He shook his head.
She shrugged. “Okay. Next!”
Next looked like something off a sixties TV show. Neat and sleek, it was cotton candy pink, fell just above her knee and didn’t show enough cleavage. She looked like she was born in it.
“You don’t like it,” she said.
“I didn’t say that.”
She smirked at him. “I’ll go change. Maybe third time will be a charm.”
Third time was not a charm. Crushed dark green velvet that molded to her form, this dress only fell midway down her thighs and had a high neck and long sleeves. Maureen walked out tugging the hem down. “I bet you like this one,” she said, smoothing the fabric over her hips.
“You don’t.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“That a promise?”
She gave him a dirty look before turning to the clerk. “I’m sorry. It looks like we’re batting zero today.”
“Can I ask what event you’re dressing for?” The girl started nibbling her fingernails.
“A concert,” Maureen said.
“The SendDown show.” That dress made her legs look several delicious miles long. Totally out of character, but delightful to look at. Maybe he could talk her into wearing it at home when it was just the two of them. No, that would get in the way of her being naked.
“Oh, the SendDown concert! I’m going to that show. Wait. I have another idea.” The clerk dove behind the curtain.
Maureen shrugged.
“Come here,” he said low, waving her closer.
“Why?”
“Because you look fantastic and I want to experience it up close.”
She licked her lips and slunk across the room. Stopping in front of him, she leaned over and put her hands on the back of the sofa on either side of his shoulders. “Close enough?”
“Almost.” He snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap.
“Michael! We’re in public.”
Bear rubbed his cheek on the velvet. “We’re alone.”
“Someone could walk in any second.” She pushed herself off his lap, but stayed next to him. “If you like this dress that much, I’ll wear it for you.”
“Who says I like it that much?”
The clerk zipped through the room and out the curtain to the front of the store.
“You haven’t stopped petting me since I sat down,” Maureen said.
He put his hand on her shoulder and forced it to stay still. “You look uncomfortable. I don’t want you to wear anything you don’t like.”
With a soft sigh, she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he rested his head on hers. Who cared what those guys in SendDown thought of her? Who cared what the other guys in the band thought? She was fantastic and if they couldn’t see it, they were morons.
“So what do you do in rehearsal?” she asked.
“Sort out the set list and practice the songs until we can do them in our sleep. You’ll have lots of time to sightsee.”
“And what do you do on tour?”
“Travel, perform, sleep, start over the next day.” He ran his fingers through her hair. The velvet was nice, but it had nothing on the texture of her hair. “You’ll want to bring a book. Maybe one of those ebook readers so you can bring lots of books.”
“You don’t sound like you enjoy it.”
“It’s pretty boring. You spend a lot of time waiting to get on stage and very little time performing.”
“What do the other guys’ girlfriends do while you’re all touring?”
“I dunno. Shop? I guess you’ll have to ask them.”
The clerk zipped back in with a couple of shopping bags in her hands and stopped in the middle of the room gasping for breath. “I’ve got...some things...for you to try.” She held up the bags.
Maureen slid off the couch. “You didn’t have to rush. We’re in no hurry.”
The clerk shook her head, gesturing with the bags.
As Maureen followed her into the dressing room, he tried to soak up as much of her departing view as he could. She knew how to work a pair of high heels. Something he always admired in a woman. Too bad she wouldn’t be wearing that dress again, or the silver one. Neither one really suited her, but the view had been nice. Of the three, the pink conservative one had looked the best. He’d never imagined himself as the kind of guy who would be with a girl in a proper pink dress, but here he was.
The clerk drew the curtain back and Maureen stepped through. Snake skin stilettos. Dark wash jeans that made her legs long and lean. A long sleeved chocolate brown velvet top that hugged her body, but draped loosely between her breasts. A gold chain around her neck with a single music note suspended from it. Hair swept back off her face to show off earrings that matched the necklace. She strode to the mirror and smiled at him in its reflection.
Bear went to stand behind her. The heels made her almost exactly his height. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Comfortable?”
“Yes. You like?”
“I do.” He nuzzled her neck. “You look amazing. Why don’t you wear it now? They can put your clothes in a bag.”
“Will it make you happy?”
“If it’ll make you happy.”
She reached back and brushed her fingers through his hair. “Pay the nice lady.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He trailed his hand around her waist as he stepped back. This velvet slid under his hands like warm water and he didn’t want to stop touching it. He fished his credit card out of his wallet and handed it over. “Pack up that pink dress too, with whatever stuff you had with it.”
“Why?” Maureen asked as the clerk hurried out.
“Because you liked it.”
“You didn’t.” She draped her arms around his neck.
“I liked you in it.”
She brushed his nose with hers. “I guess I’ll have to think of an appropriate thank you.”
“I look forward to it.”
* * * *
“Here, stick this on your jeans.” Michael handed her a satiny disk that looked like a sewer cover and had the words SendDown Street Release Tour written around it. In the center was a scribble that could have been a set of initials or a pictogram from a lost civilization. She peeled the paper off the back and stuck it on her thigh.
