I was typing a text to Mark, telling him we’re sorry he couldn’t make the show, when my fingers freeze at this little shocker. I blink at the guy a second. “Let me handle him. Lead the way.”
The three-hundred-pound beast crooks a finger and starts walking over to where fans are screaming and clawing to get past the ropes. Amidst the surrounding chaos are the twins from hell, their confident expressions cooler than an autumn breeze. Jason’s in dark blue jeans and a hot-as-hell grey hoodie pulled over his head. Justin’s got a blue, short-sleeve button up over charcoal jeans. If they didn’t dress differently you might not be able to tell them apart. Both pairs of ice-green eyes lock on me as their shoulders visibly relax.
“Do you know this guy?” The bodyguard points to Jason who’s so relieved to see me he’s bordering on a smile.
I frown and raise my hand. Jason thinks I’m about to say let him in, but instead I use that gesture to announce, “Don’t know him. Sorry.”
Jason’s deep voice warns me underneath the screamers, “Sarah, don’t do this.”
Justin crosses his arms and shakes his head that I’m making a mistake.
The bodyguard looks at me, because he knows my name really is Sarah.
Loud enough for the Cocker Brothers to hear me, I tell the beast, “He’s a stalker, Wayne. That’s how he knows who I am. We deal with him all the time.” To Jason I shout, “She’s not interested! Give it up!”
As I bury my head in my phone and head away he shouts at my back, “I fucking hate you!”
My middle finger flies up and I keep right on walking.
Serves him right. I know for a fact he didn’t tell Simone he was coming. I would have prepared myself for the inevitable pit in my stomach and dampness in my panties.
She’s been out for his balls ever since she woke up this morning with a scratchy throat. And all over my ass, since he’s not been here to take the heat.
I’m doing him a favor, but he doesn’t need to know that.
As soon as I walk into her dressing room, she growls, “Why didn’t you tell him to stop making me sing that fucking song earlier?!!!”
Sighing, I quickly walk over to the couch where she’s drinking hot water laced with honey. “For the tenth time, you are an adult. You could have stopped him if you felt your chords becoming strained.”
She bends, laying her head onto her knees. “What am I gonna do!?”
“How bad is it?”
“I have sandpaper in my throat!”
A knock makes us both look over. I touch her shoulder. “Stay here.” When I get to the door I lay my ear against it and call though, “Who is it?”
“Room service.”
Simone and I share a look. The knob turns without my help. Mr. Perfect Face and his matching brother walk past me.
Oh shit.
Here we go.
Simone’s eyes turn to silver swords, rising as though one possessed, her index finger pointed at Jason. “You!”
He freezes, confused.
Justin leans on a wall from which he can watch the scene. He meets my eyes a moment, then turns back to Simone as she snarls, “My throat is fucked up because of your perfectionism and I have to go on in…” She glances to the wall clock. In fact, we all do. Then she locks back onto Jason. “Thirteen minutes!!”
“Simone…” He holds his hands out.
“Don’t Simone me! How the hell am I supposed to sing ten songs like this?! If I can’t do a set for twelve-hundred people, then how am I going to do the Arena for thirty-thousand someday? Huh?! My voice is going to crack out there!”
I have to admit Jason is weathering her attack like a champ. He’s very calm as he tells her, “First, my perfectionism is what’s going to make you a star. This will be your last concert where you’re not the headliner.”
“I can’t be a star if I blow it out there! They’re going to laugh at me! Because of you!”
I glance over to see Justin watching with disapproving tension around his eyes.
Jason reaches into his pocket. “Beautiful, these are lozenges that Usher uses before he goes on. And Jay-Z. And Drake. They’re fifty-eight dollars a roll because they’re specially made by a nutritionist to the stars.”
The balloon of her fury deflates as she cocks her head, takes the roll and rips the wrapper off. “These had better work,” she mutters, turning away from him.
Jason’s staring at her back as she pops two in her mouth and starts crunching. He glances to me. From his expression, he’s not a fan of this side of her. With her in her own world, he crosses to me.
My breath hitches as he leans in to whisper in my ear, “Why didn’t you let us in?”
God, does he ever smell bad?
“I think you know why.”
He nods, getting it. I was partly saving him, partly her. Amusement lights up his gorgeous green eyes as he leans in, his voice almost inaudible. “You didn’t have to be a cunt about it.”
Heat pools out between my thighs and I blink hard, barking, “Didn’t I?”
I lock eyes with him and he holds my look in a way that shimmers goosebumps down my spine.
Justin pushes off the wall and mutters without emotion, “Simone, have a good show.”
She just waves dismissively, still turned away and waiting for results. She unwraps more of the roll and pops two more lozenges in her mouth.
Jason and I are watching her.
As Justin walks up he hits Jason’s arm. “Let’s go.”
From a distant place Jason nods before he locks eyes with me again. “Sorry I called you a cunt.”
“No, you’re not.”
He gives me a smirk that is so hot it makes my panties dampen even more than when he just lit my ear on fire. “You’re right, Sarah. I’m not.”
