Rock Star Romance Ultimate Volume 2

by Mankin, Michelle

  “You care about her, give her everything you’ve got. Not just a slice of time between your other commitments.”

  “I don’t know, man.”

  “It’s only three more shows,” Brody said. “Finish the tour. Then you can have all the time you need with her back home.”

  “Fuck, Brody. It can’t be like this. Family first, remember?”

  “I do remember.”

  “So?” I said.

  “You telling me she’s family?”

  I didn’t answer that.

  “If she is, then give her all you’ve got. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

  “This is me giving my all. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to go after her right fucking now and leave you all without a fucking show tonight. Family fucking first. You know that, Brody. I told you that from the start. That if it ever came down to it, if Jessa needed me in the middle of the night, any fucking day of the week, if she called me and needed that, I was gone.”

  Brody was silent for a long while. So long I checked my phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

  “Tell me,” he finally said. “How many times over the years has that happened, Jessa calling you up and asking you to drop everything to come help her out?”

  Brody knew the answer to that. The answer was zero.

  Jessa had never once asked for my help.

  I sighed, hard. “Katie thinks Elle knows, about the deal. That she put it out there.”

  “Elle didn’t leak shit. She’s not gonna say shit to anyone about you or Katie.”

  “I know. I told Katie that.”

  “Anyway, it was me.”

  I pressed my fingers into my eyes. I heard it; I knew what I heard. Couldn’t fucking believe it. “You did what?”

  “I talked to the media.”

  “The fuck you did.”

  “You want to sell music? You want to stay at the top? The fans love your music, brother, but they’re fucking insatiable for this love triangle shit. Last night that live version of ‘New Girl’ you recorded in New York was hovering at the edge of the charts. Today it’s the most downloaded song on the planet. You can thank me when you’re in a better fucking mood.”

  “Thank you for what? Making Katie look like a whore in the press? You think that’s what I want the world to think? The fans? Katie’s family? Did you think about how she was gonna feel to have that out there? That I fucking paid her to be my girlfriend?”

  “No one’s saying that. And if they did, who would believe it?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Let’s see, man. Because no one’s going to believe that Jesse Mayes had to pay a woman to do anything. And because no one’s going to buy, for a split second, that that girl isn’t right where she wants to be.”

  “Right. Because she’s sitting here right now, on my dick.”

  Brody got quiet in a way I knew I wasn’t gonna like. “You’re such an asshole, man.”

  “Fuck you, Brody. I don’t need this shit right now.”

  “Anyone can see you’re in love with her.”

  Christ.

  I put my head in my hand and rubbed my eyes until I saw stars.

  “Okay,” he said. “Anyone but you.”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “You told me to be ruthless,” he reminded me. “Ruthless. You told me that. And yes, you told me family first. You also stood here in my living room three months ago and told me anything to make this album, this tour, a success. Any fucking thing, Jesse.”

  “You should have come to me.”

  “Did you say that to me or not?”

  “I said it.”

  “And you meant it.” It wasn’t even a question.

  “Yeah. I fucking meant it. You know I fucking meant it. You still should’ve talked to me before you went to the media.”

  “Maybe I would have if you hadn’t pulled a disappearing act at the time I needed to talk to you. And I didn’t go to them. They came to me. They asked about these rumors they got wind of that Katie was hired to work for you. They were hot to spin this whole love triangle thing and I said yes. That’s all. They think she was hired as your assistant. Big fucking deal. They invented the rest.”

  “And now she’s gone.”

  “She’s not gone, brother. She’s home. She’ll be here when you get back.”

  “She better fucking be.”

  “She will.”

  “You’re an asshole yourself, you know?”

  Brody was silent.

  It was rare that Brody and I argued. I remembered how Katie had described her friend Devi as her in-case-of-emergency phone call. For me, that call was Brody. The friend who’d been my rock since day one, who’d kept the crazy at bay, kept me from capsizing as I weathered the wildest, most fucked-up storms of my life.

