My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2)

by Jennifer Griffith

  “I don’t think it’s safe, Hudson. He’s onto you. You saw him circling you.” Oakley couldn’t let him go wandering around in the bowels of this big studio. Roman could be lurking behind any turn, ready with a knife. “He more or less said you’re the ghost of Hudson Oaks come to exact revenge. He’s crazy, you know. He’d do anything to protect himself and his current lifestyle. I mean, look what he did to Chris and Nick and Al. You don’t think he’d hesitate to silence you, too, do you? Think about it. Your dead body means he’s the beneficiary of your life insurance policy. That could mean millions to him.”

  “No. He wouldn’t dare. He has too much to lose to risk another killing.” Hudson tried to get past where Oakley was blocking the door from their isolated waiting room. “He wouldn’t dare,” he said again, but with less conviction.

  “At this point, he’s a man with nothing to lose.” Oakley hated speaking the truth, especially when it highlighted sheer danger.

  Sherm walked over. His mouth was in a grim line. “I’ve already called a friend of mine at the district attorney’s office. If we can get him to admit to any portion of the crime, they’ll be taking him in. Add that to the evidence that just turned up, and he’s toast.”

  “Good.” No milk of human kindness dripped from Hudson now, not when he’d determined that he knew who’d killed his friends.

  “Hudson.” Oakley attempted a brand new tack. “Think of your family. If not your family, think of my mom—and your other fans. They lost you for too long. They waited too long for your return. My mom searched for you. Don’t let all her efforts go to waste.” A pool of unshed tears perched at the bottoms of her eyes. “Please?”

  “Stacey has been utterly kind to me.” The please must have broken him because he slowed down and then found his way to a chair. His knee still bounced, but he’d stopped making a fist and pounding it into his palm.

  Oakley exhaled in relief. “Thank you.”

  Oakley peeked out the door. Just one hall over from their waiting room, Farley stood guard, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Hi, Mr. Farley.”

  “Miss Marsden.” He frowned. If he was still serving as Roman’s loyal henchman, Oakley needed to divert his attention until they’d sealed the deal on Levy’s arrest. Now that Mom and Sherm had mentioned indisputable evidence, maybe it was only a matter of time.

  If not, then … maybe they could get Farley to help them out with better factual evidence. Winning his trust was going to be crucial, regardless.

  “Having a good night, Mr. Farley?” she asked. He didn’t smile. She couldn’t read whether he was warming to her or if he remained an ice-cold killer at heart.

  “You’re wanted back on the stage in ten minutes.” He used a monotone voice. “Follow me.”

  “Okay.” Please let him be nice and not mean. Please let her gut feeling about Farley be right, more like. “I guess I get to do this twice, eh? Does it happen a lot?”

  A squeak and a static buzz came through Farley’s walkie-talkie. “Follow me,” he said.

  Fear gripped her momentarily. Could she just go with him? Where was he taking her? Was it really to the stage, or to a place where Roman would meet her, interrogate her, and try to find out if Hudson was really a present-day nobody, or if he was who Roman obviously suspected him to be?

  Oakley decided she had to go. Along the way through the corridor, she filled the air with empty comments as she tagged along behind him. His limp was more pronounced, and she stared down at his leg. One pant leg was much smaller than the other. He only had one leg. The other was prosthetic. She’d seen it on Mr. DiConcini. And she should have noticed it before on Farley. But did it mean something? Something inside her flopped like a fish on a riverbank.

  But she followed him.

  “Ugh, I really don’t want to sing another Jerica Jones song, Mr. Farley.” She had to keep acting dumb. The best way to do that was to talk nonstop. “They’re awful. I tried to spruce them up, you know? But I probably sounded like I didn’t know the words. Anyone with a pulse knows the words.”

  Farley grunted at her comments, saying nothing.

  What all had passed between the stone-cold killer Roman Levy and his at-least-one-time henchman tonight when the two were out of Oakley and Hudson’s presence? And another set of questions bloomed. Had Farley recognized Hudson, too? Would he take revenge on Hudson—for not dying? Would he use Oakley as leverage?

