“I just know that if I were in your position I would want some normalcy to my life.”
“There are very few things about my life that will ever be normal again.” She chuckled and extended her hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Vanessa.”
Vanessa took the hand. “You too.” They looked at each other, still hand in hand. “Oh my God.” Vanessa started digging through her bag. “I have got to at least have a picture with you—for my best friend, Mia.”
“I can take the picture,” she said, taking her phone out and adjusting it in front of them. They came cheek to cheek and smiled. “There. By morning your friend will see it, I assure you.”
Vanessa smiled. “Should that scare me?”
“Maybe I’m the one that should be scared.”
“I’m harmless, I promise,” Vanessa said sincerely.
Lochlan stared at her for another moment too long before she took in a breath. “I should go.”
“Okay. It was nice meeting you.”
“You too.” Lochlan smiled and stepped into the vehicle as Jacob closed the door behind her. As they drove away from Vanessa, she waved once more. Lochlan wondered in that moment what it would be like to be able to act on a connection with another woman. For all she knew Vanessa wasn’t even gay. It was ridiculous to hope that she was. She looked at the picture of them and wondered if she could ever stop this charade of a life that she lived.
✥ ✥ ✥
Vanessa was sound asleep when someone began pounding at her bedroom door. Nothing like being awakened by the heart-stopping fear of impending death by robber. Wait, robbers don’t knock before entering.
“What the hell?” Vanessa groaned as she threw the blanket back and sat up. “Come in!”
Vanessa was still rubbing her eyes when Mia opened the door with her second-best friend, Ty, in tow. “Where in the hell have you been?”
Vanessa looked at the clock on her desk. “It’s nine thirty in the morning. I’m pre-med with a huge paper due on Monday. I was up half the night studying. Where do you think I’ve been? I’ve been in bed.”
“Bed my ass! Explain this!” Mia held out her phone.
“What?” Vanessa took the device and reached over to the nightstand for her glasses. She slid them on, and her heart stopped when she saw what had caused the commotion. It was a picture posted to Lochlan Paige’s Twitter account.
“It’s posted to Instagram as well. Just in case you were wondering,” Ty said.
The picture was of her and Lochlan, cheek to cheek with the caption, Told you they would know by morning. Thanks for trying to help me stay hidden. It was nice meeting you and tell Mia I said hi.—Loc.
“You actually met her last night?” Ty shouted. “And we, your best friends, hear about it on Twitter?” Vanessa smiled. “And where the hell is my ‘hi’ from Lochlan Paige?”
“Ty, you are a gay man who hates country music. I didn’t realize that you would need one.” Vanessa handed the phone back to Mia and climbed out of bed.
“We’ve been calling you for hours,” Mia said.
“I’m sorry. It was four when I got in and I guess I just crashed.”
Mia gasped. “You were with Lochlan Paige until four a.m.?”
“No, Mia. I just bumped into her last night.” She made her way to the common area of the apartment.
Mia and Ty were on her heels. “I got three phone calls this morning from people asking where you were and if I had talked to you,” Mia said.
“Well, now you have.” Vanessa picked up the coffee pot. “And apparently, I’m up.”
“I’m gonna need for you to go on both Instagram and Twitter and address this.”
“This? There is no this,” she said, looking through the cabinet. “Where did you hide my coffee?”
“Only you would be worried about coffee right now,” Mia said.
“I was in the library last night and she was there, apparently writing a song or something.”
Ty spoke up. “What was she like?”
“Nice. Sweet.” Vanessa smiled. “She is so much prettier in person.”
“Okay, now you’re just rubbing it in.” Mia groaned.
Vanessa chuckled. “Sorry. She wanted to be left alone last night, so I tried to do that. I didn’t call you because I know that you would have brought fifteen other people.”
“I would not—” Mia began, but Vanessa looked at her skeptically as she tilted her head in disbelief. “Okay, maybe I would have, but just a couple.”
“She didn’t want a couple.”
“I’m gonna need for you to be a little less protective of her and worry about your best friend’s needs a little more.”
Vanessa hugged her. “Awwww. I love you, but this time I selfishly thought of me. I had Lochlan Paige all to myself.”
“Oh my God, I knew it!” Mia gasped. “You were hogging the hot celebrity hoping to have a steamy tryst with her.”
“A tryst? My God, you are reaching here. That only happens in movies and romance novels. Besides, Loc is straight.”
“Loc? Did you just refer to Lochlan Paige as ‘Loc,’ the name that only other celebs and her friends call her?”
Vanessa laughed. “She told me to call her Loc. It just came out.”
Mia walked quickly, and overdramatically, to the computer and turned it on. “Tweet her back!”
“Why?”
“Lochlan Paige has told you to call her by a name that is reserved for only certain people.”
“And?” Vanessa asked as she returned to searching the cabinet. “Aha, there’s the coffee.”
“What really happened last night?” Ty asked.
“I told you. We were both there and she was humming all loud and I asked her to please be quiet.”
“You what?” they both screamed in unison.
“I was trying to study.”
“So, you told Lochlan Paige to what? Hush?” Ty laughed in shock.
