Who had I become? A month ago, I would’ve begged Keith to let me keep my job. I would’ve been content playing music with Micah from time to time. I would’ve kept going out with Stacy and Kelly.
And, of course, I would’ve been miserable.
So there I sat, miserable without all of that.
And I blamed Adam.
As I walked to Micah’s, imaginary e-mails wrote themselves in my brain until I was able to sit down on the sofa with my laptop to dump out the words, thinking I’d write it out but never send it.
Adam,
I’m sorry, but the truth is that if you weren’t a highly sought after rock-star sex god, maybe I would have had more courage to tell you everything up front. I know it offends your need for authenticity, but as soon as I learned who you are, the power dynamic shifted in your favor. Of course I assumed you would break up with me as soon as you found the first flaw. You can have any girl you want. And of course I assumed you would blame me for tricking you into wanting to be with me. How else could a person like me end up with a person like you?
When you walked out on me, my own worst fears were confirmed. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I had my own demons?
I’m glad you’ve come to believe I was telling you the truth when I said I didn’t have a clue who you were when we met. And honestly, after my brief brush with minor fame, I understand why you wouldn’t trust people, but part of me just wants to say ‘boo fucking hoo.’ When I worried about getting negative press, you were quick to tell me it’s no big deal, just a price to pay in your world. Well, so is the insecurity of wondering what people want from you. Before you preach trust, you could have started by trusting me. You have a tattoo to remind you to have faith in others. Have you already forgotten?
Eden
Writing the letter had made me angrier. I hit Send the second I’d finished it. Fuck him. He hadn’t spoken to me for nearly two weeks even though he knew he was wrong.
Whatever. I had other things to worry about.
Still, before I went to bed, I checked my phone, hoping for a response from him. Nothing. Their show would’ve ended hours before. He had to have read my e-mail. I hoped he might at least text me, but so far, silence.
Since Tobin had ignored all my texts, I went to the club on Tuesday to ask him face-to-face whether he could get me a show. He put me off again. “Eden, I’ll contact you when we have an opening, okay? If you want to open on Friday, I can hold the spot for you.”
“Second opening act?”
He shook his head. “That’s already booked.” He took my hand. “It takes time, Eden. You can’t rush it.”
On Wednesday, the phone rang while I was in the shower, so I didn’t hear it. I saw the notification light flashing as I toweled my hair dry. I swiped the screen to find a voice-mail message and missed-call icon. I touched the missed call.
Adam. My shoulders dropped. Damn.
I dialed into my voice mail. There was no message, just the sound of the call terminating. I could picture him listening to the outgoing message, waiting until the last second, trying to figure out what he wanted to say, and then finally deciding he couldn’t say whatever it was to a machine.
Should I call him back? Where were they? Shouldn’t he be getting offstage? I looked up his tour schedule to see. They’d played Rome the night before. They had a night off before playing Nice the next day. They were either traveling or recuperating in the south of France.
I started to weigh my options, but my fingers were hitting the Call button before I’d even formulated the available actions. It rang once, twice. I held the phone out, meaning to cancel the call, but the screen switched from dialing to connected, and I heard his voice. An ocean washed through me.
“Eden?”
“Adam?”
“Eden. I tried to call you.”
“Yeah, I saw. I’m returning your call. Where are you?”
“Monaco.”
“Oh, fancy night off, huh?”
“Yeah, I just lost money at the casino.” He laughed. “I should never gamble.”
“Is Micah with you?”
“Eden, I don’t want to talk about Micah.”
I fell on the sofa and put my feet up on the cardboard box that held my throw blankets. I asked quietly, “What do you want to talk about?”
“Are you alone? Do you have a minute?”
“Yes. You’ve got my full attention.”
“Good. Listen. I keep going over everything that happened with us. I keep having to remind myself I didn’t even know you until a few short weeks ago. How can we have gone through an entire relationship in a month? What the hell is wrong with us?”
I’d never considered that, and I had no answer. “That’s . . . Wow. Yeah. And backward, too.”
“It’s sort of ridiculous. I’ve spent the past couple of years worried about meeting a girl and never knowing if she liked me or the image of me. And then I have this whole different problem.”
“What problem?”
“Well, I know you never fell for the image of me. But since I discovered your company’s shit, I’ve been trying to figure out if you even liked me at all.” He laughed. “I never once expected to have this happen. Careful what you wish for, right?” His words sounded slurred, like he’d been drinking.
“You’re not making any sense, Adam. Of course I did. Remember how I told you I’d never date a struggling musician? Or a guy named Adam?”
“Of course,” he whispered. “And then I pushed myself on you, and you just rolled with it. You should’ve just broken it off if you weren’t into it.” I could barely hear him.
“Adam, you didn’t push yourself on me.” I gathered my thoughts, listening to him breathe. “I’ve always processed every single guy in the world through a filter of rejection. And they’ve always come up short. They have the wrong name. They have the wrong job. They read the wrong books. And then you came along. And you were perfect.”
His breathing had become slow and rhythmic.
“Adam?” No answer. I waited another few minutes for him to answer, but he’d clearly fallen asleep. I hung up.
