Elias jumped off his horse and ran to Effie, who lay convulsing in the brush. One thought struck terror in him: If she dies. I’ll die.
A split-second before hurling himself on the ground to perform CPR, he stopped short. She wasn’t convulsing. Well, she was, but from laughter, not injury.
Weeds in her hair and dress around her waist, she laughed so hard only gasps came out.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
She grabbed her crotch and squealed. “I’m gonna pee!”
Meanwhile, Hal was still riding in his own personal rodeo. His horse bucked and kicked, yet somehow he stayed on and rode it like a bronco, the whole time shrieking, “No, Badass, no!”
Elias searched high and low for—who knows?—a weapon maybe? What the hell did horses eat?
On a hunch, he grabbed a handful of weeds and waved them like a white flag of surrender a few feet in front of Badass.
Foaming at the mouth and nostrils flaring, Badass finally stopped bucking. The horse gave Elias a wild-eyed, villainous look, grabbed the grass, and reared again.
LeStrange trotted up, grunting every time his balls hit the saddle. “Gypsies. No good.”
The no-good Gypsies arrived on the scene. They scurried around the animal with their arms blocking their heads. One captured the reins and the horse finally settled.
Hal slid down, shaking and crying, snot running out of his nose.
One Gypsy pointed at Hal’s horse then at Effie’s and poked a finger through a hole in his fist. “Semental.”
Animal husbandry ignorant, it took a moment before Elias finally caught on. “Ohhh!” he said. “Semental! Hal’s horse is a stallion?” He mimicked the fucking sign back to the Gypsies.
They nodded frantically. “Sí, sí! Stallion.”
Effie dusted herself off. “Hal! You tamed the black stallion!”
Tamed was a humongous stretch, but the bodyguard stopped crying and puffed up his chest. “I did, didn’t I?”
With one sweet sentence, she’d transformed Hal from a weepy man-child into a gallant knight.
Elias pulled a weed out of her hair and kissed her dried-out, dirt-speckled lips. Her blue eyes, more brilliant than the bright Spanish sky, blinked in surprise.
She jumped into his arms and attacked his mouth. “That was so much fun.”
“Wild woman,” he said.
“I can’t believe we’re riding horses! In Spain.” She smothered him with kisses again. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
After the dust literally settled, they got back on their saddles. One Gypsy rode Badass back to the corral, and Effie rode in front of him so Hal could take her horse.
As he breathed in her wild, weedy hair, a scary burning sensation crowded his chest. Since childhood, he’d stuffed his feelings in a locked box, and suddenly that box was wide open and overflowing with emotion.
In a little more than a month, he’d fallen in love, and in a little less than twenty-four hours, after he’d just made love to her for the first time, she could have died.
For an instant, he seriously considered fleeing over the Sierra Nevadas on the back of Badass the black stallion.
A little while later, they arrived in Granada, bought a hose, and hitched a ride in the back of someone’s truck to the bus.
Soon after, they were on their way to France.
As Effie snoozed against his shoulder, he thought about how boring his life had been before her. She made everything a wild adventure.
43
Fermata
Cannes, France
“The Red Queen drew herself up rather stiffly, and said ‘Queens never make bargains.’”
Soundtrack “Genesis,” Justice
The band didn’t make it to Cannes until thirty minutes before the concert started. Luckily, the road crew had arrived before them and sound-checked their equipment.
On the way there, Gail sent Elias a flurry of frantic texts. From the way his jaw popped every time his phone vibrated, Effie could tell he was arguing with his manager.
The instant the band barged through the stage doors, Gail attacked him. “Well, well. Look who finally made it. Do you have any fucking idea what I’ve been going through with these French fucks? They were about to fine you for being late. I told you not to hire your stupid mother as an assistant.”
An older man with tight curly hair and the same features as Gail, hand blocked her. “Shut up, Gail.”
The manager shrank back like a whipped puppy.
Elias nodded to the guy. “Mr. Heart.”
So that was her father. No wonder she hated him. He was like a cracked out version of her.
Kyle, the hairdresser, showed up right then and dragged her back to the dressing room.
“Ugh! What the hell is in your hair?” He picked yanked a brush through her hair. “It’s like a rat’s nest.”
She raised a hand. “Shh! I’m trying to listen.”
Elias’s soft voice was too low to hear, but Gail’s was loud and clear.
“That’s ridiculous,” Gail sniped. “I didn’t drug her.”
Mr. Heart mumbled something, then Gail shouted again. “She’s lying. You’re making up shit so you can break the contract.”
Elias said something again.
“Not my problem,” Gail sneered. “She signed the deal. Oh, and by the way, hope she signed the NDA, because I’m not bailing your ass out again when she drags your name through the mud.”
“What’s an NDA?” Effie asked Kyle.
“Non-disclosure agreement. Heart’s way of keeping a lid on the gossip. Everyone in the band and crew signed one. I heard a rumor that anyone who screws a band member has to sign one, too.”
“I never signed one,” she said.
“So it’s true? You’re with El?” He clapped a hand over his mouth and squealed. “Are you in love? Or should I say, is Love in you?”
