Missez (Wild Irish Silence Book 4)

by Sherryl Hancock

  “Excuse me,” the girl said. She spoke hesitantly, but she was looking right at Jerith. “You’re Kid Michaels, aren’t you?”

  Jerith hesitated a moment, glancing around to see if anyone else was paying attention to the conversation. Then he looked back at the girl and nodded slowly, a slow smile starting on his face.

  “Wow…” the girl said, her voice still low as awe crept in. She bent down, and in a conspiratorial tone, she said, “I knew it was you, but my friend said I was nuts.” She hesitated for a moment, but then rushed on, as if the security guards could show up any minute to haul her off and she wouldn’t get to tell him anything. “Mr. Michaels, I am your biggest fan. I just think you are so incredible, and that article in Rolling Stone was so great. I just wanted to tell you… I can’t even believe I’m standing here talking to you…”

  Jerith grinned at the girl, reaching up to take off his glasses. “Well, thank you for that…” he said, trailing off as he looked at her pointedly.

  “Becky,” the girl supplied, thrilled that he even cared what her name was.

  “Becky.” Jerith smiled again. “This is Nicolette, and her son, Ryan,” he said, gesturing to them.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” Becky said, smiling widely. Then she beckoned to her friend, who was watching the proceedings with interest. The other girl walked over, looking almost stunned. “Mr. Michaels, this is Sandra.” As Jerith extended his hand to Sandra, Becky said, “See, I told you it was him.”

  “It’s nice to meet both of you,” Jerith said. “And it’s Kid, not Mr. Michaels—that’s my dad.”

  Becky stared at him wide-eyed, as did Sandra, and Nicolette was reminded of the restaurant they’d gone to on their first date when he’d told the waiter to call him Kid; the young man had looked like he had died and gone to heaven.

  “Could we bother you for an autograph?” Sandra asked, apparently the bolder of the two.

  “Sure,” Jerith said, but was obviously amiss for what to sign.

  Both girls looked perplexed as well, but then Sandra said, “Would you sign our shirts?” Both girls were wearing white Disneyland shirts.

  Jerith shrugged. “I guess, if you want to ruin perfectly good shirts…”

  Nicolette pulled a pen out of her purse and handed it to Jerith, and he signed both girls’ shirts on the back, writing a little personalized note on each and signing them “Kid Michaels.” The girls were thrilled. They thanked him profusely, and wished him, Nicolette, and Ryan a happy rest of the day. When they left, Nicolette gave Jerith a measured look.

  “What?” he said, grinning.

  “You are so great,” she said, not sure how else to put the overwhelming sense of admiration she had for him at that moment. He was so famous and yet so down-to-earth at the same time, it was fantastic.

  “Why? Because I signed a couple of shirts?”

  “No, because you just made those girls’ lives, and you did it in such a casual way. A lot of stars wouldn’t have been like that.”

  “Hey, those two were very nice, very polite, and they didn’t cause a big scene. I appreciate that. Hell, I would have invited them to lunch if they’d come up before we were finished.”

  “I believe that,” Nicolette said, smiling at him.

  “That would have been fine with me,” Ryan said, having observed the whole thing quietly. “That Becky had it goin’ on.” His grin was wide, and Jerith laughed out loud. Things with Mandy had fallen apart quickly back in Sacramento, and although Ryan was dating a new girl in Los Angeles, they were, as he put it, “casual,” which left him free to at the very least look at other girls—which he did, often.

  Later, they ran into Becky and Sandra in line for one of the rides. The girls were behind them, and Jerith politely suggested that the two couples between the girls and the three of them go ahead. That put Ryan in the perfect place to talk to Becky, which he did all throughout the hour-long wait. He found out that she lived in Los Angeles and she was fifteen, which Ryan would be the following week.

  Jerith did end up inviting the girls to have dinner with them, and of course they eagerly accepted. They ate at one of the many restaurants in the park. During the dinner, Becky and Ryan talked, and Sandra found herself having a conversation with Nicolette and Jerith.

  “So are you two a couple?” she asked, her tone polite but direct.

