by Maxene Novak
He rolled his eyes. “Not when that morning begins with me being someone’s unwanted hanger on guest.”
“Dude, what are you talking about? She asked us to stay because she was lonely. And she wasn’t exactly kicking us out the door either. That was all you.”
He shot me a dark look as we reached the point in the parking lot where we needed to go our separate ways.
“Trust me,” I said while walking backward, raising my voice just loud enough for him to hear me over all the rumbling engines around us. “She’ll be inviting us back over in no time.”
Doubt softened his scowl, and it felt like scoring a prize in a video game.
And it didn’t take too many hours for Sabrina to prove me right.
At sound check later that day at our next stop on the tour, she turned to us and tucked a stray strand of her hair back behind her ear. “So, um, I was wondering… There’s this restaurant in town that I really want to try. And I was wondering if you two would like to go with me? My best friend says the food is to die for.”
I couldn’t resist the urge to tease her. “Oh really? I thought you said battling the paparazzi just to eat out at a restaurant wasn’t usually worth it.”
Her cheeks turned slightly pink as she smiled. “Yeah, well, I’ve been assured that this place actually is worth it. And I really, really hate eating alone.”
“Eating with your guards is what you call eating alone?” Shane’s tone was light. So was his bemused expression.
Wait. Was he…flirting with her?
I caught myself staring at him in shock and ripped my gaze off of him and back to Sabrina. “But seriously, yeah, count me in. It’d be nice to have a change from the usual catered grub.”
“It does sound good,” Shane agreed. “So…meet you at your bus after meet and greet?”
Her smile grew as she looked from him to me and back again. “Yep. See you there.”
CHAPTER 7
Jessie
Sabrina’s guard drove. Shane took the front seat, so I got to sit by Sabrina in the back while she used her phone to show us pics of some of the dishes customers had taken from the restaurant we were headed to. It was so cute how she seemed to want to keep selling us on the place, like there was still a risk we’d change our minds about going.
When we arrived at the restaurant, her guard quickly moved us out of the car and into the restaurant. His way of rushing us around while looking every which way for attackers kind of cracked me up, though I tried not to laugh in his face about it. Obviously he was just doing his job. But he was so damn gung-ho about it, as if Sabrina and Shane and I were really in danger.
Inside the restaurant, all Sabrina had to do was show her face to the hostess, and we were shown to the best table in the house. The menu didn’t even have prices, which was weird. When I asked about it, Sabrina laughed.
“It’s because they don’t want to give their customers a heart attack before the meal,” she murmured, leaning forward and ducking her head as if sharing a secret she didn’t want anyone at the neighboring tables to overhear.
The way the candlelight danced along with the humor in her eyes was sexy as hell, and sort of mesmerized me until Shane murmured, “Actually, it’s probably because it’s understood the only people who eat here don’t have to care about prices.”
Sabrina’s dancing eyes sobered, and she leaned back in her chair, her smile merely polite now. “That’s true. But unlike most pricey places, this place actually makes food that’s supposed to be worth the price.”
Shane was such an idiot. He really needed to lighten up and stop being a buzz kill. Of course, I knew why the prices weren’t really listed on the menu. I was just joking around with her.
A waiter came to take our orders. Sabrina sounded confident and sure as she gave hers, as if she’d been here a million times. Mimicking her attitude, I gave my order with the same borderline snooty confidence, but almost ruined it when my menu caught the little candle cup.
Shane had quick reflexes, grabbing the candle cup’s base to prevent it from knocking over and setting the whole place on fire. Still, he gave his order in the next minute as if he were bored too.
We made it ten whole seconds after the waiter left before Sabrina and I started laughing. Even Shane managed a smile, which made me stare and stop laughing in shock.
“What?” he asked as Sabrina stared at him too.
“I didn’t know you could actually do that,” I said, reaching up towards his mouth.
He swatted my hand away like it was a fly and scowled. “I smile all the time.”
“No, you don’t,” Sabrina blurted out, then looked embarrassed.
“Yeah, what she said,” I added to stop her from being embarrassed. “This is the first time on this tour that I’ve ever seen you crack a smile.”
Looking uncomfortable, Shane sat back in his chair and rested his hands on the table at either side of his plate, his thumbs beginning to twitch. Then I realized they were twitching to a silent beat, like mini drumsticks.
“You ever play the drums for the Drakes?” I asked out of curiosity.
“No. But I played in high school for the school band.”
“Hey, have you ever thought about adding a drum solo to your set?” Sabrina asked, her fingers toying with the base of her water glass. “Like maybe something really big…”
“Oh, like one of those huge upright drums,” I said, catching on to her idea. “You could do it during “Everyone’s So Sorry,” towards the middle of your show to change things up and surprise the fans.”
She nodded quickly.
Shane tilted his head, staring at the candle for a minute as if really considering it. “It’d be a total pain to haul around from show to show, though.”
“Maybe not,” Sabrina said, her eyebrows pinching thoughtfully. “The crew might be able to store it with the stage props for traveling.”
I nodded in agreement.
