by Riley Scott
“On the topic of love, what are your views on finding love on the road?”
The questions were coming at rapid pace now, as if he was aiming for something other than just another fluff piece.
“I believe that love happens when it does,” Raven said, her voice taking on a nostalgic softness. “Love is beautiful. It’s the most powerful, most frustrating force on the planet. But you either find it or you don’t. You keep it or you don’t. There are a lot of factors outside our control, so I think chasing love will always be futile. I believe in the power of love, but I also believe in the freedom of having fun, living life and chasing dreams.”
Chris hung on every word, wanting to understand as badly as the reporter did. Despite the past six weeks, she had little idea of how Raven viewed love—or if she considered the concept at all in the same way as Chris did. All Chris knew was that Raven had experienced love and heartache before. And that they “meshed.” Raven had admitted as much too, but what it meant to Raven was still a mystery.
“Anything you’d like to add?” Geoff asked.
“Depending on when you go to print, I’d like to invite everyone to come out tonight to the tribute to Jonathan Liss. He is a good friend of mine, an incredible bassist and a legend in the music world. He deserves every bit of honor coming his way at tonight’s show, and I’m fortunate to have had the chance to fly back here with Chris and the band for the show. I’m proud to be a part of it. Other than that, I’ll be back in Los Angeles in a week to continue my southwest tour. And I’ll do my best to keep LA interesting.”
As she finished with the pleasantries and the interview came to a close, Chris knew that this was going to be a solid article, positive press that Raven really needed to get the ball rolling on her new image. She mentally patted herself on the back, but she knew that the credit really did have to go to Raven.
As they left the reporter, Chris placed her hand on Raven’s shoulder. “Good work,” she said.
“Yeah?” Raven asked, raising an eyebrow as she grinned. “Did you like that?”
Chris bit her lip, knowing where that teasing grin led. “Not here,” she said, pointing her finger at Raven. “Also, thanks for the shout-out. I’m glad I make your days better.”
“You’re welcome,” Raven said, letting her eyes trail down to the opening of Chris’s blouse. “And you certainly do. I probably shouldn’t have said the ‘fuck’ word, but I don’t care. He won’t print it. If he does, he will use those goofy little stars.”
“I like when you say the ‘fuck’ word,” Chris said with a smirk, watching Raven’s eyes once again settle on her breasts.
“I said not here,” Chris said with a laugh, putting her hand up to cover her cleavage.
“How about here?” Raven asked as the doors to the elevator closed. Pressing Chris up against the wall, she kissed her passionately. When the elevator dinged open, they pulled apart and made space between them before walking out into the lobby of the hotel. “It’s not my fault that I can’t keep my hands off you, you know?” Raven whispered as they walked. “If you weren’t so sexy, it would be easier.”
Chris laughed and shook her head. “I think it’s all you. After all, you’re THE goddess, remember?”
They laughed in playful banter and made their way back to the waiting car. “And back to normal,” Raven commented as she opened the door for Chris.
Normal. Chris let the word play again and again in her head, as if on repeat. There was little semblance in her life of anything she had once considered normal. She was sleeping with a rock star, touring the nation on a bus and pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary. Normal did not exist.
The driver took them back to the hotel. The coast-to-coast flight had been last minute, and Chris was still unsure how she felt about the whole situation. They were both exhausted. But it didn’t really matter. If nothing else, Raven was teaching her to live in the moment and to enjoy every possible aspect of it while it lasted.
Chris retired to her room. She needed a nap and to unwind a bit after all the stress of the interview. Raven proved today that Chris had nothing to worry about. It was highly unlikely that a journalist would get inappropriate information out of her. Not even her band mates seemed to be able to get anything much out of her, even if their efforts came in the form of good-natured ribbing. Raven was coy at all costs, never giving more than she was required to—and sometimes even less.
Anytime one of the guys gave her a hard time about hooking up with the “PR lady,” as they liked to call her when they thought she wasn’t listening, she never confirmed or denied the allegations. No one—especially not a reporter—would get her to budge on her private life.
She could hear the chatter and laughter of the band in the room next door. She chuckled silently to herself, noting that these sounds—things that would have seemed so foreign just weeks ago—merely served as a sort of white noise lulling her to sleep.
A knock on her door shook her awake. Glancing at her clock, she realized she had been out for well over two hours. “Come in,” she mumbled, not wanting to move. Accustomed to life on the bus, she waited for the only person who would actually venture into her room to open the door.
“I can’t. I don’t have a key” she heard Raven call from behind the closed door.
Blinking, she remembered the change in location and reluctantly rose from her hotel bed to open the door.
“Hey there,” Raven said when she threw open the door. The sound rolled over her skin like soothing balm. “Mind if I join you?”
“Are you all done playing with the boys?” Chris asked sleepily.
“I am,” she said, a sultry smile toying with the corners of her lips. “And now I’d like to play with you, if that’s okay.”
“Mmmhmm,” Chris said, returning to the bed and wiggling slightly to invite Raven to join her. Raven climbed into bed behind her, wrapping her arms around Chris and looping her long legs around her body. “Just like that,” Chris urged, leaning back into the embrace to receive a soft kiss to her neck.
