Darling

by Gabrielle G

I wake up to people screaming. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but I feel I slept too much, which has never happened before. I’m in a haze, confused by having dreamed of Anna lying next to me, her body curled around mine, her smell still lingering in my memory.

  “You see? Having her here does nothing. Freaking nothing. It’s even worse. He slept for almost a whole day!” Art shouts.

  “How was I supposed to know? He asked for her. Doc said it could help. I thought it was a good idea.”

  “Could it be that he’s just run down?” a woman says. “Because if he’s in depression, he’s cycling way too fast for his diagnosis.”

  I’m still half asleep, and her voice is too low for me to recognize it.

  “Because now you’re a fucking expert on bipolar disorder?”

  “I’ve read anything and everything I could find. You think I’d come see him and just wing it?”

  “Well, aren’t you here to just fuck him? You went right into his bed without even discussing it with us first!”

  “I’m sorry, was your ego hurt when I ignored you as much as you ignored me?”

  “I didn’t spend nights humming by his side for you to tell me to let him sleep. I’m going in!”

  “No, I’m sure he’s just exhausted! Don’t wake him up,” the feminine voice says.

  “Are you serious? Who do you think you are? His doctor? His girlfriend? Are you that crazy?”

  “Hey! I didn’t ask to come here. You called me, Lars. So don’t talk to me that way because I will punch your pretty face.”

  “I don’t remember having to beg for you to show up. Always ready to fuck a rock star, aren’t you?”

  “Screw you! I don’t even know why I came.”

  “So maybe you should leave.”

  “He asked for me. You think I’d leave before seeing if he’s okay? I just expressed an opinion. I know neither of you is used to speaking with my gender, but just so you know, moans are not the only thing that can come out of a woman’s mouth!”

  Anna! I get up as quickly as I can, throwing on sweatpants to hide my cock, which woke up as soon as my brain recognized the voice I’m hearing and the scent I’m smelling.

  “Yeah, because you researched bipolar disorder, we know! You repeated it enough times. Still doesn’t give you the right to think you know better than us. You’ve lived it for fourteen hours while he was asleep. This has been our life for the last twenty-five years. Dan is an insomniac. Sleeping that long is not something he does!”

  “He slept every night we spent together!” she snaps.

  Fuck, I smile. She’s right. They’re all right. I normally sleep three to four hours maximum, sometimes none, but with her, I slept well—when she let me sleep.

  “She’s right,” I say, coming into the living room. “I sleep well when I’m in bed with her.”

  Her long fiery hair is on the top of her head in what I think women call a lazy bun. She’s wearing tight leggings and a top that follows every curve of her breasts. Her eyes roam over my chest and the perfectly fitted sweatpants. When they slip down and catch the outline of my dick, she bites her cheek. I smirk and walk over to her.

  “Hey, Anna love.” I bend to kiss her cheek. The slight blush on her face floods me with warmth.

  “Hey, Darling.” Her smile illuminates her face, and my heartbeat assaults my ears. She looks as delicious as a spatula coated with cake batter, and I want to lick her clean.

  Remembering her taste, I wet my lips. I didn’t think seeing her again would bring back the same desire I felt the first night I met her. I was afraid my hypersexuality created what I felt for Anna. But my body recognizes the one it craves, and every night I dreamt of fucking her comes rushing into my mind like an army of ants ready to devour their prey. Her green eyes are calming my brain but exciting my senses, and when her tongue appears between her blush lips, I growl.

  “If you two are done eye-fucking each other, maybe we could discuss how you’re feeling?” Art says in a detached and clinical voice.

  Anna rolls her eyes, and I can’t suppress the laugh bubbling inside me. She clearly has something on the tip of her tempting tongue, but for a reason I don’t understand, she stays quiet. From what I saw in Montreal, she’s not the kind to shy away from conflict. I smile, trying to encourage her to speak up, but she subtly shakes her head and closes her eyes.

  “I’ll let you discuss things with your friends, Wes. I’ll be in my bedroom if you need anything.”

