LOW: A Rockstar Romance

by Lux,Vivian

  "Pay me more, then," Casper grinned, stepping neatly to Jax's side. "I'm easily swayed by fat stacks of cash."

  "How about you spend some of them on your long-suffering girlfriend?" Harlow needled.

  I was just about to add something when the doorbell rang. Harlow went from glaring at Casper to grinning widely. "Oh, that must be my new friend. Rane, I think you know her?" She cocked a significant eyebrow.

  All the moisture fled my mouth as she opened the door, so I could only croak. "Maddie." The croak earned me another significant eyebrow, this one from my brother who always managed to be right there.

  Maddie caught me staring at her and looked away, her hair falling in a curtain along her jaw, obscuring her eyes and lips. Which made it easier to be in the room with her.

  "Thanks for coming, Maddie," Harlow said, a little too loudly. She gestured around the room. "You already met Keir. This is Jaxson Blue, who's owned by Liliana here. Casper belongs to me. And Rane, of course, belongs to..."

  "Nice to meet you." Maddie stepped neatly past Harlow and extended her hand to Jax. Only then did I start breathing again.

  Maddie tucked her hair behind her ear, once more exposing her eyes and lips to me. I quickly turned away. "What are you drinking, Maddie?" I asked tightly. "I'll grab it."

  "No, I'm making us gimlets. Don't you touch my set-up, Drizzle. You stay here." Harlow fluttered back into the kitchen, clearly reveling in playing hostess. And fucking matchmaker.

  "Good to see you again," Maddie said to Keir. She hadn't yet acknowledged my presence.

  Keir looked like he was ready to burst, but he took her hand anyway. "Hey there, Maddie," he said, looking everywhere but directly into her eye. "Nice work the other day."

  "Thanks!" she answered brightly. "And I had a lot of fun at the gig last night.

  Then a flush crawled up her cheeks and set the tips of her ears alight.

  The gig last night.

  I knew she was remembering. There was no way she wasn't remembering, because I hadn't stopped thinking about it for a single moment since it happened. The way she had felt, her skin against mine. The way her cries still echoed into my brain, drowning out all rational thought. "We can't do this anymore…" she had told me, but fuck if that wasn't the only thing I wanted to do—for the rest of my damn life.

  Luckily for both of us, Keir still had his eyes firmly fixed on Harlow's area rug and wasn't watching our mutual freak-outs. "Thanks," he muttered. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and made for the front door, probably needing to sneak a quick cigarette. I wasn't the only one who lied about quitting.

  "Gimlets!" Harlow called, rattling the ice cubes in the glass. "So, this is the first time I've ever made them, and I have no idea if they’re any good, but I hope you like them anyway…"

  Maddie cut her off by practically diving for hers. She downed half the glass in one gulp. "Perfect. You did really good." She smiled at the beaming Harlow. Harlow raised her glass and draped her arm around Casper, who slid his hands into her front pockets before folding her into him. I looked away before I interrupted the rest of their private reunion.

  Maddie had turned, too, and looked at Lily. Her eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, what a gorgeous ring!"

  Tough little Lily actually looked sweet for a moment. "Thanks," she said shyly. She glanced up at Jax, shooting him the sort of worshipful look every man secretly hoped his woman wore when looking at him.

  I felt something odd slide around in my chest.

  "When are you two getting married?" Maddie asked, all girlish excitement.

  "Haven't set a date yet," Jax said. "Gotta finish the tour and let things wind down from when our parents got—"

  Lily elbowed him in the ribs, and he closed his mouth with a pop.

  The topic of weddings was awkward enough. I would have taken that as my cue to shut the fuck up, but Maddie seemed unable to stop talking. "My mother's getting married. Next week, actually." Her eyes went far away for a second, and I drained half of my beer. "Just a little ceremony in a courthouse, then a barbecue afterward."

  "Oh, how sweet!" Lily gushed. "I love second chances at love."

  "That sounds like my kind of wedding," Jax muttered.

