Stuck With a Rock Star

by Amelie Bloom

  “—and famous,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m up for famous.”

  “Well, nobody’s completely perfect,” said Bianca.

  “Except for Timo,” I said. “Lots of people seem to think he’s—”

  That’s when Bianca hung up on me.

  I’d taken a shower after my run, but I decided that a long hot bath was just what I needed.

  I fell asleep in the tub, and when I woke up, the water was tepid, and the clock on my phone read 6:30. Those last several nights of fitful sleep had taken a toll on me.

  I’d intended to do my hair for once and take my time with my makeup.

  I’m never going to be a top-class specimen of physical beauty, but I do look better when I make a little effort.

  I wasn’t sure Jax had ever seen me in anything besides jeans and a t-shirt. Half the time, I skipped makeup altogether and wadded my wet hair up in a messy bun.

  It would take me fifteen minutes to get back to Jax’s house, and I decided punctuality was more important than making myself pretty.

  I slapped on some mascara and lipstick, ran a brush through my hair, and put on the dress.

  It fit. I looked fabulous in it, but I didn’t have time to admire myself.

  I put on the silver charm bracelet Jax had given me, shoved my feet into the only pair of heels I owned, grabbed my keys, and left.

  I had two minutes to spare when I punched the code into Jax’s front gate.

  When I got to the front door, I was surprised to see a catering truck.

  “Are you throwing a party?” I asked as Jax opened the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I am throwing a party,” said Jax.

  I was confused and a little disappointed, and it must have shown on my face.

  “It’s a party for only one guest,” said Jax. “The caterers were supposed to have set up and be gone by now.”

  Jax pulled me along behind him, through the house and out back to the pool, and the caterers scattered like they were underlings of some ruthless monarch.

  There was enough food for fifty people, but I was having a hard time establishing any sort of theme.

  There was sirloin steak sitting next to sliced kiwis and an artfully arranged platter of cheese curls and salt and vinegar potato chips. Next to the chips was a bowl of angel hair with pesto sauce. The centerpiece of the whole buffet was about twenty pounds of chocolate fudge.

  “Who chose this menu?” I asked.

  It seemed like something a bunch of ten-year-olds would dream up. It all looked good, but I was having trouble establishing any sort of theme.

  “You chose the menu,” said Jax.

  “I did?”

  “I tried to remember every food you’d ever mentioned liking,” Jax said.

  I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I’d already done that when I’d opened all those presents Jax had collected over the years.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and reached for the fudge. Nothing wrong with having dessert first.

  After dinner, if you can call it that, we watched old movies from a blanket on the grass. Jax had stretched a screen over the pool, which made weird reflections over the faces of the actors, but I loved it.

  “Do you really have to leave tomorrow?” I asked Jax.

  Sometime after Roman Holiday, but before Affair to Remember, I’d ended up in Jax’s arms.

  We’d started out leaning decorously on our own pillows with a safe and respectable eighteen inches between us, but somehow, I was now on his side of the blanket with my body plastered up against his.

  He’d put his arms around me and nestled my head onto his shoulder, but the rest was all me.

  “You could come with us,” Jax said.

  For about three seconds, I was tempted, but then I saw sense. Even if I did go, I’d barely see Jax, but I’d see plenty of Hugo unless Hugo was going to weasel out somehow at the last minute to be here for the birth of his baby.

  “No,” I said. “It’s probably best for me to have some time on my own to get my head together.”

  I’d expected Jax to try and at least kiss me, but he didn’t. Aside from a little cuddling on the blanket as we watched movies—which I’d initiated—he didn’t try anything at all.

  Around midnight, I announced that I was heading home, and he’d better get some sleep.

  I knew they weren’t leaving until the following evening on a night flight to Honolulu, and I expected Jax to point that out, but instead, he stood to his feet, pulled me up after him, and walked me out to my car.

  When we got to my car, he pulled me into his arms and gave me the sort of hug a person gives their mother when they go off to war. It was sweet and tender, but it was most certainly not an attempt at seduction.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow before our flight leaves,” he said, as he pulled away.

  Jax was halfway to the door when I called him back.

  I couldn’t bear to watch him walk away, but I didn’t know what I planned to do when he returned to me.

  I locked eyes with him as he slowly walked toward me, still not knowing why I’d called him back.

  He stopped a determined three feet away and stood there silently.

  I closed the distance, reached up and wrapped my right hand around the back of his head, grabbed the front of his shirt with the other, and pulled him to me. I may have popped a button off.

  Then I kissed him.

  I think Jax was so shocked by my sudden change of heart that he went perfectly still for about three seconds.

  When he didn’t respond, I froze.

  Had I offended him? Should I have asked permission? Had the 12th sexiest man alive, according to Famous Faces Magazine, abruptly come to his senses and realized how very ordinary I was?

  Kissing Jax had been a mistake. I let go of him and stepped away, colliding with the door handle of my car.

  It hurt a little.

  So, did being rejected.