  Anna’s hand brushes mine, and I shiver, my hair rising on the nape of my neck.

  “Wes?” Lars says while I’m still trying to contain my need to pounce on her.

  “Uh huh?” I can’t take my eyes off her until she disappears behind her door.

  “She calls you Wes and you let her?”

  I finally turn to my friend to see his neck bending forward and his eyes blinking quickly.

  “Yes, Lawrence, I do. Do we have any coffee?”

  I stroll toward the kitchenette, letting Lars chew on the first name he hates so much. Wesley Moore, Lawrence Bank, and Artemas Klyosov weren’t suitable names for the idols we wanted to become. My mother, who was the first one to ever call us the Darling Devils, always said Lars was trouble but Art was sweet. When we were eighteen, each of us changed our names with the promise we would never again let anybody call us by our birth names.

  “You don’t like her,” I state, pouring three cups of coffee.

  “That’s an understatement!” Art growls, taking the cup out of my hand.

  “She’s a pain in the ass,” Lars explains.

  “She has her opinions.” I smile, imagining the small woman with angelic looks but a flaming personality going head to head with my bandmates.

  “Since she arrived, she’s tried to run the show. It’s maddening. She thinks she knows everything about your disorder and acts like she knows you more than we do.”

  I shrug. If I didn’t know better, I’d think my friends were jealous, complaining like boys on the playground that a girl is trying to boss them around.

  “Why are you smiling?” Art asks.

  I look between him and Lars. “You”—I point at Lars—“are pissed because her assistant, friend, whoever she is, didn’t come with her. And you”—I turn to Art—“are pissed for the same reason.”

  “Wrong, Julie is here,” Art says.

  “So you’re pissed because you think Julie wants to get in your pants or because she wants nothing to do with you?”

  He shrugs, hiding his annoyance behind his coffee mug. Lars hands me my meds and I take them without hesitation. If I want them to accept Anna, and if I want to have a chance to keep her around, I’d better follow my routine to the dot. They won’t cut me any slack if they think she’s a trigger or if I go off my meds. I’m surprised Lars called her, and I’m even more astounded that she came.

  “Is it too late to go to the gym? I’d like to go to bed at a reasonable time tonight and be ready to hit the studio tomorrow,” I tell them as if I wasn’t dying to join Anna in her bedroom.

  “I’m not going to the gym,” Lars says. “It’s past ten and I’m beat.”

  He’s not. He wants to find a girl, and because he doesn’t need to be on suicide watch, he’ll go to a bar and find a pussy. Art will go with him. I guess the plan is that I’ll stay here with Anna.

  “How are you feeling?” Lars asks, not touching his coffee.

  “I think I really needed to sleep.” I wink. It’s not what he’s asking, but I want to fuck with him a little.

  “Seriously, Dan, did you get over yesterday?” he chides.

  “You know I’m never over anything, but knowing Anna is here helped me get out of bed, so it’s a start. I’d love to go back to bed with her though, so if we’re not hitting the gym, could we please continue this conversation tomorrow?”

  “You’re going to sleep some more?” Art says incredulously.

  “Not if Anna doesn’t want to…”

  “Ah! Good l
uck with that!” Lars says, pushing away from the counter.

  Art is pinching the skin at his throat, his brow creased as if he’s looking for an answer I don’t know the question to.

  “What?” I ask after what feels like an eternity of silence.

  “She thinks we’re assholes.” He crosses his arms.

  “Well, were you?” I have no doubt they were. They don’t do well with women around me. They’re always looking for ulterior motives, and they’re right most of the time.

  “Kind of, but normally I can get away with it.”

  “That’s the thing with Anna. She doesn’t let people get away with shit. The first night I met her, she was clear she wasn’t coming up to my room with me. That hasn’t happened since I was fifteen.”

  Art shakes his head. “I don’t think she cares about us being celebrities. In fact, I think it scares the shit out of her. But she came. Lars called her and she came, no hesitation.” He’s scratching his chin, trying to find the solution to the puzzle of Anna.

