How to Catch a (Rock) Star (The Dead Hour #1) (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Lillie felt uneasy. She was nervous about the gig and time away from the stage and knowing that Jessica would be in the audience weren’t helping.

Jed’s jumpiness with Johnny was another issue and Johnny was now avoiding her. She normally relied on him, along with some Dutch courage, to calm her down and soothe her stage fright. She knew New York was a big deal and that the crowd would probably be demanding.

She also knew she was drinking too much and put her glass on the table, pushing it away from her and looking around for Jed. She went to the loo for the fifth time in an hour, staring at herself in the dusty mirror for too long, her face blurring as her eyes de-focused. She shook her head clear and went back to the dressing room, relieved to see that Jed was back, along with Johnny.

There was still something simmering between them, she could feel it shifting in the air when she neared them, enveloping her and pitching her into the thick of it. She sat next to Jed who silently passed her a bottle as Johnny slipped an arm around her shoulders. They sat in silence whilst Chris and Eddie argued over whether The Rolling Stones or The Who were better live.

Onstage, she felt better, the crowd were excited to have the boys back in their home city and were showing their appreciation. She saw a couple of banners that were just for her, making her smile and dance around, clapping her hands.

Johnny and Jed had put whatever it was they were fighting about to one side and were up to their old tricks, although, tonight they weren’t content with just the two of them and she found herself sandwiched in the middle of them a couple of times. The crowd went wild for it, loving the implied love triangle and chemistry between the three of them. Lillie played up to it, throwing flirtatious looks at Johnny whilst shimmying up close to Jed.

As they came offstage, the roar of the crowd deafening and the stamping of feet drowning out any conversation, Jed held up three fingers to indicate three encore songs and they trooped back onstage.

The three songs were over quickly, Jed sweeping Lillie off her feet, elated at the New York crowd, as he carried her offstage.

‘That was amazing!’ she exclaimed as he set her down. ‘Awesome crowd!’

‘Yeah, they loved you. You did great!’ Jed kissed her hard, crushing her against him.

‘Good job guys, great energy out there,’ Steve said, interrupting their embrace. ‘Lil, you seem a lot more confident out there, keep it up, girl. You should see what the guys are saying about you on the internet! You’re being slated as rock’s hottest chick,’ he said, laughing at Lillie’s shocked and disbelieving face.

‘Hey, guys! Celebration tonight?’ Johnny kissed Lil’s cheek and hugged Jed.

‘Yeah, why the hell not?’ Jed said, putting one arm around Lillie and the other around Johnny before shouting out to the rest of the band that tonight was party night and leading the way back to the dressing room and the rider full of bourbon and beers.

An hour later, empty bottles littered the dressing room and Lillie was loaded on Jack Daniels and several beers. She knew she was being kept away from Jessica or rather, Jessica was being kept away from her. Chris was busy entertaining her and it crossed Lillie’s mind that Kate might not like the situation, although, even through drunken eyes, Lillie couldn’t see any inappropriate behaviour on his part.

Jed announced that it was time to move on and the party moved out through the back doors, some die-hard fans still hanging about getting lucky with photos and autographs. Lillie sat between Jed and Johnny in a yellow cab, unaware of her skirt riding up and Johnny’s leg pressed hard against her bare skin, her hand on his knee as the cab swung around corners and weaved in and out of lanes and she tried not to fall into his lap.

The cold air sobered her up a tiny bit as she stumbled out of the cab and into the club they had arrived at. Realising she might be a bit more drunk than was advisable, she asked Jed where the loos were and slowly staggered through the crowd.

She finally made it and went into the first available cubicle, closing the lid and sitting down, leaning her head against the partition. She was spinning a little, so she opened her eyes and focused on the door handle. The outer door swung open and she heard someone clatter in, automatically sitting up straighter even though she knew they couldn’t see her.

‘I can’t believe she doesn’t know he’s married,’ came a girl’s voice, loud above the music.

‘I know. Everyone’s been sworn to secrecy. I feel kind of sorry for her.’

Lillie bolted upright, recognising the second voice. Jessica. She held her breath and leaned towards the door, her heart beating viciously.

‘How can she not have found out though, the fan girls are always going on about how it’s a shame he’s married and how Sarah isn’t good enough for him?’ The other girl’s voice was full of scorn. ‘Maybe she just doesn’t care.’

‘No, Johnny told me that Jed told her not to go near the internet.’

