Dreamweaver (Hell Yeah!)

by Sable Hunter

  “Interesting. Do your voices ever tell you to hurt someone?”

  There was another collective gasp in the room and Judah found himself turning red under the hot lights. He didn’t know if it was anger, embarrassment, or heat stroke – some of all three, he imagined. “No, never.” He stated without hesitation or pause. “My voices are sometimes critical, but always of me, not other people. Mental well-being is not a one-size fits all, it’s not the same for everybody. We all have to learn how to live with the voices in our heads, the demons that haunt us, whatever form they may take.”

  “You’ve given us something to think about, Judah. Now, tell inquiring minds what they want to know about you and Ivana Paul. Are you an item? Are you a couple?”

  Judah shook his head. “No, we never were. Ivana’s a good kid, she was going through some stuff and I let myself get talked into being a shield, of a sort.”

  “So, the marriage was never real.”

  Judah was careful not to outright confirm or deny the allegation. “Gossip can get out of hand quickly.”

  “You’re right about that.” The host leaned closer as if they were sharing secrets. “So, tell us something else, who’s the hot blonde?”

  … Pepper smiled and slid to the edge of her seat.

  “Hot blonde,” Heath grumbled. “How disrespectful.”

  “Shhhh,” Pepper waved a hand toward her brother, listening for Judah’s response.

  Judah smiled proudly. “The hot blonde is my girlfriend and the love of my life, Penelope Elizabeth McCoy. Everyone calls her Pepper.”

  “Pepper, what a cute name. How does she feel about all of this hullabaloo?”

  “Pepper supports me. Completely,” Judah said, gazing straight into the camera. “As I do her.”

  “That’s right, baby,” Pepper whispered, oblivious to the pointed stares she was receiving from her brothers.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Heath fumed. “What a crock of…”

  His next words were cut off by Cato quelling her husband’s outburst with a kiss. This tactic worked and amused Ten and Jaxson.

  Pepper’s attention never moved from the television.

  Judah was speaking. “What I do want to make clear to my fans, is that I haven’t changed. I am still writing music, singing songs, and performing. I still hold my fans in the highest esteem and I will work tirelessly to bring them the music they want and deserve.”

  “Well, great. Would you sing a song for us before you go?”

  Pepper could tell this was a surprise to Judah, but he took it in stride.

  “Sure, I’d love to.” He walked over to the in-house orchestra and in a few moments, he faced the camera. “Pepper, sweetheart, this one’s for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next morning, Pepper woke up in Judah’s arms. “I’m so glad you’re home.” She leaned up to kiss him. “You were so tired last night, you fell asleep on the way back from the airport.”

  “I guess I was just relieved for that interview to be over.” He ran his fingers down the satiny skin of her arm. “Thanks for picking me up. How was your visit with your family?”

  Pepper rolled her eyes and giggled. “It could’ve been better. The girls and Philip are on our side, but Ten, Jax, and Heath are just being difficult.”

  “They love you, like I do. I can certainly understand their concern. I would be leery of me too.”

  She ignored his self-deprecating comment. “You were great last night. I’m sure you won everyone over who saw the interview.”

  “Well, we’ll see.” He cupped the side of her face. “Give me some sugar, I missed you.”

  She cuddled close to kiss him, her desire for him flaring to life.

  Buzz! Buzz!

  “Damn, somebody’s here early,” he snarled, getting up to grab his pants and slip them on. “I wonder if my parents are back in town. I probably should’ve called them about that damn interview.”

  Pepper crawled from the bed to search for her own clothes.

  When Judah opened the door, it wasn’t his parents standing there, it was Zion.

  “I brought breakfast!” He held up two large bags. “Torchy’s Taco’s!” He named a local eatery well-known for their great food.

  “Come in, Zion.” Judah let his friend in. He took a big whiff of the aromatic offerings and rubbed his stomach. “I didn’t realize I was starving.”

  “Hey, Pepper.” Zion walked over to kiss Pepper on her cheek. “Hope you’re hungry, I brought plenty.”

  “Great, I’ll get plates and forks.”

  “Make a pot of coffee, honey. Please?” Judah gave Pepper a wink and a smile.

