“Of course, it is, silly. Sweet tea is Dawson’s favorite. I even used his mama’s recipe to make it,” the girl said with a smile.
“We’ll both have that,” I said.
“I’ll take a side of Tylenol with that, please,” Izzy chimed in.
“Headache?” I asked.
“Just a little one. I’m sure a couple Tylenol will fix it.”
“I’ll get you some.” I strode over to my bag and shook out a couple for her.
With dinner in our hands, we moved to sit with our friends. The atmosphere crackled with excitement. In addition to Maddox’s friend, Sky, Wilder’s sister, Jett’s cousins and Brooks’s hometown hookup were in attendance. Being surrounded by people who really knew us and loved us was something we all needed. I watched the last of the past few grueling years fade from each of my friends’ faces.
Even as we laughed and got amped up for the show, I still couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
Izzy’s phone went off when it was almost showtime. When she pulled it from her pocket, she frowned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I missed a call from Beckett.” She paused as she listened to her voicemail.
“What’s up?” I asked when she hung up.
“Some of the patients from my trial are experiencing new complications. Beckett wants me to come in for some tests within the next few weeks.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said and squeezed her hand.
“Thanks.”
“Did he say what the complications were?”
“In addition to the headaches he mentioned last time, dizzy spells, black outs and loss of vision,” her voice slipped when she mentioned the last one.
I pulled her to me. The possibility of blindness had to terrify her. “It’s going to be OK,” I murmured against her hair.
She smiled at me. “I know it will. I have you now.”
The door to the room opened. “Showtime, guys,” the venue manager shouted.
Chapter 23
Izzy
Once Dawson took the stage, I turned to Sky. “It was so good seeing you again.”
“You too. I’m glad you’re back in Dawson’s life. Even when we were teenagers, I saw how he pined for you from afar. He’s a good guy,” Sky said.
“I’m thrilled to be back in his life. So, Maddox said your boyfriend was going to be here tonight,” I said, recalling him mentioning it.
“Yeah. Jarrod should be meeting me at our seats in about ten minutes. He had to work late,” she said, checking the time on her phone.
“Did he grow up with you guys too?” I asked.
“Oh, no. He moved here for work a few months ago.” She tapped a message on her phone.
“That must be why Maddox mentioned wanting to arrange a double date, so he could meet your fella and you could meet Gina,” I observed.
“Mad did mention trying to get together next month when he’s back in town. Have you met this Gina girl?” she asked with a frown.
“No, but he seems to like her a lot,” I said with a shrug. “I think they’ve been seeing each other at least since he got back to LA.”
“The problem with Mad is that he always likes them a lot. And then they inevitably break his heart,” she said, shaking her head.
“I haven’t spent a lot of time with him. But he does seem to be the least… um… slutty of the guys, minus Dawson, of course,” I said with a giggle.
She chuckled too. “Oh, he definitely is the least likely to have a one-night stand when compared to Jett, Brooks and Wilder. Mad is too sweet for his own good. I worry about him. In high school, I always looked out for him. But now… I’m not around.”
“Maybe Gina will be different,” I offered. I hoped so. Now that I had the love of my life back, I wanted everyone else to have love too.
“Maybe,” she said, her voice filled with doubt. Before she could say more, her phone lit up in her hand. “Jarrod’s here. I’ll catch up with you after the show,” she said, giving me a quick hug.
Dawson ran off stage at intermission. "I never get tired of seeing you off stage watching me perform. It's like I hit this whole new level of rocker-ness."
I laughed at his creation of a new word. Truthfully, I never got tired of watching him on stage. He was a work of art—moving and swaying to the flow of music as lights painted him in various hues. My mind was already creating a new piece with him as the focal point. But the dull throb in my head was interfering with my mojo. As I rested against his chest, I massaged my temples.
"Headache not gone yet?" he asked concerned.
"No. The Tylenol doesn't seem to be working."
"You should let Beckett know." His hand stroked down my spine.
"I'm sure it's nothing. I probably just need to lie down for a bit. It is kind of loud here, since you know, we're at a rock concert and all."
His chest rumbled with a soothing chuckle beneath my ear as his magic fingers took over rubbing my head. "You're probably right. But if it isn't gone by morning, we're calling Beckett. He told us a few weeks ago the other patients having problems in the trial all had similar symptoms. Persistent headache was at the top of the list."
"If it will help put your mind at ease, we can call him tomorrow." Oddly enough, Beckett and I had been able to maintain our friendship pretty easily. We were actually a lot more comfortable with each other now that we were in the friend zone than we'd ever been while we were a couple.
"Why don't you go take a nap in my dressing room while we finish tearing the roof off this place?" Dawson said quietly.
"I hate to not be standing here supporting you though." I leaned back, so I could gaze into his handsome face. I’d missed it so much in our time apart.
"I'd feel better if you were resting. If the nap doesn't do the trick, you know what they say is great for headaches?" He smirked.
"No. What do they say?"
He leaned down and murmured in my ear, "Orgasms and wild, passionate sex. I'm willing to take one for the team and sink my cock into you when I come off stage."
