I’d never seen Lucas anything less than calm and poised, and Alex’s feathers had never been this ruffled before, either.
“Listen to me carefully, you two—Alex, Lucas is allowed to hang out with your babysitter, who is not, in fact, in your possession just because she works for you. Lucas, you can try to chase Indie’s tail—no offense, Indie, but that’s quite what he’s doing—without doing it so blatantly in Alex’s face. Am I understood?”
Alex stared at Blake like he didn’t understand nor agree to anything that had left his mouth. His pupils spat fire and his mouth was pursed into a thin line. After a few seconds of silence, he shook his arm out of Blake’s grasp, his eyes never leaving his manager’s. “We’ll discuss this in the suite. I’m going for a drive. Indie. You’re leaving with me.”
“Am not,” I corrected, on the verge of strangling him while simultaneously screaming. “I’m leaving in our SUV with the rest of the guys.”
“Well, then,” he said, smiling, “I guess I’ll have to get going. Scoring coke in a foreign city is always a hassle.”
I was about to stomp in his direction when Blake stopped me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll deal with this,” he said.
A dressing room door opened down the hallway and Alfie appeared, pink-cheeked. There was a gorgeous brunette in a red minidress next to him, and they held hands. I didn’t fail to notice that her scarlet lipstick was smeared all over both their faces.
“Can you shut your gobs for one bloody minute? Kinda busy spreading the love here.”
“The love or the STDs?” Alex muttered, lighting a cigarette, his go-fuck-yourself expression on full display.
Lucas folded his arms, yawning. “Sorry, mate, you’ll have to take a rain check. Your boss is threatening to relapse because he can’t take seeing his drummer and babysitter hanging out.”
“Hanging out, huh?” Alfie chuckled.
Stay strong. Don’t hit anyone. You don’t need the criminal record.
“You guys are all idiots,” I concluded, storming down the hallway toward the back door where the SUV was waiting for us. “All of you. No exceptions. Big-ass babies with fat wallets and too much time.” I turned around and stomped away, throwing two middle fingers in the air for emphasis. “I’m going to sit in the SUV and try not to choke from anger. Hope by the time you guys get there, you grow up a little.”
“All grown here.” Alfie grabbed his crotch, and this time it was Lucas who slapped the back of his head.
“See you at midnight, Stardust!” Alex yelled to my retreating back.
The brunette squeaked, “Ohmigosh! Alex Winslow! Can I have an autograph?”
I picked up the pace and recited the mantra I’d told myself earlier—that it was just about the money. Temporary and completely meaningless.
But the truth was, Alex wanted into my pants.
Lucas wanted into my life.
And I wanted to get out of this tour alive and whole.
Heart, body, and soul.
George Carlin once said, “What does cocaine make you feel like? It makes you feel like doing more cocaine.” George Carlin, ladies and gents, was, in fact, right. With cocaine, I felt more alert, less anxious, and a lot more confident. Coke made me all wired-up and worthy of my ridiculous net worth. Coke also made me more sufferable—I’d been less of a dick because I wasn’t so worried my shit was shite all the time—and more insufferable—because it made me think I was The Shit.
Now I was sober and acutely aware of the fact I needed to justify the money sitting in my bank by coming up with a spectacular album. The word ‘overrated’ flies around way too much once your art translates into sports cars, high-profiled relationships, and Malibu mansions. Money is also the beginning of the end to art, the kiss of death to creativity, and the cancer to integrity. More on that later. Point is, insecurity is like a snake. It can either suffocate or eat you alive. Your choice, really.
The new album made me uneasy, and being uneasy made me a dick. The first people in my line of fire were my staff, so it was no wonder I’d decided to take it out on Waitrose and his easy smile and unscrupulous intentions. Though really, was he expecting me to just sit there and let him fuck my very fuckable hanny? Fuck no.
“What’s up with the sitter?” Blake echoed my thoughts, tucking his phone into the front pocket of his trousers.