  “I’m sor—”

  Jax didn’t let me finish speaking.

  The way he’d kissed me that drunken night in his hotel suite had been sweet, cautious, and more than a little sad.

  There was nothing sweet, cautious, or sad about the way Jax was kissing me now.

  I reached back to steady myself against the reassuring metal of the car door and reminded myself to breathe.

  Jax wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me so close to the hardness of his chest that I could clearly feel the beating of his heart, then deepened the kiss.

  I heard someone moan and realized it was me.

  Jax pulled away and stepped back.

  “You’d better go, Abby,” he said. “Another minute and I’ll ask you to stay tonight, and I don’t mean in the guestroom.”

  “When you come back from tour—”

  “Then, you’ll stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?” Jax asked.

  “Absolutely sure.”

  “What about—”

  “Hugo?” I said.

  “I don’t care what Hugo thinks.”

  “Then what are you asking?” I said.

  “Shall I tell Lilith we’re planning to go public with our relationship?”

  I’d been floating a hundred feet up in the air, resting on pink clouds while winged baby pandas brought me fizzy drinks with dancing icecubes that sang show tunes. It was that good of a kiss.

  Jax's question brought me solidly down to earth. It was like falling from Heaven into an open sewer.

  “Let’s keep this to ourselves for a while,” I said.

  I scrambled into my car and started the engine before my longing to stay clouded my judgment.

  Chapter Thirty

  On the way back to my apartment, I missed my exit.

  I’d driven that route hundreds of times, but that night all my neurons were occupied between reliving that kiss (lovely) and thinking about how my life would be instantly upended the moment I publicly acknowledged that I was
in love with Jax (not so lovely).

  The moment Lilith issued a statement admitting to our relationship, Jax and I would no longer be just Jax and Abby; we’d be the frontman of the Blue Lotus Boys and his former bodyguard plagued by rumors of cheating and a baby on the way.

  The following day, as promised, Jax called me on the way to the airport. We chatted about this and that, and then he said, “Be sure and have your phone on you at 10 PM tomorrow, Honolulu time.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ll be in concert. Lilith’s going to livestream it for you.”

  “I’ve seen about a thousand of your concerts.”

  That was a slight exaggeration, but not much of one.

  “No, you haven’t,” said Jax.

  “Alright, I’ve seen very little, but I’ve heard about a thousand of your concerts. I’ve got every Blue Lotus Boys’ song memorized.”

  “We’ve got some new material,” said Jax.

  “I’ve listened to your latest album at least a hundred times.”

  “You have?” He sounded terribly pleased. “Well, we’ll be doing some songs that aren’t on the latest release.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to sitting through some blurry footage of Lilith holding up her phone backstage to stream the Blue Lotus Boys through the wings.

  They’re a good band; I’m not saying they aren’t, but when you’ve heard one concert, you’ve pretty much heard them all.

  Still, at seven the next evening, I carried my phone around with me until I got a video call from Lilith.

  “Hello, Lilith,” I said.

  She opted not to shout over the Blue Lotus Boys playing at full volume, so she waved at me, then turned me around so I could see the stage.

  I was surprised to see that Lilith wasn’t in the wings; she was sitting down at center-front behind the standing section in one of the seats that costs more than I made in a week as a bodyguard.

  I had to admit it was kind of nice to see the show from the audience's perspective.

  The song they’d been playing ended and Jax motioned for the screaming to die down. He had something to say, apparently, but then he often had something to say.

  Once Jax got past throwing up backstage, he was downright chatty onstage.

  He was so chatty that his bandmates often admonished him in private to shut up so they could get on with the show.

  “We have a brand new song for you this evening,” said Jax. “I’ve never performed it before.”

  There was some yelling and catcalling, but Jax went on talking right over it.

  “It’s a song I wrote recently. It’s about a woman I’ve fallen in love with.”

  That really got the attention of the crowd. It was mostly cheering, but there were a few boos.

  Miss Stabby wasn’t Jax’s only obsessive fangirl, although most of his admirers didn’t take their unhealthy admiration for their favorite rock star quite to the decapitated rat level.

  Jax looked back at the drummer to signal he was done with his little speech, then changed his mind.

  “This song is called Stuck with You.”

  The band started to play, and Jax started to sing, and I felt a lump rising in my throat. What was it about this man that kept pushing me to the edge of tears? They were all happy tears, too. I wasn’t used to that.

  There was no doubt that the song was about me.

  Correction: Jax and me.

  As the song ended, I heard someone sobbing, and it wasn’t me. I’d restrained myself to a solitary tear rolling down my left cheek.

  “Is that you, Lilith?” I shouted at the screen.

  Against all the odds, she heard me.

  “Are you crying?” I shouted at the screen when she flipped me around.

  “You bet I’m crying,” Lilith yelled back. “I’m not sure if these are tears of joy or sorrow, but I’ll tell you one thing: if you break Jax’s heart, I’m going to kill you!”

