AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She rolls her eyes in an adorable way. She makes it so easy to want to tease her.
“You won’t talk to me unless I want you to talk to me, and you will stay out of my sight as much as possible. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t exist. You’re just some fly on the wall.”
I roll my tense shoulders back. I expected her to lay out these kinds of rules, but I admit a flash of disappointment works through me. “Don’t worry, I’m here to do a job. I’ll stay out of your hair.”
“Right,” she mutters, her voice unsure.
“You’re the one making the rules. If you want me in your hair, Ms. Wilder, all you have to do is ask.”
She throws up her hands. “Who are you and what did you do to Liam Miller?”
Her words smack me across the face, and all the fun thoughts about her I had before go straight out the window. In their place is anger and a familiar pang of rejection and disappointment.
“Maybe you never knew the real Liam Miller,Ms. Wilder. Have you ever thought of that?” My voice is harsh and laced with my anger. So much so that she takes a step away from me.
“I think we’re done talking now. You can go stand outside and do whatever it is you do.”
I take a deep breath and stand tall. I don’t want her to see me falter in any way. I’m used to being dismissed, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. “As you wish, Ms. Wilder.”
Without so much as a glance in her direction, I turn and walk out of the room, only to be met with her entourage in the hallway. Eric’s ear is pressed against the door like a five-year-old. Fuck me. This is going to be a long two months.
nine
Birdie
WrenandBenaregoing to hear it from me. I’m so pissed I could literally breathe fire. Seeing Liam again feels like being stabbed with a million daggers, Julius Caesar style. Sure, staring at him while dying may be a pleasurable way to go, he’d um… filled out… since I last saw him.
His oval face has a five o’clock shadow, his cheek bones look as if they’ve been sculpted. His chocolate eyes are even darker than I remember, and his tapered carob colored hair screams for me to run my hands through it. And did I mention he’s ripped? Like Thor, but a little lither given his six-foot four height. To top it all off, he’s in a black suit with a skinny tie.
I smack my forehead to knock some sense into me. No, I wouldn’t let my mind go there. I couldn’t. Ugh! Why did I even agree to let him stay in the first place? I should have kicked him out of my dressing room and out of my life, just as I did in high school.
Ms. Wilder. Who does he think he is?! Showing up and just plowing his way into my world like he belongs here. He doesn’t. He belongs in a swamp,or in my bed—no! Dang brain. I look down at the space between my legs and have the urge to scold it for reacting to freaking LIAM MILLER.I thought we were past this; I tell myself mentally. Even if my vagina has a mind of its own, I try to focus back on my anger, because holy shit I’m furious.
Before I have a chance to pull out my phone and dial Wren; Eric, Gia and Shea are in my dressing room. They look curious, a little pissed, and amused. Of course they were listening, who wouldn’t?
Shea closes the door and I grab a glass of ice water. I would like to drink more bourbon, but I have a show tonight and I can’t be drunk. When I turn around, Gia is tapping her foot, waiting for me to speak, and Eric is about to say something, but I stop him with a wave of my arm.
“Can we not talk about what you just heard?” I put down my glass and rub my temples. “I need to get ready for the show tonight. I don’t want to mess up my routine.”
There is truth to that statement. I have a routine that I do before every show. Shower, meditate, journal, get ready, warm-up, band together time, and then our show. I have to do it like clockwork, or I get too worked up. My therapist once told me it was good for me to have routines so that I didn’t binge eat and have panic attacks, but I probably took them too far. Okay, I did take them too far. Now she says I’m too dependent on my routines, but too bad for her. I’m not changing them. Ever.
Shea steps forward, tucking a lock of her purple hair behind her ear. “We can let him go after tonight, Birdie. We’d have to pay him his fee, but we can do it. It’s not a problem.”
My stupid stomach flutters at the thought of Liam leaving. Crap. I have a serious problem.I want him to leave, I try to convince my body, but it has a lot of other ideas. None of them involve Liam leaving, either. It would be better if he left after tonight.
“I’ll let you know.”
The three of them look a little shocked when I say that, but mostly still confused. They have no idea what Liam Miller means to me, what hemeantto me. They have no idea how long it took me to get over our little Instant Message conversation; how I still have trouble with his words, “I’ll never like you like that,” when I get close to potential partners in my life.
I may be confident in my body and how I look, but my longest relationship lasted only six months. It wasn’t only that conversation with Liam that prevented me from long-term relationships, but also my celebrity status. There’s a reason why Eric is hesitant to allow people into his life or into our circle. Status climbers are real. And all of us in the band and crew have experienced someone getting close to us for the wrong reasons.
I roll my eyes at them. “We have history, clearly. I should have known my friend Ben would do something like this. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t put it together, but it’s done now. Liam needs the money, he’s qualified for the job, and he’s here. I don’t want to piss off the label any more than I already have.”
“They aren’t pissed Birdie, they’re concerned,” Eric says. I know he’s trying to squash my growing anxiety; I love him for that.
Gia sighs. “I’m livid Liam never said he knew you. He said he had never even listened to your music before unless his roommate or other circumstance forced him too. He said he doesn’t even like music.”
I clench my jaw. That’s not the Liam I know. But as he just reminded me a few minutes ago, I don’t know him. And maybe I never knew him. He sure as hell doesn’t know the Birdie I am now. He’s never met the confident woman that takes what she wants and follows her dreams at any cost. The Birdie that would never let a man walk all over her. But he’d learn, oh yes, he’d learn.
