My latest crazy boss had been eccentric-crazy, not mean-crazy, so at least that was an improvement. The woman had four purse dogs, but that wasn’t the crazy part. The dogs had their own walk-in closet in the penthouse apartment where she was staying downtown; a walk-in closet that was the size of my entire studio apartment, and that’s where the weirdness really began for me. It was part of my job to dress the dogs every day, in their doggy-chic designer outfits, which undoubtedly cost way the fuck more than mine did.
Of course, I also had other duties. I never dreamed I’d scoop so much tiny dog poop in my life. But we couldn’t exactly have them pooping in the designer purses, now could we?
Good thing I loved dogs.
For the last two months, while my temporary employer was here in Vancouver with her husband on business, he worked, she enjoyed a life of leisure, and I was basically a glorified dog-sitter. I was pretty sure half the reason she hired me was the animal shelter volunteer work she saw on my resume. And it wouldn’t have been all bad, if I wasn’t also required to do every other odd and totally-beyond-the-bounds-of-my-job-description task that came up in this woman’s life—like rip wax strips off her butthole because the aesthetician of her choice was unavailable and she had a hot date with her husband.
It was their anniversary, and apparently her gift to him was “derrière stuff.”
Never. Again.
I really needed to start sucking at my job or something. Become incompetent. Get myself fired a little more often so maybe I was forced to rethink my entire career choice. Because the waxed butt lady had been messaging me all day. Apparently, I’d done too good a job on the waxing. Her anniversary date had gone “very well.”
The result? She said she wanted me to work for her some more. She was flying back home to Austin and wanted me to come along. If I really wanted to, I could scoop doggy poop and wax her butt in Texas for a while.
I almost shuddered just thinking about it.
I closed the conversation without replying and found another new text—from my ex, Dominic.
It had been half a year since I caught him with another woman—in my bed, because the man was a giver like that. Every once in a while, he still messaged me or called, usually when he was drunk. Like he was just putting out a feeler, checking to see if I’d forgotten what he’d done yet.
I hadn’t forgotten. I’d forgiven, because again, my best friend had taught me a thing or two about being a good human. And what was the point in being angry forever? That would only hurt me anyway.
But I was never going to forget that shit.
Sure, there was a time when I would’ve replied to his text. Marched straight into battle. Told him in scathing, colorful detail where he could shove it, how fast and how hard.
I used to be tough, angry, and snarky as hell.
I used to be a broken girl from a fucked-up home, with a real knack for biting back when I was bitten.
But that was Taylor 1.0.
The new, improved Taylor, the more mature Taylor, the Taylor who was turning thirty at the end of this year, didn’t go there anymore. Nope.
This Taylor simply deleted the message, because it was unwanted. And moved on. Instead of arguing with my ex over something that would never change no matter how much I fought with it or told it that it was an asshole, I went online.
And I searched “Cary Clarke.”
The first page of Google hits was a revealing smattering of what the world—or at least Google—seemed to think you urgently needed to know about the man. One glance at that page told you that Cary Rylan Clarke, aged thirty-two, was, in the eyes of the world, 1) a famous musician, 2) a famous hermit, and 3) a famous hottie.
The hottie thing I looked past, because that part was self-evident. I didn’t need a bunch of social polling sites to tell me how high he’d scored on the bangable celebrity meter.
Besides, I’d already looked at plenty of pictures of him online.
But I hadn’t read about him.
On the musician thing and the hermit thing, I scanned the articles on offer, skipping to page two of the search results, then page three. Other than the first few legit articles from music magazines talking about his musical body of work, there really didn’t seem to be much written about him in recent years that was of any substance.
There were those words again though, repeated often.
Recluse. Workaholic. Shut-in.
But it was all just gossip. No one who actually knew him was quoted saying things like that in the articles I scanned. The musicians who spoke about him in interviews said other things.
Outstanding musician. Incredible artist. Genius.
There was an article that caught my eye, something in Rolling Stone about the end of his band, Alive. I clicked on it, and I scanned what it said about Alive’s bassist, Gabe Romanko, dying, and the band going on hiatus mid-tour; speculation about whether or not they would complete the tour. The article was written several months after Gabe died, but it didn’t go into detail about his death.
No doubt there were many, many articles about that, closer to the time it happened.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to read them.
I’d definitely heard about it. It was big news in Vancouver when it happened. I’d read a bit about it back then; at least the headlines. But that was five years ago. Danica had also told me the sad story, months ago, after she heard it personally from Courteney. At least, the parts that Courteney had told her over drinks. I didn’t really know any details about how it happened. A hotel fire or something? That’s all Danica had said.
It was publicly accessible information now, of course, but the idea of reading about the death of Cary’s bandmate, and other people’s two cents about how it had affected Cary, felt too much like spying on Cary.
Plus… what if the articles got it all wrong?
I really didn’t want to form an opinion about the circumstances surrounding the man’s grief based on what other people had to say in some online post that might be complete fiction. Danica had already schooled me on this. On how much shit people said online about her rock star husband that wasn’t even true.
