Cover Me: A Rock Star Romance (21 page)

She lowered the photo and picked up the charm. It was almost impossible to find. Almost. Not many jewelers carried cheeseburger charms. She squeezed it in her hand, laughing, then held it out to Karen to help her attach to her bracelet.

I sat and leaned back in my chair.

Tomorrow she was as good as mine.

I was definitely
the last person in on this joke, or rather, the butt of the joke. Except it wasn’t a joke, it was real and touching and unbelievable.

Karen and I left the restaurant and my feet barely touched the ground. I was walking on clouds. “You’re so freaking lucky,” Karen said, elbowing me in the ribs.

“I feel lucky,” I said, unable to stop smiling, “but the truth of it is I haven’t talked to him since the big, dramatic parting in Santa Cruz three days ago.”

She blinked and rolled her eyes over to look at me in an exaggerated motion. “I’m guessing he’s over it.”

“It would seem so. How did you get in on this?”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “That’s not for you to know.”

“Oh.” I laughed. “I see.”

“Just get in my car and go along with it.” She pressed her key fob to unlock her doors.

“Aren’t you taking me back to my car?” I started to feel like I was a pawn in a secret adventure.

“Nope.” She opened the driver’s side door and grinned across the top of the car at me. “You’re meeting with Xavier somebody-or-other who gave a talk to or about Ted? I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. I have a letter in my car for you.”

“Xavier Forsyth? He hosted a local Ted Talk event for social media start-ups and the impact on communication and the vast wealth of online information and misinformation.” I couldn’t breathe. Xavier Forsythe. Seriously? “Wow.”

“How the hell would Derek know him?” She ducked into the car and I did the same, pulling the door closed after me.

“No idea.” I strapped on my seatbelt and took the envelope she held out to me.

“Read up.”

Bess,

Xavier Forsythe is a man who knows the ins and outs of social media. I’d be shocked if you didn’t know who he was. His assistant’s been bugging me for months to talk to her about the impact of online celebrity reporting, like The Scene and its trashy counterparts, have on public perception and if it has a correlation to sales. I gave my brief and unpolished thoughts on most celebrity gossip, but I offered your name as a reliable and respected source. He’d like to talk to you tonight over tea.(He’s British.) I hope it’s okay that I made this meeting for you.

Because you’re the brains of this operation.

All my love,

Derek

Along with the letter, I shook a charm of a big-eyed owl out of the envelope into my palm. It was beautiful, its feathers studded in yellow and amber gems. There was also another photo.

This one was the two of us at Starr Ranch where we had an overnight camping trip our freshman year of high school. Mrs. Bast was one of the field trip chaperones. We had an owl survey at night and in the picture you could only see our eyes and blinding white teeth in the flash of the camera, along with our flashlight beams making bright circles on our feet and a pair of big, round yellow eyes high up above our heads in the tree we’re standing beside.

“Another one?” Bess glanced over to the charm on my lap. “Your arms going to be weighted down with ten pounds of crap.”

“These are not crap.” I twisted my wrist and gazed at the sparkly charm bracelet. I loved it, but the memories they brought to mind where the real treasures. Plus the fact that Derek thought they were important enough to memorialize on my wrist. Our shared memories.

Xavier Forsythe was
the mad genius I’d imagined him to be. We filled every second talking about case studies and speculations. When he walked me to his door, exhaustion took over. My brain buzzed from overexertion.

My Prius sat in his circular driveway waiting for me. I had no idea how it got there, but I was glad to see it. I guessed it meant I was off the hook for the rest of the evening and could go home to my apartment and crash in bed.

All the way home, I thought about calling Derek, but I had a feeling he wasn’t done yet. I knew him well enough to know when he was building up to something big and to let his plan run its course. It was like the time when he started lugging scraps of junk home from everywhere he went and stacking it in his back yard. I waited and watched for three weeks until one Monday after school he told me we were going to build a fort.

