Fool Me Once

by Williams, Nicole

  The rock star lifestyle, at least the way Chase did it, was not the least bit glamorous. Instead of empty alcohol bottles, it was sparkling water and green juice that smelled like manure and fresh-cut grass. Instead of lines of cocaine, it was a multi-vitamin schedule that damn near required a flow chart to execute. Instead of a steady stream of groupies rotating through the bus, there was me, with my messy ponytail and faded jeans, and occasionally Dani, with her stiff suits and legion of techy devices.

  I’d spent the afternoon and evening exploring the city and arrived back in time for the last couple of songs. Pete and I were bobbing our heads backstage as Chase and his band ripped out the final chorus to “Lead Me On.” Dani posed with a towel and bottle of water. I’d already settled into something of a routine, though I doubted I’d ever get used to the flashing cameras and shouts whenever Chase and I went anywhere in public.

  The stage went dark, followed by five figures loping offstage. The roar of the crowd amplified and would continue its assault until the band made its reappearance for the encore in three minutes, give or take a few seconds depending on how urgent Dani was with her shoves and chides.

  Chase took the water bottle but not the towel. He dumped the entire contents over his head, coming straight toward me with a flicker in his eye. Before I could register it, his hand grabbed mine, pulling me deeper backstage with him.

  “No one gets by,” he said to Pete, who barricaded himself in front of us with a look on his face that suggested he hoped someone tried.

  “Chase?” I shouted above the deafening cheers, having to jog to keep up with him.

  He didn’t stop or reply. Not until we were tucked away toward the back of the stage, cloistered in by dark curtains and excess stage equipment.

  His hands gripped into my hips before lifting me onto a backup speaker. He pulled me to the very end of it, so I was barely teetering on the edge.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, my heart hammering, not sure if he was suffering from heatstroke or some other ailment.

  His mouth dropped to my neck, sucking at it urgently. “You,” he husked as he unzipped his fly.

  A bolt of energy shot up my spine. “You’ve got to be back on stage in two minutes.” I gasped when he yanked my panties aside, pushing my legs open when he stepped closer.

  “All I need’s a minute.” His hand wound behind my neck, his other dropping to my hip, bracing himself . . .

  My gasp echoed from my lips, tangling with his own cries of pleasure as he moved inside me, his need desperate, urgent, as though I was all that stood between him and death. His head dropped beside mine as he rutted against me, the sounds he was making more primal than man.

  “Let me feel you,” he demanded, his grip tightening behind my neck. “Let me feel you come all over me.”

  My body seemed tuned to his bidding, servient to his commands. My head fell back as my release rushed through me, the rest of my body following, but Chase caught my fall, holding me close as I felt the earth opening up to swallow me.

  “God damn,” he grunted, as his body stiffened against mine, his dick burying deep as he spent his release inside me.

  He stood there for a moment, trembling in my arms, as I tried to catch up to what had just happened. Slowly, one piece at a time, reality swept in around us again.

  The roar of the crowd broke through my shell first. “You’ve got an encore to play,” I breathed against his neck, loving the way his sweat felt against my skin.

  “I’m not sure I could play a basic C chord in this state.” His voice was deeper than normal, gravelly from sex.

  “No warning, no foreplay, you made me come in a whole sixty seconds.” My hand lowered to where our bodies were still joined, palming his balls. A shudder ripped through him. “You can damn well fly if you put your mind to it.”

  His eyes dropped to our locked bodies, his jaw setting as a grunt rumbled in his chest.

  From the other side of the curtain, we both heard Pete’s unmistakable clearing of a throat. “Mr. Lawson.”

  Chase groaned, pressing his lips to mine as he slid out of me. He chuckled softly when he felt my lips turn down. “Two more songs, then we’ve got all night, Em.”

  “You finally decided to fuck me with something other than your mouth?”

  “Finally? Are you sure that’s the word you want to use?” His eyes fired with a challenge.

