Logan wasn’t even glancing her way. His eyes were squinted from the hot stage lights, looking above her out further into the crowd. This only confirmed her theory that he had never even given her a second thought. The front row started to fill up further, even though all the seats had already been taken. Women were apparently moving forward to get next to the stage. Jackie and Aralia hollered along throughout the first song, singing at their loudest volume possible, having memorized every one of his songs. She had been listening to his albums since the moment they came out, so she was easily able to sing along too.
As the first song came to an end, Caroline began feeling a little more outgoing and joined her friends in their raucous dancing and singing. For the next two songs, she just put the thought of the Logan she had met out of her mind, thinking only of the musician Logan that she had been singing along to for years. His songs were loud and upbeat, but not deafening and illegible. He had several guitar solos that pretty much brought the roof down with the screaming fans’ excitement.
Caroline admired his musical talent, especially his deep and husky voice. The way he was able to move seamlessly across a stage as if he had done it all his life was enticing and every woman in the room felt it. She swayed with the music, pumped her arms to the beat, and laughed with Jackie and Aralia like young school girls. She hadn’t felt this way in a while and she loved it. A feeling of freedom and being herself, shedding the invisible mask of stoicism and propriety that she usually wore. After about ninety minutes of singing, performing, crazy stunts, explosions, and nonstop dancing, Logan stepped up to the microphone for the final song in his set.
“This song is new and you are the first audience to hear it!” Logan spoke seductively with a wink. The crowd instantly cheered in approval.
“It’s a story about a girl and a boy, but aren’t they all?” Logan grinned at the crowd and picked up an acoustic guitar that was propped on the stage near him.
He took a few steps back and a stage hand rushed out a stool to him. The lights dimmed, creating a romantic ambiance as he perched himself on the edge of the stool. The rest of the band had left the stage and all the theatrics had come to an end. It was just Logan holding the acoustic guitar in front of a microphone. The melody slowly began, as the spotlight centered on him. The crowd fell silent.
Caroline sat down, as most of the audience did too. She had never heard any slower songs from Logan, especially acoustic songs. His voice changed from the loud, deep rocker voice she was used to and soothed into a raspy, soft sound as he began to serenade the microphone. Love struck fans cheered as he ended the first verse and slid into the chorus with a bit more vigor.
Caroline had been tuning in and out, but when she caught a line of the chorus, her entire body went stiff. Completely paralyzed with her eyes open wide, she stared at him.
“…hazel eyes over hazelnut coffee, her upturned nose, and her stubborn pose. She rules the roost as she scoffs in her cup, and rolls her eyes as if I’m not enough.”
Caroline’s breath was shallow as she tried to pull every word out of his mouth and directly into her ears. Was he talking about her? She had hazel eyes. She definitely had been pretty stubborn with him, but it was warranted, or so she reminded herself.
“She tossed my music, like she tossed my heart,
her little button nose like a cupid’s dart.
Can’t stand her mouth because her tongue is sharp,
her words cut the strings on my harp.
but she’s the sour that made my day sweet,
the prettiest lips I should never want to meet,
and the shiniest eyes I never want to leave,
through my heart, she’s started to weave.
Aralia turned to Caroline, her eyes wide and round. She grabbed Caroline’s forearm and squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat.
“Caroline, is that you? He is fucking talking about you!” Aralia whispered, not so quietly, while Jackie leaned over to get in on the conversation. Her friends were staring at her as if she was holding back a secret from them. She didn’t turn to look at them, her eyes were still glued to Logan. Her hands clutched the arm rests as she kept telling herself that they were wrong, but all she could hear was his voice and the soft lyrics.
Those hazel eyes hide her chained up heart,
but her play is over, now it’s my part.”
With those last lines, Logan turned to look directly at Caroline. It was the first time he had looked at her during the concert and she felt her entire body go weak from the attention. His eyes pierced straight through her. She could feel the heat from his gaze searing her skin. Finally, he sang the last verse and finished his love song. The lights went dark on the stage.
The show was over.
The crowd started to siphon out the exits, talking excitedly about how great the show was. Jackie and Aralia started pushing Caroline towards the end of the front row. They were trading thoughts about the performance, but their eyes were trained on Caroline’s face, trying to figure out what she was thinking. She smiled at them, putting on a false air of confidence.
“Ready to go?” Caroline said to them. They shrugged yes, following her down the row of seats toward the end.
“What did you think of the show, Caroline? Wasn’t it wonderful?” Aralia smiled behind her. Jackie quickly agreed.
“It was wonderful! He is very talented.” Caroline turned her head to tell Aralia truthfully.
Aralia smiled at her, then looked confused for a second. Caroline couldn’t tell why until she turned back around walked right into the chest of a tall, broad man wearing a black t-shirt that said “SECURITY” on it. She stumbled back a step, tripping on Aralia’s feet, who then tripped on Jackie’s feet, like a pile up on the highway. The girls collected and righted themselves, turning to look at the man.