  “Sure.”

  They followed her to the kitchen and Zion spread out the goodies while Judah took his meds. As he popped the pills, he kicked a stool Zion’s way. “So, tell me about Loren? Did you have a good time?”

  Zion didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I think she’s homeless, Judah. She’s very evasive, refuses to let me pick her up at her place. When we go to do something, she insists on meeting me.”

  Pepper looked concerned. “That’s so dangerous, I know you’re worried.”

  “There is a large homeless population in Austin, but there are several programs available,” Judah said as he helped himself to two of the breakfast tacos.

  “I just wish she’d open up and tell me what’s going on.” Zion’s face softened. “She’s so sweet and funny.” He laughed. “I enjoy the heck out of being with her. She makes me feel carefree.”

  “Does she have a phone? Do you think I could call her?” Pepper fixed her own plate, choosing a taco with chicken and avocado filling.

  “I think that’s a great idea.” Zion perked up and took out his phone. “Here’s her number. Although, she rarely answers. I’ve already tried to call her today with no luck.” He rattled the ten digits off to Pepper. “She knows about you, so I think it won’t be a total surprise if you reach out to her.”

  Pepper retrieved her phone from her purse and entered Loren’s name in contacts. “I’ll give her a call a little later and maybe we can set up a time to meet.”

  “Thanks, Pepper.” Zion chose a couple of tacos and joined them at the table, seeming to breathe easier. “So, that talk show host was a bit of an ass, wasn’t he?”

  Judah snorted, almost choking on his coffee. “Well, yea, but he only asked what the public was already wondering.” He made a rectangular frame with his hand. “Is Judah James a nut-job? Is Judah James a danger to himself and others?”

  “Yea, that was totally crazy.” Pepper fumed. “Asking if the voices ever tell you to hurt anyone.”

  “Maybe the voices could tell you to shave or something,” Zion joked. “I’m just glad it’s over, but I know you thought it needed to be done. I’m sure it was a pain.”

  “I guess we’ll be able to judge its effectiveness by our record sales,” Judah said as he finished one taco and picked up another.

  “Well, let’s see.” Zion picked up his phone. “I haven’t checked our rankings today.” He thumbed through an app that showed downloads and sales. “Looks like we’re on the rise.”

  “Great!” Pepper exclaimed, feeling happy for them both. “So, what’s next?”

  “Actually, that’s why I’m here,” Zion muttered as he finished his cup of coffee. “We’re needed over at Ace, some loose ends we need to tie up. Reese said the meeting’s mandatory, I think there are lawyers involved.”

  “Hell, I hate lawyers.” Judah ran a hand through his hair. “While you were gone, we spent the day in Bastrop. I met Desiree Holt. She wants to talk to us about signing with her company The Yellow Rose.”

  “I’ve heard good things about it. Do you know any details?” Zion asked as he wadded up the empty food bags and tossed them in the trash.

  “No, I thought we’d set up an appointment with her and her people in the next few days.” Judah stood and stretched, pulling Pepper into his arms. “Well, I guess I’d better go g
et ready.”

  “Do you want me to wait on you?” Zion asked as he rinsed out his cup.

  “No, you go ahead. I’ll meet you there,” Judah told him. “I still need to take a shower.”

  As Zion headed for the door, Pepper walked him out. “If you talk to Loren, let her know I’ll be in touch.”

  “Good deal. I think I’ll check a few of her haunts on the way and see if I can spot her.” Zion gave her a hug and whispered in her ear, “I’m glad he has you. Thanks for taking care of him. You’re good for Judah.”

  Pepper beamed. “He’s amazing. I’m glad he has you too.”

  In the bedroom, Judah stared inside his dresser drawer. “What the hell?” He opened the one next to him. “Fuck, man,” he whispered. “Everything’s different.” His socks and underwear were in his sweater drawer and his T-shirt’s were neatly folded in the place his blue jeans were supposed to go. He spun around in a circle and went to his closet. Everything was neat, but completely backwards. “God, I’m going nuts. What the fuck is going on?”

  He went to the living room. “Pepper, you didn’t come to the loft before picking me up at the airport, did you?”