  It was obvious that they were; they were holding hands, and Sandra had observed them kissing in the darker areas of the line to get on Space Mountain.

  “Yes, we are,” Nicolette said.

  Sandra nodded. “That’s cool. But you live in Sacramento?” she asked then, knowing that Ryan was from Sacramento, from his conversation with Becky. Nicolette nodded. “Is that where you two met?”

  “Yep,” Jerith said.

  Sandra shook her head. “Boy, that must be a drag.”

  “It does have its moments,” Jerith said, looking at Nicolette. She nodded in agreement.

  “Are you going to go on tour with Billy and the Kid?” Sandra asked Nicolette.

  “No. I have a job to do back home.”

  Sandra looked taken aback, as if she couldn’t understand any job that would keep her from going on tour with someone like Jerith. “I wouldn’t want to be away from my boyfriend for that long,” she said, shaking her head.

  Jerith and Nicolette looked at each other. They both knew that his upcoming tour was going to be rough on the relationship.

  ****

  Billy, on the other hand, was looking forward to the tour. For her it was a chance to get away from her demons. A chance to perform just about every night and have her adoring fans around her. In the two weeks that Jerith and Nicolette were together, Billy had called Skyler’s house a few times to see if he’d bothered to come home yet. She received no answer, and the altered voicemail message was still on his machine. So he’s moved back in with the bitch, has he? Billy thought as she did one more line of cocaine, blaming Skyler for her slip once again.

  Alan and she had gotten into another battle royale the evening before. He had been embarrassed when a story was published in the tabloids about her going out with one of the members of Mötley Crüe. Billy had done it merely to point out to Alan that he in no way had a claim on her; she had also hoped that somehow Skyler would get wind of her dating other people and be jealous. If she had chosen to examine that thought closely, she would have realized that Skyler wasn’t really the jealous type and that she was wasting her time in that arena, but she wasn’t thinking clearly at that point in time.

  The tour started a month after the release of the album. Jerith promised Nicolette that he’d fly her to whatever cities they had a few days off in, but as usual it didn’t work out. Half the time Nicolette couldn’t get away, and the other half, Jerith was booked so solid that he didn’t have time to catch his breath, let alone spend any with his girlfriend. Things wore on him rather quickly. Within two months he was exhausted, and feeling the strain of trying to hold everything together. Nicolette could hear it in his voice when she talked to him.

  He sounded fatigued, sometimes depressed, other times irritated as hell. Billy was using constantly now, and being a royal bitch to deal with. She showed up late for every sound check, if she showed up at all, and sometimes she was even late for the concerts. Jerith knew she was getting out of control again, but he wasn’t sure what to do anymore. Anytime he threatened to replace her, she would go off on an ultra-paranoid tangent and scream that he was just trying to take over as lead singer and he was imagining all these bad things about her just to get rid of her. She called him Golden Boy now, and it irritated Jerith no end.

  He told Nicolette all of this four and a half months into the tour. It was a Friday night, and they had finished a concert two hours before. Billy had been stoned silly, and had forgotten the words to one of their new songs. Jerith had literally dragged her backstage after the show and had come very close to striking her when she told him that if he didn’t like the way she sang
now, he could just do it himself. “Of course, that’s what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it, Golden Boy?” she had said, screwing up her face in disgust.

  “Go to hell, Billy.” Jerith had had to jam his hands deep in his pockets to keep from hitting her. He had turned on his boot heel and left then.

  “I can’t deal with her anymore,” he told Nicolette on the phone, sounding worn out.

  “Maybe you should cancel some concert dates and get her into rehab or something,” she ventured.

  “Can’t.” Jerith shook his head miserably. “If we start canceling concerts, people will lose interest. The record isn’t selling as well as we’d hoped just yet, and we need people to see us.”

  Nicolette was quiet then. She didn’t know what else to say.

  “Hey,” Jerith said after a long silence, his voice soft, almost apologetic. “You still there?”

  “I’m here, Jerith,” she replied sadly. “I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you love me whether I’m famous or not, because at the rate we’re going, I won’t be for long,” Jerith said, only half joking.

