Slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
“Katie?”
“I’m breathing.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“In the bathroom.”
“Okay… so breathe and then get your ass out there. We went over this. We drank wine. Remember? You’re gonna rock this.”
Rock this. Right. Despite Devi’s confidence in me, I was pretty sure Jesse Mayes was the one who was going to rock this.
I was very possibly going to throw up.
For the first time since I started dry-heaving, I caught my reflection in the mirror: the reflection of the girl who was about to fake make out with Jesse Mayes.
Half-naked.
I blinked and stared, trying to imagine that girl in a music video.
She had a lot more makeup on than usual, but okay… it’s not like there was nothing there to work with. Face kind of heart-shaped. Symmetrical features. Slender, arched eyebrows and decently high cheekbones. Full lips. Largish blue-green eyes framed by dark lashes. Pale Irish skin with a few micro-freckles dusted across a decently cute nose.
I looked over my figure in the lingerie, which was much sexier than I’d realized, now that I was seeing it through the eyes of the girl who was about to wear it in front of Jesse Mayes. I’d always been kind of petite, nothing like the other women they’d hired for this, but at least I had curves. I used to be a tomboy, actually. A skater kid, I dressed like the boys I hung out with and looked like them too. It was hard not to still see that girl in the mirror. I was kind of a late bloomer, but I had bloomed.
And someone liked what they saw, enough to hire me for this, right?
“Katie?” Devi sounded worried now. I didn’t like being the one to make her sound that way.
I tried to wrap my head around the idea of walking out there, in this, in front of Jesse Mayes, and all his hot friends, and the security guys and the camera crew and all those other models—real models… and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. My palms were still sweating as I clung to the sink.
“Shit, Devi,” I said in a small, parched voice. “He doesn’t even know who I am.”
“Should he?”
“Um, yeah? I thought he picked me. But he didn’t even know I was hired.”
“So? You were hired. I know you feel all weird about it because you’ve never done this before, but who the fuck cares? Trust me, babe. This is the kind of thing some girls, beautiful girls, bust their asses trying to get their whole careers and never do. This is Jesse Fucking Mayes.”
“Yeah. I’m aware.”
Both Devi and Google had filled me in on the extent of the man’s fame, informing me that Jesse Fucking Mayes was nothing less than a rock god, a sex god, and a total heartbreaker.
Not to mention that his current girlfriend was none other than Elle, the super hot female bass player of Dirty.
Even if I could muster the nerve to walk out there in this lingerie, I, Katie Bloom, was not built for that kind of pressure.
“You know we rep an actress who just shot a love scene with Leonardo?” Devi went on. “And an actual Victoria’s Secret model. They passed on all of them. They want you.”
“Uh-huh.” That part, to be honest, still didn’t compute. But it did make me feel more nauseous. “Why the hell did I agree to do this? You know I hate being in the spotlight.” I shut my eyes, fighting back the spins.
Devi fell silent. She knew, alright.
She’d been there, standing by my side at the altar while the minister looked on with grave sympathy and the minutes ticked by. While everyone stood looking at me in my white dress; everyone but the one person who was supposed to be there.
The one who’d just walked out.
I wanted to disappear then, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t escape that horrible moment that just stretched on and on.
I was still reliving it, almost two years later.
“And that’s exactly why you need to do this,” my best friend said.
“Why, exactly?”
“You know why. Look, Katie, I’ve been there with you. Through all of it. I’ve watched you mope around for the last two years of your life—”
“One year and ten months. Let’s not exaggerate.”
Someone knocked on the bathroom door. “Katie?”
It was Maggie, here to take me to shoot my scene. I pictured Jesse Mayes out there, waiting… Shit, would he be half-naked too?
“Just a minute!” I called as sweetly as I could, even as the bile rose up again. I tried to choke it down, but it was winning.
“Okay,” Devi pressed. “I’ve watched my best friend in the entire world feel bad about herself for a year and ten months, all over some asshole who didn’t deserve her anyway—”
“Devi—”
“Wait. He never deserved you in the first place, and we both know it. I know you know it, deep down, that he was a total dick and the way he hurt you was despicable.”
I threw up. Quietly.
Just a bit, in Jesse Mayes’ tattooed manager’s beautiful marble sink.
“But the fact that you’re still letting it run your life,” Devi said, oblivious to my vomiting, “…Katie, that’s on you.”
This.
This was exactly why Devi was, and would always be, my best friend.
She loved me when I needed love. And she tough loved me when I needed a kick in the ass. Unfailingly.
“You’re right,” I croaked. I swished some water around my mouth and spat in the sink, rinsing the vomit down the drain.
“You need to grab this moment by the balls. Take your fucking life back, babe.”
Devi was always trying to get me to grab something by the balls. Usually life. Sometimes a man.
I’d never been more grateful for it.
“Okay,” I said.
She was right, and I knew it.
I couldn’t let what happened to me almost two years ago on that shitty day, the day that was supposed to be the best day of my life but turned out to be the worst, ruin my life.
And if I didn’t take drastic action, that was exactly what was going to happen.
“I’m doing this.”
