She only had him for three more weeks, a blink in a lifetime.
Breathing past the melancholy thought, she tidied up the pages, then walked back into her own room, leaving the door open. Since the flight had only been a quick three hours, she wasn’t tired, and the idea of sitting in her hotel room didn’t appeal. She was considering heading down to grab a coffee at one of the harborside cafés when there was a brisk knock on the door.
Opening it, she found herself facing not a member of the hotel staff but a bearded man dressed in a Schoolboy Choir T-shirt, the black fabric stretched over a significant beer gut and tucked into faded blue jeans. On his head was a battered New York Yankees cap, and around his neck hung a nametag that identified him as part of the band’s crew.
“You Molly?” He grunted, then looked down at his clipboard. “Yep, you’re her.” With that, he thrust a lanyard and attached nametag at her. “Make sure you don’t lose that. It’s your passport backstage—without it, security will throw you out.”
Molly placed the lanyard around her neck, the photo on it a shot Fox had taken with his phone one night after dinner. “Got it.” She turned and grabbed the small backpack she’d carried on the plane.
Grunting again, the man scratched at the salt and pepper of his beard, then nodded at her to follow him. “So, you actually know any shit or are you just here to f**k Fox?”
His tone was so matter-of-fact that Molly answered before embarrassment could steal her tongue. “Fox must trust you a lot.”
A narrow-eyed look. “Hmm. Brains.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Maxwell. Don’t call me Max.”
“Nice to meet you, Maxwell. Are you the roadie in chief?”
“Roadie in chief?” He let out a deep laugh, slapping his beer belly. “Yeah, that’s me. I think I’m gonna put that on my business cards. Maxwell, Roadie in Chief.”
Laughing along with him, his amusement good-natured rather that mocking, she said, “Where are we going?”
“Out to where the band’s performing tomorrow night.” He stuck his pencil behind his ear, scowled again. “Never done anything this big this fast before, but it’s sick babies. Whattaya gonna do?”
“You flew down for this?” Molly had expected the band to just turn up on a temporary stage with borrowed equipment… but of course not. They had a reputation for the caliber of their concerts, would certainly not shortchange the charity or their fans by putting on a mediocre show.
“Boys flew our whole team down,” Maxwell told her. “Impossible to set up a show this big with a new crew, even with things stripped down to the basics.” Adjusting his cap, he led her out through a side entrance that exited into an open-air parking lot. “Today’s all about fine-tuning things, making sure the setup will work with the boys when they get going.”
Molly paused when Maxwell slid open the back door of a van and placed his clipboard on top of what looked like electronic equipment. “You know,” she said after he slid the door shut, hoping he wouldn’t take offense, “I don’t really know you and you want me to get in a black van with tinted windows.”
Booming laughter. “Yep. Brains.” Pulling out his phone with that pleased statement, he brought up the band’s website and took her to the Photos section. “Here.”
There was Maxwell with his arm around a sweaty post-concert Fox. Underneath were the words: Fox and Man-In-Charge-of-Everything, Maxwell, after the Chicago show.
“Convinced I don’t plan to drive you into the outback and feed you to the kangaroos?” Maxwell asked, a twinkle in his pale blue eyes.
Grinning, she said, “Can I look at the other photos?”
“Sure.” He handed her the phone. “If it rings, answer it for me—and by the way, you’re meant to be the roadie version of an intern, so nobody’s going to expect you to know much anyway.”
Molly waited until she’d belted herself in and Maxwell was pulling out before saying, “That’s clever.” She thought she’d kept her voice light and nonconfrontational, but Maxwell shot her a sideways look.
“Yeah, Fox’s clever.” A short pause. “Hasn’t ever used that brain of his to get a woman backstage incognito before though. Never snuck around with any woman, as a matter of fact. Always liked that about him—he doesn’t mess with women who aren’t free to play.”
Molly wanted to squirm and avoid the issue, but the fact was, she was the one who’d put Fox in this position with someone who was clearly important enough to him that he’d trusted the other man with the truth, and she had to own up to it. “I’m free,” she said quietly. “I just don’t want to be famous.”
Maxwell nodded. “Fair enough. Can’t escape being famous if you’re with Fox, though, so you better get used to the idea soon.”
Molly didn’t say anything to that—it was obvious Maxwell thought this was a long-term relationship given the effort Fox had gone to for her. Her fingernails dug into her palms, the idea of having Fox as her own a powerfully seductive one. It didn’t matter that she knew the relationship would never last in the hothouse atmosphere of a rock star’s life; this was her fantasy… at least for a short while longer.
It made her stomach hurt to imagine opening a magazine one day in the future and seeing him in the arms of another woman. A woman who would be right for him because she could survive in the environment in which he thrived, the roar of the crowds and the glare of the lights electricity in his blood.