Instead, I checked out the career stats on Cary’s Wikipedia page. I figured those would at least be verified by the community of his supporters, and based on things like album sales, not gossip and hearsay.
Apparently, he’d played lead guitar in a few local Vancouver bands, one of which had released an album with a major label out of Seattle before he and Gabe split with the other band members, then formed Alive with Xander Rush and lead singer Dean Slater. Since Alive broke up five years ago, Cary had produced nine albums, most of them in the last three years. He had six platinum albums in the US. One for Stand and Fall, Alive’s only album. Five as a producer for other bands.
Any way you looked at it, the man was just as successful now, as a music producer, as he was as a rock star. Maybe more. And he was still as famous.
He was just way less accessible.
Kind of made it seem unreal that I’d actually walked onto his property today and gotten his cat to get him to open his door for me.
But I did.
Real.
That was what he said when I asked him, jokingly, if he was a ghost, and he offered me his hand. He gave my hand a squeeze. He felt warm and strong, and I felt the life in him, like a rush through my body.
He was real.
He was flesh and bone, a soul and a heart, locked away from the world, living out some self-imposed prison sentence.
Why?
Had he committed some crime in his own mind?
Had the world committed too many crimes against him?
What was he afraid of?
Or had he really gone crazy? Unable to function except behind his own walls?
Was he simply agoraphobic?
Eccentric?
Was he mentally ill, or a mad genius?
Both?
Now that I’d met him, I realized I wanted to know the answ
ers to these questions even more than I wanted this paycheck.
Which wasn’t really a great place for me to be.
I opened my messaging app again. The text from waxed butt lady stared me in the face. Since she’d deigned to message me personally, several times now, I figured I should reply—so she’d stop messaging me. I composed a quick text and hit send.
Me: Sorry, I’m unavailable right now. I’ve taken another longterm position.
Then I wrote a message to Courteney.
Me: I’ll take the job. If it’s ok with your brother. I can talk to him about it tomorrow.
Then I turned on some music and set the phone aside.
Decision made.
I figured I’d give this a chance, like Courteney asked me to, and at least see what Cary thought of the idea.
So maybe I was a little intrigued by the idea of working with a great musician.
I was curious about him.
And yes, there was just something about the way his little sister so clearly adored him that was tugging at my heart strings.
“Damn, girl,” I muttered to myself as I sipped my raspberry beer. “You’re getting soft.”
Chapter Five
Taylor
I’m with You
The next morning, when I woke up to “Master of Puppets,” I hit snooze three times. I wasn’t really a morning person—on days when I didn’t have to be—and given my current employment situation, I didn’t exactly have a schedule yet.
I wasn’t even totally sure if I had a job yet.
When my Metallica alarm finally punched through the sleep fog, I took my time getting up, showering and eating breakfast. I figured there was no hurry since rock stars, even former rock stars, probably weren’t early risers.
Then I got ready to go meet Cary Clarke. Again.
Dirty’s bassist, Elle Delacroix, had this lipstick line that I loved called Kiss and Tell. She’d released a whole new pallet of amazing colors in the spring and I decided to wear Rock Star Crush—only because the soft, shimmery pink shade went nicely with my hair, of course. It also made my lips look the exact color and sheen they probably looked after I’d made out with a man, something I only noticed after I put it on.
But I didn’t take it off.
It would be hot today, the sun was already blazing, and pretty much everything I owned was black, so I slicked my hair back in a ponytail to compensate. This was about as bright and summery as I got: pink hair, pink lipstick, short black dress.
I grabbed my purse, put in my earbuds, and I was out the door.
When I walked up to Cary Clarke’s house almost an hour later with Puddle of Mudd’s “She Hates Me” rocking in my ears, once again, he didn’t answer the gate. Or the front door.
Good thing Courteney had let me keep the remote.
She’d also offered to set this up, let Cary know I was coming back, but I’d said “No thanks” to that. That approach hadn’t been working so well—his sister trying to arrange things for him. I got the distinct feeling that people had tiptoed around Cary Clarke for a long, long time, his sister included. So I decided to take a different approach.
I’d be direct.
And this time, I came prepared. I brought kitty treats.
I plucked out my earbuds and walked around the yard, rattling the treats in the little packet and calling Freddy’s name until I heard his tinkling bell. Cary’s cat trotted right up to me and rubbed against my ankles.
I led him around to the back of the house and gave him his reward. Then I tucked my pre-written note under his collar and nudged him in through the kitty door. “There you go. You know what to do. Go find Cary.”
I hung out, wondering if I should go sit down by the pool. But this time, it didn’t take as long. Apparently Freddy had figured out the drill. A few minutes after I sent him inside, the French doors on the back of the living room opened.
Cary stood there, looking at me.
Freddy trotted outside and took off into the bushes. “He’s very handy,” I remarked, watching him go. “Friendly with strangers, though.” I met Cary’s eyes.