  “No!” she called from the kitchen. “I drove straight from Highlands.”

  He dry-scrubbed his face. Pepper wouldn’t rearrange his stuff without telling him anyway. So…what did this mean? Did he just imagine his things were in a certain place? Were they like this all along?

  Judah gathered what he needed and headed for the shower, a little freaked out. When he was finished, he went to find Pepper who was checking something on her phone.

  “I think I’ll drop by the career center on campus,” she said, giving him a happy smile. “There’s a job fair there today, I might get some ideas for a meaningful career.”

  He decided not to broach the subject of his wandering wardrobe. “I won’t be gone all day, but it sounds like you’ve got plenty to do. I hope you can get in touch with Zion’s girl.”

  “Me too.” She walked him to the door. “Drive carefully. I’ll pick up something for our supper. How does Chinese sound?”

  “Sounds perfect.” He kissed her, then headed out the door.

  All the way to the parking garage, he thought about his clothes. He mentally reviewed the past months since he’d moved in, trying to verify that what he remembered was actually true. All his life, he’d kept his socks and underwear in the top right-hand drawer of any dresser he used. Jeans went on bottom left. T-shirts, middle left. In the closet, shirts were on the right, pants on the left. “So, how did things get screwed up?” He shook his head. This was new.

  Once he was on the road, he drove slowly through downtown Austin, mindful of the lights, but his mind was on what awaited him at Ace. This wasn’t going to be pretty. He wasn’t sure what the meeting was about, but he intended to give them fair warning that he was shopping around. About a block and a half from his destination, Judah spotted a guy standing on the very edge of the sidewalk, staring right at him. He was used to being noticed, but this wasn’t…normal. This man, a regular looking guy in a white T-shirt and jeans, was glaring at him. Even from that distance, the dude was following him with his eyes. There was no doubt he was there to make contact with Judah. As he came alongside him, Judah turned to meet his gaze and the look of hatred in the stranger’s eyes was shocking. “What the fuck, fella?” he muttered. Judah didn’t stop, he eased on by and turned into the parking garage.

  By the time he found his space, his mind was on something else. If there was a penalty from breaking his contract with Ace, he was willing to pay it. As he headed to the elevator, a movement out of the corner of his eye stopped him. Jerking his head around, Judah was surprised to see the same creep from out on the street. Thinking he was about to get mugged, he turned to lunge at him, but to his surprise, the image of the guy shimmered and faded from sight. He stopped in his tracks. “Fuck!” Was this like the hitchhiker or one of his damn hallucinations. What was going on? He’d taken his meds. Sure, it didn’t stop all the episodes, but he’d never had a day like today.

  Unnerved, he boarded the elevator and rode it to the floor where Ace kept offices for his and the band’s use. He hoped to run into Reese, but his manager was nowhere in sight. Checking the time, he saw that there was still a good half hour or more before the meeting would begin. Once he was in his office, he broke his own rules and poured himself a drink. Not much, just a couple of fingers of Scotch. Something to calm him before the confrontation he knew was coming.

  “Hey, James!”

  He whirled around and saw the angry looking jerk from before, standing inside an interior door that led to a rehearsal room. “Get out of here!”

  The man gave Judah an evil looking smile. “You know you want to hurt her. Do it.”

  “What?” Judah was stunned. “Who?”

  “Pepper. You need to get rid of her, she’s coming a little too close for comfort. Kill her.”

  “No!” Judah screamed.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Judah turned quickly to see Ivana in the hallway. “I heard you screaming your head off. Are you having a fit of some kind?”

  “No.” Judah shook his head. “Did you see a guy with a white T-shirt go by?”

  She shook her head. “No, I think we’re the only ones on this floor. The big guys haven’t come down from the executive floor and I haven’t seen anyone else.”

  Judah nodded. “All right. Thanks.” He turned around, wishing she’d go away.

  “You feeling okay, Judah? I saw you on television last night.” She laughed. “They made you look like a fool, didn’t they?”

  “What are you doing here? I would’ve thought you and your uncle would be out on your ear.”

  Ivana shrugged, giving him a playful sneer. “Who cares about the pay to play, it got my song out there and it sold. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  A welcome tap on the door interrupted their conversation. It was Reese. “Ready for the meeting?”