They’d taken a cab the seven blocks to the hall and been let off at the back door, where a small mob was held back by sawhorses and city cops. The guard at the door had recognized Michael and ushered them inside. She wiped her hands on her leg. It wasn’t just the guard who recognized Michael. The crowd had and so had most of the people inside the building. At least most of the people inside were men. Outside, it had been mostly women dressed in less than what she’d turned down yesterday.
“They’re in the dressing room,” the guy Michael had gotten the disks from told him. “You know where it is.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Michael caught her hand. “They won’t be going on for an hour so we’ll have some time to hang out.”
“These are friends of yours?” Up and down the hall, the white cement block walls were broken periodically by doors and ended in a set of double metal doors. A roar leaked through like there might be several prides of very annoyed lions behind them. Michael pushed open a door and walked in. A couple of guys lounged on cracked black vinyl couches that faced one another across the long narrow room.
“Hey!” A tattooed man with greasy black hair leaped up. “Bear, man, glad you could make it.” He grabbed Michael’s hand and shook it. Another guy got up and sauntered over, looking only at her. She took a step back and half behind Michael. Everyone else in the room started moving closer.
“Haven’t seen you guys in ages,” Michael said.
“Yeah, cuz we’ve been fuckin’ touring forever,” the first man said. “This must be the new woman.” He held out his hand to her. “Trent.”
“Maureen.” She held out her hand and he didn’t rattle her teeth when he shook it as she’d fear
ed.
Michael put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her forward again. “Maureen, this is Trent, Alan, Gian and Rumballs.”
“Fuck you,” the one he’d called Rumballs said before shaking her hand.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Gian cupped her hand, his gaze boring into her.
“A pleasure.” She pulled her hand away. Rumballs punched Gian’s shoulder. Michael didn’t even seem to notice the come on. He hadn’t introduced any of the women either. There were seven or eight. One walked over and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Hi again,” she said. In the skimpy dress and heavy makeup, it took Maureen a minute to recognize the clerk from the store yesterday.
“Hi.”
“I have to say, that outfit looks great on you.” She smirked. “I do good work.”
“Yes, thanks. You didn’t mention that you were with the band.” Maureen glanced at Michael, but he was already deep in conversation with Trent and Rumballs.
“I wasn’t yesterday.”
Oh. Maureen stared at the floor.
“So, hey, you want something to drink?” The clerk took her hand. “Come on.”
Maureen considered insisting that she needed to stay with Michael, but decided she didn’t want to be an albatross. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name,” she said, following the girl across the room to a table full of food.
“Call me Jenny.”
“Jenny, babe,” Trent called. “Peel me an orange.”
“Comin’ up.” Jenny grabbed an orange out of a silver bowl and started peeling it. “I’m hoping to be going home with him tonight. Just grab whatever you want. They won’t touch most of this stuff. It’s all just here in case they get hungry before the show.”
Two six foot tables laden with fruit, vegetables and drinks. A lot of food for five guys and their assorted hangers on. She picked up a bottle of water.
“You’re with Bear D’Amato?” a girl said beside her.
The girl had short black hair and a tattoo of roses around her neck. She would have been perfectly comfortable in that silver dress Michael picked out yesterday. In fact, it might have been too conservative for her.
The black-haired girl licked her lips. “I did him last tour. He’s good.”
“Shut up, Cyn,” Jenny snapped. “It’s not like that.”
“Not like what?” Cyn asked.
Jenny tossed the orange peel in the trash and split up the segments on a napkin. “He’s off the market.”
“Oh, please. He’s a man.”
“Just don’t.”
“Now, girls.” Maureen stepped between them, holding out her hands to keep them separated.
Michael grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her against his chest. “Maureen, come on over here and meet the guys.”
She almost reminded him that she’d already met the guys, but Trent had an arm around Jenny and was picking orange segments out of the napkin she still held. Jenny looked like she was in heaven and since she was the closest she had to a friend in this room, Maureen didn’t want to interrupt. Plus, she needed to have a conversation with Michael. Gian was walking Cyn to the door. Alan and Rumballs were talking to a guy in a black t-shirt wearing a headset. The other girls preened in front of the mirrors. This was as close to privacy as she was going to get until they went back to the hotel and if she didn’t ask him now, the question would eat its way out of her chest like the monsters in Alien. “Did you have sex with that girl?”
He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “Maybe. I think so.”
The deep breath she tried to draw caught on the steel bands around her lungs. She didn’t expect him to have been a saint, but to not remember? Another steel band tightened around her head and the room went a little flat and sideways.
“Listen, baby, those girls don’t mean anything. When you’re out on the road they’re everywhere. It’s like exercise.” He flushed.
“You weren’t jogging with her.”
“No.” He slouched.
“And you’re going to be out on the road soon.” She folded her arms to keep her body from flying apart. How had she gotten mixed up in this?
“Yeah, but it’s different now. Why go out for hamburger when I’ve got steak at home?” He stroked her cheek.
“What if you get hungry while you’re out?”