I didn’t know how much he’d heard before he passed out. And that made me question whether he’d even remember calling me. For all I knew, he’d been drunk off his ass. That left me feeling kind of shitty, that he’d have to be wasted to call me. On the other hand, maybe it meant he was thinking about it all the rest of the time.
And then it hit me. He was insecure about my feelings for him? He had girls throwing themselves at him. He could have anyone anytime. But he chose not to. He said he had before, and I thought of Jacob’s attention at the club. How easy it would’ve been to let him seduce me. It was flattering as hell. But Jacob didn’t know me. He was attracted to me, but why? He’d obviously felt that way before he ever spoke to me. I could see how Adam could’ve been tempted early on in his career, but then how he might’ve grown skittish about women who followed Adam, the rock star, without knowing him at all.
When he met me, he found someone who saw him through all of that, and who was thrown off by the image more than attracted to it. Was that what attracted him to me? I’d never know that. I was going to have to learn to trust him.
But how was I going to get him to trust me?
The only thing I could think to do was get out of my comfort zone and do something I’d fought against since I found out who he was: chase him.
I opened my laptop and pulled up the tour schedule. The last night of the tour was in Barcelona, Friday night. I logged on to my travel account and priced tickets. All the flights were overnight, and the best I could put together was leaving the next night with a stop in Oslo. I’d be in Spain by Friday morning, though. I could be in Barcelona by noon. With the money I wasn’t spending on rent this month, I could easily justify the expense. I’d have plenty of time to get to the ticket office before the show. Then I could text Micah and have him let me backstage.
I walked through my options
.
Option one: I could stay here and wait for Adam to come home. There was a chance he’d come home from his tour and look me up. He might take me out and try to patch things up. The fact that he’d called me this week gave me a sense that this was a remote possibility. It felt like the safe option, but it was in fact a risk. He’d clearly been trying to avoid talking to me for two weeks now. I worried that the only thing I’d hear from him when he came home was that we were broken up.
Option two: I could call Adam now and tell him everything. Apologize, confess, and talk it all out. That would be easy enough, but something told me I needed to make a more dramatic statement.
Option three: I could take the flight to Barcelona. I’d be putting everything on the line in one shot. Fear settled in as I pictured Adam closing the door on me permanently, with no recourse. I’d be flying home all alone with no hope of him reaching out to me once I got here. It scared the shit out of me. And that’s why I knew it was the only choice.
With a dozen clicks, I’d purchased a one-way ticket and a hotel room.
Chapter 22
After several delays, mechanical difficulties, and reroutes, I arrived in the Barcelona airport at six p.m. And the concert started at eight.
I hoped to see Micah perform, but I couldn’t very well take my luggage to a concert. There was no reason I needed to be at the arena right when the doors opened, so I grabbed a taxi to the hotel and spent roughly thirty minutes showering, shaving, primping, and dressing until I looked ready to rock.
At seven thirty, I was in a taxi on my way to the venue.
I made it to the ticket booth almost exactly on time, but when I asked for a single seat, the woman behind the glass waved up over her head at a sign that said AGOTADO in big red letters. She didn’t even bother to glance up from her gossip magazine. I didn’t know any Spanish, so I said a little louder, “I just need one ticket, por favor.”
“No ticket,” she said. “Agotado.”
A man in a red and yellow soccer jersey approached me. “They’re sold out. I can sell you one for three hundred euros.”
I didn’t have that kind of money on me. And besides, I didn’t need the ticket. I fished out my phone and texted Micah, I’m outside the stadium. Can you get me in?
I hadn’t come to see the show, anyway. I just needed to find Micah or someone who knew me enough to get me backstage.
A pair of giggling girls headed to the side of the building. I remembered the scene outside the bus at the other shows and followed them. Sure enough, there was a blocked-off area behind the stadium, where the buses waited. Security guards kept people back. The crowd near the steel barricade grew as the night wore on. It was complete insanity.
About an hour after I’d arrived, the back door opened, and Micah came out. He lit up a cigarette and walked toward the bus. I yelled out, “MICAH!” and he glanced over. The girls around me screeched, “MICAH!” He waved and kept walking until he disappeared onto the bus. I was going to have a talk with that boy about catering to his fans. But it hadn’t slipped my notice that he looked exhausted. The constant touring and performing had to be wearing him down. And if they were partying on their nights off, he’d probably run himself into the dirt. But the tour was coming to an end, and they’d be going home.
I texted him again, hoping he’d emerge from the bus and find me. Maybe he’d gone straight to sleep. The bus doors stayed resolutely closed, and I waited.
Time wore on. Adam had taken the stage at some point, and the crowd inside could be heard through the concrete walls of the stadium. Every once in a while the decibels would literally go through the roof.
My feet hurt, and the cold night air bit into my skin. The excited girls around me chattered in Spanish. They clutched markers and T-shirts and CDs. I wondered how many had, like me, simply failed to get tickets and how many fans intentionally skipped the entire concert just to stalk the buses.
