1984: Against All Odds (Love in the 80s #5)

by Rebecca Yarros

  I shook my head. “No. Don’t.”

  She dropped to my level in front of me. “I’m just saying that I know they got into town last night. If you wanted to see him…”

  “It’s been too long. Too much time has passed, and I’ve seen the tabloid pictures. He’s not exactly pining.” Unless pining meant sleeping with anyone in a skirt. It had probably taken him all of five minutes after I’d left. In this one department, Mom had been right. Love the music, but never the man.

  No rock stars.

  Heather adjusted the oversized shirt so the neckline fell open over one shoulder and I made sure nothing was showing under my mini skirt.

  “Do you want your meds?” Heather asked quietly.

  I shook my head. “They make me feel disconnected, which is the last thing I need before going on camera.”

  “Okay, well, if you’re sure, then you’re ready,” she declared. “Let’s go knock ‘em dead.”

  We walked out of the dressing room and followed the intern we’d been assigned. “Miss Caroline, if you don’t mind, there’s a few fans that would love autographs.” She motioned to where a group of a dozen people stood, their eyes excited.

  My chest tightened. It’s only a dozen. You can do a dozen.

  Social Phobia, that’s what the doctor had told us, and he wasn’t the first.

  Bullshit, was Mom’s reply as usual. What kind of pop star has a fear of her own fans?

  There was a ton of bullshit about it. It was BS that I couldn’t enjoy all the amazing fans, BS that a crowded room sent my blood pressure through the roof, and BS that I felt like a whiny brat who couldn’t appreciate the life I was fighting to get back.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to sign a few autographs,” Lenore huffed as I debated the barricade of fans like she knew exactly when to pull the guilt train into the station.

  I waved and smiled.

  “Do you want to?” Heather asked.

  “It’s just a dozen fans, Sabrina,” Mom chided. “You’re going to get a reputation.”

  “Pretty sure that passing out in a group of them, and disappearing for a year already did that for me. Did you hear that I was pregnant by at least three different rockers?”

  “Only three?” Heather asked. “I heard you took on all of Van Halen.”

  “Wow, I didn’t realize I was good looking enough to snag them all,” I said with a grin to hide my nervousness.

  Heather saw through it. She always did. “Twelve today.”

  “Thirteen tomorrow,” I finished. Baby steps. This was just another one. I headed over to the fans and concentrated on them as individuals instead of a crowd. One at a time, I greeted them, hugged them, pushing aside my body’s need to pull away. They were all wonderful, handing me various things to sign, and for the first time in a year, I felt almost like myself.

  I felt victorious.

  “Thank you so much for coming out to see me,” I told them. “I truly appreciate the support, and I hate to leave you, but they need me on set.”

  Heather squeezed my hand as I rejoined them, and I breathed a little easier. I’d done it. Dr. Erickson was right. Seeing them as singular people, instead of an overwhelming crowd of strangers, was not only more manageable, but made me feel human.

  “Maybe more volume next time,” Lenore said, patting my perfectly teased mane. I resisted the urge to swat her hand away.

  “This is the sound stage,” the intern said with a shy smile. “Your manager and makeup artist can wait here.”

  My heart took off in a gallop. I was really going to do this, go on cable television and expose myself…or lie.

  It all came down to one question: What was more important—the truth or the music?

  “Let me touch you up one last time,” Heather said, no doubt seeing my mini freak-out. Her mouth tensed, but she took a tube of lipstick out of her bag. “Armor up,” she said, and then applied the bright pink color to my lips with an expert hand. Each second she lingered gave me a minute to pull my crap together.

  I was lucky. I was a pop idol. I was blessed beyond measure.

  I could do this. “Game on,” I said before turning to the intern.

  “Your mic okay?” Matt asked, leaning forward on the couch we shared and staring blatantly down my shirt. Not that the neckline offered much of a shield.

  As usual, I’d stayed quiet.

  “It’s fine,” I assured Matt, moving back just enough to let him subtly know that wasn’t going to happen.

