Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (21 page)

I was going to have him forever. I had no doubt
in my mind about that.

He gave me a great big hug when he
turned to face me, and I felt myself dissolve into his strong chest
that was now covered by a DIB t-shirt not unlike what Tawnie and I
wore.

“Thank you for the song,” I
said.

“Which one?” he asked.

I just laughed. So he couldn’t show the world
yet it was for me. That was okay.

I held up my CD that had his autograph saying,
“Make it Happen.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, as if he suddenly
remembered. “Absolutely. Words to live by,” he winked and gave me
another hug.

Tawnie, who wasn’t quite as generous as I was,
leaned in with her hand on his shoulder. “So what do you guys have
planned after the show? There’s a really nice bar by my house if
you want to check it out.”

“That’s so sweet but we have to make
an early night of it. I have to preserve my voice. We still have
two more shows to do. Are you ladies going to be there?” he asked,
as if he really wanted us to say yes. We both nodded our
enthusiastic response.

I couldn’t afford a meet and greet for those
shows, but we would definitely be there.

And I knew that each time he sang
his new song, he would be thinking of me.

San Francisco, February 2009

~Andy~

I still felt like hell when I got to the hotel
overlooking the Bay in San Francisco. Valentine’s Day had filled
the air but I felt anything other than romantic. Around mid-January
I came down with the worst flu of my life, which prevented me from
flying to Seattle for the DIB tour kickoff. So Vanni and I
rescheduled for San Francisco, but I still hadn’t fully recovered –
and I didn’t know how to break it to him I may have to stay in my
own hotel room just to keep him safe from my germs.

He pouted enough when I couldn’t make it to
Seattle.

But it was beyond me. I lay on the bed trying
not to run to the bathroom and vomit, glad that the guys wouldn’t
even be in town for another couple of hours. I wanted to reach over
and order room service but I was too weak to even do
that.

I must be in love to put myself through this
misery, I thought with a grin, before I nodded off to
sleep.

A few hours later there was a knock at my door,
which roused me again but I felt worse than ever.

I drug myself up to a sitting
position and counted to ten before I attempted to rise and head
over to the door.

It could only be one person, and I
wasn’t especially excited about his seeing me in this crappy state.
Vanni grew immediately concerned the minute he saw my pallor. “Aw,
babe,” he said as he gathered me into his arms. With his help I
tried to go back to the bed but my stomach had other
plans.

I ran to the bathroom and slammed the door
between us before he witnessed a final humiliation.

I emerged ten minutes later, positively green.
“Andy, baby,” he said as he helped me to the bed. “I had no idea
you were so sick. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did,” I croaked as I leaned against his
shoulder. “You pouted.”

He laughed as he leaned in for his trademark
kiss on my nose. “That will teach you to give in to me when I
pout.”

He laid me back on the bed and cuddled me in
his arms. I let out a contented sigh. I had so longed for this the
last couple of weeks when I went in and out of flu hell all by
myself at my empty house.

It had never seemed empty before he stayed
there, but now, without him, it was vacant and sad. Even Simon was
depressed.

“I guess lunch with the guys is out,” he
remarked as he smoothed my hair. I tried not to gag in response.
“Are you going to be able to go to the show?”

“I don’t know,” I told him
honestly.

“Maybe just as well,” he said.
“We’re still working out the kinks with the dancing girls and the
audience participation. Plus we’ve added a piano. It’s good so far
but, not as smooth as I want yet. So if you want to just hang out
here and sleep, I’m totally okay with that. No pout,” he
assured.

And then pouted.

I laughed as I hugged him close.
Normally I would have kissed him, and ravaged him the minute he
walked through the door, but my body was definitely not my friend
these days.

I decided to go ahead and stay at
the hotel room instead of go to the first show. I slept deep and
hard, like I had been doing for at least a week. I didn’t even
notice when Vanni came in at 1:00 a.m., got undressed and cuddled
next to me.

Just feeling the warmth of his body pressed up
against mine was comforting. So even though I hovered in and out of
misery I was glad I came.

By the next morning I even felt strong enough
to eat.

We lay in bed and cuddled through the morning,
and by lunch, when breakfast had proven a success, he decided to
take me out of the room for some fresh air and sunshine.

We went to Chinatown, and even
though I felt weak I was able to enjoy our stroll out in the crisp
air. I took a backseat to some fans who had recognized him, and we
ultimately had to grab a cab and go back to the hotel for any
privacy, but the outing had proven successful enough I was able to
join the band later on that afternoon.

There I met the aforementioned dancing girls.
Katrina Daley, or Kat, was from Hollywood, and had the alternative
look to prove it. She was a pixie of a girl, standing roughly
around 5’ and weighing less than 100 pounds. She had long black
hair with purple highlights and about 15 tattoos that I could
see.

Wenonah Geddes was from Vegas and had a long,
lithe body and sharp, high cheekbones she no doubt inherited from
her Native American ancestors. Her hair was black and straight, and
fell all the way to her pert backside.

She too had tribal ink and a toned belly with a
pierced belly button.

They were already really familiar with the
band, and Felix had a helluva time teasing them mercilessly,
something he used to do with me. I noticed that Vanni was flirty
too, but after I saw the concert I immediately understood why. They
had to pull off heat and chemistry, and when I watched them I
totally bought that they were part of his growing harem.

The best part of the concert was of course
where he played my song. It made me so happy to hear him sing it
that it didn’t even bother me much he sang it to the entire front
row. He was still way too familiar with the fans after the show for
my liking, but if truth be told it wasn’t just the danger aspect
that bothered me.

