by Lauren Rowe
Barry chuckles. “Break the newbie in however you want. Just keep in mind you’re going to be stuck with the guy for three months, day after day—and maybe even longer than that if the North American leg works out with him—so I’d strongly suggest you make every effort to get off on the right foot with him.”
I pull out my phone. “What’s his number? I’ll text him tonight to ‘welcome’ him to my team.”
Barry gives me Zander’s number and adds, “Just so you know, I’ve encouraged him to be completely himself around you, including not tamping down his personality or his penchant for giving as good as he gets.”
“Sounds like a challenge to me.” I cock an eyebrow. “Let’s make a deal, Uncle Barry. If I can somehow get this service doggie to lay down and play dead tonight, will you agree to take his place on tour?”
“I can’t do it, Aloha. I’m up to my eyeballs these days.”
“Just the North American leg, then. The first three months. After that, I’ll suffer silently with Brett across Europe and Australia until you can find me another service doggie to ‘soothe’ and ‘calm’ me.”
“I can’t do it, honey.”
I flap my lips together. “Fine. What about this: if I can somehow get my new service doggie to roll over tonight, you’ll come on the first month of my tour, just for old time’s sake.”
To my surprise, Barry pauses at this latest suggestion. “I tell you what I’ll wager. If you can get Zander to quit tonight, then I’ll come on tour for two weeks while I look for his replacement. And I’ll do it gladly. Because if you can make Zander fold that easily, then he’s not the man I thought he was and I don’t want him guarding you any more than you do. On the other hand, though, if Zander handles your bullshit the way I think he will, then you’ve got to promise to stick it out with him for the entire North American leg, no whining or complaining. Obviously, if he majorly fucks up, then Brett will let me know and I’ll promptly fire his ass for cause. But, otherwise, if you’re merely annoyed or bored with the guy, then you’ll stick it out for the entire three months and I won’t hear a peep out of you.”
I pull a snarky face. Bastard. Despite my big talk, I know full well the chances are slim to none I’ll get this Zander guy to quit tonight. If Barry thinks the guy is badass enough to handle me, he must be a pretty solid citizen, newbie or not. But, still, having the slightest shot at getting Barry to come on tour with me for any length of time, even if it’s only for two weeks, is more than I had a moment ago. “Deal,” I say. I put out my hand, but Barry pulls me into a bear hug, instead.
“I’m leaving you in the best possible hands, girlie,” Barry whispers into my ear. “Trust me.” When he pulls back from our embrace, his dark eyes are dancing with his affection for me. “Just do me a favor, will you? I know you’re itching to have some sort of delayed teenage rebellion—I can feel it.” He cups my face in his large palms and my heart squeezes. “Just make it through this tour as you’re contractually required to do without sabotaging yourself. And when the tour is over, you can take a long break, if that’s what you want to do, and figure out who you really want to be.”
Chapter 3
Zander
Dax takes a long swig of his beer and sighs. “Shit, Z. I thought for sure you were gonna come back from your meeting with Reed and tell us you were coming on tour with us.”
“I thought the same thing, my brother.” I take the last dregs of the joint from Keane, who’s sitting next to me on Dax’s couch—the couch that’s been doubling as my bed for the past three nights—and suck in a long, deep inhale that finishes the thing off. “Oh, life.”
“Oh, life,” Keane echoes. But he’s only being a supportive best friend. These days, Keane Elijah Morgan is the last guy on earth who’d bemoan life’s ups and downs. Ever since he met Maddy and moved to LA just over three months ago, his life has been hurtling in only one direction: up, up, and up.
“Traveling the world with you would have been sick,” Colin, the drummer of 22 Goats, says from a nearby armchair.
“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Well, look on the bright side,” Fish, the lanky, bearded, bassist of 22 Goats says from his prone position on the floor. “Even if you can’t tour with us, at least you’ll get to stare at her for the next three months.” He motions to the TV. “Yee-gads, son. Now that’s a good-lookin’ woman.”
The five of us simultaneously turn our bloodshot attention to the Aloha Carmichael music video playing on the flat-screen TV—the sixth or seventh such video to grace our eyeballs since I came back from Reed’s office and told everyone the shocking news about my new job.
