“Thank you for considering it, then. You’d be helping a lot of women there. They sort of see you as a role model.”
Role model?
“Is that what this is all about? That’s why you’re inviting me?” I ask, shocked. Ethan glances up from his nearby chair.
Aidan nods. “Yes. Why is that surprising?”
“I’m a singer. I’m not trying to be a role model for anyone other than my own son. And definitely not a role model for women who were fooled by their husbands,” I spit back.
“I’ve said I was sorry a thousand times over and that I was never trying to fool you,” Aidan says with a soft sigh, and then he shifts gears. “We need to get working on the legal paperwork because it’s been a year now. We can do it without lawyers, right?”
In New York, unless you have grounds for divorce—which include adultery, inhuman treatment, or abandonment—you have to be separated for a year before the divorce proceedings can begin. The perfunctory year ended, so we’re ready to divorce now.
I lower my voice and try, like a ventriloquist, to not move my mouth. “But I thought we weren’t going to talk about the legal stuff in front of him. So why don’t we discuss it another time, since I need to get ready for Letterman anyway.”
I hug Ethan, zip up his coat, and plant a kiss on his forehead. Then I tell him I love him, and I say good-bye, keeping the transition as drama-free as possible for his sake.
I sit down in the café and absently flip through my book of kisses, watching through the window as Ethan and his dad walk down the street. My heart feels heavy for a moment as the two of them cross the block, hand in hand, then leave my line of sight. I miss the days when we were a threesome, when we’d both hold one of Ethan’s hands and the three of us would walk down the street together. I miss the quiet normalcy of being a family. Now we are just another divorcing couple in New York City, just another man and woman whose vows were nixed, just another pair of exes living separate lives.
Sometimes, when I feel dark and moody, when I get cynical and jaded, I wish we would fight like a regular old divorcing man and woman. I wish we could lob insults and invectives at each other with vigorous abandon. Then I can cue up Nine Inch Nails’s “Pretty Hate Machine” or Poe’s “Angry Johnny” and stomp around the house and throw things. But like now, like always, I’d stand there yelling too much, feeling too much, the only one with any emotions for the other.
The way it had always been.
I close the book of kisses. I’m not in the mood anymore. Besides, I have Letterman and a show tonight, so I pull my bag up on my shoulder, button my coat, and leave the bookstore. I glance at my watch. I have two hours to walk home, change, and grab a cab to David Letterman’s theater on Broadway. My phone vibrates and then I hear Kelly’s specialized ring tone—my phone plays “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper when she calls. The song is so retro it’s beyond retro, but it’s one of the few tunes that can match Kelly’s energy level. Maybe she can eject me from my Aidan-induced funk.
“Jane Black!”
“Kickin’ Kelly!”
“I have to tell you something!” Nearly everything Kelly says ends with an exclamation point. Her perkiness is infectious. Talking to her makes me want to break out in show tunes sometimes. “I have a new accountant and he’s so cute!”
“Do tell.”
“I just met him and he is adorable. Green eyes, dark blond hair, nice body. He wears the kind of clothes that Henry Cavill wears on the red carpet.”
“Clothes that aren’t tight, but clearly demonstrate he has a rocking body?”
“You know it, girl! I might just need to have him review all my accounts. He is that cute!”
Then I hear a singsong voice in the background. “Mommy, I am going to tell Daddy you said the accountant is cute.”
“Where are you, Kel?”
“In a cab. Just picked up Sophie.” Then she says to Sophie, “You are not to tell Daddy I just said that. Do you understand me, missy?”
“Maybe if you get me a cookie, I won’t tell,” I hear Sophie offer.
“Done.” Then back to me, “What can I say? She’s a good negotiator. So listen, my sweets. You know how I have that little celebrity gossip fetish?”
“Yeah.”
“I picked up Star Magazine and the picture of you is amazingly hot. I want to show it to you. Are you nearby?”
“Lexington and Twenty-Eighth.”
“We’re on Second and Twenty-Third. Stay there. We’ll pick you up on the southeast corner.”
