First Star I See Tonight

  He jutted his jaw. “You’re riding high right now, but once the boss stops boning you, he won’t even remember your name.”

  A fireball exploded in her head, and she dug her finger into the middle of his chest. “Meet me in the alley after closing, you scumbag. Then we’ll see who has the biggest set of balls.”

  She’d finally pierced his swagger. “Are you serious? You want to fight me?”

  Not exactly. But just because he was big didn’t mean he was quick, and maybe she’d get lucky. Probably not, but maybe. She curled her lip at him. “Why not?”

  He puffed out his chest. “I’m not fighting a chick.”

  “Afraid I’ll get you pregnant?”

  He stepped back, as if she were contagious. “You’re a lunatic, you know that?”

  She grimaced as he stalked off. He was quite possibly right.

  The three original women in the booth with Logan Stray had been joined by two more, all of them young and beautiful. Since Logan had seemed oblivious to her earlier, she was surprised when he gestured for her to scramble over them and sit next to him, but her heels were killing her, so she didn’t object.

  “How old are you?” he said as she slid in. He’d begun to slur his words, not surprising, considering the amount of liquor being consumed at the table.

  “Thirty-three, chronologically.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She slipped off her shoes under the table and took note of the tiny pimple lurking next to his soul patch. “I don’t always act my age.”

  “Older or younger?” He asked as if he were genuinely interested.

  “It depends on the situation.”

  “What about now?”

  “Um . . . forty-two.”

  “Seriously?” He grinned. “That’s sick. I dig older women.” His breath held the overly sweet stench of the Red Bull he’d been mixing with Grey Goose, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing. “People think everythin’s a big party for me, but it’s not. I got all this business to handle. Lotta people to take care of.”

  For a moment he looked like a lonely fifteen-year-old, and she felt a flash of pity for him. She’d been lucky enough to celebrate her own twenty-first birthday at a bar in Boystown with a rowdy group of friends—people who liked her for herself. Maybe Logan knew that without his fame and money, none of these people would be here.

  He swallowed the last of his current drink. “I wanna dance.”

  Celebs frequently left VIP to go down to the floor, but there was a weird energy in the club tonight that she didn’t like. Too many people, everything louder than normal, guests bumping into each other, servers dropping trays, glasses shattering. A fight had already broken out, and although Ernie and Bryan had intervened so quickly that hardly anyone had noticed, she didn’t want there to be another.

  “Let’s talk instead,” she said. “It’s a real crush down there tonight.”

  “Tha’s what makes it fun.” He grabbed her arm. “Come on.”

  The girls in the booth didn’t like seeing him leave with her instead of one of them, but Piper needed to stay close. Also, Jen would love hearing about this.

  Spiral’s patrons were older than Logan’s core group of tween fans, but he was still a celeb, and people began to press in on him. His bodyguards made a phalanx through the crowd. The DJ segued into “Not Witch U Now,” his last hit.

  She was a decent dancer, but, drunk or sober, Logan was a great dancer, and she didn’t try to compete but simply surrendered to the beat. He gave her a drunken grin. More people came on the floor, trying to get closer. Logan moved to the edge, grabbed the drink one of his drunken posse members handed him, and downed it.

  The music grew louder. Three willowy hair-swishers cut Piper out. As they began grinding on Logan, she pictured a trio of beautiful sharks devouring a very small herring. One looped her arms around his neck, another around his waist. Even drunk, Logan started to look nervous. His security, along with Jonah and Bryan, began to move in, but something about the women’s determination made Piper certain there’d be trouble if the men touched them. She wedged herself in front of the closest woman, but there was only one of her, three of them . . .

  And one of Coop Graham . . .

  “Ladies . . .” He tapped two of the outliers on their shoulders, at the same time giving Piper the signal to close back in on Logan. “I’m getting lonely here.”

  The women moved in for the bigger prize.

  Logan, in the meantime, lost his balance. Whether someone pushed him or he was too drunk to stand, Piper couldn’t tell, but he staggered, then fell to the dance floor. His sunglasses flew off and crunched under one of the dancers’ feet.

