Her eyes narrow, and I recall this morning’s newest report on me, the player. Not even close. It hasn’t been that way for a while now. “It’s just to get warm, you know. Promise.”
She pulls out her mobile phone and looks at the screen. “My dad will bust a gut if I’m not home soon.”
Bust a gut? I’ve heard of bust a vessel… Angry? Aye, for not being home on time.
“Your dad gave you a curfew, did he?” I ask, but she shakes her head. You dolt, she means the police curfew. “I have security. Surely that’s okay?” Please say yes. I need more time. A surge of anxiety rushes up my back. How can I get this girl to stay with me?
“What am I thinking?” She laughs. “Julian McLane is asking me to come in.”
“Yeah.” Fash! Say something else.
“I’m just gonna…” Emilie shines me her mobile.
After she’s done texting, she trots over to stand beside me, peers up at me with damn sexy eyes, and then she looks away. There’s not much lighting back here, but I’m thinking they must be dark blue.
“All right.” I grab her hand, and we take off up the stairs. When I tug on the door, a blast of electric anxiety races down my neck. Locked.
She laughs, a loud, beautiful laugh, and I’m loving it.
“You find this funny, do you?” I look down at her—she’s a full head shorter than me—and smile. “What if we have to go ‘round front of the arena? If crowds scare you, then you’ll be pure dead frightened up there.”
She shrugs and says, “Call somebody.”
“Right.” I pull up Kasen’s number and put it on speaker to be polite.
He picks up and is immediately fussing. “Where are the plugs in this stupid place? Dude, my phone’s going—” Then he’s gone.
I grin at Emilie. “And they say rock stars have it made.”
She laughs, sounding lovely again. “It’s so sad to have to charge your own phone.”
My mobile is shaking because of my laughing, and I have to concentrate to find Parker’s number. He’s on after two rings but there’s a shuffling on the other end.
“You wanker,” Luke is saying.
“I swear I didn’t know it’d stain your teeth,” Parker says, and there’s another loud bark of laughter. “It was Julian’s idea.”
I cringe and look up at Emilie who has a hand over her mouth, her shoulders jerking.
“Parker,” I shout into my mobile. “Luke! I’m locked out.”
Finally Parker says something directly to me. “Did you bonk the ginger?”
Oh, hell. I ring off. My cheeks are on fire again.
Emilie’s face is blank when she says, “I have that game on my phone. No, that’s ginger snaps—”
“Probably the same one.” I’ll not explain that one to her. She’d really think I’m a player then. Sucking a breath in between my teeth, I look around and try not to shiver. A manly man doesn’t get cold, but I’m without my jacket. I could ring Doug. But that’ll just get myself telt. “After they’re done pranking each other, they’ll sit around and play games for hours. It’ll probably be quite dull in there. Then to the hotel…did you drive?”
Emilie nods then draws her eyebrows together. “You want me to take you somewhere?”
“Yeah.” I clench my teeth. Say something else, you prat. “We could get some burgers and chips, er…fries or something, you know.”
She smiles. “That’s very American of you.”
“Yeah?” And I’ll be reading a dictionary tomorrow.
“Sure thing.” Emilie whirls around then turns back. “Probably best that I get my car with all rabid fans up front.” She turns and heads down the stairs, shaking her head. From under her blood-red jacket peeks narrow legs in jeans so tight I can see the shape of her calves…all the way to her little brown boots. Once at the bottom, she looks around the corner of the gray stone building. Light from the front car park outlines half her face. Beautiful. One half of a heart. And she’s gone.
I punch the air and do a little dance on my squeaky, metal stage. Hell, yeah I’ve done it! I finally met her. Emilie. Always knew it’d be a nice name, except I’d been thinking Elizabeth. No matter—a lot of the same letters. What am I saying? Of course it’s no matter. Quit being a ripe idiot. I rake a hand over my smiling face and work at keeping my feet still.
