European Tour (Rocking the Pop Star Book 1) (11 page)

I’d been sixteen when I heard the news accounts of The Savages imploding. The backup singer died of a drug overdose and the frontman had fallen off the planet.

I smile, scoffing. “Come on, D.J., you don’t really think Savage Saban’s ghost was on stage tonight, do you? I mean, I would’ve been flattered if he had taken the stage with Pit Viper and my band. We would’ve blown the roof off this venue tonight. Maybe someday we’ll all collaborate.”

“From your mouth to the guitar god’s ears.”

The interview wraps. I walk straight over to Brody. “So, are you him?” I ask quietly through clenched teeth so no one milling around can overhear.

Brody doesn’t quail under my glare. “Yes,” he says softly.

“I’m not sure yet how I feel about this, but I’d like to have found out from you and not from some mysterious fluke happening onstage without my knowledge.”

He keeps up with me as I walk away.

“Sky, I was going to tell you at the end of the tour, remember? I had no idea this was going to happen, or I would’ve told you today.”

I stop to take a deep breath. He did warn me. Several times. It’s practically unfair for me to be mad, but we
so
need to hash this out. Everything that this revelation could mean to my career has to be explored—good bad, or indifferent. “Let’s just get through these interviews, okay?”

“You’re right, this isn’t the time or place to discuss it,” he agrees.

We walk the few yards to the next interview and plaster on smiles that probably neither of us really mean right now.

Malik is waiting for us just outside the venue’s back door to help us get to the limo.

A few fans are lining the narrow walkway on either side of the exit, having somehow scored the opportunity to see the stars off as they leave.

I put on my smile again and wave.

Brody hands me a Sharpie marker. I sign everything the fans hold out for me to autograph, moving toward the limo as I do.

I’m avoiding a conversation I know we need to have, prolonging the inevitable.

Brody follows dutifully behind me and Malik blazes a trail for us as he always does.

Pit Viper exits the venue, calling out to me, “Skylar!”

We’re almost to the limo. Close, and yet so far. I sigh.

He pushes through the crowd, refusing to sign any autographs.

Brody hurriedly ducks me into the car, but can’t get the door closed. Pit Viper catches up.

“What do you want?” Brody spits to him. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“Just move your ass over and let me into the car. I’m still your elder…
Saban
.”

What? Seems as if everybody knew who my boyfriend really was, except me.

We form a nice little celebrity trifecta on the facing bench seats.  Pit Viper speaks first.

“I heard what happened on the screen the same way you guys did, during an interview with D.J.”

“So, we’re supposed to believe you didn’t do that to get back at me somehow?” Brody asks.

“Son, I have no hard feelings against you. You were a sick fuck when I first met you. I’m just glad to see you healthy again.”

“Then who’s behind this? Are we to believe you played the solo, but didn’t have the engineer put my name on the screen?”

“That’s right. I played the solo given to me by your mother, Sky. She sent me the audio via email before I flew out here. She said it was a surprise for you, so I shouldn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure what kind of fucking game she was playing until I heard about the screen malfunction.” He looks at Brody again. “And I wasn’t sure you were Saban when I met you at the restaurant. I just put that all together tonight.”

“How?” Brody asks.

“Never met another fucker with eyes as blue as yours who could play like what I heard on that CD. Once DJ mentioned your name, it all clicked into place.”

Brody grimaces.

“After what went down tonight, I began to think there’s something foul going on here, and I didn’t want no fucking part of it.”

I look at Brody. “Is it too much to hope that other news outlets won’t pick up the snafu from tonight and out you once and for all?”

“I’m not as worried about myself right now as I am about what your mother could do to further hurt
you
,” he says with a frown.

“I didn’t know my desire to tour without her would push her to such lengths. I suppose on some level, she feels like you’ve taken her place in my life, and she’s retaliating the only way she knows how.”

Brody smiles and takes my hand.  “Do I even still have a place in your life? I seem to recall that I haven’t been as straightforward as I should’ve been about my past and my identity. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you with the whole story from the beginning.”

I squeeze his hand back. “You were probably right to feed me bits and pieces, because I don’t know if I could’ve handled the whole truth all at once, if I’m being honest.”

He pulls me into an embrace. “I promise not to withhold anything about me from you again, past or present. I’m going to share the whole truth with you always, beginning tonight.”

“Hey, don’t go getting all kissy-face back here while I’m riding with you two,” Pit says. “It’s not fair.”

“Shut up, Max.” Brody says in mock-irritation, then smiles. “I’ve seen you get more than just kissy-face a time or two.”

“That was in my wilder days. Got my own cook at home and a couple of ankle biters now.”

“Cook?” I ask.

“That would be my wife,” Pit Viper says.

