Stuck With a Rock Star

by Amelie Bloom

  It was a tight fit in Lilith’s SUV. Jax and I piled our luggage in the back and came around the front, only to find that Sven was driving. Lilith was in the passenger seat, already fast asleep, and Hugo was in the back.

  “I’ll sit in the middle,” said Jax.

  “No, you won’t,” said Hugo.

  “Why not?”

  I had visions of Hugo and Jax getting into a physical confrontation before we even got to Heavenly, so I pushed Jax out of the way and climbed in.

  “There!” I said. “Everybody happy now?”

  All I got was a grunt from Hugo and a rude comment under Jax’s breath, suggesting that Hugo was likely a throwback to a previous branch on the evolutionary tree.

  “Care to say that louder?” Hugo growled.

  “No, he wouldn’t care to say that louder,” I said and punched Jax in the side so hard he yelped and woke up Lilith.

  “What’s going on back there?”

  “Nothing!” I said, “Everything is perfectly fine.”

  Except it wasn’t. Nothing was fine. Here I was, trapped for the next several hours playing referee between my ex-fiancé and the man who claimed he’d been in love with me for the last three years.

  I pretended to be asleep for a while until I actually did fall asleep. I didn’t wake up until we’d stopped, and Sven was punching in the gate code at Jax’s house in Hollywood Hills.

  “We’re here,” said Jax.

  I expected him to ask if I was coming in with him, but instead, he acted like it was a given. It may have been an act of bravado on his part since Hugo was sitting on the other side of me glowering.

  I had intended to have Lilith drop me off at my apartment, but now that the moment had come to declare my intentions, I didn’t want to give Hugo the satisfaction of rejecting Jax right in front of him.

  “Sven’s coming with you,” said Lilith. “Hugo, you arrange for someone to relieve Sven first thing in the morning.”

  “No,” said Hugo, “I’m the one who’s staying.”

  “You are not,” said Lilith. “And you’re not going to be the one who relieves Sven tomorrow, either.”

  “No choice,” said Hugo, “we were short-staffed even before Abby quit.”

  “She didn’t quit,” said Jax. “I fired her.”

  “Well, that’s your problem, then,” said Hugo. “Am I to blame when you go behind my back and fire perfectly competent staff for no reason?”

  “I had a good reason,” said Jax.

  “Which was?”

  “You know I don’t—”

  “Bang your staff?” Hugo demanded. “How very progressively-minded of you.”

  Hugo needn’t have put it quite so crudely, but that was a fair assessment of the situation.

  “I have it on good authority,” said Jax, looking up to the front seat, “that Abby was about to give notice anyway.”

  “You knew?” I demanded. “Then why did you fire me?”

  “If I fire you, I’m legally bound to provide you with a generous severance package,” said Jax. “You should be thanking me. Read your contract.”

  “Oh, so firing me was exclusively for my own benefit?”

  “No, it was for mine. I don’t want to wait—”

  “Get out,” I told Jax, “you’re blocking me in.”

  We left Sven in the foyer and headed upstairs, dragging our luggage.

  “I hope you have a guest room ready,” I said, “because that’s where I’ll be sleeping.”

  I’d drawn a hard, unambiguous line, and I expected Jax to push back, but he didn’t.

  “You can take the second room on the right. See you in the morning,” he said and turned down the opposite end of the hall to the master suite.

  I lay in bed for a long time before I could go to sleep.

  For one thing, I couldn’t shake the mental image of Miss Stabby’s switchblade pressed to Jax’s throat. For another, I couldn’t get it out of my head that Jax Fitzroy, frontman of the Blue Lotus Boy’s and 12th sexiest man alive, according to Famous Faces Magazine, believed he was in love with me.

  The next morning, when I went down to scrounge up some breakfast, I smelled frying sausage and eggs.

  Was Jax cooking? Jax did so little for himself that I was sometimes surprised he didn’t pay someone to squeeze out his toothpaste for him.

  Maybe, the man really was in love with me. The smell of breakfast made me a bit more placid.

  My relative calm evaporated when I caught a glimpse of Hugo’s back through the glass panel in the front door.

  Contrary to Lilith’s instructions, he’d come to relieve Sven. I suspected it was not just his obstinance. With so many of the team down for the count, he’d probably had no other option.

  “That smells good,” I said as I walked into the kitchen.

  Jax stood at the stove, wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts and an apron.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Do you always cook dressed like that?” I said, trying not to stare. The truth was Jax didn’t have to be half-naked to make me uncomfortably aware of my temptation to gaze at him. Just his neck and jawline were enough to do that.

  “I never cook,” said Jax. “You of all people should know that.”

  “Well, you seem to know what you’re doing, despite your abysmal lack of experience.”

  “I looked it up on the internet,” he said, pointing to his tablet on the kitchen counter.

  I walked over to look. He hadn’t been lying. The tab he had open was “how to scramble eggs.”

  “What do you want to do today?” Jax asked as if it was a given that I wasn’t going home.