  The only person who really knew, who really knew, what this album meant to me.

  And why.

  “You know,” he said, “Jude wouldn’t even tell me where you went the other night in L.A..”

  Fuck me.

  My heart fell about two feet. Brody knew. Or at the very least, he suspected that I met up with Jessa in L.A. and didn’t tell him.

  “She asked me not to tell anyone, man.”

  “Right,” he said. “Family first.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Brody. You want me to choose between you and my sister?”

  “Not asking you to choose, brother. Never asked you to choose.”

  Jesus. How did we get onto this? We never talked about this.

  Ever.

  “Right,” Brody said when I didn’t respond. “So maybe this is a good time to remind you why you’re doing this tour in the first place. This album was your idea. Remember who you’re doing it for.” Then he hung up.

  I stared at the phone in my hand. It was the first time in fifteen years of friendship and business partnership that Brody had ever hung up on me.

  And he was right, of course. Brody was rarely wrong.

  I punched the bed, because it was a better idea than punching the fucking wall, which I really wanted to do.

  Then I texted Katie.

  Be home in 5 days. Can we talk?

  It was barely five in the morning, so I didn’t expect a response. I was lucky Brody picked up, but then again, Brody would take my call any time of any night.

  Fuck.

  I couldn’t even be pissed off at the guy. Not when he was the only one who knew what was at stake here, and the only one who cared about it as much as I did. Which was why I’d called him. Because I also knew he was the only one who’d be able to talk me into finishing the tour.

  Yeah. Just fuck.

  I scrubbed my hand over my face. I knew I had to finish what I’d started, but I couldn’t wait to be done with this fucking tour. I was already done with pretending I didn’t feel for Katie what I felt.

  Done pretending I didn’t want her like I did.

  I stared at the phone in my hand. She hadn’t responded to my text.

  I texted her again anyway, hoping like hell it wasn’t far too little, far too late.

  Miss you like hell.

  It was true. I did miss her.

  More than that.

  I never wanted to be apart from her again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  * * *

  Katie

  I’d been back in Vancouver for almost thirty-six hours. I’d barely slept and had eaten little more than iced cherry-vanilla lattes with copious amounts of cherries—which, according to my sister, did not count as food.

  Devi had met me at Nudge, where soon enough I’d be in rotation again to keep the cash rolling in. I kept telling her I was giving Jesse his money back, and she kept telling me not to be an idiot, that I’d earned every penny. I wasn’t so sure. But we’d kind of given up on arguing about it. Somewhere around the hundredth time I asked her what I should do and she told me, for the hundredth time, “Talk to him,” we called it a stalemate. For now.

&
nbsp; Even I could see I was beyond reason, for the moment. I just needed to wallow a bit. And Devi could respect a good wallow. As long as it was brief.

  We sat at the far end of the bar, where I hoped no one would recognize me. I had my hair pulled back and my sunglasses on just like that chick in “The Boys of Summer,” a rocking cover of which was currently playing over the sound system, though I was pretty sure I didn’t actually have the love of the hero in my personal story of—unrequited—summer love. I was just trying to be invisible.

  Somehow it had never even occurred to me, until now, that if I was uncomfortable with the negative attention I got as Jesse Mayes’ girlfriend, the attention I’d get as his ex-girlfriend could only be worse. I was trying to prepare for that eventuality, but the news had not yet dropped that I’d left the tour or that the great Canadian love story was over. Apparently Jesse’s people weren’t talking, and I was hardly going to be the one to break the news.

  Devi kept saying I didn’t need to worry about it, that she’d handle it, that we could even hire a PR person to deal with it. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around that. I just kept replaying the last few months of my life in excruciating detail. Every thrilling, amazing, crazy-ass moment of it. Even the ones that had led some paparazzo to believe I was some kind of whore.

  And all the things I’d said to Jesse when I walked out on him… those were pretty much on repeat.