These girls were healthy, young and sometimes
even really beautiful. He’d have to be a corpse not to respond to
that. I already knew my Vanni worshipped the female form, no matter
big, tall, short, small, thin or thick. And all his female fans, no
matter what shape they happened to come in, appreciated him more
for it.

There were still the limitations in place to
consider. In all his declarations of love, he never once promised
exclusivity. In fact, my song even spells out that the promise is
only good for the moment.

What about those moments when we’re not
together?

Thinking about it just made me feel
sick again. So instead I just waited for him to finish with his
fans and covertly followed him back to the hotel.

Because I had done so well all night, Vanni
brought out his amorous side the minute we closed the hotel door.
Though I still felt fairly icky, I wasn’t going to let that ruin
some of the precious minutes we got to share.

However my enthusiasm was decidedly curbed, and
after a few minutes it was clear things weren’t going to happen. I
knew as we drifted off to sleep he wasn’t that happy about it. He
still held me close, his little Andy Bear, and we simply agreed to
try again in the morning.

I woke to his hands roaming over my naked
curves, and this time I was determined to make up for lost time. I
threw myself into the endeavor with vigor, which ended up in a
robust tussle that even left him drained.

We decided to go out for breakfast, but our
enthusiastic morning exercise took more out of me than I thought. I
fell into a dead faint waiting in line for the
restaurant.

They rushed me to the hospital, and Vanni
stayed by my side, far more concerned about me than being seen with
me and having our relationship ‘outed.’

He refused to leave me even in the emergency
room, and held my hand as he sat close by while we waited to be
seen by a doctor.

He bathed my face with a cold cloth and
murmured to me to ease my mind even though I could easily tell he
was worried sick, and probably even a little but guilty that I made
the trip when I clearly wasn’t healthy enough to do so.

The doctor came in, a young intern he greeted
us with a standard smile and, “How’s it going?” which I always
found to be rather ridiculous. “I’m great, doc. That’s why I’m in
the ER.”

He came over and did some perfunctory
examinations. He asked when I had eaten last and how long I’d been
ill, what my symptoms were. “When was your last menstrual
period?”

That standard question gave me pause. For the
first time in my life I couldn’t quite remember. It dawned on me
that I should have had one around mid-January, but I was so sick I
hadn’t even given it much thought. “Mid-December I guess. It’s been
a while.”

He nodded. “Is there a chance you might be
pregnant?”

I glanced over at Vanni, who had gone as white
as a sheet. Both of us remembered that first condom-less night
where we threw caution somewhat to the wind. “I… I don’t know. I
guess so. I mean, I take birth control…”

“It’s not always 100% effective preventing
pregnancy,” he reminded.

No shit, Sherlock, I thought to myself. But
could it really be possible we slipped through that very tiny
window of possibility having sex just once, or … several times…
without a condom?

“I’ll run some tests,” he said,
filling in the gap of my uneasy silence. He patted me on the leg
and left us alone to consider this very real
probability.

For a long moment, though, Vanni and
I didn’t say anything. Finally I said, “The chances are very small
that I could have gotten pregnant.” I didn’t know who I was trying
to make feel better about that little factoid, me or
him.

He just nodded and kept holding my hand, but I
could tell his mind was racing. I knew that, because mine was
racing.

What in the hell would I do if I got pregnant?
To me children were what you had after you were in a long term
relationship, married even, older, more financially sound…or
someone else entirely.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have children;
I just thought I would get to grow up first myself before I had to
think about it.

And before Vanni there was not a whole lot of
opportunity to get pregnant. Since I met him, we had been on a sex
marathon. With millions of sperm per ejaculation, those few days he
was at my house enough troops were deployed to start a whole other
country.

It only took one to find its way to an egg to
start a new human.

A new human, I thought with a start. One that
was half me and half Vanni.

Oddly as scared as I was the idea strongly
resonated with me. I knew almost instantly that if that test did
show a positive result, whether I had his help or not, I would have
kept it. Maybe I wasn’t ready right that second but I still had
nine months to prepare. I had a house. I had a flexible career.
Thanks to the work I did with Jasper and DIB I even had a small
savings that gave me some breathing room. It certainly wasn’t
outside the realm of possibility to have a child at 26, and I was
probably in better shape than millions of other women just learning
they were expectant mothers.

But as I watched the emotions storm across his
face I suddenly suspected he was not as confident about the
idea.

“Vanni,” I started, “This doesn’t change
anything. If that test shows positive I won’t expect anything from
you. It’s my choice. My responsibility.”

He glared at me. “How can you say that to me?
Do you really think I’d run out on a kid?”

This was the first time he’d even remotely
become cross with me. I shrank back against the gurney, and he was
instantly remorseful. “I’m sorry, Andy. I’m just… I wasn’t
expecting this.”

“Me either,” I said.

He brought my hand up to his mouth for a kiss.
“I know.” He sighed as he reached over and brushed the hair out of
my face. “No matter what you decide, I’m in this. Okay?”

I nodded and started to cry. God, I
must be pregnant. I couldn’t eat. I slept all the time and I had
turned into an emotional marshmallow. He immediately scooted onto
the gurney and held me as I sobbed.

I expected him to run out the door the minute
it opened and the nurse came in.

He stayed, though. Through the blood tests and
the agonizing wait that followed. Vanni was quiet, likely taking
the approach that until there was something to worry about it was
needless to consider the possibilities. So I kept my frenzied
thoughts about how to rearrange my life to fit a baby into it to
myself. My tiny house had a second bedroom, one that I basically
used as an office. I could move the desk out and make it an
official nursery. But then again, I might just want to keep the
baby in the bedroom with me.