European Tour (Rocking the Pop Star Book 1) (5 page)

SKYLAR

DAY SEVEN

It’s my birthday, and I’m having brunch with my close staff. Brody sits on my right and Amber on my left.

Despite my explicit instructions of “no gifts,” there is a table in the corner laden with presents.

I’ve not had an opportunity to speak to Brody alone since Friday night. After the fiasco with my mother, we mutually decided to call it a night and all opponents went to their respective corners of the octagon. Just as well. When my mother showed up with her accusations, she’d effectively killed the mood.

I still can’t get over Brody’s chops. I have no idea who he was when he was in the biz, but I can’t help but to feel like I should bow down to him and chant “We’re not worthy!”

Malik offered to do some more digging because he’s as curious as I am to find out which rock band Brody had been with. I told him to drop it because I want Brody to share his past with me of his own accord—when he’s ready.

I’ve been stealing glances at Brody all morning, my awe renewing each time I remember how spectacular he’d made my song sound.

He’s talking now to my drummer, Snare, who sits next to him on the opposite side. For a few rapturous seconds, I get caught up in admiring his beauty above and beyond his talent. Full lips making way for high, defined cheekbones, and severe clean-shaven jawlines meeting at a neatly dimpled chin. Brody must feel my eyes on him because he turns back to me.

“You need anything?” he asks, concern lacing his gorgeous brow.

I shake my head. “No, nothing. Nothing at all.”

He smiles. “You aren’t nervous about tonight, are you?” His voice is low and soft.

I return his smile. “No. I was just wondering…”

He rolls his eyes heavenward, then slowly shakes his head. “Oh no. Friday night was a one-off.”

“How’d you know what I was going to say?”

“You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“That, ‘Brody can you play with me tonight on just that one song,’ look.”

He says this in a falsetto that sounds ridiculous, but I forego the opportunity to tease him about it.

“Can you fault me for trying?”

“No, I can’t. This isn’t conceit talking, but if I were still in a band, I’d want me, too.”

I chuckle at his candor. “No, you didn’t just say that.”

“I was half-kidding, but believe me, I’m as serious as a heart attack when I say I won’t play tonight.”

“Will you think about it?”

“Not in this current lifetime.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I know.”

“But I’m going to wear you down.”

“No you won’t.” His voice is even lower and bears an ominous, regretful tone. “Sky, please don’t ask me to go on stage with you. I almost didn’t take this gig for I.Y.M. because you were a musician.”

“Really?” My voice cracks with incredulity.

“Yes.”

His definitive tone tells me he is unlikely to budge, and I have to tread carefully here. His pain must go way deeper than I first imagined. Something or someone had put him off the gift that had clearly been his passion once upon a time. What had done this to him, or who had he lost and how?

“Okay, okay, I won’t pressure you to go on stage with me.”

I say it exactly the way he phrased it for a reason. He may not want to go on stage live with me, but I might eventually coax him into working with me in the studio. Perhaps his issue was more some type of performance anxiety rather than a sincere desire not to play anymore. The man who covered my song Friday night sounded as if he were born to rock.

My mother makes her fashionably late entrance.

Her place setting is on the other side of Amber next to Malik, and she greets members of my team on her way to it discarding her purse in her seat. She approaches me, beaming. Spotting Brody, she sighs and rolls her eyes.

What is her problem? Brody proved his credentials the other night in a manner that should have laid all her misgivings to rest.

Like the chameleon she is, she dons her festive mood just as quickly as it had eluded her once she reaches me. “Happy Birthday, my darling girl!” She squeals and gives me European-style air kisses on both cheeks.

Mother is the only one, it seems, who took me at my word and didn’t bring a gift.

Why am I not surprised?

The sold-out concert Sunday night is a resounding success. For the finale, I emerge from a festive cake emblazoned with my name that’s raised from below stage level. Alyssa leads my fans in singing “Happy Birthday” to me. Twenty-one sparkling candles blaze behind us as Alyssa and I bring the house down, or up on their feet for a standing ovation. After that, I enthusiastically belt out a medley of my early hits and I encourage the fans to sing along to them. The second half of the set are my newer pieces, and I’m joined on stage by my dancers.

The finale brings Alyssa, both sets of our back-up singers, all the dancers, and our bands.  Together we do a cover of “Celebrate,” and when the lights go down on this final song, I run backstage.

Brody greets me cheering loudly with two enthusiastic hands displaying the “rock on” symbols.

I leap into his arms and he swings me around.

