AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s a great idea,” I say, trying to sound super chill and easygoing. But I don’t think I’m fooling her.
Both of us smiling serenely, my assistant and I take our seats . . . and then proceed to quietly gripe about the situation between ourselves for the next several minutes. In the middle of our bitch-fest, however, a male voice behind us takes us by surprise.
“Yeah, I vote we kill him. He’s such a dick.”
I turn around to find Kendrick sitting behind us, looking highly amused.
“Hello, ladies,” he says. “Sorry we’re running late. Savage was visiting his family and got delayed.”
“Oh no,” I say. “I hope everything is okay.”
“It’s fine. He’s on his way now.”
“Great,” I say brightly, my cheeks turning red. “How long have you been sitting back there, Kendrick?”
His smile broadens. “Long enough to know you’ve been plotting Savage’s murder. But don’t worry. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.”
My shoulders soften under his warm smile. Clearly, he’s not holding whatever he heard against me. But it’s a good lesson for me. From now on, I need to keep my nose down and my big mouth shut.
For the next few minutes, Kendrick and I chat breezily as we await Mr. Rockstar’s arrival.
And finally it happens. Adrian Savage enters the building. Which I know even before I’ve seen him, thanks to the sudden shift in the air. The electricity instantly coursing through the building. All at once, crew members who’ve been working calmly suddenly spaz out. And Kendrick rises from his chair.
“Talk to you later, Laila,” he says. “Come eat with us after your soundcheck. We’ll be in Greenroom 2 with a full spread. Plenty for you and your band.”
“Thanks so much.”
Kendrick heads toward a far door, just as Savage’s striking face comes into view. He strides into the large venue and toward the stage, and Kendrick greets him warmly and then falls into step with him. At the same time, the rest of the band converges on the stage and gets settled with their instruments in a way that suggests they’ve all done this before. Many, many times—and on a very tight schedule. When Savage and Kendrick walk onstage to join the rest of their band, everyone waves curtly at Savage. But they don’t scold him or otherwise freak out. They just get down to business.
Savage slides the strap of his guitar over his shoulder. “Has this been tuned?”
“Yes,” a nearby roadie confirms. “All three are ready to go.”
“Thanks.” Savage steps up to his mic and taps on it, quickly discerning it’s not live. He waves his arm and the soundman at the back of the venue flips a switch. “Hello, Philadelphia,” Savage booms when the mic is live. “1-2, 1-2.” Boom. Savage’s eyes land on me. And there it is, again. That same crazy electricity I felt every time my eyes met his at Reed’s party. A kind of double-ovarian explosion I’ve never felt before. “Hello, Laila,” Savage says calmly into his microphone, a smirk on his handsome face.
But that’s all I get. Without even waiting for me to mouth “hello” in reply, Savage looks down and rips off the opening guitar riff from one of Fugitive Summer’s biggest hits—the sexiest song in their catalog, by far—a song filled with double entendres about orgasms and oral sex called “Come with Me.”
Did Savage just now dedicate this song to me, by saying my name before launching into it? Or am I connecting dots that simply aren’t there?
Of course, the full band expertly follows Savage’s lead, right on cue, and, soon, he leans into his microphone and begins to sing. And just like that, even during a soundcheck, Savage transforms from a mere mortal into a god before my eyes. Even when there’s no audience cheering him on, no collective hysteria to elevate him to superhuman status, Savage nonetheless looks supernatural in this moment. The perfect representation of a man doing what he was divinely created to do. And whether I want to think it or not, despite me actively not wanting to think it, as I watch Savage performing onstage, I find myself thinking, on a running loop: I. Want. That.
Nine
Laila
“All I’m saying is it’s a lucky thing you’ve got bodyguards,” Kendrick is saying to Savage as I enter the greenroom with my musicians after our soundcheck. “Or else Laila would have murdered you in there.”
Crap.
Fugitive Summer is sitting at a large table, eating a meal. And based on what Kendrick just said, it seems Kendrick has been telling his band the story of my earlier bitchfest, the one in which I complained to my assistant about Savage traveling on the day of the opening show.
At the sound of my band entering the room, Fugitive Summer collectively turns their heads toward the door.
“Hey, guys,” I say awkwardly, my cheeks blooming. “Have you met my band?”
