ROCKSTAR

by Lauren Rowe

  “Everyone thinks that. They’re always trying to figure out who the twenty-two GOATs are that we’re tipping our caps to. But, nope. We’re named after farm animals.” He looks down at his tattoo, chuckling. “The three of us got the same matching tattoos on Colin’s twenty-first birthday. Unfortunately, the guy who tattooed us was even more stoned and drunk then we were at the time. Also, he wasn’t a tattoo artist, he was just this random dude at a party who said he’d recently bought a tattoo gun and wanted to practice.”

  “Dax!”

  He laughs and laughs. “In our defense, he said he’d tattoo all three of us for free, and we were dirt poor.”

  “Well, you got what you paid for, didn’t you?”

  “We sure did.”

  He laughs with glee... and, yet again, I’m flooded with flapping wings and lights.

  “When we woke up the next day, we were like, ‘What the fuck are these smiling blobs on our arms?’ Colin was like, ‘Dudes, we gotta get this shit covered up, right away.’ But Fish and I were like, ‘Hell no. This shit is so horrible, it’s awesome. It stays.’”

  “Why are they smiling like that? Are they demonic goats?”

  Again, he laughs. “It goes back to how we named our band.” He tells me the story, which, in summary, is that Colin, Fish, and Dax were partying with some girls, one of whom grew up on a farm. The farm girl told the guys several factoids about various farm animals, including the fact that goats smile. “We thought she was messing with us. So, she pulled up this BuzzFeed article to prove it. Hang on. I’ll show you.” He taps something onto his phone and hands it to me. “See?”

  I look at his screen. It’s displaying an article entitled “22 Goats Smiling at You.”

  “Those smiles aren’t photoshopped,” Dax says. “Goats actually smile.”

  I scroll through photo after photo of smiling goats on Dax’s phone, variously shaking my head and giggling. “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And the weirdest.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how much effort fans put into trying to figure out the deep meaning behind our band name. Why did we pick twenty-two GOATs—all-caps? Did we pick one GOAT from every sport? And if so, did we pick LeBron or Michael Jordan?” He takes his phone back from me and lays it on the table. “We don’t tell anyone the real story, just because the theories are way cooler than the lame reality.”

  “Ah, but that’s so much of life, isn’t it? Knowing when to keep your mouth shut so people think you’re way cooler than you actually are? Like, I don’t know, letting them think you’re some cool hitwoman, for instance?”

  “You’re still a hitwoman to me,” he says. “You’re killing me, baby.”

  “Oh, that was smooth. Bravo.”

  He winks.

  I point at a tattoo on Dax’s left bicep—a galaxy of stars and hearts and planets. “What’s the story behind that one?”

  Dax looks down at his arm, like he’s only now discovering he’s got a tattoo there. “That’s my family. The ones I love the most.” He raises his arm and points. “This is my mom here.” He points to the sun. “Because we all revolve around her. And that’s my dad because he’s the largest planet. The largest planets have the strongest gravity. And these here are my three brothers and sister and me.” He looks up. “That’s how this particular tattoo started. With my core family members. But then my two oldest brothers and sister got married. And then they all had kids. So I added stars and hearts for all of our new family members. And that made me realize I should add my honorary brothers—my bodyguard friend from the party, Zander, here, and my two bandmates, Colin and Fish—here and here.” He looks up and flashes me a smile that sends warmth pooling between my legs. “I’ll be adding another heart really soon for my oldest brother Colby’s baby girl. She’ll be arriving in a few weeks.”

  Oh, my heart. I’ve never met someone like Dax before. Someone who’d tattoo his entire family onto his arm. That’s not normal. At least, not to me. “It’s amazing you’re so close to your family.”

  “You’re not?”

  I pause. I don’t normally tell new people my family history. But Dax makes me want to tell him everything there is to know about me, even the parts I usually keep hidden. “I’ve got two family members, and I’m close with both of them. Just one at a time. I’ve got a mother and a brother, but I never see them at the same time because my brother hates my mother with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.”

