“I told Lucas I saw you guys hugging down the hall yesterday,” Alfie volunteered, his mouth full, red juice dripping all over his chin. “Just, you know, to spice things up.”
“Wanker,” Blake muttered, shaking his head.
Lucas continued to stare at me like I’d killed his fucking kitten. The fact he had feelings for Stardust was bizarre to me. They’d known each other for less than a week. Where had he acquired all those feelings? His newly found vagina?
“She was there when I wrote the song,” I said noncommittally, refusing to make her a bigger deal than she was.
Lucas’ jaw was tight and square. “The moment we saw her at the Chateau, you knew I had my eye on her.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that inspired me to have my eyes on her, too.” I shrugged, turning on the TV and flipping channels.
Waitrose closed his eyes and fell back on the sofa, releasing a sigh.
“It’s not a good idea, Alex. Even if it wasn’t for me, you are not in the right headspace to start a relationship. You need to battle your demons first.”
“Relationship?” I laughed. “Who the fuck wants a relationship?”
The end game—Will Bushell—was waiting for me around the corner, in Paris, in just a few weeks’ time. Lucas’ presence reminded me that Fallon was going to be with him, and it was time to reclaim her. Lucas reminded me of a lot of things, but most of all, he reminded me I was a competitive bastard, and every single thing I did, I did to prove one thing—I was still number one.
Best artist.
Best musician.
Best lover.
I got up from my seat, peeling off my wrinkly tank top.
I was a semi-automatic weapon, fully loaded and ready to fire. I was my own downfall, and deep down, I knew it.
Yesterday I lay with you in a bed of glass
We broke together trying to survive your past
Still, in your pain I found magic
The beauty in something so raw and tragic
When life feels banal and ordinary and beat
Run to me, my blue-eyed girl, to the place where pleasure and pain meet
The. Crowd. Went. Nuts.
A veteran artist knows how to recognize a real buzz from miles away.
There’s the usual buzz. The we-like-everything-you-do type of excitement. Then there’s the promotional buzz. The one that smells of glossy brochures and PR women in pencil skirts and brunches at The Ivy to close a nice, fat deal with a top-notch radio station. Then there’s the real buzz. This buzz. It hums in your veins—not unlike morphine—floods your entire body until every hit of oxygen feels like downing a shot. I watched my fans beneath my boots, clawing out of their own skin with elation. They skulked over security, desperate to get to me. Yelling, screaming, begging.
More. More. More.
The flashes blinded me as I finished playing “Secondhand Love,” the song I wrote after I left Stardust standing in the hall. Nine minutes and twenty-three seconds of anger, frustration, and passion.
I could have kissed her.
And another bloke probably would have kissed her.
But where was the fun in that? I liked playing with my food, and that included driving her crazy until she could take no more of it. I wanted to make her cunt ache and drip for it. Because when I finally touched her, the star would turn into dust.
Pacing the stage, I threw them a crooked smile over my shoulder. I was shirtless, first sign that I was in a good mood. Usually I didn’t like the whole Justin Bieber see-my-abs shite. This wasn’t Hooters, and once you let your record label fuck you in the arse, the least you can do for yourself is keep your bloody shirt on. But I felt like I was standing in the middle of a bonfire singing that song to a crowd for the first time. Sweat trickled down my torso, and I could see on the huge screen behind me that the cameraman zoomed in on the drops running down my V-tap. I wondered how long it’d be before the video hit YouTube, and which would be more successful—my new song, or a picture of me fisting that starlet while coming all over her tits. Probably the latter. I decided to Google it sometime. It wasn’t like I fucking cared what people said about me, anyway.
“There’s more where that came from.” I adjusted the mic on its stand and walked across the stage.
The screams became louder, more frantic. Yeah, this wasn’t polite encouragement. This was hunger, immediate and greedy. I was vindictive and complicated and back. Fuck, I was back. I had lyrics in me and they were gushing out. It was futile to pretend Stardust didn’t have a hand in this. She did, and I was going to keep her until the last drop of greatness poured out of me. Or her. Whoever it came from.