Lillie’s body turned ice cold and her heart faltered before hammering so hard she put her hand to her chest to mute the sound it must be making. She heard a roar in her head and closed her eyes. Jessica’s voice cut through the rush of noise.

‘He said he didn’t want her to read any shit the fan girls were writing about her but really he doesn’t want her to know he’s got a pregnant wife tucked away. Talk about naïve and trusting.’ Jessica laughed, the sound reverberating around Lillie’s head.

Pregnant. Married.

‘Still, I guess you’ve got to feel sorry for her. She has no idea she’s just his latest fling,’ the other girl said, her voice even louder as she walked past Lillie’s cubicle. Jessica laughed again and the door opened, the sound of the busy club swarming over Lillie before the door slammed shut and she was left alone, rapid heart beat and shallow breathing the only sound.

She turned quickly, falling to her knees and lifting the toilet seat before violently throwing up, her body heaving as it struggled to cope with the sobs racking her body and the retching.

The door opened again and she stifled her sobs into her bag, pulling herself up on shaking legs and grabbing a wad of paper to wipe away the black tracks her tears had no doubt made down her face. She took several deep breaths, steadying herself against the door as she waited for the other person to flush, wash her hands and leave before she unlocked her door slowly.

She splashed cold water onto her face and the back of her neck, staring at herself in the mirror, wondering how she could have been so stupid. How she could have made the same mistake again.

The phone calls, the texts, Johnny being hot and cold with her. It all made sense now.

She couldn’t be here anymore; needed to get away from anyone who knew Jed. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she left the bathroom, desperately pushing her way through the tightly packed crowd, eyes scanning ahead for anyone she knew.

She saw Chris to her left, making the briefest of eye contact with him before turning away from the smile that he began to give her. She pushed harder, sure she heard someone call her name.

Finally, she was near the door, into a small space of cool air and merciful relief. She breathed for the first time in a minute, risking a look behind her as she reached the doorman. Her eyes met Jed’s, as he shoved his way through the revellers, trying to follow her. The confusion on his face gave way to cold realisation as he read her expression and opened his mouth to call her name. She turned away quickly, not trusting herself to be strong enough to ignore his excuses and asked the doorman to give her five minutes to get a cab, telling him that a dark haired man had been hassling her. He nodded and turned to block the door as she made her escape into the chill of the night.

Lillie started walking quickly as soon as she was out on the pavement. She had no idea where she was or where she was going to go. She supposed it didn’t really matter now.

She dug her phone out of her bag and turned it off. She couldn’t hear his voice right now. Crossing her arms over her chest, she tried to keep the sharp wind from piercing through her dress to her clammy skin. Someone called her name and she walked faster. The voice called out to her again and she stopped dead, staring into the inky night before turning to face her pursuer. Great, Steve. No doubt he had some bullshit smooth talk to explain everything.

‘Hey, where’re you going?’ Steve jogged up to join her. ‘What’s going on? Jed’s being interrogated by a doorman and you’re wandering the streets of New York alone. Did you guys have a fight or something?’

Lillie started walking again.

‘You could say that I suppose.’

‘Look, Lil, whatever it is, I’m sure you can work it out,’ Steve said, easily matching her pace as he walked beside her.

She didn’t look at him.

‘No, we can’t. I don’t work things out with married men.’

Steve faltered.

‘Who told you?’

Lillie was thankful that he didn’t try to deny it, devastated that it was true.

‘I overheard two girls in the loo talking about it.’ Her voice was steady.

‘I’m sorry, Lil. I truly am. Can I do anything?’

Steve had stopped walking, forcing her to turn and face him. She looked over his shoulder, unable to meet his eye. A blinking neon sign indicated a bar behind him.

‘You can buy me a drink,’ she said, already moving towards the door.

Steve followed her inside, sitting himself next to her as she busied herself searching for the strongest cocktail on the menu. Giving up, she asked the barman to give her whatever the strongest cocktail was, in fact, give her two. Steve ordered a beer and she felt his gaze on her face.

Her jaw muscle twitched, her lips pressed tightly together as she stared into nothing, ignoring Steve. The first cocktail arrived and Lillie removed the garnish and straw, fishing out the ice cubes and throwing them onto the bar before draining the glass in one go. She fixed her eyes on nothing again and waited for the second cocktail to arrive.