  Please, let me know if you find it and if you know how to get such a woman out of my head and my skin. “That’s why you were assholes to her? You think she came to live her fifteen minutes of glory?”

  “Don’t they all?”

  “Fuck, when did you become so jaded? Lars told her I asked for her. I think she has no idea why she stepped on that plane, but she believes I needed her, so she did what she thought was the best for me, for you, for the whole band. Her coming here has nothing to do with fame or hanging out with rock stars. She’s here because a guy she met, a guy she knows has a mental illness, wished she was here. I’m not even sure she wants us to be anything because I’m Dan Darling, but she came. So, quit being assholes. It only confirms her idea of us, and it makes it harder for me to be with her.”

  “Because you want to be with her?”

  “Fuck if I know, but she came, didn’t she? That means something, as little as it could be.”

  27

  Anna

  The light knock on the door sounds the death knell of my sanity. Dan is behind that door, certainly still bare-chested in nothing but sweatpants, looking delicious as hell as his tantalizing smile reminds me, we need to speak before anything can happen between us.

  I wasn’t ready to see him look so alluring after having seen him so exposed in his sleep. When I woke up earlier in the day, I watched him sleep for a while. I’m not sure what he was dreaming about, but he frowned and became agitated until I caressed his arm. I felt like the queen of the world, my chest bursting with pride from being the one with the power to calm Dan Darling in his sleep. Then he whispered my name, and it’s not pride that invaded my chest. While sleeping, the man broke the last wall I had erected against his charms. I was fucked. I wanted to be his everything. It seemed as tangible as walking on the moon, but I was there, sharing his bed, watching him sleep, and I didn’t want to run.

  I needed to pee. So I got up and left him in bed. I thought I’d shower and meet Julie for a quick glance of London—but Jerk One and Jerk Two were waiting for me in the living room. A lengthy discussion about my intentions with the rock star, what my being here meant, what I knew and how I shouldn’t have come ensued. Everything I said was analyzed, transformed, and criticized until I lost my shit and went to Julie’s room.

  When I came back four hours later, Lars and Art were still in Dan’s suite, waiting for him to wake up, and we picked up the fight exactly where we’d left off. I certainly came on too strong, not feeling welcome tends to bring the worst out of me, but these two were also acting like assholes. Years of people telling them that their farts smelled like lavender made them think their shitty behavior was normal. Art and Lars’s actions towards me reeked stronger than the nose plug they forced me to wear through their sexiness and charisma.

  Nevertheless, I certainly don’t want to become the Yoko to Dan’s John, I need to swallow my pride and get along with Jerk One and Jerk Two. Because if I agree that chicks always come before dicks, then I should accept Dan’s bros would come before me. Strong-headed women generally never come before dickheads. If it were the case, then women would run the world.

  “Anna?”

  His light knock is more insistent now, and I’m faced with a not-so-hard decision but a decision nonetheless. Open the door and fuck his brains out—because after how we were looking at each other, there’s no doubt we still want one another—or ignore him, let him walk away, and talk to him in the morning, with clothes on and chastity belt adjusted.

  “I just want to talk,” he vows, as if this promise would grant him access to my room.

  “Do you have a shirt on?” I quip, admitting he’s a distraction.

  “I’ll go put one on if you change those leggings.” He laughs nervously. There’s already so much tension between us, I feel my body vibrating as much as a seventeen-year-old’s phone. “Meet me in the living room.”

  “Okay,” I manage to say.

  I change into my baggy pajamas and run to the sofa, where I cover myself with pillows. Dan strolls in in a too-tight shirt and the magical sweatpants, and I’m mortified when a squeal of delight comes out of me.

  “Anna. Don’t,” he warns me not-so-playfully. “I believe we need to talk.”

  That side of him telling me what to do has a direct line to my core.

  “You’re right, we do.” But my voice is dripping with desire for him. I can’t help licking my lips while I think of all the things we did together already—his hard cock nudging my ass this morning, his eyes fucking me earlier—and all we could still do all night long.

  “If you continue looking at me that way, love, I’ll devour every inch of your body.”