“Sorry about that, sir. I didn’t see you there,” Caroline apologized, trying to squeeze past him toward the exit. He stepped in her way, blocking her. She looked nervously up at him. Aralia put her hand on the back of Caroline’s arm in a show of support.
“Mr. Clay has invited the three of you to join him backstage. Follow me,” the tall man spoke in a deep and ominous voice.
He turned around and began walking toward the edge of the stage. They glanced at each other and then decided to follow him backstage. The girls had been to several concerts together over their long friendship, but never had been backstage at any of them. They followed the security guard through a black door at the side of the stage, which led to a long hallway with vinyl floors and dingy white walls, cluttered with posters from concerts that had been held there in the past. When they got to the swinging double doors at the end, he thrust them open like they were two light pieces of paper he could toss in the air.
They scurried behind him eagerly. They were all excited, except for Caroline who could only think of who was waiting back stage for them. This man she had only met once, yet she had just heard their single exchange turned into a love song in front of thousands of witnesses. This was dangerous territory and she knew it. She looked for any reasons that contradicted what she was sure she had just heard. After all, musicians draw inspiration from many areas of their lives, often turning nothing into something. The song might have been based off of their meeting, but that is all it was. Just a song to sell albums and draw in more adoring fans. She could be honored that she might have served as a muse for him, but knew that she shouldn’t fool herself into thinking it was anything more than that. Still, that little tiny voice in the back of her head, that lived off of romantic comedy movies and fairytales, begged her to keep that door open.
Behind the double doors at the end of the hall was another perpendicular hall, resembling a boring office with rows of doors on either side of the hall going down as far as they could see. The man turned left and walked to the first door on the right that had a large golden star on it. He tapped on the door quickly twice, then slowly three times. He stepped back and stood in a military
stance, waiting. The girls dropped back. Caroline took a step behind Jackie and Aralia, partially hiding herself from immediate view. Her nerves were on hyper drive and her stomach was flopping around, like a fish on land.
The door swung open and a bleach blonde, beautiful woman came swinging out, towering over the friends in the hall. She glanced down at the with a smug look, then strutted down the hall. Caroline watched her saunter off, feeling a pang of jealousy over her tall, thin frame and the fact that she had just come out of a room alone with Logan. She knew for sure now that her daydreams were just that, only dreams. He was a musician. The blonde model was the type he would be surrounded by, not her short, brunette frame.
The security guard motioned them to enter through the open door, but didn’t move from his spot. Jackie and Aralia rushed in excitedly with Caroline lagging behind slowly, trying to stay in the background. They walked into a room that seemed larger than her entire apartment. There were multiple lounging sections with groupings of chairs and couches, as well as a fully stocked bar toward the back, a mini stage to one side with musical equipment piled up, and a curtained off corner hidden by a thick velvet curtain.
There were several people in the room, mostly drinking and partaking in other activities you might expect to find back stage at a rock concert. Logan was nowhere in sight, which Jackie and Aralia didn’t seem to notice as they were already at the bar, making drinks and talking to several handsome men who looked like they were either musicians or roadies.
Caroline walked further into the room awkwardly, putting her focus on some intriguing art pinned to the wall. The room was a bit loud, but she tuned it out and tried to breathe out her anxiety. She glanced toward the farther side of the room, seeing that Aralia and Jackie were already settled on different couches with groups of men and more models.
They were laughing and obviously enjoying themselves. She smiled for them, but that wasn’t her type of fun. She wasn’t interested in being surrounded by people most likely impaired from multiple substances. She turned back to look at the next painting on the wall, an abstract piece with swirls of colors, seeming to go in a certain pattern she couldn’t quite figure out.
“It’s cute that your face scrunches up like that every time you don’t understand something,” a deep and familiar voice spoke behind her. She jumped, startled, whirling around to see Logan standing less than a few inches from her.
“I didn’t get to see a lot of that at the coffee shop.” He smirked at her, continuing to tease her about being a know-it-all. Her cheeks blushed a dark red and she looked away from him, feeling embarrassed that he had caught her in a private moment.
“I didn’t see you there. And I have no idea what you are talking about,” she stammered, sticking her nose up in an attempt to look confident, but mentally kicking herself for being so ineloquent.
He just smiled at her, showing off small dimples on his cheeks that she felt the urge to reach out and touch. He was so unbelievably handsome this close. She inhaled the musky, yet fresh, scent he exuded and felt his hot breath tickle her cheeks. A silence came over the two of them for what seemed like an eternity, but was really only a few seconds at most. He seemed completely at ease, which only made her more nervous. She could see herself fidgeting more and more by the second.
Although Logan was already only a few inches away from her, he began to lean down a little further, closing the gap between them even more. Caroline’s breath caught in her throat. She wouldn’t have been capable of breathing if she tried, because she was completely entranced in his sparkling blue eyes. She was caught in the magnetic field between them, pulling them closer together.
“So, you like that painting?” Logan grinned, interrupting her fantasy moment and causing her to step back and clear her throat.