The jostling began about the same time people began to leave the stadium in small groups of twos and threes. As the doors opened, music poured out like liquid, in waves. The departing crowd thickened, and soon instead of sound, people flowed from the exits. More gathered into the increasingly tight stalking area, and I was pressed up against the barricade. The energy grew with the waiting. Girls who had just spent two or three hours in the cold, hoping for a chance to meet the members of a band they hadn’t seen perform, were shoved aside by the newcomers, jockeying for better positions. An elbow dug into my side, and I found myself back a row, no longer against the barricade. The security patrol doubled. I searched for any familiar face, but I’d only met Paul once, and none of these men looked like Paul. Not that he’d been very helpful in the past.
Members of Adam’s band came out, one at a time. Girls screamed for them, but not by name. I called out, “Hervé!” and “Charles!” hoping to catch them by surprise. But my voice was just one more layer in the insanity. Others picked up the chant as I yelled, “MARK!” My voice was going hoarse, but for naught. Each of the band members would smile and wave. They weren’t the stars of the show, so they ducked their heads and climbed on their buses.
More time passed. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. Fans fell off and left. The number of girls had nearly diminished to the original group. I could no longer be sure who had been there from the beginning besides me.
At long last, the back door opened. Adam stepped out, followed by a tall, thin blonde in a too-tight sweater and stilettos.
My stomach dropped down to my shoes. What was he doing with her? I turned to ask someone next to me, but aside from the lack of linguistic compatibility, I doubted my companions would be any more versed in the motives of Adam Copeland than I apparently was. Besides, the girls around me were busy tearing their own faces off with hysteria and crying. I fit right in. Adam walked the groupie halfway across the parking lot. She touched his arm and asked him a question. He stopped and pointed her toward an awaiting bus. As soon as she climbed on, he headed in the direction of the waiting fans.
Finally.
And I wished I were anywhere else. Oslo. Madrid. Edison, New Jersey.
My mind shone a flashlight through the attic at all my worst fears. I had such a clear memory of him depositing me on his bus in the exact same way. After we’d made the fans wait. After we’d had frenzied sex on the floor of his dressing room.
I took a step back and hid behind the front line of fans, forcing oxygen into my lungs.
Quickly, ever so quickly, I weighed my options. Think!
Option one: I could catch a taxi to my hotel, fetch my things, and then be on the next plane back home. It might take me another fifteen hours to get there—fifteen hours of worrying about what the hell was happening back in Spain. My feet were already pointed that direction, but it was cowardly. I flashed back to my mom’s party, when Adam had appeared and I’d planned to flee into the house that first—no, second—time I’d felt jealous of Adrianna.
My feet wouldn’t move.
Option two: I could stand there and demand an explanation. He wanted me to talk out my anger? I could call him out right there in front of a group of fans, who would certainly take it to the Internet. It would take a few hours to make it across international borders, but by the following day, the gossip rags would have something to talk about. That might not be cowardly, but it would be unfair.
Fight or flight? Which would it be?
A small voice suggested a third alternative. I could finally overcome my fears, put myself on the line, and risk getting shot down right there after traveling so far. Making myself so vulnerable terrified me, like exposing a jugular vein to the executioner. But I’d already come so far to do just that.
He’d asked, “How can I trust you if you don’t trust me?” Why had I flown all the way over to Spain if I hadn’t wanted to show him I did? Whatever was going on with that groupie, I was sure there was an explanation. He’d always had a good one before.
If I was ever going to prove anything, I’d have
to risk everything.
So I stayed. And I waited.
He was feet away, working his way down the line from the end, approaching.
And he was so beautiful. His skin glistened from the exertion of burning off thousands of calories rocking out. His hair flopped in mysterious ways no product would ever be able to tame. It was sex hair. His eyes crinkled sweetly as he listened to the exact same sentiment in different words from each of his fans. I doubted he spoke a word of Spanish, but he shook hands, took pictures, and smiled that exact same smile. All charm.
When the fan to my right shoved an iPhone into my hands and said, “Tomad mi foto,” I found myself separated from Adam by one smartphone. I said, “Smile,” and snapped the picture just as recognition registered.
“I’m sorry. This picture didn’t turn out very good,” I said, holding it out for him to see the shock on his face. “Let’s do that again.”
He pulled the fan in tight, and this time, the smile on his face stretched from ear to ear. This fan was going to have something special to show her friends. She took her phone back, speaking rapidly as she immediately worked on uploading the picture.
Adam stepped in front of me and grabbed my hand. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
I dropped my eyes to my feet, suddenly shy. “You’re a hard one to reach.”
“You could’ve called.”
“I texted Micah. He must not have seen it.”
“Of course. Seriously, what are you doing here?”
My courage flagged, and I reached for a quip. “I was in the neighborhood.”
His smile faltered, and I knew I was going to have to take the risk now or never.
“Adam. I flew here to confess something.”
He took another step forward. His face was inches from mine. “Yeah?”
I closed the gap and rested my head against his. I brushed a dark lock off his forehead and gazed into his eyes, seeking permission or promise. Anything to give me the courage to bare my soul.
When he squeezed my hand, my anxiety broke, and my trust in him was total. “I love you.”
Some Kind of Magic Page 26