“Um, you still with me, Abby?”
She blinked, and her cheeks flushed with heat. “Oh, you want me to answer you?” she laughed to cover up her embarrassment. She didn’t want him to realize she’d been daydreaming about how rough his five o’ clock shadow would feel against the flat of her tongue. “I told you how I feel about your stupid nicknames.” She tried to sound pissed, but didn’t pull it off.
Ron laughed as he entered the elevator and pressed the button for their floor. Danny glared at him for a moment then started laughing with him.
Abby changed the subject. Much safer that way. “What time are we heading out in the morning?”
“Oh-nine-hundred hours,” Danny replied.
“Okay, Drill Sergeant, I’ll be ready.” The elevator dinged, and the doors opened to the semi-private floor which held the suite she shared with Sean, along with another across the hall where Danny and Ron stayed.
“Well, Military Man, it’s been a pleasure. I’m gonna go pass the hell out. Have a good night. See ya, Ron.” She waved over her shoulder as she slid her keycard through the electronic lock. When the reader beeped and the green light came on, she gave the men one last smile before entering her suite.
She closed the door and removed the nude color platform pumps from her aching feet. Clearly, her shoes were made for showing, not walking. She made her way into the large sunken living room; the muted neon glow from the Vegas strip was the only light in the room.
“Sean?” Abby called on her way to the bedroom. She dropped her shoes next to the dresser.
Sean wasn’t there, even though he’d said he would be. Abby blew out a puff of air, annoyed with herself for believing him, yet again. She wasn’t lying when she said she’d reached her limit, but that didn’t matter when he knew that it wasn’t up to her anyway. Her mother would never let her leave him. She had plans, and it didn’t matter what Abby wanted. Abby turned the light on then dug into her bag for her phone. It wasn’t there. “Fuck,” she muttered. She picked up the hotel phone and dialed Sean’s number. It went to voicemail. She hung up. There was no point in leaving a message.
She dialed back to the operator and asked to be connected to Sophie’s room.
“Hey, sorry to bother you, but do you have my phone?”
“No, I don’t think so, but let me look. Hold on.”
Abby chewed her lip, thinking about Sean. Where the hell was he? Worse, who was he with? A hard knot formed in her stomach as she thought about what he might be doing.
“Hey,” Sophie said. “I don’t have it.”
“I must’ve left it in my dressing room.” Typical, considering the way her luck had been tonight. “Sean’s not here. You know what that means.” She sighed. “I’m gonna go find my phone.”
“Why do you even bother with him anymore? We’ve hashed this out before.”
“It’s late. Can we talk about this later? He’s not here and right now I can’t even think about what that means, but I know I need my phone.” She was sick of it all.
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“It’ll take twenty minutes. Quick and easy.” Thankfully the arena was connected to the hotel.
“Okay, but ask one of the boys to go.”
“They’ve had a long night. I don’t want to bother them. I won’t be long, and besides, you’ll know where I am. When I find my phone, I’ll call you.”
“Abby! Tell them. I get that you’re upset, because Sean’s disappeared…again but don’t do something stupid.”
“Fine. Will you come with?”
“I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
“Perfect. Thanks.” Abby slipped on a pair of flats and unhooked the panic button from her purse and attached it to her bracelet. Danny insisted that she wear the damn thing. She insisted that it looked good as a charm she could wear hanging from wrist or attached to her purse. After all, security was important, but appearances could make or break her career. She didn’t want it to look like she had a tracking device on her.
Abby double-checked that her keycard was in her pocket before she let her door close behind her, then she jabbed the call button for the elevator. She was about to knock on the door to Danny and Ron’s suite, but a ding sounded behind her and announced the arrival of the elevator. “Damn.” She decided to call the guys when she got her phone and hurried into the elevator before the doors could slide shut without her.
The girls quickly walked through the casino toward the arena doors, barely dodging a group of fans wearing concert T-shirts. This was why she shouldn’t go anywhere without security.
“Look, it says the arena is this way.” Abby dragged Sophie by the hand and hurried in that direction.
“Why aren’t we going toward the manager’s office?”
“Because we’re closer to the arena than the office.” Abby had no idea where the manager’s office was but she needed to get into her dressing room, not somebody else’s office.
“How do you know this?”
Abby saw a large group of people heading their way, and she panicked. She needed to get out of the lobby before someone spotted her. “I don’t know.”
They reached the end of the hall, and Abby searched around for some sort of clue as to which way to go. “Did we miss a sign or something?”
“The entrance is this way.” Sophie pointed to the sign that hung high on the wall in front of them. Abby would’ve noticed it if she’d been walking like a normal person rather than with her gaze fixed on the floor.
“Good. The last thing we need is a mob of people following us.” Abby wished she’d worn a hat or maybe sunglasses. There were too many people milling around for her to go unnoticed much longer.
“I told you this wasn’t a good idea.” Sophie picked up the pace.
“Just keep moving.” Shit, shit, shit. Why were so many people still up? Didn’t anyone sleep? It was nearly morning. Apparently Las Vegas was the “city that never sleeps,” not New York. Why hadn’t she called hotel management and asked them to look? Because heartache apparently makes you stupid. Sean’s absence was eating at Abby.
