American Diva

by Julia London

  “I know, but this is really hard, Jack.”

  “Yeah. It is,” he said, nodding, and put his hands on his hips. “I know I am pushing you, I know I am demanding something I probably have no right to demand. Honest to God, I don’t mean to be a prick about it—I really do understand this is a big complicated mess, but . . .” He paused, glanced at the ground a moment, then lifted his gaze to her. His blue eyes were swimming with longing. She knew—she felt it, too. “But Audrey, I look at you, and I see everything I have ever wanted. I look at you and I realize that an empty place in me is filling up,” he said, touching his fist to his chest. “I realize that you really can’t just fly to the moon with me, but if you love me . . . I have to see you.”

  “Okay,” she said, moved by his speech. “Okay.” But uncertainty filled her.

  Jack grabbed her up and wrapped his big arms around her, holding her tightly as he kissed her deeply, almost as if he was afraid it would be the last time. Audrey’s body responded to the urgency in his kiss, curving into him, her breasts hardening against his chest. But her conscience had grown to a roar, and she slipped a hand between their bodies, pushing lightly against his chest as she moved her head away. “Jack . . .”

  He nipped at her lip, kissed her cheek, and stepped back. He shoved his hand through his hair, then touched her jaw. “I love you,” he said restlessly. “I understand how hard this is for you, but I don’t know how patient I can be.”

  She sucked in her breath and held it.

  “Audrey?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  It was show time in more ways than one.

  Courtney was waiting for them in the limo, seated in the back with her legs crossed, Bruno on the seat next to her. Jack suspected she’d taken a little turn around Nashville before heading for the airport. She was like so many starlets he’d known—grabbing on to any vestige of fame that she could, unable to reach it on her own.

  She smiled at him in a way that clearly suggested she would lie down in the backseat for him if he said the word when he climbed in behind Audrey. He ignored her.

  “So!” Courtney said brightly, depositing Bruno like a bothersome child on Audrey’s lap. “Did you two kids have fun?”

  Audrey very studiously avoided looking at him, Jack noticed, and said evenly, “It wasn’t exactly a party break, Courtney.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m really sorry to hear about your brother, Audrey,” Courtney said with all the sincerity of a snake. “Just be glad you weren’t here yesterday,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  “Why?” Audrey asked.

  “Adding those tour dates was a bitch. And Lucas . . .” She waved her hand and rolled her eyes. “Let’s just say he is not in a good mood. Rich says it’s ridiculous to add the dates, and unless you add ten, it’s just going to cost you money, not make you money, and that really pissed Lucas off. They got into it.”

  “Great,” Audrey muttered, and pressed her cheek to Bruno’s body.

  Courtney smiled at Jack.

  Jack shifted his gaze to Audrey. He tried not to think of her in bed or the way she moved beneath him, her eyes closed as she gave in to ecstasy. He did not want to think of the way she slept, facedown, her limbs sprawled across him and the bed, her hair covering her face.

  He wanted her. He needed her. He had felt more alive last night than he had in years, and he did not want to lose that feeling.

  As Courtney asked about rehearsal this afternoon, Jack looked out the window and recalled the way Audrey had finally opened her eyes this morning, a catlike smile on her face as she enjoyed his attention to her.

  How was it possible, Jack wondered, that in a matter of weeks, he had changed so much? He hadn’t thought of his flight school, hadn’t thought about TA. He hadn’t thought about anything but Audrey, about keeping his hands off her, keeping her at arm’s length just so this could not happen.

  But with Audrey glancing at him now, her eyes full of the same sort of emotions he was feeling, he was certain that this was the woman he was supposed to be with, improbable though it seemed. He felt that as strongly as he’d felt the passion last night, as strongly as he felt the enormity of the wreckage they’d created.

  He felt responsible, felt as if he must pull her up from that wreckage. That was all this story needed, the opening chapter—when he pulled her out of that wreckage.

