Fan Girl (11 page)

He takes a seat, resting his back on the chair, all the while keeping his eyes on me. I look back, but we don’t say anything. After several minutes I sigh and pick up my phone.

DirtyDozen: super bad attitude. Like, I want to punch him in his head bad attitude.

I send it and put the phone in my lap so I don’t seem rude. I take a sip of my tea as Deklan takes out his phone. I didn’t hear it so he must me following my lead. I look out the window at the Eiffel tower that’s lit up so pretty, and my phone dings. I look down.

RedyGo: Do it.

I smile and type.

DirtyDozen: LOL I wish.

I look up and notice Deklan messing with his phone again. I watch his fingers fly across the screen, then my phone dings in my hand. I look down, then back to his phone, and back again. My face pales and I feel momentarily lightheaded. No fucking way.

I pick up my phone and type.

DirtyDozen: Where are you?

I look up to see Deklan with a crease in his brow as he types something. His lips are red from the chill temperatures and his slight scruff looks so good.
Why is everything so complicated?
I can’t even handle what’s happening right now. I suddenly feel like I’m outside of my body.

RedyGo: bored. Where are you?

DirtyDozen: Sitting in a café trying to find the words. This can’t be happening.

Deklan leans forward and types under the table. I look at him with my eyes burning. My best friend is this man. I’m 99.9% sure. I put my head down on my arm resting on the table, and read my phone under it like him.

RedyGo: Words for what? Are you losing it again?

DirtyDozen: Do me a huge favor and take a picture of who you’re with right now. Anybody.

RedyGo: WTF? Fine.

When I hear his phone make the camera shutter noise, my control shatters and I’m sobbing into my arm. Deklan asks incredulously, “Ali, what the hell are you doing?”

I hold my phone up and show him the screen with shaking fingers. It’s a picture of me with my head down. You can see my beanie and shoulder is all blue sky and swirly clouds.

“No fucking way,” he says dumbly.

I groan as every conversation about Rolling Bridges I’ve had with Redy crashes through my head. This can’t be happening to me. I’ve raved about new music. I told Redy about the black and white poster size pictures I have in my tattoo parlor of Deklan Thomas, chest bare, showing all of his ink.

“Did you plan this, too?” he asks me.

I roll my forehead back and forth on my arm. Without lifting my head I point out, “You came to me, asshole. You wrote to me first about yoga. You danced with me the first time
and
last night. I didn’t plan shit.”

“You knew who I was when you slept with me.”

I pick my head up and grab napkins to wipe my eyes as I tell him, “Yeah Deklan, and you knew who you were, talking about Rolling Bridges and you fucking
are
Rolling Bridges.” Ugh, I might be sick. “If you would have thought about it, you could seriously have put two and two together and come up with Ali Pierce. You’ve been one of my best friends for years, and you never realized? I get the tickets, Deklan. I told you the band had them for me! You should have known.”

He shakes his head looking devastated. “I just liked talking to someone who wasn’t a crazy fan. Someone who didn’t obsess over me. Someone who treated me normal.” I study him for a long minute and can understand his side. I tell him, caustically, “Even on New Year’s I never treated you like you were anything but normal, so you can lose the attitude.”

He watches me solemnly, then finally nods his head. “You’re right. You did. I apologize.” He searches my face. “But what did you have to talk to me about that would get you up on stage. I know you hated that.”

My breath stutters in my throat, then I laugh a little hysterically, which quickly turns into sobbing. Big gross, snotty, loud sobs that shake the table and the spoon in my tea cup. I’m trying to reconcile the two men in my life at the moment, with how my future is going to be and what my past has been. It's going to take a while and I’m an emotional mess, so it won’t be pretty. Dabbing my eyes, looking everywhere but at the man in front of me, I notice we're drawing attention. I finally move my eyes to the gorgeous guy in front of me, and see him looking warily around the cafe too.

He catches my eyes and orders quietly, “Calm down, I just had a concert tonight and don’t need to get recognized right now. I just want to find out what's going on with you that has you so freaked out. I’m still Redy, as much as this situation is fucking with my head. Talk to me.”

“I’m pregnant!” I wail as my eyes fill with fresh tears, and I hiccup.