  I leaned closer. “I’m sure.”

  After tucking himself into his pants, he snapped my panties back into place. “You know I love when you underestimate me.” He kissed my neck before backing away. “It’s when I’m at my best.”

  I gestured at myself, still shaking, my chest moving like I was suffocating, the remnants of our lovemaking winding down my thighs. “I think you proved your point.”

  One side of his mouth lifted as he started to duck outside of the curtain. “You good?”

  I lifted my thumb. “Understatement.” As he slid past the curtain, going to answer the rumble of his fans, I called, “Five months and ten more days.”

  I knew he heard me, I knew it, but he didn’t reply.

  Another concert. Another city. I was losing track, but I knew we were somewhere in California.

  We were in the bus on the way to a hotel after the concert. Chase didn’t have a concert tomorrow night, which meant we didn’t need to hit the road to race to the next city.

  Chase was in the back, showering and changing, while I sat at the table with Pete and Dani, all of us sipping chamomile tea. As I’d mentioned, this was a wild bunch.

  “Tomorrow Chase has a golf event at the Coast Inn Country Club. Should I mark you down as a player or spectator, Emma?” Dani paused long enough to look up at me from her laptop. The icy storm front had somewhat abated where I was concerned, but she still talked to me like she was explaining a playground slide to an adolescent.

  “Eh, can I call dibs on driving the cart?” I asked.

  Dani gave one of her quiet sighs as she finished her email. “I’ll make the request.”

  Pulling out my phone, I found I’d missed a few messages from friends and family back home. Between their calls and my own, I spoke to my parents daily. It was the same with my friends. If it wasn’t Jesse checking in to see how I was dealing with the whole Chase situation, it was Brooke gushing about the dress she’d seen me wearing in whatever tabloid or online article she’d recently been stalking. Sophia was always the one to let me know I was missed and that everyone couldn’t wait to see me again soon.

  I missed home. But getting to see the country, even in fleeting rushes through bus windows, was exhilarating. Getting to experience it all with Chase made it that much better.

  “Fresh and clean.” A billow of steam followed Chase as he emerged from the back rooms, tugging on a light T-shirt.

  “Good timing. We’re just rolling up.” Dani shut off her myriad of devices, tucking them safely away in her sleek leather briefcase.

  Pete chugged the rest of his tea as he slid out of his seat.

  “You clean up nicely,” I said.

  His mouth quirked. “And you dirty up nicely.”

  Dani cleared her throat, moving toward the front of the bus.

  I held out what was left of my tea, but he grabbed a bottle of water instead. “Gotta stay hydrated.” He bounced his brows at me as he drained half the bottle. “It’s gonna be a long night.”

  I patted his chest as I moved by. “You’ve been going off of four hours of sleep for the last week. You need sleep, not sex.”

  He choked on his sip of water. “Blasphemy.”

  I shook my head. “Your libido still thinks it’s 2008.”

  His arms rung around my waist. “My libido is immune to time’s march, thank you very much.”

  I wiggled my butt against his “libido” physically manifesting. We adjusted our positioning before stepping off the bus, the usual collection of photographers, journalists, and fans assembled outside the hotel no matter how hard Dani tried t
o keep Chase’s schedule private.

  “Smile and wave,” I rattled off, more to myself than to Chase. He was a natural when it came to captivating a crowd.

  “Chase!” One voice sounded above the crowd’s babble. “Chase Lawson!” The same voice, louder still.

  A woman off to our right caught my attention. The way she was leaping into the air, her expression a different tenor than the rest, alerted me this wasn’t the average fan.

  I nudged Chase as we continued toward the hotel, Pete and a few other guards maintaining a tight circle around us. “Do you know her?” I asked him, pointing at her with my eyes.

  Chase gave her a quick inspection. “Nope.”

  That only sufficed to intensify her shouts and frantic movements as she fought through the wave of bodies to stay positioned beside us.

  “She seems to know you.”