Four minutes later, Kelly pushes open the door to her cab and I scoot inside.
“See? The photo is incredible.” Kelly flips the magazine to the picture of me accepting my Grammy. My hair did look good that night and I have a massive smile on my face. Maybe both Jeremy and Kelly are right—there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Then I see the headline:
“UNDER HER NOSE”
I glance at Kelly and then at Sophie, who waves to me. “Hi, Jane. My mommy has a crush on her accountant, but I’m not going to tell Daddy since she’s getting me a cookie.”
“Sounds like a fair deal.”
I read the article.
Jane Black may have a Grammy but she doesn’t have gay-dar. Somehow, the songstress failed to notice for five-plus years that her husband preferred, how shall we say, not the fairer gender. Maybe she turned a blind eye to hubby’s interest in boys; after all, the former Mr. Jane Black bears a striking resemblance to Hollywood hottie Chris Pine. “I desperately wanted my marriage to work,” Black said in an exclusive interview with Star Magazine. Who wouldn’t want to keep Chris’s twin around!
I stare at Kelly, stunned. “At least the picture is good,” she repeats. “I mean, you look amazing. That’s all people are going to remember anyway. Half the people who buy this can’t even read.”
I don’t even know what to say. Jayden tricked me with the whole my sister had a gay boyfriend, too ruse, then he twisted my words; he mocked me. I followed Matthew’s advice to be myself. I dropped any canned facade. And here I am again, the butt of the joke. Matthew’s wrong, Jeremy’s wrong, and I’m wrong too in thinking doing a story with Matthew would be anything but a big mistake.
I fish my cell phone from my bag and call his cell.
“Matthew here,” he answers.
“Hi, it’s Jane Black.”
“The only person I want to hear from.”
“I can’t do the story. I’m sorry, but the timing doesn’t make sense.”
“Is this because of the Star Magazine story?”
“You saw it already?”
“Well, yes. I saw it online. I have a Google News Alert for you,” he says. I’m oddly flattered. He is doing his homework. But if I won’t let his e-mails distract me, I certainly won’t let a little Google News Alert do that either.
“Anyway, I hope you’ll understand.” I place a hand over the mouthpiece to ask Kelly to drop me off at my place a few blocks away. She leans forward to give the cabbie the address.
“Let’s talk about this in person, please.”
“Why?”
“Where are you? I’ll meet you in thirty minutes. Anywhere. Just tell me where.”
“I can’t meet right now. I’m going to be on Letterman in two hours.” The cab pulls up outside my apartment. “I have to go,” I tell him and hang up.
Chapter Ten
When I hit the last note, Dave walks over and says, “This gal is quickly on her way to becoming the next Adele. Give a round of applause for Jane Black, fresh off her Grammy win for Best Album for Crushed.” Then he cuts to a commercial, thanks me, and walks back to his desk, where he prepares to tee up tomorrow’s show in the closing credits shot. We’re quickly shuttled offstage, where various show producers say their thanks.
The best part of being on his show today is that Dave doesn’t interview his musical guests. They just get in, perform one song, and get out. So I don’t have to answer any questions. I button my
coat, grab my bag, and tell the band I’ll see them at the nearby Roseland Ballroom for our gig in a couple hours.
I open the heavy green backstage door to the Ed Sullivan Theater. A handful of folks are waiting for me, asking for an autograph, wanting to say hello. I mingle for a minute, but most of the crowd is waiting for a glimpse of Rob Lowe, who went on before me but hasn’t left yet.
I push past the crowd, then do a double take when I notice Matthew at the edge of the group, clearly waiting for me, a look in his eyes that is both determined and lively. He is wearing jeans, black Vans, and a faded green T-shirt with the words GRILLED, ROASTED, FLAMED, BURNED running in a list down the front of it. He has on his beaten-up leather jacket, too. I take him in, his dark hair, pure blue eyes, the trace of a five o’clock shadow on his face. I wish he didn’t have to look so good, so coolly put together without seeming put together. I also wish my body didn’t start racing the second I see him. Reflexively, I bring my hand to my chest, remembering how he wants to kiss the hollow of my throat. Imagining how I’d respond to his lips on my skin.