We didn’t. Mr. Bast made us get the trash off his lawn. But this time reminded me of then. Derek was definitely heading somewhere with this scavenger hunt he had me on and I couldn’t wait to find out where it would end.

Or maybe the end would be the real beginning.

I parked in my designated spot and walked in the balmy darkness up to my apartment. Inside it was cool and cozy. I changed into an oversized t-shirt and crawled in bed. I stared out the window at the dark sky and wondered what I’d done for the past nine years without him. It had only been a short time since he came back into my life, but I couldn’t remember going to work and coming home and getting up and going through my days not thinking about him every second.

Had I been in some kind of stasis like in a science fiction movie? Or asleep like that Disney princess who woke up when the prince kissed her? I never wanted to be that girl. I wanted to be the princess who wore armor and slayed dragons, but I had to admit, kissing the prince wasn’t a bad deal either. We could slay dragons together.

I yawned and rolled over. It was still early, a quarter after ten, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Too much emotional upheaval for one day, and my bed was much too comfy.

When I woke
the next morning, it was early. The sun was young and still low in the sky. Today was the day of Derek’s press conference. There was no going back to sleep with the anxious batter of butterfly wings in my stomach.

I rolled to the edge of the bed and heard a crinkling under my pillow. I sat up and felt around. A glittery little bag was tucked under my pillow. I pulled it out and opened it to find another photo, folded note and another charm box.

I grabbed my glasses from the window sill where they were perched and put them on, blinking the photo into focus. It was Derek and I as toddlers. We had to be two or three. He had my glasses on and was laughing, pushing me away. I was reaching for my glasses and bawling my brains out because he wouldn’t let me have them.

There were the tears again, right on time, forcing their way out from the corners of my eyes. I let them fall and opened the tiny note.

Because I love it when you put them on in the morning and look at me like you’re seeing me for the first time.

Inside the charm box was a tiny pair of black glasses just like mine.

I gathered the photo, scrap of notepaper and the charm and fell back onto my pillow. “How did you do this, Bast?” I whispered. “I know this wasn’t here last night.” He worked in mysterious ways. “You’ll make a good Tooth Fairy someday.”

I secretly hoped he was waiting out in the hallway for me to wake up and find them, but no answer came. My apartment was silent.

The sense of facing my future head-on lingered heavily around me. Today was it—the day I’d decide if I ran full speed into my future, unknown risks and all, or if I cowered safely in my bubble and never let myself open up to anyone. I didn’t want the bubbly anymore, but leaving it behind terrified me. The consolation was leaving the bubble and taking Derek’s hand. I wouldn’t be alone, he’d be by my side.

As for my trust issue with him, what I hadn’t told him and maybe I didn’t even fully realize, was that I did trust him—I trusted that he wouldn’t give up on us and would figure out where things went wrong with us all those years ago and make it right. Maybe it wasn’t that I needed to learn to trust him as much as I needed proof that he’d take my pain seriously and not give up on me—on us. Because if I came out of my shell and he walked away at the first sign of trouble, I’d regret it. I didn’t want to regret deciding to love and trust Derek with my whole heart. Derek felt like my forever. He always had. If I let myself be honest, I’d been waiting inside my bubble for him to come and coax me out.

I was one of those princesses waiting for her prince after all.

And it wasn’t fair.

He shouldn’t have to rescue me. I should’ve told him what my problem was with him back when it happened the summer before our senior year in high school. Emmy was right. I needed to tell him what I wanted and needed, what my expectations were. And he had to do the same. How could he trust
me
if I wasn’t open and honest with him and kept him guessing? He accused me of playing a game and it pissed me off, like he was dismissing my feelings, but what about
his
feelings? The fate of our relationship and its future if there was one couldn’t be solely his responsibility.

I had to do my part.

He was going all out delivering bits and pieces of our past and present in photos and charms with special notes, trying to make me see how much he cared, how much he remembered. I knew Derek, probably better than I knew myself. He craved stability and security, freedom and independence. Control. That was why he left his manager and took back his music career. He’d rather face it ending in his own hands than becoming a farce.