  I wasn’t going home, but I’d have rather Jax didn’t take my continued presence so much for granted.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “At the moment, I’m fixing breakfast.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I have no idea what we’re doing,” said Jax. “I’d say I’ve made my wishes clear, so I guess it’s really up to you.”

  “You haven’t made your wishes clear. You’ve made your feelings clear. That’s an entirely different thing.”

  “Is it?” Jax looked genuinely confused.

  “It is. Do you know what you want?” I asked.

  “I do,” said Jax. “But it’s a little hard to put into words. Would you care for a physical demonstration?”

  “I would not,” I told him and put the kitchen island between us.

  “You know I could have just bought you a yacht,“ said Jax as he held up his spatula, “but I had a feeling that scrambled eggs would be more effective in swaying you.”

  It was true. I’m not a woman to be seduced by fame and fortune. In fact, that was one of the reasons I was hesitating to get involved with Jax—the fame part, I mean. I was just fine with the fortune.

  The fame part was a big problem. Jax and I weren’t even together yet, and already the tabloids were reporting I was pregnant.

  “What are you going to do about those photos?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to do anything. That’s Lilith’s job.”

  “Alright, what is Lilith going to do about those photos?”

  “I told her to use her own judgment.”

  I’ve had my doubts about Lilith’s judgment from time to time over the years, but it can’t be denied that she’s good at making press statements.

  By the time she was done spinning this, Jax would come out looking like the patron saint of rock and roll, and I’d come out looking like a nun. Not that that wasn’t pretty close to the truth, although I’m pretty sure patron saints of rock and roll aren’t supposed to go around trying to kiss nuns, but nobody had to know about that.

  “Have you resolved things with Hugo?” Jax asked. “Does he understand that things are really over between you?

  “Sort of,” I said.

  That did not seem to please Jax, and he started working over the eggs like they’d done him a personal in
jury.

  “What about us?” He asked without looking at me.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for there to be an ‘us.’”

  Jax moved on to the sausages, which had stuck to the pan. He started scraping at the skillet like it had insulted his mother’s honor.

  “I’m not saying I won’t get there,” I said, “but I’ve just broken up with Hugo, and to be perfectly honest, I’m having a hard time believing you’re—”

  “You’re having trouble believing I’m in love with you?”

  “Yes.”

  There. I’d said it right out loud. I was having a hard time believing that Jax Fitzroy, frontman of the Blue Lotus Boys and 12th sexiest man alive, according to Famous Faces Magazine, was in love with very ordinary me.

  “That’s it,” said Jax, turning off the burners under the eggs and sausages. “I was going to wait to do this, but—”

  Jax grabbed my hand and dragged me up the stairs and into his bedroom. It was a testament to how much I trusted him that I allowed him to.

  He dropped my hand and left me standing in the middle of the rug beside his bed while he went into his closet.

  A minute later, he came out with a large cardboard box.

  “Here,” he said. “This is for you.”

  I sat down on the floor and opened the box. Inside were a bunch of wrapped gifts.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?” I asked.

  “Open them,” said Jax.

  The first one I opened was a silver charm bracelet I’d admired last autumn in a jewelry store in Toronto.

  We’d been there on tour, and I’d accompanied Jax into the store to buy a birthday present for his mother.

  “I wanted to give that to you for Christmas,” Jax said.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “How weird would it have looked for me to give you that? Besides, by that time, I’d figured out you were with Hugo.”

  “Well, you did give me a rather generous Christmas bonus last year.”

  “I gave everyone a rather generous Christmas bonus last year.”

  I kept opening the gifts.

  There was a scarf I’d admired in a San Francisco shop window two years ago and a signed first edition of a book I’d mentioned being a favorite of mine way back when I’d first started working for Jax.

  There was a bottle of the perfume my mother used to wear that I’d mentioned once I couldn’t find anywhere, and a red plaid taffeta dress with a circle skirt because I’d once mentioned I’d seen an actress in an old movie wearing a dress like that and always hoped I’d find one in a vintage store.

  “Where did you find this?” I asked as I held the dress in front of me and looked at myself in the full-length mirror in Jax’s capacious walk-in closet.

  “Last year, when we were in Hong Kong, I had Lilith take a picture to a tailor.”

  “What did Lilith think about that?”

  “She didn’t know it was for you.”

  “How did you know my size?”

  “I guessed. It might not fit.”

  I don’t know at what point I started crying, but when Jax handed me a box of tissues, I realized I was in tears.

  “You really do love me,” I said.

  “I really do.”

  The question that hung in the air was, did I really love him back.

  “This is incredibly sweet,” I said. “But it’s just too soon.”

  “I know. I know it’s too soon,” said Jax miserably. “But please don’t go. I won’t put any pressure on you. We can just hang out as—”

  “Friends? I think that ship has sailed.”

  “Why do we have to put a label on it?”

  “I’m big on labeling things. You know that crack you made about Lilith wanting to label your underwear with the days of the week? Well, I do that.”

  I don’t really do that, but when it comes to relationships, I’ll admit I’m big on defining things.