"Aww. You'd really do that for me?" I fluttered my lashes at him.
"Anything for you, flutterby. Hard and fast against my dressing room door. Wet and slippery in the shower. Slow and sweet on the couch. Then when I carry you to bed on the plane, we'll start the cycle of making love all over again at twenty thousand feet," he vowed.
Heat sizzled in my veins. Watching him perform always made my blood race. And now that we'd experienced life without each other, we held nothing back. Any timidness that existed in our relationship before had been obliterated by the black hole of our separation. I wanted him in all the ways he described and then some.
"I'll be waiting in your dressing room. Maybe I’ll get a head start." I winked at him.
“So long as you don’t finish without me.”
I tugged his head down to mine and poured every ounce of desire I had into my kiss. When I finally pulled away panting, I said, "I'll be wet and ready."
"Izzy," he groaned, resting his forehead against mine again. "You're going to make me go stand in front of thousands of screaming fans with a hard on. I hope you're happy now."
I reached down with one hand to cup the hard heat of him and gave a seductive squeeze. "Now, I'm happy. Think about me and what I'll be doing to get ready for you while you serenade your fans."
"You're going to be the death of me, woman."
"You know you love me." I grinned at him.
"With every drop of blood and cell in my body, I do."
After one more searing kiss, I sashayed away. "I love you too."
“Take one of the security guys with you.” His eyes darkened as something like worry painted his face.
“You sure you want a witness to whatever I get up to while I wait?” I raised a brow at him.
“Ugh. OK, then at least lock the door. I’ve got a key in my pocket.” He patted his front pocket.
Though I had no idea what he was
worried about, since no one had ever barged into his dressing room before, I said, “I’ll lock myself away like a treasure waiting to be pillaged.”
Chuckling, he walked away.
When I got to his dressing room, I opened the door to welcoming darkness. The only light filtered from the back of the room. As I shut the door, I reached for the light switch to turn on one row of overhead lights. Then I was going to go make myself comfortable on the soft couch. A rustling noise behind me made me pause on my way across the room. Frowning, I turned, but before I could get fully spun around, something fell on my head. I crumpled to the floor in slow motion. Before my eyes shuttered closed, I caught a flash of pink.
Slowly, I woke up. As I blinked groggily, the world swam in front of me. The headache from earlier had intensified. My lids slammed back shut. I definitely needed to check in with Beckett. This was not a normal headache. I tried to rub my throbbing temples but couldn't get my body to cooperate. Cracking my eyes open again, I looked at my arm. It was in a weird position, behind me.
Why was I sitting in the chair? I was coming in here to take a nap on the couch.
"There she is," a voice sing-songed from my left.
Carefully, I turned my head in that direction. My vision was out of focus. I could make out a vague shape. Perched on the stool was a girl with pink hair. She looked familiar. My brain was processing slowly.
I recognized the venue logo on her shirt. "You're the girl who helped with the food before the show. You fixed my sweet tea."
"That's right," she said with a huge smile. “I made it extra special for you.”
"I need you to do me a favor. I'm not feeling well at all. Can you go get Joe for me? I need help. I'll introduce you to the band as a thank you," I offered.
“You’ll introduce me to the band, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah. They’re old friends of mine,” I whispered, the words vibrating in my skull.
“Well, Izzy,” she spat my name out like it left a bad taste in her mouth, “I don’t need your help meeting the guys. I’ll have you know, I’ve known the guys in LO longer than you have.”
My brow knit as I tried to make sense of what she was saying. “Oh, you’re from here… Ohio. Did you go to school with them?”
“Did I go to school with them? Why yes, Izzy, I went to school with them. I was very close with them. Especially Dawson.”
The girl sounded a little unhinged. I knew I needed to say something to keep her calm, but the thundering in my head wasn’t letting me think clearly. My arms ached. I couldn’t get them in front of me. My hands were… tied? What the hell?
I took several deep breaths as the woman got to her feet and started pacing. I had to have seen something that would help me in one of the many police drama shows I’d watched. I rotated my wrists around, trying to loosen the binding. It wasn’t very tight.
“He was mine. And you…” she said as she spun around and got in my face. I froze. “You ruined it. The night he took me to our eighth-grade winter formal was supposed to be my magical night. But all he could talk about was you and how beautiful you looked in that damn dress. I wore the same freaking dress in purple. Did he say I was beautiful?”
I didn’t answer. I was still confused. This damn headache was making it very hard to focus.
“No, he did not. But my parents always taught me to be patient. So, I was. Eventually, we started dating. I would’ve done anything he wanted. But he wouldn’t even hardly kiss me, let alone touch me. I’d decided I was going to seduce him prom night. And do you know what happened?” Her eyes narrowed into slits.
My brain was finally kicking in fully. The psycho in front of me was the girl I’d hated from as far back as eighth grade. The girl in his English class. The girl he carried to the dance. The girl he was supposed to take to prom.
What was her name again?
