by Elise Noble
“Are you for real?” JD asked. “You can undo the handcuffs?”
“Yes, but how did you lose the key?”
“We didn’t lose the key. Travis cuffed her to the bed, and we lost Travis.”
What the hell had I walked into?
I bent a ninety-degree kink near the end of the bobby pin and got to work. Following my first ever attempt, which had taken me a good ten minutes, I’d practised on the spare pair of cuffs Zander kept at home until I could get them open in seconds. Then I’d started practising with a bunch of other locks while I watched TV in the evenings. Call it a strange little hobby. A moment later, the cuff around the girl’s wrist popped open, and I quickly removed the other end from the bedpost too.
Rush held up his hand for a high five. “That’s my bikini girl.”
I ignored the hand. “You and me, we need to talk.”
JD snorted a laugh. “Sounds bad, buddy.”
“And someone needs to find her clothes.” I looked around the room, and something red and slinky sticking out from under a chair caught my eye. A dress, I presumed, although I had underwear that gave me more coverage. I stooped to pick it up. “Here. Put this on her.”
Rush took the garment and held it up by one strap. “How does this work?”
Oh, for goodness’ sake.
When I left home this morning, this was the last thing I thought I’d be doing. Fending off Rush Moder and his wandering hands, yes, but not stuffing a voluptuous blonde back into an overly complicated outfit. Finally, I got her decent, and she still hadn’t woken up. What had she taken? I’d checked her pulse just in case, and she wasn’t dead.
“Now what?” I asked. “Do we just leave her here?”
“Where’s Gary?” Dex asked.
JD shrugged. “Still getting his beauty sleep, probably.”
“Who’s Gary?” I whispered to Rush.
“The world’s biggest asshole.”
Really? I’d have said he had some stiff competition from the members of Indigo Rain.
“You’ll have to elaborate.”
“The minder sent by our record label. Apparently, we bring the company into disrepute.”
I looked pointedly at the sleeping girl.
“Babe, we’re Indigo Rain. What are we supposed to do? Sit around drinking cocoa and playing shuffleboard?”
“I don’t even know what shuffleboard is.”
“Me neither.” He took my hand and tugged me towards the door. “So let’s do something else instead.”
Before I got a chance to protest, we were in another bedroom with the door closed. Rush backed me up against it and moved in, pressing his body against mine. Wasn’t this every girl’s dream? Being kissed by Rush Moder?
Not mine. My mouth went dry as I lowered a mental portcullis on my girly bits.
“Hey, wait. Stop!”
He paused, his lips an inch from mine.
“What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t why I came here.” He tried to kiss me again, but I turned my head away. “I mean it. I came to write a story, remember? We messaged about it.”
“You weren’t serious about that, were you?”
“Yes!”
“It wasn’t just an excuse? Believe me, I’ve heard them all. Girls pretending to be singers and models and reporters and masseuses. Pointless. If a chick’s hot, I’m not gonna say no.” He leaned in, now just millimetres away, and I could practically taste the whisky he’d drunk for breakfast. “And you’re hot, bikini girl, even if you’re dressed like a nun today.”
“Can’t you listen to what I have to say for five minutes instead of acting like a sex-starved gorilla?”
He huffed but shifted back six inches. “You slay me, bikini girl.”
“My name’s Alana, not bikini girl.”
“I thought your name was Raven?”
Ah, so he had read my profile properly. “Raven’s my middle name. And I really am a journalism student.” I took a deep breath. “A journalism student who’s hit a tiny snag with her coursework.”
“What kind of a snag?”
I gave him a brief précis of the past week, and when I got to the part about making Roy coffee, Rush leaned his forehead against mine and began chuckling.
“He really said that?”
“He really did. And I still can’t believe I obeyed.”
“Fuck, babe, I’m an asshole and even I’d have made you coffee.”
Well, at least Rush admitted to his character flaws. “So, how about it? You let me do a few interviews at a time to suit you, and I’ll write a story from your point of view. You or Dex can approve everything before it’s printed.”
“And where would it be printed?”
“I don’t know exactly, not yet.” I tried for a smile, even as my last hope began to slip away. “But I have three hundred thousand Instagram followers. Some of them might like to read about you.”
“Do you take the pictures you post yourself?”
“All but one. A friend took that damn bikini photo.”
Rush tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, and I’ll admit, his proximity was making me slightly hot and bothered. Maybe, just maybe, I was beginning to understand why Tessa never shut up about him.
“I’ll cut you a deal, Raven du Walt. Access to our On the Run tour and an interview with me in return for you taking photos for my social media profiles. I’m always too drunk to hold the fuckin’ camera. You can write your article, and if the others approve it, you can publish it.”
“I always figured you’d have a proper assistant to handle your social media.”
“We’ve tried that, but they all quit because of Travis.”
“Why? What did he do?”
Did he yell at them? Throw things? Make unreasonable demands? I needed to know what I’d be letting myself in for.
“Charmed their panties off, then kept forgetting their names. Or sometimes he called them the wrong names, and they didn’t like that either.”
Okay, perhaps that wasn’t so bad. “That’s not a problem, because I won’t be sleeping with Travis.”
