When we were alone again, I revealed to him things I rarely even confessed to myself. “Adam, I’d love to have a career in music, if it could provide a steady paycheck, if half the job didn’t involve hustling. I can keep a day job and make music as a hobby, and that’s more than a lot of people get.”
“But how did it feel when we were playing together? How did it feel when other people saw that and loved it?”
Without thinking, I touched his hand again, clasping his fingers in mine. “When we played music together? I’ve never been more turned on in my life. And then when other people liked that?” I looked up at the ceiling. “God. I still can’t believe that. What’s wrong with all those people?”
He nodded, eyes wide-open. “Right? I ask myself that question all the time. But wait. Back up. It turned you on to sing with me?”
“The first time? That was the hottest five minutes of my life.”
His face fell. “What? Seriously?”
I caught the insult and made an attempt to recover. “Apart from being with you the . . . what? Four times?” My face burned as I replayed what I’d just said. If my mother knew.
The rest of our dinner, we talked easily about ourselves, and by the time dessert came, Adam had charted out an entire music career with us writing music and touring together. He made me laugh, anyway.
When we left the restaurant, our new friend followed us for about a block. By now, the clever little troll had found out who I was, like Adam had predicted. He walked lockstep beside me and rattled off questions.
“Eden, what’s your relationship with Adam? Are you collaborating on an album?”
I swallowed and kept my eyes forward, determined to pretend he wasn’t there.
But he was practically breathing down my neck. “Are you dating? Does Adrianna know about you?”
My head jerked toward him when he asked the last, mainly because I was so horrified someone would have so little decency than to ask one woman about another.
The momentary hesitation fueled his energy, and he asked, “Are you aware Adam’s allegedly engaged? Care to make a comment, Adam?”
My every instinct told me to stop and tell him off for the evil little fuck face he was. But I followed Adam’s lead, and we ducked into the garage and fetched his car.
As we pulled out of the garage, Adam started laughing. I was on the verge of tears, so his reaction angered me for a full minute. But he said, “You handled that so perfectly. God, those people are fucking scary.”
I relaxed and faked a laugh. “Doesn’t that freak you out?”
“Yes. It totally does. But you can’t let them see it, or they smell it on you and rush in for the kill.”
When Adam dropped me off at my apartment, he jumped out of the car and walked me to my front door. Before I could turn the key in the lock, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I had a nice time.”
“You’re not staying?”
He cast his gaze down and shuffled his feet. “Eden.”
It would’ve been adorable if my heart hadn’t leapt into my throat. Was this it then? He’d gotten his duet out of me and paid me with a nice dinner out. Would we part ways? I’d see him from time to time on the TV and remember that brief romance I had with someone I could never approach again. Except by using Micah to reach him.
Not that any of that would matter. If he didn’t want to see me anymore, it wouldn’t matter if he was the guy next door. That would be that.
He brought his eyes up without lifting his head. My nerves broke. “Adam? Are we—?”
His eyes opened wide. “What? No. I just thought—”
I didn’t know what he just thought and knit my eyebrows into a question. “You don’t want—?”
“No, I do. God, I totally do.” He exhaled. “This is going to sound so dumb.”
I crossed my arms. “Try me.”
He took my hand. “I want to back up.”
“Back up?”
“I don’t even know if it’s possible, but when you mentioned at dinner we’ve been together four times, I realized tonight was our second real date. And I thought I should walk you to the door and kiss you good-night.”
“A true gentleman.”
“Usually, yes. But everything’s happened so fast. Can we start over? Move a little slower?”
“Get to know each other?”
He squeezed my hand. “Yes. Do you realize we’ve run this relationship in reverse?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Oh, my God. You’ve already met my parents!”
“I bet you don’t remember that the first time we met, I failed to propose to you.”
The memory stirred. “That’s right. Wow. So what happens when you go on tour next week?”
“It’s a complication, but not a permanent one. We can stay in touch, and when I get back, I’ll have more time. And I’d like to start making music with you.”
“That better be a euphemism.”
He chuckled. “Maybe.”
“Can I have a kiss good-night?”
He pulled me close and kissed me once, chaste, with his lips pressed together. Even still, it set me on fire, and it took every ounce of willpower to take a step away from him. “When will I see you again?”
“Can you come to Hervé’s on Friday after work? We’ll be in rehearsals all week and packing up.”
“Friday? That’s years away.”
He arched an eyebrow and smiled his wicked smile. “Then you’ll miss me?”
“Nope. I’ll just watch concert videos, and it will be like you never left.” I hoped my flippant tone would hide the crushing anxiety his sweet gesture had crippled me with.
Chapter 13
An incessant droning woke me early Wednesday morning. I got up to investigate and discovered the culprit was my phone. I pulled down the notifications to see who was trying so hard to reach me.
That couldn’t be right.
I had twenty-five voice-mail messages, four hundred and two new Twitter followers, over eight hundred Twitter mentions.... I couldn’t process this. Facebook friend requests, direct messages, e-mails, text messages. I threw my phone in my purse. I’d deal with it later. I needed to get to work.
