Color Me Crazy (26 page)

“Does that turn you on, baby?”

She couldn’t say anything, but Julian saw the answer in her eyes and smiled.
Yes, she was naughty.
The only sounds were their bodies slamming together, the idling bus engine, and people talking. She couldn’t cry out, but small mewling sounds escaped through Julian’s fingers. He slammed into her even harder, shooting her up the crest until she broke over the top. She rode it, shaking all over and grabbing handfuls of Julian’s hair.

“Oh, God, sweet baby,” Julian said. “It’s too good.” He buried himself deep inside her, stilled, and then groaned loudly, calling out her name. Twice. Maybe three times. The last exclamation was closer to a sob of release, it was hard to tell.

“Good grief, Julian. So much for being discreet.” She waited for her face to burn with its usual intensity, but it never lit up. If anything, she felt a bit…smug. And satisfied. She’d just had Julian Lazros on a bus. And it was dang good.

A few moments later, they stepped into the narrow corridor for the walk of shame. Cleo kept her eyes stuck to her boots and followed Julian out. If there were any obnoxious glances or knowing smiles, she didn’t see them. And Julian didn’t stop to collect accolades. They went down the steps, and she emerged from the bus sans panties and freshly fucked by a rock star.
Groupie fantasy fulfilled.

The five-minute warning they’d been issued by the road manager had been optimistic. It was closer to an hour before the band was finally ready to board, and most of the people who’d come to see them off had left.

“Let’s go!” the huge, bald road manager finally barked. “Our British stud over there has loudly christened this bus Cleo, so let’s get the show on the road.”

Applause broke out among the crew, along with whistles and catcalls, and Cleo’s face exploded in flames—apparently a delayed reaction. Julian wouldn’t look her in the eye until the commotion died down.

“Sorry,” he said, with a sheepish grin and a small shrug of his shoulders. She looked, but no cartoonish halo popped up over his head.
More like horns.

People started boarding the bus, but Julian hung back, turning to Cleo and taking her hands in his. “You be a good girl while I’m gone.”

“I’ll miss you,” she said, blinking furiously. Because if the first tear managed to escape, the rest would follow in a torrential downpour.

He kissed her on the nose. “I’ll miss you, too.”

“Don’t forget to do your biofeedback program.”

“I won’t.” He cupped her face with his hands. “Good-bye, sweetheart. I’ll call you every night.” He bent to kiss her.

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

Julian hesitated briefly, and uncertainty flashed in his eyes. Did he not believe her? “I’ll be back before you know it,” he said. Then his lips brushed hers, and he was gone.

...

The lights shone in Julian’s eyes. He’d just finished a sonata and was braced for the applause with his violin resting on his shoulder. He fought the urge to hide behind Klaus Vanderburg, his accompanist. It would be lovely to crawl beneath the piano and squeeze himself right between Klaus’s feet.

The applause hit him hard, like a barrage of golden arrows chinking away at his protective armor. Soon, he couldn’t see anything for the arrows.

“Bow, Julian,” Klaus said. So he did, quickly, then fled the thunderous sound. He hoped to find a small place in which to hide backstage, but his teacher caught him by the sleeve.

“Go back out, you silly boy. They love you. Go back out!” He peeked around the curtain and saw his mum in the front row. She clapped furiously. He took a couple of timid steps before his teacher’s hand shoved him harshly onto the stage.

“Mummy loves you,” she called. “Bravo, Julian!”

“Julian. Dude, wake up, man.” Julian opened his eyes, not to an adoring crowd, but to Cory. “We’ve stopped. Want to get out and stretch your legs?”

Disoriented, Julian glanced at the drool stain he’d left on the lounge chair. “Stop poking me, you moron. I don’t want off.”

“Suit yourself. We’ve been on the road over twelve hours. Thought you might want to get some junk food. You want me to bring you something?”

Julian shook his head. Why was Cory always trying to get chummy? And why was he on this bus anyway? He had one all to himself, but he insisted on riding with the rest of the band for the first day. Idiot singers. Everyone had to love them, or they couldn’t be happy.