It’s not too long before I clock a dark-colored Honda at the other end of the alley. It halts at a row of orange barrels, and I race down the stairs. Emilie gets out of the wee car then moves a couple of the blockers aside. Getting back in, she guns the engine and jerks to a stop right beside me. The passenger window hums down, and she says, “I’m being followed.”
Heat rushes up my neck and burns my ears. I look toward the end of the lane, expecting any minute a cloaked, serial-killer type to come around the corner of the old brick building.
“Get in,” she yells just as a shadow touches the pavement. Less than a second later, the shadow swells and vibrates like his long jacket is blown about by a breeze.
Chapter 3
“Julian,” Emilie says after another quick look backward. “I’m sure loving you to death is just an expression, but those people might actually find a way to do it if you don’t get in this car.”
Those people?
The imagined serial killer’s shadow is gobbled up by dozens of others. Oh. My shoulders relax, but the relief is temporary. Fans or paps?
Fash, a mob of paparazzi or fans is still wee-in-your-pants scary when you’ve no minders. I hop in, and she takes off.
“You…” She glances at me several times. “Are in…my car.”
My cheeks are aching I’m smiling so much.
A few minutes later she pulls up to a red, white and blue fast food place. She bypasses the speaker with a massive grin on her face and at the window says, “Two fries and two shakes.”
The woman inside has her back to us. She turns with a stern expression on her face, though her lips twitch like she’s in on a joke. “Girl, you know you’re not supposed to be out this late.” Then her mouth drops open, and she leans down and peers into the car. “Oh. My. God.”
Emilie places a finger over her lips. “Sh-sh-sh.”
“Is that—”
“Shelly, keep it down,” Emilie says.
I watch as Shelly processes what’s in front of her. But I can’t keep my eyes from going to her pink hair. It is quite bright.
“You better get out of town, Emilie. One picture of this and you’re—” Shelly claps her hands, her full chest vibrating. “You know how mean they were to that poor girl for dating the Max kid that’s in all the movies. Jealous girls. So what’s going on? Should I expect you at work tomorrow, or are you living the high life now?”
Her mention of mean fans has me squirming.
“I’ll be in,” Emilie says.
Shelly continues to stare at me. I smile and feel my eyebrows go up.
“Look at those lips,” she says. “Hope you don’t mind me saying so because I’m going to anyway—you’re so fine.”
“Och! Thank you.” My heart skips a beat when a car pulls behind us. All it takes is one person clocking me, and we’ll be at a standstill with a mob surrounding us. “Emilie, we should go. She’s right, you know.”
“Wait,” the clerk says and turns away. She comes back with two take-away cups and a small white bag.
“See you tomorrow.” Emilie takes off and glances over at me with a grin. “You ever dined and dashed?”
No clue what that means. I shake my head.
She tucks the food between us and pulls onto the street. “That’s my version.”
“Hm.”
“Relax.” Her eyes shine in the dim light. “Shelly knows I’m good for it.”
I never noticed we didn’t pay. But I get it now—Emilie’s working tomorrow and she’ll pay for the food then. Good thing since I’m without my wallet. “Fair enough.”
I tear my eyes from her and look out the window. There’s a lot o
f forestry, sometimes atop gray stone dykes. And then we’re entering a different town—a bricked downtown area followed by shipyards complete with shiny bobbing ships, glossy moonlit water between them. It’s pretty; truly I prefer it to Washington D.C. “Where are we?”
“Alexandria.” Her hand rests on the rounded knob of the gearstick between us. I’m absolutely turned on. And a wee bit jealous. I don’t know how to drive much less shift a manual transmission.
Shrugging a shoulder, I look back out the window. We go past a sign-post: Route 1. Where the heck is she taking me? It’s kind of late to ask, but— “Where are we going?”
Emilie only smiles and continues to drive. Every so often, she points out landmarks: a historic post office, old battle grounds. Before long, though, she pulls off the road, and her headlights shine on the water. Should I be worried?
“The Potomac River.” She shuts off the engine then digs into the food bag. “I’m guessing that’s a first, huh?”
“Aye.”