His eyebrows rose. “It’s not a bad idea. I’ll check with the Drakes and see what they think.”
“I thought you said they were your band, not your mother,” I joked.
He gave me a look. “True, but when you’re in a band, you run stuff by committee.”
I grunted.
“What?” he asked me, his thumb beat stilling for a second then resuming.
I shrugged. “That would suck, having to get permission for every single idea you have instead of being able to just run with something.”
“The nature of the beast.” Shane shrugged like either he didn’t mind it or had resigned himself to it long ago.
Sabrina nodded. “Even though I’m a solo artist, I still have to get permission for a lot of stuff from my record label and marketing team and even their legal team sometimes.”
“Like?” I asked.
“Like my stage designs and my costumes. And definitely on which songs I want to record for each album.”
I looked from her to him and back again in disbelief. “Seriously? They keep you on that short a chain?”
Her eyebrows rose as she stared back at me.
Realizing how what I’d said might have sounded, I quickly explained. “I just meant that you’re a huge name in the business. I thought that came with a lot of power. Shouldn’t you be telling everyone else what to do by now? After all, you are the one making them all the money. What’s to stop you from simply releasing your next album independently?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, they know I’d never do that.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because…I wouldn’t know where to start. That would involve getting into producing and distribution and marketing and all of that crap…”
“A lot of which you’re already doing,” I said.
“But…I don’t even write my own songs,” she said.
I shrugged and leaned back in my chair. “So, start writing them.”
Her eyes went huge. “As if it’s so easy!” She laughed.
I blinked
several times. “I write all of mine. Shane?”
He hesitated then said, “The band and I write ours too.”
Sabrina licked her lips, looking down at the table for a long minute.
We’d probably embarrassed her. Damn. I was just about to apologize when three waiters arrived with our meal.
While we ate, Shane took over the conversation, steering it towards what was probably safer waters by relating story after crazy story about the Drakes. I didn’t know he knew how to talk so much—usually he was pretty silent and let others do all the talking—but now that he’d decided to relax and open up, it turned out that he was actually pretty entertaining.
Halfway through the meal, Sabrina excused herself to visit the ladies’ restroom. She made her way slowly and carefully through the maze of tables. Shane and I silently watched her go.
“She’s in pain,” he muttered, his eyes narrowed. He wiped his mouth on his cloth napkin then set it on the table beside his plate as if he’d just lost his appetite.
“Yeah, seems like it. What do you think’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing’s wrong with her,” he hissed out between clenched teeth.
I leaned back from the table, hands raised in surrender. “Whoa. Wasn’t trying to insult her. Just wondering what she’s sick with.”
He frowned at the food still on her plate as if it might be to blame for Sabrina’s illness. “I don’t know. But she’s not eating.”
“Could be a chick thing. You know how they get sometimes eating around guys.”
“Maybe. Or it could be the health problem thing.”
Frowning, I popped the last bite of my steak into my mouth. Chewing slowly, I said, “Think she’d be up for another movie night?”
“Tonight? Doubtful. She’ll probably want to go to her bus alone after this.”
“You never know. She seemed awfully lonely last night.”
“Not everyone’s a lost puppy like you, Jessie.”
I stared at him. “Dude. Hurtful.”
He sighed, looking and sounding tired as he scrubbed his hands over his face and leaned back hard in his chair. “Sorry. I just… It would help to know exactly what we’re dealing with here. Is her health going to get worse? Better? Is she taking anything for the pain? It doesn’t seem like it. Which makes me wonder why. This tour we’re doing would be hellish even for someone who’s healthy.”
I grunted in agreement and took a long gulp of my drink to wash down my food. Then something he said hit me. “What we’re dealing with?”
“Hmm?” He looked like he was tearing himself away from some seriously deep thoughts.
“You said ‘what we’re dealing with here.’”
His frown deepened. After a minute he said, “Well, you know. Because of the tour. Right now, what affects her affects all of us. We’re all in it together, at least for a few more weeks.”
I gave him my best “yeah right” look. “You’re falling for her, aren’t you?”
His eyes flared then narrowed. “I don’t have time for a relationship. I’ve got a band relying on me to make something out of this tour.”
I snorted. “Yeah, yeah. The fate of the entire musical world is resting on your shoulders. Such a cop out. Artists find time for romance and families all the time.”
He glared at me for a long minute.
And that was when Sabrina returned. She smiled hesitantly as she looked from him to me and back again. “Did I miss anything?”
“Nope,” I said, taking another gulp of my drink. “How’s your meal?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” she murmured, glancing down at her plate in surprise. “I’m just…not very hungry lately.”
Sabrina asked the waiter to bag her food. She wasn’t hungry for dessert, either, so we skipped it entirely and headed out.
And straight into crazy. Flashes of lights from all directions blinded me, and it was only Sabrina’s hand reaching back to grab mine that kept me moving forward as the paparazzi pressed in on either side of me so tightly I couldn’t even bend my arms without dragging my elbows along strangers’ bodies.
What. The. Hell. The media never acted like this with me. They were always pretty polite and friendly. This was more like being attacked by a group of sharks.