  Suddenly, all these scenarios seemed like very real possibilities. It was time to play ultra-dumb.

  “I wish I knew who vetoed me. Sheesh. He probably hated Jerica Jones. If so, I wouldn’t blame him for that big red x. I mean, Jerica Jones is just … you know. Passé. People are sick of her. You heard the audience when I was singing during the sound check. They were gagging, no matter how much the judges claimed to like my live TV performance. I think the audience just endured. I can’t sing another one. They’ll lynch me, you know? I sure wish I could get my thumb drive back. If only someone could help me.”

  Farley said nothing at her blatant hint. They were almost backstage now. It was dark, and the sound from the studio was oddly muffled.

  She double-stepped to keep up with him. For a one-legged guy, Farley could sure walk fast. Waiting for a non-strategic amount of time, she hurled her biggest question. “How’d you hurt your leg, Mr. Farley?”

  Farley halted and swung around, nearly tripping her.

  “It’s not Mister Farley. It’s just Farley. And it was a skydiving accident. Long time ago. Doesn’t even hurt anymore. Except on days that end with the letter y.”

  Oh. That was pretty often. “Sorry.”

  He started walking again, slower this time, as if he was thinking back on the event and it took too much energy to divert any back to his walking speed. He was muttering under his breath, as if in a self-affirmation chant. “It wasn’t your fault, Farley. You were a kid. You didn’t know. Nobody should skydive on a rainy night.”

  When he said that, Oakley nearly tripped over the pointed tips of her red, high-heeled boots. Had Farley just said what she thought he’d said? Skydiving on a rainy night could mean a lot of things, but it probably only pointed to one thing—one rainy night. Twenty-three years and a week or so ago.

  Hot fear flushed up from her throat to her face. Faster than a lightning bolt on a rainy night, she put the same pieces together that Hudson must have assembled.

  Farley. He was the parachutist, not Manny. Manny went down with the plane. Farley jumped, landed, and broke his leg irreparably.

  So, it was real. Hudson hadn’t imagined the parachute—he’d seen it, and he now had figured out who had used it. That was why Hudson had been so dead set on talking with Farley, though Oakley had dissuaded him.

  It was coming together for Oakley, as well. Farley must have done something to Manny, and to the plane, and then jumped to safety, hurt his leg, and then been paid off by Roman Levy somehow.

  Well, if they asked Oakley, she’d say it would take a whole heckuva lot to compensate for a lost leg. Had Farley been paid off? Because at the same time, Roman knew Farley’s dark secret—that he’d brought down the plane. No wonder Farley couldn’t ever leave him in all these years. Blackmail.

  Oakley felt sick for him. Sad and sick. “Do you miss your leg?”

  Farley scoffed, the sides of his mustache fluffing as he expelled air. “Only on months that have four Sundays in them.” Then, without warning, he softened, from his eyes to his shoulders to his spine. “Thanks for asking. No one ever gets up the nerve to ask.”

  Uh, probably not, since Farley looked like he’d bite anyone who mentioned it.

  “I like you Oakley Marsden. I can see why the crowds all supported you.”

  He liked her! Oakley’s vision spun for a second and then righted. With that single phrase, the game changed entirely.

  “Thanks.” She smiled at him, and then, without thinking she spluttered, “I like you, too, Farley.” She did. She could tell something about him had b
een ill-used, and that he was stuck in Roman’s grasp, just like the Girl Crazy guys had been. “I want you to be able to get away from Mr. Levy.”

  “You what?” Farley looked stung.

  Maybe she’d ventured too far. She backtracked a second internally. But then she went for it, after one thought: the idea of how hard it must have been for Farley to hike out of the Camas River Gorge unseen with a mangled leg. The year she broke her ankle as a kid in a roller skating accident, she’d been in so much pain she wanted to cry when she even put weight on it.

  There was a story here, and sometime Oakley would get down to the crux of it.

  “I don’t think it was your fault. The lost leg.”

  Farley blinked at her a few times. “No, it wasn’t.” His voice was low, aching.

