Dirty Rock Star

by Sky Corgan

  Noon rolled around, and Gabriel was still showing no signs of stopping. I fixed us sandwiches, setting his next to him with a bag of chips and a glass of Coke. I took my own sandwich and settled back in my spot. When I finished all of my work, I went to sit in front of my desktop, something I used almost exclusively for gaming. Time for a well-earned break.

  I settled into my chair, looking at my two monitors as I booted up a game. Selecting PVP, I dove in, dominating the opposing team. This was a relatively new game. I was still getting my ranking up, but the controls were easy.

  “Alpha team, go left. Bravo team, on my six. Let’s go,” I spoke into my headset with a group I’d been working with for the past few hours. We moved in, capturing the turf. “Kill that idiot hiding in the building on the left,” I ordered, drawing attention when my sniper took him out. “Hell yeah, cleared the zone!”

  Cheers echoed from my headset, and I spun around, freezing. Standing behind me with the oddest grin was Gabriel.

  I coughed. “What are you doing?”

  “Watching a very different Abby.” He laughed. “I never thought you were the take charge person. When you said you gamed, I figured you were a healer or something.”

  I bristled at that. “Actually, like I told you in the first place, I'm a serious gamer. I win championships not by being some stand in the back healer.”

  “I thought you were exaggerating. But looking around here…” he gestured, and a blush crawled up my cheeks, “you have two bookshelves full of games and manuals. Who does that?”

  “I’m entitled to a hobby.” I huffed.

  “I’m not being derogatory. It's just shocking. Thank you for giving me space while I was in my zone. Once I start writing, I hate interruptions.”

  “You there, Starshadow?” An echo came from my headset.

  “Hold that thought.” I held up a finger, turning towards my setup.

  “Hey guys, I gotta go. Thanks for the fun today. I hope we can play again sometime.”

  They all protested as I logged off sighing. I lost my zone, no point in playing now.

  “Looks like I wasn’t as polite. However, I did sit quietly watching you for an hour,” Gabriel told me.

  I felt the color drain from my face. “You’ve been watching me for an hour?”

  “Yes. It was quite engaging.”

  Guilt surged through me as I turned towards the screen, powering off my system. A glance at the clock showed me that it was a little past eight. He had stayed with me all day. “Did you need a shower or something? I can call you an Uber.” This was the awkward conversation I hated having the day after someone stayed at my house. The 'it's time for you to leave' conversation.

  “No. I just didn’t want to leave without a farewell.” He yawned, stretching. “Come by my studio tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to practice the songs I wrote and get your opinion.”

  “Uh…Why?”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes dramatically. “Because I like you, Abby. I wrote them with you in mind. So just do it.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. I’ll be there.”

  With that, I walked him to the door, seeing him out. He leaned down and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “Until tomorrow,” his lips quirked, “Starshadow.”

  I glared as I closed the door. Jerk.

  When I came back inside, I went to my Playstation, continuing my Dragon Age storyline.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I awoke on the couch the next morning, groaning. I hated when I fell asleep gaming. It was never comfortable. Glancing at my phone, I saw I had three missed calls and 5 texts. The first one was from Kia.

  "Hey. Sorry to message over the weekend. Whatever you did on your ‘date’ with Gabriel got those songs we needed. I’m taking him and the band to a studio. We'll be recording for a few weeks. I want to get their CD posted. Please put an announcement on the page, including an estimated release date of one month from now."

  I blinked, surprised. I didn’t do anything to inspire a song, but whatever.

  The other four texts were from Gabriel. The first was an Overwatch meme. I chuckled at it. The next was the X-box ring of death. Someone was having far too much fun with Google. I doubted he knew what either of those meant.

  His actual texts read, “Hey, Abby. Kia loved the songs I wrote. She came over, and I had to show her first. (Sorry) She booked us a studio, and we are off to go record. So I have to cancel on today. :C But please text me. I’m going to be so bored following Kia’s every order.”

  The second text read, “If you don’t send me a meme and text every day, I’m going to drive over there and camp on your doorstep! In my full setup!”

  I laughed at the ridiculous image of him sitting in front of my apartment fully decked out. Two could play that game. I clicked on Google, looking up memes of rock stars. It wasn't very hard to find an annoying one.

  The writing on the meme said, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over how awesome I am.” I chuckled, sending it to him. I followed up with a text, “It's fine. I have tons to do anyway. When you get your CD ready to release, how about I treat you to dinner to celebrate?”

  Was it okay to ask him on a date? I mean, we technically had been on two… Ugh. Were we just sex buddies? You don’t usually stay at a sex buddy's place for that long…

  I set the phone down, going to shower before I agonized while waiting for a response. Gabriel was a busy guy. Who knew when he would text me back? But the fact that I was actually waiting for his response was disturbing to me. It meant that I was feeling more than something you would for someone who was just a fling.

  By the time I was ready to start working on my weekend chores, he had replied with a Mario meme. I rolled my eyes at the lack of an answer to my question and sent him a KISS meme back.

  ***

  That became our form of communication. Memes. All day. It was ridiculous.