  “There’s one in every city.” Chase tucked his arm around me when the crowd squeezed in, almost draping himself around me.

  “A fan who’d commit murder in exchange for a strand of your golden hair?” I teased.

  “For lack of a better analogy, yes.” He evaded a cameraman who’d charged into our path.

  Dani was waiting just inside the hotel doors with a host of hotel and tour security. We only needed to make it a few more meters and we’d be in the clear.

  “Chase Dean Lawson!” From out of nowhere, that girl lunged in front of us, holding out her hands when security pressed in on her. “I have to talk to you.”

  The surprise of it stopped Chase and me in our tracks. She couldn’t have been much taller than me and had managed to successfully halt a herd of heavily muscled guards.

  Chase waved Pete and one of the other guys aside. “Say what you need to say,” he said to the woman.

  Her doe-like eyes circled the spectacle around us. “In private.”

  My body tensed while Chase’s seemed to relax. He might have been used to those kinds of super fans, but I was not.

  “Whatever you need to say to me, you can say right here,” he said, shaking his head at Dani, who was animatedly slashing her hand across her throat.

  She scanned the crowd again, biting her lip as her eyes dropped to the ground.

  The alerts were firing inside me; something was wrong. I knew that before she sucked in the breath and lifted her gaze to meet Chase’s.

  “I’m the mother of your child.”

  10

  We’d slept in separate rooms last night. At my request. Chase didn’t even try to talk me out of it.

  Pete remained stationed outside my hotel room throughout the night, occasionally checking in to see if I needed anything. I only needed one thing—answers.

  After the shock of last night, I guessed it was a sleepless night for all of us. I’d heard Dani in the room next to me, on the phone all night, running crisis management with Chase’s PR team as the news spread like wildfire about the woman claiming to be the mother of Chase Lawson’s child. For once, I felt sorry for Dani.

  When the sun cracked through my window the next morning, I felt numb. Not so much from the possibility that Chase had a child with another woman, but that I’d let myself get so carried away in the fantasy of him and me, the illusion that there was no one else who’d been in his life in that decade we’d spent apart.

  A knock at my door a little before eight in the morning stirred me from my broodings. I was expecting anyone besides who I found on the other side of the door.

  Chase didn’t just look like he hadn’t slept; he looked like he’d taken a side trip to hell. He was in the same clothes he’d bounced off the bus in, his eyes dark, and his posture slack.

  “I don’t know what to say right now.” I slumped into the doorway, rubbing at the tie of my bathrobe.

  “I know exactly what to say.” When I shook my head, he interrupted. “You don’t have to say a word. You can get back to ignoring me once I say what I need to if you want, I promise.”

  “I’m not trying to hurt or punish you. I just need some time.”

  His hands tucked into his front pockets. “You can have all the time you want. Just, please, let me explain my side of the story first.”

  That throb in my chest ached from seeing him like this, hearing the pain in his voice. I stepped aside, letting him into my room. “Okay.”

  “Not here.” A small light flickered in his muted eyes. “Can you be ready to leave in a half hour?”

  “Leave to go where?”

  “Somewhere,” he replied, already backing down the hall toward his room. “Just you and me. No one else.”

  My eyes cut to Pete, my devoted shadow who could smash a car with his forehead.

  “Not even him,” Chase added.

  “In public?”

  Chase gave a non-committal head tip.

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “You’ll be with me.” His wide shoulders lifted. “You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  I watched him duck into his room, knowing that the biggest danger I faced was my feelings for Chase.

  It only took me twenty minutes to get ready, so I passed the last ten texting my mom, who could tell something was wrong from the tone of my texts. I played it off by explaining the tour was exhausting and I was probably catching a cold, but she didn’t buy it. Where Chase was concerned, Mom always defaulted to skeptical.