  A couple of his drunken bodyguards rushed in, pushing everyone who stood in their way, and knocking over two of the male guests. One of them landed on Logan, but that didn’t stop his security from trying to charge through a cluster of women who were blocking their path. Piper spun on them both. “Back off! Now!”

  Miraculously, they stopped. Coop helped the male guests up, patting them on the back and inviting them to VIP for a drink. The three shark women pushed their way through the dancers, trying to return to their pop idol herring. Coop stepped in front of them, ready to pile on the charm, even though all the jostling had to be hurting him. Logan’s bodyguards began to shove into the crowd again as Piper got Logan to his feet.

  “Tell your posse to back off,” she shouted into his ear, “and I’ll make your wildest dreams come true.”

  He gave her a drunken leer. “For real?”

  “A one-way ticket to paradise.”

  As he complied, she grabbed his arm, pulled him to the edge of the floor, and steered him into the kitchen.

  A massive tray of bourbon brownies nested in square paper liners sat on the counter. She’d barely eaten all day, and she grabbed a couple of them, warm and oozing chocolate. “Private party,” she told Logan.

  Using a combination of strength and stealth, she managed to maneuver him up the stairs and into her apartment. “Wha’s this,” he slurred.

  “The Garden of Eden,” she said dryly.

  He gave her a lopsided grin. His eyes without his sunglasses were small, brown, and unremarkable. “Whadda you got to drink?” he asked as he tried to prop himself against the counter that divided the living area and kitchen.

  All she had were a couple of juice boxes and some beer. She kicked off her shoes and held up the two squished bourbon brownies. “I’ve got something even better.”

  “Pot brownies!” He would have grabbed them both if she hadn’t sequestered one at the end of the counter for herself.

  A knock sounded at her apartment door. She padded barefoot across the room. “Who is it?”

  “Cops. Open up before I break down the door.”

  “Very funny.” She opened the door and gave Eric a weary smile.

  “I just got off duty,” he said, letting himself in. “I saw your light on.”

  Something he could only have observed if he’d driven down the alley.

  He sank into the couch, as if he intended to stay for a while. Logan, in the meantime, saw only a uniformed police officer and began stuffing both brownies in his mouth as fast as he could. As he supported himself on the edge of the counter, he held up his empty, chocolate-smeared hands and spoke to Eric through the globs. “Chuz bwahnee, mon. Noshin een ’em,” which she interpreted as, “Just brownies, man. Nothing in them.”

  Eric looked at her. She shrugged. The door opened, and Coop came in without knocking.

  He took in the scene—Office Hottie looking right at home on her couch, herself barefoot in a designer dress, and a drunken, ninety-million-dollar tween idol with chocolate on his face.

  A vaguely bemused expression crossed his face. “I pay you for this, right?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Coop! Great to see you, man.” Eric hopped up for a backslap that had to be painful.

  Coop slapped him back a little harder th
an necessary. “You, too.”

  With all the backslapping going on, none of them noticed that Logan had slipped out into the hallway. Not until they heard a shuffle, followed by the loud voice of a teenage girl.

  “You’re dead!”

  And here they went again . . .

  14

  Eric drew his gun as Coop charged ahead into the hallway. Piper followed and peered over Coop’s shoulder to see Logan curled on the floor, eyes closed, not moving. Jada stood in her apartment doorway, hair tangled, one leg of her checked pajamas hung up on her calf, and an orange-and-blue Nerf gun at her side.

  “I killed him.” She moaned.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway below, and Tony shouted up from the bottom of the stairs. “Coop! Can you get down here? Somebody called immigration. They’ve herded the staff in the kitchen to check green cards.”

  Coop threw up his big hands. “Great. This is just great! Can you deal with boy singer while I take care of INS?” He shot a quick glance between Eric and Piper, then looked back at Eric. “You want to come with me? I might need a character witness.”

  “Great idea,” Piper said. With a uniformed cop at his side, nobody would mess with Coop. She was doubly glad that Tony checked green cards before he hired, but that made her wonder: exactly who had called INS?

