JT and I had hit it off the first time we’d met, years earlier. Ever since, we caroused every time he was in town, and sort of kept in touch via email.
In the Guy Manual, exchanging the occasional dirty joke via Hotmail counted as keeping in touch. This visit, however, there would be no drunken debauchery.
JT had married a woman named Kori just about a year ago, and to hear him, or anyone else, tell the tale, theirs was a love for the ages. I was happy for him. Finding the one you were meant to share your life with was a wonderful thing. The fact that JT convinced her to stick around in his crazy existence was nothing short of a miracle.
And I sure could use a miracle right about now, myself.
So my research consisted of shooting him an email to ask if any topics for questioning were off-limits. Surprisingly, he hit me back right away, with Just don’t ask about having kids. Kori’s six weeks pregnant, but we’re not ready to tell it to the world yet. It goes without saying (but if I didn’t ask, Kori would smack me), please keep this to yourself.
I chuckled that both of our ladies shared the slapping gene, then gave myself a hard mental kick–if Jen were my lady, she wouldn’t be out in the garage, rifling through everything she owned in preparation to leave me.
I queued up Slanker Knox’s latest album, putting it on repeat so the songs would be ingrained by tomorrow, and played computer solitaire until Jensen yelled down the hall that she was ordering a pizza for dinner. She had the audacity to ask if I had any special requests.
Well, duh. But since what I wanted had nothing to do with deep-dish, I just told her I was in the mood for anything but for mushrooms.
I don’t want to bore you with the excruciating evening. I guess examining the piles of her household put her in the mood to yammer non-stop about her wish-list for her next dwelling. I only interjected once, when she was carrying on about living rent-free with her parents and how it afforded her time to find ‘just the right place.’
I reminded her that my home was sans rent, as well, and that she didn’t have to move hundreds of miles to obtain that particular perk.
She scooped up Angus and went to her room without saying another damn word.
I wasn’t sure how to take that. Was she upset that I’d popped her happy-bubble? Or was it because she was running out of reasons to justify leaving? Could be that, like me, she was tired of rehashing the only quasi-valid motive I couldn’t punch holes in–the fact that her parents were there and not here.
I needed to figure out how to make here—with me—be the more appealing place.
Chapter 18
*Pour Some Sugar 0n Me*
At quarter to nine, Jen went down to pick up the box of Krispy Kreme from the reception area. I’d never known JT to have much of a sweet tooth, but then, the doughnuts weren’t for him.
He’d sent me an email around eight, asking for a bunch of plain glazed; apparently, his wife Kori was jonesing for fried dough.
Which, of course, I couldn’t tell anyone about. So I just trotted forty bucks up to Carmen in reception to see if she could sweet-talk anyone into fetching a few dozen before the interview.
Who was I kidding? The sales people probably duked it out for dibs. That department had a serious sugar problem.
Jensen came back in and I thought she was going to drop the whole boxful all over the floor. Her eyes looked a little wild, and was she hyperventilating?
“Nervous, Jen?” I nearly laughed out loud. JT Blackwood was about the most down-to-earth, normal-guy rockstar I’d ever met.
“Shut up,” she muttered, sliding the polka-dotted box onto the counter by the coffeepot.
“He’s a regular guy.”
“I know that. It’s just...” Mumble mumble.
“What was that, Jenny-Jen?” I smiled for the first time since the Hangover Buffet. I hadn’t gotten to tease her in days, and it dawned on me how much I’d missed it.
“I had a crush on him in college!” she burst out, turning about eleven different shades of red. “Happy now?”
The laugh popped out before I could stop it. “You and about a million other women,” I quipped.
I wasn’t surprised when she belted me on the shoulder.
“Yeah, well, those million other women aren’t interviewing him this morning,” she grumbled, fumbling with the bag of coffee and spilling grounds everywhere. “With his shiny new wife in the room, no less.”
