The Rockstar and the Pussycat (Dark Fire Book 1)

by Ivy M. Jones

  "Funny story," I chuckled. "He burned his hair to bring me around when I passed out once." I let my laughter drop off abruptly and gave her a look that said I knew she'd gotten us off topic. "But you didn't answer my question. Why would he worry about you staring at him?"

  Nicki pulled her lower lip into her mouth. And not a little. Like, nearly her whole lower lip. Then she proceeded to suck on it like it was flavored with answers.

  The lightbulb lit up over my head. "Oh. My. God," I finally managed. "Does Justin know?" I stopped her before she could answer. "Of course not. Griffin's still alive." I pushed my palms down on the table top. "That's why no staring, right? He's afraid Justin will figure it out?"

  She nodded, wincing, while staring up at the ceiling tiles.

  "When?" I choked out.

  "Uhh..." Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "Night after the show at The Tap."

  I let out a hard breath.

  "And then for most of the week," she continued.

  I felt my jaw hit the table.

  "And last night. We’re kind of… Uh, together now?"

  I blinked. Hard. And refocused on Nicki. "Well..." Her face fell. "Congrats, I guess."

  The smile that lit up her face probably could have been used as a spot light for the stage.

  "Thanks," she demurred, tucking a strand of chestnut brown hair behind her ear. Her brown eyes sparkled in a way I recognized. Justin got the same glimmer sometimes when he looked at me.

  Oh, god. I was torn between Team Vagina and the inevitability that Justin would know – Just fucking know – that I was hiding something from him.

  "What should I tell Justin when he asks?" I rubbed the bridge of my noise.

  "You don't have to tell him anything," Nicki said, her eyes huge.

  "He'll know I'm hiding something from him, Nicki. He managed to pry that whole thing about Tyler from me. He put me in front of the firing squad – Georgie and Ed – and kept pulling the trigger until I spilled everything. I'm telling you - he will know."

  Nicki sucked on her lower lip again, forgetting that she wasn't supposed to stare at Griffin who was onstage finishing the sound check with the others. I saw her scrunch up her face, then let it all relax. For a second, I thought she might cry. And then, nothing on her face but resolve.

  "You can tell him – if he asks, you understand – that he should talk to me."

  I shrugged then. "Fine then. Done. Now, tell me everything," I smiled, leaning forward.

  Nicki obliged, but her story started back before I had met either of them and she could only talk until the show started and the noise made conversation impossible. I made a note not to ask her for more details when we were at a show. It never seemed conducive to conversation.

  For an "early show", it took forever to get out of there. And for a pregnant woman getting over morning sickness, it took an eternity.

  Don't get me wrong, I loved watching Justin and the guys on stage. The energy. The intensity. The amazing visual feast. My fiancé made music that sent tremors through the crowd. A crowd that hadn't expected to get such a treat.

  But, oh my god, I was starving by the end.

  Not that I minded horribly. It had been a really entertaining show. The women in the crowd cat-called and screamed, and at one point, someone tossed panties onto the stage. They landed on the edge of Zach's keyboard, one loop of elastic slung over the X of the frame, the bright red thong hanging there while the music went on.

  After the guys finished the song they'd been on, True To Me, Zach unwrapped the panties from their hook. With a chuckle, he took a good look, held them up to his waist, then shook his head as if to conclude that they wouldn't fit. The crowd chuckled back and Zach tossed the panties to Griffin with a raised brow.

  Griffin played up his part, bringing the panties to nose, taking what looked like a long whiff, then pocketing them. He nodded at Zach with a smirk, then seemed to scan the audience, looking for the panties' owner.

  There was screaming. Someone started hopping up and down near the middle of the packed crowd, and next to me, I saw Nicki clench her fists so tight, the skin at her knuckles flashed white in the darkened room.

  "You know he's just playing it up, Nicki. Calm down." I put my hand on top of hers, rubbing lightly to get her to relax.

  Half a dozen songs later, after autographs and handshakes, the guys were ready to call it a night. Cy had even started coiling cords with one of the roadies. I was passing the women's room when I heard Nicki quietly whispering something at Griffin. There was a hissed response, and then silence...

