Satellite of Love (15 page)

“I wasn’t yesterday.”

Oh
. Maureen stared at the floor.

“So, hey, you want something to drink?” The clerk took her hand. “Come on.”

Maureen considered insisting that she needed to stay with Michael, but decided she didn’t want to be an albatross. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name,” she said, following the girl across the room to a table full of food.

“Call me Jenny.”

“Jenny, babe,” Trent called. “Peel me an orange.”

“Comin’ up.” Jenny grabbed an orange out of a silver bowl and started peeling it. “I’m hoping to be going home with him tonight. Just grab whatever you want. They won’t touch most of this stuff. It’s all just here in case they get hungry before the show.”

Two six foot tables laden with fruit, vegetables and drinks. A lot of food for five guys and their assorted hangers on. She picked up a bottle of water.

“You’re with Bear D’Amato?” a girl said beside her.

The girl had short black hair and a tattoo of roses around her neck. She would have been perfectly comfortable in that silver dress Michael picked out yesterday. In fact, it might have been too conservative for her.

The black-haired girl licked her lips. “I did him last tour. He’s good.”

“Shut up, Cyn,” Jenny snapped. “It’s not like that.”

“Not like what?” Cyn asked.

Jenny tossed the orange peel in the trash and split up the segments on a napkin. “He’s off the market.”

“Oh, please. He’s a man.”

“Just don’t.”

“Now, girls.” Maureen stepped between them, holding out her hands to keep them separated.

Michael grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her against his chest. “Maureen, come on over here and meet the guys.”

She almost reminded him that she’d already met the guys, but Trent had an arm around Jenny and was picking orange segments out of the napkin she still held. Jenny looked like she was in heaven and since she was the closest she had to a friend in this room, Maureen didn’t want to interrupt. Plus, she needed to have a conversation with Michael. Gian was walking Cyn to the door. Alan and Rumballs were talking to a guy in a black t-shirt wearing a headset. The other girls preened in front of the mirrors. This was as close to privacy as she was going to get until they went back to the hotel and if she didn’t ask him now, the question would eat its way out of her chest like the monsters in
Alien
. “Did you have sex with that girl?”

He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “Maybe. I think so.”

The deep breath she tried to draw caught on the steel bands around her lungs. She didn’t expect him to have been a saint, but to not remember? Another steel band tightened around her head and the room went a little flat and sideways.

“Listen, baby, those girls don’t mean anything. When you’re out on the road they’re everywhere. It’s like exercise.” He flushed.

“You weren’t jogging with her.”

“No.” He slouched.

“And you’re going to be out on the road soon.” She folded her arms to keep her body from flying apart. How had she gotten mixed up in this?

“Yeah, but it’s different now. Why go out for hamburger when I’ve got steak at home?” He stroked her cheek.

“What if you get hungry while you’re out?”

“Baby, I’m not going to.” He put his hands on her neck and leaned his forehead against hers. Her view shrank to just him. Just his eyes. “I love you, Maureen. Ever since I met you, everything’s been different. You’re all I need.”

“What if the hamburger is particularly insistent?” Cyn looked the type to take no as a challenge. And there were thousands of girls like her. Probably a dozen in the building right now. None of them would think twice about having sex with him. They might not even think of it as cheating.
He
might not think of it as cheating. “If I’m going to marry you, I need to know you’re going to be faithful.”

“I promise you I will give new meaning to the word faithful.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Maureen bit her lip. If he cheated on her, all of these people were going to know. They would be laughing about how naive she’d been, believing he wouldn’t be with another woman when so many willing ones were available.

All she could see was his eyes, and eyes never lie.

“You have nothing to fear. I am forever yours. Faithfully.”

Four sweaty guys walked through the door and Michael straightened, draping a protective arm over her shoulders. The first guy in the door stopped so suddenly all the others plowed into him like a comedy routine. “He came,” the guy said. “Holy shit, man, it is so cool to meet you.” He crossed the room and seized Michael’s hand.

The guy in the black t-shirt started yelling that the members of SendDown needed to get their shit together right fucking now. The guys in the other band swarmed around Michael. Though Gian was still hanging around by the couch and the other girls were still there, Cyn was absent. Jenny hooked her arm through Maureen’s free one.

“You want to come out and watch the show from the pit?” Jenny asked.

“The pit?”

“The photographer’s pit. You can get right up to the stage.”

“I don’t know. I should stay with Michael.” She hadn’t thought he was listening, but the moment she said his name he turned to her.

“Go on ahead, Maureen. I’m coming out in a few minutes.” He kissed her cheek. “Stay with her though.”

Jenny hung onto her arm as they walked out of the room. “Good news. I’m in with Trent. I’m off tomorrow so I can go with him to the next show, but if he wants me to follow along any further I’m gonna have to quit.”

“You would quit your job?”

“Oh sure. For a shot at Trent Markov? I’d do anything. Could you imagine if he wanted me to be his girlfriend? We’d get to hang out all the time.” Jenny’s eyes shone as she pushed through a side door that led into a narrow, dim hallway.

Those girls don’t mean anything. When you’re out on the road they’re everywhere. It’s like exercise.
Did Trent think of Jenny of exercise? “I don’t know if I’d get my hopes up.”