“Come on, right over here.” Sophie pulled on the arena door. “Locked. Great.” She sighed.
“Of course it’s locked. I just figured there’d be somebody here to let us in.” Abby walked farther down the hallway to stay out of sight.
Sophie looked at her incredulously. “Why would someone be standing around with a set of keys? God, Abby you’re so frustrating some days.”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t ‘whatever’ me. If you’d given me a minute to find a few numbers, you’d already have your phone, and we wouldn’t be on the verge of an ambush.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Okay? I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“No, you have one person on your mind. When are you going to throw that asshole to the curb? Enough’s enough already.”
“It’s not as simple as that and you know it.” It wasn’t like Sophie was telling her something she didn’t already know, but it was hard for her to verbally acknowledge even that much. She hated feeling like she wasn’t in control and alluding to the fact made her even more uncomfortable.
“Let’s go to the reception area and ask for the manager,” Sophie suggested.
“You go. I’ll stay here and wait.” Abby pulled on the door Sophie had just checked to see if she would have better luck. She didn’t.
“No. I’m not leaving you here alone. Come on,” Sophie said.
“We’ve managed to get this far without anyone spotting me. How lucky do you think we’re gonna get? I’ll stay here. You go,” Abby insisted, and as if to prove her point, a group of fans gathered near a cardboard cutout of her and took pictures with it.
She turned back to Sophie and realized she had her cell phone to her ear. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Danny.”
She looked over at the crowd. “Shit, fine.” She didn’t want to admit it, but things were quickly spiraling out of con
trol. All it would take is for one person to recognize her and they’d be overrun in seconds. Calling Danny was the right thing to do even if she’d have to apologize for being selfish and short-sighted. Saying sorry was better than being trampled on.
Sophie walked away as she placed the call. Probably because she didn’t want Abby to hear her tell Danny what an ass she’d been, thinking they could run down to her dressing room, pick up her phone, and then run back upstairs as if she were a normal person. Normal simply wasn’t an option for her. She’d been in the spotlight for so long, she didn’t remember how it felt to run an errand by herself.
Abby tried to stay out of sight while they waited for Danny, but the group of people around her cardboard counterpart seemed to grow. Who knew something so silly would be such a hot tourist attraction? She looked around for an escape route. When she found nothing, her breathing picked up and her hands grew clammy. She was minutes away from having a panic attack.
There was nowhere else for them to go. After a few minutes, a set of doors opened, and a worker rolled a large garbage cart out of the arena.
Abby and Sophie looked at each other and then sprinted toward the open door. The arena was empty except for a few maintenance workers, and they didn’t seem to notice Abby and Sophie. The stage was already broken down and on its way to the next location.
“We should wait until Danny gets here.” Sophie stood mostly outside the door.
“No, I want to check the backstage doors.”
“Don’t you dare go off on your own,” Sophie scolded. She actually sounded more motherly than Vivien ever had. The tone was foreign to Abby, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.
“I’m going to see if I can get someone to open a door for us; that’s all.” Abby traveled down the long aisle despite Sophie’s protests. It was surreal to be on this side of the stage. She absolutely loved performing—in fact, it was the only time she truly enjoyed her career. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been part of the audience. And lately, the shows felt more like work than something she was passionate about. Her life had been managed by her mother for so many years, Abby had a hard time finding herself in her work.
How long could she really keep allowing this to happen? Abby wasn’t a teenager who needed to be supervised. She was a grown woman with her own ideas on how her life and career should go. But she was stuck. She simply didn’t know how to make her way from beneath her mother’s grasp.
She approached the door and heard muted sounds of music playing. It sounded like her band was still partying. Well at least she knew where to find Sean. Instead of making her feel better, now she was worried about who he was with instead of where he was. Over the past few months, he’d become very brazen with his infidelities.
Abby wanted to find the source of the music. Her patience was done. She walked back up the aisle to the first worker she found.
“Excuse me.”
“Can I help… The maintenance man couldn’t hide his surprise when he realized who she was. He smiled and said, “Ms. Murphy, how can I help you?”
“I left my phone in my dressing room. Could you unlock one of the doors so I can get it, please?”
“Sure, but would you like me to look for you?”
“No. I’m good. I don’t know exactly where I left it, so I’m going to do a quick search. My assistant is waiting for my security team to meet us. I’ll only be a minute.” She started through the door.
“Ms. Murphy?”
Abby stopped. “Yes?”
“Um, well, my kid…she’s a big fan and it’d make me Father of the Year if I came home with an autograph. Would you mind?”
“No, no not at all.” Abby always did her best to stop for fan requests. She didn’t want to be mobbed, but one-on-one like this, she always found time no matter what else was happening. She smiled at the man as though she wasn’t suffocating under the weight of her own life.
As if he’d known they would meet tonight, the man pulled a pen and notepad from his shirt pocket and offered it to Abby.
“Her name?”
“Oh, um, Tonya.”
“How old is she?”
“Fifteen.”
Abby wrote a short, personal message on the pad and handed it back to the man.
