“This is Ana,” Ash confirmed. “Ana, I’d like you to meet Connor.” So formal. But Connor wasn’t. He wrapped his arms around me, his hands going right down my back to the top of my ass.
“You get tired of this jackass, you let me know.” He pulled away, but only to get a better look at my rack. “I’ve got some overdue library books. You might need to punish me.”
Before I could tell him to get lost, or see what Ash thought of all this, Lola burst in the door. “There you are!” She clutched my bare arm, then wrapped her fingers around Ash’s bicep. He wore a fitted black t-shirt and I could see some of his trademark tattoos dipping and swirling down his muscle. This would all be so much easier if he weren’t hotter than hell.
“Photos!” she declared, and a couple more people came in the door behind her. The naked, coke-dispensing girl simply slipped her dress back over her head, unfazed, nonchalant. This clearly wasn’t the first time people with cameras had walked in on her naked.
We posed. I got shuttled away with the rest of the groupies, up to the dark recesses beside the stage. I half-wondered if I shouldn’t simply take a car back to the hotel. My purpose had been served.
But then the show began. And I could see it all from backstage, only a few yards away from the action. Smoke, pyrotechnics, these guys didn’t shy away from any of it. If anything, they embraced all the excesses of 80s hard rock with gleeful abandon. Why the fuck not, when you were that badass?
“Are you ready to rock, Los Angeles?” Ash strutted onto the stage, owning it, and the stadium erupted into a deafening roar. Tongue out, fist up in the air, he dialed the crowd up to instant frenzy at the sight of him, his long, lean body all in black. A roadie handed him a guitar and they were off, pounding directly into one of my favorites, an adrenaline-pumping, hard-driving anthem.
“Do you want it?” he snarled out the refrain, and the entire stadium answered him with the chorus, “Hell, yeah!”
“Do you need it?” He held out the microphone for the response, not even needing to sing the “Hell, yeah!” himself.
I couldn’t help it. I brought my hands up, cupping them as I hollered for more. A huge smile breaking out over my face, adrenaline surged through my body. It was Ash Black! The Blacklist! And I was backstage!
“Aren’t they amazing?” One of the groupies next to me grabbed onto my arm.
“I love them!” Swaying and singing along with every word, we became BFFs for the whole set. I didn’t know how they did it, cranking up the energy and adrenaline for the entire show, but each song seemed to take the crowd higher. They didn’t have dancers or costume changes. They didn’t have special guests or surprise performances, and they certainly didn’t break ever for a slow ballad, Ash sitting on a stool in the spotlight to get contemplative.
None of that. They were AC/DC in the 70s, Bon Jovi in the 80s, Nirvana in the 90s, The Strokes in the 00s. And they owned this decade, no one could compare to them, the raw power and attitude and wild surge when they locked into a beat or ripped through a chorus that every single person in the arena knew by heart.
And in the middle of all of it, the rock, the magnet, was Ash Black. Strutting, snarling, messing around with his band mates, yelling out to the people in the back, dedicating the next one to all the ladies in the house not wearing panties, he put on a crazy show. I’d seen some bands, some solo artists perform, but nothing like this. Nothing even came close to his gorgeous, sexy, fuck-me voice, suave then rough, a whisper then a rock yell worthy of the greats. No wonder he’d been on the cover of Rolling Stone and Spin and People and you name it. No wonder he had paparazzi chasing him everywhere he went. He was the fucking bomb.
After about an hour and a half, the band finally took a break, coming backstage to drink water and high-five and towel off. Ash sat down nearby and took off his shirt. It instantly disappeared into some woman’s hands. She clearly had the backstage pass of a crew member, but I had to wonder if that shirt would ever make it back into his wardrobe. Somehow, I doubted it. I kind of wanted to steal it, myself.
“Having a good time?” Ash rested on the edge of a chair, his long legs outstretched. He looked straight at me with those killer eyes, his full lips curved into a smile aimed right at me, but I still had to look around to make sure. Was he really talking to me, Anika Ivanov from Wallingford Falls, NY, population 5,500? But he continued, “You enjoying yourself?”
