Rock Star

by Stacey Kennedy

  Travis gathered Rae up in his strong arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, as he began to carry her up the stairs toward the bedroom. But as Harry meowed, she laughed again, and said, “I think he might disagree with your statement.”

  Travis grinned. “Too bad for him, the only pussy I care about tonight is yours.”

  * * *

  An hour later, standing before the small, ceramic bathroom sink, Travis cupped the brisk water pouring out of the faucet and splashed it onto his face—his only recourse to cool the blistering heat burning within. He blew the water off his lips and glanced up, staring into his gray eyes that even he didn’t recognize anymore at times. Beads of water dripped off his hair and nose, and the longer he stared at himself, the more lost he felt.

  Torn by all the things he couldn’t change, he splashed his face again with the cool water before grabbing the hand towel resting on the round hook and drying off. Just as he returned the towel to its place, his phone vibrated in his pocket. When he pulled it out and looked at the screen, the text from his manager immediately sent his tense mood into a downward spiral.

  You weren’t on your flight. What’s up?

  Travis frowned at the text, desperate to shut the world out, giving him a little more time in the past. The present would come back and suffocate him soon enough. He fired off a return text: I need a couple more days.

  Not waiting for Scott’s reply, he muted his phone and tucked it back into his pocket. Some things weren’t for his manager to decide. And after coming off a world tour, Travis deserved a weekend off, no matter that he paid Scott a hefty sum to ensure that his schedule was always busy and that his name was always right in front of everyone’s face.

  With one last look in the mirror, he left the bathroom, finding Rae dressed in black tights and a long, gray shirt that hung off one shoulder. Sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed, she didn’t have to say anything. Her soft eyes said it all. “You want answers,” he stated.

  She nodded. “I think I deserve them, don’t you?”

  “You do.” He took a seat next to her, keeping his feet flat on the hardwood floor, resting his elbows on his thighs. “This is a complicated conversation,” he admitted.

  “It can’t be that complicated.” She rested her hand on his forearm.

  He stared down at the way she comforted him. If only she knew that comfort was exactly what he’d been missing in his life. “There are times I look in the mirror and don’t even know who’s looking back at me.”

  “Like, you’ve changed?”

  He nodded, staring down at his bare toes. “I can’t even tell you when it happened, more to the point, why it happened. I only know it did. One day, I woke up and felt like I stood in a world I didn’t even know anymore.”

  “But you love your life?”

  “I love parts of my life,” he gently explained. “I’m mad about the music. I adore the crowds, the energy that gets created when I make music. The rest, I don’t love.”

  She paused, and he looked at her. Only then did she say, “It’s the people in your life that’re the problem.”

  Of course, she got him. She always did. “I’ve got the boys in the band, but they’re all married now, did you know that?”

  She grinned and winked. “I might have seen that in an article somewhere. And I think you might have drunk dialed me once from your drummer’s reception.”

  He grabbed her thigh and squeezed. “Don’t ever be embarrassed that you’ve been keeping tabs on me.”

  “God, don’t say it like that,” she said, giving him a light, playful smack on the arm. “You make me sound like a stalker. Can we get back to the point please?”

  “The point is,” he said back, “that the tours are great. It’s everything I hoped it would be. Everything we used to sit and talk about. It’s amazing, Rae. If only you could see it the way I do.”

  “I did see it, actually,” she said with a soft smile.

  News to him. “When?”

  “A year ago, in Dallas,” she replied. “I was there for a conference, and some of the girls had an extra ticket to your show, so I went.” Her eyes twinkled, pride in their depths. “You were amazing. God, I was so proud of you that night.”

  He recalled the show. He also knew he’d not seen her there. “Why didn’t you text me that you were coming? Or come see me backstage?”

  She shrugged, picking lint off her tights and flicking it to the floor. “I didn’t know if you had a girlfriend, and how weird would that have been?”

  “I suppose, for you, very weird,” he admitted, though there’d been no girlfriend. But it wouldn’t have been weird for him. He wondered what would have happened between them if she’d come to see him. What would he have done?

  All the what ifs over his life were beginning to drive him mad.

  Her eyes searched his, and then she drew in a deep breath, clearly resolving something in her mind. “So back to the stuff before, that’s what all this is about, why you came back and want to spend so much time with me? It’s to remind you of what your old life was like?”

  “Simply put, yes,” he said, “but again, it’s a lot more complicated than that.” He wanted her to understand, so he stuck to the simple version. “You don’t know what it’s like, Rae. I’m surrounded by people who will give me anything. All the time. I ask a question, and they tell me what I want to hear. So, when I heard about the reunion, I got this idea in my head that if I came back, I’d remember what it feels like to be around people who aren’t like that.”

  The complicated version was that he wanted to see if the happiness he thought he’d felt in the past was real or an exaggerated memory. This weekend with her, he wholly believed his memories didn’t fail him.

  “But,” he added, not wanting to get too far ahead of himself. He raised a hand to her cheek and stroked her soft skin. “I don’t want to hurt you in the process of selfishly taking what I need.”