We make our way through the throng of backstage dwellers and well-wishers toward my dressing room, ignoring the few magazine reporters and music bloggers we allowed backstage clamoring for reactions. Rushing inside, we close the door laughing.

“I’m proud of how we maneuvered so efficiently through the crowd,” I say, gasping for breath.

My chest is heaving and I’m high on adrenaline and my successful tour kickoff. My heart thuds as if the drums from the set I just performed are beating there. Attraction for Brody trickles beneath the surface of my skin and gathers like a horde of butterflies fluttering low in my belly.

Our backs are against the door and we’re facing each other, our eyes locked. Attraction sparks between us like electricity, and it is the most natural thing in the world for us to share our first kiss now. As our lips touch I’m consumed. It’s a paradigm-shifting first kiss.

Brody moves so quickly I barely register it. He pins me against the door. Our bodies meld. I’m an aching, throbbing, pulsating mass of nerve endings. My skin screams for us to get even closer and I wiggle until there is no space left between us.

His tongue invades my mouth like a heat-seeking missile. It’s barely touched mine before mine locks with his. We massage and probe so urgently that my knees go weak.

The kiss literally takes my breath away leaving me oxygen-deprived, and light-headed. I gently push him away to break the kiss.

Brody Kent has serious skills.

I take a deep breath and grin up at him, noting that even with me being in my stage heels he’s a few inches taller than me. I also see that I’ve absolutely wrecked his man-bun.

“Oh, your hair,” I say.

He reaches up and pulls the elastic out of it. His hair falls loose. “Problem solved.”

The way his electric blues search my face, all hooded and sexy, I get wetter between my legs if that’s possible. I cup his face and kiss him because he looks like he’s about to pounce on me and pin me against my dressing room door again.

This kiss is a little less intense, but I feel his arousal through his jeans—proof positive that I won’t be disappointed if anything happens tonight. I want something to happen so badly I ache. I am shedding the restrictions of my traditionalism and throwing caution to the wind. When we mutually agree to come up for air, I have to set the record straight.

“About Friday night,” I say. “In some ways, I wish we’d never answered the door.”

“What? And miss the wrath of Elaine Samuelson?” he teases.

“I’m sorry she was so disbelieving and horrendous to you, but she was right about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

His eyes are so blue with desire, I feel like I could drown in them. But I can’t drown. I have to tell him.

“I do want you, Brody,” I say. “I wanted you then, and I want you now.”

He kisses me, this time rather impatiently as someone begins to knock on the door. In an unspoken agreement, we ignore them as the kiss becomes tender, gentle, sweet. I’m the one who makes it morph into something more as I join my tongue with his gentle caress. He opens his mouth against mine, insatiable, greedy for everything I can give him. I respond, moaning into his mouth as my nerves along my spine become incinerated by his kiss.

Our lips are wet, soft, and desperate to taste the desire kindled between us. Brody buries his hands in my hair, his lower body twisting against mine to get even closer. My hands roam eager to touch his skin.

I slip my fingers underneath his shirt and touch the taut muscle on his sides, and slide them around to his back. His skin is warm and soft to my hands. The tips of our tongues continue to touch and release as the kiss becomes more passionate with each deep, slow pull of our mouths together. This is the best first kiss I’ve ever had. Bar none.

Yet again, someone’s knocking on my dressing room door, but I don’t want to let Brody go until I’ve had my fill of his drug-inducing kisses.

That may take an embarrassingly long time, but I don’t care, and judging by the way he continues to pin me against the door, I’m sure he doesn’t care, either.

BRODY

DAY EIGHT

“This deejay is sick, isn’t he, Brody?” Malik yells to me over the music.

He’s a proud guy, so this is probably the closest thing to an apology I’m going to get for the events that occurred on Friday night. Besides, he was just doing his job, and if I were to hold that against him, I’d be the wuss in this situation.

Hearing his voice brings me out of the trance I’ve been lulled into by guitar riffs I created from a song wrote in the heyday of The Savages. No one in this room knows I was Savage Saban and I like it that way. Fame steals the relative anonymity that regular people enjoy and I’m not ready to go back to being recognized everywhere I go. Given my transformation, it’s not likely the average person would know me among this group, anyway. The rock star they’d known had been leaner, meaner—and wouldn’t have been caught dead in the monkey suit I’m wearing. Who has time for grooming when you’re chasing the dragon?

I open my eyes and take in the bodies writhing on the dance floor to a personal favorite of my creations, “An Analogy for Reality.” It’s a heady aphrodisiac—seeing people enjoy my music again, but I shouldn’t let it pull me in.