  I had a firm policy. No dating reporters, media, anyone in the business…and absolutely no rock stars.

  Mom had ruined that idea a long time ago.

  “Good, then let’s get started,” he said, leaning back with an aesthetically beautiful grin that gave me the heebie-jeebies. Not that he wasn’t the best VJ on MTV, but the guy was a known creep.

  He cued the cameras and I sat a little straighter, mentally putting on the glittery mask that the world saw.

  “Sabrina, it’s great to have you here today,” he said with a grin.

  “Thanks for having me, Matt. This place is rad!” I said, mirroring his expression and ignoring the giant black camera that hovered over his shoulder. With the bright lights, he was all I could really see, anyway.

  “Thanks, we think so too. So, ‘Dance With You’ is sitting at our number two.” He raised his eyebrows in my direction like he’d actually asked a question.

  “Wow, that’s fantastic! It still blows me away that people connect with my music.” The songwriter’s music…but not for long.

  “They do. Now, I know it’s a delicate subject, but I was hoping that you’d be able to tell us what happened in Chicago last year.”

  Boom. There it was.

  I kept my smile plastered on my face. This was the moment. I could tell him, tell the whole world right now...

  Or I could keep my mouth shut, my deal—and the hope of singing my own music—intact, and make sure Mom kept her house. Option number two, it was.

  “Well, it had been a long tour, exhaustion set in, and with all that heat, I’m afraid to say I just passed right out.” Partly the truth.

  “And you broke your leg when you fell from the stage?” Matt supplied the lie, unknowing what he’d just done.

  “That’s what they say,” I laughed. “I honestly don’t remember anything about the fall. The recovery, though, I remember every step of that.” Whole truth.

  He nodded as if satisfied and moved on. I nearly sagged against the couch in sheer relief. “Now you’re America’s Sweetheart, there’s no doubt about it—”

  “Oh, I’m not sure for the whole country,” I joked, slightly distracted as a group of shadows crossed behind the camera crew in the dark.

  “—but we’re wondering if you’d share a little bit of your wild side.”

  I laughed, the sound fake to my ears, but convincing—given the way he smiled. “Wild? You know, I’m embarrassed to say that the craziest thing I do lately is grab a good book between rehearsals.”

  “Really?” he said. “So there’s no truth to that on-screen video romance with Ethan Arnast?”

  The guy from the ‘Dance With Me’ video? Hell. No. I forced another chuckle. “Sorry to say no. Ethan’s just a good friend.” Who likes boys. Was that who they were tying the she-passed-out-so-she-must-be-pregnant rumor to now?

  “Okay then, what’s the wildest thing you want to do?” He leaned forward, relaxing his side against the couch as he faced me, bringing his body closer to mine. I understood the visual tactic—to make our conversation appear more intimate—but I didn’t appreciate the look in his eyes that said he’d be happy to make it more than just for show. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve thought of?”

  Hitting my record label with an ultimatum.

  And now was my chance.

  “Well, actually, I’m glad you asked.”

  “Maybe dating a real rock star?” the loud comment came from the figures emerging from the darkness right onto our soundstage.
“Or is that still on your no-no list, Sabrina?”

  Shit.

  Chad “the Raven” Collins walked up, his pants such a shiny leather that I was shocked they didn’t squeak as he moved. I hadn’t seen him since the month after we graduated high school, but he wasn’t my main concern. My heart launched into a panicked rhythm because I knew where Chad went…

  I swallowed as he stepped into the light. Hawthorne follows.

  He was here. In the same room, breathing the same air, within touching distance. And the first time I see him after nearly four years is recorded for posterity on MTV. What dumb stupid luck.

  I did my best to steel my reaction, but it was nearly impossible with him walking toward me.

  Hawke brushed his darker-than-sin hair out of his crystal green eyes and made his way onto the set with the rest of the Birds of Prey. His pants were acid-washed and ripped in places down his legs, and his leather jacket was open over his bare, insanely ripped chest and stomach. He practically oozed sex appeal and recklessness, everything the lead guitarist of a band like Birds of Prey should be.