Deklan freezes then casts his eyes around the cafe, shoots his chair back and stands up in a rush. He comes across the table and grabs my arm with one hand, and the chair with the other. I have enough sense to snatch napkins up before he pulls the chair out and tugs me up. He walks me fast through the front door. Out on the street, he wraps an arm around my shoulders curling me into his body, slips on Ray Ban sunglasses and ducks his head.

It seems like we walk forever. My head is down, buried in his chest, and I cry for a long time while breathing in his scent. Deklan leads me through turns, but I don’t know where we're going. After about an hour I think I’m all cried out.

He notices and slows to a stop, pulling my chin up. “Okay?" he asks, searching my face.

I shake my head yes then no.

He pulls me back into him with his arm still around my shoulder and simply says, “Ok,” while looking around.

I glance around too, and have no idea where we are. The tower is nowhere to be seen, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. We're in a tiny side street, barely wide enough to fit two cars at the same time. There are buildings on both sides straight off of the cobblestone street.

"Where are we?" I ask nervously.

“No idea," he tells me shortly, then takes off again. Looking for a busier street, I imagine. Finally, after four or five turns, we find an intersection with a light that has a taxi about to pass. Deklan waves it down, opens the door for me and gently pushes me inside. After telling the driver his hotel name he sits back, slouching in the seat, and alternates between watching me and looking out the window. His arm rests on the door, with his fingers rubbing his bottom lip in thought.

I think about my emotional state and how he has a damp spot on his black shirt. I know my face is red and splotchy and my nose is stuffed. By the time we pull up to his hotel, I can feel my eyes swelling. It's a beautiful hotel, but out of the city. Probably so fans don’t find them. Deklan opens the door, then holds a hand out for me. I take it, but he doesn’t let go when I’m out of the car. He curls his fingers in mine and leads me to the round elevator, pressing the button for the top floor. It's only about six stories so it doesn’t take that long, but standing in an elevator with my nose still running, sniffling, I shift my feet uncomfortably. Finally the bell dings and he walks down the hall a bit, stopping at a door and taking out an old iron key. Under other circumstances I would laugh, seeing a rock star pull that huge key out of his pocket instead of a card from his wallet.

Once in the room it’s all warm woods, gold coloring, and soft lighting. The shades are pulled almost all the way down so it's a very intimate, cozy setting. While facing the closet he clears his throat, slips out of his leather jacket and hangs it up. His back muscles are shifting and bulging as he moves, and I struggle not to make a noise in my throat at the sight.

“Have a seat, let’s talk this out,” he suggests.

I look from the couch to the chair by the window, wondering where the best place would be.

He shoulders past me and into the bedroom, “In here.”

My eyes move between him and the bed, then back again. He sees the apprehension on my face and rolls his eyes.

“You’ve been walking around in high heels for over an hour, crying your eyes out and you're pregnant. I don’t know shit about that, so just take your shoes off, climb in the bed, lay down and get warm. It'll make me feel better,” Deklan explains.

That's pretty thoughtful of him, actually. He's so gruff looking I’m not expecting him to act like I know Redy would. It's all so strange.

I get into bed laying on my side, tattooed arm out, holding the covers to my chin, then watch him climb on the bed on top of the covers and lay facing me. His eyes roaming down my arm, he reaches out a hand and traces a cloud, a tree, then a wave. Then, resting his hand on top of mine, he curls his big fingers into my small palm. “So whose kid is it?”

I snatch my hand back and yell in his face, “I swear I’m going to punch you in the head, Deklan Thomas!” He’s smiling at me but doesn’t move to stop me. I lower the fist that made its way up when I was yelling, putting it down and deflating on the bed. “Redy would know that,” I tell him in defeat.

Deklan reaches up to rub his eyes. “Christ, I talked to you after your first time.” He puts his hand back down. “But I didn’t know you hooked up on New Year’s.”

“You knew something was up,” I point out.

His eyes squint in thought, “That’s right. You said you did something stupid. Thanks for that. I thought it was hot as fuck, and was
mightily
disappointed when I woke up to you gone.”

