within her reach. At least she’d have that until Dad came in tomorrow. Then I tidied up around the room. Some of the flowers had dropped petals around the place, and I changed the water. There wasn’t much else for me to do, so I got out my phone and started watching a movie.
When Fiona woke up, she smiled at me. I took my earphones out.
“Watching anything interesting?” she asked.
“Not really.” I told her that she’d have a phone tomorrow.
“Great. Thank your dad for me.”
“I think Mom has some things for you, too. If there’s anything else you need, make a list. I’ll make sure someone gets it for you. Magazines, food, whatever.”
Wilde Freak (Rock Stars on Tour, #4) Page 7
