Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (9 page)

My chest burned with all the emotion
I couldn’t release, because I wasn’t about to let him hear me
cry.

He was as easily my conquest as I
was his; the only difference was I hadn’t lied to him.

Minutes later I heard him walk
across the floor and pause briefly in front of the bathroom. If he
thought about begging for mercy through the door he reconsidered. I
heard the outer door click behind him.

Then, and only then, did I finally let that
first teardrop fall.

The next morning Iris mercifully let me sleep
in until 10:00 a.m. When she called I really did have a migraine
from all the crying I did just hours before in an empty, rumbled
bed that still smelled of his cologne. I squeezed my eyes shut. I
had to quit thinking about it, but I feared there would be no rest
for the wicked.

“Who is your favorite person in the
whole world?” she chirped gaily in my ear.

“You are,” I muttered. “I think.”

“I know you had another late night
so I’ve reduced your day to a couple of hours in the afternoon,
maximum.”

“I don’t want to go to the studio,” I told her.
I already had all the interviews with the band. The only thing left
was my interview with Lourdes to find out how wonderfully glorious
her new romance was with the man of my dreams.

I was perfectly okay postponing that as far off
as possible, thank you very much.

Iris, however, had other plans.

“Nothing so strenuous,” she assured. “You’re
meeting Vanni and Lourdes for lunch to complete your
interviews.”

I nearly choked. It was worse than I
thought.

“Both of them? That sounds
complicated for all involved,” I said.

“Everyone has to eat,” she replied.

“She eats?” I quipped, which was met with brief
silence on the other line.

“Are you okay, Andy?” she asked, and
I could tell her concern was sincere.

“Another headache,” I dismissed truthfully.
“Too much champagne.”

She seemed to buy my excuse, or at the very
least didn’t call bullshit on it. She proceeded to give me the
details of when and where to meet the new lovebirds so I could
dictate in black and white how fabulously in love they
were.

I was thrilled. Truly.

I ended up wearing more makeup than I was used
to; it was necessary to mask the dark shadows under my eyes and the
blotchy complexion. Once I started applying the mask I couldn’t
stop, and ended up looking more like a girl than I really
intended.

It wasn’t to compete with her, but to show
Vanni that I was perfectly fine about our aborted lovemaking. I
dressed in warm layers, hiding the cleavage I was no longer sure he
deserved to see – not that it would have made much difference
anyway. He made his choice the minute he moved in with a South
American goddess so pretty I ceased to be a female in her
presence.

Then I thought about how he held me, how he
kissed me. I remembered the look in his eyes as he whispered that
he had dreamed about us being together. I remembered the contours
of his body, which showed undeniable, rock-solid proof he found me
desirable. Until I threw him out he was ready to ignore the call of
said goddess to be with me.

It still didn’t make sense, not in my fevered
little brain. He’d made me feel more needed and more desired than
I’d ever felt before in my life. He made me feel pretty, and
feminine, and sexy. So how could he go from her to me or me back to
her?

It was the unsolvable riddle that drove me
midtown to meet them at a hip new fusion restaurant everyone that
was anyone went to be seen. I convinced myself I had to know the
truth so I could put it all behind me when I returned to the “real
world.” It was either that or I must have taken up masochism
sometime in the past few days.

I got there early because I didn’t trust my
legs to carry me if I saw them cuddle together in one of the back
booths. I gathered my questions, none of which that addressed my
real curiosity, and patiently waited. The waiter brought me a wine
list but I decided there had been enough alcohol for one trip. I
asked for water.

The minute they rounded the corner, led to the
table by the buxom hostess in a snug fitting black dress, I
immediately steeled my spine and tried to wipe all emotion from my
face.

I didn’t stand up to greet them; I
just reached out a hand to welcome Lourdes. I barely spared Vanni a
glance as he bent toward me and gave me a friendly peck on the
cheek.

I hated him for that.

“It’s good to see you again,” Lourdes purred,
deliberately omitting my name. My guess was she didn’t remember
it.

“Likewise,” I said with a sweet phony smile
that mirrored hers. I briefly stole a look at Vanni, whose dark
eyes seemed to speak volumes in a language I was not familiar. I
didn’t speak Cheating Dirt Bag, nor did I wish to learn.

The waiter came to our table and
took our order. Lourdes predictably ordered a small vegetable dish,
whereas Vanni got a more robust meal that included beef. Evidently
he hadn’t subscribed the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle of some of his
band mates. This Philly boy no doubt still ordered cheesesteak that
nearly came out of the bottom of a greasy bag. As a lover of food
myself that made me feel slightly more compatible, and a little
more superior.

Since someone else was footing the tab I wasn’t
going to waste free food on a salad. I ordered the
seafood.

Both Vanni and Lourdes canoodled on one side of
the booth, his arm draped casually around her like a second coat.
They sipped their wine and I cleared my throat. There was no point
dragging things out, I jumped in with both feet.

“So how did you two meet?” I asked,
more to her than to him.

She gave him a sexy smile. “You tell her,
honey.”

My gut tightened as I looked over at him
expectantly.

“It was one of Jasper’s parties, of course,” he
said with an unreadable expression on his face. “I was the musical
talent.”

“I was just eye candy,” she murmured with a coy
grin.

He glanced down at her. “I saw her in the front
row and thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I
knew I had to meet her, so I stalked her backstage after the gig
was over.”

Stalked, I thought to myself. Such
an appropriate word. Like a wild cat on the Serengeti. I hoped the
disgust didn’t show on my face.