  “Well, I think you’ll be famous for a long time to come, but I do love you anyway.” Nicolette felt very far away at this point, and missed him terribly, but she didn’t want to burden him further by whining about it, so she kept silent.

  They hung up a few minutes later, with Nicolette telling Jerith to go to bed. He was asleep when he heard the door to his room open and close. He was lying on the bed, on his stomach, wearing sweats and no shirt. He craned his neck around to see who had come in, and saw a young woman in her early twenties leaning against the door. She was breathing heavily, like she’d been running. Her eyes were closed as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Excuse me,” Jerith said questioningly as he sat up.

  The woman looked at him, and her eyes widened. “Oh my God, you’re him. You’re Kid Michaels!” she practically screamed.

  Jerith nodded slowly, already sensing that this was not going to be a good thing.

  “I have been going absolutely mad trying to find your room, and now, here I am. I don’t fucking believe it!” The woman walked toward him. She was wearing black high heels and a calf-length fur coat. The wild hair and the amount of makeup she wore indicated to Jerith that she was most likely a groupie, and he didn’t like the idea that she had managed to get into his room.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked mildly, trying to keep his tone friendly.

  The young woman shrugged. “It was easy, really.” She held out her index finger; on it dangled a key. “I have a passkey from when I worked in this hotel a month ago. I just kept it. I told them I lost it—the jerks made me pay for it too—but it doesn’t matter now.” Her smile was wide as she moved a few steps closer and then knelt on the bed.

  Jerith pulled back immediately, not sure what her intentions were but getting the distinct feeling that she wasn’t like Becky and Sandra had been at Disneyland. This woman didn’t look like she was interested in an autograph.

  “Look,” he said, his tone still friendly. “I appreciate that you’re a fan and all, but I’m really tired…”

  “Oh, I’m a fan alright. I think you are the hottest man on this planet right now.”

  “Okay…” Jerith said hesitantly. He nodded to her, not wanting to upset her.

  “My name’s Melody,” she said, her eyes all but devouring him as she reached out to stroke his chest. Jerith couldn’t clamp down on his instinctive recoil at her touch. Melody noticed. “Hey, don’t you like me?” she said, her tone a mixture of hurt and anger. “’Cause I’m crazy about you.”

  “Well, that’s real nice, Melody.” Jerith stood, putting the bed between them, and reached for a shirt.

  Melody stood at the same time. “Nice?” she said, with a wicked grin on her face. “You haven’t seen nice yet.” And with that, she reached up and unbuttoned her coat, dropping it to the floor. She wore absolutely nothing underneath.

  Jerith stared at the woman, stunned, taking a few moments to regain his composure. Melody mistook his shock at her outrageous act for astonishment at her body. She walked over to him and, draping her arms around his neck, began to kiss him. Jerith came to his senses quickly then, reaching up to disengage her arms and pushing her gently away from him. “Look, Melody. I think you should leave now,” he said, his tone all business.

  Melody looked back at him in almost naked fury. “What? I’m not good enough for the great Kid Michaels?” She sneered, then gave him a sultry look. “I guarantee you, after fucking me, you’d never want your girlfriend again.”

  “I doubt that,” Jerith muttered, his patience gone.

  Melody surprised him by launching herself at him with a screech, her red nails clawing at him. She caught him on the chest, and one nail scratched dangerously close to his right eye.

  Jerith lost it then. He grabbed her by both wrists, yanking her around so her back was to him. He let go of one wrist as he walked her over to the door, leaning down to grab her coat on the way. He opened the door and started to shove her out. That’s when what seemed like a hundred flashbulbs went off in his face. As usual, the paparazzi were camped out in front of his door. They caught the naked woman with Kid Michaels’ hand still possessively on her wrist, and the bloody welts on his chest and face, all in beautiful living color. Jerith shoved Melody out quickly and slammed the door. Then he strode to the phone, calling the front desk and asking where the hell security was. Afterward he went into the bathroom and examined the scratches on his face and chest. The next thing he did was call Alan Rothe.