He dips out of the door first before Justin goes to close it. On a pause Justin locks onto me as though seeing me for the first time. His eyes narrow and he disappears.
I take it back. They don’t have to wear different clothes to be told apart. Give him a second and Justin will show you there’s a sharpness to his eyes, almost devious, that Jason just doesn’t have.
I saw it as clear as that mirror Simone’s walking toward.
“Sarah,” she whispers, touching her throat like she can’t talk.
Oh God, did he give her something she’s allergic to?
Fear grips my heart.
Is the show over?
Sarah
“What!?” I run over to her, meeting her blue eyes in the reflection. “Tell me I don’t have to take you to a goddamn hospital right now!”
She looks like she’s about to faint. Grabbing both of my arms she breathes, “They work!”
“Really?”
On an excited nod, she grins, “Uh huh!!!”
Exhaling the stress out of my poor lungs I groan, “Don’t scare me like that again! Now get out there and be amazing!”
Simone hugs me and turns to the mirror. She smoothes her black halter and gives her black leather pants a tug as she bangs both her stilettos against the concrete floor. “Here we go!” She heads for the door, humming scales in excited preparation.
The door almost closes on my face by the time I get there. But I don’t mind. She should be thinking only about herself right now. This crowd isn’t here to see me. Hell, they’re not even here to see her, but she’s set on changing that.
She’s the middle act, but I think Jason’s right. With that viral video and this new album, after tonight she won’t be opening a show for someone else again.
I follow her and hold back while she and I stand away from the audience’s view, stage left, waiting for her introduction. She’s shifting her weight a little, face pointed at the floor while mentally going over her set list. I’ve been backstage enough times with her to know the drill. But it never gets old for me.
I’m so excited that I grab onto one of the alternate curtain backdrops hanging to my left for emotional support. The announcer booms her name as I
cling to it. Simone lifts her head and steps onto the stage to tepid applause.
The people in those seats came for the headliner.
Now is the moment of reckoning.
Will she make them remember her?
Oh my God, I can’t stand this!
Since we met I’ve gotten this excited every time she goes on stage. When she first moved to Detroit it was the plays she acted in during high school. When we turned seventeen she got into a garage band that lasted six years. I was at all her crappy little house-party shows, college dances, and even that time she sang at a bat mitzvah, and neither of us are Jewish. Frankly they were one of her most enthusiastic crowds because they loved to dance.
And over the last years when she dropped those band members who were dead weight, she went solo. I followed her when she began playing smaller clubs than this all across the country and finally attracting and landing one of the best labels out there. She’s worked hard. We both have.
Every time it’s like I’m going on with her.
Without my knowing it, Jason has come up behind me to watch her. Involuntary goosebumps travel up my neck as his deep voice whispers in my ear, “What song is she doing first?”
Letting go of the curtain so I don’t look like a weirdo, I meet his eyes, blinking rapidly. “Ummm… she’ll only be doing her hits tonight. Plus the Just For Me a cappella as a finale.”
He nods and we hold our look a moment. Simone purrs into the microphone, “There’s a new song I want to introduce you to.” I flip around, shocked. With a flirtatious sparkle in her smile, she adds, “Although you may have had a sneak peek already, if you watch the ‘Tube.”
She steps back to talk to the band. Jason and I are close enough to hear her hushed voice confidently tell them, “I’m going to do the finale first. Hang back a minute?” They nod. The drummer lays his sticks on his lap. The audience is silent except for random murmurs of people asking if anyone knows what she’s talking about.
Simone glances my way and winks at me. Or maybe she winked at Jason, but right now I don’t care. I’m on the edge of my heels with anxiety on how this gamble will go.
Raising the mic to her pretty lips, Simone begins to sing. A dramatic hush falls over the crowd. It falls over me, too.
When you watch the truly gifted, something happens in your soul. It raises you up to meet what you’re hearing and seeing. Your soul knows you’re witnessing a special sort of miracle and it resonates with that truth.
Art clarifies who we really are.
What life is all about.
Magic.
As Simone’s voice makes the entire Civic Theater fall in love with her, I reach for Jason’s hand.
I didn’t mean to.
It’s like when you’re watching a horror film and you grab the arm of the person who is sitting next to you, but you don’t realize it until after someone on screen dies and you awkwardly take your hand back and apologize.
If I hadn’t let go of the curtain this wouldn’t have happened. Normally I’m alone backstage.
And curtains are all I have.
Our fingers weave together without my knowledge as she sings, “I need to leave the you that formed the we.”
It isn’t until her song ends that I realize what I’ve done.
Pulling my hand out from his I mumble, “Sorry.”
Jason is staring at me with a look I can’t decipher. “It’s okay. I felt it, too,” he mutters, rendering me speechless.
You felt it, too?
But then he explains, “She was unbelievable.”
Blinking at him, my lips part but nothing comes out.
On a quick frown he mutters, “I’m gonna go look for Justin. Excuse me.” He disappears into a jungle of levers, chords and curtains.
Behind me the band has come to life. I turn as Simone almost misses her intro to a song she could sing in her sleep, because while the audience was losing their minds cheering for her talent, she was watching me and Jason.