I hadn’t met Kori yet, but I knew her background, from both JT and the tabloid fodder that swirled like a cesspool when they got married. “Until eighteen months ago, she was an ordinary working stiff like everybody else. Quit stressing.” I got up to interrupt the coffee-slaughter.
I put my hand on hers to take over, and found it was actually shaking. I also noticed the lightning bolt that shot up my arm and through my chest to land in my balls.
I shrugged off my reaction; I didn’t have a choice. A larger-than-life rockstar would be here any minute and he didn’t need to walk into the middle of a discussion (quarrel) between me and Jen.
That turned out to be a wise choice–the legend in question strolled through the studio door before the coffee had finished brewing.
“Tack, you dodgy bastard, how the bloody hell are you?” In typical JT Blackwood fashion, he shook my hand and used it to yank me into a quick one-armed embrace. Before greeting Jen, he introduced us to the pretty blonde woman near his side.
As I shook her hand–she definitely gave off the I don’t hug people I don’t know vibe–she gave it a squeeze and her warm smile broadened. Her dark blue eyes held a merry twinkle as she said, “So you’re the wicked one. I can see that Las Vegas didn’t stand a chance when you two decided to hit the town.”
“Ancient history,” I chuckled, taking my hand back and introducing both of them to Jensen.
I had to admire Jen–it only took her a couple of seconds to quit imitating a statue and stop gawping enough to smile.
Until JT pulled her in for a greeting like he’d done to me.
She froze like a deer in the headlights. Kori laughed out, “Stop terrorizing her, JT.”
“Is that what you Americans call this? In England, it’s a hug.” He let Jen go and she took a step back, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here.
Kori turned and oohed over the doughnuts. She grabbed one and tore it in half, reaching up to cram the sticky dough-wad into JT’s mouth. Fragments of sugary glaze rained down the front of his black tee shirt. “That should shut him up. Don’t mind Mr. Obnoxious,” she said. “He thinks he’s a rock star or something.”
JT snatched the other piece from Kori’s hand and shoved it into her face. Her giggling got louder, and for a moment, I thought one of them might actually choke.
And for that same brief span of time, I was envious of my friend and the true, easy joy he’d found.
Not that I assumed their lives were easy; far from it. If fame was tough in my little fishbowl, I could only imagine how many teeth it had when you were king of the ocean. Still, they’d managed to find it, and keep it, and I couldn’t help wishing for a little of that myself.
I glanced over at Jensen; she still looked half-terrified and ready to bolt, with a smile that didn’t extend past her lips.
“You’re still newlyweds, right?” I hated asking the stupid, obvious questions. I had to keep reminding myself that this interview was for the listeners, not for me to play catch-up with my busy Vegas party-pal.
“Kinda, yeah. We just celebrated our first anniversary last month, at home in England.”
“I’ll bet it was quite a bash.”
JT shook his head. “Not so much as you’d think. Because the band was going to be together for this Vegas rehearsal, the stateside guys stayed put, to cram in as much uninterrupted time with their families as they could get. So it was just our bassist, Rafe, and his family, since we live only about an hour away from each other.”
His answer made me stray from the questions I’d prepared. “Is
it hard, maintaining a relationship and family when you’re living under a microscope?”
“For some people, maybe. Not really for any of us–we set the ground rules with the press early on that private means private. Plus, we’re not your wild blokes, so we’re too boring for the tabloids.” JT looked pensive for a moment. “Besides, Kori’s always in my thoughts. If we’re far apart, all I have to do is think of her and it’s like she’s right there.”
The lady in question flashed him a knowing smile and said, “The being apart part doesn’t happen much anymore. He’s practically glued to the house.”
“And with Las Vegas residencies being the new rage, everyone can bring their families and settle in for the duration. It’s a win-win, really,” JT said.
“And here in Sin City, everybody wants to win,” I quipped, knowing the comment was dumb but there was no way I could suck the words back out of the air.
JT shook his head and, chuckling, sipped his steaming mug of coffee.
