Authors: Christa Maurice
“And all I’m asking you to do is take two hours out of your vacation and hit a radio station.”
“Marc, they’re getting the next ten months of my life.”
“It’s the job, man, and it’s the best fucking job in the world.” Marc’s tone remained pleasant and even.
“I know. Is that what Sandy wanted?”
“No, Sandy wants to know where you are and that you’re healthy.”
“Tell him I’m right where I was the last time he talked to me and in about the same shape.”
“Great. Jason has been busting his ass on promo.”
The last thing he wanted to hear about was what a superhero Jason was. Not with a sweet thing like Maureen Donnelly waiting. “I gotta go.”
“Oh, that’s right. The hot date. See ya in ten days.”
Bear snapped his phone closed as he pulled on his leather jacket. He should have skipped this whole music thing and gone into business with his brother.
Then both of them could be trying to scratch a living out of this little three bay garage.
He snatched the keys off the locker shelf and hurried out to see if Maureen Donnelly had hung around while he was getting scolded.
She stood in the filthy repair bay behind her car, holding her purse with both hands. Cocking her head, she gave him a little smile.
For about ten seconds, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The minimal makeup she wore accented the simple prettiness of her features instead of them being obliterated under raccoon eyeliner and some wild shade of lipstick. Her brunette hair was cut in a bob and pulled back off her face. He hadn’t seen what with yet, but he bet it was a bow or some kind of flower. The dark blue dress crisscrossed over her perfect, unenhanced bust, creating some really intriguing cleavage.
Really intriguing. He couldn’t see her legs around the bumper of the car, or her shoes. He wanted to check out her shoes and, more importantly, the legs that led into them. As he recalled, the hem fell right to her knees.
“Sorry I took so long.” He tore his gaze away from where he could have seen her legs if he had x-ray vision, and met hers. She didn’t seem to be on to him. “I had to make a call.”
“No problem.” She shook her head and her cute little bob bounced around her shoulders.
“I’ll lock up and we can go.” He ducked into the waiting room to lock the door and turn off the lights. The sooner he got out of here, the sooner he was going to get a look at her legs. “Which pizza place do you like better? Napoli or Mama Lena’s? I like Napoli’s.”
“So do I, but I don’t like to eat there.” She sounded sorry as she followed him to the car door.
He glanced over his shoulder. Her pretty, small mouth was drawn into a frown. “Why?”
“They’re always screaming at each other, did you notice? The food is wonderful, but the brothers who own the place are always arguing or yelling at the kids waiting tables.” She shivered. “It just makes me uncomfortable.”
“Tony always gets carry out. I guess there’s a reason.” He opened the passenger door of the Satellite. “Mama Lena’s it is.”
She sat down on the seat sideways and twisted forward like a lady. His mom used to get into cars that way when she wore a dress and he’d never seen any other woman do it. Swallowing at the unfamiliar rush of mixed heat and uncertainty, he opened the bay door so he could back out. This woman was not a score-seeking groupie. Maureen Donnelly qualified as a nice girl.
And he was already lying to her.
Not lying really, but not filling her in on a few details. Like he wasn’t an auto mechanic and in a couple of weeks, he’d be off on the one ring circus currently known as the Bayonet Ball Tour. Like the next time she saw him after this, he’d probably be on MTV. If she even watched that. She struck him as a History Channel type.
Did it really matter? He was taking her out for a pizza, not marrying her. For one night, he could just be Michael, the guy who was buying her a pizza, taking her home and maybe getting a kiss on the doorstep instead of Bear D’Amato, drummer for Touchstone.
He backed the car out and closed the garage door. “So what is it you do?”
“I’m a teacher. I teach second grade at Wilson.”
“Really?” Teacher. Little kid teacher yet. That fit. “You like it?”
“Yeah, it’s great, but I’m looking forward to summer vacation.”
“Oh?”
“February is kinda long and Spring Break is late this year so we’ve had this really long stretch with no days off. It gets a little tiring, for the teachers and the kids.”
“I always thought the teachers were annoyed when we had days off.” He glanced at her. She had half turned toward him with her purse in her lap, as if she were interested in the conversation, not as if she were amortizing him.
“Nope. We’re all shooing the kids out the door and making plans for our days off.”
“And what do you like to do on your days off?” What did regular people do on their days off? Most of his time was spent in the studio, on tour or in between and in between was only a couple of days here and there. Not that it was bad, he did have the greatest job in the world, but it was a twenty-four seven gig. Even last year’s sabbatical had been spent analyzing what had gone wrong with the previous album so they could avoid it this time.
“The usual stuff. I read, watch TV, garden a little.”
“Go out on blind dates.”
She groaned. “Yeah. I should have given that up for Lent. My friend Linda means well, but she’s not very good at it. I think next time I’m going to be washing my hair or something pressing like that.”