Cory shrugged and walked off. Julian peered through the window at his bandmates milling about outside. He could already see the various situations brewing. Dean and Gus were sneaky bastards, and it would be a week—two, tops—before they’d be making everyone miserable with drug- and media-related problems. Cory, of course, was a typical front man, an egotistical attention hog who expected special treatment, which he was already getting. On top of that, Sheik, the professional linebacker turned road manager, seemed to hate his guts for no reason at all and had taken to calling him Princess. Since Sheik outweighed Julian by well over a hundred pounds, Julian wasn’t in a position to complain about it.

He sighed and rolled away from the window and pulled his beanie over his face. At least he had the bunk sex with Cleo to play over and over in his mind. He closed his eyes and grinned.
She loved being a bad girl. So fucking cute.

…

Cleo dabbed concealer beneath her eyes and held the mirror as far away as possible. If she did that while squinting, she didn’t look so bad. Late-night recording sessions combined with writing assignments and interviews made for a very sleep-deprived girl.

“Oh my God, would you stop?” Addie drained the last of the fancy mango margarita Cleo had made for their girls’ night in. “You look fine. And it’s just Julian, anyway.”

“She looks awful,” Sherry said. “Keep piling it on, Cleo.”

“Thanks,” Cleo said. “And you’re one to talk, Addie. You iron your underwear before you see Mitch.”

“You’re just going to Skype with him. He won’t even be able to tell if you’re wearing makeup. Or underwear.”

Sherry dribbled a bit of guacamole on a nacho and topped it off with a slice of pickled jalapeno. “I’m sure they only talk about the weather. And the webcams never drift below the neck.”

“Stop it,” Addie said. “Let’s change the subject to how he’s doing with his biofeedback.”

Cleo applied some powder to her nose and sneezed. “Dang,” she said. A peek in the mirror confirmed she’d smashed mascara tracks into her eyelids and upper cheeks. She rubbed, smearing the whole mess.

Sherry handed her a tissue. “That’s a great look for you. Kind of sexy.”

Cleo peeled her eyelids apart. Should she clean it all off and start over? Or just smear on some more concealer?

“You’re now officially beyond concealer,” Sherry said, reading her mind.

Cleo sighed and grabbed the bottle of makeup remover. She still hadn’t answered Addie’s question. “You know what? He’s doing amazingly well. The biofeedback has really helped. Four weeks on the road, and no episodes at all.”

Addie smiled and shook her head. “What a relief.” Her brow furrowed though. “I still don’t understand why he’s on the road with Dead Ringer in the first place. He hates the spotlight. And he loves Soundbox. It’s so weird how he suddenly decided to be a performer again.”

Cleo didn’t get it, either. “I know. But he seems happy. Maybe he only hated performing because of the synesthesia episodes. He’s a natural star, after all.” But the loft was lonely—an entire month without him—and the studio was missing the special spark only he could bring to recording sessions.

She finished cleaning her face. Julian would be calling any minute. No time to begin another attempt at makeup. Well, maybe some light blush… She grabbed a brush. “The concert should be over by now,” she said.

“Bus or hotel tonight?” Addie asked.

“Bus. They have another show tomorrow.”

Sherry stood and collected food and dishes off the coffee table. “We can take a hint. Nobody wants to be here for your cybersex session.”

In the mirror, Cleo watched her cheeks turn pink. It made it hard to apply blush. “We’re not going to have cybersex. Good grief, where do you come up with this stuff?”

They were totally going to have cybersex, and her two buddies needed to head on down the road. She zipped up her small makeup bag.

Addie helped put the dirty dishes in the sink. “Don’t tell him we ate food on his couch. He’ll blow a gasket.”

Cleo laughed. “Believe it or not, he’s loosened up a little. Living with me will do that to a person.”

“He probably hasn’t loosened up, he’s just given up,” Sherry said, glancing around the loft. “Do you keep any of your shoes in the closet?”

The laptop chimed.
Call coming in.

Without being told, Sherry and Addie headed out the door. “Tell him I love him,” Addie said. “And make sure he’s doing all right.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Cleo said, closing the door. She ran to her laptop and answered the call. Julian’s face filled her screen. He smiled immediately.

“Hi, gorgeous.”

Ha! Hardly. “Your screen must be dirty.”

“No, it’s not. But speaking of dirty, I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

He was in his tiny bunk on the bus, lying down, and it looked like the laptop was resting on his chest. “I can see up your nostrils.”