  Yet when they arrived at the coliseum, a feeling of foreboding grew in him, and the blissful feelings he’d been experiencing in the last twenty-four hours all but disappeared when he caught sight of Bonner standing out front with Rich, waiting for Audrey.

  “There he is,” Courtney said with a sigh. “Your manager.”

  Audrey, Jack noticed, avoided his gaze altogether now.

  The driver hadn’t even come to a full stop before Lucas opened the door and poked his head inside. “Hey, baby,” he said as he reached for Audrey’s hand. She quickly pushed Bruno into his hand, but when she stepped out, he put his arms around her and kissed her.

  The heat of angry frustration crept into Jack’s neck, and he shifted his gaze—unfortunately, landing inadvertently on Courtney, who was watching him closely.

  She knew.

  He grabbed Audrey’s bag and stepped out of the car.

  “How are you, okay?” Lucas was asking Audrey as Rich stood there, shuffling his feet uncomfortably and looking a little agitated, which Jack attributed to the dispute over added tour dates. “Everything okay at home?” Lucas asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, looking everywhere but at Lucas as Bruno scampered around their feet.

  “I worried something more might have happened—I called your dad this morning and he said you were at your mom’s.”

  “Did he?” Audrey asked, and smiled nervously at Rich. “You know Dad—he thinks he knows how to handle things.” She shifted her gaze to Jack for only a split second, but it was enough that Jack saw her helplessness.

  “Well, you’re back now, that’s all that matters,” Lucas said, and kissed her again. “I missed you, baby. God, I missed you.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Rich and I need to go over a few things with you before you get to rehearsal,” he said, letting her go save the arm he kept tightly around her shoulders. He glanced at Jack. “Get her bags, will you?” he said, and pulled Audrey along as they started walking to the coliseum, Rich walking alongside, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  Jack watched them go, consciously stretching his hand to keep from making a fist. He didn’t even notice Courtney watching him until she stepped up beside him and folded her arms.

  “She is cute,” she said matter-of-factly. “I can see why you’re hot for her. But she can be a real diva.”

  Jack slid his gaze to Courtney.

  She smiled up at him and winked. “And besides that, she is obviously unavailable. But I’m not.” She put her hand on his ass.

  Jack grabbed her wrist and jerked her hand away from him. “You need to go to work,” he said.

  “Fine. It’s your turn to pick up Bruno’s shit,” she huffed, and walked on.

  Jack slung Audrey’s bag over one shoulder, his bag over the other, whistled for Bruno to follow him. “Looks like it’s you and me again, little guy,” he said, and began walking, with Bruno hurrying to keep up.

  After the meeting with Audrey and Lucas, where Rich explained the cost of the extra tour dates the idiot Bonner had added, Rich retreated to his hotel room, furious with Audrey. He closed the drapes, changed into his suit and cloak, then extinguished all lights but one at the desk. He swirled his cloak around him, dipped his pen in the special red ink he’d bought in D.C., and wrote a letter to Audrey, admonishing her for being such a whore. He’d had it with her—first Lucas, now that dumb jock from Texas. She was a slut and she needed to pay for it, which was precisely what he told her in his letter.

  Crisis for Audrey LaRue!

  (People Magazine) Platinum pop-star Audrey LaRue was dispatched to Dallas last week afte
r her brother gave her family a scare. Allen LaRue, who has battled drug addiction for the last ten years, had an apparent relapse and was rushed to the hospital in Redhill, south of Ft. Worth. “A number of pills were pumped from Allen LaRue,” said Dr. Randall of the Tri-city Regional Hospital. “It may have been a suicide attempt.”

  Audrey LaRue left her national Frantic tour to be with her brother. “She got there as fast as she could,” a source close to the family said. “Audrey is very family oriented.” As of press time, Audrey had rejoined the tour in Nashville.

  Addiction runs in pop star’s family Audrey LaRue’s brother rushed to hospital in desperate plea for sister’s attention!