  “How about friends with future benefits?” said Jax.

  I tried not to think about the benefits. The benefits of my relationship with Hugo had never been stellar, but I had a feeling that with Jax, things would be different.

  “Too soon! Too soon!” My brain screamed at my body, but my body wasn’t listening.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “How about this?” I said. “We can be as friendly as you want, but all future benefits remain in the future until some later defined date, at which time we can revisit our arrangement.”

  “And when might that time be?”

  How long would it take me to get over Hugo, I wondered? How long did it take to heal from a betrayal of trust and a broken engagement? Three weeks? Three months? Three years?

  “Maybe, when you get back from tour,” I said, “maybe by then I’ll have my thoughts together.”

  “Fine,” said Jax. “Waiting until I get back from tour should be easy. I’ve already been waiting for years for you to come to your senses.”

  “Why didn’t I have a clue how you felt?”

  “I couldn’t tell you before,” said Jax. “First off, you worked for me, and second of all, you were engaged to Hugo.”

  “When did you find out about Hugo and me?”

  “Three days after I hired you.”

  “No, way! We were so careful.”

  “You must not have been, or how did I find out so fast.”

  “When did you find out about Hugo and Bettina?” I asked.

  “Just a few days after we kissed in my hotel suite.”

  “Do you think Hugo has been cheating on me ever since?”

  Jax hesitated.

  “Look, I’m not proud of it, but a big part of me wanted Hugo to be cheating on you. I wanted nothing more than for you to leave him, so I’m probably not the best judge of—”

  “That’s OK,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  As the words came out of my mouth, I realized it was true, I didn’t really care anymore one way or another.

  “I have a request,” Jax said. “I want to take you on a proper, old fashioned first date before I leave on tour.”

  “That seems risky,” I protested. “What if we’re seen together again?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jax. “I’ll make sure no one has a chance to photograph us.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t be willing to count sharing a bag of microwave popcorn and a can of peaches on your Uncle Rodney’s front porch as a first date?”

  “And here I was hoping you weren’t a gold-digger like all the rest. Isn’t microwave popcorn and canned peaches good enough for you?”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “I demand the utmost in luxury.”

  “Well, you’ll probably have to settle for dinner and a movie,” said Jax.

  “How are you going to pull that off? You’d have to rent the whole restaurant and rope off the theater.”

  “Just watch and marvel,” said Jax. “Be ready at seven this evening. Wear that plaid dress.”

  After a breakfast of sausage and scrambled eggs—surprisingly good—I fled the house and went for a run.

  I came back and showered, then hid in the guestroom until Jax knocked on my door and offered to order in Thai food for lunch.

  “No, thanks,” I said when I opened the door. “I’m going back to my apartment this afternoon for a while, but I’ll be back at seven.”

  “You’re not going to disappear on me, are you?”

  “I promise. I’ll be back by seven.”

  I needed a few hours of solitude before I faced an evening with Jax.

  Day after tomorrow, the Blue Lotus Boys would be leaving for a month on tour.

  Surely, Aunt Flo and I could combine our powers of self-restraint long enough to keep things from spiraling out of control.

  I went home and took a nap. Then I did some laundry at the machines downstairs and ironed the taffeta dress I’d brought with me from Jax’s.

  When I’d gotten all the wrinkles out, I texted Bianca.
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  How are things going there? Learn any new recipes you’d care to share?

  All I got back for my troubles was a rude emoji.

  Something was definitely up with Bianca, and I was pretty sure that had to do with the Manny. I decided to have a little fun.

  How’s Timo?

  Bianca fired back with a pair of rude emojis.

  Got any pictures of this tamale-making wonderman?

  I expected to get a whole string of rude emojis, but instead, I got a picture of Timo sitting on the couch, surrounded by our four adorable nieces and nephews, while he read them Thomas the Tank Engine. The angle made me suspect that Bianca had taken the picture on the sly.

  He’s cute

  Bianca replied with a winking smiley

  Timo was downright adorable. My sister could have gotten stuck with someone considerably worse—if appearances were anything to go by. Clearly, the kids were taken with him, so Timo couldn’t be too bad. Kids are no fools.

  Neither are parents, and Rob and Camille seemed to think Timo hung the moon.

  I decided to drop my speculation about the manny and address my own complicated love life.

  I’m going on a date tonight

  My phone rang. It was Bianca.

  “Please tell me you aren’t getting back together with Hugo,” was the first thing she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “You have a date with Jax?”

  “No, with Humphry Bogart.”

  “Who’s Humphry Bogart?”

  I love old movies. Sometimes I forget my sister doesn’t share my interest.

  “That was a joke. Humphry Bogart is dead,” I told Bianca. “Of course, Jax is who I have a date with.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “He had a dress made for me.”

  “Already? I thought you just got back from the wilderness yesterday.”

  “He had it made last year when we were on tour in Hong Kong.”

  Then I listed off all the other presents he’d bought me over the years since we’d met.

  “Marry him,” said Bianca when I was done. “Seriously, he’s sweet and generous and—”