Bad Boy vs Millionaire

by Candy J. Starr

  Not that was what it was like with my friend, Hannah. Not yet anyway. She was just in that stage one of love, the stage where they want to discuss stuff. Stuff about their love guy. Like you say “oh, the sky looks blue today” and they do that sighing and cow eyes and say shit like “Jack has blue eyes…” and he doesn't even have blue eyes, they just want to say his name. Then the angst and the having to analyse everything he says and does.

  That's annoying. You have to admit it.

  I think Hannah would have been better off if she'd just shagged Jack upfront. Gotten it out of her system and moved on. That smoldering sexual tension will make a girl think she feels all kind of things that are just plastic fantasies she's built up in her head. Even though I was friends with the band now and got to hang out with them and cool stuff like that, I kinda missed the imaginary Jack Colt I'd created. He was like my best friend but now he was gone and I'd never get him back. You can't go around having sexual fantasies about your friend's kinda sorta boyfriend. So I’d made a deal with her. She could have Jack Colt if she bought me the super awesome boots I wanted in Tokyo. She said she didn’t want him but any fool with a two brain cells could tell she did. And I really wanted those boots. A lot.

  It was all because of that nasty business that blew up at the TV studio. One minute they’re in love and it’s all looking like happily ever after then bam!

  I wasn’t with Hannah when she found out that Jack Colt had made a bet with Spud. If I had been, I’d have got all in their faces, wanting to know what the fuck was going on in their cotton brains.

  Seriously, what kind of guy does that? You want to get rid of your band manager so you make a bet that you can get her to fall in love with you? That’s all smart and business-like. I guess no one would ever accuse Jack Colt of being too smart though. His smarts were pants smarts, not head smarts.

  Anyway, had he never watched one single movie in his life? Bets like that always backfire. He had it for Hannah pretty bad. You could tell by the way he looked at her. And by the way he didn’t look at anyone else. I’d kinda made a major study of the way Jack Colt looked at women.

  Hannah had run off, as you would, hearing something like that. Well, I wouldn’t have. I’d have punched him. But she’d taken off in a fit of despair. Then Jack ran after her, leaving a studio full of embarrassment behind him and that stupid bint, the production assistant, who'd been trying to get it on with Spud stood there, opening and closing her mouth like goldfish. The host had stepped in and made some excuse about technical difficulties and they crossed to a video and all hell broke loose.

  The bimbo ran up to us, yelling and screaming, mostly at poor Eric who had no clue what had happened.

  “Where is he?” she screamed, stomping her foot. “He needs to be here.”

  “Well he’s not,” said Eric. “We’ll try to sort something out. Give us a minute.”

  “A minute on television is a long time.” She flicked her hair and gave us a death stare, then pranced off.

  “I’ll go get him.” Spud jumped out from behind his drum kit.

  “Sit back down, Spud. I don’t know what’s going on but I have a feeling you have something to do with it. Wait here and don’t make trouble. Jack wouldn’t do this unless he had a pretty major reason. He knows what this appearance means to us.”

  So the two of them stood around kinda glowering at each other and the awkwardness in the air swelled up even bigger.

  The poor guys. They didn't know whether to pack up their gear and get the hell out of there or not. Were they off the show and ruined or could this be saved?

  Eric glanced at me and I shrugged.

  You have to remember that, at this stage, Eric and I were totally in the dark, like two clueless kids, in the middle of the fuss. I didn't even know that Hannah had run off or what had happened in the corridor, just that Hannah was gone and now Jack was gone. I glanced up and Eric still looked at me. I don't know why he kept looking at me. I couldn't solve anything. I'd tried to ring Hannah but she hadn't answered her phone. I thought, at that stage, that something had happened about the nasty business with her dad. Like she'd been mobbed by reporters again or something.

  The annoying chick ran over and told them to stay in place and they had to play out to the break. And maybe, just maybe there would be a chance to slot them in later in the show if Jack come back. It was a mess. A huge mess. Anyone could tell. She’d gone all red in the face and had a sweat moustache.

  “We can't play out to the break,” Spud said. “Not with just a bass and drums. It'll sound like crap.”

  The chick shrugged. It seemed she didn't give a shit one way or the other. They needed some sound, regardless of quality.

  “You have about 30 seconds to sort it out before we come back from the video,” she said and walked off.

  “You play guitar, Eric,” said Spud. “We need someone.”

  Eric ran his hand through his hair and glanced at Jack's guitar like it was a poisonous animal.

  “I'll do it,” I said before my brain caught up with my mouth. Because I can't play guitar. Not really. But I could play a bits and pieces of the chorus of a few songs. Surely that would be enough. It was just a 30 second grab.

  Spud shrugged and Eric gave me an encouraging look so I ran over a picked up Jack's guitar. If I'd have longer than 15 seconds to think about it, I'd have been nervous as hell. I mean playing guitar and singing on national TV. You don't just do that without rehearsal and thinking about it and getting your shit together but the chick was doing her 3, 2, 1 countdown and I managed the chords to the chorus of “Party Dress” and even didn’t sound too bad.

  Then we went to the break before my brain even started up again.