  Squeezing the pillow against my stomach, I swallow the moan simmering in my throat and clench my muscles to stop my desire from spreading. “So talk.”

  Dan sighs as if he’s relieved I’m not already straddling him. He sits on the sofa facing mine, the coffee table between us. “Why did you come?”

  His index finger is rubbing his bottom lip, and the movement hypnotizes me. I want my lips—any of my lips—to be that finger. It’s my turn to release the breath I was holding.

  “Keep your hands on your knees,” I say, trying to remove any distraction.

  “Bring down your hair then, because that neck is calling me.”

  I do, but try not to do it shampoo-advertising style. I hold my bun with one hand and pull on the elastic on the other. My hair falls over my shoulder and Dan grunts.

  “That’s not better,” he growls, putting a pillow over his hard cock. “So why did you come?”

  “Why did you ask me to?”

  Our eyes are dancing with hunger again, but behind his are a trace of wonder and maybe a pinch of honesty. He smiles, unquestionably having discovered what he was looking for in the back of my soul.

  “Let’s put our cards on the table.” His tone is sincere.

  “I will if you do.”

  He nods and closes his eyes before once again letting me dive into his blue gaze. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  But I want to hear things I don’t already know, so I up my game for him to up his. I open my chest for him to look at my heart. “I searched online for what it means to date someone with bipolar disorder.”

  “You want to date me?” he says as if it’s the most ludicrous idea he’s ever heard. I’m not sure if it’s because he thinks he would never date me or if it’s because he can’t believe I would, but it hurts a little.

  “I’m curious about it. Maybe I misread why you wrote songs to me and asked me to come when you were feeling down?” I’m trying to suture my chest rapidly in case he rejects me.

  He might feel me pulling away because he stands and comes to my sofa. Sitting on the other end of the couch, he takes my feet and rubs them slowly. “I mean, Anna, you know about my mental health, and you researched what it would mean to be with someone who suffers from bipolar disorder?”

  I nod. I’m the
kind who always comes prepared to a battle. Most of the time it’s because Naomi did the work for me, but for this one, I searched late into the night. “Obviously some things scare me, but I’m done lying to you and to myself. I think we could try.”

  Dan looks like a child who just heard his mother say he could play video games the whole freaking day. “Nobody’s ever asked me to date.” I come closer to try to erase the emotion I see storming through his eyes, but he shakes his head for me to stop. “We’re not done talking, love.”

  I move to my end of the couch, wanting to put my legs under my butt, but Dan holds my feet tightly, imprisoning my toes with his fingers.

  “What scares you?”

  I hesitate, since it’s part of him I will have to accept.

  “Remember,” he adds, “cards on the tables, all of it.”

  “Infidelity,” I say sharply.

  He winces as if he knows this will be difficult. “With the new treatment I started, it should be okay. I’m not going to lie, I have a big sex drive, but the meds help stabilize my moods, and I shouldn’t have the need to fuck anyone else when you’re not around.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. Is this worse or better than trusting someone and finding them screwing someone else?

  “What else?”

  I sigh heavily. Let’s put it all out there. “You remember I can’t have children, right? I know we’re not there yet, but I don’t want you to lose your time if that’s what you want in the end.”

  He nods. “I remember. I’m fine with no kids, and if you really want a child, and you and I are meant to be, we can always adopt. What else?”

  The tears I was holding in are falling now. I try to find something lighter to add to the list of things that scare me about dating him. “Your bandmates hate me.”

  I laugh, but he doesn’t. It seems this might be one of the things that scares him.

  “I’m sure they were assholes with you, but you have to understand there’s never been a woman with us. Girls we shared a night with or that we just shared? Hundreds. One woman I felt so strongly about that I dedicated a song to, wrote an album to, and asked to fly to another country? Even with my ex-girlfriend—this didn’t happen. They aren't sure how to take you, and I’m sure you didn’t go easy on them when they were assholes to you. What I find the most endearing about you is certainly not what Art and Lars will like the most. They’re not used to having someone to keep them on their toes, but they’ll like you all right in the end, because I do.”