All I’ve ever seen him in is snakeskin and leather, and I can’t seem to think of him as Max, the husband. “And the ankle biters are your children, I take it?”

“Yep, my wee ones.”

I am floored. “I would never have known you were a family man.”

“Looks are deceiving,” he says.

My mother is a testament to that.

Maybe from the outside looking in, she has always been the perfect manager and mother, but behind closed doors, she’s not one who can be trusted. No one has had to live through what I’ve experienced with her.

I can’t wait to get back to the hotel to confront her. I am done with her conniving.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

Mother answers her door in her matching gown and robe, looking as if she’s been sleeping like someone who has not a care in the world. Guiltless—as if she hasn’t just tried to sabotage her own daughter’s career.

“My darling girl, what is it that’s so urgent you must speak to me about tonight?” She stifles a yawn. “We do have an early flight in the morning, you know.”

I stalk into her room, allowing her to close the door.

I pause before I speak because I am desperate to get the tone of this conversation right. She could very skillfully turn this around on me—exactly the way she did with Connor. This time, I’m not going to allow her to use my mistakes against me, or regurgitate what she believes she knows about the man I love to make me toe the line. I am exceedingly grateful to Brody for boosting my confidence in myself in the ways in which my mother failed.

Tears gather in my eyes, but I will them not to fall.

My emotions surprise me. Even with everything she’s done, it isn’t an easy thing to fire one’s mother.

I clear my throat so I can speak clearly and confidently. I need her to know I mean what I’m about to say.

“The team and I will continue to the final two concerts on the tour,” I say carefully, “but you won’t be joining us.”

She stares blankly at me. “I beg your pardon?”

I really shouldn’t have to spell it out for her, but I’m going to. “I will no longer need your services as my manager. I will give you six months severance, which should give you enough time to either find another position or decide to retire. I’ll provide you with a monthly allowance, enough to live on and take care of your property, either way.”

“An allow—” She shakes her head and wags a finger at me. “No. Skylar, this can’t be you talking. Brody put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“Mother, you are so wrong about that. Brody spoke in your favor even though you gave his solo to Pit Viper and put his stage name up on the screen. He’s the reason why I’m not cutting you off completely.”

“What do you mean? I
did
share the solo with Pit Viper, because I was trying to help you, but I have no idea what you’re talking about concerning any names on screens.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You were in perfect position to do it and no one else besides you, Malik, and I knew the solo was composed by Brody. I won’t ask how you figured out his stage name, because it doesn’t matter now. You’re out. Brody will manage me in the interim until we return to LA.”

“Brody?
I
helped you to build the Skylar brand. What has he done? Fucked you senseless and poisoned your mind against me?”

Maybe it would shock her into some semblance of reason if I did tell her just how he does fuck me senseless, but I hold my peace, because that’s none of her business.

“You’re not listening, Mother. Brody stood up for you because he’s lived being estranged from his grandparents who wouldn’t even entertain the thought of supporting him in the career he loved. He thinks I should cut you some slack, because for all your shortcomings, you tirelessly championed my singing career.”

“You’d still be on that teeny bopper show and singing at county fairs if it weren’t for me.”

“That may be true, but I’ll be much better off in the future without you running my career and sabotaging my personal life at every turn. Goodbye, Mother.”

BRODY

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

When I hear the door opening to her suite, I know Sky’s back from canning her mother.

I wait.

She doesn’t come.

She shouldn’t have to, though.

She’s made so many concessions for me, the least I can do is go to her now.

My heart hammers in my chest as I push the door open and enter her suite. I shut the door behind me and rest my forehead against the cool, wood surface as I gather courage to face her. This isn’t hard for me because I’m ashamed to share all the details of my addiction. It’s hard for me because I’m afraid I will lose her. Somehow in the five and a half weeks we’ve been touring together, she has come to mean more to me than any woman since Kim.

I turn and move toward her.

Sky is at the wet bar pouring herself a drink, and I stare from the middle of the room. She’s magnificent—so much more beautiful now that she has truly come into her own musically, business-wise and personally.

She wears a tight smile and stares back, locking me in the intensity of her gaze.

I’m okay with her looking at me in this searching way now, as if she’s already mentally prepared herself to peel back the remaining layers of my past, resolved to get to the bottom of all the secrets I’ve withheld from her.

If Elaine Samuelson has been true to form, she’s unloaded some things on her daughter about me in a final attempt to malign my character, to thwart my ability to manage Sky’s musical affairs. However, that’s not what I’m most concerned about now. I would leave the tour in a heartbeat if I could do so without losing Sky as my lover, best friend—and future confidante. That is where I mucked things up, not trusting her enough to unload all my demons when I shared snippets of my past with her before.