“Oh, I know. It’s different for you.”

She stopped and Jenny stopped with her. Jenny had her hand on the door at the bottom of the hall. Through it came the muffled sounds of the concert hall. They weren’t as loud as they had been before, but it still sounded like a lot of people. “What do you mean it’s different for me?”

“You’re the girlfriend. We’re just groupies.”

“And that’s different?”

Jenny cocked her head. “Sure. We’re good for a night or so. He goes home to you. I don’t have any delusions about what I am. Not like Cyn.”

“Cyn has delusions?”

“She thinks some rock star is going to fall in love with her and marry her, but she’s starting to get desperate. She used to be able to get backstage at the big shows and now she can’t.”

“Why?” Other than a striking lack of ethics when it came to other women’s men, she couldn’t recall anything in particular wrong with Cyn.

“She’s getting too old.”

“How old is she?”

“Thirty-two.”

Maureen nodded as if this were indeed over the hill, keeping to herself the fact that she was thirty-four.

“Come on. I want to be out there when they get on stage.” Jenny tugged her arm so she allowed herself to be led out.

* * * *

“What did you think of the show?” Bear asked. He’d intended to hang around and have dinner with the band, but by the time they got offstage at eleven, Maureen’s lights had begun to blink out. At least she wasn’t still freaked about that groupie.

“It was loud.”

“But you had fun. You looked like you were having fun.” He swallowed. She’d hated it. Half of the show, she’d had this look of stunned horror plastered on her face. What was he going to do if she hated what he did for a living? Quit?

Hmm, quit.

“I had fun. I’ve never been to a concert before.” She nestled her head on his shoulder. “You’re a wealth of brand new experiences.”

“Good ones, I hope.” He resisted the urge to clench his teeth. The way she leaned on him, she’d know and he didn’t want her to know how anxious he was.

“Mostly. And I get to be with you.” She sighed, sinking more heavily into his arms. “Sorry. I’m still on school time.”

“That’s okay.” He squeezed her shoulder. Damn, they weren’t even on the same schedule. She was in bed every night at eleven and when they were on tour, he was just getting ready to have dinner at that time. Day shift, night shift.

“So if I came with you on tour over the summer I guess I’d be watching the show every night.”

“Not every night. Not if you didn’t want to. You could hang at the hotel and watch movies or something.”

She nodded. “But the girls would be there every night.”

“Girls?” He held his breath wondering if she was going to allow him to play stupid. She twisted to stare at him. Nope. “Oh them. We don’t entertain as much as we used to. Marc is— Well, Marc is getting a divorce now, but last tour he was married and Brian’s married. Jason was dating that bitch. Ty is sort of like a hummingbird anyway and I...indulged. A little.”

“Apparently.”

“But I was single and I had been for a while.” He wished he could even remember that particular groupie. Last tour he hadn’t been celibate by any stretch, but he hadn’t gorged either. Most of the time he’d picked one and kept her around for a couple of dates. “Now that I’m with you it’s different.”

“Different.” She settled back into his arms, but the cab stopped in front of the hotel.

He paid the driver as she climbed out. She didn’t say anything as they waited for the elevator and it made his skin itch. Usually he had better taste in groupies and took a miss on the more vicious ones. “Seriously, baby, I have willpower and I’m not afraid to use it,” he said as the elevator doors closed.

She leveled him with a distant stare. “You keep calling me ‘baby’ and I’m going to start thinking you forgot my name.” Her tone was light and she did smile as said it, but it scared the bejeezuz out of him. She was still freaked about the groupie thing. Very freaked.

“I’m sorry—” He bit his tongue before he called her ‘baby’ again. He pressed his hands on the elevator wall behind him. “Maureen. I’m not going to cheat on you. I swear,” he said, clenching his teeth on a ‘sweetheart,’ which had to be as bad as ‘baby.’ Why was everything coming out of his mouth peppered with smarminess? “You’re going to have to trust me.”

She studied him from the other side of the elevator, and it felt like he could have fit a small country between them. His hands sweated against the wall. Then she stepped across, sliding her hands up over his shoulders. “I do. Dammit.”

Bear put his hands on her waist. “Why dammit?”

“Because I have no good reason to trust you and I do.”

The door slid open on their floor and he grabbed her hand as she stepped away. Letting her go didn’t appear to be a good idea. It gave her too much room to think.

What was he supposed to do when he left town and she had three thousand miles of room?

8

Maureen adjusted her carry on strap over her shoulder and squinted down the corridor. He was pacing beside the luggage carousel. As she watched, he rolled one of his shoulders gingerly. He’d told her on the phone that every time someone in the band forgot something during rehearsal they got slugged on the shoulder. Michael, it seemed, was getting more than his fair share of slugs. Boys. They never grew up. “Michael!”

He spun around and she waved her arm over her head to attract his attention. As he bolted through the crowd, people scattered. He scooped her off her feet and swung her around. “Baby, I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

He let her slide down to her feet and kissed her deep and slow. She wanted to be lost in that sensation. Being here with him seemed unreal. They’d talked on the phone every night and about everything. She knew all about rehearsals and the set list and the arguments and he knew all about her students, but it still seemed unreal that she would be in warm, sunny Los Angeles in the arms of warm, sunny Michael.