Accidental Groupie: A Sweet Lesbian Romance

by Mia Archer

  "You really mean that, don't you?"

  "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

  "You'd be surprised," she said. And then she surprised me by pulling out her phone. "What's your number?"

  I leaned forward and glanced down at her phone with a thin smile. "My, we're being forward aren't we?"

  She blinked. "So you're not going to give me your number?"

  "Of course I am. I just wanted to make you work for it since it looked like you assumed you were going get it without any trouble!"

  "Again, you'd be surprised," she said.

  I reached out and took her phone. I tapped my number in and hit save. She tapped into her phone and mine buzzed. I looked down. A lone text. Her name. Ivy. It sent a chill running through me even though I knew nothing was possible seeing as how I wasn’t in the mood for a long distance anything right now.

  Whatever. A girl could dream. A girl could fantasize.

  Ivy smiled and winked at me. "Nice to meet you Jessica," she said. "Maybe I'll see you at the concert."

  "Maybe!" I said, though I seriously doubted that.

  The arena was huge. Big enough that there wasn't much chance of running into a complete stranger. Still, I had a feeling I'd get a call or a text from her at some point. Maybe we could go out shopping or something if she was in town for a day or two. Maybe something more could happen in that brief span even if there wasn’t much chance of anything long term happening. Short term could be plenty fun with the right girl.

  I watched as she left. Damn was it nice watching her leave. She had that kind of body. That kind of booty. It made me want to jump her right here.

  Then it happened. Just before she stepped out the door she turned around. Smiled. Her eyes ran up and down my body and it was as though a blast furnace opened right in front of me. The heat was that intense.

  That look was pure lust. Pure sex. That was the look of a woman who was really liking what she saw.

  Damn.

  At least I had her number. I could figure out exactly what was going on later. Whether I was going to be shopping with her or maybe shopping for something sexy to show off for her if she was going to be in town long enough. For now I needed to get to the concert. Track down Alice. She was probably wondering where the hell I was.

  I’d keep my meeting with the mysterious Sleepwalker fan to myself. The evening was going to be excruciating enough without worrying about Alice pestering me about my love life and being forced to sit through Sleepwalker.

  5: Into the Arena

  The concert was underway by the time I made it into the arena. The entrances led to a giant ring running around the arena proper. Once inside there were openings leading to stairs going down into the main concert area. Every time I passed one of those openings I heard music blasting.

  Only it didn't sound like Sleepwalker. No, it sounded vaguely familiar, but definitely not anything I remembered from back in the day. Not that me not remembering any Sleepwalker songs actually meant anything.

  I looked down at my ticket and realized what the problem was. There was some band I vaguely recognized opening for Sleepwalker. I tapped their name into my phone and I recognized all one of their hits.

  Apparently there were fates worse than going on a reunion tour with a once top-of-the-charts band. You could be the opening act that barely even registered on the charts back in the day and only got to go on tour because someone in the aforementioned washed up once-popular band probably owed them a favor.

  Whatever. At least going to the diner meant I missed the opening show. Their music sounded like the kind of crap I wouldn't care for even back when I was thirteen and didn't have anything approaching discerning taste in music aside from disliking Sleepwalker.

  I made my way down into the arena. It was difficult to see in the darkness and I couldn’t hear myself think with the music blasting through the place.

  I frowned. Either they'd never heard of moderation, or years of touring various state fairs had destroyed their hearing.

  I finally found my seat and Alice. She didn't look like she was particularly enjoying herself. For that matter it didn't seem like most of the people sitting around us were enjoying themselves.

  I smiled. At least she could get a feeling for what my experience was going to be when Sleepwalker hit the stage. Her face lit up when she saw me though, and I felt bad for thinking like that. I was supposed to be here showing solidarity for my friend, after all. Going into this with a sour attitude wasn't helping anything.

  I was really damn impressed with the seats. When she said she won a contest she really meant she won a contest! The arena was set up with a stage at one end like usual, but running down the middle was a catwalk with a big circle at the end, presumably so the band could walk up and down and interact with more of the crowd.

  We were situated at the middle of the catwalk, and I figured we'd have one hell of a vantage point when the ladies, or one guy, from the band made their way down here.

  It was a clever way of extending "front row seating" well into the middle of the crowd.

  There was barely anything separating us from that walk. Just a short fence and a beefy security guy who looked less like he spent a lot of time at the gym and more like he spent a lot of time at the McDonald's next to the gym. I wasn't sure how effective he'd be at keeping the throngs of crazed fans away.

  Whatever. We had front row seats, is what I'm trying to get at, and the only problem was it was front row seats to a band I couldn't care less about seeing.

  "Where the hell have you been?" Alice asked.

  "It took awhile to find a place that was actually open," I replied.

  I didn't say anything about the girl. Ivy. She was the real reason I was so late. She was the reason I got distracted. Only for some reason I wanted to keep that part of the evening to myself. I figured it was a little bit of magic I got to enjoy all on my own, and I felt like telling Alice about it right now would ruin the magic.

  Not that I'd never tell her. If she texted me and we ended up getting married against all odds or something then sure she'd hear the story of how we met, but for now I stayed quiet.