‘Uuuh, Lillie, don’t you think you might wanna - ’

Steve stopped talking as Lillie turned her gaze on him, a challenging fierceness in her eyes. He looked down and shrugged as she turned back to the bar, new cocktail in front of her. She repeated the previous drink’s ritual and asked for two more.

Steve played with the label on his beer bottle as Lillie sat in silence, staring at the barman as if her look could make him move with superhuman speed. The third cocktail arrived and she did the same thing. Placing the glass back onto the table, she swivelled on her bar stool, her knees smashing into Steve’s leg.

‘I do not want to talk about this but answer one question for me. Why didn’t anyone tell me?’

Steve avoided her eyes, looking at his bottle and peeling the label off in one painstakingly slow rip. Lillie sat patiently, eyes on his face, waiting.

‘Jed asked us not to. I wanted to, I didn’t think it was right and when he bought you that necklace,’ he glanced at the heart, ‘I was about to tell you about Sarah but Jed interrupted us. After that, you never seemed to be alone.’

Lillie frowned, the one person who might have told her was the one she had been avoiding. She had got Steve all wrong. She twisted her glass around and played with her straw. Finally, she looked at him with a small smile. She put her hand on his arm and leaned towards him.

‘It’s not your fault.’ She said, removing her hand and taking a long sip of her drink through the straw. ‘Anyway, talk to me about something else. I can’t talk about this now. I just want to forget about it for tonight.’

***

Steve thought how breathtaking she looked, sad and vulnerable, drunk and available. He caught the barman’s eye and signalled for another round before turning his attention to Lillie wholeheartedly, intent on distracting her from thoughts of Jed with humour and cocktails. He knew this might be his only chance with her and he wasn’t going to blow it.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Jed stared at the door, waiting for Lillie to come through it. Last night had been his worst nightmare come to life. Chris had been the one to alert him to the fact that Lillie had left the club, telling him she looked devastated and itching to get out of the place.

When he had seen the look on her face, he’d known that she knew about Sarah. And he knew who had told her. Jessica. Johnny had had to drag him away from her and Jed had been afraid of himself in that moment. Jessica had been adamant that she hadn’t told Lil but, eventually, had admitted that she had been talking to Amy in the bathroom about Jed and Sarah. She swore down that she hadn’t known Lil was in there, but Jed knew she was lying.

Now Lillie was God only knew where and he had been sat on the edge of their hotel bed for hours, waiting for her to come back. Johnny had sat with him for a couple of hours, sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels with him but, in the end, Jed had told him to leave him alone. He didn’t want anyone with him who wasn’t Lillie.

He moved his cramped legs, shifting position. He knew he was to blame, that he should have told her about Sarah right at the beginning. He would have to apologise to Johnny. He flushed at the memory of accusing Johnny of sabotaging him and wanting Lillie for himself. He had even implied that Johnny and Jessica were collaborating in breaking him and Lillie up so they could pick up the pieces for themselves.

He lifted the bottle to his mouth, throwing it on the floor when he realised it was empty. How apt, he thought with a grim smile. It was such appropriate symbolism for his life right at this minute.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. Where the fuck was she?

He hoped Steve had managed to catch up to her and set her straight. He checked his phone for the billionth time, wondering why Steve hadn’t called him. Nine a.m. He definitely should have called him by now. He dialled Lillie’s number again, listened to it go to voicemail. Tried Steve’s, same thing.

He stood up suddenly, striding to the door and wrenching it open to find Johnny there, fist raised to knock on the now open door.

‘Have you even slept, dude? You look fucked,’ Johnny said, astute as ever.

‘What do you think?’ he snapped. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I couldn’t sleep and I figured you couldn’t either. I just wanted to check you were, well, not okay but, well, you know,’ he shrugged and shuffled his feet.

‘Thanks, man,’ Jed ran a hand through dishevelled hair. ‘I’m sorry about last night. I was out of line. I was just really pissed about Lillie finding out about Sarah from Jessica and I took i
t out on you.’ He pulled Johnny into a man hug, slapping his
back.

‘It’s cool. Jessica’s gone by the way. I think you scared her off for good.’ He laughed and looked gratified to see a small smile on Jed’s lips.

‘I take it Lillie’s not back then?’ he said, craning his neck to look over Jed’s shoulder into the hotel room.

‘Nope. And I can’t get hold of her or Steve. I was just gonna see if Steve was back, you know, see if he managed to speak to her. Explain things.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Johnny said, heading off down the hall with Jed beside him. ‘I’m sure she’s ok, man,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I hope so,’ Jed said, stopping at Steve’s door and knocking. He looked at Johnny and ran an anxious hand through his hair again.