“She’s supernatural,” Fish says, his stoned eyes fixed on the TV screen. “She’s the most perfect female specimen ever created. Those eyes.”
“Meh, she’s all right,” I say, and Fish immediately berates me for it. But I’m being sincere. Yes, Aloha Carmichael is objectively beautiful. Light brown skin, lush lips, long, dark, wavy hair streaked with subtle golden highlights. And, yes, as Fish pointed out, she’s got incredible emerald-green eyes. But, despite all that, the girl just doesn’t do it for me. Mr. Happy typically doesn’t stand at attention for painted sirens like the one I’m seeing on that screen—girls who look like they primp for hours before leaving the house. Mr. Happy is typically far more attracted to low-maintenance, fresh-faced, bohemian types—women like Daphne.
Daphne.
With her cute little messy blonde bun and freckles and long limbs for days. Why didn’t she tell me she’d applied to that art school in New York?
Keane nudges my left thigh. “Hey, sweet cheeks.”
I turn to look at him with stoned eyes.
“You’re thinking about Daphne again, aren’t you?”
I nod pitifully. “Help me.”
Chuckling, Peenie lights a new joint and hands it to me. “Suck on this, baby doll. The guy at the dispensary said it’s stronger than that pen light from Men in Black.”
“Thanks, honey nuggets. That’s why I love you the most.”
“So, when do you report for babysitting duties with Aloha?” Dax asks.
I blow out a long stream of smoke into the air and lean back miserably. “Thursday afternoon before her first concert.” I hand the newly lit joint to Dax next to me on the couch. “But I’m meeting Barry tomorrow for two solid days of training before that.”
Dax blows out a long plume of smoke. “Training on what? How to put a tweener into a headlock without snapping her neck?”
“Hey, tweeners aren’t Aloha’s only ‘Aloha-nators,’” I say. “The tweeners’ mommies love her, too.”
Everyone chuckles, but I’m not joking. Every day at the gym, I hear Aloha Carmichael songs blasting out of the spin room, particularly during daytime classes filled with nothing but MILFs.
“Should we be worried about your physical safety?” Keane asks. “Like, seriously, is someone sending Aloha threatening notes with glued-on letters cut out of magazines?”
“No, this isn’t The Bodyguard,” I say. “I mean, yeah, it’s a dangerous world out there for any celebrity these days. But there’s been no known threat to Aloha. And if something comes up, that ex-Navy SEAL dude will be there to handle it like the Kevin Costner he is.”
“Well, that’s good,” Keane says, looking genuinely relieved.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Fish says from the floor. “If that Kevin Costner dude’s gonna be there throughout the whole tour, then what the hell is your job?”
I shrug. “Just following her around, I guess. I don’t know the specifics yet, to be honest. Hence, the two days of training with Barry. I didn’t ask Barry a whole lot of questions after he gave me the job today. I was just too stunned. He said he never assigns newbies to tours—he always makes newbies work as bouncers at one of Reed’s nightclubs for a while, just to gain experience. Barry’s taking a huge chance on me.”
“And why is he doing that, again?” Dax asks. “He can’t possibly
give a shit Reed’s best friend married your honorary sister.”
“No, Barry doesn’t give a shit about that. That only got me in the door for the interview. And just barely, at that.” I shove my hand into a bag of white cheddar popcorn on Keane’s lap. “To be honest, I’m not sure why Barry hired me. At the beginning of the interview, he acted like he was doing Reed a huge favor, just by talking to me.” I look at Keane. “But then, suddenly, his attitude visibly changed when Reed started telling him about you.”
“About me?”
I nod. “Reed started telling Barry about how you and I were ‘Frick and Frack’ during Josh and Kat’s wedding week in Maui, and, suddenly, Barry was like, ‘Wow, Zander, sounds like you’re skilled at handling people with huge personalities.’”
“He said you’re ‘skilled’ at ‘handling’ me?” Keane booms. “What am I—a boa constrictor?”
Everyone chuckles.
I continue, “And then Reed was like, ‘Hey, Z, tell Barry the story of how Keane dyed his hair blue that time to help you get laid.’ So I told Barry that whole story and... boom. Game over. The job with Aloha was mine.”