Rush grinned.
“Or you. This is strictly business.”
“You’re killing me, bikini girl.”
“I’ll bring my camera to the funeral.”
“Babe, you’re gonna drive the rest of the guys crazy.”
“Is that a yes, then? I can work with you?”
“You’ll have to pay your own way. The bean counters at the record label are tighter than a mosquito’s ass.”
What a lovely visual. “I can do that.”
Finally, he pushed away from me, and I didn’t know whether to sigh or collapse in relief. My knees had turned to liquid, and until now, Rush had been holding me up.
“Give me half an hour,” he said. “I’ll have to sell this to the others. In case you haven’t noticed, Dex is a grumpy fucker.” He took a step back. “Do me a favour and get me a coffee while you wait.”
Hold on. Was he…?
“Kidding.” He threw his hands up. “Don’t give me that look, bikini girl. I like my junk where it is.”
Rush opened the bedroom door and motioned for me to walk out, so I took that to mean my presence wasn’t wanted. Before I knew it, I was in the hallway again. Now what? I could hardly hover around like a groupie while Rush explained to his colleagues that he wanted to hire an amateur biographer purely because she looked good in swimwear.
A green sign ahead pointed towards the stairwell. Perhaps I could hide out in there while Rush worked his magic? Yes, that was a good plan.
At least, I thought so until I walked through the door and pitched headfirst onto the floor.
CHAPTER 4 - ALANA
“HEY, ARE YOU okay?” a man asked. Deep voice, American accent, a hint of concern.
I rolled over and blinked a few times, trying to clear the fuzz. Where was I? The stairwell. Right. Except instead of finding a quiet corner for a moment of reflection, I’d tripped over so
mebody’s legs and fallen flat on my face. Who the hell sat in the way like that?
His face came into focus, brown hair flopped forward and tickled my chin, and I got my answer. Travis Thorne, complete with a cast on his left arm.
“Oh, crap.”
“Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
I tested each limb in turn. My knees would be bruised tomorrow, and my wrists hurt where I’d used my hands to break my fall, but my head was fine. The biggest dent was to my pride.
“I’m fine, just mortally embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. I’ve fallen on my ass a hundred times.”
But never when he was sober, I bet.
“Why were you sitting on the floor?”
“There wasn’t a chair.”
A little clarity returned. “You handcuffed a girl to your bed and left her there!”
“The blonde? She handcuffed herself to my bed. I don’t even know where she came from.” Travis helped me into a sitting position and propped me against the wall. “Who are you? And how do you know about her?”
“I came to see Rush.”
“Aah.”
“Not in that way. You’ve got such a dirty mind.”
“And I promise you I’ve got the sweet tongue to go with it.”
Travis’s flirting seemed forced, a habit rather than a heartfelt attempt, and when I met his gaze, a certain sadness lurked behind his soft hazel eyes. Eyes that locked on mine with an intensity that left me squirming.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
The shutters slammed down. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’re hiding away in here.”
“I needed a few minutes on my own.”
“Why?”
“What is this? Twenty fucking questions?”
Well done, Alana. Alienate your potential sort-of-employer before you’ve even landed the internship.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Travis’s shoulders sagged as if a boulder was pressing down on him. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. I just got some bad news, that’s all.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Dammit, now I sounded like my therapist.
“No.”
“Should I let the others know to stop looking for you?”
He shook his head, and that was it. Since I couldn’t get through the door without him moving, I stayed put, trying not to fidget as the silence turned from oppressive to merely awkward to contemplative. Travis was a thinker. Absent-mindedly, it seemed, he lifted one of my hands from my knees and stretched out each digit in turn, lining his own hand up against it from palm to fingertip.
“A friend died last night.” He spoke softly, staring straight ahead. “An overdose. I partied with her three days ago, and I warned her to go easy on the drugs, but she couldn’t quit.”
“I’m so sorry. Had you known her for a long time?”
“Since we were kids. We weren’t from the same neighbourhood—she had money, and we didn’t—but we hung out in the same places. Back when JD got hypothermia sleeping in his car, she snuck him in through her window every night until her momma caught him in her bedroom and kicked his ass. She left home soon after that. A free spirit, JD always said, but she wasn’t, not until now. Heroin had her trapped.”
“Does JD know?”
Travis shook his head. “I’m supposed to tell him. Because I’m the strong one, right? Sure as hell doesn’t feel that way.”
Words seemed inadequate, so I squeezed his hand. If he wanted to talk, I’d listen.
“You know the worst part? This’ll be all over the gossip sites later, and no one’ll care that Marli had a beautiful smile and loved her friends and volunteered at the animal shelter on her good days. They’ll only care that she was a junkie and she knew me and JD.” Travis screwed his eyes shut. “Fuck. Listen to me, unloading like an asshole. I don’t even know you.”
“It’s okay. I’m prone to oversharing myself.”
A bad habit I’d picked up from therapy. I’d spent years bottling everything up, and now my mouth ran away from me on occasion.
“So tell me something about you, stranger. Like your name.”