“Baby, I’m not going to.” He put his hands on her neck and leaned his forehead against hers. Her view shrank to just him. Just his eyes. “I love you, Maureen. Ever since I met you, everything’s been different. You’re all I need.”
“What if the hamburger is particularly insistent?” Cyn looked the type to take no as a challenge. And there were thousands of girls like her. Probably a dozen in the building right now. None of them would think twice about having sex with him. They might not even think of it as cheating. He might not think of it as cheating. “If I’m going to marry you, I need to know you’re going to be faithful.”
“I promise you I will give new meaning to the word faithful.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Maureen bit her lip. If he cheated on her, all of these people were going to know. They would be laughing about how naive she’d been, believing he wouldn’t be with another woman when so many willing ones were available.
All she could see was his eyes, and eyes never lie.
“You have nothing to fear. I am forever yours. Faithfully.”
Four sweaty guys walked through the door and Michael straightened, draping a protective arm over her shoulders. The first guy in the door stopped so suddenly all the others plowed into him like a comedy routine. “He came,” the guy said. “Holy shit, man, it is so cool to meet you.” He crossed the room and seized Michael’s hand.
The guy in the black t-shirt started yelling that the members of SendDown needed to get their shit together right fucking now. The guys in the other band swarmed around Michael. Though Gian was still hanging around by the couch and the other girls were still there, Cyn was absent. Jenny hooked her arm through Maureen’s free one.
“You want to come out and watch the show from the pit?” Jenny asked.
“The pit?”
“The photographer’s pit. You can get right up to the stage.”
“I don’t know. I should stay with Michael.” She hadn’t thought he was listening, but the moment she said his name he turned to her.
“Go on ahead, Maureen. I’m coming out in a few minutes.” He kissed her cheek. “Stay with her though.”
Jenny hung onto her arm as they walked out of the room. “Good news. I’m in with Trent. I’m off tomorrow so I can go with him to the next show, but if he wants me to follow along any further I’m gonna have to quit.”
“You would quit your job?”
“Oh sure. For a shot at Trent Markov? I’d do anything. Could you imagine if he wanted me to be his girlfriend? We’d get to hang out all the time.” Jenny’s eyes shone as she pushed through a side door that led into a narrow, dim hallway.
Those girls don’t mean anything. When you’re out on the road they’re everywhere. It’s like exercise. Did Trent think of Jenny of exercise? “I don’t know if I’d get my hopes up.”
“Oh, I know. It’s different for you.”
She stopped and Jenny stopped with her. Jenny had her hand on the door at the bottom of the hall. Through it came the muffled sounds of the concert hall. They weren’t as loud as they had been before, but it still sounded like a lot of people. “What do you mean it’s different for me?”
“You’re the girlfriend. We’re just groupies.”
“And that’s different?”
Jenny cocked her head. “Sure. We’re good for a night or so. He goes home to you. I don’t have any delusions about what I am. Not like Cyn.”
“Cyn has delusions?”
“She thinks some rock star is going to fall in love with her and marry her, but she’s starting to get desperate. She used to be able to get backstage at the big shows and now she can’t.”
“Why?” Other than a striking lack of ethics when it came to other women’s men, she couldn’t recall anything in particular wrong with Cyn.
“She’s getting too old.”
“How old is she?”
“Thirty-two.”
Maureen nodded as if this were indeed over the hill, keeping to herself the fact that she was thirty-four.
“Come on. I want to be out there when they get on stage.” Jenny tugged her arm so she allowed herself to be led out.
* * * *
“What did you think of the show?” Bear asked. He’d intended to hang around and have dinner with the band, but by the time they got offstage at eleven, Maureen’s lights had begun to blink out. At least she wasn’t still freaked about that groupie.
“It was loud.”
“But you had fun. You looked like you were having fun.” He swallowed. She’d hated it. Half of the show, she’d had this look of stunned horror plastered on her face. What was he going to do if she hated what he did for a living? Quit?
Hmm, quit.
“I had fun. I’ve never been to a concert before.” She nestled her head on his shoulder. “You’re a wealth of brand new experiences.”
“Good ones, I hope.” He resisted the urge to clench his teeth. The way she leaned on him, she’d know and he didn’t want her to know how anxious he was.
“Mostly. And I get to be with you.” She sighed, sinking more heavily into his arms. “Sorry. I’m still on school time.”
“That’s okay.” He squeezed her shoulder. Damn, they weren’t even on the same schedule. She was in bed every night at eleven and when they were on tour, he was just getting ready to have dinner at that time. Day shift, night shift.
“So if I came with you on tour over the summer I guess I’d be watching the show every night.”
“Not every night. Not if you didn’t want to. You could hang at the hotel and watch movies or something.”
She nodded. “But the girls would be there every night.”
“Girls?” He held his breath wondering if she was going to allow him to play stupid. She twisted to stare at him. Nope. “Oh them. We don’t entertain as much as we used to. Marc is— Well, Marc is getting a divorce now, but last tour he was married and Brian’s married. Jason was dating that bitch. Ty is sort of like a hummingbird anyway and I...indulged. A little.”
Satellite of Love Page 10