Outside the hotel, we’re greeted by a noisy crowd of people with cameras and phones. Griffin grabs my hand and tugs me closer to him as a bunch of paparazzi swoop in for pictures. The noise is deafening and the lights are painful to my eyes, but Griffin squeezes me against his side and poses away like a long-time Hollywood starlet, complete with a practiced duck-face smile.
“Hello, everyone!” he says. “I know you all love me very, very much. I love you, too. If you want me to sign something for you, you may form a line. I’ll get to you just as soon as I can. If you want to name your baby after me, that’s alright, too. And if anyone wants to have a baby with me, you’ll have to send in your name and information to Devon here. He’s my manager. He’ll sort through all those requests and forward them to me.”
Oh my God.
“Who is this?” someone asks, and I realize, with a great deal of horror, that the man is pointing at me. It’s like middle school all over again, standing next to a really hot eleventh grader at a Christmas party and hearing his girlfriend say ‘who is that?’ while half the middle/high school stands by to hear the dismal answer of ‘I have no idea, probably one of my seventh grade fangirls,’ and then proceeds to heartily laugh in unison. Basically, this is Stephen King material.
I attempt to pull away from Griffin and escape, but he just dances his fingertips down my side until his hand cups my hip and he says, in a clear and loud voice, “This is Wanda Kirkwood. She’s the most desirable woman on this planet.”
The mood shifts around me, the confused stares turn to smiles, and for a few seconds, I don’t even care that my name is actually Daisy. Well, until everyone starts screaming, ‘Wanda, Wanda!’ at me.
But I guess I can deal with people calling me Wanda.
“Is she your girlfriend?” someone else asks.
Griffin nods and smiles. “Of course she’s a girl friend! And I’m wearing Dior, if you want to take note of that, but I’m open to other designers sending me clothes.”
A lively group of fans rush toward Griffin, hands outstretched, offering him pens and papers and shoulders and arms and chests to sign. He releases his hold on me and happily signs whatever anyone asks him to, his left hand a blur of motion as he works his way through the seemingly endless crowd that’s growing with every passing second.
“Isn’t he wonderful?” one girl gushes at me. “I love his song! I love his accent! He’s British!” She lets out a little happy gasp. I pat her gently on the back, hoping she won’t faint.
“Am I part of any scandals yet?” I hear Griffin ask one of the fans as he signs the top of her ample breasts with a black marker. “Has anyone claimed to be my son? Or accused me of tax evasion? Ooooh, has anyone stepped forth and said they’re actually my biological father, and I need to go to a rehabilitation center for a secret cocaine addiction?” He pauses. “What is cocaine?”
One fan slings her arm around Griffin’s neck and kisses him square on the lips, but one of the bodyguards steps in and pulls the girl off with a bit more force than is strictly necessary.
“Alright, alright!” Griffin says. “I really must go now. Off to do important pop star sorts of things. Remember to buy my song and listen to it and share it with your friends and tell whoever makes that wonderful television play, Doctor Who, that I’d like to be on the show! Cheers!” He presses both hands to his lips and blows kisses to all of them before turning back to me and offering his arm. His face is flushed with excitement, and I can’t help smiling a little at just how ecstatic he is.
As we walk away, he slips his arm around me again, casting a glance here and there over his shoulder at all the people still snapping pictures.
“You smell very desirable,” Griffin says, so suddenly that I don’t even know at first that he’s talking to me. He leans in close, sniffs my neck, and then lowers his face over my chest, taking a deep breath. “I like that. I like that very much.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Cosmo said you can tell a lot about a potential mate by their smell. I like your smell.”
Why did I ever tell him about Cosmo…?
“I feel a powerful attraction to your smell. I guess that means we should mate,” he says just before releasing me and surging toward the black car waiting for us. He climbs inside and shouts for Devon, chattering on and on about how excited he is to go to his first interview.
Traffic is awful as always, so we spend what feels like a thousand years in the car, so long that I almost drift off into a boredom coma, despite all the noise radiating from Griffin and Devon.
Well, mostly Griffin.
As we crawl along, I stare out the tinted windows at all the people rushing here and there, coffee cups in hand, and wonder why I’m not still out there.
Why me? Why did they choose me, of all people? I’m five-foot-four, five-five if anyone asks, so I’m not exactly one to stand out in a crowd. I can’t afford anything fancier than an occasional large drink at Starbucks, so I don’t have any money or influence. And the highest level of fame I’ve achieved up to this point was first place in a state-level tug-of-war contest the day after my twenty-second birthday.
I glance over at Griffin and Devon and find them with their heads leaned together, laughing and whispering in their language, like the best and oldest of friends.
Why me?
Dating an Alien Pop Star Page 7