“I guess you’re not a stranger.” The look on his face was wary as he waited for me to explain my presence.
I offered him my hand. “How are you?”
He stared at my hand, and for several awkward heartbeats I thought he wasn’t going to take it. I almost dropped it.
But then he slid his hand into mine, giving it a squeeze. His warm skin against mine set off a wave of… something… in my body. That same buzz when he touched me, like yesterday. The little lines at the corners of his eyes appeared as he squinted a little in the bright daylight, and a strange flare went off in my stomach. Like a hot torch lighting up in the dark. Nerves or something.
I drew my hand back.
I noticed he didn’t answer my question.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “You know, without calling first. But I figured you wouldn’t answer anyway.”
He said nothing, just studied me as he slipped his hands into his pockets. He was wearing a gray T-shirt, like yesterday. With gray jeans again, but these ones were skinnier cut and rolled up at the bottom. Decently fashionable, even if he ordered them online or something?
How was it that he never left the house… yet he looked so damn normal?
Or as normal as a totally gorgeous man could look, anyway.
“So, I spoke with Courteney. About everything we talked about yesterday.”
“And how did that go?”
“Well,” I told him bluntly, “she wants me to work as your assistant for six months.”
“Six months,” he repeated dryly. “Is that all?”
“Yes. Or thereabouts. She also wants you to go to the Players’ album release party. Which she estimates is happening in about six months. So, you see where she came up with that number.”
“I see.” His face didn’t change, but I was pretty sure I picked up on a slight undercurrent of irritation.
“And she wants me to help you get ready for it.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask me to come inside, but he also didn’t ask me to leave or shut the door in my face. So I pressed on.
“Also, she said she wants to pay me herself. Her and Xander.”
“I thought you were just supposed to help her hire someone.”
“Yeah. Well, she hired me.”
I watched for his reaction to this, but he didn’t seem to have any. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. But I could feel his discomfort. Just like yesterday… it wore heavily on him, in the weight of his silence.
Was he thinking over what I’d said? Or thinking about how to most swiftly and permanently get rid of me?
“Unless you have a problem with that,” I offered. “I won’t be offended if that’s the case. Your sister wants to find the ideal person for this position. She seems to think the ideal person is me. I really can’t argue with that. So, I’m willing to give it a go. If you are. If not, no hard feelings. It’s business, right? It’s not personal.”
“You’d be my personal assistant,” he said. “Sounds personal.”
Something furry pressed against my leg, and I glanced down. Freddy was back, and he threw himself at my feet. Right on top of my feet, actually. He stretched out and twisted onto his back, his eyes half-closed… and his legs flopped open, revealing his furry privates.
Yup, there it was, covered in silky fur.
I looked up at Cary, who was frowning at his cat. I had to swallow the laugh that bubbled up my throat. I had a lewd sense of humor and tended to laugh at awkward shit. And a cat penis suddenly appearing at an already awkward job negotiation totally warranted a chuckle.
I cleared my throat to cover it. “Uh, you can give me whatever title you like,” I told him. “If it makes you feel better.” I wiggled my toes, trying to dislodge Freddy, but he was relaxed deadweight.
Cary’s eyes lifted to mine. Yeah, he was definitely irritated. Uncomfortable. A
nd annoyed with his cat for dicking around in the middle of this seriousness. “What title do you want?” he said irritably, like I’d demanded he address me as Your Royal Assistantness.
“Well, I usually go by executive assistant. I’ve worked for a lot of executives. But producer’s assistant or whatever works, too. As long as it’s not errand bitch or slave girl, we’re good.”
He responded to that about as warmly as he did Freddy’s dick; he didn’t even pretend to find it mildly funny or charming or even offensive. He just stared at me.
“I’m not an executive,” he deadpanned.
“Right. You’re a musician and a music producer who owns a recording studio, and you’re pretty much a self-made multimillionaire, as far as I can tell, so I’m going to assume it’s probably not that different from what I’m used to.”
I supposed I’d just revealed that I’d done my research on him. Or maybe he assumed Courteney had told me those things.
“Self-made…” he said. “I’m pretty sure the record companies I’ve worked with over the years would have a difference of opinion on that.”
“Maybe they give themselves too much credit.”
“They run the business.”
“But they’re not the talent. You’re the talent and the business.”
He studied me, and I wondered if I was convincing him of anything or if he was merely collecting reasons not to hire me so he could list them for Courteney later. It felt like he was interviewing me, right here on his threshold. While his cat napped on my feet. It was getting awkward. He was way taller than me up there. And my toes were getting hot.
“Any chance I could partake of the air conditioning while you finish grilling me?” I asked him. “My toes are sweating.”
He glanced down at his cat again. “Freddy,” he said sharply. “Fuck off.”
Freddy’s ear twitched, but he didn’t move. He didn’t even open his eyes. If anything, he went more limp.
Ours eyes met again, and I shrugged. “He likes me.”
“He likes everyone. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 8
