by Karen Booth
I couldn't take it anymore. My body needed the release. "I'm going to come," I said, but I was already there. It unfolded inside me in waves, like a present wrapped in endless layers of tissue, until the most beautiful of moments was upon me, warm and soft and liberating. My thoughts turned to colors and I finally let go of everything, all so I could be with Graham.
Chapter Eleven
Graham
Angie. Sweet sweet Angie. Imagine my great relief when I opened my eyes and saw that last night hadn't been a dream. It was real. She was real, and she was with me.
I snuggled up right behind her, drinking in her heavenly smell, the feel of the soft skin of her back against my stomach. Even better was admiring her silky hair spread across the pillows of my bed. I missed this more than I even knew.
Was this finally going to be sorted? It sure seemed like it. What more could there possibly be in the way of problems? I'd come clean about the girls on the road, she'd come to terms with my past transgression and forgiven me for it. Other than that, we had a few logistics to work out, but I had plenty of money and that would likely solve most of our remaining problems.
"Morning, Mrs. Whiting." I kissed her cheek softly as she rolled toward me.
"I'm not Mrs. Whiting. Your mother is. And I really don't think you should get the two of us confused, especially not in bed." A smart grin crossed her face.
"I'm serious. Are we going to do this? Get married? Because I meant it when I asked you yesterday."
She propped herself up on her elbow. Her hair was such a wreck, but I didn't dare say a thing. It was a damned sexy wreck. "You didn't really ask me. And I know that you hadn't planned to. I think that means we need to think about it some more."
"Look, I have been utterly miserable ever since I lost you and that's saying a lot considering all of the amazing things that happened with the band in that time. I don't want to go back to being that version of Graham Whiting. And I can tell you that the guys don't want me to go back to being that either."
She nodded, seeming to understand. "That's very sweet. I think. I just…I do want to be with you, but we'll have some things to sort. It will take work. A lot of hard work. I hope you're prepared for that. Because I know you, and you do not like complications. You like things simple and straightforward. You and me together will be anything but that."
"What’s complicated about us?"
"Let's start with the big one. Your job. I know you're coming home to England, but it's only for a month before you guys go back and tour Southeast Asia and Australia. Things like that will be really difficult on both of us. Are you ready for that?"
"But I figured you could just come on the road with us. You get on great with the rest of the guys in the band, and you can bring your camera. It'll be perfect. I can work and you can spend your time taking pictures. Isn't that what every artist wants? The chance to practice without having an actual job?"
"Graham. I worked really hard to get the job at Music Maker. It's incredibly hard to be a working photographer and I've arrived at that. I'm not about to throw that away now."
"You aren't? I just assumed. I mean, last night. It was so perfect. I assumed that if you wanted to be with me, you'd want to be with me for real, all the time." Bloody hell. This was not what I'd envisioned for our future at all. "You won't reconsider leaving your job?"
"Even if I didn't have the magazine to contend with, I have responsibilities to my mum and dad. She needs me there. She needs my help. I can't leave her to run away with the circus."
I frowned and sat up in the bed, tugging the sheets to my waist. "The circus? Is that what you think I'm doing? Some silly lark that won't last?" I watched as she shook her head in utter disbelief, but they were valid questions.
"I never said that. Of course it'll last, at least for a little while, but it is like a circus. It's crazy the things you guys have to do, dealing with the fans and all of that. I'd have to think long and hard about whether I want to live that kind of life. And what if we decide to have children? What then?"
Now things were officially going too fast. I’d dared to think about a flat, but this? "Kids? We haven't even bought a ring yet. Bloody hell."
"I'm just thinking about the future. People do that, you know. People make plans. You might want to try it some time."
"And I'd much rather live in the moment than plan out every minute of our lives together. Why can't being in love be enough? It seems like everything else can be considered nothing more than a nuisance if we just admit that we're in love and need each other."
Loud and furious knocks came at the door.
"Who is it?" I called out. If it was one of the guys or Reggie, I was going to wring somebody's neck. We weren't due to leave for New York for hours.
There was no answer, just more pounding at the door.
"Who is it?" I shouted, irritated as hell. No answer.
"Did you order room service?" Angie asked, grabbing my T-shirt from the floor and putting it on.
"No. I only got up a minute before you." I shook my head, slipping on my boxers. There was yet more hammering at the door. Taking a look through the peep hole, I couldn't see anything or anyone, but I not only heard more knocking, I felt it. The door was vibrating. "I bet you anything this is Chris and one of his practical jokes." The chain on the door jangled when I unlatched it. "He put a goat in my hotel room in Iowa." I turned the deadbolt and the knob. "Alright Chris…"
A girl I didn't recognize with long black hair was crouched down in front of my door. "Oh my God. Graham. You're here. You're really here." She wrapped her arms around me in a hug.
I wriggled my way out of the embrace and held her at arms' length. "Do I know you?"
"Graham, do you know her?" Angie asked in panic, stepping closer but holding a pillow in front of her as if that was some sort of defense against a crazy person. "Or do I need to call Reggie?"