I stopped strumming Tania and looked up. We were sitting in the back of a taxi, driving through Melbourne’s interesting bits. The Eureka Tower, MCG, the Botanical Gardens, and the Shrine of Remembrance. I knew that since Blake had actually put away his phone to ask me that question, it meant it was serious.
“Specify.” I flicked dirt from under my chewed-up nails.
“You never cared when we hit on your nannies before. And we always have. Christ, Alfie shagged two, and none of them lasted over a week.”
My eyes moved to the window, and I tapped my knee to a tuneless rhythm. Oh, my life, two lines would fix everything. Unclog the lyrics and make me do what I’d been wanting to—drag Stardust by the hair to the balcony overlooking Melbourne’s skyline and fuck her senseless until she moaned out of key.
“Allow me to refresh your memory, Blake—none of my sobriety companions made it past the three-day mark. That’s the first fact standing in your way. The second one? This nanny is on the road with us, probably for the remainder of the tour, and I don’t need the drama. Third and last—unfortunately, she’s no longer disposable. I sort of found a good use for her.”
Silence sat thick between us. Then, “Now it’s your turn to specify. What is this something?”
Blake wanted Jenna. That much I was certain of. The first time they’d met, he’d asked her about the massive ring on her finger before he asked for her name. She answered she was wearing it specifically for idiots like him, who she wanted to avoid. His sniffing around Indigo made zero sense. I plucked a fag from my pack with my teeth and lit it, ignoring the driver who shot me a silent frown from the rearview window.
Puffing, I unrolled the window. “Indigo turned out to be a bit of a muse to my next album. She’s down-to-earth; I’m sky-high. She makes me want to write about the L.A. of the old films. Just look at her. She dresses like one of those Marilyn Monroe impersonators on the Walk of Fame. I’m starting to come up with the narrative of the album, and she’s part of it. The blue-haired girl in the vintage dress, cycling around on her bike, going around trying to piece her heart back together.”
I was talking out of my arse at this point. My explanation sounded artsy-fartsy at best and delusional mumbo jumbo at worst, but that was the beauty of being a musician. No one could dispute your process, even if it essentially involved sitting on a Chinese takeout joint’s rooftop, stark naked, balancing a fruit bowl on your head while singing “We Are the World”—undoubtedly the worst song to ever be written in the history of, well, the written word.
“Huh.” Blake stroked his chin, carefully considering the load of crap I’d fed him with a spoon. I knew he’d do whatever it took to help me write a good album, including skinning Waitrose and using his flesh as a new case for Tania. The next bit was a tad trickier. See, being an arsehole is an art. I probably needed to do this without blatantly pissing all over the meaning of “friendship,” but when it came to Lucas, I genuinely didn’t care. If anything, I’d be delighted if he’d found out I was fisting his little girlfriend to the sound of The Pussycat Dolls.
“I’m also going to fuck her.”
Blake’s jaw slacked, then eased back as he let loose a smile he was trying to bite. Why did he look so satisfied? Did he know something I didn’t?
“I didn’t say it’d be a threesome,” I clarified.
He schooled his face back to a scowl. “Shut up, Alex.”
The cab stopped in front of our hotel, and it was dark and cold, and for the first time in weeks, I wasn’t feeling like my soul had been run over by every vehicle in a two-hundred-mile radius. The crisp air pinched my nose as I sl
id out of the back seat. Two doormen approached us while Blake paid the driver, tipping him extra for the cigarette stench I’d left in his car. One of the doormen held an umbrella above my head. The other offered to take my guitar. I tsked. No one touched Tania except me. Blake matched my steps into the building, and for a second, we weren’t Alex Winslow and his dapper manager. We were normal twenty-seven-year-old blokes, and I was getting shit from my mate for being so insufferably self-centered. There were no barricades, no barriers, and no bodyguards to shield me from the world.
“Waitrose wants Indie. He made it clear,” Blake said matter-of-factly when we stepped into the elevator. “You’ve already dipped into the Lucas pool, mate. Remember Laura?”
Vaguely, and only because I didn’t have the pleasure of being high at age fourteen.