My brain says to walk away; my body smacks her upside the head. “I feel like I should think you’re stalking me,” I say to Matthew when I reach him.
“And yet you don’t really feel that way because you know what I’m actually doing is pursuing you,” he says, placing a hand on my back. It feels ridiculously good, and slightly possessive, which I love.
“You’re pursuing me?” I ask breathily.
He nods, his eyes darker, his expression serious, like the time before he kissed me on the street. He leans close to me, brushing my hair away from my neck, before he whispers, “Yes. I’m pursuing you.”
That word alone makes my blood sing with desire for him, even though I don’t know if he’s pursuing me as the reporter or as the man. Right now, with him so near to me that the rest of the people on this block disappear, I won’t be able to figure out the answer.
Maybe the answer is both, but I have to know. I have to test him. “I meant what I said. I can’t do the story.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing I can do to convince you?”
“No.”
He’s crestfallen. He flubs his lips, blowing out a long stream of air. Then he holds his hands up as if he’s accepting surrender. “So be it. You leave me with no choice then but to buy you a drink right now.”
I furrow my brow. “Why do you say that?”
“If you’re not going to do the story with me, then one, I need to drown my sorrows, and two, I don’t have to hold out any longer. So let me take you to Simone’s around the corner, since the owner’s my best mate; it’s right near Roseland, and I can do some of those things I promised I’d do in all those e-mails you were supposed to erase. Then we’ll get you to the club in time for your show, and hopefully if I’m doing it right, you’ll be ridiculously fucking turned on while you’re singing, and I will at the very least have the pleasure of watching you perform and knowing I brought you to that state.”
Oh. My. God.
I don’t think I can move. Or speak. Let alone breathe.
That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me, and I am dying to yank him against me and kiss the hell out of him right here on Fifty-Third Street. Because he passed the test I didn’t even realize I was giving. But he passed it with flying colors, and it seems he likes me for me. I press my teeth against my lower lip and manage a sharp exhale.
“We need to go to Simone’s this second,” I say.
Once inside the swank bar with its silver tables, dark red walls, and low chrome lights overhead, we grab a small table near the back. “Just so you know, I’m going to see your show tonight,” he says.
“I gathered.”
“I bought a ticket two weeks ago. I bought them before any of this. Because I wanted to see you perform, because I like your music.”
“Don’t you just know the way to my heart,” I tease.
The waitress appears to ask for our drink order. I tell her I’ll have a Sam Adams; Matthew says he’ll have the same. “Thank you so much, Mr. Harrigan,” she says to him, then walks away.
As soon as she’s gone, his hand is on my thigh and he strokes my leg with his thumb. I might combust from the sensation.
“Are you really going to kiss me here in Simone’s? In a bar, in public?”
“Would it bother you?”
I shake my head. “No. The opposite. I have a feeling I’d like it.”
Then he bends his head to my neck, but he doesn’t kiss me. He inhales me. I draw in a sharp, hot breath as he trails his nose from my collarbone to my ear. “You smell so good. What the hell is it that you’re wearing? You smell like a tropical island.”
I can barely think straight. “Um, it’s this lotion. Coconut Dream is the name.”
“Mmm,” he whispers. “It’s insanely fucking sexy. But then, everything about you is.”
My entire body is ablaze, and maybe this is a dream. A hot, blissful dream because nobody has said I’m sexy in years. Nobody has been turned on by the way I smell in ages. And now this man who I’ve dubbed eminently lickable is doing just that to me. He’s licking my neck, and it’s the hottest thing in the world, his tongue on my skin, and he’s tasting me, exploring me, like he told me he wanted to do. I stretch to the side, exposing more of my neck for him, wanting more of his touch. He reaches my ear and nibbles lightly, playfully. “I was right,” he whispers.
“About what?” I ask in a hazy voice, my eyes still closed.
