And he never backed down from a dare.
A representative from the show organized a car to take them to the airport the next morning. My mother fussed over me, hugging me and wishing me luck in my next live show. Repeating how disappointed she was that she wasn’t able to stay for that evening’s taping so she could be there when they called my name for the top seven contestants.
I shook my head. Nothing was set in stone.
“I might be seeing you tomorrow afternoon at home,” I muttered.
She just laughed, kissed my cheek, and climbed into the car.
Zach and I stood awkwardly outside the hotel, trying to hide from my mother the conversation we’d had last night. I had no idea how she or Cora would react to the notion that Zach wanted to date me, but I knew this wasn’t the time to find out. He gave me one long look before climbing into the black sedan, and I knew I wouldn’t be getting text messages from him until I sent him one asking him to come back.
It hurt my heart.
We had never been at odds like this. If it wasn’t for his own good, I would have backed down.
Faith stood beside me as reinforcement. I called her room last night knowing she would have seen the photos of Jax and me, and I wanted to fill her in on Zach’s proclamation at dinner. As the car faded into the distance, she made jokes about the first world problems I was dealing with, choosing between a blond athletic hunk or a sex-on-a-stick rock idol.
It felt good to laugh, when a part of me was desperate to cry.
I crumpled the note I held in my hand that I figured Zach must have convinced a maid to leave on my dressing table this morning.
You will regret the things you’ve done.
I just wish he understood.
It’s just television
Jax
There were now new pictures circulating online. Billie’s lips pressed against her best friend’s in a glamorous Italian restaurant. It was taken and tweeted by some girl in one of my fan groups. #Jaxisstillsingle was now circulating amongst the press.
It shouldn’t bother me. It should have been a relief.
It fixed the problem of Connor pathetically trying to have people believe I had impregnated Billie with our love child. It ensured the rumors around the photos of us holding hands were now being questioned.
No one was sure of anything anymore.
Donny was pissed. He spent hours ranting on the phone to me about how he didn’t want headings about my return to the single life. He didn’t want to read articles about a small-town country girl returning to her good-looking small-town boyfriend. He wanted everyone thinking that Billie and I were the next Hollywood sweethearts. He wanted to sell the fantasy of a rock star falling in love.
If I wasn’t a little pissed thinking about Billie leaving the competition to go back with her small-town boyfriend, I would have laughed at his hysteria.
We were three weeks from signing the contract that included the additional love songs. He was on crisis management mode. I couldn’t care less about recording love songs. Sure, I had a couple I had written since Las Vegas, but they didn’t need to be recorded.
I kept telling myself those songs meant nothing to me.
I tried to remind Donny that this could be a good thing. I figured some of the contestants might want to sue me if they felt that I showed preferential treatment to Billie over them. He just reminded me that any lawsuit would be ludicrous, because it was the public that voted the winners through and not the judges, and talked about ways to convince the audience there was still something romantic between us. I eventually gave in to the idea of trying to promote a romance. I told myself it was because Billie needed to see what a rock star life could be like before she threw it all away for some small-town boy.
She was too talented.
She needed to know exactly what she was giving up.
I suggested that Donny float the idea that, after the elimination that evening, the top seven contestants have an opportunity to sing with the judges. Some of the other singing competitions I’d seen on television occasionally did it to promote the judges’ latest album. And although Superstardom tended to solely focus on the contestants’ talents, I knew Donny could convince Linda and the executive producers to mix it up this season.
The fact that Billie and I would be required to attend additional rehearsals together if we needed to perform a duet wasn’t lost on Donny. Multiple opportunities for cameras and record labels to observe our interactions was just a part of the business.
And that was all this was.
Business.
I grabbed my guitar and car keys from my bedroom and was making my way toward the stairs when I heard my front door unlocking. There was only one other person who had keys to my house, and hearing them in the door had me pausing in the hallway and shaking my head. I forgot I had organized this, too distracted by staring at those damn photos each night.
Maybe I should hide.
“Jax!” my mother screeched from the entrance of my house. I heard the bags hit the floor and didn’t need to see them to know they would be covering the entire entryway. She never traveled light. Only in the city for a few days to watch the taping of our next show and celebrate her birthday, yet she would have brought enough to live here for a few months.
I stared at her from the top of my staircase, wondering how I was going to manage her coming to the rehearsal and seeing Billie and me perform. And there would be no way I could convince her to stay here until I returned. Bambi Bone waited for no one.
She was a boisterous woman. Big hair, sequined tops, tight leather pants, and red lipstick. She was a total diva, even at fifty-five. An old-school LA groupie who refused to age gracefully, like she refused everything else expected of a woman her age. The widow of a starving musician, the mother to an overnight teenage success, she lived life unapologetically. If I asked her to tone it down for a red-carpet event or award ceremony, she would just give me a glare and, in the closest thing she had to a mother-like tone, lecture me that “Life is too short to not be yourself.”