  Eric threw his arms around me, squishing the guitar against my belly.

  “You did it. You did it.”

  I smiled but, before I could revel properly in the praise, we were interrupted.

  “Give me back my guitar.” Jack stood in the studio with Hannah tailing behind him.

  So, it was all sorted, I thought. Little did I know it was as unsorted as it possibly could be.

  Hannah had her arms crossed and that look on her face like she was going to erupt from containing all the rage simmering away inside her. And Jack paced like he did when he was nervous or stressed.

  Meanwhile, Spud had sweet talked the annoying chick into moving the schedule around so they could still play on the show. She lapped up his attention like some desperate groupie but at least it worked and this hadn't all been in vain.

  Looks kept flashing between Jack and Hannah that I couldn't even begin to interpret and, when Spud came back to the stage, Jack seemed like he wanted to strangle him.

  Hannah dragged me out into the green room before they went back on camera and told me the whole story.

  “What do I do?” she asked me. “Do I trust him? I have no idea what's going on.”

  She picked at her fingernails while she said this as if, by achieving the goal of picking every bit of polish off her nails, she'd find the answers she needed there. I put my arm around her even though Hannah is definitely not the hugging type. I usually have an opinion for every occasion but this was one time I had nothing to say. I sure as hell didn't want to be encouraging her in any way that would get her heart broken.

  “What do you want, Hannah?” I rubbed her arm.

  She shrugged. “I want to feel safe and I know that will never happen with him. I want something sure to hold onto. This morning, at the beach house, I’d have done anything for him. It felt so real. Like we connected. Now I have no idea what is real and what is being powered by his damn stupid arrogance.”

  “He came after you,” I said. “He risked everything, which has to be a real thing. When did he make the bet?”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “Hells yeah. He hated you at first. He wanted you out of his life any way he could. If he made the bet then, I could understand it. But later, when he was all I love you Han
nah but I'm no good for you, if he made it then, he's a cad.”

  “He never said he loved me, just that he wanted me. Different things.” She blew on her nails to get rid of the all the chips of polish.

  “It's romantic as hell though, him running to you like that.”

  “Why did he do that? I made him come back here to the studio. I'm his manager. I can't let him ruin his career.”

  I searched her face, trying to work out what was going on that head of hers. This whole thing was screwed up. It’d taken a huge leap for her to even trust Jack and then this had screwed everything up. It made me wonder if Spud had known she could overhear when he’d said it. He was malicious enough but I dunno about how much brains he had.

  “Didn't you want to just want to hold him in your arms and keep him there forever?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe that was more lies so I wouldn't believe he'd actually had that stupid bet with Spud.”

  “I don’t think he’d take a bet that far.”

  Hannah stared at the monitor in the corner of the room. The vision had switched to Storm, ready to play their new song. Spud tapped his drumsticks together then the camera did close up on Jack's fingers sliding along the neck of his guitar, his voice gravelly and strong. The sound and the close up on his profile created a buzz like static electricity jumping out of the screen. Thrills that ran through your body. The image pulled back to the three of them on the corner stage and you could see Jack's body move. He didn't jump around the stage, and he didn't need to. Even a toe tap or a shrug of the shoulder was enough to create the mood.

  “Anyway, I couldn't deny him this moment. Deny the entire band. They said ― Spud said ― I was poison as a manager. I couldn't let that be true. And we'll have time to talk. Later. As manager to client, I mean.”

  I could see what she meant. Jack had been ready to lay it all on the line but he'd have regretted it and, even if he didn't blame Hannah for it, Spud would. And that would create trouble in the band.

  Then she’d hit me with the news about going to Tokyo.

  “No way. Bitch!”

  I’d tried to convince her that she should talk it out with Jack before she left. Like sane, sensible people would do. But she’d refused to listen to my words of wisdom and had spent the night packing instead. Well, packing in between tears and non-stop melodrama – “I hate Jack Colt, I never want to see him again…” kind of stuff.

  So, Hannah was in Tokyo and I was stuck in class. My phone buzzed. I got a dirty look since I'd been sitting in a Film History lecture and we were supposed to have our phones switched off but nobody really does.

  It was Hannah. She couldn't find her hotel and she wanted me to check how to get there because her phone battery was about to go flat. She included a selfie she'd taken with Japanese buildings in the background. If you ask me, she could've saved her phone battery for looking things up herself instead of taking photos but I bet she just didn't know how to use GPS properly so wanted me to do it for her.

  I was really tempted to ignore her message. After all, she was in Tokyo, the city I'd always dreamed of visiting, and I was stuck in a boring lecture with the lecturer going on and on about the narrative structure of David Lynch films which, to be honest, we'd covered every single year. I'd ignore her and let her be lost because I could do that. Everyone thinks I'm sweet and pixie-like but I'm not. I could be dark. I could be really dark.

  Then I remembered that she'd wanted me to go with her and also she was buying the boots I needed the fuck out of so I'd have to be really sensible and responsible which killed me.

  I sent her a message back telling her to find the hottest guy around and ask him for directions. But started looking up maps, trying to get her bearings.