The space between us feels like a wider chasm than it actually is, and I don’t know if what I’m going to tell her tonight is going to bridge the gap I created with my secrecy and baggage, or make it wider. First things first, though. Right now, I need to hear how she feels about what just transpired with her mother.

My throat is dry and my heart pounds with anxiety. “How did it go?” I ask.

She cocks her head to one side. “As well as could be expected, I suppose. Mother was caustic and bitter to the very end.”

Sky salutes me with her glass and swallows the corner of amber liquid left in the tumbler.

“She’ll come around,” I say, not sure it’s true, but I hope it is for her sake.

Sky has never known the heartbreak of parental loss and that’s not something I want for her. Even though her mother essentially betrayed her, Sky will miss the presence of that relationship in her life if she decides to sever ties. I know from experience that it can nearly destroy you if not channeled properly.

“Only time will tell.” She sets the glass on the bar. “I’m going to wash my face and take a shower.” She suddenly looks very tired. Her eyes are red—either from tears she’s already shed, or ones she’s just managing to hold back.

I don’t ask if she wants company in the shower. I’ll let her choose whether we will be together tonight now, or later.

Turning without another word, she provides her answer. Sky disappears into the sanctum of her bathroom, and I saunter back to my own room. A shower sounds good, so I take a quick one, too. Dressed in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, I go back to her suite to wait for her to emerge from the bathroom.

In the hotel’s thick terry cloth robe, she’s fluffing her hair with a towel and starts at seeing me waiting on her bed. A delicate hand goes to her throat.

Stripped bare of the armor that makes her Skylar, she’s Sky—the girl I met at the I.Y.M. office in LA six weeks ago. I don’t want to share the worst episodes of my life that will most assuredly taint her perception of me. My confession will forever alter her opinion of me. But…I must.

“Do you want to talk now?” I ask, my voice low, uneasy. My fear has always been that she will reject me if I tell her all the details of my shameful fall from grace and the tragedy that ensued.

She joins me on the bed, looking deep into my eyes. “Yes,” she says. “I want to know everything that’s happened to you—everything that made you who you are.”

“And who am I to you?” I plead to her the same way I did at her D.J. interview, but this time I do so with my heart rather than just my eyes because I desperately need to know where I stand with her before I spill my guts.

“You’re my boyfriend,” she says. “The one who stupidly withheld a major part of his past from me.”

Her declaration guts me, but in a good way. She can’t hate me enough to kick me to the curb if she calls me her boyfriend. Right?

“That being said, I want to understand what put you off music. I want to know more than just the body you share with me. I want to know everything about you—your past and present thoughts, your heart, all of what makes you tick, and possibly a bit of your soul, too. Like I told you once before, I won’t judge.”

Her words register slowly and I am thankful for them. I nod, blow out an exhalation, and wipe my clammy hands on my pajama bottoms. “You have to know I’ve never talked to anyone about this other than my therapist and my surviving band mates. I’m telling you everything now because I should’ve trusted you with it all before we became lovers. That was a dick move on my part if there ever was one, and I’m truly sorry for the way you found out, Sky. Will you forgive me?”

“I forgive you,” she whispers.

“Okay. Well, you know about my parents dying and how my grandparents didn’t approve of me being a rocker. I was already feeling as if I had lost so much, but when my grandparents rejected me, I felt unworthy of every good thing that happened to me afterward.

“Kimberly’s brother, Stephen, was one of the high school band mates who let me couch surf at his home when my grandparents threw me out. Well, Kim stole my cell phone number from Stephen and began to text and e-mail me in California. She had aspirations to sing and I had a band. We’d hit it off, even though she was a couple of years younger than the rest of the band, and when she graduated high school at seventeen, I convinced her to come to LA.”

I swallow hard, and continue, “Everybody who’s anybody uses recreational drugs in Hollywood, from pot to smack to prescription drugs. As my reputation as a guitarist and lead singer grew, everybody wanted a piece of me. Many of them turned out to be the wrong people to hang out with. I just drank a lot at first, but that had side effects that affected my ability to play and sing too much. Then the groupies made themselves available, and I could score a chick right along with the drugs. I don’t know how Kimberly stood me sometimes in the early days because she caught me cheating so many times, but she never gave up on me.”

I glance at Sky, and she’s listening with what looks like rapt attention mixed with appalled horror and genuine concern.

She reaches for my hand and laces her fingers through mine.

My throat is as dry as the Sahara right now, but I have to go on. “In time, I graduated to heroin, but in the beginning, my drugs of choice were pot and coke. Money was no object, and coke was the ultimate party drug. The band’s notoriety grew, and as we got bigger and bigger, Kim and my drug habits grew with it.