The vibe in the room was weird, like there were about a billion things going on below the surface that I couldn’t see. Case in point: my co-host instantly and inexplicably losing her jitters.
“How are the rehearsals going?” Jen jumped in, saving me from looking like a complete moron. I blamed my idiocy on lack of sugar and grabbed a doughnut.
“Great, really. We’re playing some things we haven’t in years, and surprisingly, no one’s screwed them up too badly. I even remember ninety-percent of the lyrics.”
“What a load of bull. You remember them all,” Kori piped in from near the half-empty Krispy Kreme box. “The whole band is amazing. You’d never know some of the songs were retired from the setlist over ten years ago.”
“Can you tell us about any surprises you have planned for the show?” Jen asked.
JT smirked. “If I told you, they wouldn’t be surprises anymore.”
Jensen flashed a mischievous grin. “Not even a hint?”
He drummed his fingers on the countertop, seeming to consider. “The opening band will be a total shocker. Good enough?”
“I guess it’ll have to do,” Jen said. Kori leaned over and whispered in Jen’s ear, obviously sharing what JT had already told me–Slanker Knox was dressing in costume and opening for themselves, as the world’s best Knox cover band.
Jen’s laugh filled the room as JT took over the mic, giving a little background info on their latest single as I queued it up to play.
They stayed until the end of the show, taking calls, chatting, and eating doughnuts. Once we were off the air, and before the deluge of other station employees arrived, JT pulled me into an alcove in the hall to talk in private.
It was the same one Jensen and I used to sneak off to for mind-bending kisses.
“I gotta tell ya, Tack,” he started in a low voice, “that partner of yours sure likes to stare.”
I snickered, jumping to her defense. “You’re her first big celebrity interview.” I kept Jen’s crush-in-college confession to myself; she was obviously already making a gigantic tool of herself and didn’t need any more fuel on that particular fire.
One of JT’s eyebrows popped up and he looked at me strangely. “Why would that make her stare at you?”
“Me? I hadn’t noticed.” Because it hurt to look at her after seeing how damned adorable JT and his wife were with each other.
“Do you two have a thing? Or is this a newsflash?”
I ran a hand through my hair, only remembering the sticky remnants of glaze on my fingers when I felt a few strands rip out at the follicle. Oh, well. “It’s… complicated.”
“No, mate, what Kori and I went through is the definition of complicated. You not interested or something?”
“Oh, I’m the most interested I’ve ever been in my life.”
“You got a stalker? Broke off a recent engagement? Have some love-child you maybe haven’t mentioned?”
I shook my head with a rueful smile. “None of the above. But she’s determined to take a time-slot in Phoenix.”
“Shee-it. How long you got to change her mind?”
“Counting today? Six days.”
“And nothing you’ve done has changed her mind?”
“See, that’s the problem. I haven’t really done anything overt. I wouldn’t know a big gesture if it crapped on my front porch.”
“Nice visual, Tack.”
It felt weird talking to him like this. We were companionable when he was in town, but swapping lewd-joke emails didn’t really put us in some sort of bromance. Hell, I hadn’t even mentioned Jen’s and my relationship to my friends yet. I had been telling myself that it was because I didn’t want sympathy for a broken heart after she left, but the truth was more selfish than that. I didn’t want to share our time with anyone. Not yet. The way I felt was still too unfamiliar and too precious to flash it around it public.
And, I was afraid, too fragile.
What if I was doing the whole relationship thing wrong? Would letting others see us crush it? Finally being snared would most definitely have everyone I knew ragging on me, and their ridicule could smash our budding couplehood into dust.
JT had been saying something, but I was too caught up in my thoughts and hadn’t been paying attention. “What?”
“I asked what your friends recommended.”
“I haven’t asked for their advice, actually. All they know is that Jen is staying at my house because her condo had termites.”
JT whistled. “Blimey. She’s under your roof? You are royally fucked.”
That about perfectly summed up the exquisite torture I’d been living through and I said as much.