  Dax looks floored. “Why?”

  “My brother is my half-brother. We share a father. Well, we shared a father. My father passed away. And my brother blames my mother for breaking up his parents’ marriage. Which she did.”

  He processes all that for a moment. “I’m sorry about your father. When did he die?”

  “When I was nine. But don’t feel sorry for me about that. I hadn’t met him when he died, though I knew exactly who he was.”

  “Did he know about you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he never wanted to meet you?”

  “I don’t know. He went to prison when I was three, and I never visited him in prison.”

  Dax looks tentative, like he’s considering what to say next, so, I answer the question he’s surely wondering.

  “Securities fraud,” I say. “My father bilked a shitload of people out of their life savings. He wound up hanging himself in prison. But, hey, at least my father wasn’t a serial killer, right?”

  “Sounds like you had a rough childhood.”

  I shrug. “Not having a father was all I knew, so I thought it was normal. And my mom and I were super close. My mom was only nineteen when she had me. She was working part-time at my father’s company to pay her way through college. He was the big boss, twenty years her senior, married with a son. She wound up having a whirlwind affair with the big boss that ended when she found out she was pregnant with his child. When she told him about the baby, he demanded she abort me and she refused. So, he bought her a small condo by the beach in San Diego as a pay-off, and off she went to have her baby on her own and start a new life. Unfortunately for my father, his wife somehow found out about the condo—which led to her finding out about my mother and me. Not to mention some other women my father was screwing on the side. My father was, apparently, so scorched-earth in the divorce and custody dispute that followed, the wife wound up having some sort of a nervous breakdown and the son was therefore passed from relative to relative when our father went to prison. Or so my brother later told me.”

  “Did you and your brother connect when your father died?”

  “No. It was later. My mom married this nice guy named Steve when I was ten. A year after that, they had a baby boy—the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The great love of my life.” I pause, my heart suddenly feeling like it’s bleeding. “He died of leukemia at age three, unfortunately, right before I turned fifteen.”

  Dax looks deeply anguished. “Oh, God, Violet. I’m so sorry.”

  I take a deep breath and pull down my bathrobe to reveal the dragonfly on my upper arm. “This is for him. At the park one day, a dragonfly started buzzing around my baby brother and he got scared and ran to me. I told him, ‘It’s okay, buddy. Dragonflies are the nice bugs. They protect us.’ And that’s all it took for that dragonfly to become his best friend.” I smile at the memory. “He spent the rest of the afternoon, running around the park, yelling for that dragonfly to come back and play with him again.” I replace my robe onto my shoulder and sigh. “On the day of my baby brother’s funeral, I was standing over his casket, crying my eyes out, and a dragonfly started buzzing around my head. I knew it was my brother, telling me he was safe and happy and chasing dragonflies in heaven.”

  Wordlessly, Dax gets up from his chair. He lifts me out of my chair, and wraps his arms around me. “I’m so sorry.”

  I rest my cheek on Dax’s shoulder and let him hold me. “Losing my baby brother was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve got a Jackson-sized hole i
n my heart now, and always will.”

  “His name was Jackson?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  Dax kisses the side of my head. “Jackson is my middle name.”

  I lift my head from Dax’s chest, my eyes wide and my heart in my mouth. Holy crap. Call me crazy, but that sure feels like another dragonfly buzzing around my head. I twist my mouth. “Wait. Your name is Dax Jackson? Did your parents want you to become an action star when you grew up?”

  Dax chuckles, leads me to his chair, and guides me to sit on his lap. “My given name is David Jackson, but my family started calling me Dax the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. My family is fanatical about nicknames. It’s our thing. So, my two oldest brothers renamed me Dax that first day and my mom went with it.”

  “How’d your dad feel about that?”

  “Meh. I’m the fifth kid. Dad didn’t give a shit what I was called.”

  I chuckle through my emotion.

  “Aw, baby,” he says. He grabs my hand. “My heart aches about Jackson.”

  “Thank you. I miss him every day. I can’t begin to express how much happiness he brought me.”