I walked down the stairs and straight into her arms. I was trained to not linger in a room without hugging her or else I’d be subjected to hours of outspoken chastising. Even if it meant my body reeked of her perfume for hours afterward.
“Hey, Mom, we should have rescheduled. I’m on my way to the set to rehearse right now,” I told her when she finally finished hugging me. I hoped if I left fast enough, I might have a small chance of leaving alone.
“I know. Donny let me know I could go with you,” she gushed. “He told me you’re singing duets with three of the contestants. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sing a duet in person. I can’t wait.” The glint in her eyes revealed her hidden agenda.
“Of course he did.” After you hounding him because you had seen the photos circulating and wanted your own close-up look at the girl.
The woman devoured gossip magazines like a dehydrated person drinking bottled water.
“The television people even sent me the paperwork so they can record me there. Isn’t that exciting?”
I sighed. I knew what Donny wanted—video footage of Billie meeting my mother. Good or bad, he knew it would make good television.
“I don’t suppose I could argue that this isn’t ‘bring your mom to work’ day?”
“Well, seeing as you don’t seem to get the memo when it’s ‘call your mom’ day or ‘visit your mother in Manhattan’ day, I’m sure you’ll recall later that this is definitely ‘bring your mom to work’ day.”
“All right, let’s get this over with.” I chuckled. “I didn’t really want to be a judge in the next season anyway.”
“I promise, you’ll barely notice I’m there,” she tried to convince me as she grabbed her handbag and followed me to my car.
I gave her a pointed look.
“Okay, you’ll probably notice, but I won’t interrupt the singing.”
I gave her another look of skepticism.
&nb
sp; “Once, I promise I’ll only interrupt once.”
I grinned. “It certainly won’t be the first time you’ve stolen the show.”
“You know, that’s exactly what your father used to say to me every time I went on stage with him,” she replied wistfully.
The wound those words created stung, but I knew she sometimes forgot how I didn’t talk about Dad casually. Only she liked to talk like he was just on an extended vacation.
“And just like him, you’ll deal. Musicians always know how to regain the attention of the audience.”
I didn’t correct her. I didn’t tell her that Dad never knew how to capture an audience’s attention. If he did, I wouldn’t be driving us to rehearsal. I would be in college, and he would be here with her. He wouldn’t have been performing at dive bars where people got high, smashed into your car, and drove off, not realizing they left you unconscious and bleeding to death.
I just sighed and drove her to set, wondering how long it would take her to interrogate Billie.
It was going to be long day.
It was as if my mother stepped on set and transformed into a different woman. She didn’t ask Billie any questions, just took one look at her, politely introduced herself, and then whispered to me that she was going to sit in the audience seats and watch.
I almost turned to the paramedics who were on set as a precaution to protect the contestants and asked them to examine her. Billie looked nervously where my mother watched silently before she quietly asked if we should get started.
I nodded, walking over to the stage manager. “Hey, Steve, do you have microphones we can use now?”
He looked surprised.
“Faith said that you played the piano first and decided who would sing each verse of the song before using the microphones,” Billie informed me.
I turned to stare at her. She looked sweet. She was wearing light blue jeans and a light pink off-the-shoulder cardigan. I desperately wanted to bend over and kiss the part of her collarbone that was exposed.
Instead I was curt. “I don’t rehearse all songs the same way. Tomorrow, I’ll probably make Ryne practice in the street.” I grabbed the microphone Steve held out to me and walking to the center of the stage.
Billie hesitated before grabbing hers and following me. I wondered if it was the photos and the headlines about us, the fact that my mother was staring at us, or the song that was making her appear nervous around me.
We were singing “Location” by Khalid. The show made a big deal about the judges drawing contestants and songs out of a hat for the camera. As far as the audience was concerned, it was fate that had the two of us singing a love song together this week. A higher power that encouraged us to profess our feelings through sexually charged verses.
I didn’t tell Billie that I had been given explicit instructions to reach for the pieces of paper that were the smallest. I didn’t reveal that the higher power included the director of the show and Donny. They had all the songs, the contestants I would sing with and even the staging planned.
We would have three backup singers clicking their fingers and echoing some of our lyrics during the live performance while a video montage of cars traveling from South Carolina to Los Angeles played behind us. It would be a big production, but the lyrics were still so intimate that I knew the best way to sell the song would be how Billie and I interacted on stage.
“We have to stand close together,” I informed her softly. “Duets need to appear real, as if we have a relationship that we’re letting the world in on.”
“Okay,” she murmured, moving until our microphone cords were almost touching.
“Do you know the lyrics to the song?” I asked curiously.
“All of them.”
“Great. Rather than us divvy up the verses and choruses evenly, I thought it might be best if you start singing, and then I’ll jump in when it feels natural. We go from there. You stop singing when you feel like it or jump back in when you do.”