“Awesome.” She hands me a box of chips. “And this will be too. Dip your fries in your milkshake.”
I jerk my gaze away from the dark, flowing water in front of us. “Are you serious?”
“Just like it’s ketchup.”
The milkshake cakes onto my chip, and I fight the urge to cringe away. She watches as I toss it in my mouth. But after getting over the weirdness of it, I have to admit the salty and sweet mixture is quite good.
Emilie grins at me, looking chuffed with herself. “Told you.”
Ah…Is it truly possible she’s all I imagined?
She starts in on her own then laughs when she catches me trying to rub a bit of the milk shake off my chip.
“What? It’s still a bit strange.” I nod toward the rippling water. It looks like it’s flowing just ahead of the car bonnet. “This is lovely, isn’t it?”
“Very.” She points out the windshield. “See that cabin?”
I peer through the windscreen at this small cabin planted on the other side of the river with a skinny stream of smoke coming from the chimney. “It’s magic right there on the bank.”
“It’ll be my house one day,” she says with a sigh.
“Fair enough.” I eye her. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I just picture myself holing up in a cabin on the water, curling up in front of the fireplace with a notebook. Pouring out words like an open wound.”
“That sounds…” And I can’t think what it sounds like—beyond sad. “By yourself?”
She tilts her head. “Well, eventually by myself.”
“No husband? Children?”
“Please.” She rolls her eyes. “Marriage is for people who’re afraid of being alone. No kids for me either.”
My face heats up and I turn away.
“Don’t you think people should only be together if they want to?” she asks. “Not because of a contract they signed a thousand years ago?”
The dream girl exits stage left.
I shrug; she gasps. “You were serious in that interview.”
Again I shrug.
“Okay,” she says and tilts her head. “Full disclosure: back when I had friends, my closest one was a Jagged Black fanatic. Yeah, I’ve seen some of your videos.”
Ah, hell. I thought I’d escaped the plague of videos past since she didn’t seem to be that big of a fan.
When I dip my head, she does too and makes eye contact. “Hold on. She loves Parker, so at least I don’t have an abundance of knowledge about you. I did see that one interview where they asked you about commitments, though. But I thought you were faking it with half your interviews.”
“Well…” What can I say? Half of the time I am painting the picture management wants me to paint, but I’m not allowed to admit that. In any case, the marriage bit wasn’t a lie. “I answered in that interview truthfully.”
“So you really want—you believe in marriage. I’m sorry. It’s just an opinion.” She lifts her eyebrows. “Hey, don’t listen to me. I’m a former army brat. In my world everything is temporary.”
Wait. She’s what sixteen, seventeen? She doesn’t truly know what she wants yet. You do, Julian. Well, I don’t know. It’s just that Mum and Dad found each other when they were twelve and fourteen, so to say you must be thirty or something to meet that one…I don’t buy it. I guess Sis doesn’t either since she met her man in secondary school. They’ll probably marry when she’s done with med school. The McLane clan knows better than to let the good ones go.
“Aye, I’m the sucker who believes in marriage, am I? Or as you put it ‘I’m afraid of being alone.’” And my eyes are impossibly locked on hers. “So you write, do you?”
Now it’s her turn to look away.
And now I can breathe.
“A little poetry.” Her voice is so soft, I can only just hear her. She puts her milkshake and chips in the cup-holders and turns her whole body toward me. “Okay, I get that you’re trying to change the subject. But, Julian, you can’t possibly feel alone…do you?”
I lean back and look at the ceiling of her car. “No.”
She eyes me a moment before finally dropping her gaze to the console. I don’t think she believes me. “Whoa,” she says. “Deep conversation.”
“You’ll show me your poetry, won’t you?” I ask.
Emilie raises her dark eyebrows. “And it gets even deeper.”
I dip my head and look up at her, trying to read what she’s thinking.
And her eye color.
So I guess I’m still interested. Och, me and lost causes are great friends.
She takes a deep breath. “I’ve never let anyone—okay. Fine. But only because I feel bad for trash-talking your dream.”