  He wasn’t the boy I’d loved in high school, the one who’d dedicated himself to me, shoved notes through the slats of my locker, or taped roses to the cool metal surface. No, that boy had worn his love like the tattoo that colored one side of this man’s chest. The man he’d become—according to the gossip rags—dedicated himself to a different woman every night. Unlike my appearances in the rags, the rumors that swirled around him were true and backed up with pictures.

  He’d become everything I’d preemptively left him because of.

  I ripped my eyes away from Hawke and focused on Matt, willing my heart to calm, my brain to stop the flashbacks of our greatest moments, my soul to stop screaming for him before everyone else heard what my body couldn’t contain. Three years had changed everything about us except my reaction to him.

  “Whoa, to what do we owe this honor?” Matt asked as Chad sat in between us, forcing Matt to scoot to his end of the large couch while the other members of the band lounged around us.

  Hawke leaned on the back of the couch just behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I didn’t need to—he still smelled the same, like salt water, ocean breeze and something a little darker that was unique to him. God, I’d missed that scent.

  “We were already in the building, heard you had Sabrina here and decided to pop in,” Chad answered with an easy smile.

  “It’s good to see you,” I said, and meant it.

  “So you guys know each other?” Matt asked, leaning forward to look past Chad.

  “We went to high school together,” I answered. “It totally feels like forever ago.”

  “Really?” Matt questioned.

  “Really,” Chad answered. “Duncan School for the Performing Arts, class of nineteen eighty.”

  “That’s fascinating. So do you guys know a wilder side of Sabrina?”

  “We may have seen some,” Chad said with a smirk. “But Hawke probably saw more.”

  Oh, God. Kill me now. Right now.

  A deep scoff rumbled behind me, and I wanted the Earth to swallow me whole. One mention that Hawke and I had dated—even while we were teenagers—and my carefully cultivated good girl image was tanked.

  “Hawke?” Matt asked.

  “Nawh. Sabrina was the sweetest little thing back then.”

  Even as sarcastic as his tone had been, his voice ripped through me like nothing else could, cutting back the carefully constructed layers I’d built to protect myself, the entire façade that made up Sabrina Caroline and left me feeling exposed, naked…on MTV.

  “Sounds like you guys know each other pretty well,” Matt continued.

  Pretty well? I knew his body better than my own, the feel of his arms around me, the way his fingers spanned the frets of his guitar, or how he held a pencil between his teeth while he was writing. I knew how his kiss tasted, the way he smelled like the beach after it rained, and who he was in the very marrow of his bones. It was only Hawke’s exterior that I barely recognized anymore.

  “We were all pretty good friends,” I answered, looking at the boys I’d known who had transformed into men in the three years since we’d graduated.

  “So you get along? The pop star and the rockers?” Matt asked.

  “Definitely,” Chad answered, covering my hand that rested on my ruffled white, lace skirt.

  “Ever thought about a collaboration?”

  “No,” I said.

  “But that sounds like an awesome idea,” Chad finished.

  I raised an eyebrow at him and he just grinned right back at me, those brown eyes dancing in enjoyment of literally getting me into the hot seat. “That’s just a really complicated thing to manage—”

  “But we’re on the same label, so who knows, that could be a little mind-trip, right?”

  No. Spending the amount of time it would take to record a song with them would mean being in close quarters with Hawke for longer than either of us would be comfortable with. After all, he hadn’t even looked at me, merely spoken about me, not to me.

  “It would definitely be a first,” I admitted.

  “Well, we’re all about popping those cherries,” Chad said with a grin that said, as you should know. “I think we should give it a go.”

  “That would definitely be something MTV would love to see,” Matt admitted, “especially since you’re both on our first ever top twenty countdown.”

  “Well, we’ll make it happen.” Chad kissed my cheek. “Good to see you, Brie,” he whispered so only I could hear him. “We’ll be in touch,” he said louder, then stood and walked off the soundstage with the other Birds of Prey.