Vanessa laughed at the horrified looks on their faces. “No. The word hush was never used.”
“So, you politely told her to shut the hell up?” Ty glared at Mia. “This is your fault.”
“My fault?” Mia gasped.
“Yes. She’s a lesbian, so her interaction with other women is solely on you. My job is to call you a bitch when she needs me to and help her decorate this dungeon of a room.”
Mia whipped her head to Vanessa. “You call me a bitch?”
“No!” Vanessa defended herself. “I have never, damn it, Ty.”
“What?” he said defensively.
“And my room is not a dungeon.”
“It is very plain, Nessa.” Mia scanned the room.
Vanessa huffed loudly. “Okay.” She went to the computer and sat down. She pulled up the account and then Lochlan’s page. She couldn’t help smiling at the picture. It was a really good photo of both of them.
Ty smiled. “I have to say, you two look—”
“Amazing together.” Mia finished his thought in a dreamy voice.
“Yeah,” he replied. “That.”
Vanessa clicked on the picture and typed a reply.
Love the pic and meeting you, too. Mia says hi back. Also, my other BFF, Ty, feels left out and also says hello.
She clicked on the follow button and turned away from the computer. “There. Happy? She will probably never see it in the sea of tweets—” She stopped at the “ding” noise from the computer.
“Sweet Lord. Is that…?” Ty said as he and Mia rushed back to the computer.
“It’s her!” Mia said giddily.
“It’s her, what?” Vanessa asked. Then there was another beep.
“She followed you, faved the tweet, and retweeted it.”
“Okay, the coffee is ready. Anyone want some?” Vanessa felt the increase of her heart rate with the unexpected turn her night had taken but refused to let anyone know.
“Forget about the damned coffee!” Ty said.
“Why? She just liked the post. It�
�s not like she’s trying to have a convers—”
The computer dinged again.
“You have a direct message.” Mia said.
“Oh my God, they’re falling in love before our very eyes. Hashtag blessed,” Ty said.
“Good Lord, you’re acting like children. No one is falling in love.” She clicked on the direct message symbol.
Wallace, huh? I was kicking myself for not getting a last name. Does Mia like the pic? I think it’s good. Oh, and tell Ty hello.
“This is not happening. Is this really happening to us right now?” Ty said as he fanned himself. “One day when she writes her tell-all memoir, we—Mia, you, and I—will be part of it.”
Vanessa laughed at him as she typed back.
You’re going to make Ty have some sort of breakdown at any moment. Yes, they liked the picture. Why wouldn’t they? It’s a great photo.
The computer sounded again.
Good. I’m just about to board the plane home. Glad you all like it. Good luck with the paper.
Vanessa didn’t pay attention to the chaos and hyena volume of screeching that was going on behind her. She wondered, as she had last night, if a seemingly straight and very famous celebrity was flirting with her.
Thanks, and good luck on the song.
Thank you. Turning phone off. Airline bitches. LOL Talk to you soon—I hope. Bye, Mia & Ty.
That was the last time the computer sounded. “What happened last night?” Ty asked.
“I-I’m not really sure, and now I’m even less sure. Is she—is she flirting with me? Isn’t she straight?”
“Honey, it’s country music. They’re all straight until they aren’t.”
✥ ✥ ✥
Lochlan saw two familiar smiles as she and Jacob headed to baggage claim. “What are you doing here?” she said as she hugged Jamie’s husband, Eli.
“Jamie didn’t want you hailing a taxi or using Uber. So here we are.” He saw Jacob and the guys exchanged hellos. “We got her from here.”
“All right,” Jacob said as he tugged Lochlan’s baggage off the belt, along with his. “I’ll just leave you all to it, then.” He hugged Lochlan. “Let me know when you need me.”
“Always do.” She returned his hug, then waved as he left. She turned around to almost bump into Jamie. “What?”
“Who’s the girl?” Jamie furrowed her brows.
“What girl?”
“Twitter girl. Instagram girl. Your notifications are exploding girl.”
“She is a dateless, bookworm nerd that I met at the library.”
“That beautiful woman is not a nerd. If she is, thank God nerds didn’t look like that when we were in school. Us mediocre people would have been totally screwed.”
Lochlan laughed. “She was hot, right?”
“Yes,” Eli and Jamie answered in unison.
Lochlan smiled. “She was!” She looked more at Eli. “Did you see those eyes?”
“I did. Those things were—”
“Loc—” Jamie interrupted him.
“Let’s just stop there. I already know what you’re going to say next,” Lochlan said.
“I’m sure that you do. That you cannot start acting on feelings that you have for women.”
“I can’t live in this bubble for the rest of my life. Hell, I’m nearly twenty-six years old and have had virtually no real relationships.” Everything in Lochlan knew that Jamie was right, but no matter who was right or wrong, the reality of the situation had her upset.
“Loc, you met this girl last night in a library. This isn’t something to derail your entire career over.”
“This isn’t about Vanessa.”
“Oh, that’s her name? Good to know, because somehow I think that I’m gonna be familiar with it.”
“What’s the deal?” Lochlan asked as she headed for the passenger seat of the car.
