Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (33 page)

We were quiet as Graham drove us to the
five-star restaurant where we had reservations. Finally I glanced
over to his darkened silhouette in the car. “Why don’t you have
kids, Graham?”

I already knew that he was in his
late 40s, and though his marriages ended they lasted at least eight
years a piece. It had to have been a conscious choice not to have
kids or they simply couldn’t.

I knew now that if I were in a serious
relationship it would have to be with someone who ultimately wanted
children.

He just shrugged. “Never seemed the right
time,” he said. “Both my wives had careers, and they wanted to
achieve certain things in their lives before they got tied down to
motherhood.”

“Seems like a sad way to look at
it,” I said. Alana didn’t seem burdened by her new role as
mom.

“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” he mused.
“I’m glad, because divorce is hard on kids. This way it was a
cleaner break.”

I thought back to my pregnancy scare with
Vanni. If I had been pregnant, would he have gone on to be with
Kat? Would we still have broken up? What would that have meant for
his child, despite his protests he would never abandon any child
the way he himself was abandoned?

“Some people never get over it,” I
agreed. He glanced at me, possibly suspecting who I referred to,
but kept silent.

He tried to keep the conversation lighter as we
took our table at the restaurant. He sat close to me in the booth
and toasted me with a glass of wine. “To the godmother,” he said.
“You were quite the natural. Any child would be lucky to have you
for a mom.”

Since he opened the conversation back up, I
went for it. “Do you want kids, Graham?”

He gave me a warm smile. “Would depend on the
relationship,” he said as his eyes traced my face thoughtfully. “I
think it needs to be a conscious choice on the parts of both
parents.”

I smiled and leaned toward him.
“Agreed.”

I didn’t suspect he’d be asking me to ditch
condoms anytime too soon, and for that I instantly respected
him.

He leaned down to kiss me softly, and I knew
that it was dangerous playing with fire this way. But Vanni was
finally starting to fade, and I knew that my heart was mending.
Eventually I’d have to move on.

It was nice to have a sweet, romantic,
successful gentleman as an option.

Especially when he knew how to kiss.

He heaved a blissful sigh as he lifted away. “I
haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, Andy,” he said
softly. “When you kiss me I actually start thinking about the
future. I haven’t done that for a long, long time.”

I knew how heartbroken he had been over the
last divorce. Unlike the first one marriage, when he had grown
restless, his last wife had been the one to stray. He told me he
didn’t know if he’d ever be able to trust again like he had before
she had broken his heart. It was for that reason alone I knew I had
to take it slow with Graham. I would never want to take his fragile
trust and toss it under a bus driven by a self-serving rock star
with an inflated ego and sense of entitlement when it came to
women.

I knew that if Vanni had ever decided to ditch
Kat and come back to me, I’d still be tempted to go. I had never
given my heart away before him, and I knew he had walked away with
a substantial piece. I’d probably always go where it
called.

This trip was a test on several levels, and one
of those was to see if I could be free enough to love
again.

“Truthfully you’ve had me think about the
future too,” I told him. “I just don’t know what I can offer right
now. If anything.”

It sounded like a familiar caveat. Was I really
opening up a loop hole and writing my own escape clause?

He brought my hand to his mouth and
kissed it. “No pressure,” he said again.

Though we sat close, we chatted about a variety
of topics that had nothing to do with what we really wanted to say.
By the time we got home late that night he was content to send me
on my way to bed with nothing more than a close hug and a peck on
the cheek.

I think we were both worried a more intimate
kiss would have presented more problems and opportunity for a
difficult discussion.

I dressed in my warm jammies and crawled into
bed, confident that he would let me come to any decision to share a
bed all on my own.

As I lay there I couldn’t help but
make the comparison with Vanni, who generally was more forceful
when it came to pursuing the woman he wanted. My eyes closed and I
could see his face as he pinned me against the wall, and I could
almost feel the hard contours of his body pressed into mine. My
breath caught just from the memory, and did more to confuse my
senses than the man who slept just down the hall.

There was no getting around it. That
thousand-mile buffer zone had fooled me once again. I began to
suspect I was in big trouble.

Graham had already left for the office by the
time I emerged from the guest room that following morning. I
snacked on some fresh fruit as I waited for Alana and Kat to come
over, to discuss the guest list for the fan event. Talia had
already booked her tickets the minute they became available, as did
Tawnie Eaton. She hit my radar after the NYC trip, when she started
sending him intimate emails that suggested they had shared a bit
more than the usual fan M&G. As the months passed and Vanni did
not respond to her, she grew increasingly bitter and even nasty in
some of her emails, especially after his relationship with Kat
became public.

I had some suspicions that she had posted
anonymous and vindictive posts on the Internet but there was
nothing yet I could prove. In the meantime both she and Talia were
on my watch list as possible problems over the three-day fan event.
This was partially the reason for the big pow-wow with Alana and
Kat. Because we were juggling so many different personalities, it
became necessary to come up with a battle plan.

Kat was cordial but still rather
stand-offish when she came into the house. There was no hug like
what I shared with Alana. I didn’t have to ask where George was, I
already knew Alana had made the arrangements for her son to stay
with Iain rather than be a part of any meeting that involved Kat.
Their relationship was friendly, one of necessity, but Alana really
wasn’t a fan of the kinds of games Kat was known to play. She could
wring the last little drop of any benefit being the lead singer’s
girlfriend, and constantly attempted to assert herself in a role of
authority. This often tried to undermine someone like Alana who had
been around since the band’s early days.

