The Complete Groupie Trilogy (26 page)

I couldn’t change the rules now. Could I?

My only solace is that by the time he left it was 4:30 p.m. If he was going to meet someone else, she’d have to be the one to get the unsatisfying quickie before he had to head off for the concert.

Of course, Kat would join him for the concert – but I tried not to think about that.

That night I skipped the concert altogether. I went online with the information Alana had given me about the fan forums and quickly found Talia. She was known by the moniker GiovanniGirl1, which meant she had created that name quite some time ago. I glanced over her profile, which said nothing really about her being married. In fact, the more I looked over her profile and tracked her down on social networking sites the more concerned I became.

She cited her location as “Giovanni’s Bedroom,” referred to him as her “boyfriend” and dedicated songs to him on a regular basis. The only photos that were posted were ones that contained Vanni, and she had a whole folder of photos of him with personal asides as captions. “I know that look!” “He wants something here… oh yeah, ME.” “He’s got the softest hands.” “He’s singing ‘our’ song!”

It was different from what others were writing, who playfully described Vanni as their boyfriends too, because it implied something deeper. She would respond with authority to different threads as if she knew what Vanni was thinking or feeling and everyone deferred to her for any personal questions about him. This could either mean they had a close relationship, or she thought they did.

I didn’t see a positiv
e outcome from either scenario.

The passwords that Alana gave me also included the server information for fans’ emails, which were primarily left unread because there were so many of them. Tons of emails sat in the “new” mail folder, something that Alana had not yet been able to tackle with her schedule. And most of it was for Vanni anyway, which didn’t really concern her.

She had asked me to go through the emails and send back a form reply to get caught up. It was a personal touch Iris and the band (i.e. Vanni) decided needed to be done.

But that really became my secondary goal as I started the task. I went back to the dates for Vegas, and sure enough I fo
und what I was looking for.

“
Thank you for dinner tonight, Giovanni
,” Talia wrote. “
I knew the moment we met we would have so much in common. And now you know why we can’t be together yet, but I’m working on squaring all that away. Hopefully by New York
.”

After Reno: “
Thanks for singing my song to me again. One day everyone will know that it is me you love
.”

Then Salt Lake City: “
Thank you for the kiss. It was everything I ever dreamed
.”

It was 1:00 a.m. by the time Vanni came home that night, and by this
time I was livid.

“You lied to me,” I accused angrily from where I sat behind my laptop.

“What are you talking about? Lied about what?”

“Talia,” I gritted between clinched teeth. “You kissed her.”

He laughed, which pissed me off even more. “Are you talking about Salt Lake?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped. “Have you kissed her anywhere else?”

He came over to me and kissed me atop my head before he plucked an apple out of a basket on the counter where I sat. “I kissed her for a picture, Andy. It wasn’t even on the mouth.”

I wasn’t buying it. I had gone through each one of her photos and I had seen no such photo. “I’m not asking for you to be faithful, Vanni. I just want you to be honest!”

He stopped mid-bite. “Faithful? Andy, we’re not…”

“Yes, I know!” I finished for him. “That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point, Andy? You’re the one with an axe to grind.”

“You don’t know how dangerous it is to lead someone on,” I said. “There’s something wrong with her and if you actually slept with her…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I told you I didn’t sleep with her.”

“You told me a lot of things,” I said bitterly. “But everything we’ve ever shared has been in secret. How am I supposed to know that you’re not doing that with other people? I mean, does Kat know about me?”

“What is your fixation on Kat? Just because you saw us at the park together?”

“You were with her in public like you can never b
e with me!” I finally exploded.

He perched on a barstool. “So let me get this straight. You’re not mad because I’m sleeping with someone else. You’re mad because I’m cavorting with her publicly.”

My heart closed in at his admission. So he was sleeping with Kat. “Exactly,” I managed to eke out.

“I don’t buy it,” he said. “I think you’re jealous but it has nothing to do with Talia or Kat or anyone else. You’re mad because of what happened in San Francisco. I think there’s a part of you that wanted to be pregnant so we would have to be together.”

My mouth fell open. Of all the pompous, arrogant, hateful things to say…

“I don’t sleep with groupies,” he assured me. “That stopped with you.”

It was as though the world crashed down around my ears. “So you’re sleeping your way up from the ladder from now on?”

He realized his mistake too late. “You know that’s not what I meant, Andy.”

“No,” I told him coldly as I closed my laptop and unplugged it. “I never know what you mean, Vanni. You say one thing to me, something to someone else and something else entirely to the entire world. I don’t even think you know who you are anymore.” Before I stomped off to the bedroom I spat, “You should have been an actor, not a singer.”

He followed me into the bedroom. “What about you?” he wanted to know. “You’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of being at the right place at the right time. You knew how to get on Jasper’s payroll; you even knew how to get in good with someone like Graham Baxter in Las Vegas.”

I spun around. “How could you say that to me?”

“Tell me you didn’t sleep with him,” Vanni demanded. He dug out the card I’d long ago given him like I had promised Graham I would. Vanni flipped it around to show the room number scrawled across the back. “Don’t talk to me about sleeping my way up a ladder.”

I pulled out my suitcase and flung it open. “What if I did sleep with Graham?” I challenged. “Why would that matter to you? We never had a commitment, as you are so fond of reminding me, especially if you want to sleep with someone else.
It’s only for the moment, girl
,” I sneered, mocking the song he had written for me. The one that had meant so much to me.