She wound her fingers in his. “He took me home
that night in a hansom cab. He sang to me as we rode through the
streets of New York. When the cab stopped he sweetly asked for
permission to kiss me, and of course I couldn’t say no.”

“Of course,” I eked out through clenched teeth.
If either of them caught the catch in my voice, neither one
indicated as much.

“I called Jasper the next day and asked for her
number. At first he didn’t want to give it to me, convinced I was
up to absolutely no good, but then I admitted I had found my
muse.”

My eyebrow rose.

She cuddled against him. “He wrote a song just
for me. It’s the first track they’re releasing off of the
album.”

“Which one?” I asked, partly because I had to
know for the article. It would be great to include that in the
press kits to generate interest. But mostly I wanted to hold out
hope it was any other song but the one I instantly knew that it had
to be.

“’
Wanting Her’,” she
answered.

“Seeing her, wanting her,” he sang softly,
which drew the attention of a nearby table. “What I’d give for just
one kiss.” He punctuated the song with a soft peck on her lips, and
I had to drag my eyes away.

Had I really entertained the thought
that song was for me?

“She’s going to be in the video,” he
said and she preened at the idea. “We’re flying to the Caribbean to
record it in the spring.”

“Jasper insisted,” she said. “I’ve never acted
before, so it will be a new challenge for me.”

I said nothing as I scribbled the answer in my
notebook. How hard could it be to act like a woman in love?
Especially with Vanni…

The food arrived but as good as it was it
settled like wet cardboard in the pit of my stomach. As they
lingered over a shared dessert I asked, “So when did you two move
in together?”

Her startled eyes met mine. “How did you know
that we had?”

Shit, I thought. This is what I get for going
off the cuff. “Lucky hunch,” I said. “You both seem so in love,” I
added with a pointed look at Vanni. “Like you belong
together.”

He looked down at her instead. “You tell her,
babe.”

“It was my birthday gift,” she
admitted.

“The gift that keeps on giving,” he quietly
finished for her. Was it my imagination or was he actually contrite
to admit it?

“I see,” I said softly. “Is this something you
want to be printed in the article?” I had to ask, since the
question was not officially one of the ones I had chosen for
print.

“Of course,” she said instantly. “We have no
secrets.” She glanced back up at him like an adoring puppy. “Do we,
babe?”

His eyes darted toward mine. “None at
all.”

“Well,” I said as I gathered my notes, “I think
I know all I need to know. I’ll get something over to Jasper this
afternoon. I can send you both a copy if you’d like.”

“No need,” Lourdes said with a sunny smile. “We
trust you. Don’t we, Vanni?”

He hopped out of the booth to stand
while I got up, almost convincingly disguised as a gentleman.
“Absolutely,” he said with just enough emphasis for me to hear it
but for her not to detect anything. He opened his arms for a hug
and I briefly stepped into the embrace that was still emblazoned on
my body from the night before. “See you tonight?” he asked softly
as he pulled away.

Another gig. Another command performance. “Of
course,” I answered with as phony a smile as his girlfriend
wore.

At ten o’clock that evening I was on a plane
bound for Nashville. I emailed the copy to Jasper so I didn’t have
to keep face in front of my new friend Jacob by going by the
office, and told Iris that a paying gig came up back home and I had
to cut my “vacation” short.

She was disappointed but she understood. “There
will be other opportunities,” she assured me.

As I soared above a darkened countryside
“Wanting Her” played for the last time on my MP3 player. I deleted
that and every other Dreaming in Blue song from my playlist and
uncharacteristically prayed the band would not be a success so that
I would never have to see Giovanni Carnevale again.

I realized too late I hitched myself to the
wrong wagon.

New York City, April 2008

~Andy~

As it turned out my self-defeating
prayer did not come true. Dreaming in Blue was poised to become one
of the hottest tickets in music by the end of the year, courtesy of
a huge media push that included much of my own pro bono work. The
first couple of months all the way to Valentine’s Day I tried my
level best to go on a Giovanni-free diet, which worked in the real
world much more so than with my besties based in New York.
Nashville still remained largely on Planet Normal, and no one I ran
into had even heard of the band or the lead singer beyond some
casual mention with Lourdes in the tabloids. Even then it was a
name that rang a bell but no one could put a face to it.

Meanwhile my blissfully ignorant
friends from New York, who chatted with me via text, phone and
Internet at least three times a week, all kept me in the loop of
the latest developments. Jasper had flown the band to the Bahamas
on Valentine’s Day to record the video for “Wanting Her,” which was
now starting to get airplay in some of the major markets. There was
even some talk of it being used for a romantic comedy starring one
of the female titans of the box office, but no deals had actually
been hammered out yet.

I listened to their updates, and tried to
stifle any eagerness to learn what was happening between Vanni and
Lourdes. Mercifully none of my friends thought it was important
enough to indulge, so the topic barely came up. Instead I’d hear
about the new music they were writing, their tentative tour
schedule and gigs, as well as some of the funny anecdotes in the
lives of musicians and celebrities. That was almost enough in and
of itself to help me wean myself off of my celebrity
crush.

I was able to step back and gain
some perspective on why I behaved like I did. It was a quick crash
and burn crush that had more to do with my ego than Vanni. A sexy,
important man wanted me, and that boosted my ego enough to want to
take it to its natural end.

After all was said and done, I was
actually glad we hadn’t slept together. Every now and then I’d have
a heated dream but I couldn’t help the residual memories tucked
away in my unconscious mind.

What I could control were my
conscious actions. With all I knew, and all I didn’t want to know,
I felt confident that I would never cave to his womanizing ways
again.