I looked down at my fans. Then up at the inky sky. Then in-between, to the space where a golden cloud of body heat and bright lights powdered above their heads, and smiled.
I put my lips to the mic.
My fingers strumming my guitar, I started to play “Man Meets Moon,” one of my earliest tunes. When I didn’t need a blue-haired girl to save me. When I was a teenager with an agenda and a lot of fucking mind to speak. A kid who didn’t know where the Chateau Marmont was and only knew about caviar from the movies. The video of “Man Meets Moon” had been filmed in Lucas’ basement by Blake. I’d had a zit the size of Beirut on my chin that day, but it still gave me the big break I’d needed.
Alfie, Lucas, and the back guitarist followed suit. I gave the back guitarist a slight head nod, and his eyes widened in disbelief. Everyone on my tour knew what it meant. I hadn’t done that in two years, but it was time. He needed to cover for me while I crowd surfed.
And I was going to crowd surf.
Because tonight, it felt so real and right.
Good and bright.
Just. Like. Coke.
“Oh, my life, that was bloody epic!” Blake jumped on Alex before the rock star could stumble all the way backstage.
His bare chest glistened with sweat, and the red marks painting his abs and back made a blush creep up my neck. I knew they were put there by his fans, and I also knew what these fans thought about when they raked their fingernails over his skin. It was the same thing I thought about when I watched him move so confidently across the stage. Like an angry god. Mars. Out for blood.
Blue-eyed girl.
Just hearing his husky, hoarse baritone say those words made me rub my thighs together, trying to relieve the tension between them. He’d written about me. He’d sung about me. And, true, he’d referred to me as a mental rebound, but who the hell cared? He’d given me a song. I hadn’t even given him a kiss.
I inhaled sharply, drinking him in. For the first time since I’d boarded the plane in Los Angeles, I was anxious and curious about my time with Alex tonight. About the hallway. Something had changed yesterday when we’d hugged. Better and worse.
It was like we’d become closer and drifted apart at the same time.
Standing in the shadows backstage, I let Alex have his moment with his friends. Alfie clasped his shoulders and shook him with an evil laugh. Fans took pictures of him. Lucas was smiling so hard I thought his face would split in two. Then Luc turned to me, almost in slow-motion, walking over and snaking his arm around my waist, yanking me into a hug, and burying his face inside my hair. I gasped. Sure, we were close. Kind of. We hung out, mainly on the plane and in hotel lobbies, but nothing more than that. There wasn’t some brave, soul-linking friendship between us. There wasn’t a bond. So, this came out of left field. Always one to please, I plastered on a reassuring grin and joined the claps in the circle of human appreciation that had formed around Alex, politely ignoring Lucas’ advances.
“Brilliant, wasn’t it?” Luc squeezed me into his shoulder again.
I hmm-hmmed in response, my smile faltering. Alex’s laughter continued as he took in the people around him, the boyish glint in his brown-green eyes making my stomach do cartwheels, and his head swiveled in slow-motion until his eyes landed on Lucas’ arm flung across my shoulder.
The smile dropped.
So did my heart. Straight to my underwear.
Wicked heart.
Traitorous heart.
Unreliable heart.
“Stardust,” he barked, and I didn’t know why his referring to me by my moniker made me blush, but it did.
I swallowed hard and pretended to comb my hair away from my face, when really, I was hiding from the world. “What’s up?”
“Need you for a sec. C’mere.”
I disconnected from Lucas, walking over to Alex without glancing at any of the people around us. Most of their faces didn’t even register to begin with, which was becoming more and more of a problem when Alex was around. He surprised me by taking my hand in his and ushering me through the narrow, black maze backstage. I didn’t ask him where we were going. If he was feeding off of my fear and hesitation, I didn’t want to give him anything I wasn’t willing to part ways with. Like my dignity. Alex Winslow was a two-faced man. One was the cold, asshole devil he gave me now. The one who wanted me to kneel. The other was his playful, relaxed self. The one I’d hung out with at the laundromat. Needless to say, both versions were unpredictable, and I did the right thing by being cautious.