“So nobody knows about the two of you?”
“Not really.”
“Why in the hell not? She doesn’t have a third tit or anything, does she? Something awkward to explain at pool parties?”
“You do have a way with words, JT. No, the time just never seemed right. And honestly? I’m afraid to be out there, as a couple. What if I fail? What if she really does leave in a week?”
JT sighed. “I’m going to tell you something that I shared with Kori right after we met. We were talking about her passion for writing, but really, it applies to anything that truly means something to you. Sure, if what’s in your heart stays inside, nobody can crush it. But if you hide it, it will die that same death, sure as if someone stomped it into bits.”
“Are you calling me a chicken?”
“Buck-auck.”
“So then, mighty sage, what do you suggest? My idea-machine is all tapped out.” Not that it had many to begin with.
JT slanted a glance around and, satisfied there was no one within earshot, relayed his plan.
Chapter 19
*Gold 0n The Ceiling*
I kept flicking my eyes up to the clock. I couldn’t stop myself.
JT and Paul, Slanker Knox’s lead guitarist, were due in the studio at nine.
And not one fucking person outside of the three of us knew.
I’d tortured myself all night, wanting to spill the secret to Jen, who’d opted to not spend the evening wading through her stuff. I wasn’t sure if she was finally satisfied with her sorting or was just tired of doing it, and I didn’t ask. Her answer might’ve burst my bubble of hope.
So when she cozied up to me on the sofa during a Clint Eastwood western, it was hard to keep my hands and my thoughts to myself.
She’d plunked down on the far end of the sofa with a container of Greek yogurt, tucking her pajama-clad legs up to her chest. She made cotton-knit Hello Kitty print sexy, and trust me, that’s no easy feat.
I don’t know what it is about that cartoon cat that women love so much; the staring, mouthless kitty face kinda freaks me out.
But whatever.
I still wanted to jump her.
And I wanted to tell her that the object of her college crush would be in-studio the next morning, his only purpose to play her an acoustic serenade with songs I picked out myself. B
ut it was supposed to be a surprise… the grand gesture-thingy that would change her mind and have her falling helplessly (and lustfully) into my arms while she declared that the job in Phoenix could go to hell because she was staying by my side.
And until she does that, I have to repeat my no-touchy vow like a mantra. Last night it took forever until my fingers uncurled and relaxed. I was so damn tempted to slide my hand up over the soft knit of her pajamas and let it travel to the Promised Land.
Even if that trail to paradise was covered in mutant kitty-heads with pink bows.
My poor TV remote has finger-dents now.
At five minutes ‘til zero hour, Carmen poked her head into the studio and told Jen that the boss wanted to see her in his office, pronto.
Shit fuck damn.
The Slanker Knox guys’ arrival was geared to be a shocker. I couldn’t wait for the look on Jensen’s face when they breezed through the broadcast booth door.
Instead, chatty Carmen would surely be alerting my co-host as soon as humanly possible—as well as telling everyone else in the building. Probably by pounding on doors and screaming.
And since BK didn’t intimidate the receptionist in the least, his oak door would not be immune.
I guess the impact setting of my Act of Desperation-atron would have to be downgraded from stun to amaze, but there was nothing I could do about that. She’d still be astonished and happy, and that was the point.
Well, one of them, anyway.
My palms started to sweat as the minutes ticked by. At ten after nine, just as I was beginning to worry that something came up and they weren’t going to make it, JT and Paul strolled through the studio door with acoustic guitars strapped to their backs.
JT popped a brow. “Where’s the beautiful runaway?”
I rolled my eyes. “The boss called her away fifteen minutes ago. I have no clue why. He generally doesn’t keep anyone in there too long, though, so she should be back any minute.”
“Gives us time to grab stools and set up then, yeah? We’ll just gobsmack her when she returns, instead,” said Paul as he glanced around and didn’t see any extra seatage.
Waking Up in Vegas Page 17