Rocked with Passion (A New Adult Rockstar Novel) (13 page)

“That’s actually a really good idea, thanks!”

“Hey, I’m not just a pretty face” Jonathan replied with a smile and I laughed.

“I’m glad we’re doing this. It’s nice, acting like a normal couple.”

“Me too, thanks for coming out with me Sara. But hey, we’d better get going or we’re going to miss the start of the game.”

Ten minutes later we were speeding across town to get to the game, where our seats were in the front row.
This was definitely one of those things that barely felt real. I mean, all my life I’d see articles in gossip magazines and on the internet showing the rich and famous with their front row seats. I never in a million years imagined I’d be one of them, sitting in the seats I’d seen in pictures so many times, my hand slipped in that of one of the world’s most famous rock stars.  And yet, that’s what was happening. That was what I was doing. It was amazing! I knew I wasn’t, but I felt like a superstar myself as so many of the other people in the crowd took photos of not only the players, but also those of us in the front row. Three seats down from me was one of the world’s most famous TV stars. I did my best to play it cool, like this was the sort of thing I did every day, as opposed to one of the most incredible things I’d ever experienced.

Just to top off the night, the game was incredible. It came down to the wire, with the home team making the winning basket with less than two seconds to go.
The crowd erupted as the ball swooshed through the basket without hitting the backboard, a perfect end to the perfect night. As we left, it felt like the first few days that Jonathan and I started dating all over again. We drove back to his place in the same car, avoiding the photographers, making out in the backseat along the highway.

When we got back to his place, Jonathan and I immediately moved to the bedroom, where for hours Jonathan gave my body pleasure unlike anything else on the planet. Over and over, his body racked mine with sensations unlike anything else I’d ever experienced on the planet.

His hands, firm yet smooth, discovered my body, roaming over my breasts, my waist, my hips and down below to my nether regions. His mouth found mine, moving from time to time to nibble my earlobe or kiss my neck, sometimes even moving down to my nipples, where the heat of his breath drove me even wilder with desire.

Over and over his shaft entered me,
sometimes softly, lovingly, making sure I felt every single movement from every single stroke. Sometimes it was hard and fast, his passionate movements making me feel like I was a real woman, like Jonathan needed me more than anything on the planet.

I lost track of how many times I came. Every time I thought it would be impossible for me to want more. I thought that was surely it, that my body wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Wave after wave of pleasure washed over me every time, enveloping my body, taking over my emotions, my senses, completely overwhelming me.

Finally,
just as the sun began to peek over the horizon, Jonathan and I collapsed into the now well worn bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. I could just barely smell the musk of his body, from the exertion of the night. I murmured sweet nothings to him as my body, spent both mentally and physically, fell asleep almost instantly, Jonathan’s arms wrapped tightly around me.

The next day Jonathan and I woke up late, took a shower together, where we continued on from the night before, until we finally managed to get ready.
Jonathan was going to a meeting with the band’s label that afternoon, so he got ready for that while John picked me up and took me to the office where Marissa and Oliver worked.

Bearing in mind Jonathan’s advice from the night before, I immediately set about trying to set an atmosphere of openness in my small company. Our new little office wasn’t large, and basically consisted of one room, the size of the board room, where we had three desks set up. Near the end of the day, when Maria
send a letter were getting ready to go home, I picked my time.

“Hey, guys, can I ask you something quickly?”

“Yeah, of course” came Oliver’s reply, as the two of them turned around in their chairs.

“
As I’m sure you guys have realized, this is the first time that I’ve ever actually had employees. I’m sure I’m going to screw up sometime, and one of the main things I want to avoid is being a terrible boss. I promised him going to do my best, but I want both of you to know that if you’ve ever got any problems with me, or if you ever think there’s something that I could do better, I want you to know that I’m absolutely open to listen. I know that I’m not an experienced boss, but the both of you are great employees and I want to keep you here. Just letting you know that my door is always open, and if you tell me what I’m doing wrong, I promise I’ll take it well and I won’t fire you or anything.”

Marissa and Oliver looked at each other for a second, not really knowing what to say. Finally, Marissa spoke.

“Thanks, Sara. I don’t know about Oliver, but I think you’re doing a pretty good job so far. This is like, my second job ever, so I’m not really sure what a bad boss is either,” she added with a nervous laugh.

“I agree, you’re doing fine but thanks for the offer,” Oliver added.

I had to admit, their reactions made me feel a lot better. After all, I really didn’t have a clue as to whether or not I was a good boss. Jonathan said I would be, and I trusted his opinion, but of course my actual employees might think differently.

For the next two weeks, everything went absolutely perfectly. I couldn’t have asked for better. Jonathan and I were closer than ever, Marissa and Oliver turned out to be fantastic workers, and everyone seemed to have all but forgotten about my earlier mistakes.

Then, one morning, out of the blue, I got a phone call from Marissa.

“Hey, Sara?”

“Yeah, Marissa, what’s up?”

“Um, I need to talk to you.”

“Of course, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t really know how to tell you this, but I need to quit.”

“What? Why?” I was shocked. I mean, unless there was a personal emergency or something I couldn’t imagine why Marissa would possibly want to quit. She hadn’t given any indication of being unhappy, she’d been doing great work, and had even made a few remarks that implied that she wanted to stay on in this job long-term. This was really sudden, out of the blue.

“Can I keep my reasons private? I can’t tell you why, I just need to quit this job. I’m sorry Sara. I really did like working for you.”

“Well, was it something that I did?”

“No, no not at all.
It’s just me. I’m sorry.”