“And this is why we agreed to leave the dirty talking to me, remember?”

She laughed. “No after-party tonight?”

“No, thank God. We’ll be driving all night.”

“Have you done your biofeedback?”

“Twice today. And I’ll do it again before I go to sleep. It’s working great. Gets easier and easier each time. What are you wearing under that T-shirt?”

“Your favorite.”

“The lacy pink one?”

She frowned. “That’s your favorite? I’m wearing the black one.”

“They’re all my favorite. Take off your shirt.”

He was always so worked up after concerts. The performing really seemed to turn him on.

“Lots of girls at tonight’s show?”

“The usual, I guess. Now come on, love.” He grinned, winked, and edged even closer to the screen. “Show me your tits.”

“Don’t rock stars ever get tired of saying that?”

“That’s Cory’s line, not mine. And it takes all my concentration to play guitar and handle the noise. Yours will be the first pair I’ve drooled over tonight. I promise.”

According to online buzz about Dead Ringer’s concert tour, Julian and Cory were the band’s crowd-pleasers as far as the fans were concerned. But no incriminating photos had popped up of Julian. She couldn’t say the same for Cory—not that she’d been searching specifically for that type of thing. Much. “You’re going to drool?”

“Stop stalling.”

“What are you going to show me in return?”

“You’ve been leering up my nostrils for five solid minutes. How about a belly button next? Or my big toe?”

“If you can get your big toe in front of the camera in that bunk, then we seriously have some new positions to try when you get home.”

He laughed, and his nostrils quivered like a rabbit’s. Not exactly a turn-on, but still adorable. Her heart melted. The screen was so inadequate. She wanted to hold him and smell him and…heck, anything. And everything. She missed eating together, working together, hanging out in all their favorite haunts together.

Julian stopped laughing and sighed. “I don’t know when I’ll be home next. The schedule is being rearranged a little. In the meantime, why don’t you come see me?”

That sounded awesome. She’d never seen Julian strut his stuff live, and a trip would be fun. “I’ll have to look at what’s on the calendar for Soundbox. But after this month, I think things are pretty clear. I’ll see what I can arrange and let you know.”

“Baby, you know you can surprise me, right? I love surprises. I mean, what I’m saying is, I don’t need any kind of advance notice.” He stared directly into the screen. No mention of Lou Michaels was necessary. Message received, loud and clear. And the fact that she knew he
hated
surprises of any kind made it all the sweeter.

“Do you know what I’d do if I was on the front row watching you wail on that nasty Les Paul right now?”

“No. What?”

“This.”

The shirt came off.

…

Julian stretched after a run through the French Quarter. Sweat dripped into his eyes, despite the bandanna he’d wrapped around his forehead. New Orleans was humid as fuck, even in the mild winter temperatures. But the run had been worth it.

He grabbed his foot and held it behind his thigh, standing on one leg just outside the hotel’s lobby. Holy hell, that felt good. His heart pounded, but everything else was cooling down. He still floated on the small high running gave him, and a melody ran like a soundtrack in his head—one he hoped to write down as soon as he finished his biofeedback. He dropped his foot and grabbed the other one. He hadn’t skipped a single biofeedback session on tour. Dr. Hamilton had warned him that his brain would revert back to old habits if he failed to strengthen and reinforce the new neural pathways. The program had made a huge difference in Julian’s life, and the next time he saw Dr. Hamilton he’d kiss the little fucker on the mouth.

At first, Julian hadn’t been able to tell if the program did shit. But every morning and night, he dutifully stuck the headphones on, along with the gadget that tracked his eye movement, and sorted sounds and colors on the screen while performing increasingly complex mental tasks. It was frustrating. As soon as he concentrated on a mental task, the colors and sounds went to shit, and eventually he had to give up the task to get everything else back in order. But after a few weeks, he noticed he could focus on the mental tasks longer before losing control of the colors and sounds. Now he concentrated almost exclusively on the mental tasks, while the colors and sounds seemed to take care of themselves. According to Dr. Hamilton, he was sorting them subconsciously.

On his runs, he still saw sounds the way he always had, but he didn’t have to
do
anything about them. The colors all stayed where they belonged like good little puppies. With his mind freed up, he ran scores through his head like a movie soundtrack. On a good run, he could write an entire song.