The Song Remains the Same (24 page)

Lili gave me a strange look but said nothing.

It was already ten o’clock. I’d slept pretty late and really, really well.

For the rest of the morning, I helped Lewis prep for dinner—spinach, bacon, and parmesan tortellini, salad, and garlic bread—while Lili snapped photos of our progress.

Then, I gathered my crap and headed out to check if there was any new talent. Alys opted to stay behind, having slacked on her duties the night before, but Lili happily traipsed next to me as we headed toward the security checkpoint.

Not far from the bus, Phil, X, Flipper, and Sheri stood together, looking like they were having a heated discussion. X and Phil had shopping bags in their hands.

“I know you don’t like—” Phil was saying, but he shut his mouth when he spotted Lili and me.

The rest of them followed suit.

“Hey, Baby Girl!”

His cheerful demeanor halted my steps for a beat, but then Lili and I continued on, giving them a wave.

Handing over his bags to Sheri, Phil came up to us. “Where are you goin’?”

“To work, like I do every day when there’s a festival,” I replied.

“Can I walk with you?”

Lili snorted back a snicker.

“I got a chaperone already. Thanks,” I replied tartly.

“What? Pygmy? What’s she gonna do?”

“How are your shins?” she asked sweetly.

“Still bruised. Thanks for asking,” he replied just as sweetly. “Can I hold your hand while I walk with you?”

“No,” I retorted, fighting a case of twitchy lip.

“How about a finger? Come on. Just the little one?” He hooked his pinkie with mine. “See? Can I do this?”

My threatening grin broke loose, and his dimples responded in full force.

“Sweet,” he stated happily. “Are you guys gonna be gone for long?”

Lili shrugged.

“Long enough to do our jobs,” I replied.

“You’ll be back to have dinner with us?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just wonderin’. Will you sit next to me?”

“No.”

“Across from me?”

Halting my stride, I turned to face him, and his smiling face had me cracking up.

“What are you up to?”

“I just wanna be with my Baby Girl as much as I can. How is that so wrong?”

Lili laughed outright and moved off toward the checkpoint.

“You know why,” I said.

“I can’t have you forgettin’ that I absolutely adore you, Kenna, or that I love you more than anythin’ else in the whole world. Just because you won’t let me shag you into a good mood doesn’t mean I’m givin’ up on makin’ you happy.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Thanks. It seems I’ll need all the luck I can get. You’re a stubborn little shit when you wanna be, you know that?”

Rolling my eyes, I moved on toward the checkpoint, and he snatched my pinkie again.

“So…” he said.

“So?”

“Will you sit across from me at dinner?”

Smiling, I replied, “I’ll think about it.”

Showing my pass to security, I headed into the fairgrounds where Lili was patiently waiting for me.

“Have a good time, Baby Girl!” Phil’s voice bellowed.

Stunned, Lili and I turned to see him standing by the ten-foot-high chain-link fence. He grabbed on to it and rattled it loudly.

“I love you, Kenna MacGregor!” he roared.

“Oh my God!” gasped Lili. “He’s fucking lost it!”

“‘
You light up my life
!’” he continued, drawing way too much attention from both sides of the fence, which he was still rattling like a head case.

“Dude, is Phil fucking Deveraux bellowing Debby Boone?” I asked Lili.

She nodded vigorously. Phil continued to belt out the lyrics at the top of his mighty lungs.

“Phil!” I hissed, waving at him to stop.

Civilians were gathering. Phil wasn’t the least bit fazed, and he continued to croon the cheesy lyrics at full lung capacity.

“You’re a fucking madman!” I shouted.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, he roared, “Good! I wondered if you got my love letter!”

Rolling my eyes again, I waved, letting him know we were leaving. As I turned around to leave, he rattled the fence again.

“Kenna!”

“What!”

“I love you! I love you, Baby Girl!”

Spinning around, I marched back up to him. People were seriously gathering now, and a mob could be forming.

“What do you want, Phil?” I hissed.