  She paused. “Okay, before we get into that, answer me this.” She stared at him hard. “Do you feel lost, is that what you’re saying?”

  “I feel like I’m scrambling lately,” he admitted.

  “Sometimes drowning?”

  “Many times, drowning.” He sighed. “It feels like I’m this guy that everyone thinks they know. They’ve got me all figured out in the interviews. They know everything about me, the type of girl I should date, all these personal things about me, and yet…I don’t even know those things about myself.”

  “And you thought coming back here would help you find yourself again?”

  “I thought coming back here would remind me of the guy who wanted the fame to begin with.”

  “That actually makes a lot of sense, and I’m sorry that somewhere along the way things got messy for you.” She gave him a sweet smile. “I remember that guy before all the fame. I still see him, but I see something better, too.”

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “I see confidence,” she explained, taking his hand. “But I see sadness, and if spending time with me will make you feel better, then, of course, I’ll be here for you.”

  He couldn’t waver, feeling bad enough that he’d shown up at her doorstep instead of leaving when he should have…again. “Will I hurt you, Rae?”

  Her eyes searched his again before she placed her hand over his on her cheek. “No, Travis, you won’t. It was my decision to open the door and let you into my house. We have this weekend. Let’s enjoy it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She smiled and nodded. “I’m sure. We aren’t the people we used to be, and I think I simply needed to see that. If you need some time with me to find your way back to yourself, I’ll be there for you, Travis, however you need me.”

  Which told him she likely saw how broken he was, and perhaps the danger of loving him again wasn’t so easy. But he needed her, so the rest didn’t matter right now. Because he knew he’d picked his career over love all those years ago, and he picked wrong.r />
  CHAPTER 5

  The next morning, Rae stirred from sleep with the sun beaming on her face. Though it was Harry who purred loudly in her ear that got her moving. “Yes, I’ll feed you,” she told the cat, glancing at him as he began kneading the top of her head while he shared her pillow.

  His responding sharp meow told her she wasn’t moving fast enough.

  Even her stomach rumbled, making her aware of all the energy she’d used up last night that obviously needed replenishing. She noted that the clock on the antique nightstand read eight o’clock in the morning, and she debated shutting her eyes and going back to sleep. It was Sunday, after all. But then she remembered that she wasn’t alone in her bed, and a different kind hunger consumed her.

  She turned, expecting to find Travis sleeping soundly next to her. Instead, she discovered a note written in his handwriting.

  Gone to Main Street for donuts and coffee.

  Be back soon.

  –T

  She grabbed the note and smiled, running her fingers across the black ink. Just the idea of fresh donuts made her stomach rumble loudly, and the thought of hot coffee didn’t hurt either. She sat up in bed, wearing her T-shirt and nothing else from the night before, noticing she was sore in all the right places. Either Travis’s sexual appetite had grown over the years, or he had missed her as much as she missed him because it had taken all night before their passion cooled and sleep won out.

  Harry meowed again, and Rae reached out and stroked his soft fur, hearing the rumble of his purring from where she sat. He climbed onto her lap, not caring one bit when she cringed as his claws dug into her leg. But the longer she sat there petting Harry, the more she questioned what in the hell she was doing.

  Last night at the restaurant, she had had her head on straight and knew indulging in this thing with Travis wouldn’t end well. Wasn’t going back into the past always a bad idea?

  Though one look into those bedroom eyes of his, with all that emotion and the memories between them, and it was like her head couldn’t possibly shut out her heart. Travis was hurting, and he needed her to find a part of himself again. How could she refuse him and turn him away?

  She sighed, petting Harry’s tail. “So, now what do I do, Harry?”

  He meowed back.

  Knowing there was only one thing to do in this situation, she reached for her phone on the end table and dialed Kate. When the call went straight to voicemail, she dialed Tessa. The three of them had been the inseparable trio in high school, even sometimes dressing the same, and right now, she needed a big dose of girl talk.

  Tessa answered on the third ring. “Seriously, Rae. It’s Sunday. Do you never sleep in?”

  “I’m sorry for calling so early,” Rae said, quickly apologizing for the early wake-up, “but it’s an emergency.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong?”

  “I slept with Travis.”

  “You did what?” Tessa apparently dropped the phone, and Rae leaned away to avoid the rustling but placed the cell back to her ear when she heard Tessa say, “Okay, wait… Jesus, I wasn’t expecting you to say that. I’m wide-awake now. When did this happen?”

  “Last night, but we also…” She dropped her head into her hand and muttered, “Something happened at the reunion, too.”

  Tessa paused, and soon, her soft chuckle filled the phone line. “I wondered where you’d run off to.”

  Rae’s head hurt just thinking about all this. She’d opened a door she had no intention of walking through, and now there was no going back. “Have I made a horrible mistake?”

  “You slept with a totally hot guy who you were madly in love with, and let’s not forget he’s now a famous rock star,” Tessa quipped. “Honestly, why do you sound like someone died? Isn’t this a good thing?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  “Okay, good or not, I’m actually surprised he’s still in town. Did he say when he was leaving?”

