by Ali Parker
They exceeded my wildest expectations of them during that interview. I was damn proud not only of the praise they'd received for keeping out of the press recently but also for the way they handled themselves and kept it together.
For a second there, I thought Nick was about to lose it at the reference to their troubled past and the drama that followed them, but then Jared swooped in and saved the day. And that wasn't even my crush talking. It was my professional opinion.
After all the warnings I'd gotten from my predecessor and Gerry about this band and how impossible they were, as well as the objections to interview practice from the guys themselves, they'd knocked it out of the park and really paid attention to the pointers I'd given them.
Crew from the show ushered us offstage and back to the dressing room. Caleb fell into step beside me and flashed me his own version of the Larsen panty-melting grin. "Thanks. We couldn't have done it without you."
Surprised by his praise, I could only smile and nod. "You've always had it in you. You only needed some encouragement to let it out."
"If it's always been there," Dom said, his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he smiled the easiest smile I'd ever seen him give. "Then it was buried damn deep. Take the praise, girl. You deserve it."
He and Caleb fist bumped over my head and took off ahead of us. Matt was talking to Gerry further down the hall, smiling and politely shaking hands with crew members as they passed him.
Behind me, however, the jovial and celebratory mood seemed to be escaping Nick. He was walking with Jared, climbing down his throat for letting the interviewer off the hook so easily. "I had us covered. The guy insulted us to our faces, and you just let it go. What the fuck, man?"
"Getting into it with him wasn't worth it. We would have blown the interview, and then we'd have wasted all the time we put into prep and coming down here."
"We should have set the record straight," Nick argued. "He made us sound like a bunch of spoiled, out-of-control kids who couldn't control ourselves once the wheels started rolling."
"Let it go, bro," Jared replied, sounding as flippant and nonchalant as ever, but now I knew him better, I could hear and sense his frustration. "Besides, are you planning on wearing some saint cap I didn't know you had once we do get back on tour?"
"Of course not," Nick snapped. "But that guy needs to learn some respect."
"You sound like you're in an eighties gangster movie with that line. Forget it, okay? It's done. We were here to do a job, and we've done it. That's all there is to it."
Nick was usually such a relaxed and carefree guy. He was the last one of them I would have expected to be this upset over what, to my mind, were fairly obvious and routine questions.
As I got to know Jared, though, I was learning there was a lot more to these guys than the faces they wore in public, and while I'd gotten to know them a little, the truth was that they remained mostly a mystery to me.
The guys quieted down as we reached the dressing room, and each grabbed a bottle of water before sinking down on the couches scattered around. Dom and Jared pulled their shirts over their heads and tossed them aside. The two of them were the sweatiest of the bunch after their performance.
Not surprising given that Jared had jumped around and put on a remarkably energetic show given their lack of space, while Dom always worked hard on his drums. The others had a light sheen of sweat covering their arms and faces from the heat of the lights, but they kept their clothes on.
Jared shirtless always stole my breath, but now, after watching the performance, with his eyeliner slightly smudged and his hair sticking up wildly, I was nearly panting. Looking at the guy like this was like porn to me. Or maybe crack.
Clearing my throat, I try to get some moisture back into my dry mouth and tore my eyes away from Jared's bare torso. "You guys did an amazing job out there. To say thank you, the label is letting us stay in New York for tonight for letting the interview go off without a hitch."
The guys looked smug and happy about the news but didn't say anything. "Also, we’re going to be celebrating. You guys did a great job, and I'm proud of you. I've arranged a dinner for you at six this evening. It's not mandatory. You don't have to be there unless you want to, but if anyone wants to, meet me in the lobby of the hotel at six."
We went over a couple of points to debrief after the interview and then went our separate ways.
It was still early in the afternoon, and I had a couple of hours to kill before dinner.
My hotel room was smaller than the suites we'd booked for the guys, obviously, but it was still really nice. My Emperor-sized bed, the irony of which I appreciated, beckoned to me when I got to my room.
Heavenly soft, the bed welcomed me like a hug from an old friend as I fell onto it. The last couple of days getting all the arrangements for this interview finalized and stressing over how the guys would do, I hadn't gotten much sleep.
I yawned and hopped off the bed before I got too lazy to do it and drew my blackout curtains shut. Wiggling out of my spanks-tight skirt and the rest of my clothes, I dropped them to the floor right there and crawled back onto the bed in my underwear.
There, now that's more like it.
I drifted off to sleep almost immediately and woke just in time to have a quick shower and get ready before I had to meet the others in the lobby.
Gerry was already there waiting for me when I got downstairs ten minutes early, but it was just him. In a suit as always, he stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in when he saw me.
His graying hair was neatly combed back and his eyes relaxed when they met mine. "I'm sorry to have to say this to you since you went through all the trouble of organizing dinner for the guys, and you look stunning, if I may say so myself, but I don't think any of them are going to show up for this dinner."
"Honestly, I wanted to do something nice for them, and I'm hoping they show, but I'm not expecting them to either."
