by Hazel Jacobs
When they get close to the airport, Tessa puts her book in her handbag and sends a text to Dash.
Tessa: Almost there.
D: whats the cab # security will meet u outside
Tessa: Why would security need to meet me outside?
D: fans r a bit intense 2day
Tessa understands what he means the moment her cab pulls up to the airport departures gate. There are dozens of people loitering around outside, most of them holding signs with Black Lilith’s name on them and wearing merchandise of the band. Paparazzi lurks at the edges of the crowd, snapping pictures, while a handful of police officers can be seen tucked away at the far side of the airport doors.
Rolling down her window, Tessa winces when the sheer volume of the crowd hits her. No one is screaming, or even shouting, but everyone is talking excitedly, and the accumulative noise is enough to make her hastily roll the window back up. She wonders why Dash thinks security will need to come and get her. She’s a nobody. These people wouldn’t know that she’s involved with the band. But then she sees the sea of people breaking apart to allow security through, and something in her brain clicks, the crowd is so thick that there’s no way she would have gotten through without someone with authority coming to get her.
“Geez, what about the people who are actually traveling today?” she asks out loud.
The cabbie shakes his head. “Some people just don’t give a damn.”
The security guy taps on her window. Tessa notes his black shirt and jacket with Black Lilith written on it. So he’s not airport security, then. He’s handsome, if a little on the slim side and Tessa half-wonders if he would even be that effective when the band themselves are in such good shape. Slate could probably bench press this guy. Hell, Harper could probably bench press this guy.
“You’re Tessa?” he asks. He’s got a nice voice and kind eyes that wrinkle at the edges, with ink-black hair that falls in soft waves over his forehead.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Jared, I’ll be escorting you. Are your bags in the back?”
“No,” she replies, hoisting her battered and creaking suitcase up. She’d ridden with it in the back seat.
“Okay.” Jared opens the door and the crowd—who know that he’s with the band even if they don’t know who she is—jostles for a closer look.
Two other security guys—beefier, well-muscled men who also look a lot older and wearier than Jared—push the crowd back so he can pull Tessa out of the cab and take her suitcase. After paying the driver, he puts a hand on the small of her back and guides her through the buzzing, undulating crowd. There are men and women—though mostly women—and many of them are craning their necks to get a look at Tessa. Some of them are even taking pictures of her on their phones. Tessa resists the urge to cover her face.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you inside in no time,” Jared says soothingly into her ear. He seems like he’s had a lot of practice reassuring people.
True to his word, he gets Tessa through the doors. Inside, the airport is much calmer. The crowd must have not be allowed past the entrance.
“Thank you,” Tessa says, trying to take her suitcase back, but Jared just waves her off.
“I’ve got it, don’t worry. I think the band wanted to sign autographs, but the airport security won’t let them. Then one of the fans tried to grab Tommy’s shirt, so they all got kicked out. One of the paps also tried to get past the security gates and nearly got arrested. Mikayla’s out for blood. The band’s departure times were supposed to be secret. Not sure how anyone found out, but it’s all over Twitter. Anyway, have you got your passport? Let’s get you checked in.”
He says all of that almost in one breath as he guides her toward the check-in counter. Tessa finds herself following numbly, feeling an odd mixture of curiosity and disbelief. This guy seems to walk with purpose and self-assurance, but when he opens his mouth, he’s all enthusiasm and pouring out information. He’s got a cute smile, too. Which grows wider the longer he’s talking, though his eyes are constantly alert and moving around the room, possibly assessing. It’s an interesting combination that almost reminds Tessa of Dash. The way Dash can go from cheeky and dorky to hot and sensual in the blink of an eye, is often just as confusing and intriguing.
Thinking about Dash reminds Tessa of the nights she’d spent since actually getting to meet him when she’d been curled up in bed and whispering into her phone as he’d described everything he’d like to do to her. Tessa doesn’t know how she’s supposed to act around him now, but she hopes that nothing will really change.
He probably just likes to get off, she tells herself. Tessa is a good sexting buddy, but he could probably just as easily pick up a girl off the street and have the same experience. Tessa isn’t insecure, quite the opposite. She’s being realistic. Dash is a famous rockstar, and she’s a former Starbucks barista. Not exactly the sort of thing people write romance novels about.
“By the way, I like your shirt,” Jared says as they bypass the economy line and head straight to first class.
Tessa feels her eyebrows raising when she sees that they’re heading for the VIP lane, but says nothing about it. “Thank you,” she says. It’s a simple button-up blue blouse that she’d picked up at H&M, in a desperate attempt to get some work-appropriate clothes before she starts working with Black Lilith for months. She’s hoping that her first paycheck will help her fill out her wardrobe. “I like your jacket.”
Jared rubs his sleeve, obviously chuffed. “It’s a lot of hype, working with these people. They’re great musicians.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Tessa says.
“Right! You’re the writer, aren’t you? I’ve always wanted to do that. But I’m not very good at putting words on paper, you know? It’s really bloody hard.”