We lock eyes.
She turns and sings the opening lyrics just in time.
Jason
Waiting for the girls to get back from the bathroom, Justin and I are sitting in Three Muses on Frenchmen Street with live jazz playing to our right. The bluesy beat is a step up over the headliner who followed Simone. I usually don’t produce pop music. I prefer rap and hip hop. Simone was an exception for obvious reasons. And while I can respect some male pop singers like Andy Grammer, Jager Barris wasn’t Andy.
Nails cutting into my brain is what listening to Barris felt like.
But even that was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the tense conversation going on since the four of us left the Civic Theater.
Glancing to Justin I ask, “You about done tearing that napkin to shreds?”
“You about done with fucking twats like Simone?”
I lean back in my chair. “You heard her tonight and you’re still going to badmouth her?”
Justin leans back, too. “Just because she can sing doesn’t mean she’s worth your time, Jason.”
I stare at him, then slam my beer bottle on the table. “I’m fucking tired of this!”
His eyes narrow on me. “I’m a dick because I’m telling you the truth? No! Don’t interrupt.” He jams his finger at me. “You know what I’m never gonna do with you, Jason? Lie to you! When I say you deserve better—”
“—Which you say about every girl I date!”
“I said, don’t interrupt!” he growls. “And I say it with every girl because you have terrible taste in women.”
“Oh, and your taste is so much better? You date sluts and…” I seal my lips because I was about to say prostitutes, which would have been incorrect and self-damning.
Bernie Lancaster, the cocaine-addicted model I was truly in love with, became a high-class hooker in order to feed her habit when I stopped dating her. I hung around a long time as her bodyguard because I had to protect her, even if it fucking tore my heart out every night to watch her disappear with those other men.
But at least she’s still alive.
He knows what I was about to say, and why I stopped.
“Jason,” he grates. “I don’t fall in love with them. That’s the difference between you and me.”
“What’s the difference between you two?” Simone asks as she walks up with Sarah just behind her. Sliding down like a cat onto her chair, she looks between my Justin and I with disdain. “Because I really don’t see one except for your personal style.”
“The difference is—” Justin begins.
I cut him off. “—that I have incredible taste in women.”
I glance to Sarah as she sits down and for some reason that makes Simone’s spine lock up like someone just shoved a pole up her ass. Knives shoot out of her eyes as she stares at me. I’m getting fucking sick of it, because she’s been like this with me since the dressing room. Glancing back to Sarah, her usual purr becomes a growl. “Oh you have incredible taste in women? Yeah, I saw you two holding hands, so I guess you do.”
Almond-colored eyes drop down.
I stutter, “She took my hand because you were so good.”
Simone huffs, “Give me a fucking break.”
Justin is watching me. “Go on, keep shoveling your grave. Maybe then she’ll stop digging it for you.”
Simone snarls, “Justin, fuck you. You are such an asshole you know that? Why are you even here?”
That’s it.
No one fucks with my brother.
I start to laugh. Both girls look at me as I pick up my bottle. “Fuck it. You know what, Princess, think what you want. I’m done with your childish, fucking fits for one night.”
Justin glugs down the rest of his beer at the same time I empty mine. We hit them on the table together and rise up, with both girls stunned and watching us.
From their faces I have a feeling this is the first time any guy has ever walked out on Simone. Her gorgeous blue eyes flash. “You’re leaving?!”
“As if I care,” she sneers.
“Oh I don’t mean the sex, babe. I mean the music. You can hire someone else to finish that remix, and the one for Time Doesn’t Fly, because I won’t be there.”
With retracting claws Simone grabs my arm. “I’ve been under a lot of stress, Jason!”
Tugging my arm free, I mutter, “We all have stress. Grow the fuck up.”
Locking eyes with Sarah for a hot second I dip my chin. “Goodnight.”
She nods.
Justin and I get the hell out of there.
After we’ve walked up Frenchmen Street in silence for a while I glance over to him. “What’s that face for?”
“It’s your face. What, you don’t like it anymore?”
Can’t suppress a smile at that. “You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t,” he casually mutters, scanning the body of a woman who saunters past him. She turns her head to meet his challenge, but he lets her go.
“You were thinking something,” I pry.
“What? I have a brain. I think about things. I’m not just a pretty face.” He winks at me.
This time I don’t smile. “Are you surprised I stood up for you? Don’t know why you would be.”
“Wasn’t thinking about that,” he argues as we ignore the double-takes of strangers passing us. People always do that, for obvious reasons.
“Then what?”
“Nah.”
“What!?”
“You’re not ready to hear it.”
I stop walking. “Just fucking tell me.”
Justin runs a hand through his hair as he stares into the distance, deciding.
“Don’t make me guess.”
He meets my eyes and says, “Fine. You know what I was thinking? That you picked the wrong friend.” Off my blank stare he leans in. “Didn’t occur to you yet?”
“You mean Sarah? Are you fucking nuts? One, she despises me.”
Cocky Romantic: A Hot Romantic Comedy Stand Alone (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 4) Page 4