He traces the edge of my ear with his fingertip, and I shiver. “About this earlobe,” he answers. “It tastes delicious.” Then he runs his hand down my neck, splaying his fingers across my skin, pressing hard into my collarbone, gripping me in a way that feels thoroughly possessive and full of need. His need for me, to touch my body, to claim me, and it’s so foreign, but so heady.
“And you haven’t even kissed my lips yet,” I tease.
He shakes his head against me, and laughs once. “There are so many parts of you I haven’t tasted yet. But I want to.”
That’s it. Put a fork in me. I’m done. I am officially turned on beyond any and all reason. “It’s working,” I say in a low, ragged whisper.
“My plan to get you thoroughly aroused before you take the stage?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve barely even started.”
Then he plants a rough kiss on my lips, kissing me hard, tugging on my lower lip with his teeth, before he breaks the kiss, stands up and says, “I’ll be right back.”
I watch him walk to the bar, buzzed on the way my lips feel bruised, and the fantastic way his ass looks in those jeans. Then he disappears behind the bar, leaving me in this wound-up state, wondering how I’ve gone from the butt of the Grammy Awards to the object of this hot, British, possibly royal, rock critic’s lust and affection. But there’s not much room in my brain for processing, because Matthew returns a minute later, reaches for my hand, laces his fingers through mine, and pulls me up. He guides me to a back hallway, opens a door marked OFFICE, then closes it behind us.
“Your buddy’s?”
He nods. “John-Alistair’s bar. I’m meeting up with him after your show for a beer. But let’s not talk about him right now. Let’s just be grateful for good mates.”
He leans against his friend’s desk and pulls me close to him, threading his fingers through my hair, giving a quick tug.
“I love your hair,” he says, then drops his hands to my hips. “And your hips.” Then moves his hands to my breasts, squeezing through my sweater, and I nearly cry out from the sensation, the sharp, sweet pleasure that shoots through my body. “And the way you move,” he whispers, and it’s not lost on me that he loves what makes me a woman, all the parts of me that Aidan could never ever want. It’s such a delirious thrill to be desired like this. Not by just anyone, though, but by him. By this man who I’ve always thought was hot as hell, and now I’m
learning is funny, kind, polite and relentless in his own way.
He tugs me closer, so I’m standing between his legs, and then his hands are on my face, and he kisses me more. The first time he kissed me, it felt like a dream, like I was floating on a warm, hazy horizon. Now, he’s touching me with the kind of kiss that leads to more, to frenzied, fevered quickies on desks if I were to let it go there. He kisses greedily, his tongue exploring my mouth, his lips meshing with mine as if he’s wanted to kiss me for so long. He has the slightest bit of stubble on his jawline, and I love the rough, sandpaper feel against my face.
He closes the remaining distance between us, so we are snug and airtight, and I’m lost in lust, flooded with desire in every corner of my body. I groan, but then the sound is erased as he kisses more, and harder, in an all-consuming way that makes me so insanely aroused that I grab his hips and quickly shift positions.
Now I’m seated on the edge of the desk, and he’s between my legs, and we could so easily fuck this way if we wanted to.
“I like it better this way,” I whisper, as I run my fingers through his soft hair.
“Any way you like is good for me,” he says, and I pull him closer, feeling how hard he is, and I want to sing, I want to cry, I want to shout because he’s as turned on by me as I am by him. He pushes against me, and I am ready, so ready to shove all these papers to the floor, lie back on his friend’s desk, and slam him on top of me. I want him in every way right now. I want to feel him inside me. I want him deep within me. I want to know the kind of wild release I’d feel with him. I wrap my legs around his waist and rock into him. He responds instantly, pressing himself between my legs, harder, more desperate, and I know he wants this too.
He breaks the kiss for a moment, giving me a sly raise of the eyebrow. “Your legs wrapped around me? I could get used to that.”
But yet, I know I’m not ready to go any further. My body might be screaming to be taken right now, but I can’t fully trust my hormones or my brain or my heart. So I put on the brakes. For now. “Me, too,” I say. Then I place my hands on his chest. “And I am so immensely turned on right now, but if we keep doing this I’m not going to be able to stop.”
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