Authors: Lexi Adair
No amount of records or millions of dollars could replace the need for family. Most days he tried not to think of it. Tours and charts, publicity and parties provided a distraction. But here, far beyond the reaches of the cameras and the questions, he could dare to think of normalcy because here he felt so completely normal.
He was special here. Not because of what he was but simply because of who he was. An uncle, a brother, a son. Family made him feel special in a way that no magazine spread, no television interview, no screeching fan could. He was just Tony here. He enjoyed just being Tony for a change. Not a rock god or a sex icon, just a guy.
He'd felt like that before ... in Summer's arms. He didn't want to think of it. Didn't want to think about her, but he couldn't help it. She was always in his thoughts and now, thanks to that damn article, she was on his television, gracing the glossy pages of magazines, even splashed across the Internet.
Marie came up beside him. She picked up the dish towel tossed carelessly on the counter and took the washed pot from his hand. “You know when I invited you to dinner it wasn't to get you to do the dishes.” His sister's voice was light, sweet, as if tipped with honey.
"I don't mind.” He picked up the sponge and set to work on another dirty pot.
The slap of little bare feet against the tile floor drew his attention. His niece bounded into the room, more skipping than running, her blonde curls bouncing about her shoulders with each energetic step. “Unc Tony? I
need
cookie!"
Anthony dropped the sponge in the sink and dried his hands on his jeans before scooping his niece up and twirling her about. The sound of Mandy's squeal echoed against the walls. It filled the room with an infectious delight that couldn't help but make Anthony smile.
As they twirled, her golden locks fanned out about them. Anthony lifted that the child and pressed his nose against Mandy's. He squinted and wrinkled his nose as he rubbed it playfully against hers in Eskimo kisses.
"You
need
cookie?” he asked, mimicking her emphasis on the word
need
. “All right.” He propped the toddler on his hip as he turned to the jar on the counter.
"You're a sucker, Unc Tony.” Marie cast him a soft, warm smile.
Anthony handed his niece a cookie then absently brushed a strand of Mandy's curly hair from her eyes. “I always was a sucker for blondes.” He gave a nervous laugh as his thoughts shifted dangerously to another blonde who'd so completely captured his fancy.
Stop that,
he scolded himself. Enough with her.
He dropped Mandy to her feet with an exaggerated effort that made her giggle with delight. He watched her scamper off into the living room, the chocolate from the chips in her cookie already smudged on her mouth.
"You need that.” Marie folded the dish towel.
"What?"
"Kids, a family. Something to keep you grounded."
"I'm grounded.” Even though as the words passed his lips he didn't believe it.
Marie let out a huff of laughter as though she didn't believe it herself. “You are the least grounded person I know. You live in this fantasy world, Tony. Your head is so far in the clouds and up your own ass you don't even know where you are most of the time."
Anthony slumped down into the kitchen chair as if his legs could sustain him no longer. No one except his bratty little sister would dare to speak to him in such a way. And no one, except his bratty little sister, dared to tell him what he needed to hear. He loved her and hated her for it. Sometimes you didn't want the truth, you wanted the lie. Of course, if he wanted to be lied to, to be told exactly what he wanted to hear, he could turn to anyone who represented his interests as a musician. If he wanted them to say the Earth was flat they'd say it. If he said the sky was green and the grass was blue they'd agree without thought or hesitation. He supposed that was why he had come home. He needed the truth, the cold, hard, shiny truth. And there was no one better to give him the kick in the ass he needed than his sister.
"What is the problem Tony? I don't get it. People write shit about you all the time. I always see your face plastered across the magazines, all over the television. Hell, I can't get away from you even when I want to.” The last she added with a note of levity as she chucked the wet dish towel at his chest.
Anthony caught it and let it rest in his hands as he stared down at it. “The media has dished up a lot of shit, Marie, but I've never been truly exposed before. She stripped me, exploited our affair just to get back at me."
Marie turned about on her heels. Her bare feet pounded almost angrily against the tiled floor as she crossed to the small desk that served as her family's communication center. Four years out of work and she still ran her home like a corporation. She picked up a pile of papers on the desk, thumbed through them, made her selection and dropped the others back down with a heavy thud.
Marie flipped through the pages of the magazine as she crossed to him. She folded the magazine back at the binding. The article and that ugly, bold headline glared at him from the page as she shoved it at him. “I think you better read it again."
Anthony took the magazine. He shifted uncomfortably as he stared down at the black type on the glossy white page. He didn't want to read it. He didn't want to be reminded of it, of her. But he found his eyes wandering the page, picking out the words, letting them play silently in his mind as he read.
He's dark and brooding, reclusive and almost unaware. He holds his own on the stage, and for this demon of rock, it's all about the music. Women may be his drug of choice, but the music, the lyrics, these are the blood in his veins. It is this passion, this drive that pulls you. That makes you want him even though you know you can never have him.
The sexuality he encapsulates on stage follows him through his everyday life. His manner is confident, boarding on arrogant. I'm not sure if he has laid the word at his feet or if the world has simply laid down for him, but one thing is certain, he commands everything in his presence. But his confidence seems reserved for the stage ... and the bedroom. In the rest of his life he's unattainable, painfully private and dangerously withdrawn. Dressed all in black, his thick hair slightly unkempt, cigarette dangling between his fingers, there's a hesitation.
I met him in a café, where he chain-smoked Camels and hid behind a half-drawn curtain. Despite his arrogance that afforded him certain privileges the rest of us aren't allowed, he's strangely inhibited. He certainly wasn't happy to see me. His nervousness emerging from the agitated flick of his cigarette. He talks like he smokes—intensely. “People don't want empty sex,” he told me. “They want the intimate connection. It should never be meaningless. It's the details, not the act that matters."