  Hawthorne was the last to leave, but never once looked back.

  I hadn’t done the same when I’d left him.

  There was no amount of deep breathing that could have steadied my heart or my nerves, but I sucked in a lungful of air anyways.

  “How cool was that?” Matt asked with a megawatt grin.

  “Unbelievable,” I answered. How could that have just happened?

  “Well, is there anything you’d like to tell your fans?”

  This was it, where I was supposed to announce the tour that I knew I wasn’t ready for to perform the music I hated. I looked toward the camera, but all I could see was Hawke at eighteen, hunched over his guitar as we wrote song after song.

  I had loved every word, soaked in every emotion that had surrounded us, wrapped in moving melodies and meaningful lyrics.

  I wanted my music back.

  “I’m just so grateful for the love and support you’ve all given me over this last year, and I can’t wait to get back into the studio to finish up this album.” I blew a kiss to the camera and the interview ended.

  Matt stood and cut the cameras with a motion of his hand. “That was amazing, something we couldn’t have planned better. Sabrina, thank you for coming in. We have exactly what we need.”

  It was a toss up on who was going to kill me first—my label…or my mother.

  “No.” My answer was instant. There was no way in hell. “It was a joke. Matt Goodwin was joking.”

  “Well, we’re not. You haven’t even listened to the terms of this offer, Sabrina,” Brad Scott said patiently, passing a folder across the wide conference table toward Lenore.

  “I don’t have to. My answer is no,” I reiterated, and turned my attention to the view the floor to ceiling glass windows gave of the L.A. skyline.

  “It’s just the one song?” Lenore asked, looking over the papers.

  My head snapped toward her. “With Birds of Prey. Did you miss that?”

  “No, that’s quite clear,” she answered, and began drumming her fingers on the table. “Brad, maybe you could give us a minute?”

  “Sure thing, Lenore. I’ll just see what the guys have to say.”

  My stomach dropped. “They’re here?”

  “We thought it would be best to get you all here at the same time, in case
we needed to negotiate some points.” Brad stood from the table, buttoning the top of his suit coat. “Take a few minutes, and I’ll see how the other room is doing.”

  He was here. In the same building. I’d gone almost four years without seeing him and now it would be twice in two weeks.

  The door shut behind Brad and I sagged in the chair, my head rolling against the back. “Mom, I don’t want to do this.”

  “Lenore,” she corrected automatically as she flipped another page. “The money is good. Terms are great. It’s just one song, and there are some possibilities here for cross promotion. I bet we could even see if any tour dates match up…”

  So Hawke could see me lose it before going on stage? Watch as I stumbled through the calming exercises, and then failed to even get out there? No, thank you. “I can’t do it.”

  She looked over her reading glasses at me. “You will do it. You are on thin ice with the record company after last year, not to mention that crap you just pulled at the MTV interview. This is the least you can do to repair what you’ve strained. Now, it should only be a few days of recording, and maybe a couple performances.” She paused, but I didn’t speak. Her sigh was loud enough for the both of us. “I only have your best interest at heart here, Sabrina.”

  “I know.”

  “Is it because of Hawke?” she asked.

  His name twisted the knife in my heart that had been stuck there since he waltzed on and off that soundstage in New York. Hell, since we graduated, if I was being honest. Since he morphed into a rock star overnight and became the one thing I despised. “It’s just hard.”

  She squeezed my hand. “It is. But you were right to shut that door. He’s not the kind of man you need. You need someone supportive, who knows how to put your career first, and rock stars like him…well, they can’t see past their dicks.”

  “Mom!”

  She shrugged. “It’s the truth. You’re not a child anymore. You need to see this for what it is, a business arrangement. Do your part and get out without letting that boy break your heart again. Do you think you’re mature enough for that?”

  I bit my tongue at her condescending tone and the challenge she’d thrown at my feet because she knew I’d respond.