She blinked a few times, trying to gather herself, and then looked back at the painting. He smiled coyly at her, seemingly knowing the effect he was having on her and definitely enjoying it. That just made her angry, which may not seem like the normal reaction in this type of situation, but Caroline was always in control. She didn’t lose herself in the moment like this.
At the Java Jolt when she met Logan, she was calm and collected and hadn’t even given him the slightest opportunity to ruffle her feathers. Now here he was playing her like a fiddle! She knew he didn’t really care about her, not with all those models prancing around and throwing themselves at him. How dare he try to gain the upper hand by throwing her off balance with those steamy eyes and those tiny, perfect dimples? She mentally slapped herself and snapped back to reality.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Caroline said, trying her best to sound nonchalant.
He just smiled again with that irritating and boyish grin, like he could read her thoughts and knew he had just knocked some of her walls down. Her blood boiled the more that she thought about it. How dare he act so full of himself! He was just another musician, nothing original or unique about him.
Just an overly confident man surrounded by fawning women plucking away at his guitar strings, how unoriginal he was, she thought to herself.
“Come with me,” Logan spoke softly to her, his hand capturing her elbow and pulling her toward the draped off section of the room.
“Where are you taking me? What’s behind there?” Caroline panicked slightly, pulling her arm free from him. She kept trying to withstand his delicious magnetism, but losing ground by the second. He turned back to her and smiled, rolling his eyes at her mock outrage.
“If you want to know, you better come find out.” He annoyingly avoided her question entirely as he disappeared between the folds of the velvet curtains.
She watched him enter, then turned to look at the rest of the room. No one was even remotely paying attention to them. Jackie was kissing a different security guard in the corner of the room and Aralia was talking animatedly, while a group of people sat around her, captivated. Aralia had always been a star and there was nothing that could drag her away from an audience.
Caroline turned back toward the curtain and took a deep breath, stepped forward, and pulled them apart to walk through. The curtains quickly fell closed behind her, leaving her in a smaller room, maybe only twice the size of her bedroom or a little less. There was a bed to one side with a large counter on the adjacent wall with all kinds of products, clothes, and travel items strewn across it. The other side of the room is where Logan stood, facing away from her. He had taken his shirt off and was only wearing baggy sweat pants.
She paused, taken aback for a moment, by the site of the clearly defined muscles on his back, followed by his bulging shoulders and bulky biceps, all covered in different tattoos that told a story she so badly wanted to read. Caroline was so distracted by him that she hadn’t noticed what he was doing until he turned around to look at her.
“What do you think?” he asked, his eyes showing a slight vulnerability as he awaited her judgment.
Logan was standing in front of an easel with a partially painted canvas on it. The scene was of a girl’s profile, looking behind her. The girl looked sad, but confident. There was something in her eyes that made Caroline lock in. She walked further into the room to look at the painting more in depth, forgetting Logan was standing there and now even closer to her. The girl had brown curly hair, pale white skin, and rosy lips. Her neck and the rest were still not drawn, only her face and the beginning edges of her hair were completed.
It was probably one of the most beautiful paintings that she had ever seen. It looked so real, like the girl was going to turn back around and look right at her. Not only did the painting look real, but it was overflowing with emotions and meaning. It wasn’t just a picture on a canvas, it told a story in her gaze, in the soft light around her face, and the hazel complexity of her eyes.
“It’s beautiful,” Caroline whispered, hauntingly. There was really nothing more that she could say that would accurately capture what she was looking at. She had now entirely forgotten that Logan was standing by her side, u
ntil his hand came around and sat lightly on the dip in her lower back. Her breath staggered for a second and she cleared her throat, turning back to look at him.
“Who painted this?” she asked him.
“It’s not fully painted yet, but once I finish it, you can have it,” he replied, gazing into her eyes seriously.
“I meant who painted it,” Caroline started, then stopped and realized what he had just said, “wait, you painted this?”
“Don’t look so surprised.” He was smiling at her again,
“I am more than a guy holding a microphone every night.” He turned from her to look back at the painting. “Plus, I had a wonderful muse that pulled this out of me.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said curtly, not meaning to sound annoyed, even though she was. She looked at the painting, feeling jealous of the girl that he had painted. She knew she was being ridiculous.
Logan turned back to look at her, a confused look on his face. He seemed to have a realization just then and smiled widely at her, laughter dancing in his eyes. He took another step closer to her, this time completely closing the gap. His arms encircled her waist and he pulled her to his bare chest, pressing her tightly to him. Caroline lost every ability to breath or even to think. Her legs had gone limp, which made her thankful that he was holding most of her weight.
“Caroline, I painted you. You are the most beautiful muse there ever could be. Your button nose, pretty lips, and shiny hazel eyes,” his deep voice became softer as he whispered to her, repeating some of the lyrics that she had just heard on stage, looking deeply into her eyes.
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but everything had gone still. She felt at home. She felt like she had been in his arms her entire life, or that her life hadn’t even started until just then. The nerves and butterflies had fluttered away and she was overwhelmed with a calm sensation of belonging that she had never felt before.
Logan Clay: A Forbidden Rockers Box Set Page 11