“We didn’t even have hair on our balls back then. Besides, I shagged her long before he started dating her.” I waved him off dismissively. “Laura left him because he was a miserable sod who gave her very little attention. He’d been itching to go on this tour and join us in L.A. When they broke up, I took him in, bought him a plane ticket, brought him to California, same as I did with you. The way he repaid me was throwing Fallon and Will together. Guess what? I still hired his arse as my drummer. Well, now he owes a debt, and I finally chose a way to collect it. He’s going to see what it feels like when the girl slips from between your fingers. Spoiler alert—it’s not pretty. Not by a long shot.”
The lift door slid open. The walk to our suite was so quiet our footfalls on the carpeted floor echoed on the walls in dull thuds. It was eleven fifty-four. Part of me wanted to see if Indie would come out to the hallway at midnight willingly, but the greater part didn’t give two shits. There were songs to be written. She was going to help me whether she liked it or not.
“You staying outside?” Blake rubbed his forehead tiredly, his other hand already on the doorknob.
I nodded toward my babysitter’s room. “I’m finishing this tour with an album.” It was a declaration, not a wish.
“With the amount of mess you’re creating in the process, you goddamn better.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, slamming the door in my face.
Eleven fifty-five.
I stood and stared at her door, wondering if Lucas was there. Surely, he wasn’t so daft as to try to mess with what was mine. And that was the naked, raw truth. Indigo Bellamy was mine. I paid her to be here.
She was at my disposal, for better or worse.
I was going to use her.
And fuck her.
And taunt Lucas with her, because he had nowhere to go—he’d literally have to see it. Day after day. Night after night. Like I saw Fallon and Will on every website, in every magazine, and every media outlet in the world. Kissing, hugging, smiling for the camera. “Bushell Finds Love!” “State of the Art: Will Finds His Muse!” “Love on Lankford Lane.”
Eleven fifty-six.
I swore her door was taunting me.
I was sober enough to recognize this wasn’t logically plausible, yet somehow, it was. I needed to knock and get it over with, but something stopped me.
Eleven fifty-seven.
A sound came from behind the door. A cross between a groan and a moan. Was Waitrose touching her? Was she touching herself? My blood heated in my veins, my dick hardening in my briefs. I imagined her mounting a white hotel pillow, clutching it between her sun-kissed thighs and riding it with her fingers deep inside her pussy. She was so small, I wondered what she’d look like from the inside. Pink and tight and easily bruised. I wanted to stick my tongue in and check. To rip her panties and see if her bum was the same color as her bronzed face and shoulders. The need to know was carnal. Like this was the greatest mystery one could possibly unearth.
Oomph, my cock strained against my zipper, swelling to a point where I felt my pulse thudding through its veins.
Eleven fifty-eight.
Footfalls fell along her room. Back, forth. Back, forth. She was probably packing, not masturbating. I cupped my dick through my jeans, rearranging my junk and cracking my neck. Right. I needed a fuck. Stardust was still a no-go. She was the get-to-know-you-first type of bird. I made a mental note to jog from the plane the minute we landed in Japan and stick my cock into the first set of open legs I could find. Maybe even at the airport. No matter if I got caught. It wasn’t like there was one person in the western world who hadn’t seen my cock yet. Including Indie herself. And the way her eyes had brightened when she’d looked at it…
Eleven fifty-nine.
Restless. Why the fuck was I restless? She was nothing to me. And yet, she was obviously something. It was the album, I decided. It was doing my bloody head in.
Midnight.
The door was still closed. I didn’t hear her little feet or feel her approaching, and I should have. Body heat had the ability to move through wood and steel and space. My jaw clenched and my fist curled around her doorknob. It was pointless. The door was automatically locked, and even I was perceptive enough to acknowledge I had no right to barge into her space.
Twelve oh-one.
The girl wasn’t going to comply. What a little spitfire, she was. I raised my fist to knock on the door. The second my knuckles were about to connect with the wood, it swung open. Indie stood there, her eyes swollen and red. Somewhere in my throat, there were words I couldn’t say. Mostly profanity, so it was probably good I kept silent.