  All this wedding talk was giving me serious indigestion. "Hey, Jax!" I called, desperate to nip this topic in the bud. "Have you ever considered doing guest vocals?"

  Jax shifted on the couch and looked at me, clearly intrigued. "Can't say that I have… But I wouldn't be adverse to it."

  "How would you feel about laying down some tracks for us?" I was grasping at straws here. Winging it, trying desperately to get Maddie off the topic of weddings… And parents… And family relationships....

  There was no mistaking the serious delight on Jaxson's face. He may have been an arrogant prick on the outside, but dude knew a good thing when he was looking at it. "It'd have to be in the next couple of days," he said, counting on his fingers. "But yeah, I'm looking to head in a new direction, and working with Ruthless… Shit, man, that'd be great."

  Keir is going to kill me.

  "No problem. Give me your number, we'll grab some time this week."

  "How do you feel about significant others hanging around?" Lily asked me.

  "More the merrier," I said. I had no idea why I was still talking.

  "Are you coming by, too?" Lily asked Maddie. “I don't want to be the only possessive girlfriend keeping an eye on her man." She elbowed Jax in the side and he laughed.

  "Like there even are any other women…" he murmured in her ear.

  Maddie looked like she had been turned into a statue. "Oh, I'm not his…"

  "Please come," Lily begged, fending off Jax's groping easily. "I've spent the last two months holed up alone in hotel rooms, waiting for him to be done with his shows. I'm sick and tired of talking only to him." Jax was laughing even harder now.

  Maddie looked at me, silent, pleading. She wanted to back off but didn't know how, and I wasn't about to let her off the hook. If she was trying to avoid me, I wasn't going to make it easy on her. We can't do this anymore, huh, Maddie? Seems like everyone else in the world thinks we can...and should.

  "You should come," I told her, feeling decidedly evil and not caring one bit either way.

  If she could have killed me with her eyes, I would have been struck dead before I even hit the floor. But as I watched, Maddie pulled herself together, drawing her spine straighter and letting the mask slam down on her face. "Sure," she said, licking her lips and laughing lightly. "Sounds like fun."

  "I'll call you," I told her, needing to seal the deal.

  "Can I talk to you for a sec?" she asked.

  I didn't want to talk. I had already won by making sure that she had to see me again. I didn't want to give her a chance to back out, run away, slam the lid down on herself before I got to see underneath again. But with Jax and Lily sitting there watching the two of us expectantly, I had no choice.

  "Sure," I said, standing up and following her to the kitchen, just as Keir came back in the front door, tucking his cell back into his pocket.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Madeline

  As I made my way to the kitchen, I spied Harlow in the corner, kissing Casper so deeply I wondered how the both of them managed to breathe. The floor creaked under my foot, and she looked up guiltily. "You okay?" she mouthed as Casper began to kiss lower and lower.

  "Fine!" I smiled. "Just getting another drink."

  She nodded and disappeared back into her man.

  "Should I tell them to get a room?" Rane rumbled behind me.

  I clenched my fists. "No," I muttered under my breath. "Because they don't have to worry about getting caught."

  He at least had the decency to make a small grunt of understanding. And in the bright lights of the kitchen, he looked almost as stressed out as I felt.

  "I'm not going to talk about it," I began. "It was a mistake."

  "Whatever," he said, looking at a spot just over my right shou
lder.

  "Whatever?"

  "Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

  I had been expecting more of a fight. But this was good. "Okay then." I wracked my brain for a smooth way to transition away from the fact that we fucked last night. But there wasn't any. "So how are you?" I managed lamely.

  "Confused," he said.

  "By what?"

  "Why you'd ask me that. You have to know how I am."

  "Rane, I helped my mom pick out her wedding dress this morning, okay?" He blinked a little. "Yeah, her wedding. To your dad. Ceremony is in a week."

  "I know." He rubbed the back of his neck.

  "So we need to..."

  "Stop it. I got it. You've made your goddamned point."

  I swallowed. I had two auditions lined up this week, and this was vitally important. I needed to stop dancing around my question here. "Rane, when is the video coming out?"