I almost expected to find someone hiding in the bushes outside, but the parking lot was clear. I made it to my car unmolested.
When I got to work, my manager Keith called me down to his office. “Eden, is this you?”
He turned his laptop toward me and showed me a large photo of me standing next to Adam. There was no question it was me, so I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Look. I can’t tell you what to do in your free time, but please make sure your extracurricular activity doesn’t compromise our work here.”
My eyebrows shot straight up. “Are you serious? Keith. Why would you think my extracurricular activity as you call it would compromise anything? Does yours?”
He puffed up his chest. “Eden. I’m not hanging out with someone who wears leather pants to work.”
“It shouldn’t matter if Adam wore no pants to work. My private life is none of your business.”
“Your private life has become public. As you know, we’re right in the middle of our clinical trials. This is a critical time for our research, and we want to shield ourselves from public scrutiny. We don’t want to give our competitors an edge. Make sure you aren’t adversely impacting the confidentiality of your work here.”
Resisting the urge to slam his door, I left his office and flew to my computer to find out what he’d been reading. I found the gossip column with a byline from Andy Dickson. That had to be the creepy troll who’d accosted us. At least the picture wasn’t too unflattering. I wasn’t yanking my underwear out of my ass or anything. Nor was I mugging for the camera. It was clearly an unsolicited picture of two people walking down the street together, but not necessarily together. Adam knew what he was doing after all. Nobody could say we were dating from that picture.
And yet they did. The tag under the p
icture was provocative but by no means definitive. “Adam Copeland with Eden Sinclair, his latest protégée. Or romantic interest?” The rest of the story lacked anything resembling evidence about the second claim but did question the reliability of rumors about Adam’s alleged engagement. I wished Adam would put those rumors to rest, but I supposed he had his reasons. I’d considered asking him, but until right at that moment, it seemed like Adrianna and I had inhabited completely separate planes of existence.
I could deal with being labeled Adam’s protégée. My brother could claim the exact same title. And now at least I understood why my phone had exploded. Last I checked, it was still vibrating. How much worse would it be if we were a confirmed couple? Adam had been right all along about that. As it was, I was going to have to uninstall some programs or figure out how to disable notifications. Or maybe delete every account. I groaned at the thought of going dark on the Internet. It would be more than just a slight hassle.
My voice mails were from my family and friends. I called my mom and told her to calm down. Yes, it was the boy Micah had brought home. No, I didn’t think he had a college degree. Yes, he was treating me very well. I called Micah before I remembered he’d be asleep. I hung up. I ignored the calls from everyone else.
Then I turned to Facebook. I didn’t know a single person trying to friend me, so I deleted those. I scrolled through the private messages, but there was nothing there from anyone I knew so I deleted those. Twitter was going bananas. I disabled that app completely. Nobody I knew would try to reach me there.
Out of curiosity, I opened the laptop and typed in the url of the fan site. I could hear Adam warning me not to, but I needed to know how things stood. The first thread was titled “Eden Sinclair.” I hesitated and then clicked the link to read the pages.
Those people weren’t stupid and knew up front without further ado the girl from the gossip page was the same girl from the YouTube video. That was child’s play. But what they seemed to need to suss out was who I was to Adam. They started with the protégée moniker and considered romantic interest. The question of Adrianna came up again and again.
Total Disaster posted, I never bought into the whole engagement thing. Adam has never made a public statement about it.
Balls to the Walls wrote, When was the last time Adam was seen on a date? I’m convinced he’s gearing up to start a side project.
Shy Guy said, But she’s not a professional musician. And she’s a fucking knockout. I vote for romantic interest or at least short term hookup.
Adams Apple quoted the second sentence in Shy Guy’s post and added, QFT. I had to Google that to learn it means “quoted for truth.” I giggled. Nobody had ever referred to me as a knockout before. Not that I knew.
The curiosity over me had reached a fever pitch before the thread was locked. And they hadn’t uncovered any more than they knew before.
Small victories.
When Stacy got to work, she rushed over. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. Didn’t you get my messages?”
Kelly came in while I was fishing out my phone. I held it up so they could witness the insanity. “It’s been like this all night. I’ve given up trying to weed through everything. I’m going to have to uninstall Facebook and Twitter until this dies down.”
Kelly snorted. “Must be rough.”
“You know what, Kelly? It is.”
“Yeah, cry me a river.”
Stacy broke in. “How are you holding up? I didn’t even see the article until people started asking me what I knew about it. I didn’t even know what to say. What do I tell people? Are you publicly dating?”
I dropped on a stool. “I don’t know.”
Stacy pulled up beside me, shaking her head. “What was he thinking, taking you out like that if he’s not ready to make it public?”
“He’s trying to establish me as a musician, I think. After we posted that video, he thought it would be okay to be seen in public. Plausibly, we’re just colleagues.” I sighed. “This whole thing is tiresome.”
“Oh, boo hoo,” said Kelly. “Do you like the guy?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“And he likes you?”