“How the hell did that story land you the job?” Keane says, chomping on some popcorn. “I’m the hero of the blue-hair story, not you.”
“Not according to Barry. He was like, ‘Damn, Z, for a guy to turn himself into a Smurf for you, you’re either an amazing best friend or diabolically gifted at manipulation. Either way, I think I’ve got the perfect job for you.’”
Keane rolls his eyes. “Well, now I’ve heard everything.”
“Am I the only person here who gets what all this means?” Colin says from the armchair, and we all stare at him expectantly. “Reed and Barry obviously think Aloha Carmichael is the female Keane Morgan.”
We all look at each other for a long beat... and then burst out laughing.
“Aloha is Peenie with a pussy!” Fish shouts from the floor, his skinny arm raised into a fist-pump, and we all lose our shit.
“So, I guess that makes Aloha your dream girl, Z,” Dax says. “I mean, come on: we all know if Keane had a pussy, you two would be married with eighteen babies by now.”
“True,” Keane and I say at the same time, and then we both burst out laughing again.
“Oh, man, if this girl is Peenie with a pussy, then Z isn’t gonna be able to resist her,” Fish says. “I’d bet good money on him fucking her within the first week.”
“Not gonna happen,” I say. “Barry said she’s off-limits. Not that I would have touched her, anyway.”
“Barry actually said that?” Dax asks. “Or he implied it?”
“Oh, no, he said it, son. In no uncertain terms.”
“Say it ain’t so!” Fish shouts passionately from the floor, clutching his chest like he’s been shot.
“He didn’t need to say it, though,” I say. “I’m gonna be her bodyguard. It’s common sense.”
“It’s not common sense,” Keane says. “Kevin Costner fucked Whitney in The Bodyguard, and that didn’t stop him from taking a bullet for her. Not that any of us wants you to take a bullet for Aloha, mind you. Just sayin’ one thing doesn’t necessarily lead to the other.”
“Well, thanks for looking for a pussy-loophole for me, brother,” I say to Keane. “But I honestly don’t need one. Like I said before: Aloha’s not even my type. And even if she were, I wouldn’t be in the right frame of mind to make a move on her or anyone else because, unfortunately, my heart still belongs to Daphne.”
Everyone groans and yells at me for being an idiot.
“Who said anything about your heart here, Z?” Colin says. “Pretty sure we’ve been talking about nothing but your dick.”
“Aw, come on, Colinoscopy,” Keane says. “You know ZZ Top doesn’t separate fucking and feelings like most scumbags. My Wifey is a tenderhearted lad. He’s not a dapper dabbler by nature, God bless him.”
“But he’s capable of dapper dabbling, right?” Colin says.
“Well, of course,” Keane says, rolling his eyes. “One or two times outta ten, I’d say. But the other eight or nine times, Z thinks he’s in lurve with whoever he’s fucking, especially if the sex is really good. God help him if the sex is supernatural, he starts thinking the girl’s his future wife.”
“Yeah, but what about when falling in love with the girl isn’t an option, like here?” Colin says. “Even without Barry’s off-limits des, Z’s gotta know Aloha’s a nonstarter. She’s a world-famous pop star and Z’s just some nobody fitness trainer from Seattle. No offense, Z.”
“None taken.”
Colin continues, “You’re not even a fitness trainer to the stars. You’ve got zero chance with her.”
“True,” I say.
Colin addresses Keane. “If Z were stupid enough to actually fall for Aloha, he’d do it knowing he was for sure gonna end up just like Kevin and Whitney—with Z standing on the tarmac at the airport with his arm in a sling, watching Aloha fly away on her private jet, her head wrapped in a dope scarf and his heart smashed into a million pieces.”
Everyone laughs.
I don’t need to ask Colin why he’s so well versed in The Bodyguard, by the way. I’m well aware that Colin, like myself and Fish, spent his formative years hanging out at the Morgans’ house. Which means he’s probably seen The Bodyguard at least four times, the same as me, thanks to Keane and Dax’s older sister, Kat, aka Jizz and Kum Shot and The Blabbermouth, who always had it on.