“I remember the day I first let Kim try coke. Initially, I limited her to just alcohol and pot, because I didn’t want her to be like me. I loved her, and she loved me, but I also used her. I used Kim as a way to escape the pain of being alone in the world. At some point, Kim wasn’t enough, so I used more drugs to escape the pain, and she did what I did to enter my world. She came from a great home with two supportive parents, but she loved me and she started doing drugs because of me. I did drugs and hurt her, then she would do drugs to hurt me, and it became a never-ending cycle. I hated myself for what I did to her.”

Partly purged, I’m having difficulty sucking air into my lungs to the point of breathlessness.

Sky scoots over to me and rubs my back. My blood rushes loudly in my head as I try to come to terms with what I’ve just shared with the woman I love now more than I ever loved Kim. Admitting this to myself feels like a fucking high, but I can’t share it with Sky now. It would be a disservice to her.

My eyes fill with tears of both sadness and joy, but I keep them cast downward and clear my throat, refusing to cry like a pussy.

“What happened the day Kim died?” Sky asks quietly.

I glance at her briefly to see if she’s disgusted with me or if she’s just curious. All I see is love as she encourages me with a nod to continue my tragic tale.

“We’d just ended a tour, so we did it like always. We threw a lavish party and binged on alcohol, drugs, and more drugs. Kim and I would throw the parties, but most of the time we’d be locked in a back room getting high. By that time, we both had considerable heroin habits. We didn’t care about eating, sleeping, or even fucking. The drug was all we craved.

“That night, I shot up first and nodded off. Sometime later when I woke up, I saw that Kim had shot up, too, but she had nodded off—for good. The tourniquet was still wrapped around her thigh, the needle hanging from an overused, collapsed vein. I rushed to her and tried to revive her, but she was gone. I picked up my guitar, turned the amp as loud as it could go, and played one final time for Kim. The neighbors called the cops. They broke the door down, and that’s how they found us.” I stop just short of telling her all the goriest details.

She gasps. I misconstrue her reaction—thinking that she’s changed her mind about wanting to know all of this—to be with me.

“Why did they arrest you?” she asks. Her words are not harsh, and she doesn’t move away.

I swallow, glad to be wrong about Sky’s intentions. “My fingerprints were all over the paraphernalia and shit. And the cops found me playing my guitar like a fucking maniac. I would’ve arrested me, too. But my prints were only there because we shared needles and shit all the time and I’d made my half-assed attempt to revive her. They also found more drugs in the house, and I was the smoking gun.”

“I hate that you had to go through that,” she says.

“Believe me. I wish I could take it all back. I wish Kim were still alive and with someone who deserved her. She was a beautiful, wonderful girl, and I ruined her life.”

“And your own. Is it guilt from her death that largely keeps you from playing again?”

“No, Sky. It’s not only about guilt. My addiction is always going to be an issue. It’s an ongoing illness from which I can’t be cured. I can only manage it, like…diabetes or some other chronic thing. Performing feeds the darkness in me. It’s like having a cigarette after sex. I’m so keyed up after a concert and only drugs bring me down. Then I need another drug to bring me up, or to balance my wacked out hormones. There is always the possibility that I could relapse. You have to know I will try my best not to, but if I do, I’m going to hurt you the same way I hurt Kim. I don’t mean to scare you, but you have to know that I could go off the rails again.”

I watch her closely for a reaction.

Again she doesn’t shrink away from all I’ve told her. In fact she juts out her chin in defiance. “I’m not a fragile little woman. I’m tougher than you think, and I’ll always be here to support you, and—.”

“And you love me?”

“How did you know?” She says in surprise.

“You told me in the limo the night we met Pit Viper at the restaurant.”

“That was a slip-up, but it’s true. I do love you Brody. With all my heart.”

My heart is beating like one of Snare’s drum solos. I didn’t want to say it in the same conversation, but I can’t not say the words back to her. “I love you too, Sky. I tried very hard not to love again. Working for I.Y.M. was supposed to be a way for me to keep my distance from entanglements, but you melted the ice that surrounded my heart after Kim died.”

Her eyes light up, as a fleeting thought seems to come to her then. “Your tattoo is in Kim’s honor, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Her parents had her cremated and took the urn back to Illinois with them. I got the tattoo in her memory just before I went into rehab.”

“It’s beautiful. A very touching sentiment.”

I wait a few beats for the other shoe to drop. “And?”

“And what?”

“You know you want to ask me when I’m going to get inked for you.”

She shrugs. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Maybe she hasn’t, but I have. Someday, I’m going to get one right on my heart, specifically for her.

“Actually, I was thinking when are you going to finish that song you’re supposedly writing for me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be done before your domestic tour. Let’s just say I’m working on it.”

“Okay,” she says and winds her arms around my neck. “I think it’s about time I started working on you. It’ll be time to leave for our flight before we know it.”

She kisses me, and we don’t stop. We don’t stop making love, either until it’s time to pack our bags and race to the airport.