"It's good to know your heart won't be broken when they don't show up." He said, his smile uncharacteristically kind. "That being said, I know them and don't wait around for them all night, okay? Go out, have fun. See the Big Apple. They might deserve a good night off after all this, but so do you."
"You're not staying?" I hadn't thought of the fact that Gerry might not want to join me for dinner either. He and I still didn't see eye to eye on most matters relating to the band, but we worked well together. We balanced each other out.
While I would never have freely chosen him as my dinner companion, he was better than no one, and I'd been counting on having at least him around. I'd never wandered around New York, and as thrilling a prospect as it was to do it by myself, it was also something I would much rather have shared with someone. Anyone.
Gerry smiled contritely and shook his head. "I have some old friends in town, and I don't want to miss out on seeing them. You have fun tonight, Alicia. Incredible job with the guys. Keep it up. I'll see you in the morning."
Giving me a friendly wave, he turned and made his way across the crowded lobby.
Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was only 5:55, and I decided to settle in for the wait regardless of how unlikely it was that someone was going to show for dinner. I took in Gerry's vacated seat, a hard, upholstered single-seater that couldn't have been much more uncomfortable if it tried, but I stuck it out.
Six o'clock came and went, and my eyes stayed glued to the bank of elevators across the lobby, but none of the busy cars deposited anyone I knew. I wasn't ready to give up all hope just yet, but I was getting there fast. Another twenty minutes later, my ass was numb from the terrible chair, my shoes were squeezing my toes, and my stomach growled.
Waiting around was useless and only making me cranky. I grabbed my purse from the floor between my feet and headed to the elevators. A nice, long bubble bath and room service would do the trick. It wasn't exactly the night out on the town I had planned, but after the week I had I wasn't going to turn down the chance to hang out with my e
-reader and the never-ending supply of hot water a hotel offered.
I pressed the call button, relieved to see that one of the cars was only three floors away. Its doors slid open noiselessly and a familiar smile greeted me from inside.
"Jared?"
"The one and only. Who were you expecting? You ready to go or what?" He stepped out of the elevator car, his hair still damp from a shower. He smelled clean and spicy, mouthwatering.
Having decided to forego the leather pants, he was wearing faded, well-worn blue jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. He also wasn't wearing any jewelry, his intricately designed tattoos all the more striking for it.
Dark eyes warm and intense on mine, he tilted his head slightly to the side and said, "Well? Dinner? We still doing it?"
"Yeah." I couldn't hide the smile creeping onto my face. A night alone with Jared in New York? It was the stuff romance novels were made of. In our case, the ones that were light on romance and heavy on erotica, but I'd take it with a smile anyway. "Let's do it."
15
Jared
"Thank you." Alicia smiled at the waitress who delivered our champagne and poured us each a glass. She held her flute up to mine, the two crystal glasses clinking. "Cheers to a successful interview."
"Cheers."
The restaurant Alicia chose for the celebratory dinner was a fancy ass place near the hotel. Starched white tablecloths covered small round tables decorated with red roses and candles.
"You know if the others had come to this dinner, it would have been a disaster in a place like this, right?"
Several other people sat at tables near us, but the place felt private enough since we were seated against a wall, and the other diners were conversing in low tones, everyone focused on their own companions.
Alicia's eyes sparkled in the candlelight, amusement and joy shining from them. "You survived the interview. I figured I would push my luck and see if this nice restaurant could survive you. Apparently, they have the best steak in town."
"You had me at steak." Joking around like this, Alicia felt natural, good. I’d considered skipping this dinner after the interview this afternoon, almost opting to hit the town with the others.
I’d backed out on them at the last minute, feeling an inexplicable draw to go out with Alicia instead of hunting for a nameless, faceless hookup and getting trashed. It wasn't like me, but I was powerless to resist it.
"If only I'd known that earlier, I wouldn't have wasted hours in interview practice with you," she teased. "I would have ordered takeout from here and dangled it on a stick in front of you."
"All you would have gotten then would have been a brawl between us for the best piece of meat."
Alicia laughed and tilted her head to the side. "You mean similar to the brawl for those poor girls the others are out seducing?"
"Touché." A low chuckle rumbled from my chest unexpectedly. Somehow, this girl managed to do what few others in the world could. She stripped away my bullshit layers and drew out the guy buried deep inside. "Although, you should know we don't have the same taste in women. It's almost never come down to a brawl."
"Almost?"
"There was this one pop star when we first started out. She was hot and friendly, and I'm pretty sure Caleb used to have a poster of her on his wall as a teenager. It was right after …" I caught myself before airing Caleb's dirty laundry. That wasn't my story to tell. "Anyway, if memory serves, Nick and Caleb nearly got into it over her."
"Tell me more." Alicia put her elbows on the table, her fingers wrapped delicately around her champagne flute as she listened. When other people requested I tell them our stories, it always felt like they were fishing. It was different with Alicia, more like she was interested just because they were my stories.
"Caleb went through a bad patch after he broke up with his long-term girlfriend.” She’d actually been his fiancée, but that part wasn’t public knowledge. The breakup of his relationship was. “Nick was on a mission to get him laid, but Caleb wasn’t interested. Until they met this pop star.”