  Days passed with not a single line of text from him. I was beginning to feel like we were losing touch and needed to open an actual line of communication. Memes had been fine for a while, but the humor of it was starting to wear off. I wanted to talk to him. To get to know him better.

  “What's your favorite food?” I asked him finally, wanting to break the cycle of endless memes. It was a relevant question considering that I still wanted to take him out to dinner after his CD was finished.

  “Your eggs were pretty darn good. I wouldn’t mind those again!” he responded with a thumbs up emoji.

  I laughed, returning to my work.

  When I checked my texts later, he had sent his own question. “What do you like in a man?”

  Wow. That was much deeper than mine.

  I tried to play off the fluttering in my heart that was making me uncomfortable. “Why? You looking to be my man? ;P”

  “Maybe. :D”

  I rolled my eyes, trying to push back my feelings and see the reality of things. He was a rock star. He did dalliances, not relationships. More than likely, he was texting a handful of girls to keep himself entertained. With that in mind, I didn't respond further, throwing myself into my work until the late evening.

  When I finally checked my phone again, there were three more texts.

  “You there?”

  “Today was rough, I’m exhausted.”

  “Abby?”

  I sighed, texting back, “Sorry, was busy. What happened?”

  “Kia wants other songs like the ones I wrote but more powerful. She wanted me to edit several of the songs we already recorded.”

  “Isn’t that a lot of work?” I asked, turning on the TV.

  “Yeah. It is. The band is frustrated. She's frustrated. I'm frustrated.” He sent a picture of himself lying in bed shirtless surrounded by paper. He was grinning.

  “You don’t seem so frustrated.”

  “Well, I couldn’t let you see me looking bad! Your turn. What are you doing?”

  I snapped a picture of me lounging on the couc
h and sent it to him.

  “Sexy.”

  “Yeah, sweats and a t-shirt. The new Victoria's Secret,” I quipped.

  “Gives me something to fantasize about tonight! Sleep well, Abby.”

  A blush crawled up my neck.

  “Good night, Gabriel,” I replied, taking myself to bed.

  This was getting too…flirtatious. Maybe he was serious?

  Instead of thinking about it, I counted to 100, drifting off to sleep.

  The next day was the same. Fewer memes, more questions. Favorite drinks, favorite movies, favorite books. I was surprised to find that he was into the classics. I preferred modern literature, but I would never have thought he read… I was starting to realize that many of my assumptions about rock stars might be a bit far from the truth.

  ***

  The next week we moved from memes to our favorite songs. We listened to each other's recommendations and gave feedback. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed a lot of the stuff that Gabriel pitched to me.

  Finally, I got the text I was looking forward to. “CD is finally done!”

  “Congratulations! It's not too late to cash in that celebratory dinner!” Did I sound too eager? Every time I'd mentioned it up until now, he'd avoided the subject. Was he going to turn me down?

  “Let me get to my place and clean up. Meet at…8?”

  I took off towards my room to rummage through my closet for something nice. I knew where I wanted to take him, and I hoped he would like it. I settled on a simple red dress coupled with black heels. Smiling, I slid the dress on. It hugged my form well, and once I curled my hair, everything looked perfect.

  Checking my phone, I saw that it was almost 8 already. Wait. He said we would meet at 8, but he never said where. His place? My place? He didn’t know where we were going.

  Before I could text, there came a knock at my door. I grabbed my purse off of the bed and ran to answer it, nearly stumbling in the heels.

  “Gabriel! You're early.” I took a deep breath, trying not to look like I ran. “Congratulations on completing your CD.”

  “Thank you, Abby. You look…stunning.”

  He wore slacks and a button up.

  “As do you. Come on.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the parking lot, letting the door close behind me. To my surprise, a taxi was already waiting for us downstairs. I glanced at him, and he shrugged, smiling. Once inside, I gave directions.

  “Where are we going?” Gabriel asked curiously.

  "To a trivia bar." I winked.

  “A what?”

  “It's a bar where they hold a trivia competition every night." I leaned in to whisper seductively in his ear, "Whoever answers the most questions gets to pick what we do after trivia.”

  He grinned. “Challenge accepted, Abby.”

  When we pulled up, he paused. “This is a bar?”

  It looked like a restaurant. It even had valet parking.

  “I didn’t say what type of bar. It's classy.” I laughed, tugging him in.

  “Abigail. It's been a while,” the bouncer greeted me. “They're about to start.”

  I nodded and led Gabriel to my usual table.

  “You come here often?” he asked as the waitress walked over.

  “I loved this place in college. My friends and I came here a lot. When you travel with a group of nerds, trivia night is a blast.” I chuckled at the memories.

  “That's not fair. You have an advantage.” He frowned, glancing over the menu.

  “It's been a while, so not much of one. Besides, you know a variety of odd facts, so I’m sure you'll do just fine.”

  We ordered food and drinks. Gabriel got a beer, but I decided to stick with water.

  “So how does the trivia work?” he inquired, sipping on his beer.

  “They hand out the questions on a questionnaire. Whoever gets the most right from a table by the end of the hour gets a free dessert,” I explained.