“So it is an excuse.”
“Like you’ve ever gotten it.”
“Once or twice.” A long time ago. Now all he had to do was pick a girl from the line up, which was frustrating in its own way.
Her laugh was light and musical. “So what do you do, other than fix cars?”
Damn. How to answer this question without flat out lying? “I travel and play music.” That sounded good. Like they were two separate things.
“Travel. I’ve always wanted to travel, but never had the money. Where have you been?”
“All over.” He clenched the steering wheel. He’d never seen much of the places he’d been. Travel, perform, sleep, repeat.
“That sounds wonderful.”
Not the word he’d use. “So you have a garden?”
“Yeah. I bought a house last year so I spent last summer gardening. I’m really looking forward to my tulips and daffodils coming up this spring.”
He pulled into the parking lot of Mama Lena’s. The place was jammed. Great, now he had to use his fame to pull a few strings for a table, blowing his cover, or stand around like a jerk waiting for one. “Here we are.”
“Wow, they’re busy tonight.” She checked her watch. “Let’s hope the theater at the mall has a showing time soon so we don’t have to wait long. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”
Oh yeah, she would
expect
to wait for a table. She wouldn’t be disappointed when he couldn’t magically make one open up for her. Man, he was so out of practice for this regular dating thing.
She climbed out without waiting for him to open her door and strode toward the restaurant, giving him the chance to fall back and check out the rear view, what he could see of it above and below her black raincoat. Her calves were slender and well shaped, practically insuring fantastic legs. The three-inch heels she wore put a beautiful glide in her stride. Her hair clip wasn’t a bow or flowers. It was a gold Mickey Mouse. Mickey freakin’ Mouse. This woman was so real, she was surreal.
He pulled open the door. Nobody lingered in the tiny waiting area and a blonde in a white t-shirt and black pants with a little red waitress’s apron wrapped around her waist bounded over before the door even fell shut.
“Hi, Miss Donnelly, you need a table? Benny’s clearing one now.” The waitress’s gaze shifted over Maureen’s shoulder and her eyes went wide. He had about ten seconds before his cover went up in hysteria.
“Thanks, Tara. How’s your sister doing?” Maureen scanned the restaurant. When she returned to the waitress, the girl’s gaze pinged back to her, still wide eyed.
“My sister? Um, Ellie’s fine. Um... I’ll, um...check on Benny.” The waitress spun around and all but sprinted for the back of the restaurant. Probably headed for the kitchen where she would tell the entire staff he was here.
“Tara’s little sister was in my class two years ago.” Maureen turned and frowned. “You have grease on your face.”
“I do?” Bear watched over her shoulder for the kitchen staff to come boiling through the swinging doors to check out the visiting celebrity.
“Yeah. Do you want a Kleenex?” She dug in her purse.
“No, I’ll just go wash it off in the bathroom.” He lunged past her in the direction the waitress had gone, crossed the dining room without touching the floor and burst into the kitchen.
The entire staff huddled around Tara. They turned as a unit to stare at him. All of them in Touchstone’s target audience range.
“I told you!” Tara shrieked.
“Hush,” an older man hissed. The only one not in the crowd. “The customers will hear you.”
“Listen, I just want to have a nice quiet dinner.” Bear held up his hands. “I’ll sign all the autographs you want in here, but out there I’d really appreciate it if you treated me like anybody else.”
“But you’re not anybody else,” a girl with black hair and black rimmed glasses whimpered. “You’re Bear D’Amato from Touchstone.”
“You know Brian Ellis,” another girl said.
“And Jason Callisto.”
That broke their spell and they rushed him, order tablets out for autographs, babbling about how much they liked the album and the single and were they going to be doing a show anyplace close? He started signing. “I’m going to be in town for a few more days and I really want to keep it quiet. I just want to have dinner like anybody else. If everyone could just keep this between us until I leave, maybe I can talk the band into swinging by here while we’re on tour. But seriously, if there’s a breath of a rumor that I’m here, I can’t promise anything.”
The whole group gasped, exchanging conspiratorial glances. Hopefully, it would be as easy to arrange as it had been to promise. Sandy was going to murder him.
Tara stood in front of him with bright eyes. “Are you dating Miss Donnelly?”
“I’m having dinner with Miss Donnelly.” Eventually. If he ever managed to get back to her. He’d been gone a really long time and still had grease on his face.
“I bet she doesn’t even know who you are.” Tara clutched her autograph to her chest. “She’s so tragically unhip. I’ll go seat her.”
“Not a word,” he cautioned as she scooted through the door. Now he was lying. Flat out, no doubt, lying.
But if he told her, she’d either run screaming or latch on tighter for all the wrong reasons. He just wanted one night. Not even the whole night. For the next three hours, he wanted to be nobody special.