She tore the brush from his hand and hit him with it.
Kyle lifted a shaped brow. “Better not let that secret out, or Queen Bitch will have your head.”
“It’s not a secret anymore.”
Mr. Heart bellowed, “The violinist signs the NDA or doesn’t go on tonight.”
Effie jumped out of the chair and ran out to the hallway. “Where is it?” she said.
They stared at her.
“The NDA. Give it to me. I’ll sign it now.”
“Effie . . .” Elias held her back.
Gail yanked a document and a pen out of her purse and shoved it at her.
Elias ripped the agreement out of her hand. “Effie, don’t. You don’t have to sign this. I trust you.”
She tore it back, signed the paper, and threw it in the manager’s face. “I’m not a fling.” She turned to Mr. Heart. “And my name is Effie.”
Mr. Heart scoffed then turned to his daughter. “I knew you’d fuck this up. Control your client, or you’re done.”
Heart turned to Elias. “Think you can handle an autograph for the Mayor of Cannes. He’s pretty pissed off.”
Elias nodded and followed Mr. Heart down the hallway.
Gail stood completely still, holding her stomach like she’d just been stabbed.
For an instant, Effie felt sorry for her. “Fathers can be real assholes sometimes,” she said with tremendous sympathy in her tone.
Gail’s wounded expression vanished. “What?”
“Don’t let your dad get you down.”
The manager’s steely eyes welled up. “I haven’t been laid in six years. Six. Goddamned. Years. Not since I took Urban on as a client. I have busted my ass to the bone, making them what they are today. And you come in out of nowhere”—she fluttered her hands—“and destroy everything I’ve worked for.” She let loose a roar.
The nearby crew stopped and stared.
“You, little girl”—she jabbed a finger at her chest—“are going down.” She shot her wicked smile, then like a forest fire, streaked down the hall, her red coat flapping behind her.<
br />
Bile burned the back of her throat as she stood helplessly paralyzed and watched her future blow out the back door.
44
Rococo
Rome, Italy
“‘You,’ he said, ‘are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world, and that, I believe is why you are in so much pain.’”
Soundtrack “Rococo,” Arcade Fire
The concert in Rome turned out to be a shitshow. Literally. Italian pigeons had roosted in the outdoor amphitheater’s rafters and pooped all over him during the show.
Then Effie stage dived onto the asphalt and split open her knee and sprained her shoulder.
At the hospital later, she’d refused pain medicine, for some ridiculous reason, and suffered in silence all the way back to the rental. The only good to come out of the visit was the birth control prescription and the negative STD results.
He was so looking forward to making her feel better with his bare cock. And they had the whole place to themselves
Annie and LeStrange had rented a private room. Missy’s boyfriend had flown in for the weekend. And Cato was out at the gay bars. Even Hal was out with a woman he’d met at the concert. That left Griffin, and he had to be out boning some Italian chick.
But as it turned out, his drummer was not out boning someone—he was in the kitchen, boning Tina in the ass.
They would have been blissfully unaware of that fact, had Tina not been wasted out of her mind and shouting, “Fuck my ass harder, drummer boy!”
Elias slammed the door, but they kept going at it. He took off a shoe and tossed it like a warning flare into the kitchen. Unfortunately, it bounced off the counter and hit Tina in the face.
Then they stopped screwing, and the real fun began.
Tina accused him of assault and threatened to call the police. And now, Effie was in the kitchen, talking her down from the ledge.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she told Tina. “This lifestyle—the drugs, the random men—you’ll just end up hating yourself.”
Tina sniffled. “I know. I just get so lonely.”
“You can always talk to me,” Effie said.
His girlfriend was offering that psycho her friendship? Me estás jodiendo! He charged into the room. “Time to go, Tina. I’ll call you a car.”
The groupie glowered at him with makeup-smeared eyes. “You insensitive pig.” She turned to Effie. “He was awful to me. Does he abuse you, too?”
Effie’s brows shot up. Then calmly and succinctly, she told her to get the hell out. “Now.”
Tina looked as if she’d just been slapped. She stopped blubbering and grabbed her shit.
He tried not to smile.
At the door, Effie schooled her again, “You accuse my boyfriend of something like that again, and I will sic a lawyer on your ass so fast your head will spin.” She slammed the door and stomped back into the room, blue eyes blazing with fire. “I will cut that bitch if she ever shows her face around me again.”
She vaulted into the kitchen and jabbed her finger into Griffin’s chest. “You! Stop screwing around on your girlfriend with that”—she hissed at the ceiling—“Ugh! Just stop it!”
Griffin’s jaw tightened. “I’m not cheating on my girlfriend.”
“What happened to Melody?” Elias asked.
“She broke up with me.”
Effie’s hands flew to her hips. “I’m not surprised, you big cheater.”
“I didn’t cheat on her!” He dragged a hand through his hair. “She broke up with me before the tour.”
“Eh, you’ll get back together,” Elias said. “You always do.”
Griffin blew out a heavy breath then slumped over the counter. “Nah, man, Melody wants kids.”
There wasn’t much else he could say. Kids were a deal-breaker for his drummer. After Griffin’s father died, he’d helped raise his nine sisters. He didn’t want children because he’d already reared nine.
