Stereo (20 page)

“Because you’re constantly denying that you have the strength to get back up.” If it was even possible, he held her tighter. “As long as you keep denying your power the karmic gods are going to keep fucking with your life.”

Shaun had to laugh.

The sound was more beautiful than it ever had been to Adam. “But you always get up.  Do you know how amazing that is?”

Shaun buried her head deeper.

“Most people would just stay down, but you never do.”

She tried to blink back the emotion bubbling up inside of her. “It’s not like I had a choice.  It was either get up, or die a slow death on the runway.”

Adam chortled, prompting Shaun to release the laugh she’d been holding, as well until they were both locked into a laughing embrace.

For the first time since they’d met, they were completely unaware of the cameras surrounding them--snapping away.

--

Later that night Noodle, Yoshi and Adam were all treating Shaun to her favorite food at one of Sydney’s premier sushi restaurants,
Zushi
.

“Don’t you guys have better things to be doing right now?” she asked midway through the meal, sipping her warm sake.  “Is this some kind of pity dinner?”

“This is definitely a pity dinner make no mistake,” Yoshi confirmed with a laugh.

Noodle jumped in. “You fucking bit it out there, dude.  I mean you honestly ate that runway… I’m surprised you didn’t break something.  Like you really went down hard as
fuck
, Molten.”

“Okay, all right… that’s enough.  She knows what happened… she was there.”  Adam squinted across the table at his friend, holding a hand out to silence him.

“And you--” Noodle pointed his chopsticks at Adam. “Following her up and down the runway like some lovesick puppy.  Jesus.  What a shit show.”

Shaun was covering her face with her hand, trying to hold back her laughter.  “I know Noodle, it was
awful.”

“Awful,” Noodle agreed.

“I’m such a spaz.”

“Completely,” Noodle confirmed, again.

Seeing the smile on her face, Adam had to jump in.  “You know now that I think about it… I don’t think this girl has ever made it an entire day without falling on her ass.  And I mean ever,” he emphasized. “Ever in life.”

As laughter erupted around the table, Shaun thought long and hard.  “I think you’re right,” she said, in shock.  It was true.  She couldn’t think of a single day in her life when she hadn’t bit the dust in the most terrible way.

“It’s actually kind of perfect that you fell.”

“I’m not sure perfect is the word I would use,” Shaun said, eyeing Adam suspiciously.

“No, it really couldn’t have happened any other way.” He insisted.

“It’s already all over the internet.  They even have your fall synched to a rap song in one—it’s pretty hilarious.  Do you want to see it?”  Noodle went to fish his phone out of his pocket.

“No!” Shaun cried. “I don’t want to see it.”

Adam’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“Well you looked hot, at least,” Noodle said with a shrug.

“Hot as hell,” Adam agreed.

“Super hot.”  Yoshi nodded.

“Well, thanks,” Shaun said, dryly. “Just to be safe I’m definitely going to stay in my seat during you guys’ show tonight.  I think I’ve had enough falls for today.”

“You’re adorable,” Adam said.

Shaun’s head and stomach both fell at the same time.  In order to avoid Adam’s gaze she fingered her cellphone out of her pocket and her eyes bulged out of her head at the sight.  “Holy shit I have like… thirty missed calls.”  She looked at Adam as if he had all of the answers.

“Of course you have thirty missed calls, Molten, you’ve gone viral,” Noodle beamed, holding up his phone where he had YouTube pulled up.  “No, honestly, you have to see this video.”

“I’m---will you excuse me--” Without waiting for a response, Shaun jumped from her seat and hurried towards the bathroom.  She leaned against the wall outside of the bathroom door, hidden away from the restaurant, and scrolled through the missed calls on her phone.  Burberry Group, IMC Models, Versace Co., Prada Group… the list went on and on.  Shaun’s heart hammered in her chest.  She’d just bit it hard on the runway, was the butt of every joke online and that hadn’t been enough to destroy her so-called modeling career for good?!  What the hell could these people possibly want with her?  Surely they knew that she would curse whatever piece of clothing they put on her and whatever runway they expected her to walk.

Adam.  It had to be Adam.  Their “relationship” was finally becoming believable to the outside world.  So believable that seeing Adam walk alongside her after her epic fall on the runway had clearly endeared her and their “relationship” to the entire world.  Noodle was wrong.  Shaun hadn’t gone viral.
Adam and Shaun
had gone viral.

This was all spiraling out of control so quickly.  With each passing day she felt like she was losing sight of what the hell she was doing here in the first place.

When Yoshi turned the corner out of the blue Shaun jolted and stood tall, instinctively straightening her clothes.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  I guess I’m still just… a little shaken about what happened today.”

“Yeah…”  Yoshi trailed off, coming out of his pocket with a piece of paper in his hand. “Well I’ve been meaning to return this to you.”

Shaun took the piece of paper he held out to her and when she opened it and saw her drunken scribblings from the other night she immediately crumpled it in her hands.

“I wasn’t sure what it was about but…”  He trailed off, again.

“I uh, I was drunk.”  Shaun laughed.  “I write novels for fun and sometimes being drunk really gets my creative juices flowing, it’s nothing.”  She shoved the paper in her pocket like it was on fire.

“Novels,” he said.

Shaun didn’t miss the way it wasn’t a question, but a statement.  “Yeah.”

“Okay.”  Yoshi nodded.  “Well, I just wanted to make sure you got it back.”

There was something in his voice that gave Shaun pause.  “Thank you.”

“All right, see you out there,” he said before disappearing behind the bathroom door.