“Just before prom, Dawson called me up and told me he couldn’t take me to prom because an emergency had come up. He didn’t say what it was. I forgave him for making me go to prom alone. Because that’s the kind of person I am.”
She was pacing again. What was her name?
My mind raced back to those emails so many years ago where Dawson told me about her. Carrie? Katie? No, Casey. Her name was Casey.
“A couple of weeks after prom, I stopped by his locker and imagine my surprise when hanging in his locker, I saw a photo of the two of you in prom clothes. That’s when I figured out what the emergency was. His pathetic best friend from back home needed a date. And Dawson, being the sweet guy he was, dropped everything to take care of you.”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked out. “I didn’t know he was going to come.”
She glared at me. “I was forced to be patient again. But he never even talked to me more than a few words after that. I practically threw myself at him, and he didn’t even bat an eye.”
She reached in her pocket and pulled out a pistol. My heart stopped. She was going to kill me.
Waving it around, she said, “I grew tired of being patient. I started paying attention. I studied all your social media accounts and his. He always talked about your hair. So, I started dying mine. And I know how men feel about boobs. Yours were bigger than mine, so as soon as I turned eighteen, I got a boob job.”
She pressed her hands beneath her tits, lifting them higher. If they were ever small, they certainly weren’t anymore.
“And he liked them. I even got him to sign them after a show once.” She pulled down the neck of her shirt revealing Dawson’s signature across the highest part of her chest. “After he signed, I went straight to a tattoo shop and made it permanent.”
She was delusional.
“I was there when he signed that.” I nodded my head in her direction.
“Ding, ding, ding. I was there to rekindle an old flame. Imagine my surprise when I saw you by his side. There was never any mention in the news about him having a girlfriend, yet there you were. You were like a case of herpes, lurking beneath the surface waiting to flare up and ruin the moment for me time and time again.”
The gun pointed at me. Think, Izzy.
“So, you started to write him letters?” I asked.
“Oh, I’d been writing to him for years already by that point. My letters just changed,” she said calmly. Her tone a direct contrast to the frenzied pointing with the pistol.
“How’d you get that picture of us in Paris?” I asked.
“I thought you were supposed to be smart, Izzy.” She shook her head over my apparent stupidity. “I was there. I took the photo myself.”
“You just happened to be there when we were there?” I frowned at her.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “I purposely trailed the band to many shows.”
I needed to keep her talking until I could figure something out. “How were you able to do that?”
“Well, you see, the guys always got extra tickets to give out to their friends and families. Jett frequently sent his parents a pair of tickets. They never went to see any shows. But when I found out they just let their tickets go to waste, I made my daddy get them for me. He owns the company Jett’s father works for. Daddy gave me the tickets. I didn’t go to every single show. I did have a life outside of Dawson. But I went to many like a loyal girlfriend should.” She tapped the barrel of the gun against her palm.
She walked to the door and pressed her ear against it.
Keep distracting her, Izzy.
“It was pretty clever what you did, turning the photo into a puzzle.”
“Thanks. I thought Dawson would enjoy the mystery. I never realized he didn’t even get my letters for so long. But now he knows. I finally caught his eye. I never meant for things to go this far. He was supposed to wake the hell up and leave you before now. I was planning our big reunion a few weeks ago when he was supposed to be here doing the special show for their Ohio fans. But once again, he abandoned me for you.” She shook her head sadly.
Oh, no. This girl was rapidly devolvi
ng. I needed to get the gun from her. But my hands were still tied. I wiggled some more.
“You know, we wouldn’t be here right now if I could’ve gotten up to full speed a little bit faster that night in South Carolina. You wouldn’t have had an art show at all. He wouldn’t have cancelled the concert here. He and I would be together right now. And I’d be helping him mourn the senseless death of his childhood best friend.”
This nut job had tried to run me over. The ropes around my wrists loosened a little.
“It was you who ruined my art and tried to run me over?”
“Yes. Sorry about the art. I’d much rather have just stolen it. You’re a very good artist. But I needed to send a message. And that painting of you two in Paris… so sweet.”
She walked over to the door again and listened for a moment. “Show’s still going, so we’ve got more time. I have their set list memorized. They have three more songs and an encore. Anyway, Dawson seemed to get the message. He left you. Everything was finally working. And then somehow you convinced him to leave me again and come to you. But I’ve learned a lot through these experiences. My love has grown stronger with the obstacles. And I know I can’t leave anything to chance anymore. I have to finish this myself.”
“You’ll never get away with this. I’ll scream. Security is everywhere.”
“No one will hear you with the concert still going strong. And security is too busy keeping the fans from getting backstage to come investigate an area that should be empty right now.”
“If you hurt me, you’ll break his heart. I thought you loved him,” I tried.
“Broken hearts heal. It may take time, but he’ll get over you. And when he does, I’ll be ready.”
Chapter 24
Dawson
Something was wrong. I felt it in my gut, in every cell of my body. I tried not to let it show or affect my performance. Our fans deserved my best.
Lyrical Odyssey Rock Star Series: Box Set 1 Page 74