“Maybe you just need practice,” Tessa says as they reach the front of the counter, and she hands her passport over to the woman on the other side.
“Maybe you can teach me a thing or two?” Jared asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking at her a little smugly.
Tessa smiles at him, in what she hopes is just an encouraging way. “Sure,” she replies because she’s always excited to meet someone who wants to write.
Her phone beeps, and she quickly checks the message.
Unknown: Hi Tessa, this is Logan. Just letting you know that Dash is checking his phone a lot, and he’s worried the fans abducted you. Could you reassure him?
Tessa frowns at the screen, then realizes that while she’d been talking to Jared, she had missed some texts from Dash. She sends a quick ‘Thanks’ to Logan, then a short ‘I’ll be through security soon’ to Dash. He must have thought that it was taking her a while to get checked in, but this is honestly the easiest experience with checking in that Tessa has ever had. The woman behind the counter prints her ticket, takes her bags, and waves her through to the security gates, and then Jared guides her through to the first class line, and she’s whisked through in less than ten minutes.
“Didn’t know first class got this many perks,” Tessa says, still a little dizzy from how quickly they’d stripped her of all of her metals and bustled her through the detectors.
Jared is sliding his watch back on and grinning. “If it makes you uncomfortable, you’re welcome to ride in the back with us.”
“Do the security guards not ride with the band?”
“Not unless they get a private jet. My boss thinks they’re only a few months away from that.”
“Wow,” Tessa says.
She can hardly imagine it. Especially since she’s gotten to know the boys. They all seem so normal to her. It’s hard to reconcile the image of Tommy and Slate playing keep-away with Dash’s phone, with the women outside carrying boards that said ‘Marry Me, Logan.’
That thought just reminds her that she’s going to be expected to write a story about them that will appear in Rolling Stone, and they’re essentially going to put her name in lights right along with th
eirs. With that thought, she thinks she might be getting a little faint.
“Woah. Hey… you okay?” Jared asks, quickly grabbing her elbow. His grip is gentle, so gentle that she almost wonders if he’s actually going to be able to catch her if she falls. “You got really pale there.”
“I’m fine, I promise. I just…” It’s hard to put into words. “Do you think it’s weird for me to be anxious about hanging out with famous people? Like, seeing paparazzi and people filming me, and the security thing, and first class, and all of this… I just… never thought that I’d have to deal with it? And I’m not sure how I’m supposed to act now?”
Jared looks at her thoughtfully, then shrugs. “Maybe just… pretend it’s normal?”
Tessa doesn’t think that’s going to help her, but it’s probably the best advice she’s going to receive. “Right, sure. Thanks.”
He leads her through the airport, past the gift shops, and toward the first class lounge. Sure enough, Dash is there, and the moment Tessa sees him she feels some of the weight starting to lift off of her chest. Sure, he may be a famous rockstar who can have any woman he wants, and sure she’s not certain whether their naughty nights will translate into the daytime just as seamlessly, but he’s her best friend. He’ll take care of her.
“Tess,” he shouts when he sees her, running forward and scooping her into a firm hug.
This feels so much better than Jared’s gentle elbow-holding. As soon as the thought enters her head, Tessa wonders where it came from. Why would she even compare the two?
“I thought you were kidnapped,” Dash says. He pulls away and gives her a wink before looking over her shoulder at Jared. “Thanks, man. I think Mikayla got us some sodas if you want to come in for a drink?”
“Sounds good,” Jared says, nodding his head.
Dash’s hand falls onto the small of Tessa’s back, right where Jared’s hand had been. Though Dash’s fingers curl possessively on her shirt as he leans over to whisper in her ear, “That’s a nice shirt. Very work appropriate.”
“Well, I couldn’t find a strap-on on such short notice,” she says, her voice as steady as she can make it with his lips so close to her ear.
He pulls back and gives her a sly grin, which tells her that yes, their naughty nights can translate into the daytime.
“Don’t worry, baby, we can get you something when we land in New York.”
Despite her best efforts, Dash keeps pulling Tessa out of work mode.
“Dash, pay attention.”
“How can I when your hands look so delicious?”
Tessa pulls her hand out of his and looks away to hide her blush. They’re on the plane, heading for JFK, and she’s been trying to run her preliminary research past Dash so that she’s sure she has her facts straight before her interviews. But Dash doesn’t seem to understand how serious this is. He keeps grabbing her fingers and trying to bite them, complaining that he’s starving because Slate stole half his burrito when he wasn’t looking, and they hadn’t had time to get another one before they had to board the plane.
They’re lounging in first class—and yes, ‘lounge’ is the correct verb, because they’re both reclined so far that Tessa thinks they might as well be laying down. She’s never been in first class, and the few times she’s flown before, she’s always walked through the cabin when all of the chairs were up. She’s seen pictures of first class passengers, but Tessa supposes that she’s always thought that they were exaggerated. When the flight attendant brought her some champagne before take-off, she realizes that they probably weren’t.