  Or not, I realized as I turned the corner. Griffin had Nicki backed up against a wall and they were going after each other's mouths like the answer to world peace was somewhere down the other's throat.

  Oh god- I prayed Justin and I didn't look like that when we got too crazy. As far as I could remember, we hadn't made out in public... Except for that time in the baby store while we'd been looking at belly-support pillows. And that time while I'd still been working, we had ducked into the bathroom together on my lunch break. And the day before yesterday while we were waiting in the parking lot...

  Well, shit.

  I looked up to see Justin coming around the corner.

  "Justin incoming!" I whispered at them. As discretely and quickly as I could, I grabbed Justin's arm and swung him around so that we were heading toward the back door.

  "What's up, pussycat?" he asked, wrapping his arm around my waist.

  "You need to feed me," I whimpered. "I'm about ready to collapse!"

  We'd made it through the door and I saw the flash of the camera before our feet even hit the black of the pavement. Immediately, security was there, standing between the paparazzi and us, none-too-gently pushing the asshole away.

  With horror, I looked down to gauge how horrible the picture would look. It was as bad as I thought. My shoes were my oldest, most comfortable pair of Sketchers, my shirt was wrinkled from sitting for so long. And the worst part? I'd been telling Justin how hungry I was and my hand was resting dramatically on my belly.

  Our picture from the baby store might have been sold as a fluke.

  Now there was second picture. A story.

  We were so fucked.

  Justin

  We didn't get up until almost noon, but I didn't let Andy out of the apartment all day. I refused to open my laptop or run down to the street to check the newsstands. I didn't know how bad the pictures were, but this way we didn't have to read the probably horrible stories the rags were spinning to accompany the pic. Instead, I called Juliana and told her to be on the lookout. I made the call on speakerphone while pussycat was in the room so she could hear the whole conversation.

  "It's called publicity, Juliana. You can spin it." I watched pussycat shake her head in disbelief.

  "You have to knock this shit off, Justin. Or, let me send out a statement about you two. We don't have to wait until her dad gets his official back-off-notice."

  I could feel the tension radiating from Juliana's end of the line. William Martin's office handled pretty much everything for us. Will was our agent, but the rest of the office was filled with managers, publicists and event coordinators. And while Cy had the ultimate say in the management aspect of the band, and could help, it couldn't be easy for Juliana to deal with the story the rags would probably run without any outside help. And now, here I was, normally a pretty laid back guy, about to be a real asshole.

  "Not going to work with my plans, Juliana. Sorry. Make do with what you have, alright? We should have our answer from Mr. James by Sunday, I'm hoping. After that, run with it. But until then, just put out the fires." I wrapped my arm around Andy's shoulders and pulled her close.

  I couldn't say it to Juliana, since pussycat was right there, but I had plans. After tonight, Juliana could FedEx our care package to Lawrence James with my blessing. After tonight, I hoped to have a date set that we could put on the wedding invitation. But I wasn't about to spoil the sur
prise for Andy.

  Hell. No.

  It had taken a lot of coordination to get the surprise together. I wasn't about to let some dickhead with a camera flush all that work down the toilet.

  The show that night was at Ferdinand's. The place was nice. Pretty low-key, to be honest, but Ferdy had given us a chance back in the beginning, so we owed him big time. He and his husband, Carlos, had been so freakin' supportive, we knew we'd have fans for life whether we made it big-time or not. They had been one of the first clubs I had Will call when we decided to do the I Heart NYC thing.

  Ferdy and Carlos were exactly the opposite of flamboyant, which surprisingly, took more getting used to than if they had been. They shook our hands as we came in and I watched Andy smile at them both, shake both their hands, and asked, "It says Ferdinand's over the door. Are you partners?"

  With a smile, Carlos nodded, then nudged Ferdy over the inside joke.

  Pussycat seemed confused over the odd reaction to her question and in the end I had to take her aside right before the show and explain. We stood in the small band prep room backstage while I explained that Ferdy and Carlos were married according to the country of Canada.