“He seems to.” I neglected to mention his initial interest in me might’ve been biochemically engineered. I neglected to mention his continued interest in me might be professional.
“Then what’s the problem? Everyone deals with noise. Ignore it.”
I stared at my hands. “Yeah, that’s good advice.”
Stacy frowned. “Is he worth the headache, Eden? Even I’m getting a little freaked out by how many people have come out of the woodwork to try to get information from me.”
My stomach twisted. “God. I’m so sorry, Stacy. It never occurred to me how this would affect everyone else.”
She laughed. “It’s okay. It’s crazy how one little thing could make people go bananas. But are you willing to put up with it for him?”
I didn’t have to think about that. “Definitely.”
“Then give it some time. Everyone you know is going to have to wrap their heads around it. And seriously, ignore the strangers.” She added, “I still can’t believe you’re dating him.”
She didn’t see the parallel in the over-the-top reaction about me and her own continued idol worship of Adam, so I spelled it out for her. “Oh, Stacy. He’s no different from you and me.”
* * *
Adam was right that the chatter concerning me slowly died down by the following day as our outing together became old news.
My mom had come to the conclusion that Micah’s friend was a tad bit more successful than her son and optimistically convinced herself I was helping Micah’s career somehow by going to dinner with “that skinny rocker.” When she invited me to her pre-Halloween party, she added, “Did you know Duncan Lewis is recently divorced? I’m trying to get him over, but honestly, that newspaper article about you isn’t helping any.”
“Mom, Duncan Lewis is a known alcoholic.”
“He’s a surgeon.” She nearly harrumphed with her trump card.
“Okay. Bye, Mom. I’ll see you Sunday.”
I posted vague statements on social media in response to all the questions I’d run across there.
On Facebook, I wrote: I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch online this week. It’s been crazy around here. Thanks to everyone who left me a message.
On Twitter, I said, Loved performing “Expulsion” with Adam Copeland earlier this week. Thanks for the kind comments. Adam retweeted it and then asked how many of his followers would like to see us do some more duets together. The response was overwhelmingly positive. It didn’t quite make up for the circus that my life had become, but it helped to know so many people out there were encouraging even if their first instinct was to channel that into an unhealthy interest in Adam’s private life.
I peeked at the fan forum, but with speculation shot down by the moderator, the comments had moved on to talk of the upcoming European tour. My gut twisted. I’d been trying to forget Adam would be away for several weeks.
His own Web site had a listing of tour dates. The band would be hitting more than a dozen cities: Dublin, Glasgow, London, Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Rome, Nice, Barcelona. They’d be gone until mid-November. A whole month. They had some downtime scheduled in there, but still they’d be playing and traveling almost nonstop. He’d never have time to call or text. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have time to canoodle with anyone else either.
Stacy’s response to my concerns was to beg me to take her to the party at Hervé’s as moral support. And since I was super nervous about it, I hesitantly agreed. Other than Adam, neither of us had any experience with celebrities, and Adam had hinted some big names might show up.
When we climbed the front steps to the brownstone, Hervé’s door was wide-open. We followed another group of people into the crowded townhouse. A large man in the vestibule stopped us and asked fo
r our names.
“I’m Eden. I’m with Adam.” I pointed my thumb at Stacy. “And she’s with me.”
He broke out in a toothy grin. “Oh, Eden. Hey. I’m Jackson.”
“Nice to meet you, Jackson. Where is everyone?”
He laughed because everyone was literally everywhere. “If you’re looking for Adam, try the basement.”
We dodged and weaved through the hallway to the stairs. I recalled the first time I’d come here, when the place was completely empty aside from Hervé in his studio. I grabbed Stacy’s hand and made sure she stuck with me. Compared to the upstairs, the basement was relatively deserted and quiet. Instruments lined the walls, all packed in their sturdy black cases, tagged and ready to travel. Adam sat on a stool with one of the guitars, picking out a tune. His eyes were closed, and I stopped where I was to observe him, so beautiful. His voice sent a shiver up my spine.
A small but solid guy sat on a box and leaned forward to beat out a rhythm between his legs.
Stacy elbowed me and whispered in my ear, “That’s Mark Townsend.” I shrugged, and she clarified. “He’s the bass player.”
“I haven’t met him.”
“Didn’t you look up his band?”
It’d never occurred to me to. “Was I supposed to?”
“Seriously? There’s four guys in the band. Adam on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Mark on bass, Hervé Diaz on drums, and Charles McCord on lead guitar. But as you can see, they switch it up sometimes.”
I shook my head at her. “Tell me you can behave yourself tonight.”
When he finished playing, Adam saw us and smiled. He waved us over and introduced us to Mark. For a wonder, Stacy acted like a normal human being when I introduced her. She was pinching my arm pretty hard though, and I could tell she was losing her shit.
With all the people moving around, Adam and I ended up in conversations in groups. We may have been talking to other famous musicians, but I was clueless and recognized nobody. Stacy relaxed after a couple of beers. We found Micah in the kitchen, chatting amiably with Hervé. I saw some of Micah’s band scattered here and there.
Some Kind of Magic Page 15