  “Yea, sure,” Judah said with relief. “Be right there, need to stop by the little boy’s room.”

  Ivana followed Reese down the hall and Judah stopped by the bathroom to wash his hands and face. When he looked into the mirror, his evil mirage was at the door. “You know Pepper’s not good for you, James, she’s got to go. Push her off Mount Bonnell where you proclaimed your love before. Wouldn’t that be poetic?”

  “God, no!” Judah was horrified. Was this him talking? Was all this hatred hiding in his own heart? With one mighty pull, he jerked the mirror off the wall and hurled it across the room.

  * * *

  “What the fuck happened?” Reese stared at the mess on the men’s bathroom floor. “Were you attacked by Isis or something?”

  Judah pushed by him. “Accident. Where’s Zion?”

  “They moved the meeting upstairs. Everyone’s waiting on you.”

  Judah took off for the staircase, expecting any moment to run into T-shirt guy again.

  “I’ll be up as soon as I find someone to clean up this mess!” Reese called after him.

  As Judah climbed the stairs, he was quaking. Shaking. He was doubting everything, most especially his sanity. “Fuck!” he yelled in the stairwell, the word echoing and bouncing off the concrete walls. Every step he made, he was looking over his shoulder. He’d never felt so vulnerable.

  When he found the meeting, the room was full of suits. Zion, Eddie, and Eric sat on one side and Mickey, Ivana, and three guys he only knew by sight sat on the other. Frankly, he was surprised to see Ivana there. Somehow, he didn’t feel good about this meeting. In a few moments Reese joined them and Judah was glad he’d briefed his manager on Desiree’s proposal, because there was no way in hell he could concentrate on business.

  He tried to focus, he really did. Judah listened as they hashed out the pay to play scandal, noting that Ace intended to pay the fine and play nice, at least for a while. “So, let’s be clear,” Reese interjected, “Shiloh’s records were not a
rtificially boosted.”

  “We’re not making any statements concerning what records were affected,” the head member of the legal team stated.

  “I want some type of acknowledgment that our sales were genuine,” Zion said and Judah agreed.

  “We refuse to single any artist out, pro or con,” they were told.

  When time came for contract negotiations, Reese threw out the news that Shiloh and Judah wanted out. “We’re not planning on renewing a contract, nor serving out the remaining couple of months. My clients want out. Now.”

  Judah saw Ivana’s eyes blaze. He wouldn’t say the woman was in love with him, she wasn’t. Obsessed, maybe. Yea, obsessed was a much more accurate term. He didn’t think the attraction had anything to do with him personally, he was fairly certain it was his success that merited her phobic preoccupation.

  “Not going to happen.” Mickey Thomas was the one to speak up now. He slapped another piece of paper in front of Judah. “We’ve got you by the short hairs, James. Don’t you remember signing this?”

  He and Reese both leaned in to look. “A five-album contract? I didn’t sign this.” Judah was emphatic in his denial. “No way, that would’ve been stupid.” He stared at the name. It looked like his signature. The document also appeared to be notarized.

  Mickey shrugged. “Well, it is your signature. You can’t deny that and…your memory can’t really be trusted, can it? Maybe you hallucinated not signing it.”

  Judah lunged across the table and Zion grabbed him. “Easy, man.”

  “Get me a lawyer, I’m not doing this. I want out,” he spoke to Reese through gritted teeth and stormed out of the room and out of the building. As he dashed through the garage, he heard T-shirt guy calling to him, “Hurt her, James. Hurt Pepper. Get rid of her. You know you want to. She has to die!”

  * * *

  Pepper tucked a dozen or more brochures into her bag. Her mind was spinning at the choices. She’d always known she could teach, but there were also openings for research in her field, and some intriguing positions in a publishing house. This idea really excited her. After meeting Avery, her cousin Isaac’s wife, and finding out she was a published author, Pepper had inundated her with questions about the process. Working as an editor or an agent, would be a way she could put her degree to use in a field she’d never considered. There were also some leads to a position with an advertising and marketing firm. “Maybe, I’m not so useless after all,” she mused under her breath.