  “That's it?” Gabriel didn't seem impressed.

  “Yes. If you don’t like it, we can leave,” I offered.

  He immediately shook his head. “No. I’m game.”

  I smiled to let him know I was teasing.

  By the time I came back from retrieving our trivia sheet, our food had arrived. Gabriel dug into his chicken tenders with gusto while I read the first few questions. I groaned when I saw that they were all related to history, but Gabriel was able to pick up my slack. Once we finished history, we moved on to animals, which he knew less about than I did. It seemed like we were balancing each other out well in the competition.

  After I turned our sheet in and the judges began grading them, I grabbed Gabriel's hand. “As long as no one knew about sports, I think we got this.”

  He picked at the remnants of his fries, eyes locked on the judges.

  “The winners are…Lily and Kyle at table 7.”

  “Damn, I thought we had it.” Gabriel slapped the table with his palm.

  “It's okay. We just lost out on dessert." Sore loser much? “We'll just have to come back and win another time!” I said enthusiastically. “So you had fun?”

  “That was…a blast. Especially seeing you so into it.” He smirked. “I thought you were going to start enacting the entirety of Lord of the Rings when they got to the movie trivia.”

  My eyes widened. “You said you've never seen it!”

  “I may have… lied.” Gabriel chuckled.

  “Why?!”

  “Because when I said that, I knew you would insist that we had a marathon. Roughly twelve hours stuck on a couch with you… Could you blame me?”

  “It would be more if we watched the extended editions,” I muttered.

  “Well, I do believe I had more correct than you,” he pointed out grandly.

  “Only because I screwed up one answer,” I defended.

  “So I get to pick what we do next!” Gabriel stood, handing the bill to the waitress. When did he grab the bill? I had said I would treat him to dinner. He grabbed my hand before I could protest, tugging me towards the exit.

  “You win. What are we off to do?” I asked, trailing behind him like a puppy on a short leash.

  “Well, I intend to finally take you to my bed tonight.” He laughed, spinning me around and capturing my lips. I gasped into the kiss, startled.

  He broke free way too soon, walking confidently towards an Uber. I caught my breath as I opened the door. Gabriel slid in beside me, leg touching mine.

  I cupped his cheek, pulling him toward me for a kiss. He took the invitation, nibbling my bottom lip before passion overtook him and he tugged me onto his lap. I slid my hands under his shirt, enjoying the feel of his skin. He groaned, nipping at me teasingly. I laughed until the sound of a phone ringing broke us apart.

  Gabriel pulled his phone out, frowning. “Why would Kia be calling me tonight? I told her I had plans.” He sounded as annoyed as I felt.

  “Kia, this had better be important,” Gabriel said, tone full of irritation.

  I slid off of his lap and fixed my hair.

  His expression changed. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he snapped at her. “I’m not going to…”

  She interrupted him, chirping over the phone.

  “So what? You can fix that.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Who cares?” he growled, but I could see the irritation leaving. “Yes, I understand. Fine. I’ll drop her off, and we can figure out the game plan.” He sighed, ending the call.

  “What's going on?” I asked, unable to pick up the context based on his side of the conversation.

  “Remember that woman who was hitting on me at the last show you went to?”

  “How could I forget? She was quite irritated.”

  “Well, turns out she did an interview for one of the big rock blogs. She spread the word that I was dating a mega fan. Kia already got a call for a television interview for my response. I can’t be seen with you right now. Kia wants me to get ahead of th
is rampaging story.”

  The fact that he wanted to dispel the rumor so quickly hurt. Would it really be so bad if people thought we were dating? I guess this went back around to what I first thought, that he was only into sleeping with girls, not having relationships. “Oh. Okay. How long is that going to take?”

  “Probably until I leave town in a week.”

  “Wait, what?” That was news. I didn’t know he was leaving town. They didn’t have a tour scheduled.

  “Kia just locked in a regional tour. She's putting together the stops now. I think we're leaving on Sunday.”

  “Oh.”

  “How long is your tour?” I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. I told myself it was for professional reasons—that I needed to update his website.

  “A month and a half. Maybe two months.” Gabriel frowned. “If you want, you could come out to a few of the closer concerts…”

  “No. We don’t want to risk you being seen with me.” I smiled faintly.

  His face drained, realizing how that sounded. “Wait, Abby. That's not it at all. It's not that I don't want to be seen with you.”

  I quietly leaned forward to talk to the Uber driver. “Excuse me. Could you drop me off up here, please?”

  “At the bar?” the driver asked.

  I nodded.

  “Wait, Abby, I didn’t mean it the way you're taking it,” Gabriel protested.

  “I very clearly heard you. Thank you for dinner. I had a lovely time. I look forward to the new updates for the website. I'm sure your fans will be excited.” I told him before sliding out of the vehicle.

  “Abby…”

  I waved, closed the door in his face and immediately walked away.

  How dare he? How dare Kia? As if I was some sort of embarrassment for a rock star to date. I get it. I'm too much of a small fry. As his manager, she wanted him to date someone well known, like Katy Perry or Selena Gomez. If he were seeing one of those big name people, it would help his band’s image.