It was one of those girly things I had always
managed to avoid since high school, but seemed to be immersed in
since I had the misfortune of falling in love with a rock star. He
belonged to all of us and none of us, which meant the claws were
always bared even if someone was smiling right to your
face.

I kept that information foremost in my mind as
we all gathered in Graham’s home office to prepare events for the
fans, and how much access Vanni would have with them.

Graham found us there when he returned home
early that afternoon, and he greeted everyone warmly but reserved
his kiss for me. It was a chaste kiss on the cheek, but I knew the
gesture did not go unnoticed by Kat, who had spent the better part
of the morning feeling me out how close I was with the man who held
her boyfriend’s career in his hands.

Had she and Vanni talked about this interesting
development? Were they worried, especially after the last time I
lashed out against Vanni, that I could turn the band on its ear
again on a jealous whim?

And was it my imagination or was Kat especially
possessive when she discussed Vanni? She spoke on such authority on
what he thought or felt or what his preferences were, when all of
those things I already knew. I simply smiled and let her stake her
claim, and kept decidedly mum about my relationship with Graham
despite her subtle probing.

Graham did the talking for me when he gently
put an end to our meeting, citing that he had made other plans for
my afternoon. Alana looked almost visibly grateful to return to her
family. Now that she understood her purpose in life she tired
easily of the girly games that existed around Vanni.

I couldn’t say that I blamed her. I almost
sighed in relief myself when Kat left the house. I didn’t realize
how on guard I had been while she was there. I jumped when I felt
Graham place his hands on my shoulders. “You’re so tense,” he
remarked as he gently started to knead with his fingers. “Tough
morning with the girls?”

I returned his grin half-heartedly. How could I
explain it to him? Men didn’t understand the complex dynamics that
existed between women. If men don’t like someone, they let it be
known. They don’t cozy up to their “competition” to know just where
to land their claws. As long as we were smiling and “making nice”
guys just assumed everything was great – which was no doubt how
Graham interpreted the situation when he came in on the three of us
laughing like we were all the best of friends.

He asked cursory questions about our fan event
as we went out to lunch, and kept the topics light before he took
me back to his office that afternoon. From a high rise building
near downtown Los Angeles I was able to get an insight into what
his job entailed, and even listen in on a few meetings with people
even more famous than DIB. It was almost like a
take-your-female-companion-with-status-not-yet-defined to work day,
but what stood out most was that he was quick to happily introduce
me to everyone whose paths we crossed as his houseguest for the
holidays.

He even tried to get a few of his underlings to
try and convince me to join the payroll.

There was nothing hidden about our budding
relationship, and I was curious how that information would filter
down through the ranks until it reached Vanni.

We stayed late in his office on a
conference call, and then stopped by a West Hollywood hot spot for
dinner before we finally drove back home. He had no real drive to
linger in the club scene, and I had never been fond of the
nightlife myself.

We were content to grab some ice
cream at the local market and then go sit out on a blanket
listening to the darkened waves crash against the shore just
outside his backdoor.

It felt comfortable. We had become close
friends over the last few months, and there were things I could
share with him about my parents I hadn’t been able to share before.
Maybe Vanni had opened that door for me.

But I remained closed-mouthed about my
relationship with Vanni, and Graham seemed loathe to ask. He did,
however, tell me about his past relationships and what he thought
went wrong in both.

In both he felt his workaholic ways robbed him
of time spent with the one he loved. As he approached 50 he
lamented on the time he could not get back, rather than the
enormous bank account, two houses and assortment of
cars.

“That’s why I’m willing to take the time in
future relationships,” he said, and I knew he referred to us. “This
is the gift,” he motioned to how we sat together on the blanket,
feeding each other ice cream. “I’m not going to forsake it
again.”

He paused, as if waiting for me to comment on
what he said, or even what our relationship was. Finally he asked,
“And what are you looking for, Andy?”

This was dangerous territory. We
hadn’t really talked about what was happening between us anymore
than we talked about my past with Vanni. Perhaps he suspected they
were both entangled.

He was right.

I shrugged as I put the spoon back in the empty
container. “I don’t know if I was ever looking for anything in
particular,” I finally said. “Up until February I wasn’t even
thinking in terms of forever, relationship-wise anyway.”

“What happened in February?” he asked
softly.

“I missed my period,” I admitted without
looking him in the eye. He just pulled his legs up to his chest and
waited. “For about a half hour I didn’t know if I was pregnant or
not, but the possibility was right there staring me in the face. I
started to think about how my life would change. As scared as I
was, I was also kind of excited, you know? It just made
sense.”

“So what happened?”

“I found out I was dehydrated and exhausted,
but not pregnant. But something in me changed. Like a mental switch
was flipped. When I thought of that lifetime commitment of being a
parent, suddenly a lifetime commitment to someone I loved didn’t
seem so scary.”

“But it didn’t flip for the person
you loved,” he concluded.

“No,” I said sadly. “If anything it broke. He
took another direction entirely.”

He reached over to gently rub my back. “I’m
sorry, Andy. This may sound trite and self-serving but, maybe it
was for the best.”

I chuckled humorlessly. “It didn’t feel like it
at the time.”

“It never does,” he agreed. “But
this way you know what you want. And you can find someone who wants
the same thing.”