Shaun made her way slowly back to the table, not sure how she would ever stay upright again for as she’d have to carry this secret on her shoulders.  It seemed that more and more weight seemed to be added to the mountain she was lugging around by the second.  She re-took her seat next to Adam.

“We are all over the place, babe,” he said from where he was tapping away on his phone.  ‘Babe’ had become his word for her.  So much so that it seemed to slip right out of his lips like butter—and only for her.

“I know, I saw,” she said, softly.  “Who knew that falling on my ass could be so good for our careers.”

“Amen,” Noodle said as he shoved a large helping of sashimi in his mouth.

--

Later that night Shaun was exhausted from all of the singing and dancing she’d done from her front row seat at the second and final White Keys show in Sydney.  When she’d first met Adam she’d heard a few of their big hits that were played over and over on the radio, but now that she’d had a chance to see and hear the band live and get to know the guys behind the scenes, she could genuinely call herself a fan.  She knew most of their songs by heart now, and though she had her favorite tunes she loved them all.  Adam truly had a gift from god and the fact that he felt like he was losing the gift of writing that had carried him and the band so far was something that broke Shaun’s heart.  The beautiful music he’d made in the past was a testimate to how much it meant to him, and she wanted nothing more than for him to break down whatever wall was blocking him from creating. It was what he was meant to do.  It was who he
was.

The fans were just as hungry for new White Keys material as Adam himself so when, at the end of the show, Adam announced that he’d been working on something new and requested permission to play a little sample--the crowd naturally went wild.

“Now this is still a rough draft, okay, so go easy…” he said charmingly into the microphone before looking back at Yoshi.  A bass that had a smooth, almost r & b feel to it, wafted out of the speakers and into the arena.  Screams erupted when Adam began singing to the beat in his signature falsetto while making his way over to Shaun’s side of the stage.

Shaun loved the song already.  The beat was like nothing she’d ever heard The White Keys sing and it was almost impossible not to dance to. She clapped along to the words, loving the upbeat melody but loving the sound of his voice even more.  Was this the song he’d been working on in the room for the last couple of nights?  She wondered how he could come up with something so perfect and catchy in such a small amount of time.  Her eyes followed Adam as she danced and clapped to the words, not realizing until he was well into the tune that he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since it started. 

Still dancing, she looked around her and was shocked to find that she wasn’t the only one who had noticed Adam’s unwavering attention.  Everyone around her was watching her, as well.  Most were smiling at her almost… expectantly?  Her eyes flew back to the stage just in time to see Adam jump down into the crowd.  Madness ensued as the fans bum rushed towards him, testing the strength of the metal barriers, which began to creek in resistance against what must have been thousands of pounds of pressure.  Security immediately ran for the gates, arms out, ready for whatever madness was in store.

Shaun’s wide eyes went back and forth from the crowd to Adam, who was still singing and making his way slowly towards her as he did.

The look in his eyes froze Shaun in mid dance.  She was honestly worried for his safety and wanted to tell him to get back on that stage before someone in the crowd accidently killed him, but she found herself frozen where she stood.

“What are you doing?”  Shaun mouthed as Adam came within touching distance, still singing.  Her heart hammered in her chest as she searched his eyes.  Eyes that were now familiar to her.  Warm.  Comforting.

Adam stopped in front of her, inches from her face, and cupped her cheeks in his hands. Her insides screamed almost as loudly as The White Keys fans that surrounded her.  The cold metal of the microphone in his hand was no match for the warmth that swam in his green eyes. Thousands of people surrounded her, all there for him, and his eyes were stuck on her.

“Adam?”

He silenced his name on her lips by pulling her in and covering them with his own.

The entire arena erupted but even the screams of thousands of fans was no match for the chaos that raged inside of Shaun at the feel of Adam’s soft lips on hers.  He took his time, feeling her, tasting her, and when he pulled away it appeared he did it with great difficulty.

Shaun tried to breathe as she felt the cold microphone leave her cheeks.  She opened her eyes and Adam was holding it to his lips, once more.  It shook in his hand.  He fingered her curls, tangling them in his fingers as he finished the last line of the song.

Security came up behind Adam and pulled him away when the fans began getting too out of control.  Shaun’s curls popped out of his grasp as he was pulled away.

“It’s a rough draft, babe.”  He joked into the microphone.

Shaun didn’t care if it was a rough draft, final cut or something he’d just pulled out of his ass three seconds ago.  All that mattered was the confirmation that it was, indeed, for her, that it was beautiful… and that he wasn’t afraid to let the whole world know it.

She was in trouble, deep trouble.

Ten

After kissing her in front of an arena full of people Adam jumped back on stage and continued to perform his new track, all the while continuing to pay her more attention than anyone else in the audience, until one of his security guards came to whisk her away.  They were scheduled to be at the airport right after the end of the show that night, and since Adam was already in the middle of the encore it was time for Shaun to head out to the van waiting for them backstage.

Paul, the head of security, helped Shaun climb over the front row barriers and took her hand.  With one last look on the stage, Shaun caught Adam’s eyes once more, and gave him a small wave.  He waved back.

All eyes were on her, and for the first time in her life it didn’t bother her.  She just didn’t care.

All she could see was him.

--

Paul and Shaun were hand in hand as he pulled her through the backstage area.  Paul was moving so quickly that Shaun had to take up a slow jog just to keep up with his pace, so when she caught sight of Veronica walking past them in the opposite direction she only had a second to take in the sight of the blonde beauty as they passed each other.

Their eyes met as they passed, blue on brown, and Shaun’s mouth fell open when she saw that Veronica’s were full of tears.

Her heart thundered in her chest as Paul opened a door and pulled her out into the chilly night air where the familiar black van that belonged to The White Keys awaited her.