Malik’s brow is wrinkled when I finally turn to respond to him. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, never better. Why?” The truth would only invite a conversation I’m not ready to have yet with anyone other than my shrink and my former bandmates.

They’d scattered, joining up with other groups, but each swore they would return if I ever wanted to revive The Savages. All I need to do is say the word.

But just being around Skylar and her crew for the week has been a constant reminder that your life could spiral quickly out of control if you didn’t keep your feet firmly planted in reality. I like reality.

“Seems like you zoned out on me there for a minute,” Malik says.

I drain the beer I’ve been holding which is now warm. This is how I usually get through parties. I grab one beer or a glass of wine, mostly as a prop, and don’t partake of anything else. Actually drinking this one down is crossing a line for me. Relapse is an ever-present possibility.

“Just enjoying the music,” I say which isn’t a complete lie. I crush the beer can. “I need to get some fresh air. Later.”

Malik kicks his head back in response and I make a beeline for the door. If I’m going to remain at Sky’s party, I need to remove myself from earshot of the medley of The Savages hits the deejay will undoubtedly play. His M.O. is to play a trio of songs by various artists, which means another couple of ours are coming up.

This wouldn’t be particularly difficult, except that every song I’ve ever written has a story behind it which doesn’t dredge up fond nor particularly productive memories. If I don’t go, I’ll either end up snorting a few lines or opening up a vein. Hearing Kim’s voice in the background vocals isn’t making things any easier, either. It’s like hearing a fucking ghost, and my throat still threatens to close each time I hear her clear, high harmony complimenting my melody.

The bass emanating from the speakers shake the LA mansion like an earthquake registering at least a 3.0 on the Richter scale. I’ve steered clear of clients’ parties in the year I’ve been working for I’m Your Man, Inc.—escaping the temptation to return to some semblance of my former self and all that.

I exit through the French doors onto the patio and take a deep breath. Several other partygoers are outside enjoying the relative quiet and the cooler temperature. There are no hot dancing bodies out here, though it’s apparent some came outside for privacy to do those wickedly illicit things they can’t wait to get back to their homes and hotel rooms to do.

A few couples swim in their underwear, their clothing strewn over the loungers they’ve abandoned. A group of twenty-year-olds have taken over the gazebo, and the pungent odor of marijuana wafts from them.

There goes my fresh, clean air. I move upwind from the pot so I don’t entertain the notion of joining them. Not my scene anymore, but temptation lurks everywhere.

Sure, I’d had a beer, but I’ll be okay. Unless there are drugs involved, I’m fine around a bit of booze. But if my specific brand of rock is played, my entire body reacts as if it has a hard-on which only my drug of choice abates. In those situations, I am hard-pressed to resist giving myself up to it and taking a hit of something.

Rock music calls to me like a siren’s song. It is a blessing and a curse, and it has taken me five long years to emerge from the darkness I found myself in when I bottomed out. That darkness had been fatal for Kim and could quite easily have been for me as well. It still could be, and that is a fact I have to live with each and every day.

Convinced I’ve given the deejay plenty of time to switch artists, I turn to head back into the party. I need Sky. She made me promises with her lips and her body after the concert and I intend to cash in on them. Sex is the one celebratory thing I can still do that doesn’t hurt me.

I grasp the ankh I wear around my neck—one of the last gifts Kim gave to me. It’s engraved with our initials. If things happen the way I think they will, I’ll remove it tonight. I always do when I’m with a woman out some fucked up deference to her memory.

Kim and I loved each other with a desperation borne of co-dependence and history. I haven’t been able to conjure feelings for any woman that remotely rival what I had with Kim. Therefore I’ve concentrated solely on clients through IYM and steered clear of women who desire longevity in a relationship. That is something I simply can’t give right now.

I stride back to the door, passing yet another couple hiding behind a topiary. The woman is on her knees giving the guy a blowjob. His hand is on the woman’s head, guiding himself into her eager mouth.

I look away immediately.

“Yeah, that’s right. Keep it moving buddy,” the guy hisses.

I glance down. I hear a scuffle as if he’s pushing her away and following me.

I speed up, not sure what his intentions are. I figure I pissed him off getting too close.

I hear him scrambling behind me. “Hey, wait!”

His belt buckle tinkles as he struggles to get himself presentable and keep up with me. “Hey! Hey Sav!”

Fuck. I haven’t answered to that nickname in five years.

I stop in preparation to turn around and address him.

