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Tessa squinted faintly behind her glasses. She was usually so good at this. Either her dismissals cowed whoever they were directed at, or she was able to manipulate them into a state of calm submission some other way. It looked like she’d finally met her match in Elizabeth.
“I’m not prepared to speak about sensitive, perhaps even legal, matters in front of someone who’s not directly involved.”
Elizabeth held her gaze. “Then don’t. You know where the door is.”
Silence fell over the four of us for a long moment. Tessa had a point—we were discussing subjects that were better kept between as few people as possible. You know what they say: two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead. But on the other hand, Jen seemed so important to Elizabeth, and that immediately put me on her side of things. Maybe it was the way she didn’t let Tessa—or anyone, it seemed—push her around that turned me on so much. Whatever it was, I’d developed a sort of instant fondness for the girl.
“What’s more important, Tess,” I ventured, “that we all pull out our dicks and measure them here, or that we make this girl who has so much riding on her cooperation feel just a teensy bit more comfortable?”
Tessa seemed ready to rebuke me. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. There was a look of consternation on her face, one that made her frown lines all the more prominent. I couldn’t help but smile. Ah, so this was what my manager looked like when she’d been outsmarted. Brilliant.
She turned to Jen. “Just so long as you understand that whatever is said here, whatever deals are made, none of it leaves this room.”
“Deals?” Elizabeth asked, brow furrowed. “Evidently, Mr. Bastille and I got drunk and married in Vegas. That’s not exactly what I’d call a point of negotiation. What could you possibly get out of all this?”
“Some good press,” Tessa stated matter-of-factly, nodding at me. “Mr. Bastille and I are looking to increase his presence in America, and having a bona fide scandal is the perfect way to get the ball rolling—and when the two of you eventually divorce, it’ll make for an even bigger news story. You two go your separate ways with your pockets significantly heavier.”
“You don’t really seem like you want to be married to me,” I interjected, watching Elizabeth’s expression flicker. “I get that. But think about how much this’ll pay off for you if you just… play along. You must have things you need paid for, right? Would a few months of pretend marital bliss be so bad in exchange for a huge settlement once it’s all over?”
I watched as the gears turned in her head. She was considering the offer, considering what we’d both said. But to my surprise, she didn’t look particularly happy about it. She glanced at her friend, Jenna, who gave a shake of her head that made her ebony curls bounce. Now she was the kind of girl I usually fell in with. Why couldn’t I have chosen someone like her, instead of the one woman on earth who senselessly hated my guts?
Well, senseless if you didn’t count the fact that I’d married her in such an inebriated state that I didn’t even remember it. Or the fact I’d forgotten her name, probably just as quickly as I’d learned it. Or there was also the whole thing where, in the wake of said wedding there were now scores of paparazzi camped out at her door.
All right, so maybe she had a few reasons…
“Listen,” Elizabeth said at last, “I didn’t want any of this. I still don’t. I don’t care about any money or… or some publicity stunt. I just want to get back to my life and my job and get these goddamn reporters off my lawn. So if you can just both…”
A cell phone buzzed. I checked my pockets, but mine was still on airplane mode. Tessa glanced at hers, but I could tell by the look on her face it was no dice. Jen went to her purse on the couch, but came back empty-handed.
“That’s mine,” Elizabeth said, looking down at her screen. A small, relieved smile curled the corners of her lips, and I wished I knew what a full one might look like.
“Finally!” she said, pushing past both me and Tessa as she walked down the hallway toward what must have been her bedroom.
Tessa shook her head and walked a few feet away into the kitchen, dialing a number on her own cell phone. There were definitely people she needed to call, and my lawyer would be the first no matter how this little meeting went.
“Sorry about that,” Jen said as I made it my somber duty to hold up the wall. “Liz has been waiting for that call all day.”
“Something important?” I asked, flashing my usual grin—only this time, it seemed to have the desired effect.
“Yeah—I mean, I think it might be,” Jen stammered, beaming like she’d just won the lottery. Well, at least someone here likes me, I thought. “Liz hasn’t been feeling well for the last couple of days, so it’s probably her doctor.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope,” I said with a frown.
Jen shook her head, those pretty ringlets of hers bouncing again. “I don’t think so. Stomach bug, probably.”
The two of us stood there in silence for what seemed like forever, Jen idly rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. It reminded me of that event Tessa had tried to make into a regular thing at my shows—meeting a fan before I’d gone on, before they’d even gotten drunk. It had just ended up being two people in a room feeling awkward. I was almost relieved when she opened her mouth again.
“I feel really stupid saying this, but… I’m a huge fan.”
Nervously, she chewed her bottom lip. I couldn’t help but give a chuckle.
“It’s always nice meeting a fan,” I said. Hopefully, she’d forgiven me for my blunder in Vegas—the one that didn’t involve a marriage certificate. And if I was lucky, she wouldn’t start asking me about one of my—
“Was I Wanna Feel You really about dating that supermodel back in 2007?” Jen asked, eyes all aglow. “Because I keep trying to tell my friend Sasha that it was about someone from back before you—”
“It was a long time ago,” I interrupted, kindly but firmly. “Honestly, I forget who I wrote it about.”
That was a lie; I remembered exactly why I wrote that song. Back in those days, I’d started to lose some traction in the industry—fans started dropping off, concerts weren’t sold out anymore—so Tessa sold me on the idea of writing a bunch of songs about a girl who got away. The whole album was pure bullshit. That’s about the same time I’d taken up drinking as a hobby. It was easier to do things you didn’t want to do when you couldn’t actually feel yourself doing them.
“Oh,” Jen said, her face falling slightly like I’d just told her that Santa wasn’t real. She recovered quickly enough, though. “Well, what about Give Me Some More? Who’d you write that one about?”
I tried to give her that panty-wetting grin again, hoping to brighten her mood. I hated disappointing people, especially fans, but how much better did it make it to lie to her about why I wrote that garbage?
“That one,” I said, putting on a wistful look in the hopes I could fool her into thinking I was reminiscing. “That one was about a girl I’d met when I was still just sixteen.”
“That’s so sweet!” she cooed, stars in her eyes again.
“I wasn’t always the man I am today,” I said, shaking my head. “That girl’s probably more deserving of the praise than I am.”
Jen’s eyes widened. She started to smile, but all the air was sucked out of the room as Elizabeth joined us in the living room again.
“Jesus, hun. You look like hell,” Jen said, rushing over to Elizabeth’s side. She wasn’t wrong—Elizabeth’s face was utterly ashen and her eyes were glazed with the kind of thousand-yard stare I hadn’t seen outside of combat veterans. “What’d the doctor say?”
For a few moments, Elizabeth didn’t speak. Her knees were locked and trembling, and were it not for Jen’s support, I think she might have toppled right over. I took a step closer. The least I could do was catch the poor thing if she fainted.
“Are you all right?” I asked her, dread coiling in my stomach.