Derek didn’t lie and he didn’t hide. He didn’t take the easy way out. I had to do the same.

I hopped out of bed and strode to the kitchen to grab my phone off the charger on the counter. I dialed and wiggled my toes waiting for Karen to pick up. “You’re not backing out,” she said as soon as she answered, her voice deep and gritty with sleep. “Get in your toy car and drive to Santa Cruz. No. Even better—we’re coming to get you.”

“I’m going!”

I studied my charm bracelet. He knew how to get through my fear and speak directly to my heart. “I have a lot of lost time to make up for. I can’t be afraid anymore.”

“You can’t be if you want to be with him.”

I heard murmuring and a masculine chuckle, then Adrian came on the line. “We’ll pick you up in fifteen.”

“Thanks, I—”

“Now get your ass ready!” Karen yelled into the phone, then hung up.

Derek

“S
he’s coming, right?”
I couldn’t stop pacing around the Halprin’s kitchen. Emmy stepped in front of me and grabbed my shoulders.

“She’s coming if I have to drive to L.A. and haul her out of her apartment by her blue-black hair.”

John kicked a chair out at the table across from where he sat shoveling scrambled eggs in his mouth. “Sit.”

I sat. Emmy and John brought their three girls. The baby sat in a car seat carrier thing on the table by John’s plate, fussing. The two older girls were fighting over Emmy’s laptop in the family room. They were a loud family.

“My mom texted her last night and told her they were coming home and she needed to be here today,” Emmy said, screwing a nipple on a bottle. “She’ll be here.”

“They aren’t coming home though, right?” I said, confused by the ruse Emmy schemed up.

Her hip shot out and she gave me a look like I was the most ignorant moron she’d ever met. “No. Get with the plan, Bast.”

“I’m with it. I’m not good at keeping track of stories that aren’t true.”

“You mean lies,” John said, stabbing more eggs with his fork. “Wait until you have kids. You become a pro at creative storytelling to cover your butt.”

“Like calling the fire chief outside when really you’re smoking a cigarette and don’t want us to know?” Emmy said, shooting him a glare with one thin eyebrow cocked.

“Yes,” he said, chewing. “And how mommy’s looking under the blankets for her ring—with her mouth—which just happened to fall around my dick.”

“Shh!” Emmy dashed to the kitchen doorway and peered out into the family room. “You’re lucky they didn’t hear you,” she said, striding back toward the table with the baby’s bottle.

I couldn’t help laughing. Emmy whacked me in the back of the head. “Laugh now while you can.”

These two already had me and Bess married off with kids. It made me nervous, but only because I wasn’t sure it would ever happen. I wanted it to, more and more every day. I was ready for the next adventure in my life to start. True North was all about making a life with Bess. Not just her and I being home base for each other, but being able to do what I loved from home or L.A., no more than five hours away.

“Everything ready?” John asked, pushing his breakfast plate away.

I leaned back and drummed my fingertips on the table. “As ready as they can be on my end.”

“She’ll be here.” Emmy settled the baby in her arms with the bottle. “Relax.”

It was easy for them to say, they hadn’t been here the day I left. The day I told Bess I was done with her game. If she would tell me what to do—what to say—I’d do it. I’d do anything to be with her. Now that I knew the major fuck up I’d committed all I could do was guess and keep trying to win her heart, body and soul. One without the other would never be enough for me. I had to have all of her. If I failed today, I’d never give up.

My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen before answering. Adrian. “Hey. What’s the word?”

“We’re getting ready to pick up your woman. We’ll make sure she gets to you before the press conference.”

My heart jolted. “Why are you picking her up? Doesn’t she want to come?”

“She wants to, man. Relax. Karen’s sitting here with razor sharp nails ready to rip my balls off if I don’t get moving.”

“See you soon, Bast,” Karen shouted and the phone went dead.