I take a deep breath and gather my thoughts. “Deklan, you didn’t ask my name. I was a hookup. Everything happened so fast, I didn’t even see your face until I was on the
bed
. I just knew that you danced well and smelled good, and you had that dominant thing that I never knew…”  I break off because he’s smiling so big his dimple is showing. I roll my eyes. “Anyway, I didn’t remember the first time, so I thought why not? You
are
clearly experienced. It seemed like a good idea. Then afterward I went to get my dress from under the nightstand, and I saw the condom drip. It was right in front of the clock on the nightstand. Do you remember that?”

He nods his head. “I picked it up in the morning, but I didn’t see it dripping.”

I shrug. “I didn’t know what that meant. I thought broke was like a popped balloon, not a pin hole or something.”

We look at each other, studying one another’s faces for a long time. Finally he remarks, “So that’s why you were so tight.”

I roll my lips in and bite them as I shove his shoulder. He chuckles and holds his hand up to ward me off. His laugh makes my breath catch, and he hears it. His smile slowly fades and he puts his hand back down on the bed. I swallow and look away.

I tell him quietly, “I wasn’t going to keep it at first. I went to the clinic two months ago to get it done, but I couldn’t do it. It seemed so selfish.”

“So you decided to keep it?” he asks neutrally. He is giving me nothing, I have no idea what he’s thinking.

I nod slowly, deciding I need to make my position clear. “I want you to know I don’t need your money. I’m set. I just wanted you to know about the baby. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

He looks me in the eyes and says, “Thank you for keeping it. Have you had any appointments?”

I nod. “Yeah I brought the ultrasound picture just in case you wanted to see it. I leave tomorrow, though.”

He moves his hand to mine and links our pinkies together, studying our hands when he asks, “Can you stay and fly home with me tomorrow night?” When he looks back up, he sees my confusion. “Ali we’re gonna be in each other’s lives for the next eighteen years at least. We need to get to know each other. And there’s the other thing.”

I shake my head, “What other thing?”

He looks down at our hands again and bites his lip with his perfect teeth before looking back up and saying, “The sexual chemistry thingdonthitme.” He says the last part in a rush.

“Aw, is the rock star scared of the little bitty girl?” I ask him in a baby voice.

He shakes his head. “You don’t hit like a girl.”

I tell him smugly, “Kickboxing.”

He looks confused. “What?”

I explain to him “That’s how I lost weight. I went to an MMA/Kickboxing gym six days a week for four years.” He looks at me squinting his eyes, before his face clears and he’s back to smiling. “So you really could kick my ass? That’s pretty hot, actually.”

I shake my head and he says exasperated, “You know it was good, Ali.”

I shoot back, “Yeah but I’m not gonna be your baby momma and hook up whenever you’re in town, then have you jet off with super models or something.” No way in hell.

He gives me a no bullshit look. “Ali, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we work in bed, we worked for a long time as Redy and DD. Let’s just see how it goes as Ali and Dek.”

I jerk my head back and ask skeptically, “You would be willing to be monogamous?”

His answer is immediate. “Yeah, with you. I don’t do girlfriends. You should know that. I’ve never been seen with anybody, ever. But we’re gonna have a baby. Shit, that doesn’t seem real yet. But we are, and I don’t want to hide that. I’m not ashamed to have a kid.”

I lay back and let my mind spin. Okay, so the father does want to be involved. It sounds like a lot involved, as in, try to be with me. That would certainly help with him ruining me for other guys.
But could he stay with just one girl when he’s used to flitting around from skirt to skirt?
I just don’t know. I think I owe it to this baby to try to make a family.
And what if my dream guy turns out to be Deklan and his one is me?
Wait a minute.

“You said that you believed you would know the one when you found her. You’ve known me for years platonically, and once four months ago physically. You should know by now right?”

He rolls onto his side and rests his head on his hand. “Ali, when I said I have never been in a relationship and that I was tired of first dates, it’s because I’ve never wanted to go back for seconds. If I slept with someone that was it.”

I interrupt him. “That’s why I left that night, well both nights actually. I knew it was just a hookup. I never expected anything else.”

“Then you should see the significance of me approaching you last night, and before that, wanting to do you again when I woke up that morning. I certainly did after you left me at the bar. In fact I knew it before then, when I realized I didn’t even get your name. Speaking of that why did you tell me your name was Alaina?”