  Collecting my things when I heard the next knock, I steeled myself for whatever he had to say. I’d come into this agreement despising Chase, and I’d let myself get sucked into the glamour of the whole arrangement. Chase had left me for this gig, he’d stayed away for ten years, and we’d only reconnected because he was looking to tidy up his tainted reputation. I was a means to an end.

  He was a means to an end for me too.

  He smiled when he took me in after I opened the door. “Perfect. You dressed for the occasion.”

  I inspected my cut-offs and button-down plaid shirt, finished off with my favorite boots and ball cap. “What’s the occasion?”

  He indicated at himself in the most relaxed, worn-in jeans I’d seem him in and boots that looked like they were nearing their expiration point. “Being us.”

  My forehead creased.

  “Hey, would you mind letting me borrow one of those trucker hats you love so much?”

  The folds in my forehead deepened. “You hate those things.”

  “No, I hate them on me. I love them on you.” He pinched the bill of my hat, giving it a light shake.

  “Then why do you want to borrow one?” I asked, even as I headed toward my suitcase to retrieve a backup.

  “For reasons.” His smile had grown by the time I made my way back with the extra hat.

  Mine debuted when he noticed the color of it, accompanied by the logo.

  “Would these reasons have anything to do with you dressing like the rest of us mere mortals?” I asked as I settled the hat on his head.

  I choked on the laugh rising inside. Pete couldn’t contain his though. Chase’s head was not made for trucker hats.

  “Possibly.” Chase clapped his hand over Pete’s shoulder when the two of us moved toward the elevator.

  From the set of Pete’s jaw, it was as though he was being asked to watch his mother be murdered before his eyes.

  “Is that also why you’ve got those Top Gun sunglasses hanging from your shirt?” I continued as we climbed onto the elevator.

  “What? Did you expect me to go out in public without at least trying to disguise myself a little?” Chase dropped the sunglasses into place before the elevator doors chimed open on the first floor. “I might make my share of mistakes, but I’m not stupid.”

  He nudged me, holding out another pair of sunglasses. I reached into my purse and flashed my own pair of sunglasses at him before slipping them on. “Neither am I.”

  He chuckled, trying to be discreet as he scanned the lobby. Just your usual hotel guests and employees milling about, though out front was a different story. The number of camera
s had tripled from last night, thanks to the news that had gone viral about Chase Lawson’s love child.

  The reminder had my stomach roiling for the thousandth time since those words had come from that young woman’s mouth.

  “This way.” Taking my hand, Chase led the way down a hall. He shoved open a door that appeared to be an employee entrance.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going yet?” I asked when we paused so Chase could check the back parking lot before leading us into it.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?” Our boots clapped across the pavement toward the street. Was he heading toward a bus stop?

  “Because I want it to be a surprise. You always loved surprises.” When we came within a few meters of the bus stop, he slowed, still casually scanning the area for anyone who might have recognized us.

  “I’m starting to rethink my stance on surprises after last night,” I muttered as a city bus sputtered up to the curb in front of us.

  Chase sighed as he dug out some money for the fare. “This is a good surprise.”

  “What? Finding out you have a child you didn’t know about wasn’t a good one?” I could taste the bitterness in my tone on the tip of my tongue.

  “We’ll talk about that when we get there.”

  “When we get where?” I asked as I trudged onto the bus with him.

  Chase paid the fare as though he’d done it a million times, though I couldn’t imagine public transportation was a frequent means of getting around for someone like him.

  “A city bus?” I said, twisting around in my seat once we’d settled in, taking in the scene. “This was your ideal locale for explaining everything to me?”

  “I like city buses. I’ve written plenty of songs riding one of these.”

  “What do you like about them?”

  “They remind me of who I am. Where I came from. What I want.” Chase settled deeper into his seat, as though he were as home in the cracked vinyl as he was in his personal tour bus. “When you strip away everything that isn’t real, you’re forced to confront the person you really are.”

  “Public transportation really does bring out the sentiment in you.” I tried relaxing into my seat the same way, but I couldn’t. It must have been an acquired taste.