Behind her, Raven let out a yawn and Chris nodded her head. “Let’s just nap,” she said, settling into the comfort of their position.
“Yeah,” Raven agreed, her voice barely a whisper.
“Before you fall asleep, I have a question,” Chris asked, feeling Raven’s body stiffen behind her. She wanted to laugh at the response. It wasn’t like she was going to ask the woman to marry her. Brushing her amusement aside, she continued. “Does the reporter guy really get the first, exclusive listen to your new song?”
Raven’s body relaxed and she let out the breath she had clearly been holding. “No,” she said, kissing Chris on the back of the head. “I’ll play it for you tonight, after the show, after I fuck you.”
The words alone were enough to make Chris’s entire body tingle, but she resisted the urge to give into desire right now, when Raven needed to rest. You care, the words played through her head. Pushing them to the back of her mind, she closed her eyes, willing her growing feelings to stop. Live in the moment, she reminded herself, stopping any more thoughts about what any of this meant.
Behind her, Raven’s breathing deepened as she drifted off to sleep. Try as she might, Chris couldn’t do the same. She lay there, wrapped up in the embrace, wishing she could have stopped this before it started. But she also knew that, given the chance to rewrite the past month and a half, she wouldn’t have done a single thing differently.
It had been a blur of making out, different cities, going to the shows, partying, fucking, cuddling and flirting. It had been fun and it had been a whirlwind of not thinking about consequences. Sure, it popped up in her mind from time to time, but she had been so tired, so busy and so out of her element, that she had been able to put them on the back burner. Here though, in this moment, things were different.
She had professional concerns. This was a breach in any office protocol and wasn’t something to be taken lightly. If this ever got out, she w
ould be in trouble. She thought back to Susan. Chris had rushed her off the phone the past few times they had talked, afraid to let anything suspicious show in her voice. She was in a mess.
On top of that, she had to consider matters of the heart. It was becoming apparent that, as much as they both fought it, this was more than just a hookup along the way, even though there was little to no possibility that anything real could ever happen between the two of them. Life with Raven wasn’t reality. It couldn’t be. Chris wanted to settle down. She wanted to start a family one day. She longed for stability, whereas Raven was happy flitting around from town to town, doing whatever felt right in the moment. There was no future in all this.
Future. Home. She played the words over in her mind. There was a place where she could have both. She thought back to the way Brittany’s arms had felt around her, the softness with which she yielded all of her being. There were no emotional walls. There was unconditional love and the possibility of a future. Whether she wanted that future or not was still up in the air, but it remained a steadier foundation.
She watched Raven sleep, wishing the tables could have been turned. She knew the depth of feeling she was developing for the singer. There was no second-guessing how her heart was connecting to Raven, just as it had with Brittany. Brittany wanted her—plain and simple. If Raven proved even half as steady as the love she knew she could have with Brittany, she would have jumped headfirst. It was dangerous though, and she knew it. Her thoughts swirled as she contemplated the heartbreak ahead and the future she could have if she stopped this in its tracks and went back home.
She cared about both women and was attracted to both of them, but this seemed deeper. Tears of confusion pooled in her eyes, but she willed them away. For over an hour as Raven slept peacefully, she lay still, waging war with herself, her feelings and her logic. Finally, when Raven stirred behind her, Chris seized the opportunity to take her mind off her dilemma.
Sliding down to the bottom of the bed, she slid her fingers below the waistband of Raven’s jeans, unbuttoning them. She gained a sleepy smile from Raven, who said nothing, but nodded and tilted her hips up, an open invitation for Chris to proceed as she pleased.
Chris removed Raven’s pants and slowly, gently feasted on her body. She traced her tongue along the inside of Raven’s thighs, before finally setting in on the prize. Licking and sucking like she had no cares, subsumed in all that Raven had to offer. If this was it, she would take it gladly. When Raven’s body exploded in a powerful orgasm, Chris lingered for a moment before coming back up to kiss Raven gently.
“That was my way of wishing you good luck this evening,” she said between kisses.
“Best send-off possible,” Raven said, laying her head back on the pillow, and glowing with plain ecstasy. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Chris said coyly.
“Not yet,” Raven said, smiling. “But it will be after the show. My goal for the night is to have you screaming and losing control, so loudly that you don’t care if anyone else in this hotel hears. I want you that lost in how good it feels to let go and have fun.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Chris said. As Raven dressed, Chris watched, glued to the scene playing out before her. Raven’s long legs stretched one at a time to wiggle back into her tight, skinny jeans and she walked over, towering over Chris. She lay helpless to do anything but drink in Raven’s curves. Reaching down still topless, Raven trailed her finger across Chris’s face, before leaning down to give her a long, lingering kiss.
“See you out there,” she said, standing back up and putting on her shirt, still holding her bra in her hand. “I’ll put it back on before I hit the stage,” she said with a wink as Chris looked longingly at the material clinging tightly to her still-hard nipples.
“Go kick ass,” Chris said, smiling as she laid her head against the pillow.