The woman appeared utterly mortified. "You're with another girl? I can't believe this. I thought we had something. Didn't we have an amazing time together? I've been trying to get ahold of you for weeks…" Her eyes were wild, and not in a good way.
Oh good God. Not this. I scoured my brain, but this woman wasn't registering in my memory. Perhaps I was too busy hoping to hell that Angie didn't strangle me when this was all over. "Angie, please get Reggie down here now."
Chapter Twelve
Angie
"Okay. Okay. Okay." I hated the sound of my own voice at that moment. It was too much like I was panicked and I didn't like that feeling at all. I fumbled for the phone next to the bed, knocking the receiver from the cradle. I dialed zero and got the operator. "I need Reggie Bonham's room."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we don't have anyone staying here under that name."
Bloody hell. "Graham? Does Reggie use a fake name?"
Graham squinted and looked down at the ground, still holding on to the woman who was grunting his name and pushing harder to get further into the room. Her acid-washed denim jacket was covered in Banks Forest buttons. "Uh. Yeah. Blimey. Try James Crockett. The git loves Miami Vice for some reason."
"Is there a James Crockett? It's an emergency."
"An emergency?" the operator asked. "A fire? Do we need to evacuate the hotel?"
My eyes darted again to the vision of the woman and Graham in the middle of their dysfunctional dance. A fire sounded perfect—a red hot, roaring fire. Too bad I couldn't order one up like room service. "Not a fire. There's a woman trying to get into our room. We need help."
"I'll patch you through to Mr. Crockett and send up the bell captain."
The line rang twice before a groggy voice answered. "This had better be important."
"Reggie, it's Angie. I’m up in Graham’s room. There's a woman trying to get in, and Graham doesn't want to hurt her." But I might.
"On my way," Reggie answered. The line went dead.
"Reggie's coming," I blurted, wondering exactly how fast a man of his stature could move. Fast, I hop
ed.
"Okay, dear," Graham said to the woman as I started to pace on the far side of the room. "I think you're confused. I don't know how you got into this hotel, but you need to leave now. You could walk down to the front desk and have them call you a cab."
Her side ponytail was so long that it whipped Graham in the face when she shook her head violently. "No way. I worked too hard to find you. I had to climb a fire escape to get in here and I've been waiting out there for you for days. I can't believe you didn't even respond when I was yelling for you outside. I was screaming so loud."
I retreated to the far corner of the room as Graham struggled with our visitor. He was so calm and collected about it all, like he knew exactly what to do. Like this had happened before. I ran my hands through my hair. If Graham thought the bullshit that went along with his career wouldn’t make a difference, this woman showing up was glaring evidence to the contrary. He’d said it was enough that we loved each other. It might be that way for him, but would it ever feel that way for me?
Reggie appeared in the doorway, his face red and puffy, chest heaving. "Okay, love. Time for you and I to have a little chat." He pulled the woman off of Graham and physically separated them.
"No! No! You can't take him away from me! He's mine!" She hit Reggie, over and over again with one hand while she lunged for Graham with the other. "He's mine! Graham!"
Graham scrambled over to me and wrapped me up tightly in his arms. It wasn't nearly as comforting as I imagined he wanted it to be. The one place I wanted to be, with every other circumstance as fucked as possible. "Are you all right?" he asked, pushing my hair back and scanning my face.
The woman let out a blood curdling scream. "No! She can't have him! He's mine!"
Graham and I both recoiled. What was it with their fans and their shrieks that only dogs could hear?
"We just need to get her out of here," I muttered.
Finally, reinforcements arrived with two of the bellboys. They pulled the woman off Reggie, each one holding on to one arm. "The police are on their way. We'll need you to come downstairs to speak to the detectives when they arrive."
The woman shrieked again.
Reggie nodded. "Yeah. One of us will be there. Just give us a minute."
They carted her out of sight, but the screaming continued. Graham I love you. I know you love me, too. Reggie stepped inside Graham's room and the door closed behind him. "You two okay?"
Graham looked at me, but I didn't know what to say. Physically, I was fine. Mentally, not so much. What in the hell was I doing? Why couldn't I have just left things the way they were? "I'm fine."
"I'm just fine, Reg," Graham answered. "Thank you for coming up and taking care of that."
"It's my job. We might need to think about stationing someone outside your room in New York, just in case. I'll look into it." His vision swept between the two of us, adding everything up, apparently. He'd have to find out later that his calculations were wrong. "Okay, then. I'm going to deal with the police. The limos are arriving at eleven to take us to New York."
"We'll be there," Graham said, as Reggie let himself out.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I collected my clothes from the floor. It was now time to make a graceful exit. Judging by the performance of the last woman to leave this room, I liked my chances. "I'm going to go get my things together. I'll see you in the lobby." I was too shell-shocked to cry, although there were parts of my brain that couldn't understand why I wasn't in tears or at least hysterically angry.
"Angie, I'm sorry, okay? I had no way of knowing that was going to happen. I'm really sorry."
I clutched my clothes to my chest, still wearing Graham's T-shirt, which smelled exactly like him. I needed to get out of it as quickly as possible, get out of here just as fast. "It's okay. I get it. These things happen when you're a rock star." I turned and walked into the bathroom. I only got the door half-closed.
