Love Song (Stage Dive #4.7) - Kylie Scott Page 0,1
enough too. I’d had a mild panic attack myself when it had first arrived. When Adam decided to make a statement, he didn’t bother with subtle. If only I could figure out what it all meant. If it meant anything at all, of course. And that question was what had brought me here tonight.
The bodyguard looked me over more carefully this time. His expression remained unimpressed. Understandable, given I didn’t resemble a rock star’s girlfriend, past or present. A bit below average height, sharp chin, pronounced cheekbones, olive skin, and a resting bitch face that was the envy of many. Or so I liked to think. I was basically a squirrel with attitude, who didn’t mind cracking the odd nut or two to get things done.
Meanwhile, Adam with his long dark hair, tattoos, and lanky body had appeared perfectly at home on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine the month before. He’d been sitting cross-legged on a Persian rug, strumming an acoustic guitar. It wasn’t hard to see how the bodyguard might struggle to imagine us as an item worthy of all this musical angst.
“Would you happen to have some ID on you, ma’am?” he asked.
I fished out my wallet from my jeans’ pocket. Not easy to do with the heaving mass of sweaty bodies around me, cramming me in on every angle. I produced my license, and he shone a little flashlight on it. “It’s from last year so my hair was a lot longer,” I explained. “And blue.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he gave no other reaction.
Blue hair had been great. From turquoise to indigo and back again. All of my childhood mermaid dreams come to life. Right now, however, it’d been cut to around shoulder blade-length and dyed silver and gray. Very kickass.
Next the security dude pulled out a slick little walkie-talkie and issued a series of orders. Another guy, this one in black jeans and a matching tee, joined him at the gate. Now it was his turn to look me up and down in mild disbelief. But then the gate carefully opened, and they ushered me through. A couple of the fans nearby complained bitterly and offered bribes (of both sexual and monetary nature). But no-go. Only I was permitted into the inner sanctum. Amazing. It had actually worked. I was really going to get to see him again after all this time. Every speech I’d prepared earlier disappeared from my head, and my hands started shaking for reasons I’d rather not ponder.
Up some stairs and into the elusive, exclusive backstage area the bodyguard and I went. A high wall sheltered us from the actual stage and its surrounds. But it soon opened to a larger corridor with people rushing back and forth. The banging vibration of the bass seemed to seep through the walls, the music loud enough to make my ears ring. We made a sharp right turn, and the sort of industrial look gave way to a slick little lounge with a bar and fridge, a large arrangement of white orchids, bottles of water lined up on a side table, a glass bowl full of M&Ms (Adam’s favorite), and an Amazonian woman busy with her cell. Tall, brunette, vaguely terrifying, and wearing a pair of fifties-style Saint Laurent platform heels I’d had wet dreams of owning. Oh, good Lord, those shoes. I could have drooled. A cheap knockoff of them sat at home in my wardrobe. I was still saving them for a special occasion. But not this sort of special occasion. Coming here tonight, doing this, had seemed like more of a combat boot kind of situation. Storming the rock ‘n’ roll castle and all that.
“Thanks, Ziggy,” she said, dismissing the bodyguard before her gaze flicked over me with obvious disinterest. “You’ve got sixty seconds. Talk.”
“And who the hell might you be?” I asked, not so politely, refusing to be cowed.
At this, she smiled. “I’m Martha, Adam’s manager, and you?”
“Jill. Adam’s ex. But I’m sure the bodyguard already told you that.”
The speculative look in her eyes increased some hundred-fold. “So, what do you want, Adam’s ex?”
“To talk to Adam about something he sent me recently.”
She raised her chin. “The check. I didn’t know he’d done that.”
“You know everything he does?”
“Basically,” she said, tone blasé. “You have to understand, rock stars are all big, whiny babies who need someone running their lives, or everything goes to hell in a handbasket. For Adam, I am that someone. Next question. If the