I dabbed at my mouth with a tissue, making sure there was no trace of vomit on my made-up face as I studied myself in the mirror.
“Fucking right.”
“And by the way,” I told her, “I love you.”
I hung up and rinsed my mouth with some of the mouthwash that had been left, thanks to some small miracle, on the little tray of guest toiletries.
Then I took a deep breath, opened the door, and went to make out with a rock star.
CHAPTER 4
JESSE
I sat on the king-sized bed as the crew worked around me in somewhat-organized chaos, but it wasn’t the chaos that bothered me. I was no stranger to chaos. I just tuned it out and played bits of a new song on one of my old acoustics, which seemed to me a better way to process whatever shit was going on in my head than the methods used by my bandmates.
When Dylan had shit to deal with, he tended to vanish into the ether.
Elle got confrontational.
Zane fucked his feelings away. Which was at least better than binge drinking at them like he used to.
I played guitar. I made music. I wrote songs until I felt better about whatever the fuck was bothering me.
Lately, I’d been writing a lot. It was either that or do that brooding shit that drove everyone around me crazy. I’d already been obsessing over what the next few weeks of my life were gonna look like and the cold war I was pretty much expecting as soon as I arrived in L.A., but I was impatient as fuck to get down there anyway. And as much as I hated the process, this shoot needed my attention first.
This video had to do well. The song had to do well. The album had to do better than well.
I couldn’t let Zane fuck it up just by being Zane.
I told him to stay the fuck out of this room while we shot this scene. I didn’t tell him wh
y, but the man wasn’t stupid. It was either tell him to fuck off or have him hanging around, throwing his fuck-me stares at Katie.
I saw that wide-eyed look she gave him. And I knew how things went from there. I’d seen enough chicks lose their shit over him to know when a girl was Zane-struck.
I could also see why Maggie and Brody picked Katie for this scene. She was super fucking cute. Yeah, I could snap my fingers and replace her with any girl in the house. But I didn’t want any of the other girls in the house.
Anyone could see this girl was different.
And since I wasn’t making out all afternoon with a super cute chick who was gone for Zane, I’d just have to make her forget about him.
I could see her standing at the bottom of the stairs talking to Maggie, but she hadn’t yet stepped into the room. She had her back to me, just her dark hair and white robe visible through the banks of lights set up around the bed.
We were shooting the scene in Brody’s walk-out basement, the legendary party room. I couldn’t possibly count, or even remember, all the times I’d been drunk, high or laid in this room. I’d never seen it like this, though. No kegs, no carousing, no half-naked babes. The pool table and other furniture had been pushed against the walls and covered with protective blankets.
More lights were set up in the backyard, beaming in through the wall of windows. Long, billowing curtains had been hung and fans were set up to blow them inward, the light glowing through them. The set was simple but gorgeous. Liv, the director, had shot several Dirty videos over the years and I knew she’d make this thing look hot.
With that cutie in this bed with me, it was guaranteed.
Even if she would’ve preferred Zane.
I watched as she turned to follow Maggie into the room. The second Katie stepped over the threshold Brody cranked the music, right on cue. The Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up revved through the room.
Katie stopped dead, almost tripping. A couple of crew guys dove in to catch her, and she blushed as she waved them off. There were electric cords running everywhere, taped down to the floor, and she lifted her robe, stepping gingerly over them in her purple shoes, flashing her bare leg.
Without even meaning to, the girl was making an entrance.
The song was perfect, the lyrics greased with lust and pretty much summing up the impression she was making on most of the guys in the room.
I watched her cross to the bed. Katie Bloom. Age twenty-four. Lived on East 7th in Vancouver. After I saw her in the dining room I had Jude get all the intel he could. Apparently she’d arrived on a skateboard, wearing a Stones T-shirt and bearing cookies for the crew, which never made it past security since Jude’s guys devoured them on sight. Other than a thing for baked goods, I had fuck all to go on other than an apparent interest in classic rock.
I strummed idly along on my guitar as she came to a stop at the very foot of the bed, pretty much the farthest point from where I sat near the headboard. Maggie introduced her to Liv, and Liv, a calm fixture amidst the hurried chaos of her crew, announced that we were about ready to start shooting.
“We’ll start with some wide shots and gradually move in,” she told Katie. “We’re looking for passionate morning sex, like you’ve barely slept and been at it all night but you can’t get enough. You’ve been briefed on all of this?”
“Uh-huh,” Katie said, her voice small. I barely caught it over the music. “Maggie kinda filled me in.”
She looked over at me, just barely. Her gaze completely missed my face, sweeping down over my bare chest and my arms as I played the guitar. I’d been offered a robe, but it was warm with all the lights and people in the room, so I wasn’t wearing anything but the black boxer briefs the wardrobe girls gave me.
“Jesse will guide you through it,” Liv was saying. “Just follow his lead. We’ll start slow and go with the pace that feels right for you two.” She said some other stuff about where the camera would be and whatever else. I wasn’t listening.
I was watching Katie.
She looked kinda pale, but a makeup girl had materialized to touch up her face. As she did her thing, Katie looked pretty much anywhere but at me.
Maybe this girl wasn’t so different after all.