“Yeah, it’s a great show.” I took a tentative step forward, feeling much more shy around him after the visceral reminder. He was famous for a reason. It wasn’t just that he was gorgeous and rich, and that alone seemed to be enough for tons of celebrities these days. Pop them in a reality show and you’d never see the end of them.
But Ash Black was more. He was crazy talented with musical ability, a uniquely amazing voice and the kind of presence you couldn’t teach, you either had it or you didn’t. And Ash Black had it, on and off the stage. I suddenly felt more than a little star struck.
“Anything you want to hear me do next?” he asked.
“Every song is so good.” I wasn’t even sucking up to him. I meant it. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. A stiff strand. They’d put a lot of spray up in my ‘do’. “But, there is a song I’d love to hear. I’ve always loved ‘Tonight.’”
“Yeah?” He looked at me, seeming pleased. It was from their first album and it had never been released as a single, never got much radio play but it was a go-to for me walking at night. It captured the restless action, that sense of promise you felt before going out. You never knew what would happen next.
“But you probably already have it worked out, what you’re going to perform for your encore.”
“Perform for my encore?” He arched an eyebrow. “Do you think they’ll shout ‘bravo’?”
I blushed. “Sorry, I’ve only performed classical music. So, you know, bravo, encore, that’s what I know.”
“I’d love to hear you play some time.” Why did it suddenly feel like we were the only ones there backstage? He looked deep into my eyes, his finger toying with his water bottle. Shirtless, a few thin leather bands wound around his neck, one with a small cross resting right at the start of his hard, defined pectoral muscles. We stood close enough that I could reach right out and trace them, run my fingers along his ridges and planes.
“All right, let’s do this!” a man called out from behind me.
Ash dropped his head down, as if he didn’t like the timing of the announcement. Then he nodded and drew himself up to his full, imposing height. He stood much taller than me and I took a step back, forcing myself away from his magnetism. Everyone felt that way around him, I reminded myself. It wasn’t that there was anything between us. I felt a crazy pull toward him because everyone did, me and millions of other fans around the world.
But I had to admit, it still felt like something more than that when he got back out on the stage and dedicated the next song to me. I knew it was part of the plan, that he was merely executing as dictated by his PR firm and his agent. He was fueling the fire, giving the bloggers and vloggers and columnists and commentators a good quote.
But I still felt a tingle down my spine as Ash looked backstage at me, smiled, and then told the thousands of people screaming for him, “This next song is for my girl, Ana.”
CHAPTER 4
Ash
Heading backstage after my final encore as Ana had called it, the first thing I did was look for her. I wanted to see her face. She showed everything in it, none of the usual mask I was used to, the perma-grin and bullshit ‘great, man, great show’ I was used to hearing over and over. I knew I’d kicked ass, rocking the song she’d wanted to hear. But had she liked it?
Standing there, shirtless, sweat pouring off of me, a couple of groupie girls instantly surrounded me, already vying to be the one—or one of the chosen few—to lick it off my muscles. But no Ana. Where had she gone?
“Killed it!” Our manager was there tonight. He lived in L.A. so it was ea
sy for him to swing on by.
I did a few high-fives, drank some water, pulled on a clean shirt. She’d left. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised. I should be relieved. But I felt deflated.
After the party this past weekend, Lola had warned me. I needed to cool it. She’d flashed a bunch of L words in front of me: Legal contract. Liability. Lawsuit.
She really knew how to rain on a parade. Sunday after the holiday party, I’d woken up at the crack of one in the afternoon with a big smile on my face. I hadn’t had such a good time in a long while. Introducing Ana to my Gram, singing a Sinatra tune like that. Pressing her up against the wall and feeling her so wet and eager for me, making her come on my fingers. Yeah, it was all good and I felt like a kid in a toy store with a whole month to play.
Only then Lola had called and chewed me out for my behavior. I was lucky she’d found me in the hallway. Didn’t I know how close I was to breaching contract? This girl could go psycho on me. Too much of that kind of messing around, blurring the lines, and Ana would start thinking we really were in love. Then, once she realized I wasn’t, she could seriously mess shit up. We might not have enough lawyers to douse the fiery fury of a woman scorned.
“I know girls like her,” Lola had told me. “They don’t play by the rules because they don’t even know the rules.”