Effie hugged him. “I’m so sorry. You really loved her, didn’t you?”
Griffin bit his lip and nodded. “She was my best friend. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I don’t know how I can live without her.” He hung his head. “But I don’t want kids. I just . . . can’t.”
She hugged him tighter.
Griffin released a tortured sob, then clung to her, and silently wept in her arms.
Right then, Elias knew he had to marry her.
45
Coloratura
Soundtrack “Let it Be Me,” Ray LaMontagne
Elias took Annie to breakfast the next morning while Effie slept in.
His mother dipped her biscotti in a bowl of café and chatted about the places LeStrange had taken her the day before.
“So, you and LeStrange, huh?” He smiled and waggled his brows.
Annie turned bright red and downed her coffee like a shot.
“Well?” he asked.
Her lips pursed over a smile, then she burst out giggling. “He’s so nice.”
“I’m so happy you’re moving on and letting go of Jun. It’s time.”
Her smile flattened. “I let go of Jun a long time ago.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“Jun was a good man, but I didn’t love him. We were friends. Good friends. But I didn’t choose him, my parents did. I choose LeStrange.”
He patted her hand. “He seems like a great guy, Mom.”
A serene smile passed over her. Then she brushed the crumbs off the table and folded her hands on top. “What you want to talk about?”
The bells chimed on top of the cathedral, and the pigeons cooed and flapped away.
“I need you to cancel the concert in Geneva.”
“Why?”
“Effie needs time to heal her shoulder.” He paused for a beat. “And I want to take her to Austria for the weekend. It’s her birthday and I”—he closed his eyes—“I want to ask her to marry me.”
Annie burst into tears. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for this day.” She dabbed her cheek with a napkin. “You’ve been so lost and unhappy, ever since you came to us. Jun and I, we try so hard. But you run away from love, like it’s a disease.”
Was that true? Had he really run away from love? “No, Ma, I haven’t been running. I just never met the right woman. Effie is different.”
She sat back and studied him.
“What?” he said.
“Did you tell her about you mother?” Annie asked.
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
He reached for a napkin and tore it to shreds. “Because . . . I don’t know.”
“Tell me about her.”
“There’s not much to tell.” He rubbed his eyes. “After my father died, she started drinking. One night, she got wasted and broke her ankle. The doctor got her hooked on OxyContin, and she never danced again. When the drugs ran out, she switched to heroin.” Then she became an abusive whore, he didn’t say. “Then she overdosed. End of story.”
“Was she ever a good mother?”
He thought back to that time when his father was still alive, dancing sandwiched between them at Christmas. “Before the drugs, yes.” The breath he let out felt like it’d been trapped in his lungs for twenty years.
Annie sat up a little straighter. “So, you have a ring?”
He nodded. “Can you help me arrange a few things? I don’t want Effie to get suspicious.”
“What about Gail?”
“I don’t give a shit about Gail.”
She winced. “She’s going to freak-the-fuck out.”
“Yeah, well I don’t care. She’s been threatening Effie.”
“Did Effie tell you that?”
“No, Kyle did.”
“Why didn’t she say something?”
He threw a piece of biscotti to the pigeons. They fought over the crumbs like fat, gray savages. “I don’t know.”
“Érzi,” she said carefully. “People have many phases in life. Like t
he moon, sometimes they grow dark before they become full.”
“Is that one of those Tao proverbs Jun used to torture me with?”
“Shut mouth and listen. Effie doesn’t talk about herself. Have you noticed?”
This was glaringly true. Except for a few bits and pieces, he didn’t know much about her at all. “That doesn’t matter.”
“But maybe it does matter.”
He rubbed his aching temples. “What are you trying to say?”
“If you love someone, you must love all of them. Even the dark parts—the craters of the moon.”
The moon analogy was wearing thin “Effie doesn’t have any dark parts.”
“That you can see.”
He dug out his wallet. “Let’s head back. I want to be there when she wakes up.”
Annie placed her hand on his. “You only move a little brick and let a crack of light in.” She swept a hand across the table, sending her mug crashing to the ground. “Break down the fucking wall and let all of her in—light and dark.”
He threw up his hands. “Qué carajo! My heart is open. Why do you think I’m asking her to marry me?”
She shook her head and mumbled in Chinese. “Stupid boy.”
46
Grandioso
Salzburg, Vienna
“‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ said the White Queen to Alice.”
Soundtrack “Salut d’Amour, Op. 12,” Edward Elga, Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott
With its blue lakes and rivers and bright green valleys, Salzburg looked just like a fairytale land. The city’s castles and spires pointed toward the heavens much like surrounding Alps. Classical music wafted out from open windows. And people picnicked in parks next to symphonies. It was a magical place.
Salzburg was also where Mozart grew up. He was the one composer she most identified with. Child prodigy? Check. Violinist? Check. Domineering parent? Check. Drug addict? Check. Other than his gender, the only other difference was she’d never composed a whole symphony.
Head-Tripped: A Sexy Rock Star Romance (Ad Agency Series Book 2) Page 21