  Alan arrived ten minutes later; thankfully he was all professional manager at the moment. “What happened?” he asked as he stepped through the door, which Jerith had surreptitiously hidden behind when he opened it.

  Jerith walked back over to the bed, sitting down heavily. “Some woman got into my room and basically threw herself at me. When I pushed her away, she got pissed off and attacked me.”

  Alan nodded, his expression serious. “She’s already telling the paparazzi that you tried to rape her. That you invited her to your hotel room for an autograph, and you attacked her.”

  “How does she explain the fact that she had no clothes on?” Jerith asked angrily.

  “She says you ripped them off of her.” Alan shook his head. “I know she’s full of shit, and you know she’s full of shit, but…”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Jerith exploded, standing up and pacing. “How the hell do I end up looking like the bastard here? She threw herself at me, Alan.”

  “I know, man. We’ll just have to see how far she’s willing to take this.”

  “And how far can that be?” Jerith asked, his voice quiet now. He couldn’t believe the sudden whirlpool that had appeared in his life.

  “Look. Let me go see what I can do, okay?”

  Jerith gave Alan a narrow look. “Don’t make any fucking deals, Alan. I didn’t touch her, except to escort her out of my room. I don’t want it to look like anything else, you got it?” His voice was low and threatening as he said it, and Alan knew what he meant. He nodded, and then left Jerith’s room, intent on finding this woman.

  The next day, the news hit the tabloids and newscasts that Kid Michaels, the lead guitarist for Billy and the Kid, was being accused of rape by a fan. The report stated that Miss Melody Yates had met Mr. Michaels backstage at the concert the night before, and Mr. Michaels had suggested she come to his hotel room, saying he would give her an autographed picture and some other memorabilia.

  “Miss Yates, being a longtime fan of the band, and having just read the article in Rolling Stone about Mr. Michaels, assumed that he was sincere in his promises,” stated the newsperson. There was video of Melody Yates, looking very innocent in a white cotton dress, her blue eyes holding a convincing glistening of tears. “I guess you just can’t trust anyone these days,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Bitch!” Jerith yelled, throwing the remote across
the room. He began to pace back and forth. He’d been trying to get a hold of Nicolette all day, but to no avail. Her answering machine kept picking up, and Jerith had begun to wonder if she’d seen the news and just didn’t want to talk to him. The thought that Nicolette might believe this woman’s story worried him most. They hadn’t seen each other in so long, and things were just getting worse. He wondered if their time apart could make her more likely to believe this story. The not knowing was driving him crazy. It was seven o’clock, and the report had broken that morning around ten. Jerith tried Nicolette’s number again—still no answer.

  Two hours later, Jerith was sitting on the couch in his hotel room with a glass of scotch in his hand, with the bottle sitting on the coffee table in front of him. He’d been drinking for an hour. He had tried Nicolette again and again, but hadn’t received an answer. He heard the door to the room open and close, but the separating wall barred him from seeing who it was. He figured it was probably Alan, come to tell him more good news about this hideous chapter in his life. He was stunned when Nicolette walked around the wall. She took one look at him and moved swiftly to him. He stood and grabbed her up in an embrace, whispering her name over and over.

  “I was going crazy trying to call you,” he said, his voice still a whisper next to her ear.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at him. “I was probably still at the airport trying to catch a flight out. I figured you needed me right now.”

  Jerith hugged her close again. “You were right—I do.”

  Nicolette sat on the couch, pulling him down with her. “What happened, Jerith?” she asked softly.

  Jerith shook his head, as if trying to block out the thoughts of what was being said about him. “After you and I talked, I went to sleep. I woke up when someone came into the room. It was this Melody Yates. She told me how she was a big fan, and how she had gotten into the room using a passkey that she had basically stolen from the hotel.” He looked at her for a long moment, not sure how to put the rest delicately, but knowing he had to be totally honest with her. “Anyway, the next thing I know, she’s dropping her coat, and she has nothing on underneath. When I told her she should leave, she got mad and ended up attacking me.” He flicked his finger toward the scratch at his eye.