  Eric holstered his gun, bent down to pick up a Nerf bullet, and looked over at Jada. “I’d better run this through ballistics.”

  Jada’s eyes widened in horror. He grinned and tossed her the bullet. Piper smiled. Maybe she would sleep with him.

  As Coop and Eric disappeared downstairs, Logan stirred and looked up at Piper. “You wanna go fer a ride in mah plane?”

  “Sorry, flyboy, I have to work.”

  “Tha’s okay.” He dropped his head back to the floor and closed his eyes.

  “Ohmygod,” Jada squealed. “That’s Logan Stray!”

  “If only you’d figured that out before you fired,” Piper said. “It’s the middle of the night!”

  “Something woke me up, and the Pius Assassins are very resourceful.” She went to her knees on the floor beside Logan. “Ohmygod, I can’t believe it’s Logan Stray. I, like, used to love him.”

  Her mother appeared in the doorway. Glossy, sleep-tousled hair tumbled around her shoulders, and the unfastened top buttons of her pajamas revealed a column of warm caramel skin. Karah, with her scrubbed face and womanly body, looked more alluring than a dozen overly made-up hair-swingers. Piper was glad Coop had gone downstairs.

  “Jada, what are you doing out here?” Karah exclaimed.

  Piper saw no need to rat out the teenager. “Sorry about that. We were making too much noise and woke her up.”

  Jada carefully slipped the Nerf gun behind her leg where her mother couldn’t see.

  Piper gazed down at Logan. “As long as you two are awake, would you help me move him?”

  “I will!” Jada exclaimed.

  They maneuvered Logan back into the apartment and onto Piper’s couch. She fetched a bucket from under the kitchen sink and put it next to him, just in case.

  Jada hovered over him. “Ohmygod, if he, like, gets sick, somebody should be watching him. Can I do it? Please, Piper! I’ll sleep in the chair. Can I, Mom? Please?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Piper remembered how much Jada wanted to fit in at her new school and thought about the cred this would give her with her classmates. “It’s okay with me, Karah,” she said. “I’ll watch out for her. And this’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Jada to observe firsthand the perils of fame.”

  Karah hesitated, then conceded, maybe because she’d arrived at the same conclusion as Piper. “If there are any problems, send her home right away.”

  Problems? How could there be any problems? Piper thought, but didn’t say.

  She wouldn’t let Jada sleep in the same room as Logan, even if he was comatose, and she sent the teenager to the bedroom. The club was closing, so she didn’t have to go back downstairs. After she’d washed her face and exchanged her dress for sweats, she curled up in the living room chair.

  It seemed as though she’d barely fallen asleep before a thin shaft of sunlight followed by a rap on the door awakened her. She peeled open her eyelids. Across the room, Logan Stray lay on his stomach, a hand and foot dangling over the edge of the couch onto the carpet. In the bedroom, Jada was still asleep.

  Her neck was stiff, and it cracked as she pulled herself out of the chair. Cursing whoever was on the other side, she stumbled across the carpet.

  Two bright-eyed women with cheery smiles pasted on their faces barged in. One held a cardboard tray of coffee, the other a box of doughnuts. Piper gripped the doorknob to support herself. “You are going to die.”

  “And good morning to you.”

  “How’d you get in?” Piper growled.

  “Cleaning crew.” Jen set the doughnut box on the counter, and Amber did the same with the coffee.

  “Go away.”

  “Can’t,” Jen said. “Dumb Ass asked me out.”

  Amber puffed up with outrage. “She’s thinking about going, and you know he’ll tell her she has to have sex with him to keep her job.”

  “Probably.” Jen ripped open the doughnut lid and pulled out a Bismarck.

  Piper yawned. “Timezit?”

  “Eight o’clock,” Amber said, “and you’re always awake at this time.”

  “Not when I’ve been up most of the night!”

  Just then, Logan rolled over, and the part of him that wasn’t already on the floor slid there. But he still didn’t wake up.

  “That’s Logan Stray!” Jen exclaimed. And then, after a long pause, “Is he alive?”

  Piper slouched back into the chair. “I guess.”