“I want a kiss.” He pouted.

“I’m not coming back around.”

He mashed his face through the fence and puckered up. Heaving a sigh, I pressed a kiss to his lips.

“Another one? Come on, I won’t get to see you all damn day.”

This time, his fingers caressed my cheek through the chain links as my lips made contact once more.

“Thanks, Baby Girl,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, quit being an ass.”

“
Your
ass,” he stated with a grin. Then, his face grew serious. “Kenna, I—”

Lili came up and grabbed my hand. “Knock it off! You’re about to incite a fucking riot!”

Phil looked surprised when he glanced over my head. People were starting to come over, and before the situation could get hairy, Lili dragged me off as the mob descended on Phil, asking him to sign autographs through the fence. Security personnel gathered, too, trying to get a handle on the situation.

“He’s insane!” huffed Lili. “Let’s have a beer. I need one after that little demonstration!”

“Yeah, you and me both.”

After a couple of hours, Lili headed back to the bus to hang out with Lewis while I went looking through a few stalls for some band T-shirts. The sight of a five-member NOLA’s Junk shirt made me feel so happy that I bought one, admiring my brother’s sultry good looks, as he and Phil stood in the background of the photo plastered on the front.

Poking around for a bit, I returned to the checkpoint in the late afternoon, thinking it’d be nice to have a spliff and hang out with friends before dinnertime. My mood was pretty fucking good, so much so that I was considering sitting in Phil’s lap at dinner. His antics earlier had given me a warm glow that only grew brighter as the hours separated us.

That was no doubt why the gods had decided to have Brigid ambush me as I walked through the checkpoint.

“Hey, Kenna! Would you mind autographing this for me? I had no idea you were a bit of a legend on this side of the Atlantic!”

Brigid was sporting some bruises and a fat scabbed lip as she smiled an evil, spiteful smile. Thrusting an open magazine onto my clipboard, she shoved a black Sharpie on top.

The photo and title on the page sent a bolt of nausea rolling through my gut. I really wished I’d had something more in it because I’d have loved nothing more than to vomit all over her busted face and the page.

IS THIS THE REAL BABY GIRL?

Rumors are flying that Phil Deveraux is fighting once again with Devon GianFranco over the love of his life, Brigid Von Deitrich, Swiss bombshell, and the true inspiration of his Baby Girl.

Beneath the text screamed a photo of Phil and Brigid at the Burger Shed, showing Phil’s head thrown back in laughter while Brigid gave a slight smile. I had to admit, they did look stunning together.

Yanking the cap off the Sharpie, I scribbled a note.

Note of Prescription for Brigid Von Douche Bitch: Lithium, 1000mg, 10 x daily.

Dr. Kenna MacGregor, MD

“Here you go,” I replied in the sickliest sweet voice I could manage, handing the magazine back to her.

“You do realize that the little stunt he pulled today was to keep the public in confusion, right? It’s all publicity.” She smirked at me for a moment and then glanced down at the magazine.

Taking this opportunity, I turned around and walked away.

“Lithium?”

“It’s an anti-psychotic, Ms. Douche Bitch,” I called over my shoulder. “Make of that what you will.”

Good mood shattered and scattered to the four fucking winds, I stomped onto the bus with the force of a small hurricane, yanking off my bag and tossing it onto the couch.

“Are you okay?” came Phil’s voice from behind me.

So enraged was I that I hadn’t even seen him sitting at one of the tables, playing cards with Flipper and X.

“I’m fine!” I yelled, attempting to blast holes in the floor with my feet as I stomped toward my foxhole.

Phil’s hand clasped gently around my upper arm. “Baby Girl—”

Twirling around to face him, I punched him over his chest tattoo. “Don’t
ever
fucking call me that again!” I screamed.

Pain and shock twisted his features. “What?”

“Fucking
Baby Girl
! Brigid now holds that fucking title! That name is forever warped and polluted by that foul piece-of-shit excuse for a human being!” Rage was consuming me, shivering meanly through my veins, making my whole body convulse. Shit, even my eye was twitching.