  He was still looking at the point over my shoulder. I wanted to check, see what he was seeing, but I knew it was just a dark window over the sink. He was trying to avoid my eyes as much as I was avoiding his. "Huh? Oh, soon. Rough cut is done."

  I waited for more, but he didn't seem to want to cooperate. It appeared I would have to drag it out of him. "How does it look?" I looked down at my hands and saw that I was twisting them, and consciously put them at my sides. Pull yourself together.

  He lowered his head, his eyes drifting down over my shoulder, raking slowly past my face and down to rest on my hands. I wiggled my fingers, unable to keep from moving, unable to keep still while he looked at me like that. Something softened in his face. "I haven't seen the most recent cut, but what I saw, Mads? It's killer." That slow, lopsided smile. "All that weird shit Warlox had us do translated really well to video. The set looks amazing."

  "And... us?" I swallowed. "Me?"

  He lifted his hand to my face. I winced, turning my lips away before I made another horrible mistake.

  But he only tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. "You're a fucking star," he growled.

  When he looked at me like that, the only thing I could hear was his voice in my ear as he came. It was the same low, rasping growl that had vibrated through me as I fell to pieces around him.

  I shook my hands at my sides and danced from toe to toe, trying to dispel some of the pent-up energy that was collecting at the base of my spine. "If it's good, I want to add it to my reel," I told him, desperate to keep on topic. "I need some recent stuff on it."

  His face fell a little. "Yeah, of course."

  "Can I get a copy?"

  He leaned back against the doorframe and eyed me strangely. "Yeah, you'll get it, of course."

  "When?" I pressed

  "Does it really matter?"

  "It kind of really does, yeah." I blinked and took a deep breath, unclenching my hands. I hated how subservient I sounded, how desperate. "Sorry. I'm just anxious. I haven't worked in so long..."

  "Why are you pushing so hard?" he drawled. "You literally just got healthy. Take some time, take a break. Go easy on yourself for like the first time in your life."

  Anger heated my skin. "Take a break? Really?" I pressed my fists into my sides so hard that it hurt. "I don't have the luxury, Mr. Rock Star." I hissed. "Just casually making plans out there with Jaxson fucking Blue? Getting him to sing for you with just a word? You think I have that kind of clout? I don't. But I used to. I used to be where you are. And okay, yeah, I want it back. But I'm not there. You're at the top of your game. You don't remember what it was like to be at the bottom...."

  He looked taken aback by my anger. "I do."

  "Not from what your dad has told me, or from what I found on Wikipedia." I hated myself for admitting this, even as I was saying it. "Yeah, I Googled you after...after...the hallway. All your interviews, you say it yourself: 'The second this stops being fun, I'm done.'"

  He held up his hands. "Why do you make that sound like a bad thing?"

  I nearly stomped my foot. "Because it means you don't want to work."

  "You're absolutely right." He grinned.

  I wanted to hit. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw a plate. But I didn't do any of those things. "Goddammit," I finally exhaled. "You're absolutely maddening."

  "Likewise, Princess."

  "You have this way of turning everything I think I know to be true on its head."

  "I'll take that as a compliment."

  I stared at him. "It's not." I swallowed. "I think I'm going to go now. See you at the wedding."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rane

  Jax took a sip of his hot water with lemon and cracked his knuckles. "One last take?" he asked.

  The overhead mic clicked. "You made me cry," Lily said from the booth, her voice accusing.

  When we left Harlow's that night and called to book this studio time, the engineer scoffed. "We're booked out solid the next six months," he told Keir loftily.

  "Mmm, that's too bad. Jaxson Blue will be on tour again in six months," Keir mused, tapping his pen against my Jeep's dash. "And so will we."

  I could hear the guy start backpedaling from all the way over in the driver's seat. "Wait...who did you say you were again?"

  And miracle of miracles, a slot opened up Thursday.

  Keir had hung up the phone and glared at me, but surprisingly didn't yell or carry on. In fact, he took the news of my promise to Jax oddly in stride. "Cool, man. Whatever you think is best. I'm sure it'll work out." Then he started humming an old Billy Joel song.