  “If you killed him, we’ll help you hide the body.”

  “I know who Logan Stray is!” Amber sounded as if she’d come up with the answer to Final Jeopardy.

  Someone else knocked on the door.

  “Will everybody leave me the hell alone?” Piper shouted.

  But Jen had already opened the door, and Berni stormed in. Her short hair erupted in an orange geyser around her face, and a pair of pink sweatpants poked out from under another of Howard’s old cardigans. “I knew it! You all came here so you could talk about me behind my back!” She spotted Logan on the floor. “Isn’t he a little young for you, Piper?”

  Piper buried her face in her hands. “Will somebody please kill me?”

  Berni rounded on Amber. “You’re behind this secret meeting. You think I’m too old to know what I saw with my own eyes. Next thing you’ll try to get me hauled off to a nursing home.”

  Piper lunged for the coffee.

  “Calm down, Berni,” Jen said. “Stop being so mean to Amber.”

  “Me?! Why don’t you tell her to stop being so hateful to me?”

  Maybe it was the coffee or the sugar from the doughnuts, but Amber, like Tosca about to hurl herself from the battlement, reared up to her full height and advanced. “I have never been hateful to you, but from the day we met, you’ve either acted as if I didn’t exist or been outright—”

  “You called me Mrs. Berkovitz!”

  “—or you’ve been outright rude. I was brought up to be respectful of my elders, but—”

  “There!” Berni pointed an accusing finger at all of them. “Did you hear what she said? Did you hear what she called me?”

  Mild-mannered Amber’s anger was a sight to behold. “Regardless of your age, there’s no excuse for racial prejudice!”

  Berni puffed up. “What racial prejudice? Stop trying to change the subject. And how can you talk about respect after the way you’ve treated me?”

  Jen was still looking dumbfounded, but Piper was starting to get the drift.

  “I’ve treated you with nothing but respect!” Amber exclaimed.

  “Like I’m in my coffin. You call that respectful? Jumping in front of me to open doors . . . running out to get my new
spaper in the winter because you think I’m too old and weak to get it for myself . . . You think I don’t see what you do, but I still have eyes. Piper doesn’t behave like that. Neither does Jen. Is that respectful?”

  Amber’s mouth closed on its way to its next sentence. Jen laughed.

  Somebody had to be the grown-up here, and Piper figured she was it. “Amber,” she said with forced patience. “Berni doesn’t hate your guts because you’re Korean . . .”

  Berni protested. “What does Korean have to do with anything?”

  “She hates you because you were brought up to be respectful of your elders,” Piper said. “Which she is.”

  “That was unnecessary,” Berni sniffed. “And I don’t hate her.”

  Piper gave Berni a sickeningly sweet smile. “Berni is too old to change her ways, and too inarticulate to have explained what’s been bothering her, so from now on, don’t do another considerate thing for her. Matter of fact, treat her like crap. Then maybe she’ll appreciate you the same way Jen and I do.”

  “I don’t know why you’re saying all this,” Berni grumbled. “Amber’s a smart girl. She knows.”

  “I didn’t know!” Amber exclaimed. “How could I?”

  Berni’s mouth arranged itself in something approaching a pout. “I don’t like feeling old.”

  “Good,” Piper said, “because you’re acting like a five-year-old.”

  Amber’s proper Korean upbringing once again reared itself. “Piper, you shouldn’t say—” She caught herself and took a deep breath. “Berni, from now on, you can get your own newspaper.”

  Coop sauntered through the open door. He glanced from the women to the body on the floor. “Is he still alive?”

  “No idea,” Piper said, and then, “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Did you check his pulse?”

  “I don’t care enough.” Piper looked around her. There were now four uninvited adult people jammed into her tiny living room, one teenager still asleep in her bed, and a comatose pop idol on her floor. “Everybody get the hell out of here!”

  “Grouchy,” Coop observed.

  Berni bustled toward his side. “Cooper! Mr. Graham! I was hoping I might see you. I have a pound of homemade divinity in my car. I was going to leave it with Piper, but now I can give it to you personally.”