Sky steps out of the French doors, looking around—presumably for me.

The guy has caught up with me and grabs my arm.

Sky’s heading my way, so I pull away from him roughly.

“Listen, my name is Brody Kent. Got it?” I put just enough venom in my voice to hopefully disabuse him from continuing to address me by my long-dead stage name.

He frowns, peering up at me through eyes tight from alcohol and marijuana use. He sways on wobbly legs. “You look just like a guy I used to know, except he had dreads down to his ass and a long-assed goatee,” he says. “But you’re heavier…I mean,
healthier
than he was.”

I shake my head. “I’m not your guy, buddy.”

Sky puts her arm through mine. “Who’s your friend?”

“Was just a case of mistaken identity,” the guy mutters. He walks toward the topiary and ostensibly the blonde he left behind it.

I know him. Watching him stumble away, I remember. He’s the owner of a nightclub Kim and I used to frequent on the Sunset Strip in our early days. Close fucking call.

“What time is this shindig over, again?” I ask.

“Someone’s anxious,” Sky says with a sexy smirk. “It’s over when I say it’s over, so how about now? I’ll have the deejay announce last call and get Malik and his team to start encouraging people to leave if that doesn’t do the trick.”

“You don’t have to end everything so abruptly on my account.” I pull her firmly into my embrace. “I was going to just go upstairs and wait for you to join me.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” she says. “I was getting tired anyway.”

“We also have work tomorrow. I don’t know. Maybe this can wait until we get on the road?”

I’m not sure if I’m trying to give myself an out, or her. Sky is already moving into “more than just another client” territory. If our time together develops into something more, I don’t want it to be fucked up by my inability to commit or restricted by my job with I.Y.M. This could get complicated real fast.

“Did Friday night not give you any indication at all of how deprived I am?” she asks.

I have to wonder if the adrenaline rush from performing earlier and the champagne she’s consumed has dulled her filters and her judgment. For some reason, it matters a lot that she won’t regret being with me. Seven more weeks working together will feel like an eternity if shit goes sideways. Cupping her cheeks in my hands, I kiss her again. I hope it softens what I need to say next. I look into her eyes, and she already seems soberer.

The mood shifts. She’s got to know something serious is coming.

“I need to tell you something. Actually, I need to tell you a lot of things, but this you need to know before we go any further.”

Fear creeps into her gorgeous eyes, and rightfully so. Also, vulnerability and a fierce determination to accept what I’m going to say regardless of the consequences. She makes me feel wanted in a way that I’ve never felt before—unconditionally.

“The other night, you asked if I were an alcoholic or something,” I say. “Would it matter to you if I was?”

This isn’t a conversation I wanted to have at this juncture of our relationship, but it’s important for her to know what she’s getting into if she decides to be with me.

Emotions flit across her beautiful face. Her expressiveness is alluring, and something I’m unused to getting from women, even when telling them the most awful truth about myself. I start to think she’s not going to answer she’s so quiet.

“Would it matter to me personally?” she says finally. “No. Would it matter to the Skylar brand? Probably. Especially if it were ever to get out of control and cause a scandal. How long have you been sober?”

“Five years clean. Alcohol wasn’t my drug of choice, though. It was opiates. I was an addict.”

Sky doesn’t flinch. “Thank you for telling me, Brody. But if you’re telling me now believing there’s a possibility I’ll change my mind about you, that’s not going to happen.”

Her eagerness to believe in me regardless of my confession pisses me off for some reason. “Why the hell not? Are you so anxious to be hurt by someone?”

Anger flashes in her eyes, too. “I have been hurt by someone. A man who didn’t have an ounce of integrity. If I’m going to take a risk, it’s better for it to be with someone who reveals their most offensive truth up front. It’s difficult, I know, but at least you’re telling me now so I won’t have to pry it out of you later.”

For some reason, it turns me the fuck on when a chick busts my balls like this. Sky isn’t as demur and traditional as she projects, especially when she’s got a few drinks in her. I’ve barely finished this thought when she pulls me to her by my lapels and kisses the fucking shit out of me.

Her lips taste like champagne and the fruity lip gloss she wears over her signature Skylar lip color. Uh oh! My lower head is engaged now, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to be able to refuse her invitation.

“You’ve got balls of fucking steel, Skylar Samuelson,” I say as soon as our lips disengage.

“The sooner I get the deejay to make that announcement, the sooner you’ll be able to confirm whether or not that’s true.” She takes my hand and pulls me toward the French doors.