  Plus I didn't want to have her poking and prodding into my love life. I was already irritated enough at being here. Having her trying to play the lesbian love doctor, a role she seemed to relish despite her breeder status, would only put me in an even fouler mood.

  "So when does the band come on?" I asked.

  The strains of a song that was almost familiar started blasting out across the place. It was particularly painful from our seats, which I had to admit were pretty damn good now that I was here.

  Finally the obscure band finished. The lead singer waved out to the crowd but nobody seemed to care. He stood there awkwardly with his hands thrown in the air. The awkward stretched out for what seemed like an eternity, to the point that I almost felt sorry for the guy, and then they all kind of just slumped down and walked off the stage.

  Okay, I definitely felt sorry for the guy. Except for the whole part where he nearly deafened me. Other than that, though, it was really kind of pathetic and cringeworthy.

  Then the curtains came down and the lights came up.

  "God!" Alice said. "I didn't think that was ever going to end!"

  I shrugged. "The torture isn't over yet."

  "Watch it," Alice said. She dug in her purse and pulled out her phone. "Come on. Let's take a selfie. I want everyone to be jealous of how close we are! Talk about one hell of a contest win!"

  So I smiled, mostly for Alice, and let her take the picture with the stage in the background and the band's logo hanging huge and prominent.

  Then it was more waiting. This was my least favorite part about going to a concert. Always being forced to sit through the opening band no one cared about, and then being forced to sit through the seemingly interminable wait between the opening band and the actual act. Why couldn't they run a tight ship? Why was it so hard to get everybody out at a nice clip?

&n
bsp; I pulled out my phone and started tapping at a game for a few minutes until the lights went down again and suddenly every woman in the arena was screaming. Interesting. Either there were a lot of my type of girl in this crowd or there were a lot of girls like Alice who were here to see the hunky lead guitarist.

  It would've been earsplitting if I wasn't suddenly assaulted with an equally loud noise from the stage and the massive speakers hanging around us.

  "An event a decade in the making!" a generic deep-voiced announcer boomed across the arena. "You loved them a decade ago, and now they're back to rock your world!"

  I rolled my eyes. Rock my world? I seriously doubted that. Still, judging from how every other woman sounded, judging from their high-pitched screams, it sounded like there were at least a few worlds that were being rocked just from the lights going out.

  I felt sorry for the people who had to clean off all the seats in the arena after the concert was over.

  The generic deep voice boomed again. "Emma!"

  A giant spotlight came on illuminating a pretty enough girl with a pixie cut and a pair of giant sunglasses that reflected the stage lights as she looked around the arena from behind a drum set. Her hand was pointed out and swept the arena. As her finger moved the screaming grew louder and then moved back down to your regular everyday run-of-the-mill screaming.

  "Gareth!"

  The spotlights opened on a guy in a ridiculously tight pair of pants holding a guitar. The token dude in the band for whatever reason. I wondered how many women he picked up at these things considering the audience skewed surprisingly girl-on-girl in its preference despite Sleepwalker being so mainstream.

  Though judging by the screaming threatening to deafen me it sounded like he did okay for himself.

  Gareth. I wondered if that was a stage name. If it was his real name then that somebody really needed to invent a time machine, travel back to the past, and kick his parents' asses.

  Gareth’s smiling face was projected on one of the many massive screens set up throughout the arena. He had frosted tips that were spiked up with more gel than was probably strictly safe to use. It definitely wasn’t the sort of fashion statement a guy should be making in this decade.

  "Talia!"

  Wow. Talk about a looker. Talia held a bass and wore a tight fitting shirt. She definitely looked good under that thing.

  "And last but not least ladies…"

  The screaming was starting to reach a crescendo. Now that was interesting. It seemed like they were building towards something, and it seemed like all the girls in the arena familiar with the band were ridiculously excited about whatever it was they were building towards.

  I glanced to the side. Alice had her arms crossed and looked indifferent to whatever the big announcement was. No, she only had eyes for Gareth. The other women around us were a different story. One girl on the other side of me looked like she was in danger of passing out from jumping up and down so quickly.

  Maybe it was the hot one coming up. These bands always had a "hot one." Of course there was no telling if she was still the hot one after all these years.

  "Ivy!"

  Huh. That was interesting. Ivy…

  The spotlight came down on Ivy standing center stage. The arena erupted in a high-pitched screeching that would've driven any dogs in the vicinity wild. Holy shit.

  Tousled long hair. A gorgeous face. Deep brown eyes that I could lose myself in. One of the most ridiculously sculpted bodies I'd ever seen, and she wore a tight corset that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

  She also wore an impossibly tight mini skirt that left even less to the imagination down below. The screaming grew louder and louder. All she was doing was standing there in the spotlight, basking in the adoration of all these women.

  And yet none of that was why I was really surprised. Damn she was nice to look at, but I already knew that because I'd already met Ivy. Ivy up on stage was none other than Ivy from the diner.