“I’m off to my nightly makeover,” she said, heading for the door. “I’ll sing something sexy for you tonight. We’ll think of it as foreplay.”
Although she was no less confused, she was certainly turned on. She waved as Raven exited the doorway, her feelings a mix of anticipation and fear of what would become of her heart, not to mention her career.
* * *
Paul watched from the hallway as Raven stepped from Chris’s room, her eyes hazed in pleasure. He sighed and walked out of the hotel. He needed some fresh air. He needed to clear his mind and hopefully shake off some of his overly protective big brother ways.
Lighting a cigarette, he walked along the sidewalk. Looking at his reflection in the puddle across the parking lot, he figured he didn’t have much room to judge her behavior, but he was definitely worried. Yet his tall, lanky frame seemed to mock, reminding him that he was just a scruffy drummer with little else to offer. He owed it all to Raven for bringing him along for the ride. Had she not been so loyal, chances are he’d still be playing in smoke-shrouded basements in between his shifts at the factory. That would have been his fate had she not insisted he be a part of her fame. If it hadn’t been for her, he would still be back in Detroit, living paycheck to paycheck, breaking his back all day at work and spending evenings lounging on a couch with a bunch of other kids who refused to grow up, waiting on his ‘big break.’
He reflected on his friends and family members back home—each of them too stubborn to take his financial help but struggling under the burden of everyday life in the lower class. That could be me, he thought. Even so, he felt protective and knew what had to be done. When he saw Frank approaching in the distance, he took a deep breath. It was now or never.
“Hey man,” Frank called out, waving as he walked closer.
“Hey Frank,” Paul said, reaching out to accept the fist bump. He had learned long ago not to question the fist bump. Frank was a genius, a little weird at times, but a genius in the business nonetheless. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Frank glanced at his watch, then toward the hotel entrance. “I’ve got ten minutes and then I have to have her loaded up and ready to be made up and prepped for the night.”
Paul nodded, pursing his lips as he chose his words carefully.
“What is it?” Frank asked.
“I’m worried,” Paul admitted. “I’m worried about her and I guess I need you to tell me that my fears are unfounded,” he continued, opting to speak straight from his heart. “We have all seen her get like this a time or two and as soon as she gets close to happiness, she tosses it all away, hell-bent on self-destruction.”
“Are you talking about the situation that seems to be developing romantically?” As always Frank’s voice was even, showing no hint of surprise or concern.
Paul nodded, hoping the nicotine would calm him. “Think about it,” he said, reflecting for a moment. “We can look down the row of women who have earned their way into a special place for her. None of them lasted and it’s not because they didn’t want to. It’s because she goes on a destructive path, killing anything that gets too close to her and taking part of herself in the process.”
Frank frowned, but said nothing.
“Before we started on the road, there was Staci, who broke Raven in so many ways. Since you’ve been around, there was Emily,” Paul continued when Frank didn’t interject. “She was amazing and I thought she might be the one. The minute she got a little too close to our beloved prickly cactus, she was done and Raven spiraled out of control. That was PR nightmare number one, which is far less important than the fact that she almost overdosed that night. Then later we had Dani, the sweet little Midwestern princess, who fit so well with our lifestyle, a chameleon. When she didn’t work out, Raven started a bar fight in Denver. More bad headlines and a few stitches on her arm from a cleverly placed broken bottle. There were quite a few others. But we all know what happens.”
“So are you saying we should fire Christina?” Frank asked, leveling his gaze at Paul. He held an even nonpatronizing tone. “What can we do at this point? You said
it yourself—she’s hell-bent on destruction. It’s who she is.”
“I guess maybe that’s more the issue,” Paul said, shrugging and giving voice to the worries that had plagued his mind not just now but for years. “She is like a sister to me. She is to all of us. I care, dammit. I wish I didn’t some days. It would make her so much easier to brush off and ignore, but when we all know it’s coming, I feel like we have to do something. I know she has a good heart and that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. In fact, when she gets like that, she’s more into hurting herself than throwing anyone else under that bus. But I can’t stand to see her hurt herself again, not how she’s done before.
“She’s happy, and I’m happy for her. I just want this happiness to last, even though we all know it’s not going to. I want to believe that there’s room for personal growth and change, that this time could be the time she turns it all around. She may be happy now, but it’s just a matter of when the hammer drops and the crazy train takes off. Maybe, we should try to talk to her and get her some help.”
“We’ve been through this before. You can’t help those unwilling to help themselves,” Frank said, shaking his head as his eyes darkened with sadness. “She doesn’t think she needs help and it’s the last thing she wants. When she changes that attitude, she’ll actually let someone in. Until that point, there’s little we can do. I’ve talked to her and I’m sure you have too, but it’s of little consequence when she is still running.”
Running. The word tripped a slew of memories for Paul. Unlike the rest of them, he had seen it. He was there when she ran away from her mother, when she tried to run away from the foster homes in high school, and when she had successfully run away from everyone over the years who tried to get too close. He closed his eyes, willing the memories to fade, but they wouldn’t. Instead, he was plagued by the vivid recollection of how it had felt to hold her while she cried all those years ago.