Love on the Rocks (Love on Tour #1) (18 page)

“Answer the question.”

“No, I won’t freak out.”

“And,” he continues, leaning closer to me and resting a hand on my thigh. “If I tell you that I love you and that you are the most beautiful woman in the world will you believe me?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling a little out of breath.

“Okay, come here.”

I climb onto his lap and kiss him with a wild fury. As I do tears stream down my face. I am still wearing my uniform and Sean slowly unbuttons it. I am in more of a hurry. I rip my shirt off and my bra follows. Then I unbutton Sean’s pants. I move further back, so I can pull them down without him having to get up. He helps me, and we manage to get them to his knees. Then I jump off the bed. Frantically, I get out of my boots, ignore my socks, and whip off my pants and underwear. I crawl back onto Sean’s lap.

But he stops me from getting to where I really want to be. Frustrated, I reach my hands out, but he grabs ahold of them and keeps them at my sides.

“We have to settle a few things first,” he says, out of breath.

“You must be kidding,” I tell him, as I look down pointedly, reminding him that he is in just as bad shape as I am right now.

“I have amazing willpower Baby, haven’t you noticed? I’ve been in rock n’ roll bands since I was 16 and I’ve never done hard drugs. I’ve had groupies throw themselves at me every night for the last ten years and I can still name every woman I’ve been with. Until recently, I never in my life had sex without a condom. And right now, this, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever faced.”

I laugh at his pun. He grins.

“But we’re going to hammer a few things out before we, well, hammer things out. I need you to promise me that you’ll come back to my place with me this weekend.”

“Isn’t it like a five hour drive?”

“Yeah. But we’ll ride back here on a plane.”

“A plane, to where?”

“Tonopah.”

“You know that’s gonna be a little plane, right.”

“And that’s how much I love you, now focus,” he chides. “Are you coming to Malibu or not?”

“Yes.”

“And I can come back with you next week?”

“What about your photo shoot?” I ask, hoping that I’m calling him on a bluff.

“I lied. That’s not till next month. Next promise, do you promise that you will talk to me about all the things in our relationship that scare you?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“And,” he continues.

I sigh. “This is taking a very long time.”

“Will you promise to let me buy you a new trailer, with a great big bed?”

“I’m not sure such a thing exists, but yes.”

“Okay,” he says, releasing my hands.

“Maybe I want some promises, too.” I say, placing my freed hands on his chest.

“Shoot.”

“Do you promise to be patient with me when I feel insecure?”

“Yes. And I’ll remind you of all the reasons why you shouldn’t be.”

“Do you promise not to talk to my mom more than once a week on the phone?”

“Hmm, I guess.”

“Do promise never to buy me a diamond, fur coat, or Cadillac?”

“Can I buy you a new pick-up truck?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes, I promise.”

I kiss him. “I love you, Sean.”

EPLIOGUE

I watch her pull off her headphones and slink over to him. She looks like a snake about to strike.

“Maybe we should take a break and get in the mood for this song,” she coos.

I am in the control room at the music studio, watching Sean record a new song. He wrote it the morning after we christened my new trailer in Death Valley last summer. The song is hot and sexy. And so is Kimmie Blank, the up and coming star Sean has tapped to do the secondary vocals. She’s young, beautiful, full of herself, and she’s getting on my nerves.

But I don’t have the same self-esteem issues I did seven months ago when I left Sean in Baltimore. So I am not threatened by this girl. However, I don’t like her touching what’s mine.

It’s like slow motion, I see her reach her little claw out and place it on Sean’s knee, then she moves it upward. The bright blue fingernail on her middle finger slides past the hem of his shorts and disappears. I move.

By the time I make it into the studio Sean has already removed her hand and is standing up. He doesn’t look alarmed when he sees me. He knows I trust him. In fact, he looks a little amused.

“Maybe you’re right, Kimmie,” he says. “This is a very hot song. I do need inspiration. And here she comes.” He gestures toward me with his chin.

“We should really be working,” she has the nerve to say, looking annoyed.

“Is that what you were doing?” I ask her.

She rolls her eyes, but before I can properly give her a piece of my mind, Sean pulls me out of the room, across the hall, and into Julie’s office. Julie is in the control room right now, so her office is quiet and dark.

Sean shuts the door and pushes me up against the wall. “You are so hot when you’re overprotective,” he breathes. Then he starts kissing me.

By the time he has my bra undone and has moved to kissing the length of my neck, I regain my senses. “You should probably go back,” I say reluctantly.

“Hmmm, maybe I should just call it a day and we should go home to our blue sheets,” he mumbles against my jaw.

“Can’t. Mrs. Martin has a crew in today. They’re redecorating the hot tub room,” I say between kisses.

It’s really a covered and screened in porch, as opposed to a real room. It contains the hot tub and a small bar. But it has been poorly decorated. Like with the black sheets, the otherwise reasonable designer had gone overboard. The biggest issue was the mirrored ceiling. That is being ripped out first. But I am also pretty unhappy with the red velvet tieback curtains. In essence, Mrs. Martin is de-brothel-izing it, so I can actually use it without feeling like I’m in a David Lynch movie.

Sean pulls back and rests his forehead against mine. “Okay. I need a minute, though.”

“Did I tell you that I talked to Juan today?”

I can feel Sean reach behind me to put my bra back in order.

“Oh yeah?”

“He’s going to have me make an audition tape next week.”

Juan and Julie had both been trying to get me to come into the studio to record. They felt that my voice and my storytelling style lent itself to the audio book format. They were sure that if they could record a sample, they could get publishers to use me, and of course, their studio. I thought it would be fun, but was skeptical that I’d be any good at it. Sean disagreed. He was sure I’d be the next Peter Coyote.