  Suddenly the way she'd been acting when we met in the diner was starting to make sense. All those times she stared at me as though waiting for something. Like she was waiting for me to recognize her and that moment of recognition never came. I had to be the only girl in a ten mile radius who could pull that off.

  I looked over to Alice, but she was still busy mooning over Gareth. No worry of her seeing the flummoxed expression on my face.

  Well one thing was for certain. She certainly was the “hot one.” I could understand why all these women were going so crazy. And yet at the same time I couldn't believe this was the same girl I'd met in the diner. She'd seemed so easy to talk to there. So down to earth. Nothing at all like how I imagined some huge rock star would act. And as I looked up at her, as I listened to the arena going crazy, I realized that's exactly what she was for all the derisive thoughts I had about this band.

  Damn. I'd been talking to a rock star, to the main attraction in this group, and I didn't even realize it. No wonder she kept looking at me like I was crazy. She kept expecting me to realize who she was, and I'd talked to her like she was just any other girl!

  Not that I would've reacted that much differently had I known who she really was, but still. I might've been a little star struck. Or I might’ve blown her off because of who she was. It was hard to tell.

  I liked to think I’d be distracted by the hotness no matter what.

  "Are you okay?"

  I looked over to Alice who was staring at me as though I'd sprouted a second head. Damn. The surprise must be pretty damn evident on my face. But who could blame me?

  And in that moment I realized that Alice couldn't know about the diner. I'd never hear the end of it. She'd never let up. All the questions. What was she like? How could I not recognize her? How could I just let a girl like Ivy Whatever-her-last-name-was slip away?

  Sure Alice didn’t exactly have the hots for Ivy the same way she did Gareth, but she was still a huge fan of the band. Letting on that I’d met the lead singer and had no idea I was meeting the lead singer?

  No, that would turn my life into a living hell forever. We'd be at an old folks' home fifty or sixty years from now waiting to kick the bucket and she'd still bring it up. I could imagine her rolling down the hall in her wheelchair to berate me about the night I met Ivy from Sleepwalker and didn't seal the deal.

  No, far better to keep my mouth shut. To never breathe a word of this to her. Ever.

  "I'm fine," I lied. "I think something from the diner just made me a little queasy."

  Okay, so it wasn't exactly a lie. It wasn't exactly the truth either, but she didn't have to know that the something from the diner that was making me queasy was the sight of the sexy girl I'd met there who also happened to be the leading woman for Sleepwalker.

  I'd take that to the grave!

  They launched into a song that I recognized from high school dances back in the day. It did bring me back hearing them singing and playing their hearts out. Like I said, they'd been completely unavoidable back when I was in school. So it was almost against my will that memories were thrust upon me. Some of them good, some of them bad.

  And through it all I continued staring in disbelief at the stage. Staring up at Ivy as she did her thing. And then I felt ice grip my heart as I realized she was coming down the catwalk that thrust out into the crowd. She was going to walk right past us. And it looked like she was searching the crowd for something.

  It was a ridiculous thought, but in that moment I was gripped by the terrifying certainty that she was looking for me. That couldn't possibly be the case, but still that terror was there. The last thing I wanted was for her to recognize me in the crowd. That would be too much.

  So as she passed by I made sure to look down so she couldn't get a good look at my face. When I looked back up the danger had passed, but I found myself staring at the most delicious ass in the world as she made her way down the rest of the stage and came back up the opposite end.

  Girls, and a few clueless gu
ys, screamed and reached for her as she walked by. I thought it was odd how any one of those girls would probably kill for even five seconds one-on-one with her, and I'd had an entire conversation with her not realizing who she was.

  I'd gotten her phone number! I got the lead singer's phone number! Heck, from a certain point of view I practically had a dinner date with the lead singer of Sleepwalker.

  Of course it wasn't anything like that, not really, but it did send a tingle running through my body. A tingle that I quickly and viciously stomped down on.

  The absolute last thing that I needed was to start getting all tingly about the lead singer of Sleepwalker as though I was no better than... well no better than the crazed fans surrounding us who seemed to be doing all of their thinking with the brain between their legs when it came to this band.

  I wasn't going to do that. Sure she'd been nice enough, and fucking hot, but she was what she was. And it was ridiculous to think that anything had passed between us other than a quick fun conversation.

  The first song finished and the arena went completely dark. It was immediately filled by the glow of people holding up their phones, but for just a moment we were in pitch darkness surrounded by women screaming all around us.

  6: Warm Fuzzies

  I was buzzing. It was like I was really alive, and it was something I only ever felt when I stepped out on stage for the first time and the lights came up illuminating a crowd of women all screaming for me.

  Was it egotistical? Maybe, but you didn’t get into this business if you didn’t have a little bit of an ego. This wasn’t exactly the kind of career that was good for introverts.

  “How you feeling?” Gareth asked.

  I grinned as he held out his hand. I slapped my own into his as we went through a now familiar dance running through the maze of struts and supports behind the stage. The whole area was a dark labyrinth of exposed metal. Echoing through it all was the high pitched roar of a crowd of women, and probably a good share of men as well, just beyond screaming at the top of their lungs as though that was somehow going to make us appear on stage sooner.