“Do you have a phone on you? Abby asked.
“Yes.”
“Great.” She waited while he fished it out of his back pocket. “Let’s take a selfie,” she suggested.
“Oh, I don’t know… I always cut people’s heads off.”
“No problem. May I?” She reached for his phone.
“Of course.”
“Smile.” Abby snapped the picture. “Now, tell Tonya to tag me if she posts that on social media. Okay?”
“Absolutely.”
“Perfect.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Of course. It was nice meeting you.”
Abby rushed down the hall toward the music. Her band really lived the rock star life. They loved to party, and normally she didn’t care. As long as they were fully functioning by the time the stage lights came up, she was okay with it. But tonight, it got under her skin. They stuck together and protected Sean when he cheated on her and knowing that made her sensitive to other things, like the partying that she otherwise didn’t care about. They had a brotherhood, and she was on the outside.
She was about to barge into the room but thought better of it. First, she’d get her phone so that she could call Sophie and let her know where she was. She was probably already having mini-heart attacks, because Abby took off when she said she wouldn’t. Oh well, another apology to add to her list.
She arrived at her dressing room. The gold star bearing her name hung on the wall canted to one side as if someone had bumped into it. She crossed her fingers and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. Finally, one thing went in her favor. She didn’t linger in the common area, but crossed immediately to the private section where she’d changed earlier. Her phone had to be there. It was the only place that made sense.
She stopped, puzzled, hand hovering over the doorknob. There was somebody inside. She listened for a few more seconds, and it dawned on her; she knew exactly what those sounds were. She slammed the handle down and shoved the door open.
The room was dark, but Abby could still faintly see—and hear—two people on the couch. There was no mistaking what they were doing. She blindly searched for the light switch on the wall, her gaze fastened to the scene in front of her. Abby knew it was Sean. She tried to mentally prepare herself for what was happening and what she’d see after she flipped the switch, but nothing she did stopped the torrent of emotions rushing through her.
She’d never caught Sean in the act before, but the signs had been there for a long time. Lipstick on his clothes, smells of foreign perfume, and of course, his many disappearing acts. But strangely, all those signs were easy to ignore. She was a master of dismissing a mountain of evidence as unimportant coincidence. But this was too much and confirmed what she’d believed for a long time. He was only with her to further his career. She knew it. He knew it. Still, this kind of blatant disrespect was a slap in the face.
Up until now, she was able to hedge, to tell herself that, even though he wasn’t in love with her, he was still an okay guy, they looked great together which was good for her career, and he was really good in bed. She didn’t expect happily ever after, but...hell, she didn’t know what she’d actually expected. She was sure, however, that as soon as she turned on the light, her ability to pretend would be stripped from her.
She debated simply walking away, but her pride wouldn’t let her. It was time to face reality. She braced herself and then flipped the switch. It confirmed her fears. “What the fuck?”
“Fuck!” Sean pushed himself off the blonde woman he was with. It was the blonde he’d been chatting up earlier that night. Abby didn’t remember her name, but she remembered the vapid look on her face and the way her tits spilled out of he
r top. Only now there was nothing for them to spill out of. She was naked to her waist, with her skirt hiked up around her hips. Sean stumbled, trying to pull up his pants.
The woman stared at Abby, wide eyed. Abby had no time for her.
“Get out.” Abby was close to violence, and part of her hoped the blonde would stay long enough for Abby to get a fistful of her hair. “Now.”
The bleached blonde grabbed her clothes and shoes and hurried out of the room, tripping as she tried to dress and run at the same time. She left the door open behind her.
“You’d better fucking run, bitch,” Abby yelled, then she turned to glare at Sean. “You have some fucking nerve.”
“Abby, baby, I’m sorry. She followed me back, and I had a couple of drinks. It was stupid, I know. Please, please, baby, I’m sorry.” He took a couple of steps toward her.
“Don’t. Don’t you fucking come near me. Get out. We’re done.”
“Baby, you can’t do this,” he begged, reaching for her. “You don’t mean it. You know I love you. I made a mistake. Let’s talk about this. You’re tired.” He tried to hold her, but she pulled away.
“You love me? That’s fucking rich. I saw exactly how much you love me just now. Get out.”
“Come on, baby. Let’s have a drink and talk.”
“I think you’ve had more than enough to drink.”
“Be reasonable. Think about it. What are you going to do? Break up with me? You know your mom won’t be cool with that. You don’t have a say in our relationship anymore than I do. So, calm down and let’s go upstairs.” He smirked, and in that moment, she hated him more than she’d thought possible. And the worst part? He was right. She’d let her mom box her into this corner.
“No,” she said softly. She was done. Done with pretending. Done with the lies. Done with the phony displays of affection. Just done. She had to take a stand at some point. Her mother might have control of her career, but no way was Abby letting her dictate her love life.
Not anymore.
“No, what?” he asked.
“No, we’re not going upstairs together. We’re done. Get out! What don’t you understand?” She turned her back on him, needing to get out of the room. It smelled of sex and betrayal. She was able to make it out of the private dressing area before Sean lunged and grabbed her arm. He’d stopped long enough to fasten his pants.
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