“Colin is right as rain,” I say. “Even if, in some fantastical alternate universe, a big star like Aloha were inclined to give a nobody like me the green light, I wouldn’t make a move on her. Because I’d know I wouldn’t have a shot in hell at anything but a fling. And as fun as that sounds in theory, a little fun ain’t worth my balls being ripped off my body.”
“Barry said he’d rip off your balls if you touch her?” Dax asks.
“In those exact words.”
“Yeesh.”
“Meh, fuck Barry,” Fish says. “He can suck your big, black cock.”
We all laugh. Under normal circumstances, Matthew “Fish” Fishberger talking tough is funny, simply because he’s the skinniest, most pacifist dude among us. But it’s especially hilarious imagining skinny Fish talking tough regarding someone as brawny and badass as Barry Atwater.
“I’m serious,” Fish says. “Barry has no right to tell two grown-ass adults they can’t fuck behind closed doors.”
“I’d pay to see you say that to Barry’s face, Fish Taco,” I say, laughing.
“No, I think I’ll stick to saying it behind his back in a soft and well-modulated voice. But you know what I will shout from any rooftop? Fuck Daphne. That woman dumped you, man. There’s no reason you should still be pining for her. Even if you’re not gonna make a move on Aloha, then at least, for the love of God, make a move on someone.”
Everyone agrees.
“That’s easier said than done,” I mumble.
“It’s easy as pie,” Colin says. “Just turn the page.”
Everyone in the room says some variation of “amen.”
I sigh. “Daphne walloped me pretty good, guys. I need a minute.”
“Bah,” Fish says. “All you have to do to get over one girl is get another one under you.”
Dax chuckles. “Is that what you do when you get dumped, Fish Head? Do you immediately fuck your blues away?”
Everyone laughs. We don’t mean to be dicks to Fish. It’s just highly amusing to imagine that a dude who looks exactly like Shaggy from Scooby Doo would even get the chance to hop from woman to woman in the manner he’s prescribed.
“Well, no,” Fish concedes. “I’ve never personally been given the opportunity to fuck my blues away after getting dumped. But that’s what I’d do if I could—if I looked like Zander and had women falling all over me like he does.”
I scoff. “Aloha Carmichael won’t be falling all over me. She can get any guy she wants, literally.”
Dax chu
ckles. “And that guy will be you, Z. At least for a fling. Mark my words.”
“Agreed,” Keane says. “The pop star is gonna take one look at Zanzibar and slip him her room key the first night.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“I genuinely think it will,” Dax says. “In fact, a hundred bucks says you and Aloha will be flinging from the rafters before the end of month one.”
“We won’t.” I grab a whiskey bottle off the coffee table and take a huge gulp. “Even in this ridiculous fantasy world where a celebrity like Aloha wants to dabble with her nobody bodyguard, I’d politely decline her offer for the three reasons I’ve already mentioned: Barry said she’s off-limits, she’s not my type, and I’m still licking my wounds from Daphne. So, drop it.”
“You know what?” Keane says, munching some popcorn. “On second thought, I think I’m gonna have to side with Z on this one. I wouldn’t bet on him flinging with Aloha, after all.”
“Thank you, Peenie. Nice to know you’ve always got my back.”
“Now, what I would bet on, though, is Z falling desperately in love with Little Miss Disney during the first month of the tour—after which time I predict he’ll break down and start ‘making sweet love’ to Aloha, Lionel Richie style, every night of the tour during month two.”
Everyone around me agrees and then begins enthusiastically debating the finer points of Keane’s theory. Essentially, they think he’s spot-on in concept, but they disagree on the timeline for all this fuckery I’m supposedly going to be having.
“Fuck all y’all,” I say, bringing the whiskey bottle to my lips again. “I’m not gonna fuck Aloha. I’m not gonna fling with Aloha. And I’m certainly not gonna fall desperately in love with her. I’m gonna be her platonic babysitter-bodyguard, exactly as I’ve been hired to be. And when my three months are up and I’ve got some solid experience under my belt, I’m gonna get myself assigned to the 22 Goats tour. And then, and only then, when I’m feeling sufficiently detoxed from my breakup with Daphne, I’ll unleash Mr. Happy into the world again to spread his unique brand of happiness.”