“That’s great,” he says. He kisses my nose and stands up straight. “This isn’t working. You’re too close. I’m just gonna walk back slowly.”

“Okay, I have a lunch date, anyway. Henry should be here any minute to pick me up.”

As if I’d conjured him, I hear Henry in the hall. “Hey there. Ooooh, Kimmie. Looking good, girl.”

Sean rolls his eyes and releases me. “Okay, your idiot awaits.”

****

Henry takes me to this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant just around corner from the studio. It has quickly become my favorite place to eat. The food is okay, the service pretty abysmal, but Sean and Henry are always left alone, and the pie is fantastic.

We are sitting outside in the little private porch area in the back of the restaurant. I’m eyeing the brown paper bag Henry brought with him. It’s lying on the table between us waiting to be opened like Pandora’s box.

“So, you brought it.”

“Yep. But are you sure about this?”

“Henry, it’s just a photo,” I say, for the umpteenth time.

I am insisting that it be Henry, not Sean, who shows me the magazine cover for the first time. I am not at all sure what my reaction will be, and I don’t want Sean to be there for it.

Henry is stalling. “I got it from Mike this morning.”

It works, and I’m distracted. I look at my watch. “Shouldn’t he be on a plane by now.”

Mike was taking a well-deserved vacation.

“He dropped it off on the way to the airport. Grey was with him,” Henry says with a scowl.

Sean and Henry are both against Mike’s new relationship. And they don’t think Mike should be taking a trip to Europe with his boyfriend of just six weeks.

“I don’t know what your problem is,” I say. “I like Grey.”

Henry crosses his arms over his chest, looking very much like big brother. “He’s too old.”

“Mike is exactly the same age as me and Grey is exactly the same age as you,” I point out. “It’s not that bad.”

“We’re not dating,” Henry says. “Besides, he’s one of these rich, worldly guys. Not Mike’s style.”

This was something Sean had brought up before, too. Grey is a Hollywood producer who comes from a wealthy family, and both Sean and Henry argue that he and his friends will treat Mike badly or take advantage of him.

“Oh, well, you didn’t seem to object when little old me started dating a rock star,” I say. “And took off on a cross country trip with him.”

“That’s different,” Henry says.

But I know I’ve won the argument and I turn my attention back to the brown paper bag.

“Okay.” Henry pulls the magazine out of the bag. “Here it is.”

The cover is, quite frankly, beautiful, stunning, and artistic. Sean sits in the center. To his left are two women, mostly naked, their bodies painted. They are bent over so that together they form a piano. To his right are three more women, also painted and standing together in a contorted way to form a set of drums. On his lap is one woman. Like the others she is mostly naked. A set of pasties on her nipples and a thin strip of fabric across her crotch are all she wears. She is painted as a guitar. She’s draped across him, his hand on her stomach. It’s a great picture.

“I love it!”

“Yeah?” Henry looks relieved.

“Yes. Did you read the article yet?”

“No. Not yet. But I did look at the cover. I don’t get the piano. Sean doesn’t use a piano.”

“It’s art, Henry.”

I roll my eyes at him before turning my attention back to the magazine. I flip through the pages looking for the article. It had been written from a series of interviews Sean did over the course of the summer. I wasn’t there for any of them, but he gave me a rundown afterward. As a result I know that I was mentioned during the interviews.

I find the article and read through it while Henry orders lunch for us both. It talks about Sean’s talent, his start in the business, his current musical leanings – the usual. Then it talks about touring, Henry, and finally, meeting me.

It was during this last tour that Sean’s life changed for the better. Somewhere on a lonely highway in Nevada he met an unassuming park ranger named Dani Roberts. She is not famous, glamorous, or rich. But, according to Sean, she is his soul mate.

There’s been a lot of curiosity about their relationship. Sean is one of the great catches in the rock world. Good-looking, talented, and reportedly drug-free, he’s been known to date some of L.A.’s most desirable models. But he appears to have been taken off the market completely by a Bay Area naturalist.

So I asked him about the future. Does he see wedding bells? His answer was, unequivocally, yes.

I quit reading at this point. My mouth drops open and I let out a little gasp.

“You okay, Baby?” Henry asks.

I look up at him, but his attention is not on me anymore. He is looking over my shoulder now. I turn around to see Sean stepping over the low fencing of the porch. He approaches our table.

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, Hank. You had to show her the magazine,” he says, shaking his head.

“Baby insisted,” Henry says. “I swear.” He holds his hands up in defense.

Sean reaches my chair and turns it around, so that I am facing him.

“You want to marry me?” I ask, stunned.

“Is that such a surprise?”

I don’t really know how to answer that, so I deflect. “What would my name be?”

Sean chuckles. “That is entirely up to you.”

He reaches into his front pants pocket and pulls out a small box, a ring box. Then he kneels down in front of me so that we are eye to eye.

“Is that my ring?”

“You are full of questions today, aren’t you Baby?”

Henry has been extremely quiet. I turn to look at him to make sure he’s still alive. He’s sitting there, with a shit-eating grin on his face. I should have known.

I turn back to Sean. “Okay, but is it?”

“Yes. No diamond, I promise. Wanna see it?”

I nod. Sean pops the box open. The ring is perfect. It’s made from titanium, and in the center, where the diamond would usually be, is a beautifully carved tree.

“I love it. Can I have it?”

“That depends. Will you marry me?”

“Of course.”

THE END

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