“The deal is that you are still very much a closeted star. If you are going to make a move, I need to know.”
“I just met her last night, so don’t marry us off yet.”
“You’ve met a lot of people who didn’t end up plastered all over the internet.”
“She isn’t fucking plastered, Jamie. It was one damn picture.”
“One picture that has been retweeted fourteen thousand times in twelve hours.”
“It was innocent!” Lochlan got into the car and slammed the door, leaving Jamie and Eli still standing outside.
Chapter Three
Vanessa was sitting in her classroom and could feel every eye in the room on her. Her lab partner spoke without even looking at her. “Ignore them.”
“That seems easier said than done.” Vanessa sighed. “Three people that I don’t even know came up to me today and asked me if Lochlan and I were friends. I would have thought the ‘it’s nice to meet you’ tweet would have answered that question.”
The girl next to Vanessa turned to her. “My freshman year, I dated the star running back. While we were dating, he was drafted to the NFL by the Raiders. People asked me every day if we were still dating. I understand this is vastly different, but my point is that tomorrow someone else will do something and you will be forgotten. Trust me, I was.”
Lochlan noticed the hurt in her eyes. “Even by him?”
The girl smiled. “He tried not to, but it’s a different world. They’re in demand and there is always someone coming along who wants a piece of them…literally. He was a rookie in the NFL and people were throwing themselves at him. I can’t imagine Lochlan Paige. God.”
“Like I said, I don’t even know her. We just met after the concert, I asked for a picture, and she took one. It’s really all there is to it.”
“Celebrities have a different life. Everyone that’s seen with them is the new target. Thank God you aren’t a man, or they would have you two married next week.” She laughed.
Vanessa returned the laugh and hid an unsettling sadness. “Yeah, thank God.”
✥ ✥ ✥
December in Nashville had turned cold as Lochlan sat in her living room. It had been a busy twenty-four hours. Yesterday, after the Grammy Awards announcement, her phone had rung constantly. There was the initial call from Jamie, then the record label, followed by producers, fellow artists and some of the Knoxville radio stations. Generally, she stayed off social media, as Jamie handled those type of things and would alert her of any social media that might need her attention, but she always liked to go back and check what her fans had written for herself.
As she sat, still in her warm pajamas, drinking coffee and listening to her fireplace crackle, she tucked her legs under her and pulled up her Twitter account. She wasn’t sure how long she had been looking when she saw it.
@Vanessa_Wallace: Congrats on the Grammy nominations. Love the song and so does everyone else. #Winner #SongOfTheYear #AlbumOfTheYear #FemaleVocalistOfTheYear #RecordOfTheYear
Lochlan stared at the tweet for a while. It had been a few months since the night they met. Where Vanessa was concerned, her Twitter account had been completely silent since that night. Lochlan thought how busy Vanessa must be with school. “Probably doesn’t have time for stuff like this.” Lochlan couldn’t help but smile at the thought that Vanessa had gone out of her way to congratulate her. The thought wasn’t lost on her that Jamie hadn’t mentioned the tweet.
She clicked the direct message button and typed a reply.
Thanks for the tweet. Yesterday was crazy after the nominations were announced. Hope school is going well. I know you have a lot of tests coming up to end the semester, so good luck.
Lochlan went back to the tweets, liking Vanessa’s, then continued reading the congratulations. An hour later, before closing her phone, she clicked on her gallery and looked at the picture that popped up. It was her and Vanessa. She smiled and took a sip of her coffee. It was a great picture and one that should have been a little less than flattering seeing as it was after three a.m. However, it wasn’t. Lochlan couldn’t help but think just ho
w cute they were together. They stood almost even, resulting in a perfect cheek to cheek photo. Lochlan’s blond hair was complemented by Vanessa’s dark brown, and her dark eyes were a complete contrast to Lochlan’s blue. Vanessa was effortlessly beautiful.
Lochlan closed the gallery knowing it was crazy to sit here and admire what looked like a gorgeous couple, when in fact it was two people who didn’t even know each other. She could be a crazy serial killer for all Loc knew. She took a deep breath. “Please don’t be a crazy serial killer.”
✥ ✥ ✥
Vanessa sat in the library studying for her first exam of the semester. It was mid-January and she had met up with Mia and Ty yesterday as they gathered around the television to watch the Grammy Awards together. They cheered loudly as Lochlan won every award she’d been nominated for. There were pictures of her this morning on every news outlet and search engine. Vanessa loved the pictures of Lochlan with her arms full of Grammy trophies. They hadn’t talked much since the nominations, just quickly exchanged holiday pleasantries. Each sent a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and Vanessa added wishes of good luck as Lochlan performed in New York City for New Year’s Eve. Other than those times, she hadn’t heard from her. She had now accepted that there truly had been nothing that night. Lochlan was a singer who met someone and, as a good PR move, was very nice to them. She had heard of stuff like that before—stars meeting a fan and making them feel special. That was all this was, and she had finally accepted it.
Suddenly, there was someone next to her, and she looked over to see Mia. “What are you doing this weekend?” Mia asked.
Vanessa chuckled. “Same thing I do every weekend—study.”
Love's Falling Star Page 2