“I’m—”
The door crashed into Travis, and a brown-haired man squeezed through the gap. His face matched my lipstick, and when Travis groaned, I got the impression it wasn’t just because of his bruised leg.
“What the hell are you doing in here? I’ve told you a hundred times not to bring groupies upstairs.” He jerked a thumb towards the door. “Off you go, sweetheart.”
Travis’s arm snaked around my waist. “She’s not a groupie; she’s a friend of Rush’s, and we were trying to have a private conversation.”
“You don’t have time for that. We need to go over today’s schedule.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Now.”
The man sounded like a petulant child.
“Five minutes.”
“Two minutes. Everybody’s waiting.”
The prick backed out of the doorway, and Travis slumped against the wall. “Behold, the glamorous life of a rock star.”
“Who was that guy?”
“Gary, our babysitter from the record label. He’s supposed to stop us from getting into trouble.”
“Does it work?”
“Nope. But he annoys the shit out of us while he tries.” Travis got to his feet and held out a hand. “C’mon, blue-eyes. You were on your way out?”
“Not exactly,” I said as my hand found its way into his. “It’s kind of a long story, but I’m waiting for Rush to message me back.”
“About what?”
“A job.”
“What job? I didn’t know we were hiring anyone.”
“You weren’t. We had this drunken conversation on Instagram, or at least he thinks we did, but it wasn’t me, it was my friend Tessa, and I was wearing a bikini, and…” I covered my face with my free hand. “This sounds so much worse than it is. Anyhow, I’m a journalism student, and he offered me a sort of internship taking photos and writing an article on the band if the other guys agreed, and I guess that’s you. I think I’ll stop talking now.”
“You gonna write the truth?”
“I plan to, and you get to approve any copy.”
He used up a full minute and a half of his two minutes contemplating my words. What was going on in that head of his? I wanted to know, but at the same time, I didn’t.
“You’d better get your camera ready, blue-eyes.”
“You’re agreeing?”
“None of us can take pictures for shit.” He steered me back towards Suite A. “Just show some compassion, okay? I’ve gotta break the news about Marli to JD.”
“Absolutely. Yes, I will, I promise.”
Rush, JD, and Dex were all lounging on the sofas in the living area when we walked in. The blonde was nowhere to be seen, no doubt doing the walk of shame towards a Tube station somewhere.
“Hey, you found bikini girl.”
Travis raised an eyebrow, and the barbell stuck through the end of it glinted in the light from the chandelier.
“Bikini girl?”
“Forget I said that. She’s not wearing a bikini anywhere near you.”
“Or you. She’s working for us now?”
Rush glanced at JD and Dex, and Dex glowered at me but didn’t speak.
“Yeah. Raven’s our Instababe. Make sure you keep your hands off this time.”
“Raven?”
“That’s her rocker name.”
A rocker name that had never suited me, not one little bit. That was why it made the perfect online disguise. Raven was cool and sexy with a dark edge, while Alana was a sheltered blend of emotional confusion and gawkiness. But since I’d somehow blagged myself into the ultimate internship, I had to at least pretend.
“She doesn’t look like a Raven,” Dex said. “More of a sparrow. What’s her real name?”
Gee, thanks. “My name’s Alana.”
Dex’s mask of contempt cracked long enough for him to answer. “He got a phone call.”
“Well, Alana, I need to talk to JD.” Travis jerked his head towards the door, and JD ambled in that direction. “See you later.”
Travis’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and I knew why. Like so many other people, I’d assumed that stars like him led a charmed life, but an hour into my assignment, I’d already realised appearances could be deceptive. Until now, my goal had been to get enough fluff to write a bullshit article that would satisfy my uni supervisor, but as I watched Travis trailing JD out of the room with his head down, for the first time, I wanted to actually tell their story. The men behind the music. The truth behind the glitz.
Although if I’d known at that moment how twisted the tale would become, I’d have run straight back into the express elevator, sprinted out of the Hamilton House Hotel, crawled back to Fly Boy Media, and made Roy all the coffee he could drink.
To tell Zander or not to tell Zander?
On the plus side, his inevitable background check wouldn’t turn up many skeletons lurking in the boys’ closets because they were already widely available to anyone with Twitter. On the minus side, my brother would most probably lock me up in my bedroom until Indigo Rain’s UK tour was well and truly finished.
The first concert was tomorrow, in Sheffield, and I was supposed to be at their hotel by eight so I could travel on the tour bus rather than having to catch the train. The tour bus. It still felt surreal. Although I was under no illusion as to why I’d got this job, if you could call it that, and the reason had nothing to do with my abilities as either a journalist or a photographer and everything to do with me panic-buying a gold bikini two sizes too small from the sale rack because it was end-of-season and all the high-street shops were getting ready for winter.
But did I care? No.
Resisting Rush’s limited charms would be easy, and I giggled as I fired off an email to my uni supervisor informing him I’d found something to do for the next year. Not that I intended to work for the whole twelve months, obviously. A month putting up with Rush Moder—six weeks tops—and then I could take my time writing everything up. Job title? Instababe. Hmm, maybe not. Digital media assistant—that sounded better.