  "Oh. Well. Okay." She shrugged.

  "It doesn't bother you?"

  "No. Should it? I mean, they didn't, like, grab each other's packages or make horrible hetero jokes or anything." She began to walk back to the table she and Nicki and Juliana had scoped out.

  I stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Pussycat, you're amazing. You know that?" I pulled her in and kissed her until I heard my name being yelled into my ear.

  I pulled back to find Cy leaning over my shoulder, ready to deafen me again. Then I saw that my hand had tunneled under pussycat's shirt to stroke against her ribs. Her fingers were grabbing my ass. And there definitely not enough space between us for Jesus, as my mother would point out.

  "Sorry," I whispered to her.

  "Later," she whispered back before walking calmly through the door and out to her table.

  I had to wait a minute or so before I could go onstage, and of course, the guys gave me shit the whole time.

  "Glad you're marrying the poor girl. Hopefully after a two-week honeymoon, you two will be able to stand in the same room together and not climb down each other's throats." This from Griffin.

  I faked a right at his other eye and let him duck out of the way with a laugh.

  "You're not trying to convince us still, right? We know you guys are crazy in love. You don't need to sell it anymore." I saw the look on Zach's face as he spoke. He seemed tired and despondent. I felt bad, but what was I gonna say? Sorry man... I'll stop being so goddamn happy until you work things out with your girl, just seemed stupid.

  I didn't have much of a chance to talk at all, as it turned out. The shit continued until we were on stage and then, the magic happened.

  We all had a "zone". When we all found it, we made magic. When it happened onstage, live? My god. It was like nirvana- the blissful perfection that came from everyone hitting the ideal in the same moment.

  More and more, I'd been finding my zone out in the audience. She tended to sit, leaning slightly forward in her seat as if to absorb each note and word. Her long white-blonde hair was sometimes up, sometimes down, but I could always single her out in the crowd just by finding that bright glowing halo. Then her eyes would find mine and that was it.

  I sang to the crowd, but my eyes would always come back to hers. I spilled my heart's blood, shared my soul, and listened to the crowd singing back. But no matter what, I knew that my heart and soul would forever belong to the cat-eyed woman with her tantalizing smile and thrilling promises, sitting at a table over to one side of the stage.

  Throughout the night, her eyes found mine as many times as mine found hers. I smiled at certain lines, letting her know that I was thinking of her. And at the end of the night, when my body was tired but adrenaline had me pumped enough to fly, I nearly pushed fans down in order to get to her.

  Cy seemed to sense that I was on the edge and called the autograph portion to an early end.

  "Thanks, man. I feel about ready to bust out of my skin." He might have said something in response, but I missed it. I was already on my way over to the roadies to check if they needed anything else.

  Zach had opened his house for a party. So once the cars were packed and the gear all accounted for, we caravanned over to the mini-mansion he called home.

  It was a unique house, filled with quirky personalized details that were very obviously not Zach's but the previous owners, and quirky personal details that very clearly were Zach's. The things that weren't included the obviously French-inspired crown-molding in the kitchen with engraved, gold-plated fleur-de-lis; the fully-enclosed, full-sized pool in the back; and the French Renaissance fresco-style murals along any long stretch of wall. Zach was obviously not French, and he didn't really like to swim.

  His own touches included the music studio he'd had created from two bedrooms, the theater he had built in where a small ballroom had been, and the always stocked pantries, cabinets and fridge. Not that it showed on his frame, but the guy never liked worrying about his next meal. Since we’d all learned a little more about his past, I could make a few educated guesses about why.

  As he’d been informed at the closing, the house used to belong to a French ex-pat who married an American model. They lived in New York City but wanted an escape to the country from time to time. When the market crashed and they'd over-extended, they culled the mini-mansion, a couple of boats and a couple of collectible cars- one of which, Zach negotiated into the sale of the house. A Lamborghini Diablo SVR, which he barely ever touched, sat in the same garage it had during the reign of the former owners.