  “I bet it hurt like the devil when you broke your leg.” She grimaced. “Your femur, I’ll bet. Did anything even break your fall? A tree? A stream? Or did you just land on the cold, hard ground?” She stepped closer to him. “I’ll bet whoever made you jump ought to pay for it. You shouldn’t have to live your life without a leg, no matter what you were given in return.”

  Farley blinked, like he was processing. His breathing was deep and even, his narrowed eyes searching her face.

  Oakley had already spilled so much of her theory, she couldn’t stop now. In one last move, she bet the house.

  “I know what happened, Farley. And I will make sure you’re protected when it all comes out. Just speak to Hudson, okay? Tell him how it happened.”

  “Hudson?” Farley’s mustache-frown hung low again. “You’re not talking about Hudson Oaks.” He went white as Roman Levy’s bleached teeth.

  “I don’t know what Hudson thinks of you yet, but I’ll vouch for you. I’ll admit, you scared me at first, but that was before I knew you a little better.” Who was she kidding? She knew nothing about this guy, other than her gut feeling about him. She could be completely botching this and endangering all of them. For all she knew, Farley was squarely in Roman’s control and ready to be his henchman and get rid of another singer with life insurance in Roman’s name. Then Hudson wouldn’t be able to vindicate his friends’ lives. He’d just join them in the afterlife. And Roman would be even richer and could buy more tanning beds and tooth bleach.

  “Farley?” Oakley reached out and settled a hand softly on his huge forearm. “Please?”

  Farley looked down at her hand, as if it were an alien being. After a few seconds, he looked up, shaking his head. Some color came back into his face.

  “You seem nice, albeit slightly crazy, Miss Marsden, but hey. It’s been good talking to you.”

  Nice knowin’ ya, it sounded like. Now I gotta kill you too, since you know too much.

  Oakley’s soul crumpled. She’d failed! He wasn’t going to rat out his long-time boss. Panic made her desperate, and she resorted to begging.

  “This is your chance. Grasp it, Farley! Tell Hudson. He knows what kind of person Roman is, and he will understand why you did what you did. Then you’ll be free of this burden you’ve carried too long,” she begged, but to no avail.

  From somewhere in the TV studio, her brain registered Troy the announcer calling her name. “And now, back for a second chance at your votes, Oakley M.!”

  Farley’s face turned to stone. “It’s your turn on the stage. Break a leg.” He slapped his prosthetic. “Heh-heh.”

  Not funny. She raced down the last corridor to her spot on the edge of the wings of the stage. She readjusted her microphone, but she took one last pleading glance at Farley.

  His mustache lifted on both sides, and his voice got very low. “I never imagined anything like this would ever happen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I never thought anyone would ever help me stand up to Levy.” She could barely hear him, but his meaning came loud and clear. He was on her side! “I owe you, Miss Marsden. What can I ever do to repay you?”

  “Tell them not to play the Jerica Jones track. Be a friend. Get them to play the track on my jump drive.” She waited for him to nod, and then she added, “Oh, and call the police.”

  ***

  “Sorry, folks.” Troy the emcee held up a hand stopping Oakley from re-entering the stage. She could have screamed, the spring inside her was wound so tightly. “I’m sorry. Something has come up.”

  Oakley stood stock still. Was she being booted without even singing the second song? Was it not being televised? Blue had foreseen this—and the disastrous consequences for Oakley’s singing career.

  “Folks, we’re working with the network to extend the program, and we’re treating it like a sporting event, going into overtime. Apologies to the viewers at home who were looking forward to the re-run of the regional bowling finals. You’ll be missing the first few rounds of that.”

  A chuckle rose up from the east side of the studio audience, and someone made a heckling comment that Oakley couldn’t make out, but a smattering of laughter followed.

  What am I going to sing? Her mouth was dry. No, what are they going to make me sing? was more like it. Not knowing whether the track that played over the live feed on TV would be their revamp of “Lunch Lady,” or whether it would be another cruddy Jerica Jones song, or even anything that Oakley had ever heard in her lifetime—the tension was killing her by inches.

  Troy made jokes with the audience and the judges. He kept touching his earpiece, and cracking about technical difficulties and making some off-color references to a certain judge’s own personal technical difficulties.