Graham wedged himself in the doorway. "No. Ang. I know you and I know exactly what you are doing. You're holding it all in, going back to your whole mode of having everything under control. Tell me that you're mad, okay?”
It was so not true that I kept everything under control. My life was a mess of late. And I didn't always hold it all in—the night that we'd broken up, I'd really let him have it, even if I hadn’t stuck around to hear his side of things. "What do you want me to say? That woman showing up at your door is exactly why you and I won't work. I'm not going to live like that, wondering which woman is going to be the next to get her hooks into you. And don't forget, at some point you got your hooks into her. Don't forget that part."
"I don't even remember her. Honestly. And I haven't been with another girl in weeks. Seriously. You can ask Chris."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? That there have been so many of them that you don't even remember her? You shared the most intimate thing two people can share and you have no memory of that. That's not normal, Graham. This is not the way the rest of us live."
"I know that. And that's why it's not a part of my life anymore. I want you, Angie. You are all I will ever want or need. Last night was incredible. I don't know that I've ever been happier than that moment when we ran down that path last night, holding hands, laughing, knowing that you wanted to be with me."
That moment had been so incredible. I'd been drunk on Graham and a glimpse of a life that had once seemed as though it wasn't meant for me. Now I knew it truly wasn't, however crushing a lesson it was to learn. "It was the champagne and the song. I was caught up in the moment. It wasn't fair and it wasn't real. How am I supposed to resist you when you're being like that?"
"I don't want you to resist me. I know that I can't resist you."
I drew in a deep breath through my nose. Only one thing could save me and let me clear my head—distance, as much as I could get while spending as much time as humanly possible with his band for another day and a half. "I have to get packed. Can you please let me get dressed?"
His hand went to my neck, clasping it. "Don't go. Don't get dressed. Come back to bed."
Over his shoulder, I could see the rumpled bedding, the pillows in disarray. "I just had a one-night stand with my ex-boyfriend. I think I've had my fill of being in your bed."
He leaned in and kissed my forehead, while I stood as rigid as a board, not about to give in to him or his effect on me. "Don't call it a one-night stand. Let's call it what it really was."
"A tragic mistake?"
He frowned. "No, Ang. Not a bloody mistake. Last night was paradise."
“Yes. It was. And this morning was hell.”
Chapter Thirteen
Graham
Hours after the incident at the hotel, Chris, Reggie, and I were in the limo on our way to Philadelphia. Angie was traveling in the other car, making my ride an especially lonely one. Plus, Chris was really making me regret ever confiding in him about what happened that morning. He wouldn’t stop bringing up how awful Angie must’ve felt when the groupie had shown up at my door.
"You have to admit, what happened this morning was bloody awful. A really bad thing. Look at it from Angie's perspective." Chris, the incessant voice of reason, picked up an issue of Billboard magazine and began flipping through it.
I shifted in my seat, staring out the limo window as we closed in on Manhattan, the skyscrapers getting larger and larger in my field of vision. How had things gone from incredible to an utter disaster in such a short amount of time? I had blooming whiplash from my life.
I'd run it over in my head dozens of times after she'd left my room refusing to so much as kiss me goodbye. I wouldn't have been happy if I'd been in her shoes, but it wasn't as if I had any control over it. And it wasn't like that sort of thing was a regular occurrence. I'd never had it happen before.
"I don't think it was the smartest thing in the world for you to take Angie to bed in the first place, Graham. She's working. On a project that's very important to the band. You put everyone at risk because y
ou can't keep your tallywhacker in your trousers." Reggie's inflection was too close to scolding for my taste.
"No one was at risk. Stop being so melodramatic. It'd be different if Angie and I didn't love each other, if we didn't have a past like we do. I didn't take a random woman to bed, I took my future wife. There's a hell of a lot of difference to that."
Chris tossed his magazine aside. I’d never seen him look so surprised. "Hold on a minute. Your future wife? Did you ask her to marry you?"
When he had the nerve to ask the question in that tone, it made it sound like I'd done something completely mad. I refused to believe it had been silly or stupid or even rash. I'd done it because it'd felt right. That was enough for me. Why wasn’t it enough for other people? "I did. Yesterday afternoon, when we went off and talked. It wasn't like I got down on one knee and popped a ring on her finger. It was more of a conclusion I arrived at. I didn't plan it." I rubbed my forehead, attempting to stop the progress of the violent headache brewing.
"Now I'm even more confused." Chris popped open a can of ginger ale. "How do you end up proposing to someone when you hadn't had any intention of doing it in the first place?"
"It just came out. I told her that I didn't ever want to lose her again. If I don't want to lose her, that means I want to stay with her forever. And forever means marriage. If we'd never broken up, we'd probably be getting married right now anyway."
Chris let out a single-syllable laugh that said he was anything but amused. He seemed more in awe of my stupidity, or that was the inference. "And you're wondering why she's in another car? Between the botched marriage proposal and some psychotic fan you probably slept with but can’t even remember showing up at your hotel room door?" He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I swear, Graham. I have done bloody stupid things when it's come to women, but you take the cake."