“All right.” A guilty conscience prolonging my time with her? Aye, I’m all right with that.
“And you have to let me pick. Wait.” She nibbles her lip. “It’s all at my house.”
Beats going back to an empty hotel room. It’ll take a few hours and a couple of sleeping pills before I can rest properly, anyway. “Let’s go then.”
“Oh, no. You are not going to my house.” Her eyes are huge. I reach up and push a little button for the overhead light so I can see their color. They’re a serious blue—dark and full of feeling. Yeah…feeling that just went all through my chest.
Breathe, you prat.
“How come?” I ask when I’m sure I won’t trip all over my words.
She loses the worried look and smiles. “I guess a couple of people already said you have an adorable accent.”
“Aye, one or two people, but only because I paid them.” I can’t fight a broad grin. “You ever noticed how many times baby is in the lyrics? They reckon I say it sexily so they add it in often.” My eyes light on the little blue fairy hanging from her mirror, and I flick it. “So, how come we can’t go to your house?”
Worried we’ll be spotted together, is she? Does she have any idea how huge the wrath of my fans can be? Do I want her to know?
“Hey.” She places her hand under the fairy and stills its swinging. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to touch a fairy’s wings? Bad luck.”
“Apologies.” I eye her upturned hand, with its long slender fingers perfect for piano playing. “Your house. Why not?”
“Well.” She pulls her hand to her lap and stares at it. “My house is sort of like this car. Not exactly the classiest thing in the world. I can’t bring Julian McLane there.”
I’d like to say I’m a rags to riches story, but that’d be a lie. And she might know the truth already anyway. Mum’s family is old money, Dad’s a doctor and my older sister, Jane, will be a doctor too. But she’ll eventually settle in and marry and have me some nieces and nephews. I hope so because if I can’t manage to keep a girl in my mad life, then I’ll surely be moving in with her, won’t I? Emilie did hit a soft spot earlier. Being alone is my least favorite thing.
But what’s with this full name stuff? “Most of my friends just call m
e Julian, you know.”
She laughs. With her fingers pressing against her bottom lip, she says, “Wow, I’m stupid.”
My hand itches to pull her fingers away, to see her lips again. “I want to read your poetry.”
“One track mind. Okay, but you’ve been warned. My house is no Holiday Inn and it’s definitely not the Hilton.” She cranks up and backs out. “We’re sneaking in, though. My parents are the complete opposite of strict, but I am not explaining why Julian McLane is in my room at midnight.”
“It’s midnight?”
She doesn’t answer, just glances over several times. “Do you need to get back?”
“No.” My gaze strays to her face again, and I have to force myself to look away. “I just didn’t know so much time had passed, you know?”
“Less than an hour.” She turns left at a red sign-post.
“I know,” I say with a smile. “Eleven, eleven.”
Her eyes narrow to slits and she glances over at me again.
“You made your wish at eleven, eleven.” I’m about to sound barking mad. Yeah…an obsessed nutter. “And on eleven-November. I saw you at the fountain last year too.”
The hum of the car gets louder and louder the longer it takes for her to process, delaying the shifting of gears as well. And then, “You saw me? Last year? That’s—that’s crazy. How did you know I was the same girl?”
Because that night I watched you make your wish, you looked as lonely as I felt. I’ve recalled that one glimpse of you a thousand times. “What did you wish with your coin?”
She gasps and pulls off the road.
“What’s happened?” I grip the dashboard. Did I say all of that out loud? No, I’m sure I didn’t. I glance through the windows at the darkened roadside. Is someone out there?
“Julian, did you write that? ‘Make the wish, toss your coin,’” she quotes my lyrics, my song, sending a fresh wave of heat to my face. “‘Holding my breath, dying to see. Baby, did you wish for me?’”
Her eyes are slow to meet mine then she jerks them back to the steering wheel. “That’s not possible. Nope, not possible.” She shakes her head. “That song—‘Wish You Were Wishing for Me.’”