  Oakley tried to keep her nerve at the edge of the stage’s wings, her boots’ toes just a millimeter into the light. Without Hudson at her side, she had less courage than this moment absolutely demanded.

  And then, to add insult to injury, up walked Roman Levy, a menace in his eye. “Well, well,” he said. “You’re still here, by legal edict.”

  “Mr. Levy.” Oakley’s throat collapsed, and she could only manage a straw of breath. “I’m sorry my song wasn’t good enough to convince the tie-breaker judge I deserve to be on the show. I really shouldn’t have chosen Jerica Jones to sing. A lot of people hate her music. A whole lot, apparently.”

  Playing dumb—it was a new skill she’d suddenly discovered she excelled at.

  “Just so you know, I’m pulling the plug on your live TV performance. The viewers at home, contrary to what Troy the Boy over there just said, will be enjoying a nice night of bowling tournament reruns. You’ll be getting zero votes from the viewers during your legally mandated time-limit. They won’t even know when you’ve gone live to sing. There won’t be enough votes to put you into next week’s competition.”

  “Why?” Oakley crunched her eyebrows together. “Why would you do that to me? It feels like … persecution.”

  “Maybe you should ask whoever hired your little Girl Crazy doppelgänger friend.” He aimed a finger at her nose, and Oakley winced. “I happen to know you—or someone—dug him up and brought him here just to intimidate me.”

  So he’d talked himself into that explanation? Poor guy. He must be reeling. But Oakley felt zero pity. Farley had as much as admitted to being accomplice to Roman’s insane murder of his star act twenty-three years ago.

  “Intimidate you?” Before she could filter her words, she’d asked, “Is it working?”

  Gah! She nearly clapped a hand over her mouth. What had possessed her to say such a thing? Now he’d suspect her, too, and she might have blown their thin cover and the fact they were after a confession from him.

  Luckily, his bravado didn’t let him get too cunning at this point, thank the heavens above.

  “You wish! I did some digging myself and found that you’ve been out to visit the family of the late Hudson Oaks—those people who think they are going to take me to court.”

  The oxygen sucked out of her lungs. How could he know where she and Hudson had been? “You’re tracking me?”

  “You’re part of my show. You signed the paperwork.
”

  She hadn’t signed any clause allowing herself to be stalked. No way. Sherm never would have allowed that. Instinct kicked in, and something Sherm once taught her to do in times of intimidation or manipulation sprang to her mind.

  In no time, Oakley yanked her phone out of her pocket and lifted it up, the camera rolling. “You’d better watch out. I’m recording all of this.”

  “Shut that off.” He took a swipe at it.

  “No. Say what you’re going to say, Mr. Levy.” She pulled it out of his reach, tall enough to outstretch him in her Boots of Amazingness. “About the people suing you. You think they’re crazy for believing you caused … what?”

  Anger gleamed in his eye, and Levy’s tan went from golden to ruddy. His fist flexed, and Oakley kept her camera trained on him. Otherwise, he might have taken a swing at her. Her hand shook, and this camera work was going to be more nauseating to watch back than a Go-Pro on a bumpy mountain bike trail, but she had to protect herself.

  “Put that away, Miss Marsden. I mean it.” The menacing glare coming from Roman Levy could have melted lead. Oakley’s knees got wobbly, more wobbly than her grip on the camera, even in the boots. Fatal violence looked like a distinct possibility, and even if it stumbled onto the stage of a live TV show, Roman didn’t look like he cared. Anger was his controlling passion in that moment.

  “It’s my protection. I’m keeping it rolling. It’s live-streaming to my lawyer.” She hit a button with her thumb, sending the feed to Sherm. “Who’s also my dad.” Sherm’s face appeared in the lower corner. “Hi, Dad. You getting this?”

  Roman took a step toward her, backing her into a shadowy part of the wings of the stage, where black fabric curtains stretched fifty feet upward. Oh, no. Curtains like that that could not only obscure others’ view of her and Roman—curtains could also muffle the sound of her screams if he acted on the violence lurking in his eyes.