Sex God

by Katie McCoy

  I remembered Danny in his recording studio and the absolutely horrible lyrics he’d been singing.

  “So, he started using my stuff with the band,” Molly continued. “I figured they knew I’d written everything, but when it came time to sign the record deal . . . He told me it would just complicate things if I got credit.”

  “I bet he did,” I said grimly.

  Molly gave me a wry look. “What can I say? I was young and stupid.” She let out a breath.

  “What a dick,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said with a bitter laugh. “When I found out he’d signed all the copyright paperwork saying he was the songwriter, I was furious, but Danny told me that if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me. And who was I? Just some nobody. By then, they were the biggest thing around. So I didn’t say anything.”

  “But Austin figured it out,” I realized.

  “He did,” Molly said. “He asked me point-blank, and I told him the truth. Danny was furious, the others were split.”

  “That’s why the band broke up,” I said.

  Molly nodded. “Of course, that was also the time I realized I was pregnant. Perfect opportunity for Danny to blame the breakup on me and dump me as punishment for ruining his career.” She reached over and tousled her son’s hair, but there were tears in her eyes. “He’s never even met Shawn.”

  “So Austin stepped in?” I asked, putting the pieces together.

  “Yup. He’s a thousand times the guy Danny ever was,” Molly said, pulling Shawn onto her lap. “He’s been here for everything, and he always making sure we’re taken care of.”

  “Why didn’t you tell people the truth?” I wanted to know.

  “Come on, you know what their fans are like. They’d make out like I was this generation’s Yoko Ono, breaking up a beloved band,” Molly said. “I don’t want that kind of drama, not around Shawn. Austin is a better father figure than Danny ever could be,” she continued. “Probably because he knows what it’s like to grow up in a family that doesn’t care.”

  That made sense. It seemed like Austin was all about making new families wherever he went, from Seamus and the patrons at the pub to his own band to his friendship with Luke.

  “You know, he really likes you,” Molly interrupted my thoughts.

  I looked up.

  “I saw the way Austin looked at you at the concert. I hope you guys can work it out.”

  I shook my head. “It’s over. I thought he had changed, but he hadn’t.”

  Molly didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “I know Austin has a past,” she said slowly. “All those guys do. But he’s different from the others. Trust me, I’ve been around enough of them to know who the real deal is. And Austin is definitely the real deal.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to believe Molly, but Austin had left me high and dry, and actions spoke way louder than words. Still, I left Molly’s apartment knowing one thing at least: that it was time to turn in my article and put Austin behind me for good. I settled in at a coffee shop nearby, and didn’t get up again for hours. I wasn’t about to go spilling his secrets, but I was pretty pleased with the result: a look behind the scenes at the rise, and fall, and rise again, from his early days in college right through to this latest release. What it meant to him to put his music out there—and how the media machine demanded a high price for the headlines. Ten years ago, artists could keep a relatively low profile, but now, with websites and social media, it was like they had to make a deal with the devil: their life, splashed across every screen in the country in exchange for putting their art out there. I had all the quotes from Austin, about wishing he could stay low key and balancing his art with fame. It wasn’t the profile I’d expected to write, but I was damn proud by the time I hit “send” to Richard.

  Within fifteen minutes I had a call from him. He was furious.

  “What the fuck is this?” he demanded. “I didn’t want some fucking media studies dissertation, I wanted some grade A gossip that would bring traffic to our site.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told him, not at all sorry. “But that’s the only story I have to give you.”

  “You didn’t get anything else?” he wanted to know. “No juicy details about why the band broke up? No skeletons in anyone’s closet?”

  There were plenty of those, but I wasn’t about to share them with my skeezy boss.

  “Nothing like that,” I told him, my conscience clear.

  He swore. “Well, you better find something to spice this up, or you’re going to be looking for a new job on Monday.”

  Then he hung up on me.

  I stared at my phone for a good ten minutes, not able to process what had just happened. Had Richard just threatened to fire me if I didn’t write something dramatic and gossip-filled about Austin?

  The thought of doing that made me sick. I knew immediately it was never going to happen. But that meant I would be out of a job.

  I came out of my room and was immediately handed a glass of wine by Grace and a bowl of cookies by Cassie, both of whom had thoughtfully waited for me to return from my visit with Molly.

  “The good news is that there’s a perfectly innocent reason Austin is sending a random woman money every month,” I told them. “The bad news is that when I don’t write about it, my boss is going to fire me.”

  I was enveloped in hugs. I had been holding back tears for days and now they started pouring out of me.

  “I’m going to end up alone and unemployed,” I wailed as my friends gave me a tight squeeze.

  There was a knock at the door. For a moment, I grew hopeful. Maybe it was Austin.

  But it wasn’t. It was Luke.

  Cassie blocked his entrance into our apartment, her arms crossed.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “I just want to talk to Mia,” he argued, trying to peer around her and having no luck because Cassie kept getting in his way. “Please?”

  “I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” Cassie told him.