“A moment’s all you need,” he snapped back. “And a moment’s all I wanted.”

Angry tears blinded me as I stuffed clothes blindly into the suitcase. I might have been packing his stuff for all I knew. “You are a bastard,” I told him.

“Maybe,” he conceded. “But I never said I’d be anything else.”

That was his excuse for everything. He never made promises, so no one could ever expect anything. What a perfect little world for him.

I slammed my suitcase shut and zipped it, then stormed up to where he stood blocking the doorway. “Then you deserve everything you get,” I spat. “You’re nothing more than a dancing bear being paid to sing.”

We were face to face and I could see the corner of his mouth twitch with anger. “And you’re nothing more than a climber,” he shot back. “On to the bigger, better deal. Do you want to call Graham or should I?”

“Go to hell,
” I gritted as I pushed by him.

“Tell me when the baby comes,” he called after me. “I want to know what kind of gift to buy.”

I slammed out of his house and called a cab from the sidewalk, where I walked aimlessly blinded by unshed tears. By the time it caught up to me, my eyes were bloodshot and I could barely croak out a destination.

Since I already had a hotel room rented in the city I simply went there. I knew it was in the same hotel as the M&G events but by then I was too tired and emotionally devastated to care. I needed to get to a place to lick my wounds privately. It was only for one more night anyway, I had a Monday flight back to Nashville.

It couldn’t come soon enough. I was so over this whole crazy affair and the stupid fabricated world in which it flourished. I thought about seeing what it would cost to switch my ticket but the minute I opened the computer it landed right where it had been before: the band’s email box.

Right at the top was an email from Talia. “
I’m sorry I couldn’t let you come up to my hotel room tonight
,” it read. “
But everything good in life is worth the wait. I’ll be thinking of those words you said when I touch myself. Then, soon, you can touch me too
.
Until then, read this and think about me when you jerk off
.”

She included a rather explicit piece of fan fiction where she and Vanni were together for the first time at last. I st
opped reading two sentences in.

I was instantly horrified. If it was true, then Vanni was an even bigger asshole than I currently thought he was. If it wasn’t, then this woman was going headlong off the rails. What really sucked was that I couldn’t figure out which was the more feasible of the two.

I slept until pretty late in the morning. In fact, it only had a few minutes left of being morning. I took a long shower and dressed down for my first steps out into my new Vanni-less world. I kept my hair straight, my makeup minimal and all my curves sufficiently camouflaged by layers of clothes.

This was who I really was. I wasn’t some sexy glamazon who chased around superstars. I was just a writer from a Southern town, who mistakenly thought she wanted to be a p
art of another, glitzier world.

I always liked things that glittered. I never knew it would be my downfall.

On the way down in the elevator I thought briefly about what Vanni was doing. Was he missing me? Was he regretting our fight or the nasty things we said? Or had he already called Kat to come and sleep in my vacated spot? I tried to rattle such thoughts from my brain.

Instead I went to the brightly lit café on the ground floor. I would have ordered room service but I thought maybe if I could see Talia and speak to her I could get a better read on how dangerous she might be. If she was seeing things or hearing things that weren’t happening or weren’t being said, then she definitely could pose significant risk. That was
a dangerous level of delusion.

I texted Alana after I was seated, but she had yet to respond by the time my food came. I picked at the salad, which was the only thing light enough I thought would settle in my stomach. It had been in a knot since the night before and all the hurtful things
Vanni and I said to each other.

“Pardon me for intruding,” a male voice came from behind. I briefly thought it might have been Va
nni, so my head whipped around.

It was a younger man of average height, with coal black hair that flowed gently to his collar. His bright green eyes stood out from his olive skin, framed by full, dark lashes. He wor
e a sunny, bright smile. “Yes?”

He handed me a flower he had plucked from a nearby empty table. “A pretty lady shouldn’t look so sad. Here you go.”

I smiled as I accepted, and I think I murmured my thanks like a proper Southern girl. He nodded and then walked back over to the next booth where he had been sitting reading a book over his coffee.

I gave up on my salad about halfway through
. I shoved it away with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said again. I looked over into those green eyes. “I hate to bug you but… are you okay?”

I gave him a more genuine smile. He was a striking looking man and he was sweet to be concerned. And after all… I was a free agent. “Yes,” I said and then indicated to the seat across from me, which he took instantly.

“I love your hair,” he said as he sat. “Very edgy. Are you here for the concert?”

The concert, I thought. The big event for the hotel. “Yes,” I said automatically. Then, “Well, no.” He looked confused. “I was.”

“I could only get tickets for tonight,” he said. “Came up from Philadelphia. Are they as good live?”

“They’re great,” I responded honestly. “They’ve really grown over the years.”

“Long-time fan?”

I thought back. “Two years.” Had it really been that long? “I saw them for the first time in Philadelphia, actually.”

“So you really have been in since the beginning. Do you know the guys in the band?”

I tried not to let my face give anything away. “How well do we ever know anyone?” I pondered.

“Touché,” he said with a smile. “Which reminds me, I’m Galen.”

I accepted his outstretched hand. “Andy,” I said.

“Unusual name for a girl,” he commented. “Wait a second. You’re not Andy Foster are you?”

“I am,” I said, surprised that he could have put that together. He must be a real fan.

“You do all their press. I love your work,” he said sincerely. “I’m a writer myself, but not to your level, obviously.”