  (Famous Lifestyles Magazine) Allen LaRue, the younger brother of mega-diva Audrey LaRue, was rushed to the hospital after a suicide attempt last week. “He was just trying to get her attention,” an unnamed source said. “Audrey has turned her back on her family since she hit it big, but they obviously really need her. It was like once Audrey left Redhill, she didn’t look back. Most people in these parts think that’s wrong. Family comes first. Audrey is going to find that out the hard way.” Allen LaRue, recently released from jail, has had his share of problems, including felony charges and continuing drug abuse. LaRue’s reps could not be reached for comment.

  Twenty-four

  It was impossible for Audrey to speak to Lucas before the show that night—she went straight from the business meeting she had with Lucas and Rich about the added tour dates, the perfume line someone wanted her to start, and details about the studio dates Lucas had managed to secure, to rehearsal. Which—if anyone was keeping score, and Audrey was fairly certain that every member of the band was doing just that—was pushed back two hours because of her late arrival.

  The looks she got were not exactly smiles. She didn’t know what to say or do, really—she could hardly tell them she’d been in bed with Jack this morning and got a late start—so she just picked up her guitar and said, “Let’s go.”

  After rehearsal, she wolfed a tuna sub Courtney brought her on the way to hair and makeup. “Have a good time last night?” Courtney asked with a bit of a salacious sneer. “Any of those fantasies come true?”

  Her expression made Audrey’s heart skip a beat—the girl knew something. It flustered her; she bent down to scoop up Bruno so Courtney wouldn’t see just how much. “What happened to the stuff I asked you to do for the Songbird Foundation?” Audrey asked.

  “Working on it,” Courtney said, her knowing smile widening a little further.

  “Work on it harder or I will find someone who will,” Audrey responded just before sailing into the makeup room.

  She scarcely had a moment to breathe; there was so much to prepare. But self-loathing thoughts kept creeping into her brain, thoughts that left her longing for Jack. Yesterday, everything had seemed so right. Today, everything seemed a mess.

  At show time, she stood backstage, her stomach in knots, listening to Lucas finish up his opening set. The only comfort in that darkened passage was Jack, who caught her eye more than once and gave her a reassuring smile. As Lucas finished up his set, Jack walked behind Audrey, let his fingers trail over her hips, his hand rest on the small of her back.

  Audrey shivered with the promise of his touch. She wanted to turn and throw her arms around him and feel the comfort of his body next to hers. But she didn’t move, didn’t turn. She felt him leave, disappearing into the dark, leaving her standing alone.

  A moment later, Lucas rushed off the stage. He was grinning broadly and caught her up with one arm, kissing her fully on the mouth. “What a fucking rush!” he exclaimed, and kissed her again. “Feel the power?” he asked breathlessly. “I am passing it to you, baby. Go tear it up.”

  “Okay,” she said, and squirmed out of his embrace. It seemed to her, in that dark passageway, that Lucas’s smile faded a bit.

  “I know you will,” he said, his voice cooler. “I’m going to grab a beer, but I’ll be right here when you go on.”

  She nodded, watched him walk away, watched him pause to throw his arm around the shoulder of his bass player and say something as they went. And she continued to watch him because she couldn’t make herself turn around, couldn’t make herself look into Jack’s eyes. She knew he was somewhere just behind her. She could feel him.

  She’d never felt Lucas like that in the entire time they had been together.

  “Ready, Miss LaRue?” one of the stagehands whispered.

  Ready? At this point, there was no refuge from her mess but the stage. “Yeah, Jerry, I’m ready,” she said, and followed his flashlight trail down to the lift that would bring her up to the stage in a cloud of smoke.

  A half hour later, when the set had been readied for her, Audrey put the guitar strap around her neck, closed her eyes, and hoped for peace from her raging thoughts for at least the space of her show.