  “It’s OK,” I told her, resigned. I was still furious at my brother, but I didn’t want to do what Austin was doing to me and ignore him. I was going to be a goddamn adult and talk this out.

  “We’re going to go get some more wine.” Grace grabbed Cassie arm and began pulling her out of the apartment. “But we won’t be gone long.” She gave my brother a withering look. “If you make her cry, you’ll have us to answer to.”

  My brother looked concerned. I didn’t blame him—it was one thing for Cassie to get protective, but when Grace did it, she meant business. They left, and Luke turned to me.

  “I’m sorry, Mia,” he said, actually looking apologetic.

  “What exactly are you sorry about?” I demanded. “Was it treating me like a child who can’t make decisions for herself, or acting like an idiot, brawling in the street?”

  “Both,” Luke said, running his hand through his hair. “I was a jerk. I know that. I just—” He sat down on the couch. “I just reacted poorly to something I wasn’t expecting. At all.”

  “It wasn’t really any of your business,” I reminded him. “I’m a grown woman. I can sleep with whoever I want. Even if you don’t agree with my choices.”

  He winced, but nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “I shouldn’t have hit him. I just think you deserve better,” he told me.

  “Better than your best friend?” I wanted to know. “So you’re fine with Austin, love him like family, until he dares to date your sister?”

  Luke looked frustrated. “I know, but . . .” He sighed. “Do you really like him? Because if you guys are happy together, I can learn to live with it. For you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. Did he not know?

  “Austin broke up with me,” I told him.

  Luke shot to his feet. “He did what?”

  “You should be happy.” I frowned.

  “That he dumped you? I’m going to kill that guy!”

>   I let out a sigh of frustration. “I really don’t understand you guys,” I despaired. “First you’re mad he was dating me, now you’re mad that he’s not!”

  “Are you OK?” Luke demanded, and I couldn’t lie.

  I shook my head. “I really liked him,” I said, as tears began flowing again. “I think I was falling in love.”

  My voice cracked. Immediately my brother enveloped me in a hug.

  “I’m so sorry,” he told me, his voice muffled in my hair. “Do you want me to beat him up again?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “No thanks,” I said. “I think we’ve all been battered enough for now.”

  Luke nodded, and we sat down together on the couch. “I love you, sis,” he said, draping his arm over my shoulders. “I just want you to be happy.”

  I hugged him. “I love you too. Now, just stay the hell out my love life, OK?”

  24

  Austin

  I should have been happy. Fuck, I should have been over-the-moon thrilled. My solo album—the project I had poured my life and energy into for months—was climbing the charts rapidly. Critics were raving, fans were lining up at concerts, the world was going nuts. I should have been drinking champagne and partying with rock stars and models and having the time of my fucking life.

  Instead I was alone in my cabin with a bottle of the best whiskey I could get, trying to drink Mia out of my system. It wasn’t working.

  I was a fucking idiot.

  I should have never gotten involved with her. Anyone with brains would have seen that sleeping with Mia, that being with her, would have ended this way. Because Luke was right. I was a scumbag. A scumbag who didn’t deserve someone like Mia.

  And now I had broken her heart and damaged my own in the process.

  Fucking scumbag.

  My phone rang and for a brief, wonderful moment, I held out hope that it was Mia.

  It was Zoey. I put her on speakerphone and poured myself another glass of whiskey.

  “Are you drinking?” she asked as a greeting.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Bullshit,” she told me. “Get yourself together, James,” she ordered. “You can’t keep hiding out in your little cabin in the woods when you’re about to have the number one record in the country.”

  I wanted to feel happy, but all I felt was loneliness.

  “That’s great,” I said numbly.

  “Austin.” Zoey’s voice became gentle. “This is not healthy.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I just need some time.”

  “How much time?” she wanted to know. “Because the VMAs want you to open for them next weekend.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  For most of my life, the only place I felt loved and accepted was on stage. Until Mia. With her, I had felt everything I had always wanted—everything I had always dreamed of. I felt safe with her. Loved. Accepted. And now that I knew that, I also knew that the high from being on stage would never again come close to how it had felt to be with her.

  “What?” Zoey practically shrieked into my ear. “Austin! This is huge. You can’t turn them down.”

  “I can,” I told her. “And I am.”

  Then I hung up.

  I drank some more and passed out on my couch. When I came to it was because someone was kicking at my feet. I opened my eyes and blinked blearily up at the large form looming over me.

  “What are you doing?” Luke demanded.

  I sprang up off the couch, fists up. My cheek had healed from our last encounter but I wasn’t about to get punched in the face again. Even if I deserved it.

  “Calm down, Chuck Norris,” Luke teased. “I’m not going to hit you again.”

  I lowered my arms, but still remained tense. We hadn’t spoken since the fight in the alley, and I had no idea what Luke was doing here. I wondered if I should have changed the locks. But instead of punching me or yelling at me—both things I would have deserved—Luke just sat down on the couch I had vacated and put his feet up on the coffee table.