Dash tries to reach across the armrest to take her hand again, and she waves him off with a grin.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Woah, whipping out the ten dollar words already?” he asks, grinning at her with his head cocked adorably.
“Just… look… just let me run this past you, and then you can hold my hand for the rest of the flight. Okay?”
He’s such a dork, honestly. Her best friend has been acting nothing short of delighted to have her with him, and if it weren’t for that, she would have abandoned him already and traded seats with Logan—who’s sitting next to Mikayla—because it would probably be the fastest way for her to get her work done. She and Logan are sitting in front of Dash and Tessa, while Slate and Harper are behind them. Tommy and Sersha are across the aisle, with their heads pressed together as they scrutinize a laptop screen. When Tessa asked, Tommy had just shrugged and said, “Just some scribbles. You can take a look when we land if you like?”
Tessa had agreed, though she freely admits that she doesn’t have a head for poetry. So she probably wouldn’t be the best judge of song lyrics.
“So, okay, you all met in high school. Right?”
“Well, I met Logan a little earlier,” Dash says.
Tessa snorts and elbows him. “Right, but you met Slate and Tommy in high school?”
“Yeah. Starting the band was my idea.”
“Really?”
He nods proudly. “I wanted an excuse to shred my guitar and make pretty girls look at me. Plus, Logan needed to unwind, he was so serious.”
Tessa files that information away. She’ll probably ask about it later, but right now she’s in full recon mode. “Okay. And then when you decided to get serious—”
“We were always serious,” Dash says. And Tessa would have believed him if he hadn’t been fighting to pull her fingers into his mouth for the first twenty minutes of the flight. “We were,” he insists when he sees her expression. “I don’t know, it’s like… I always knew we had to make it. We were good, and Logan… he really loves music, you know? So we had to make it, or else he’d have been stuck with some desk job or something.”
“What about you?” Tessa asks. “What would you do if you weren’t a musician?”
Dash seems to think about that for a moment. He pouts a little, and the plane hits a bit of turbulence. He grabs her hand and pulls it over the armrest to hold it in both of his. Tessa allows it, enjoying the warmth and comfort of his big, broad hands covering her little one so easily.
“I think… maybe science? Or, like…” he pauses again and actually looks a little bit embarrassed. “Maybe maths?”
“Maths? You want to be a mathematician?”
“Music has a lot of math in it,” he says. He actually looks away from her—self-conscious for the first time since she’s known him—and he shrugs like he’s trying to throw it off. “It’s not like it matters because we’re doing this now, but in school, I was pretty good at math. If I’d gone to college, I think I would have majored in it.”
Tessa squeezes his hand, and he looks back at her. “I think that’s awesome,” she says. He grins at her like he’s relieved. “Why didn’t you ever go to college, anyway?”
“We couldn’t afford it,” he says. “And then we started making it as Black Lilith. There’s never really been time. Plus, we tour so much… so when would I be able to go to classes?”
Tessa mulls that over, wondering what she would want the twins or Scott to do if they’d had the opportunity to make it big before going to college. No matter how bad their financial problems, her dad was always adamant about one thing—education comes first. It wasn’t just that they needed degrees to fall back on. If that were the case, she wouldn’t have gone into English Lit of all things. It was that education gives people the chance to see the world in new ways. Tessa remembers the sheltered little thing she was when she’d first gone to college, and how exciting it was to be thrust into a world where learning about new ideas, concepts, philosophies, was an expectation. She’d learned French in college, and it made her see language in new ways. She’d learned history in college, and that had shown her how badly the world can go wrong when people prioritized concepts over other people.
No matter what, she wants the same for her brothers and sisters. And for Dash, if that’s something she has the right to want for him.
“Maybe… maybe night school?
” she asks. “Or there are some colleges that do things by correspondence. You wouldn’t have to actually go to classes.”
Dash licks his lips and shrugs, self-deprecatingly. “Maybe. But it’s not a big deal.”
But it is a big deal, and she can hear it in the downward inflection of his voice. She wonders whether he regrets not going to college straight out of high school. He’s in his twenties, so he’s not too old to go by any means. But you only get one chance to be a fresh-faced freshman. She understands that he’s more world-weary than his dorky, geeky exterior shows. She knows it in the way that some of his late-night texts would border on the profound. How he would apply the philosophies of Star Wars and Harry Potter to the world around him. How he could turn anything into a joke so quickly that his mind must be constantly working, constantly engaged and drawing on every story he’s ever seen or heard.
Tessa squeezes his hand again as their plane hits another bump. He pulls it up to his mouth and, instead of trying to bite her again, he kisses her knuckles.
“What else?” he asks, nodding to the notebook that lays half-forgotten on her tray table.
“Oh, yeah,” Tessa quickly checks her notes again, her knuckles still tingling from the kiss.
Once again, she wonders whether he could be genuinely interested in her, or whether he’s a typical playboy who’s flirting because it’s what he’s good at. She’s sure that all it would take is a wink and a nod to get one of the flight attendants to visit the bathroom with him. In their defense, it would probably take just as much for Tessa to join him in the bathroom too.