‘I should have told her, shouldn’t I?’

Johnny shrugged a shoulder and raised his eyebrows. They both stared at the door, which remained unopened. Johnny knocked, the rapping of his knuckles echoing heavily in the empty corridor. They heard movement from inside and shared a relieved look.

After an eternity, the door cracked open and Steve peered out, eyes bloodshot, his normally slicked back hair standing up all over his head. His eyes widened when he saw Jed and Johnny and he glanced behind him.

‘Hey. What’s up guys?’ he whispered.

Jed frowned and tried to push the door open but Steve stopped him with another backward glance.

‘Seriously?’ Jed exclaimed. ‘Did you find her? What did she say? Where is she?’

Steve blinked at him.

‘Right, yeah. Lillie. I spoke to her. She’s fine, Jed. Well, not fine, but she’s safe.’

‘Where is she? Is she in the hotel? I need to see her, I have to explain about Sarah.’

Jed tried to open the door again but Steve held it fast, looking towards the bed again. He hissed at Jed,

‘I tried to explain to her but she didn’t want to know. You screwed up Jed. You should have told her straight. Look, go get some sleep and we’ll talk about this later.’ He tried to close the door but Jed stuck his foot in it.

‘What the fuck, man? Let me in, I wanna know what she said.’

Steve blanched at the look on his face but held the door fast.

‘Dude,’ Johnny chipped in. ‘what the hell is up with you? Tell us what happened and where Lil is.’ A look of realisation slid onto his face and he laughed.

‘Ohhh man, have you got a fan girl in there with you? Dude!’ He held his hand up for a high five but Steve didn’t respond, a dark red flush sneaking up his neck and he pushed the door closed even more.

‘This is fucking bullshit,’ Jed said, shoving the door with all his weight and Steve stumbled backwards as the door flew open.

‘Where is…’ Jed stopped mid sentence and Johnny staggered into his back.

‘Dude, what the – oh shit Steve, what the hell?’ Johnny turned to Steve. ‘Tell me this isn’t what it looks like, man.’

Steve stared back at him boldly, until he saw Jed’s face. He backed himself up against the wall as Jed took a step towards him,

‘Jed, look, I can explain – ‘

‘I don’t want to hear your explanations, you fucking prick,’ Jed hissed.

He took another step towards Steve and punched him in the face. Steve slid down the wall, clutching his nose and swearing as Jed stood over him, trembling with rage, shaking Johnny’s hand off his shoulder.

‘I will fucking kill you if I ever see you again,’ he said, spinning on his heel towards the bed.

His eyes met Lillie’s horrified stare and his heart skittered and stopped. She looked so beautiful, sitting up in bed, hands clutching the bed sheets to her, hair everywhere. His body ached for her. He shook his head to clear the thought, heart thudding slowly into action as his stomach turned at the thought of her kissing Steve, stroking her fingers down his back…

He wrenched his eyes away from hers and left the room without another word.

***

Johnny stared down at Steve,

‘I think you’re fired,’ he said and turned to look at Lil, who was kneeling on the bed. She looked defiant but unsure of herself.

‘Lil, babe. What did you do?’

She stared at him as she edged backwards off the bed to standing.

‘I can do what I want. I’m not the one who’s married,’ she said, challenging him to retaliate.

‘Lil, they’re separated, well, divorced as of yesterday morning.’

Johnny watched as the colour drained from Lillie’s face and she swayed on her feet, lowering herself onto the bed, eyes locked on his in aghast disbelief.

‘But… the baby?’ she said.

Johnny shook his head. Jesus, Jessica would be totally stoked if she knew how her plan had turned out.

‘Sarah cheated on him a bunch of times, got herself knocked up by the last guy and Jed finally saw sense and left her.’

Lillie’s eyes flickered towards Steve before closing in horror. Tears leaked out of her closed eyelids and she flinched when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry Lil,’ Johnny whispered, squeezing her shoulder before leaving the room. He closed his eyes against the sound of her crying. He really liked Lil, loved her like a sister even, but there was no way Jed would be able to forgive her after all the shit Sarah had put him through. Dammit. He should have just told Lil himself and braved Jed’s short-lived rage. Now, they would all have to live through another Jed meltdown and he didn’t know if any of them would survive it.