“What are you talking about?” asked Phil.

Jason quietly walked up and handed him a copy of the magazine. Then, he silently slipped back to wherever he had come from. Looking down at the photo, Phil’s face turned into Lethal Phil.

“This is bullshit!” he hissed. “Why are you letting this garbage bother you?”

“Is that what today’s stunt was all about?” I scathingly asked, pointing at the tabloid filth. “Were you afraid I’d find out, so you had to soften me up beforehand?”

“This is the first I’m seeing this,” he snapped back.

Anger blazing through me on an empty stomach with the thought of slimy Brigid in Phil’s arms flitted through my traitorous brain and had me seeing white spots. My tinnitus flared loudly, and I felt my knees starting to give out.

“Shit!” shouted Phil, lifting me up into his arms, holding me close.

“Put me down,” I said, my own voice sounding like it was coming from a distance down a long tunnel.

“So you can fuckin’ faint?”

“Lay me on the couch!” I snapped, feeling some blood and reason rush to my head. “I need my knees up.”

He did as I’d asked, sitting so that he held my feet in his lap with my knees bent toward the ceiling. Jason drifted by with a bottle of water.

“She ain’t takin’ Baby Girl from you, Kenna. I won’t let her.”

“She already has,” I replied miserably.

“No, she hasn’t.
No one
can take it from you.”

I kept my mouth shut as the roaring in my ears died down. Light was too bright, so I shut my eyes.

“Don’t give her any power over you. She has none,” he said softly. Then, he sighed. Wrapping his arms around my knees, he hugged them tight, resting a cheek on top. “You’re my
only
Baby Girl. And I’m so sorry I did this. It’s my fault, Kenna. I fucked up. I never should have gone to lunch with her. I knew it was a bad idea.”

“Then, why did you go?”

“Because, at the time, I thought it was the nice thing to do, you know? Just to let her know that I was sorry I’d ended it the way I had. But she took everythin’ all wrong. I told her over and over how I had been in love with you since I was a kid, but she completely ignored it and only heard what she wanted to hear.”

Everyone was listening to us but trying to appear as though they weren’t paying any attention.

“I want to go lie down,” I quietly told him.

“Can I lie down with you?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

I struggled to my feet, and Phil followed me back to the bunks where I noticed straightaway that my panel had been graffitied all over with hearts containing
Phil + Kenna
and
Phil Deveraux-MacGregor
scrawled in his beautifully flowing script.

“What the…”

The entire fucking panel door was an adolescent declaration of devotion.

Philip MacGregor.

Mr. and Dr. Deveraux-MacGregor.

I ♥ Kenna.

I love my Baby Girl.

That sort of shit.

I looked up into his face. He was trying to gauge my reaction.

“You ruined the panel.”

“I think I significantly improved it.”

My lips twitched. “It’s completely juvenile.”

“Well, you
do
reduce me to a pantin’ adolescent with a boner. I thought it was only fittin’.”

“Why do you love me?” I whispered, my self-confidence plummeting and splattering in a hot mess at our feet.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he replied, sounding angry now. “You are the most amazin’ woman on the whole planet. Where is this comin’ from? Did that photo upset you that much? It’s fuckin’ funny because, at that moment, I was laughin’ at her for suggestin’ that she remind me of what sex with her had been like. I find it ironic that it’s being used to depict how I’m supposed to be enamored with her.”

That did make me smile a little bit.

“Kenna, please stop pushin’ me away,” he begged softly. “I’m tryin’ to fix this. It’s drivin’ me insane, havin’ you at a distance. It’s you and me against the whole fuckin’ world, if need be.”

“I told you what I needed you to do.”

“I’m not talkin’ ’bout just the physical stuff. You’re my best friend. I need you by my side. I know I endangered your trust. I know it looked bad, but you also know that I ain’t capable of bein’ with anyone else like that.”