  My phone buzzed again. I figured it was Hannah, still lost. She'd be wandering around Tokyo forever the way I was going.

  But it wasn't Hannah. It was a message forwarded from Hannah's business account.

  I slipped out of class and returned the call. It seemed important. And it was. The most important. Well as far as Storm went, it was huge. A massively important offer and I'd been left in charge of the management. When I ended the call, I was covered in a sheen of sweat. I'd heard the words the man said but couldn't put them together. It was all just jibber jabber to me. And it sounded big time. Really big time. About to break through level big time. I didn't want to fuck this up. I needed Hannah. I had to talk to Hannah, now. But an overseas phone call, that would cost a fortune. I'd told Hannah to get onto Skype in case I needed to talk but Hannah hadn't listened.

  How was I going to deal with this kind of business stuff? Things were supposed to be simple while Hannah was away. I'd said I'd take care of the band because it was going to be just the regular day-to-day stuff. Then, bam, out of nowhere, the biggest offer of their career, and only me to deal with it.

  Chapter 3. Hannah

  “Are you sure you know where you are going? We've driven around this same block about 20 times already.”

  Tamaki made a little snort noise. I still wasn't sure what to think of Tamaki. He was dressed much more casually than he had been the day before but it was a very studied type of casual. Like he'd had a fashion stylist arrange every item of clothing to get the right effect. The shirt carefully untucked from his waist at the side, the hat at a certain angle. I thought about the careless, bed-tousled scruffiness of Jack Colt. He never even thought about his clothes yet somehow managed to look just right.

  Last night, at dinner, my father had pushed us into spending the day together. Tamaki had wanted to take me sightseeing but I’d said I wanted to go shopping.

  “I'm trying to find somewhere to park. I don't really know this area that well. Can you see any parking lots?”

  “How come you don't know this area? You live in this city don't you? And even my friend back home knows about it. She said it's where all the hip people shop.” I stopped talking, realising that, while Tamaki might be incredibly rich, he probably wasn't at all what Angie would call hip. I also remembered, not so long ago, when I had no idea about the “hip” parts of town and probably would have had no idea how to get there.

  Still, he’d done me a favour. After seeing all the narrow, twisting streets in this part of town, I realized I’d have been lost within 5 minutes. I kept watch for somewhere to park while we crawled through the tiny streets. I wasn’t even sure if some of these places were shops. It looked as if people just opened the front room of their houses and put their wardrobe on display, sometimes even hanging clothes off the nearby cinder block walls. It seemed crazy to me that people even lived with their houses fronting onto the streets. No garden, no nature strip, just stepping from the street into your front door.

  A girl in a whirl of neon rode on a bike beside us, her lime green fake fur jacket engulfing her. She managed to pedal her bike in the highest heels imaginable.

  I peered into a tiny shop as we waited for her to pass, the random assortment of junk spilling into the street. Then I spotted a sign.

  “Is that one up there?”

  “Where?”

  “That place with a big 'P' on the sign?”

  “Well spotted, Hannah.”

  Huh, did he think he was British or something? Actually he did seem very British. Like he'd watched too many British movies and had been impersonating them.

  “This is a car park, right?” I asked as we pulled into a tiny space between two houses that seemed to be held together with unpainted wood and rusted corrugated iron.

  Tamaki nodded.

  “But there’s only two parking spots. Don’t they belong to the houses?”

  Tamaki seemed confused by my question. Well, if he was wrong and his car got towed away, it wouldn’t be my problem.

  The car slid into the parking space easily, despite the narrow space. It was a very nice car, I had to admit. Very modern with the gadgetry of a space ship. I wouldn't have been surprised if it could drive itself. Maybe he should've set it to circle the block wh
ile we went shopping.

  I figured he'd be more of a drag than an asset on the shopping trip. At least he could carry my stuff. I'd seen about six shops at least I wanted to check out, including one men's store that would have super awesome stuff for the band. If I bought band stuff during this trip, could I write it off on tax? Maybe not, since Dad was paying for everything anyway.

  “These streets are a maze. I hope we can make it back to the car.”

  “You have GPS on your phone, don't you?” What a thing to worry about. I looked around. The streets were very twisty but the sun shone down and it made me feel like just around the corner could be an adventure waiting to happen. I really had nothing to worry about. I needed a few days of chilling out. Shopping and sightseeing. Being with Tamaki wasn’t a hardship either, even if he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humour. Who needs humour when you have that smile and those cheekbones? A nice holiday and then I could go back to normal.

  Except there was no normal. There was no home. I'd left all my stuff, except for my two suitcases, with Angie to look after until I returned.

  What was home then?

  The image that flashed into my mind was the strong arms wrapped around me at the train station. Just when life was at its shittiest, when I thought I'd lost everything, he came out of nowhere. I hadn't even questioned him at first, just let his arms surround me, feeling him crush me into him. I had been oblivious to everything, even the beeping of the train door until my legs got squished and the doors banged painfully into my thighs.

  I'd screamed, anchoring myself to Jack Colt. He’d prised the doors open and set me free. I had nothing worse than a nasty bruise on my leg but I collapsed in relief from the shock.