“I need someone to hold me tonight,” she croaked, hugging her midsection. Her eyes fluttered in defeat at her own sincerity, like she was giving me something precious. Her weakness. And of course—I took it. I stepped into her room. If there was anyone doing any holding of Indigo Bellamy on this tour, it was going to be me. She pushed me away, her palm connecting with my chest, and stepped outside into the hallway with me.
This evening, when she’d told me about her parents, I’d felt sorry for her. It looked like her parents had actually been decent human beings.
“Let’s keep it impersonal, shall we? Weren’t you the one who made the rule about staying out of each other’s rooms when we write? The hallway is neutral.”
“We’re way past neutral, and fuck if you aren’t being difficult again,” I grunted.
“I’m allowed to be whatever I want tonight.” She sniffed.
She was probably right. I wasn’t an orphan, but I might as well be, with parents like mine.
Not giving her the chance to resist, I immediately wrapped my arms around her body, holding her like breakable china. She wasn’t as boney as I’d thought she’d be. In my mind, she felt like hugging a sack of marbles, when in reality, she was soft everywhere. It made me tighten my arms around her, like she could slip through my fingers, like mist.
My chin rested on the top of her head; her nose was buried in my armpit. She was warm and silky. Delicious, really. I wanted to take her like a drug. All at once, in one gulp. I wanted to overdose on her like cocaine, and heroin, and crack, knowing the destruction I was willingly inhaling into my body. Because Indie, like drugs, was a temporary fix. Once our three months were up, she’d leave my surly arse and run back to what was left of her dysfunctional-yet-loving family.
I wouldn’t blame her.
Hell, I wouldn’t even stop her.
Because deep down, I knew a bastard like me couldn’t keep her.
The rudest bastard in the world, as it turned out, was also a welcome distraction.
Because here I was again, sitting in the hallway, face-to-face, soul-to-soul with the most troubled of them all.
Initially, I was going to stay put in my room, even if the entire world collapsed and Alex tried to break down my door. But then Natasha had called me shortly after the show, and I’d realized the last thing I needed was to stay in my room and stew. She’d sounded panicked on the phone. Apparently, Craig’s version of being a good husband and father today had been to go MIA the minute he’d stepped out of bed. Nat had gotten a call from her friend, Trish, saying Craig drop
ped Ziggy at her place wordlessly, already stinking like an Irish brothel. Nat had had to leave work and rush to pick up Ziggy, then aimlessly look for Craig on the streets while clutching her toddler to her chest.
My brother was going to show up back home. We both knew that.
He was also going to apologize profusely, promising it’d never happen again.
‘Just a blip.’
‘Not after all we’ve been through.’
‘Come on, Nat, you know my family is my everything.’
Oh, yes, my brother was charming. He’d never raise his voice to his wife, or push her, or blame her for his troubles. Nat would stay, and the crack in their foundation would widen further, with Ziggy’s happiness slipping through it.
“If you wanna talk about it—do.” Alex’s glacial voice pierced through my dark thoughts, his boot between my stretched legs. It only touched my ankles, but still somehow felt deeply inappropriate. Then again, we were in the hallway, in plain sight, like all delicious secrets that were meant to stay that way.
I considered the unlikely idea. “Would it be helpful to your songwriting?”
He did a one-shoulder shrug. “If I knew the answer to that question, I’d have thirty albums under my belt, not four, and probably enough money to buy the entire city of Los Angeles and consequently burn it down.”
“You’re charming.” I rolled my eyes.
“Doubtful. I’m not prolific, either.”
“There are solutions for that. Time management classes are kind of big these days,” I babbled.
He shot me one of his dry looks. “What a great time to be alive. So. Your hissy fit today,” he detoured back to the subject.
I tilted my head, studying him. His frown. His natural, bee-stung pout. Clean-shaven face, softened by youth but hardened by life. If it wasn’t for his tousled hair and life’s-a-bitch-and-then-you-die scowl, he could actually pass for someone else. Less intimidating. Less soul-sucking. Less dangerous for my heart. He was so beautiful, and talented, and adored, and miserable. How could you have so much and feel so little?