I’d definitely met a hell of a lot of girls who’d bust their asses to get backstage, then act like they were too cool to be there.
But fuck, she was cute.
When Liv turned away, she met my eyes. Finally.
One of the hair girls stepped in to tousle up her already killer sex hair. Paired with her doe-eyed fawn-in-headlights look, it was starting to make my dick throb.
Fucking Zane.
As soon as we were more or less alone, Katie smiled at me a little. “I don’t suppose you have another piece of gum?”
“I might.” I chewed my cinnamon-flavored gum exaggeratedly. “Maybe this is my last piece. We could share.”
She glanced at my mouth and blushed. “I don’t think so. I, uh, just threw up.”
Say what?
She turned toward me, carefully, like if she turned too fast the whole room was gonna spin out from under her. She even put a hand out and held onto the bed to steady herself.
I set my guitar aside.
Then I sent someone to get Jude to get the gum from my jacket, which was locked in Brody’s office.
“I rinsed my mouth out,” Katie explained, “but I feel like I could use a little more… you know…” She trailed off, her eyes huge.
I leaned forward, scoping her out. “Are you fucking high?”
Her eyes lit with surprise, bright and clear. “No.”
I looked her over more carefully. “But you’re sick?” Shit. I was planning to lay down some new rough tracks in L.A. within the next few days, and I couldn’t do that if I was puking my guts out.
“No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”
I scanned her again, but the robe wasn’t giving anything away. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” Worse than being sick or fuck-struck for Zane. If I had to film a love scene with this chick while she was knocked up with some other dude’s kid, it would totally buzzkill this entire thing.
“Definitely not.” She blushed again, which was good. She could use some more color in her face. “Just… nervous.”
And maybe I was an asshole, but that made me smile. Ear to fucking ear.
One of Jude’s guys appeared with the gum and Katie shoved a stick in her mouth. “Thank you.”
Then one of Liv’s minions called things to order and Liv strode over to us again.
“We’re going to run through the song a few times,” she said, “covering everything from different angles, then we’ll push in for some closeups.”
Katie nodded, chewing furiously.
Liv turned to me. “Feel free to go with what feels natural, like we talked about, and I’ll let you know when we need to change it up.”
“Got it.”
“Let’s lose the robe and the gum,” Liv called out as she took her position near the monitor where she’d be watching what the camera captured.
Brody killed the music. Someone cleared my guitar away and handed over a couple of tissues for our gum. A wardrobe girl appeared to take Katie’s robe.
Katie kicked off her shoes, took a little breath and unwrapped, shrugging the robe off her shoulders. The wardrobe girl took it, adjusted one of Katie’s bra straps, and got out of the way.
Katie and I were alone by the bed, the lights shining over us. Everyone was looking at us.
At her.
The girl was petite perfection. Creamy smooth skin. Slim, curvy bod with a tiny waist and fat, natural tits. And those sweet, round hips…
I almost fucking drooled. I was a total hip man. Hips and ass. Give me something to grip while I fucked a girl.
“Okay, Katie, we’ll get started with you on top,” Liv called over. “We’ll run through the song once to get everyone warmed up.”
“Okay,” Katie said. She looked at me, glanced at
my crotch, but just stood there.
“Well, babe,” I said. “You heard the woman.” I leaned back on my hands to give her full access to my lap. “Hop on.”
She rolled her eyes a bit. I caught that much before she averted her gaze and climbed onto the bed. She crawled awkwardly over my legs and finally looked up at me from under her dark hair.
I leaned forward, my lips brushing her cheek as I whispered in her ear. “Probably wanna get closer, if we’re gonna fuck.” I grabbed those pretty hips and she gasped as I yanked her toward me, forcing her to sit in my lap. Her crotch was still inches from mine, but it was a start. And she could go ahead and complain about the unprofessional way I was manhandling her to whoever would listen. I didn’t care. Totally worth it to see that startled look on her face and that slow blush creeping down her chest, her breasts heaving as she breathed.
We stared at each other. This close, I could practically taste her. She smelled like candy and fucking sunshine. Like cinnamon gum and homemade cherry pie.
Then Liv announced that we were rolling and the song started playing.
The song.
The best song I’d ever written. Co-written.
Dirty Like Me.
A classic Dirty song from our first album, I’d recorded a new, stripped-down version for my solo album, almost ten years after that original recording. The timing seemed right, and since the song was a fan favorite I hoped it would help sell the new album. The new songs.
Besides, I loved this song. The song, and Katie Bloom in my lap, kinda made this whole shoot worth it.
The camera had us in profile so I held Katie by the hips, leaned in close and ran the tip of my nose down her neck, just barely brushing her skin. She smelled even better up close. She tipped her head back, giving me access, and put her arms loosely around my neck, sitting up straighter so I could graze my lips down over her throat, her collarbone. As the lyrics kicked in I sang them to her softly, letting my breath tickle her skin as I almost-kissed her.
We weren’t actually supposed to kiss. That was Liv’s whole approach to the video, and I trusted her vision.
No actual kissing. Just a big fucking tease.
Right around the time Katie started wriggling around in my lap in response to my touch, I started second-guessing that whole plan.