  I felt dazed, horrified, and emotionally wrung out.

  But I was also getting mad. As fuck.

  Because it hadn’t exactly escaped my notice that that whole slam piece had little to stand on other than the fact that I’d kissed another guy while I was supposed to be Jesse’s girl, as evidenced by the incriminating photo someone had leaked. Never mind that Josh was kissing me. According to that photo, I was guilty as sin.

  And I had a pretty good idea who’d turned that over to the media.

  “So do I go talk to him or what?” I asked Devi for at least the dozenth time.

  “Hell yes, you go talk to him.”

  “Not him. I mean Josh.”

  Devi gave an exasperated sigh, for the dozenth time. “Fuck that. Why would you waste another second on that creep?”

  “I don’t know. Closure or something? Tell him to F off once and for all?”

  “For what? Nothing you can say will ever get through to him. You’ve just got to accept that. The guy is an entitled prick and he always will be. You’d do much better leaving him in your rearview, like permanently, babe.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Hell, no!” Devi spun around on her stool and called across the bar to my sister, who was making an espresso at the other end. “Turn this panty-peeling vagina heroin off.”

  “Dirty Like Me” had just come on, the original Dirty version. Normally I would’ve laughed my ass off at Devi’s description of the song, which was bang on, but at the moment I was far closer to tears than laughter. I waved Becca away from the iPod dock anyway. “No. Just leave it on.”

  Because I loved this song.

  It was pretty much the best of what Dirty was. Their most famous song. Their biggest hit, ever.

  It was probably the last thing I needed to hear right now, but I loved it. Couldn’t help loving it.

  And everything I was feeling right now, this song pretty much said it all. I could barely breathe while I listened to it, each word, each grinding chord from Jesse’s guitar chafing at my heart.

  It wasn’t a love song, exactly, or a breakup song, or a make out song, but some kind of blood and gut and soul-fueled synthesis of all three. A kind of musical hate fuck wrapped in the sweetest love letter.

  Flaying flesh and bone to reveal the raw underbelly of lust, need, and marrow-deep desire for acceptance. That’s what one reviewer had wrote about it, and the words had stuck with me.

  Another called it The anthem of the done-wrong.

  And they were both right. Because deep beneath that underbelly of lust, need, and desire was an anguish so soul-splitting it set my hairs on end.

  As I listened to the song, it felt like my heart was gaping open, raw and aching, for everyone to see. Like a wound that had never been allowed to heal because each time it started, I picked at it, just enough to make it bleed... all over again.

  I only realized I was crying when the tears dripped off my cheeks, my eyes so flooded I couldn’t see Devi right in front of me. “Oh, hon,” she said, just beyond the tear-blur. “We’ve got to turn this off.”

  “No,” I managed, as I wiped the tears away. Thank God for the sunglasses. “Just let it play.”

  I was kind of in shock, it had been so long since I’d cried.

  Over two years.

  And now, the tears I’d been holding back since that awful day standing at the altar, alone, were finally pouring out. I’d never cried over it. Not that day, not any day since.

  Not once.

  And if I thought it hurt when Josh left me, that was nothing compared to this.

  This was heartbreak in slow motion.

  Why did I think I could just walk away? Like that would make it better? Like I could somehow magically avoid getting hurt, when my heart was already involved?

  No. This was way too deep for that. Jesse was way too deep.

  When I was with him, I wanted things I didn’t think I would ever want again until he rocked his way right into my life, my bed, my heart. The man was in my head, in my blood, and under my skin.

  “You were so right, Dev. I’ve been living my life like I can’t be loved. I’m totally in love with Jesse, but I’m afraid he can’t possibly love me back because I’m fundamentally unlovable or something.”

  Even I heard how fucked up that sounded. Because I never even gave Jesse a chance to love me. I just assumed it wasn’t possible.