  I was too thrown off to question him.

  Keir was still oddly happy here in the studio three days later. In fact, if I didn't know him as well as I did, I would have called him fucking bubbly. "It is a good song!" he crowed, clapping his hands together like a doof. "Aren't you going to cry, too, Pepper?"

  Pepper unrolled an elegant middle finger. Lily laughed and sniffled. Jax shot me a look over his shoulder. "That's a good sign, dude. If you can get through to Lily, you're golden. I wrote her a song that took an entire fucking year to get to her."

  Lily started squawking something over the intercom, but I wasn't listening. I was thinking about what I had just heard.

  Hearing the words I had written coming out of someone's mouth besides Keir's was an odd experience. I was so used to my brother's delivery that I could almost stop paying attention. But the way Jax was singing forced me to pay attention to each phrase that came out of his mouth.

  And I wasn't sure I liked the feelings that came with them.

  He took another step. "Okay." He nodded towards the booth.

  The sound engineer nodded back and punched up the levels. Twitch counted out the beats and we started to play.

  Recording live was fun. It reminded me of the old days, gathered in our garage, making a racket that echoed across the neighborhood. I tried to lose myself in that feeling, but found myself hearing my lyrics once more.

  "When you see from the inside,

  When the walls come tumbling down,

  There's nowhere left to hide,

  That's when I'll come around.

  Fire in her belly,

  Fire in her veins,

  Fire all around us

  Extinguished by the rain."

  I launched into my solo savagely, angry at myself, angry at this situation—fuck it, angry at her for not having the guts to see that we were good together. Her uptight princess act wasn't cute anymore.

  I wanted the real Maddie.

  And I knew she wanted me.

  This whole situation was just fucked.

  Keir's angry, growling bellow mixed with Jax's clear tenor in a way that even I could tell was fucking magic. This song was going to be killer… That is, if I could stand to play it again.

  "Great stuff, guys," the sound engineer chirped into our headsets. "Just needs a little mixing, but I think we’ve got what we need.”

  Keir stepped back from his mic and yanked his headphones off. "I think we should toast this fucker," he said enthusiastica
lly and reached for his flask. He poured out a line of shots. "To gettin' shit done," he cried.

  I eyed my brother suspiciously. Recording was serious business to him. He wasn't usually this manic.

  But I was never one to turn away free booze.

  "Cheers!" Everyone knocked back their shots, when the loud sound of a vibrating phone interrupted the snorts and coughs.

  "What kind of cheaper rotgut is this?" Balzac snarled, coughing into the back of his meaty hand.

  "Shut the fuck up," Keir called, waving his hands for silence as he looked at his phone. "Holy shit, guys, it's the video."

  The whiskey immediately reformed into a leaden ball in my stomach.

  But everyone else was exclaiming excitedly. Even Pepper managed a half smile. Keir pulled his tablet out of his bag and set about downloading the file.

  "I need to do more videos," Jax mused.

  "Here we go!" Keir called. We all crowded around, and he pressed play.

  I thought I would be prepared. I had seen the rough cuts, made my notes and comments for the editing team. Fuck it, I had been there, acting with her, touching her, kissing her. This was all old news to me.

  Or it should have been. But seeing it… Seeing her… Seeing us that way. It was like I wasn't in this cramped, smelly studio anymore. I was there, with her, touching her all over again. And what was even better was that now I knew her, knew her well enough to see those moments where she had fallen apart for me. I recognized each look, the difference between the real Maddie and the Maddie with the mask. I knew… I fucking knew her.

  I had to look away.

  The blood flooded so loudly in my ears that I almost missed the end of the video. "Holy shit," Jax said approvingly. "That's gonna get a hell of a lot of attention."

  Their voices melded into a blur. I looked around wildly for a place to escape. I stalked over to the corner and stared at the wall for a second, willing the frustration to pass, then freaking out that it wasn't. I turned back around.

  And found myself staring right at Keir.

  He was standing there waiting, watching me, a strange expression on his face. Somewhere between sadness and understanding.