Alicia was roaring with laughter by the time I finished telling her about the one time the band clashed over a girl, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Women were hardly ever as carefree and relaxed around me. I grudgingly admitted to myself that I liked that she was. I liked spending time with her like this, making her laugh.
An alien feeling, this urge to keep talking to her, laughing with her. Fucking weird, but there it was.
The waitress came around to take our order, and we both ordered their Chef Special, the steak Alicia had heard about. She refilled our glasses and left again.
I sat back in my seat, eyes on Alicia as she sipped her champagne and took in our surroundings. Her hair was loose and wavy, framing her face with soft tendrils I wanted to reach out and touch if only to feel the silky strands between my fingers. It shone gold in the flickering candlelight, forming a halo around her head.
Soft jazz music played in the background, and her shoulders swayed ever so slightly to the beat. A white wrap dress with little ankle boots completed her look. Between the golden halo, the white dress, and the way her eyes seemed bright and soft at the same time in the low light, she looked like a damn angel.
And she was our angel, in a way. What she’d achieved with that interview this afternoon was no small feat with us. Plus, the press was actually liking us for a change, and the media and fans alike were eating up her hype campaign.
Also, where the fuck was all this coming from?
Poetic praise and thoughts weren’t my standard operating procedure. Fine. All my thoughts about her were true, but since when did that matter?
“What about you?” Alicia folded her arms on the table in front of her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Were you ever enamored with a pop star?”
“Enamored?” I lifted my eyebrows. I’d fucked a few, been friends with more, but I’d never dated one. “No. You?”
“Me?” Alicia threw her head back and laughed, pointing at her chest. “No. From afar, sure. But I’ve never gotten to meet many pop stars in real life.”
“Rock stars more your thing, huh?”
She shrugged, humor lighting her eyes and making her seem relaxed and lazy. “What can I say? I can promote the kind of music I like better than any other.”
“Makes sense.” I signaled to the waitress for more champagne when I noticed Alicia’s glass was just about empty.
“Have you ever gotten into any fights with the others about girls?” The waitress refilled her glass and Alicia thanked her, taking a long sip of the bubbly liquid as she waited for my answer.
“Nah.” I hadn’t opened up to a woman like this in a long time, but like with most other things, Alicia was the exception to the rule. “This is probably the closest I’ve gotten to a real date since high school.”
She coughed in disbelief, bringing her hand to her throat. “What?”
“You heard me. The last real date I had was in my senior year of high school. Pretty sure something has to qualify as a date before its worth getting into a fight over.”
“You haven’t been on a date in almost a decade?” Her eyes widened, growing to sparkly orbs I could keep looking at for hours.
Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, I nodded. “It sounds horrible when you say it like that, but yeah. I guess it’s true.”
“Why?”
“I was nervous before that date,” I answered her honestly. Now that I was opening up to her, I wanted to keep doing it for some reason. “I didn’t like feeling nervous, so I just didn’t do it again.”
“So you just became a superstar instead? Doesn’t that make you more nervous?”
“Not really. Music feels … natural to me. I turned to it way back when, and that’s where I’ve been since.” Playing crowds of thousands didn’t make me feel as sick as that one date did.
The waitress returned with our orders, and we kept talking while we ate. Somehow it didn’t matter how long I spok
e to her, we never ran out of things to say. After dinner, our plates were cleared, and Alicia smiled at me.
“Best steak ever?”
“I don’t know, but it was incredible.”
She sighed happily and patted her perfectly flat stomach. “Wasn’t it? I don’t know how I’ll ever eat another thing, but it was worth it.”
“Want to walk it off a bit?”
“What did you have in mind?” The restaurant was emptying out. It was late enough that I felt safe going for a walk. I doubted I would get recognized, especially since I wasn’t with the other guys. Blending in was easier when we were by ourselves.
“How about a walk through Times Square?” I suggested, feeling strangely nervous about her answer. I didn’t get nervous these days, hadn’t for years. Not in this way. More alien feelings. Maybe I was getting sick. At least that was a logical explanation for what was going on with me tonight and why I was feeling this way.
Alicia lit up, blue eyes bright. “I’ve never done that. I’d love to if you don’t have plans to meet up with the others.”
“No plans.” I was supposed to be meeting the guys later, but they’d have to party without me for now, though. I preferred the way I was celebrating the successful interview anyway.
Spending time with Alicia, and then hopefully making her come a few times later if the night kept going the way it was, was definitely ranked up there with the best celebrations I’d ever had.
Including the time we’d flown to Vegas when our first single went platinum.
This was her victory, too, after all. It should’ve occurred to me earlier, but that didn’t matter now. She and I were about to have our own party, and it was going to be so much more fun than going out drinking with those jackasses.
The waitress brought our check, and I paid it, despite Alicia’s objections that dinner was supposed to have been on her.
“My way of thanking you,” I told her. Pushing my chair out, I stood up and held a hand out to her. “Ready to go?”
Looking at my hand and then into my eyes and back again, she twined her fingers with mine and walked out the restaurant by my side. Having her there felt good. Her hand was small and warm, her grip tight.