  But the stage betrayed her. If anything, her thoughts ramped up during the course of her show. It didn’t help matters that her first song had to do with cheating boyfriends. It angered her—she didn’t need to be reminded and stroked her guitar with a vengeance and kicked the mic stand over. When it came time to abandon her guitar for dance, she leapt into the routine like a lion, kicking higher and landing harder than she ever had before.

  The crowd roared.

  The next two songs were angry, hard-hitting tunes, and that suited her. But then she reached the acoustical version of her old ballad about a love gone bad.

  You say you love me, but I can’t see any heart shining through your eyes.

  The memory was heart-wrenching. Lucas really had loved her when no one else would.

  My lips move, but the words aren’t mine, they taste like lies.

  She closed her eyes, tried to think of Jack, wondering if he was standing just beyond the lights like he did every night, if he was feeling the force of the words. Did Lucas?

  By the time the show had come to an end, she was exhausted, wrung dry of every possible emotion, her body feeling limp from the extraordinary exertion she’d put into the show.

  “Girl, you were hot tonight!” Trystan shouted as he and the other dancers ran off the stage.

  Audrey took her final bow, walked off into the dark on the opposite side, where she stood with two stagehands and one security guard. The applause was deafening. Bucky, one of the security guards, grinned at her. “You rocked!” he said. “I’ve never heard you sound so good.”

  “Thanks, dude,” she said with a thin smile.

  “No kidding,” Bob, a roadie, added. “That was fantastic!”

  Then why didn’t she feel fantastic? The crowd was screaming—across the stage, Audrey could see Lucas frantically waving her on, and she knew she should go, knew she should walk out there and do an encore before it got too wild, but she couldn’t seem to make herself. She didn’t want to walk out there and share the stage with Lucas like she knew she would have to do. It seemed disingenuous somehow.

  The crowd had begun to stomp, which was the point facility managers usually insisted she go back out. “Aren’t you going?” Bucky asked, looking at her curiously.

  She looked at Bucky, then at Lucas across the way, feeling almost paralyzed with indecision. It was the warmth at her back that saved her—she felt his hand ride her hip, his breath on her ear. “They love you, starlight. Go out there and give them what they want. That’s the only thing you need to think about right now.”

  She moved then, walking back out on stage, accepting her guitar from one of the band members, hearing the screams of the crowd as the lights came up and a spotlight hit her. It was impossible to see in the crowd with the light shining in her face, but she could hear it and feel it, a living, moving thing, the rhythm of it matching the rhythm of her heart. The bass player started the encore tune, and Audrey struck her first chord on the guitar, and like a savage beast, the crowd quieted.

  And as she sang her encore song, Lucas, who came on stage as he had every night since the first tim
e he’d surprised her with it, smiled and winked at her as he played the guitar, and reached out his hand to her as he sang the harmony to “Frantic.”

  And for the first time, Audrey pretended not to see his hand and walked to the other end of the stage, singing out to the audience, using her guitar as a shield, wondering where Jack was as she sang, I’m frantic when you’re not with me, frantic when you’re here, wishing she could see him, knowing he was near.

  The encore ended with Audrey and Lucas riding down into the bowels of the stage. And before they had disappeared from the audience view, Lucas grabbed her in a passionate embrace. As they sank lower, he did not let go, but began to grope for her in the dark, trying to push her under the stage scaffolding.

  “Lucas,” Audrey said, pushing him away. “Stop it.” He groaned, ignoring her. Audrey panicked and slapped his hands away from her. “Stop it!”

  He drew up, surprised. “What the hell is the matter with you? I’m just trying to love you, baby.”

  “I don’t want you to love me under the stage like some whore,” she said, pushing him again.

  “Whoa,” he said, throwing up his hands. “What the hell is wrong, Audrey? I thought you liked it when we got it on under the stage.”

  “No, I don’t like it, you like it. It makes me feel—”

  “It should make you feel hot, because you totally are,” he said, reaching for her before she could complete her thought.