  “That’s why you make superhero costumes for kids with cancer.”

  I nod. “I’ve got to do something. It’s not much. But it’s what I can do. Those smiles I get from those kids remind me of him so much.”

  He looks at me like he pities me.

  “This is why I never talk about my family,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I know my life story makes me sound like a train wreck. Especially to someone like you, with a normal, happy family.”

  “Violet, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that nobody has a normal family. In fact, my family is the most abnormal of anyone’s I know. All my friends’ parents are divorced, and the ones whose parents are still married, they’re not happy. If anyone’s family isn’t normal, it’s mine.” He kisses my cheek. “So, you were going to tell me how you hooked up with your brother...?”

  “Oh, yeah. He contacted me when Jackson died, out of the blue, to offer his condolences. I already knew he existed at that point, but we’d never interacted. And I just needed a shoulder to cry on so badly in that moment, I pounced on him, poor guy. My mother was distraught over Jackson’s death and incapable of consoling me. My stepfather had his hands full with my mother and his own grief. I felt like I needed someone from the outside. Someone who hadn’t lost Jackson. So I asked him if we could meet in person. And he said yes, he’d like that.” I smile at the memory. “He came to San Diego to meet me and I proceeded to cry on this poor stranger’s shoulder for six hours straight. And that’s how I lost a brother and gained a brother, all in one week. Shortly after that, my mother cheated on my stepfather and their marriage collapsed, and I leaned on him even more.”

  Dax makes a sympathetic sound.

  “Unfortunately, since my new brother hated my mother’s guts, I couldn’t very well invite him to Christmases and birthdays. But he was really sweet about keeping in touch with me. He was a life saver.”

  Dax looks distressed. “I feel so sorry for your stepfather. Losing a kid and then being cheated on? Brutal.”

  “Yeah, I know. And he’s such a sweet guy. I think my mom just didn’t know how to handle her grief. She cheated with this guy from her support group. They didn’t last.”

  “Have you stayed close with your stepfather?”

  Emotion rises inside me. I swallow it down and take a deep breath. “No. Steve wound up remarrying a woman with three kids and moving to Seattle. We don’t keep in touch. I wanted to stay close with him, but I think it was just too painful for him, after everything that happened.” My heart pangs sharply. “I was sad about it, but not shocked. Steve never officially adopted me or gave me his name, even though Mom and Jackson both had his name. So a piece of me always knew he wasn’t making any long-term promises to me.”

  Dax looks absolutely heartbroken. “Oh, Violet.”

  “It’s okay. I grew up without a father. It was nice to have one for a few years. I really enjoyed it. But, like I said, a piece of me never expected it to last.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Rhodes. It’s my mother’s name.”

  He smiles. “Violet Rhodes from Rhode Island.” He nuzzles his nose into my hair, and inhales deeply. “Violet Rhodes, thank you for telling me all that.”

  I close my eyes and enjoy his closeness. “I don’t normally tell people the whole story. I know it’s a lot.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “It doesn’t make you want to run out of this hotel room and never look back?”

  “It makes me want to kiss your blues away.”

  “Who says I’m blue?”

  “Your eyes. They give you away. They’re filled with sadness.”

  “But I’m happy, despite it all. I truly am.”

  He studies my face for a long moment. “Maybe that’s why I’m so attracted to you. You’ve got every reason in the world to be blue, and yet you’re happy. I’ve got every reason in the world to be happy, and yet, I sometimes feel like I was born with the weight of the world on my shoulders. That’s why I make music. To get that weight off me.”

  My chest heaves.

  Longing. Need. Yearning. Lust. Understanding. It all passes between us palpably.

  “I’m drowning in your stormy eyes, Violet Rhodes,” Dax whispers softly. “I’m drowning and I don’t want anyone to throw me a lifeline.”

  With that, he rises from his chair, scooping me up as he goes, and brings me to the bed... and that’s where Dax proceeds to strip off my bathrobe and peel off his briefs, kiss my naked body, and make love to me tenderly... making me forget, at least for a little while, all the things that have smashed my heart to pieces... until, soon, he’s got me focusing on nothing and no one but the unparalleled pleasure, the safety, the rightness I’m feeling right here and now with this beautiful boy.

