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“So you don’t hate me?” he asks, everything about him open and vulnerable. It makes my heart clench at the pain lacing his voice.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Not even close. I tried to tell myself it was for the best, but…”
“You know I’m bad for you but it’s too good to quit?” he says, quoting our song at me.
I roll my eyes and smack him playfully, but that’s really all the answer he needs.
“Well, I’m suddenly much more excited for this tour,” he says, his eyes glittering mischievously. I already know what he’s thinking; it’s written all over his face. Not to mention I’m thinking it too.
We fall back into easy conversation, talking about nothing and everything through the first half of the flight. We’re quiet for long periods of time too, but it’s a comfortable silence, where we’re just happy to be in each other’s company. We keep it innocent—the managers and Kandy are still here watching us like hawks—but that’s fine. I realize that it’s not just sexual attraction and musical chemistry with Ian. He makes me laugh like no one else. He makes me smile until my face hurts. And he makes me forget all the things I’m worried about. That’s the biggest one, because I don’t even realize it’s happening until something reminds me of those worries and then I realize I’d totally forgotten them.
While we’re somewhere over the heartland of America, Kandy moves to join us on the couch, sitting way too close to Ian for my liking.
“So, I was listening to the new album, and I have to say, Ian, you’ve never sounded sexier. Girls are going to be falling over themselves to get to you,” she says, settling a hand on his thigh. Ian tenses, his jaw tightening, but he just smiles.
“Sobriety suits me, I think,” is all he says. It’s a good answer, a nice quote that they can put in big type next to the article, but Kandy doesn’t latch onto it.
“Not that I can blame them, of course. I’m half-tempted myself!” She giggles this awful fake giggle that makes me want to punch the smile off her face, but I know it’s just jealousy. Kandy’s an attractive woman, and it wouldn’t be the first time a rockstar hooked up with a reporter for a good piece.
Ian’s eyes dart to me, but he doesn’t say anything to discourage her, which just makes me want stake my claim more.
“There’s a lot of material about forbidden love on this album, so tell me, did you have a muse for these songs?” she leans in closer, like she’s angling for the title.
Ian starts to look at me, then stops himself like he’s worried about giving the wrong impression.
“Actually,” I say, leaning in and taking Ian’s hand in mine, “the album was a true collaboration. We went through our notes and pulled songs from both of our catalogs that worked well together. And we wrote the newest song together,” I say brightly.
Ian’s eyes are locked on my hand, but he doesn’t pull away. He laces his fingers with mine and holds on tight.
“I see,” Kandy coos. She looks like a woodpecker who’s just found a big juicy grub. “So then that raises a whole new question. Are you two an item?”
Her expression is appropriately excited for the gossip, but I see something flicker in her eyes. Something sharp and venomous that makes me harden my own gaze in a challenge. You wanna fight this fight? Come at me.
Rosa makes a strangled coughing sound and I can see the absolute horror written across her face, but I dismiss it. Merrill’s doing his best impression of a statue, and I just look to Ian. He’s the only one I care about.
His eyes crinkle at the edges like he’s holding in a smile and he gives me this tiny imperceptible shrug—and that’s all I need.
“Yeah, we are. Working on this album has been a great experience and has made us really close.”
Kandy looks like her face is frozen, like she might have an aneurysm any minute. She’s smiling that joker smile at us, but it looks like she might start twitching from the effort of it any time now.
“That’s incredible,” she says breathlessly. “People love a story like this. It’s going to be great!”
Ian smiles over at me, totally oblivious to the double-edged sword of Kandy’s praise. That’s okay; no need to crush his happiness right now. Or mine. Admitting that Ian and I are a thing is a huge weight off my shoulders. Denying it to everyone else was hard enough, but denying it to myself? Torture.
Kandy jots down a few more notes after asking a couple more questions and then she flits to her laptop to write it all down. I have a weird feeling about it, but I’m not going to dwell on it. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? She writes some unflattering stuff about me and TMZ runs the story of my fall from grace? I can live with that. Despite what Rosa would have me think, my reputation isn’t some fragile butterfly to be crushed under the first whiff of a scandal. I’ve had a pretty long and scandal-free career up to this point and at my age, it’s about time I start putting my foot down and making my own path.
And right now, I’m pretty happy that that path is taking me to Ian.
We let all the pretenses drop after that, openly holding each other while we talk for the rest of the trip. Ian’s playing with my hair while we talk about set lists and argue over which song should be the closer. He finally wins, but it’s only because he’s so convinced our new song is going to bring the house down. I don’t like closing or opening on a new song, but Ian’s insistent and swears it’s a much more “rock and roll” approach, so I give in.
By the time we’re deplaning, it’s midafternoon in New York and we have nothing on the schedule after picking up the tour bus. Rosa tries to convince me to go to bed early, to hit the spa, to have a light meal and a workout and a cleansing smoothie before sunrise yoga or some other nonsense, but I don’t want to do any of those silly pop star routines. I just want to spend time with Ian.
“You know Rosa, as many times as I’ve been to New York, I’ve never gotten to do any of the touristy things. I kind of think I’d like to.”
I look over to Ian, who hasn’t let go of my hand for more than a couple minutes since he first took it, and he smiles back at me.
“Ever been to the top of the Empire State Building?”