  “So,” he said. “You and my sister, huh?”

  My mouth dropped open. What the fuck was this?

  “Come on.” He patted the couch next to him. “After getting my ass handed to me by Mia, I figured I might as well try to hear your side of the story.”

  “You spoke to Mia?” I asked, dropping down onto the couch.

  He nodded, pouring himself a glass of whiskey and taking a long drink. “She wasn’t too pleased with me, as you can imagine.”

  I winced. I’d rather get punched in the face a dozen times by Luke than face Mia’s wrath. But still, I couldn’t help feeling jealous that she was speaking to her brother. Not that I expected her to speak to me ever again. Not after what I had done.

  “Come on,” Luke urged, taking another drink of whiskey. “I’m still pissed about the whole thing, but I’m going to be understanding here. So, tell me why you would lie to me and break the bro code, and follow that up by breaking my little sister’s heart.”

  Guilt slammed into me like a truck.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I told him.

  “Didn’t mean to what?” he wanted to know. “Lie to me, or break her heart?”

  “Both,” I confessed. “The whole thing was a mistake.”

  Luke raised an eyebrow. “A mistake?”

  “I never should have gotten involved with her.” I leaned back against the cushions. “I was shortsighted and selfish. And you were right. She deserves better.”

  “Not according to her, she doesn’t,” Luke told me.

  “What?”

  “She still cares about you.” Luke put his glass down and crossed his arms. “Hell, she probably loves you, though she’d never admit that to me.”

  The thought that Mia might love me made my chest hurt. Because if she did love me, then I was completely unworthy of that emotion. Because I was completely unworthy of her. And my recent actions had done more than prove that.

  Still, I couldn’t deny the sense of hope that surged through me.

  “You think she loves me?” I wanted to know, while knowing that I sounded exactly like a love-struck teen girl when I asked it.

  “Yeah, I do,” Luke said. “And I think you’re a total moron if you let her go like this.”

  I stared at him.

  “You’re not mad about us?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Fuck yeah I’m still mad,” Luke told me. “But I’m way madder at the thought that after all this, you’re hurting her. As if what the two of you went through meant nothing.”

  “It didn’t,” I ran my hand through my hair. “Mia is . . .” I searched for the right word. “She’s special. And she deserves someone special.”

  “If I’ve learned anything about my sister recently, it’s that she’s the only one who can decide who is special enough for her.” Luke looked at me. “And apparently she thinks that’s you.”

  “She might have lost her mind,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. But are you really going to be the one to tell her that she’s wrong?” He shuddered. “I can’t imagine there’s any man alive who can tell my sister that she’s wrong.”

  I laughed a little at that, his words swirling around my head.

  What if he was right? What if it didn’t matter what my demons were telling me? If Mia thought I was right for her, then maybe that was enough. Maybe that’s what love was—believing you were worthy because someone told you that you were. It was definitely the first time in my life that I had considered it was possible.

  I stood up, knowing what I needed to do.

  “Where are you going?” Luke asked.

  I grabbed my jacket. “There’s somewhere I need to be,” I told him, and headed out the door.

  25

  Mia

  I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t concentrate.

  Just getting myself to work every day felt like an accomplishment, even if I spent most of my time watch
ing cat videos and crying quietly in the bathroom.

  I hated this. I hated being this girl. I didn’t want to be crying over some guy. Eight years ago I thought I was done crying over Austin James, but it seemed as though history was doomed to repeat itself. I could only hope that this wasn’t going to happen again eight years from now.

  The only silver lining to my current thundercloud was that I hadn’t been fired. Yet.

  Richard hadn’t been pleased that I refused to change the article but he ran it anyways. It didn’t get the kind of clicks that he had wanted, but the words “Austin James Exclusive” had been enough to get a decent amount of traffic, so I still had a job. Even though I was once again forced to work on listicles. A part of me feared I would be stuck doing it for the rest of my life.

  I was staring at my screen, half watching a video of two kittens wrestling, when there was a rustling of commotion all around me. I poked my head up out of my cubicle to find that all the cubicles around me were empty. Everyone had disappeared.

  Was there a meeting that I didn’t know about?

  I was about to head to the conference room when I got a text from Cassie.

  “Get to the lobby,” it read. “Now.”

  Oh shit. Was it some kind of emergency? I didn’t even wait for the elevator, instead running down the four flights of stairs and bursting out into the lobby, my breathing labored and sweat beginning to form at my hairline.

  But what waited for me wasn’t an emergency at all. It was Austin. Standing in the middle of the lobby with his guitar. Singing.

  I stared.

  What the fuck was going on?

  It was the first time I’d seen him in person since the release party, and my heart ached at the sight. He was so stupid beautiful, and I had missed him so much that I wanted to cry.

  Except there was no way in hell I was going to start crying in front of all my co-workers. And Richard, who was standing off to the side staring at the spectacle. Everyone had their cellphones out and was recording Austin’s lobby concert, but he seemed to be ignoring all of them.