  I had no intention of breaking Jax’s heart, and the more time passed, the less I thought about Hugo.

  It occurred to me that Hugo and I had already drifted so far apart that his sudden disappearance from my life had left a surprisingly small hole to fill.

  Two weeks into the Blue Lotus Boys’ tour, Lilith saw fit to inform me that she’d sent Hugo home. He wasn’t fired, she said, but she thought he ought to be present for the birth of his child. On his return from paternity leave, Hugo would be reassigned to another member of the Blue Lotus Boys, and Sven would be taking over Hugo’s position.

  My suspicions about Bettina had been entirely founded. A day after Hugo was sent home, a mutual friend forwarded me pictures she’d scraped off Instagram.

  Hugo and Bettina were showing off rings and a marriage certificate. They’d gone to Vegas for a quickie wedding.

  I’m not saying the pictures of their smiling faces didn’t make me a little sad, but it was not a sadness that held any regret, other than for all those years I’d wasted on a man who didn’t really love me.

  I wasn’t convinced Hugo loved Bettina either, but that wasn’t my problem.

  Jax texted me off and on all day, every day.

  He called me first thing after he woke up every morning, which could be any time of day for me, but I didn’t mind.

  “I haven’t thrown up before a concert for weeks,” Jax told me during one conversation.

  “What changed?”

  “Only one thing has changed,” said Jax.

  “And that is—?”

  “You. I have you.”

  “I don’t have magical powers,” I protested.

  “You don’t need magical powers.”

  “Well, don’t expect too much,” I said. “Just because I love you—”

  “You love me?”

  I realized that I’d never said those words right out loud before.

  “Yes, I love you, Jax Fitzroy,” I said, “and when you get off that plane in LA in one week, three days, ten hours, and forty-seven minutes, I intend to show you exactly how much.”

  If being with Jax meant I’d be the constant object of curiosity and speculation, I was prepared to put up with it.

  The only magical power love possesses is the power to make you stronger, and, at that moment, I felt like a superhero ready to take on all the dark forces of the universe.

  The End

  What happened when Jax came home from tour? Get the bonus scene

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  I don’t usually drink, but after the week I’d had, I’d thrown my usual caution to the wind and ordered a second glass of wine. It had been a good idea, I decided, to come out for dinner with my two best friends.

  I’d change my mind about that by the end of the evening.

  “I can’t believe your apartment flooded, Bianca” my friend Libby said. “That was rotten luck.”

  Libby hadn’t had a second glass of wine. She hadn’t even had a first. She was sticking to herbal tea with lemon, which gets you weird looks from the waiter when you order it at nine pm on a Friday night when everyone else in your party is drinking, but Libby is impervious to weird looks.

  Our friend Kat was making up for my moderation and Libby’s abstinence by drinking for three.

  “Since you have to move out of your apartment, anyway,” Kat said, slurring her words a little, “why don’t you just come with me to Maui?”

  Kat was leaving the next day to house sit her aunt’s condo, and she was a little conflicted about it.

  The condo was terrific and right on the beach, but Kat would be taking care of her aunt’s ancient and temperamental pood
le and, halfway through her stint, also taking care of her aunt’s new stepson.

  “Would there still be room for me, once little Vinny arrives?” I asked.

  Vinny was the stepson in question. I’d gotten the impression he was a teenager arriving home for the summer from boarding school.

  “Vinny’s not so little,” Libby corrected me. “Didn’t Kat tell you? He’s twenty-two.”

  “If Vinny’s twenty-two, then why does he need looking after?” I asked.

  “Long story,” said Kat. “Seriously, you should come with me.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to work.”

  The eco-fashion brand I’d started with my (now ex) boyfriend was barely off the ground. Now was not the time to be jetting off to Hawaii.

  “Can’t Chad deal with things for two weeks on his own?” Kat demanded.

  She’d directed her question at me, but her attention was elsewhere. I followed her stare.

  A man wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, argyle socks, and the sort of cardigan you usually see on someone over sixty sat down three tables away. He placed a literary looking hardcover book next to the empty wine glass, which he directed the waiter to take away.

  “If I leave Chad to deal with things on his own while I run off to Maui for a week of surf and sun, I’d never hear the end of it,” I told Kat.

  “Have it your way.” Kat shrugged, “but I think you’re far too easy on that ex of yours.”

  Kat was still staring at Mr. Spectacles, which made two of us, although he was more Libby’s type. I hoped Kat wouldn’t go over and start flirting with him. When Kat attempts to flirt while she’s tipsy, she’s an embarrassment to everyone, most of all herself.

  Libby still hadn’t noticed Mr. Spectacles, although I hadn’t really expected her to. Libby has recently fallen madly into unrequited love with a new professor in the English department.

  When Libby falls in love, she has eyes for no one else.

  “I have to visit the ladies’ room,” said Kat, standing to her feet, her eyes still glued to Mr. Spectacles.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  I had a bad feeling that Kat would make a detour past Mr. Spectacle’s table and make an utter fool of herself.