  Craziest of all, after buying the mini-mansion, sinking money into his own personal renovations, and stocking the house to the rafters with food, the guy hardly ever stayed there. Most of the time, he lived in Cy's guest room in the City.

  I wasn't gonna judge him. We all had our own eccentricities. Griffin had a thing with supporting animal shelters. Cy, good-looking as he was, never spent the night with a groupie. And me? I was marrying a chick who was pregnant with my cousin's kid. Granted, I was crazy about her, but from the guys' perspectives, it had to seem just plain weird.

  It was an uncharacteristic move, Zach bringing us all over for a party, but I'd begged. And Andy didn't know any different.

  It was probably after midnight and Nicki, Cy, Andy, and I were all sitting around watching while Griffin and Zach each tried to "shoot that asshole camper" in some first person shooter. Andy was dozing slightly, her head against my shoulder. I needed her conscious and was quickly losing time.

  With a wicked smile, I clicked the TV screen off with the remote. The loud booing and aspersions to my manhood and questioning of my parentage were enough to wake Andy from her dozing beside me. Then I pulled out the box I'd stashed behind the couch and went down on one knee in front of Andy.

  "Oh, shit man. Was that tonight?" Griffin said, then slapped his hand over his mouth.

  "Was what tonight?" she asked, glancing at Griff, then back to where I knelt in front of her. "What's going on?"

  "Pussycat, I'm crazy about you. And I know I didn't do any of this the normal way. But you... I knew the minute I saw you that I was crazy about you. I hated having to tell you about Tyler because I knew it would hurt you, and I never ever wanted to hurt you."

  Andy sat up straighter and tried to fix her hair, confused in her lethargy. "Okay," she said, the word coming out slowly. "I'm crazy about you, too, Justin."

  "Yeah, I know," I smirked. That earned me a smack to the shoulder. "But even though we didn't have a normal courtship, I still want to spend the rest of my life with you and our baby. So if I get nothing else right, let me do this..."

  I pulled the box from the floor and presented it to her. It was way too big to be a ring box, but she still looked ready to cry. That didn't mean much, I figured. She'd been crying
a lot from the pregnancy hormones lately.

  "Rockstar?" she whimpered.

  "Open it, pussycat."

  She did. Inside was a tiny baby romper with the Dark Fire logo on the front and my last name on the back like a team jersey. Under that was another shirt, this time a men's small, identical to the baby romper. When she held it up, I pulled off the button-down shirt I'd been wearing, revealing my own version. Moreland was written on my back as well.

  When Andy started crying, rubbing the two shirts in her hands, I realized I was about to lose her to tears. "Hold on," I begged. "One more, okay?"

  This time I pulled out the tiny box my mom had found for me. I opened it, tilting it toward her.

  "Andrea James, will you marry me?"

  She was sobbing too hard to answer me with anything other than a nod, but she nodded so hard and with so much force, she looked like a bobble-head, and I worried she might hurt herself. To save her, of course, I pulled her into my arms.

  "How's next Friday?" I asked, kissing her face wherever I could reach.

  She continued to nod until our lips met. A minute later, I heard cheering and realized it was our audience.

  While Andy got passed around and congratulated, I texted Juliana.

  Wedding set for next Friday.

  Send care package.

  In six days, Andy's nightmare with her father would be over. I couldn't wait.

  Andy

  I insisted on changing into the shirt Justin had given me. Mine was damp from my tears anyway.

  Zach showed me into one of the guest rooms to change and the moment the door latched, I pulled off my hoodie and tossed it to the floor. I stripped down to my bra, then carefully pulled on my new shirt, running my hands down the front.

  It was a one-of-a-kind print. Usually, the shirts the guys printed were for a specific tour or had pictures of their latest album cover silkscreened on. This was none of those. Just the Dark Fire logo surrounded by a heart, and Justin's name on the back.

  We hadn't talked about me changing my last name but I realized in that second that I wanted to, more than anything. I didn't want the connection to my parents anymore. Tyler Junior might never meet his grandparents, but I was just fine with that. In fact, the idea of my father's brand of two-faced maliciousness ever reaching my kid made me feel ill.