“It’s not exactly at the forefront of my mind, Michael, but I guess I could find out.” I am totally not ever going to ask Storm if we can have free tickets to his concert. I refuse to be that person.
Michael stands up, grabs his coffee cup, and kisses my forehead on his way to place his cup in the sink. “I’m going to the office. Call the car place and find out when your car will be ready, okay?”
“I will.”
As soon as Michael leaves, I high tail to my laptop and start to Google Storm’s ass. There’s a ton of band photos, the usual stage photos of him playing with smoky fog surrounding him under glowing red lights. There are literally pages of photos showing him with different women. Some blonde, some brunette, some purple hair, all of them gorgeous and incredibly sexy. Jealousy starts to boil inside me seeing so many photos of him with girls wound around him like horny snakes. He definitely looks wasted in many of the photos, too. I keep searching until I find a page with a biography that seems to be fan made:
Storm Valentine, the lead guitarist of up and coming rock band Ashes and Embers, was born in February of 1984. Many people think his name is a fictional stage name, but it’s actually his birth name. The band is made up of brothers and cousins who are also part of a motorcycle club in their so-called spare time. Storm started playing guitar at age five. He was in the band Wrecked in his early twenties, but the band crumbled due to several of the members ending up in rehab, Storm included. He was recruited into Ashes and Embers by his brother Asher, one of the original founders of the band, four years ago when the original lead guitarist left for personal reasons. Storm is a notorious playboy and has been linked to several supermodels and porn stars. Storm married his high school sweetheart when they were both just seventeen years old. However, tragically, she committed suicide a year later, three months pregnant. Sources say the girl was bi-polar. It was after this Storm developed a severe drug and alcohol problem, which almost ruined his career. Our sources say he is sober now but is extremely private about his personal life. Sadly, it appears almost every member (both past and present) of Ashes and Embers has been struck by some sort of tragedy.
I sink back into my chair and stare at the screen. I want to take back reading all of this and erase it from my mind, but it’s too late. I didn’t want to know any of it. I had no right to know any of it unless he chose to share it with me. But there it was, on a web page for the entire world to see. I simply can’t imagine him as a teenager so crazy in love that he got married at seventeen, or dealing with the suicide of his wife and loss of his child at age eighteen.
Halo jumps up on my lap and I hug him close to me. I want to call Storm so bad, but I don’t even know what I would say. What could I say? Nothing at all. I vow to never tell him I read this. If he wants me to know, he will tell me.
I call the garage and Seth tells me my car will be ready tomorrow and Storm has covered the bill. What the hell? I can’t allow him to do that. I’m going to have to find a way to pay him back.
I mope around until two, and then I turn on the television, afraid to even watch this next interview. I swear, if he goes on about how annoying I am, I will strangle him. I watch the cereal commercial that’s on and then there’s Storm hanging out on a couch with another beautiful blonde newswoman.
She starts right in with her cheery smile and amazingly white teeth. “We’re here today with Storm Valentine, lead guitarist of rock band Ashes and Embers, who was driving in the terrible snow storm last weekend and tried to give a ride to a young woman who was stuck on the side of the road. As luck would have it, the two crashed off the side of the road and were trapped inside his truck for forty-eight hours. Storm, tell us a little bit more about this crazy weekend you had. How did you get through that?”
“Well, Janet it was pretty crazy. Luckily, I had a whole bunch of (bleeping) food in the back of my truck so we were able to eat and drink water. I had my dog with me too, and he was basically eating Ritz crackers the whole (bleeping) time.”
“How did you keep from freezing to death out there? I understand your truck was totally dead?”
“Yeah, it was way (bleeping) dead, Janet. We crashed into a tree, and I have no (bleeping) idea how we weren’t killed. Any(bleeping)way, I had this huge blanket in the truck that the dog sleeps on, so me and the chick covered ourselves with that and luckily, it kept us pretty warm.”
Janet smiles knowingly at him. “Come clean with us, Storm. All the ladies know you are irresistible. What happened under the blanket? Surely you found ways to keep warm?”
Storm is puffing on an e-cig and blowing the vapor into Janet’s face. I can’t help but laugh. She makes a face at him and waves the vapor smoke with her hand. “Janet, I know what you and these other vultures are trying to get out of me and it ain’t happening. That chick isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met before. She’s not the type of girl to (bleep) in the back of a truck.”
“Well, it’s nice to know there are still some classy women around, Storm. Did she know who you were?”
“No. She was completely (bleeping) clueless and it was (bleeping) awesome. It was nice to be around a chick who wasn’t trying to suck my dick, ya know? By the way, our new CD comes out next month, so y’all should check it. It’s (bleeping) kick ass.” The audience starts to laugh and cheer.
Janet looks like she wants to die. “I’m pretty sure you can’t say that on this show, Storm.”
Storm laughs and takes a drag on his e-cig, the blue tip glowing. “I just (bleeping) did.”