  Chapter 8

  Dax

  I open my eyes and blink in the California sunlight streaming through the window.

  I’m lying in bed naked with Violet, her cheek pressed against my chest and her warm thigh draped over mine. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, having my body intertwined with hers. Indeed, this whole night with Violet has felt like I’m reliving a distant memory with her. Acting out a hazy dream.

  I glance at the clock on the nightstand. 11:06. Shit. I’m pretty sure the hotel clerk at the front desk last night said checkout this morning was at eleven. But I don’t care. I’d rather have to pay for a second night I can’t use than wake up Violet right now. If my family weren’t flying into L.A. today to throw me a going-away dinner party tonight, I’d already have booked this room for a second night.

  Taking care not to wake Violet, I grab my phone off the nightstand and swipe into my family’s group chat, intending to find my mom’s text from a few days ago about my family’s travel plans today. But when I look at my screen, it’s lit up with texts about some video on TMZ that posted early this morning. Apparently, it features none other than Zander and the woman he’s being paid to guard, Aloha Carmichael.

  Watch with sound on, my brother Ryan texted to everyone, attaching the video link. Looks like Z already lost the bet on night one. Either that, or he’s damned close to losing it.

  I turn my sound on, set to low, click on the link, and promptly lose my shit. Oh, Zander. He’s so predictable. After the way he drooled over Aloha last night at the party, I knew he wouldn’t resist her charms for long. But I never thought he’d succumb to them on night one of Aloha’s tour.

  I tap out a text, joining my family’s raucous back-and-forth about the video. And the minute my text posts in the group chat, my mother pounces on me for not answering her flurry of texts from last night about the family’s travel plans today. She tells me everyone is on their way to the airport in Seattle right now. She asks me to confirm I’ll be at their hotel in L.A. when they arrive and that I�
��ll be staying the next two nights at their hotel, just to make things easy for our trip with the little ones to Disneyland tomorrow. In all caps, she ends her text with “ANSWER ME, DAXY, SO I KNOW YOU’RE ALIVE!”

  Dutifully, I tap out a reply to my mother, fully intending to tell her yes, yes, yes, to all of it. But, suddenly, I pull back before pressing send. Yeah, I’ll meet my family at their hotel this afternoon... and, yes, I’ll eat dinner with them for my going-away party tonight. But will I be staying the next two nights at my family’s hotel? Suddenly, I’m not sure I want to confirm that. I’ve got two nights before I leave for London, after all, and Violet’s here in L.A. until Sunday, too. What if Violet is game to spend tonight or tomorrow night, or both, right here with me? If she is, I gotta admit, I’d ditch sleeping at my family’s hotel in a heartbeat.

  I delete my text and start again, and finally press send on a message that says simply, “I’ll see you at your hotel when you get here! Can’t wait!”

  Without waiting for my mother’s reply, I return my phone to the nightstand because a) I’m well aware I didn’t answer her questions about sleeping arrangements, and b) texting with my mom is the last thing I wanna do while I’ve got a naked girl lying next to me. I pull Violet’s sleeping body close, inhale the intoxicating, flowery scent of her hair, and let my mind wander. I’ve got a thousand things to do before my flight the day after tomorrow—a bunch of errands to run, especially since I’m going to Disneyland with everyone tomorrow. But I can’t seem to motivate myself to leave this bed and get moving. I mean, fuck it, there are jackets and toiletries in London, right? I don’t have to do all my errands here in LA.

  A sharp knock at the door jolts me. “Housekeeping!” a female voice calls out, prompting Violet to stir against my chest.

  “Not yet!” I shout toward the door. “Come back later!”

  Purring with sexual satisfaction, Violet sits up. Her dark hair is a sexy, rumpled mess. Her face looks groggy but gorgeous. She’s a woman who was fucked well last night, and it shows.