  “No, he never said.” Harry meowed again and rubbed his head against Rae’s arm, demanding to be petted. She sighed and scratched him behind his ears, adding, “And to be honest, I’m not even sure if he knows the answer to that question.”

  Tessa paused. “Well, if you ask me, it doesn’t sound overly complicated. Enjoy him while you can, and then send him on his way.”

  But was it that easy? Rae didn’t know. Last night, for a split moment when he talked to her, she’d thought she had this all under control. He was different now. She was different. There was no way this could get complicated, but then there’d been the hours spent holding each other, talking, and laughing. It felt like nothing had changed between them at all. “It just doesn’t feel like a one-night stand, you know.” She’d had one of those before, and Travis could never be something that meaningless.

  “You do have a lot of history together,” Tessa agreed. “But have things changed for him or something? I mean, he lives in New York now.”

  “He’s not planning to move back to Catfish Creek if that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, then, there is your answer, right?” Tessa asked, like all this suddenly made total sense. “You are both in the same position you were after high school. He doesn’t want to live in Catfish Creek, and you do. So, you really only have two choices here.”

  “Which are?”

  “Get on board with having sex for this weekend and enjoying the hell out of it, or put a stop to this. You know yourself best, Rae. What does your heart tell you to do?”

  “That’s just it,” Rae explained. “My heart doesn’t know what in the hell it wants. One second, I walked away. The next, I’m having sex with him in my foyer.”

  Tessa laughed. “How does that even happen?”

  “If I knew, then I wouldn’t be in this situation.” And that’s where things got confusing. Rae could have just sex with Travis. But this, the way he was acting with her, didn’t feel like just sex. It felt like more. It felt like there were emotional strings tying her to him. Hell, it even felt like he had no intention of leaving. But maybe that was her past hope creeping up, that somehow they could make it work.

  God, what a mess. “I had it all figured out, Tessa. I told myself that I couldn’t dip back into the past because of the danger it put me in. Then he showed up at my house, and I don’t know, I broke, standing there in front of him. It was like I…needed him in ways I haven’t needed anybody, all because he bared himself to me. Emotionally. Does that make any sense?”

  “Actually, it makes total sense,” Tessa said softly as if she totally understood. “Listen, I’m no expert here when it comes to love, but you guys had a good thing back in the day. Maybe it’s time to have another good thing, even if it’s only for a little while. Who knows, perhaps you can finally get closure for the past?”

  “There is that,” Rae said, beginning to swipe her hand over Harry’s back, as he purred louder now. “This could just be another blip in time that I’ll look back on and say…’oh, that’s why that happened,’ and then it will all make sense to me.”

  “Totally,” Tessa agreed, and Rae could hear the smile in Tessa’s voice. “And if it doesn’t make sense and you become a total wreck, you’ll call me, right?”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” There was rustling again, and Rae could swear she heard another voice through the phone line right before Tessa asked, “By the way, and sorry for changing subjects, but have you heard from Kate at all? I keep calling her, but she’s not answering.”

  “No.” Rae slid her hand over Harry’s back until she cupped his tail. “I called her before you so we could do a three-way call but she’s not answering.”

  “Weird,” Tessa said.

  “Very weird,” Rae agreed, watching as Harry flopped onto his back. She began scratching his belly and said, “Listen, before I go and figure out what in the hell I’m doing, how are things with you?”

  “Well, it’s been…” Tessa heaved a long sigh. “I
think Bennett”—Tessa’s ex-boyfriend—“is the one who’s been harassing me for the last two weeks.”

  “Seriously? You’re still having trouble?” Rae hadn’t known, and suddenly, she felt awful for being so wrapped up in herself that she hadn’t asked about Tessa’s life right away. Because her situation with Travis wasn’t dangerous like Tessa’s was. Recently, her house had been broken into, but nothing had been taken. Her wallet had been stolen from her purse out of her grocery cart. Thinking on all of that, Rae ignored her pesky cat, worried for her friend. “What makes you think it’s Bennett?”

  “He’s the only one who has a grudge against me,” Tessa explained and then gave a long sigh. “See, the thing is, and I didn’t mention it before, but I also had a small scare in the restroom at the masquerade ball. Guess who was there? That’s right, Bennett.”

  Rae couldn’t even imagine. “God, Tessa, be careful, this sounds really scary. What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing right now.” Tessa hesitated, and then laughed softly. “I think I’ve got this covered, but if I need help, I’ll call. Promise.”

  “Okay, I’m glad,” Rae said. “And, seriously, next time you have news like this, you should start our conversation with that. Then I would’ve realized how stupid I’m being hesitating over the best sex of my life.”

  Tessa laughed. “He’s that good?”

  “Dear Lord, Tessa, he’s a fucking fantasy come true.”

  “Is that so?”

  Rae snapped her head up, and then it was her turn to drop her phone, her face burning hot. “I… You…” She grabbed her cell off her bed and gasped, “Tessa, thanks for the chat, but I gotta go.” She ended the call, hearing Tessa laughing in the background.

  “So,” Travis drawled, stepping into the bedroom holding the tray of paper coffee cups and the bag of donuts. “I’m a fucking fantasy come true, huh?”