  “Are you ever going to return his calls?” Devi asked for like the zillionth time as she glanced at my cell on the bar between us. It was vibrating and playing The Black Keys’ “Girl Is On My Mind,” thanks to my best friend reprogramming it while I dumped all my woes at her feet last night; her way of reminding me that Jesse probably actually did miss me, like his texts said, and I was being a dumbass.

  “I’m telling you, Dev,” I said as I ignored the phone and devoured about the dozenth maraschino straight from the jar, “from this moment forth, you run my life. Friends style, just like Monica did for Rachel when she realized she made bad decisions.”

  “First of all,” Devi said, seizing the jar of cherries and sliding it out of my reach, “those things stay in your system for like seven years, just like gum and licorice.”

  “Urban legend. If that were true, I’d weigh like a thousand pounds, nine-tenths of it cherry gut.”

  “Ew.” Devi wrinkled up her perfect little nose but I just shrugged. I’d spent the last five weeks on a tour bus with a bunch of men—gross humor didn’t even faze me anymore. “Second, your life is not a sitcom, babe. I think that storyline lasted like half an episode. Why? Because no one’s actually supposed to run your life but you. It’s called free will and you’re the only one who has to lie in the bed you made, so buck up and get your shit together.”

  “Fugh. Fine.” I slurped my whipped cream and shoved my glass toward Becca. “More whip!”

  My sister scowled at me but went to get the whipped cream canister.

  “And third…” Devi said with a weird inflection in her voice. I turned to see the perfectly threaded arch of her eyebrow raise in a way that made me follow her gaze toward the door. “You can’t hide forever, babe.”

  My heart lurched into my throat.

  There was a man standing in the doorway kind of blocking out the sun, moment-of-destiny style, and while it wasn’t Jesse Mayes it was a gorgeous brown-haired dude in a leather moto jacket and jeans, a cool tat on the back of his hand as he took off his sunglasses. His eyes were locked on me, because clearly he was here for only one reason.

  To make me lie in that bed I’d made.

&nbs
p; Brody headed over and I looked from Devi to my sister, who were both watching me. Becca had just topped up my glass with whip. I sighed. “I’ll take it to go.”

  I turned to Brody in defeat. I knew he was one of Jesse’s best friends, but since he was also his manager, I figured he was here to square up the business end of this deal. I’d already been paid for my weird-ass services, in full, and it was only fair that I return at least some of that money. Not to mention I’d broken my verbal contract with Jesse, so maybe there were more complicated ramifications to that.

  “Am I gonna need a lawyer for this?”

  “Don’t think so, Katie.” His eyes crinkled in a warm, friendly way. “How about I just give you a ride.”

  I studied him. I didn’t know him well, but I was pretty sure even if Jesse was disappointed in how I ran out on him, he wouldn’t send someone to totally screw me over.

  “Where?”

  He moved to the door and opened it for me. “Wherever you’re going.”

  * * *

  I gave Brody the address of where I’d just decided to go, then sat back in the passenger seat of his big-ass black truck and waited for him to lecture me, or grill me, or whatever the hell he’d come here to do.

  He didn’t say a thing. He just drove, westbound, headed for the tree-lined streets and gated mansions of Shaughnessy.

  “I’m sorry for leaving the tour,” I finally blurted when I couldn’t take the silence any longer. “I really am. It was a mistake.”

  Brody looked at me sidelong, his deep blue eyes assessing me. All that look told me was that I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of a business negotiation with the man. It was the look of a man who had the patience, the persistence and the low tolerance level for other people’s bullshit that, in most situations, probably got him exactly what he set out to get.

  “I mean… I think it was a mistake. It was. I’m pretty sure.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I just… I don’t know. I couldn’t handle it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You know, all the bullshit stuff in the media. Creepy dudes with telephoto lenses taking pictures of me with my family. People taking pictures of me in clubs with their cell phones and putting them online. Watching me. Judging me. Saying all kinds of shit that wasn’t even true.” I glanced at him guiltily. “And some that was. But, you know, it was pretty shitty to have to read about it.”