Hearts on Fire

by Amber Thielman

  Just a Love Song

  “Shearon, put some clothes on, you have visitors,” Gina barks, tapping loudly on the door. It’s eerie that she assumes I don’t have clothes on—then again, I rarely have clothes on so it’s probably not as farfetched as I want to believe.

  I set my guitar aside, pull on a white tee-shirt and some crumpled jeans, and open the door. Standing there is Gina and flanked on either side of her are two people I don’t recognize, but I wonder if I’m supposed to.

  “Quinn and Grace,” Gina says, but she nods so quickly at them that I don’t know who is who. “They want an interview with you before the show tonight.”

  “I’m not really in the position to give an interview,” I say, but Gina already knows that, so I shut my mouth and wait for her to respond.

  “They write for DownLow,” she says, looking straight at me. “Do the interview.”

  It takes me everything I have not to roll my eyes at these kids standing here, because it’s no secret that the entertainment magazine they work for, DownLow, is nothing but one big packet of nonsense, bullshit propaganda that can barely pass off as a legitimate source. Gina and I both know that if I turn them down now, it’s likely that a few weeks down the road some ludicrous article would be published about me for being a prick or something.

  “Fine,” I say, but refuse to look even slightly happy about it. “Come in.”

  Gina doesn’t stay to coach me through it, but she does shoot me a warning look over her shoulder before vanishing around the corner.

  The two reporters come into the dressing room and sit down on the frumpy couch I point out to them. One of the reporters, a girl with flaming red hair and intense green eyes, looks around the room, but not at me. She doesn’t seem star truck, really. In fact, she seems more fascinated with the fruit basket on the table and the posters of previous icons hanging on the wall than she does with the fact that a rock star is standing right in front of her.

  “Mr. Shearon, I’m Grace and this is Quinn,” the brunette says, holding out her hand to me. She’s dressed in jeans and a pullover sweatshirt, and the confidence she exudes while I shake her hand is much more prominent than the red-head. She nods towards the other girl who flashes me a hesitant smile as she pulls a tiny notebook from her pocket, along with a pen. She doesn’t offer her hand, so I don’t offer mine.

  “Can we do a quick interview?” the red-head asks, her tone prompt and business-like. She seems impatient, like she’d rather be anywhere but here, but she forces a smile anyway. She’s got a cute smile, but she’s not a woman I’d pick out in a crowd. Her red hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail and I don’t think she’s wearing any makeup, not that it would hide the freckles that dotted her face. She’s bordering on the edge between chubby and curvy, and her eyes flash with emotion every time she looks at me. I can’t read what emotion it is.

  “Do I have a choice?” I ask, but my sad attempt at humor is lost on the both of them. In fact, I’m pretty sure I see Quinn roll her eyes before she clears her throat and drops her eyes to the pad in front of her. Sensing that she’s not privy to my bullshit, I take a seat in the lounge chair across from them and plaster on my best, practiced rock star smile. “Tough crowd.”

  “Mmmm.” Quinn says mindlessly. She’s chewing on the end of her number two pencil, hunched over the pad in her lap, foot tapping restlessly. A stray strand of red hair tumbles from the ponytail and into her face, and she blows it away unconsciously. “How old are you, Mr. Shearon?” she asks finally. I hesitate for a moment because this seems like a silly question; all of my fans should know it. Unless...

  “Not a fan, eh?”

  “I’m sorry?” Quinn looks up from the pad, meeting my gaze. Next to her, Grace is typing something on her phone, engulfed in whatever she’s doing. They’re a strange pair, that much is for sure, but I still can’t turn them away.

  “A fan,” I repeat. Feeling awkward now, I shift in my seat and run a hand through my hair, a nervous habit I’ve had since my teenage years. “Of the band. My music.”

  “Oh.” Quinn flushes, and for a moment her face matches the crimson of her hair. She seems hesitant to say whatever is coming next, but that doesn’t stop her from doing it, anyway. “Not really,” she says. Beside her, Grace, who is still engulfed in her phone, flashes a humored grin without even looking up. She’s not nervous about this meeting; she’s done this reporting thing before.

  “Okay,” I say, because I don’t know what else to do. “Well, um, I’m twenty-eight.”

  “Twenty-eight.” Quinn jots down a note on her pad. “And you come here from Australia, right?”

  “What gave it away?” I tease. “Was it the accent?”

  Quinn stops writing and looks up at me. She’s got a look on her face I can’t quite read, but hidden under that expression is a tiny, almost completely unnoticeable smile.

  “The accent helps,” she says. Grace finally glances up from her phone and looks between the two of us. After a moment she slips the phone into her pocket and meets my gaze.

  “There’s not a lot of info online about it,” she says. “But readers will be curious to know how you came to be an American Rockstar from Australia.”

  Ah. So that’s what she’d been doing.

  “There’s not a lot of info about it because I don’t much talk about it, mate,” I say. The celebrity smile I’d practiced so often in the mirror felt forced, like at any moment it would fade away completely and I’d be sitting there, vulnerable, as nothing more than the shitty kid I used to be.

  I expect Grace to be taken aback by my abrupt comment, but she smiles instead. Although, smile might be overshooting it. She’s smirking, like she knows now just what buttons to push to open me up and spill me all over the front page of their asinine magazine.

  “Does that mean you don’t want to talk about it?” she asks. I avert my gaze from Grace’s cool stare and back to Quinn, who is now looking between us with a flustered look on her face. I meet Quinn’s gaze, and she mine, and some unspoken understanding settles between us.

  “Maybe we should continue this another time,” she says. She’s still holding my gaze, but after a moment she looks away, back to Grace. “Let’s go.”

  “But we didn’t get anything.”

  “It’s fine.” Quinn glances at me again. “We have all summer, don’t we?”

  “All summer?” I repeat, wondering if I’d heard her correctly.

  “Shitty luck, innit?” says Grace. “Yeah, we have to follow your band around the country for this tour. Boss’s orders.”

  I don’t know what to say to this, so I don’t say anything at all. We’ve had these kinds of reporters before, of course, groupies that would never admit to being just that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Quinn and Grace the rest of the summer, but clearly it wasn’t up to me.

  “Let’s let Mr. Shearon get ready for his show,” Quinn says. She glances at me and tucks that loose strand of red hair behind one ear. I follow them to the door, a fake smile frozen to my face.

  “Please,” I say, and reach out my hand to take hers. Quinn’s skin is warm, comforting against mine, but she doesn’t hold it long. In fact, she lets go first, as if I’d burned her. I pretend not to notice. “Call me Chris.”

  About the Author

  AMBER THIELMAN IS AN avid reader and writer of passionate, thrilling romance books with independently sassy heroines who always make their sexy heroes work for their affection. Don't expect to find a book of hers that's all sunshine and rainbows, because her characters are as real as any of us. There is always, of course, a HEA...so don't run away yet. Amber writes swoony love stories with loveable characters based in the fictional town of Lakewood, Washington. You can find the other books in her Lakewood Romance Series here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JDQ8WC4?ref=series_rw_dp_labf

  Despite her love for contemporary romance, Amber reads too much Stephen King and grew up devouring every Fear Street novel R.L. Stine ever wrote. When she
’s not writing, Amber enjoys traveling, practicing the art of staying on her horse, binge-watching Netflix, and spending time with her husband and their adorable tiny human Aidyn in Southeast Idaho. She also has an undying love for pumpkin-flavored anything, autumn, and boozy concoctions.