Before I knew it, I was listening to a dial tone. I stared at the phone my hand, completely confused as to what had just happened. This is definitely not what I had expected. Why was this happening?

My head immediately went back to what had happened with the unscheduled appointments. I mean, there was no reason for the two events to be connected of course, but it seemed strange that all of a sudden two major events would happen in my professional life, both of which affected me negatively. I really wished that I knew why Marissa had quit. She wouldn’t tell me, but why not?

I tried to call her again, but I got no answer. She had let it ring out go to voicemail. Frustrated, I called Oliver and let him know what had happened. He expressed surprise as well, mentioning that Marissa had even told him the night before that she would see him the next day. He wondered why she hadn’t come in, but had simply chalked it up to her being sick.

I thanked Oliver, then threw the phone down on the couch in frustration. Why on earth did Marissa quit? Was it something I said? Was it something I’d done? I had no idea. Immediately, of course, I began to worry that I was in fact a terrible boss. I mean sure, I told them they could come to me anytime, but if I really was that bad would they have tried to do so or would someone like Marissa simply call me out of the blue one day and quit? I had no idea. What I did know, was that I needed to replace Marissa as quickly as possible and that careerwise my ego was around the lowest point it had ever been.

I called Jonathan and told him that I wasn’t going to meet the band is scheduled that afternoon, telling him about Marissa’s phone call.

“Sorry, Jonathan, I have to spend the afternoon going through that pile of resumes that I had and hoping that the person that I had on the back burner is still available.”

“That’s fine, obviously, our meeting today wasn’t urgent so we can always do it another time. But do you know why she quit?”

“No, that’s the thing, I have no idea. I asked her, since obviously if it was something that could be fixed I’d rather trying keep her, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

“Really?
That’s kind of weird.”

“Yeah, I thought so too. I tried to call her back as well, but she wouldn’t reply. I think I may give her a day or two and try again. I mean, I hope it wasn’t anything I said, but I’m starting to feel like I’m terrible at my job.”

“No, don’t say that Sara. You’re absolutely amazing at your job, and I don’t think there’s a single other person on the planet to could have been put in the same situation that you were by coming here to help us out and have done as good a job.”

My heart swelled as Jonathan said those words, and I suddenly felt so much better. It was amazing how one person could make what had started out as a terrible day so much better.

“Thanks, Jonathan, that really means a lot to me. It’s just that with everything that happened, I feel like I’m so bad this job.”

“Don’t worry about it Sara. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, and you’re still better than pretty much everybody else out there.”

As we hung up the phone, I thought about what Jonathan had told me. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, he said. It was funny, despite knowing that it must have been me, despite suspecting that it was probably something that I’d done or said that made Marissa quit, a part of me still couldn’t accept that the appointments were my fault. I was sure that I hadn’t screwed them up, I was certain that I’d made sure they were correctly organized. And yet, it was obvious that Jonathan didn’t share my belief.

I couldn’t blame him for that of course, since it made no sense for it to be anything other than my mistake. If it had been once, with one organization, then sure it might’ve been the person on the other end, but this had to be me. This whole situation sucked.

I went back to my apartment, going through the trash bin next to my desk that I’d set up in my bedroom, until I found the resume belonging to another girl that I’d almost hired. Tammy had almost the same background as Marissa did, just having graduated from a PR program at one of the local colleges, and it had honestly been a tough decision choosing between the two. In the end I went with Marissa simply because she had a tiny bit more experience than Tammy as an intern, but as I dialed Tammy’s number and hoped against all hope that she was still available I thought to myself that perhaps more experience wasn’t exactly the best thing. After all, look how long Marissa lasted.

“Hello?”
Came Tammy’s voice on the other end of the phone after two rings.

“Hi, Tammy, this is Sara, I interviewed you for the job for my PR
company a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh, of course, hello Sara.”

“I’m going to be completely honest with you hear Tammy. I called you a few weeks ago telling you that you didn’t get the job, but the girl that I did hire has already quit, without giving any notice, and I’m wondering if you’d still be available to start immediately.”

“Definitely, I can start work tomorrow.”

“That’s fantastic, thanks Tammy.”

We organized the details and then I hung up the phone. I was really not comfortable with being a boss.
After all, I was still so young. Tammy was the same age as me, having started her program a few years later than I did. Oliver was a few years older than me. Here I was, having somehow found myself in this position I was bossing people around, and yet I felt like a child of the group. I knew I was good at public relations, but when it was just me by myself and I didn’t have anyone else to order around, it was different. Sure, I didn’t have boss, but I still work for people. I still had clients, I still had to find clients, and then I had to do whatever they wanted. Now that I was ordering people around, things were a bit different. I didn’t feel confident anymore, I didn’t feel like I what I was doing. After all, I was still only 25.

I told Jonathan about my new hire that night, and also told him about my lack of confidence in being a boss.

“Yeah, I can totally understand that,” he replied when I told him about my fears. It was funny how comfortable I was telling Jonathan basically everything. He always knew what to say, he always knew exactly how to react to make me feel better.

“Can you really?”

“Of course. After all, while I wasn’t in the exact same situation as you, it was pretty close. We came to LA when I was 21, and we made it big when I was 24. So basically, the same age as you are now. We were dealing with the paparazzi, we were dealing with her record label, making music, and all of a sudden we found ourselves as a whole bunch of stuff to hire. Whenever we did shows rather than doing everything ourselves we had to have crew, we had to have manager, we had to have PR person of course and we had to tell all of them what they were doing. So don’t worry, I absolutely understand exactly what you’re going through.”