“Jessie! Jessie Quinn!” Surprised to hear my name being shouted, I stumbled to a stop and looked around in confusion. “Are you three headed off for a little ménage à trois to celebrate the tour? Just how close are you three now? Is this the real reason Sabrina added you two to her American tour?”
Huh? Where the hell were they getting that idea?
“Fuck,” a familiar male voice growled from behind me.
I managed to turn my head, found Shane right behind me, and I reached back to grab a fistful of the front of his shirt as Sabrina’s bodyguard led the charge through the media to the curb. This time, all three of us dove into the backseat while the guard drove.
“Holy shit!” I gasped, shoving my hands into my hair with a laugh. “That was crazy!”
Sabrina smiled indulgently, but she looked exhausted. “That’s my life everywhere I go now.”
“Jesus,” Shane muttered, his eyes looking as shell shocked as I felt.
“How do they not know about your illness yet?” I blurted out. “I mean, how do you have any privacy at all with that kind of shit everywhere you go? Do they follow you into your doctor’s office or whatever?”
She leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. “I had to stow away in the back of a friend’s car to make it unseen to all my appointments. And the doctor I see is amazing. He and his staff work with high profile celebs all the time without anyone finding out. Plus, my lawyers made everyone at his office sign an ironclad NDA…on top of the health privacy laws already out there. Anyone spills the beans, they’ll be paying for it for the rest of their lives.”
I frowned, turning in my seat to look at her better. “But why not just tell everyone? Wouldn’t people be sympathetic and want to support you?”
She shook her head, her eyes still closed. “No way. I don’t want them thinking I’m some fragile, attention-seeking diva or something. There are people out there who’d even claim I was lying probably, like I was making it all up just for more press.”
“Well, that’s pretty shitty.”
“Yeah,” she agreed softly. “But that’s the price of fame, right?”
She sounded like she expected Shane and me to understand since we were all in the same industry. But my life was nothing like hers. I lived in shitty little rental apartments, recorded my music alone or with rented bands, and could go out at any time for any reason without being attacked by cameras and people screaming questions.
We stayed silent for the rest of the return trip to the arena. The car stopped behind Sabrina’s bus, using it like a wall again to block us from the street view.
Shane looked massively uncomfortable and furious, rubbing the back of his neck and looking everywhere but at us.
I slapped his shoulder with a laugh. “Dude, shake it off. It was just some crazy reporters.”
He frowned and looked down at Sabrina. “Did you hear what they were saying?”
Sabrina licked her lips, staring down at the parking lot for a minute. Finally, she sighed. “Don’t let it get to you. They’ll say anything to get your attention and get you to look up for their cameras. A good emotional reaction from a celeb, caught on camera, can be worth a ton of money for them.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, but still. The way they were acting back there… Nobody should have to deal with that shit. That’s not just them doing their jobs or whatever. That’s harassment.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Could’ve been worse. Sometimes they block your car with their bodies so they can get more pics of you inside the car looking pissed off or scared. Ever hear what happened to Brittney Spears? One of them was standing too close to her car, trying to bodily keep her from leaving, and when she tried to drive forward, she drove over his fo
ot. Ended up having to pay him for medical and damages. Which is why I never drive myself anywhere now.”
“Then how do you ever escape them?” I propped my hands on my hips, an unfamiliar rage growing in my gut. I mean, I guessed I could learn to deal with the harassment everywhere I went, but Sabrina? She was so tiny and sick and…
And now I understood why she was so private and didn’t usually go anywhere beyond the arenas we performed in.
And maybe why she didn’t want to tell us the name of whatever illness she was dealing with. Because she’d already trusted us a lot just by telling us that she was sick at all.
With rabid buyers of inside secrets dogging her every step, she’d have to be so careful in deciding who to trust with what. Because those bullies with cameras would love to know she was sick, wouldn’t they? And while I’d never been the target of the tabloids, at least not yet, I’d read the nasty shit they spread about other artists.
They would love to make her out as the Princess of Pop falling off her throne.
Suddenly, all desire to know what she was sick with fled me. It no longer mattered what the name of the illness was.
All I wanted was to help her somehow.
This was the emotion that overtook me, that drove me to turn to her, to take her hands in mine, and to say, “Sabrina, I am so sorry. What you’re dealing with…” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Whatever I can do, anything I can do to help you during this tour, you let me know.”
Her eyes widened, but her lips curved into a smile. “I’m okay on my own so far, but thanks. I’m not some precious doll that’s going to shatter just because someone shouted something stupid at me. I deal with the paparazzi all the time. This was just your first real taste of it. I’ve been facing it for years.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to,” I insisted.
Her smile turned bemused. She reached up, wincing slightly, and patted my cheek. “You are so cute.”
Shane snorted. “More like annoying. Say good night, Jessie.” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me away from her, steering us in the direction of our buses.
“Hang on,” she protested. “I thought you guys would want to come in and watch a movie? You know, since we conked out early on the last movie night? We could catch the ending we missed, or watch something totally different?”