Billie nodded. She began the first verse smoothly, her eyes closed, her pitch perfect.
“You need to look at him!” my mother yelled from the stands. The band stopped playing. “Can’t see what you’re feeling with your eyes closed.”
“Mom,” I groaned from the stage.
“You know I’m right,” she huffed.
Billie opened her eyes and laughed at me. Her shoulders dropped and she visibly relaxed for the first time since I’d walked on set. It was as if I was finally standing opposite the girl who spent a week alone with me hanging out in my home studio.
“You’re right. I can do that,” Billie called back to her from the stage.
I grinned at the shock on my mother’s face.
Then Billie started the verse over again, this time looking into my eyes.
When I suggested we sing a duet, I thought it would be like when we sang a few songs together in the studio. Enough tension and sexuality to satisfy Donny, but not powerful enough to bring me to my knees in front of an audience.
I was wrong.
She was killing me, her big blue eyes and clear voice telling me that she needed only me. The lyrics, her tone, and her body so close to mine, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Carey Leigh and I performed one of my songs at the Grammys not two months ago, and nothing. Carey crooning at me was always a good show—there was a reason she was the princess of pop—but I never felt this.
I decided to start singing, coming in on the second verse. It was as if I was begging her not to lead me on.
I saw the understanding in her eyes. I watched her chest rise and fall dramatically. I wondered if she was having the same reaction to my singing as I had to hers. She stood frozen on stage, her mouth slightly parted, allowing me to sing the chorus to her without interruption.
When she began the third verse, it felt as if we were no longer singing the lyrics written by a stranger. We were discussing her best friend. I moved in time with the music, getting closer to Billie, and we started singing in unison. Our bodies swayed back and forth like we were on the cusp of performing a sexy tango. I watched her flinch each time I would sing the lyrics about wanting only her. During the last notes, she rocked into me, and I didn’t move backward. She pressed against me, and I finished the last line of the song holding on to her hip.
I was ready to rip her clothes off. Her lips parted. My head dipped down.
Steve yelled out, “You’re moving too far stage right during the chorus.”
It was as if the bubble we had erected around us shattered and we remembered we weren’t alone. I let go of her, and her eyes widened as if she had seen too much.
My mom started cheering from the stands, and Billie blushed. We weren’t singing without anyone watching, we were singing in front of my mother. And this would be nothing compared to Friday night’s live performance.
I regretted the decision to suggest we sing a duet on national television. This could only get me into trouble.
I wasn’t sure I wanted everyone to think I was in love with someone I still had to spend weeks judging.
And for some reason, it bothered me that I wasn’t exactly sure what Billie wanted either. If she felt some sort of pressure about me.
My mother joined us on stage after we sang it through twice more. I had hoped that after we sang it over and over again, the feelings I felt when I heard her sing those words to me the first time would fade. But it was as if they got stronger as we went on. She sang them with more confidence each time, which made each lyric sound more real. More personal.
“That was amazing. I think I even got hot and bothered. Voters are going to love it,” Mom said as she stood before us both.
“Mom—”
“Oh, don’t be embarrassed. Sexual tension isn’t something to be ashamed of, especially with a pretty girl.”
“Uh, thank you, Bambi,” Billie mumbled.
“Ignore her.” I sighed. “It was just music, and my mother has a weird fetish for music.”
“You’re not wrong,” my mom replied. “Although, after you perform that song for everyone, they’ll probably have a fetish too. Unless your poor lovesick fans don’t want to imagine you with anyone else.”
Billie’s face went blank. I pretended I didn’t notice.
“My fans will be fine. Everyone knows it’s just television,” I muttered before leaving my mother and Billie standing together while I went to speak with Steve about lighting.
Five hours later, I was done. We had everything the show had requested. We filmed our discussions by the piano and us chatting on the stage. The camera guys had at least two rehearsals of the songs from different angles to create a behind-the-scenes clip. I was leaving before they asked for anything else.
I couldn’t sing that damn song one more time without giving in to the overwhelming urge to rip Billie’s clothes off. I needed to leave before I turned this family-friendly show into something that should only air at 3:00 a.m. I needed at least two damn cold showers.
Luckily, Billie was swept up into another one-on-one interview and we didn’t need to have an awkward goodbye. I grabbed my guitar, waved to the production crew, and made my escape.
I had forgotten my mother was even there until she came up beside me. “I like her,” she said softly.
I snorted. “Everyone does.”
“No. For you. I have a feeling she’s a Gemini. She’s got two different personalities: the lost small-town girl and the powerful rock star. You need both. And a Gemini matching with an Aries is perfect.”
“Mom, please don’t start with the star-sign bull. I’m tired. She’s sweet and nice and a contestant. Don’t make it into something more.”
“My little boy, always the fire sign burning his own path and leading the way. You can call it bull, but she’s going to follow you, my love.”
“I’m her mentor. She’s supposed to take my lead.”
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