Those details, that intimate connection, it shows on stage. With his lips pressed against the microphone, his fingers trace the contours of the equipment as though it were a lover. One can not help but to wonder how those fingers would feel wrapped about your waist, one by one pressing against your flushed skin, making you ache with a desperate desire. His voice, like his nerves, is raw. His heavy baritone words seep beneath your skin to ignite a lost flame hidden somewhere deep within.
I watched him step from the stage, his skin lit with an erotic glow from hours beneath the white-hot lights. His movements are drawn, sluggish from exhaustion even as his body tingles with the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. He towered above me, drawing my gaze upward. His sapphire irises darkened, his thick brows lowering almost angrily and I am caught like helpless prey beneath his hungry gaze. He drew me into his arms, pressed his lips possessively against mine, taking as he pleased, taking as he was accustomed.
I found myself in his arms and tangled beneath his sheets. His body was long and hard and as he met my soft curves I grew feverish beneath his touch. The attraction, while instant, hot and blinding, stabbed deep into my heart. As we tumbled together, his hands caressing me like his fingers had caressed the mic, I knew release as never before.
In the aftermath of lovemaking, Anthony laid his head against me, his breath heavy and lax as it fanned across my skin. My heart swelled, a solitary tear slipping down my cheek as I lingered in his scent.
Tomorrow has yet to reach me, but today has withered away. In the hours between dusk and dawn, for the first time in my life I can think of nothing to say. I want to tell him I'm falling for him, but he'll think that's a lie. A play on words to trick his callused heart into revealing something he'd rather not because that's my specialty.
So I draw a heavy breath and let a sigh escape my lips. The words I want to say lay captive on my tongue. And I dread meeting the morning. I know what is to come.
"Who needs forever when we have the endless night?” His words, though spoken with sensitivity, burn me like a brand. Forever is not a word Anthony would entertain. He lives in the night and to him I am just another passing moment. At the end of the day he will go his way and I will go mine. But forever will my heart ache for one last lyrical lay.
Anthony dropped the magazine on the table and let his gaze wander up to meet his sister's. She glared down at him from beneath the dip of her disapproving brow.
"Who was exposed in that article, Tony? Whose heartache, whose private thoughts were drawn on that page? Let me give you a hint, big brother, because I know sometimes you just don't get matters of the heart. It wasn't you."
The slamming of the car door jolted her from slumber. Blinking, then rubbing at her tired eyes, Summer looked beyond the windshield. It took a moment for recognition to sink in but as it did she groaned aloud.
The house stood back from the curb. Its pale yellow stucco walls were strangled by the ivy that had grown up the side of the house in thirty years time.
Tim rounded the car and pulled open her door. She unbuckled her belt then held out her hand, allowing him to help her from the car. Still plagued by drowsiness she let him take some of her weight as they walked arm in arm up the front steps.
"I thought we were going for pizza,” she whispered beneath her breath.
"I thought you needed a little dose of reality instead.” He gave her arm a comforting squeeze.
Before they could even reach out to turn the knob the door flew open and her mother stepped out. She pulled Summer into her arms. “It's about time you came home."
Summer pulled back and managed a weak smile.
Ann let her hand draw down the length of her daughter's arm, taking her by the hand and leading her into the house. “Too bad your brother had to kidnap you to get you to come.” She tossed a wink over her shoulder to Tim, who trailed behind them.
Dressed in a pair of fitted blue jeans and a simple, white button-up shirt, her mother, as always, was the picture of perfection. She'd cut her hair into a short, blonde bob, dipping under just at her chin. It suited her, Summer thought. Simple, elegant and confident. All the things her mother was and all the things Summer struggled to be.
"Come.” Ann drew them into the kitchen and sat them down at the bar as she had when they were children. And like good little children, Summer and Tim sat with their hands folded on the polished tile counter top. “I've made some coffee.” She lifted the pot from the burner and filled the three mugs she'd already set out. “It's going to be a long night."
Ann placed a cup in front of each of her children. She shifted her disparaging gaze from Summer to Tim and back again. She rested her hands on the counter between them and lifted a thin brow as she waited.
As if she were a child again, Summer shifted uncomfortably beneath her mother's gaze. She felt like the cat caught with her paw in the cream and that really wasn't so far off from the truth. She let her gaze drop away from her mother's stare, lifted her coffee cup and let the warmth of the mug seep into her hands as she sipped.
"Well?” Ann asked when no one bothered to speak.
Tim rose then taking his coffee with him. “I think I'll leave you two ladies to girl talk. Dad in the den?"
Ann nodded.
Summer shot Tim a glare from beneath lowered brows as she let her coffee cup rest on the counter once more. “Traitor,” she murmured beneath her breath only half in jest.
"You can shoot me later.” Summer didn't miss the wink he gave their mother.
She'd been ambushed.
"You care to tell me about this article nonsense?"
Summer drew in a deep breath as her fingertips rapped lightly against the coffee mug. The
tap, tap, tap
of her nail intruded on the silence. “Not much to tell."
"You exposed yourself, and your lover."
Summer's mouth opened in protest, but the words were stuck somewhere on her helpless tongue. Lover. The word sounded foreign in her mind, even stranger leaping from her mother's tongue.
"It wasn't supposed to be published.” She'd been signing that same song for days now. Even she was growing tired of it.
"And what have you done about it?"
"Nothing.” Summer shook her head. What could she do? Her plan was simply to lay low, let the storm fizzle out and then go looking for a new job.
"Nothing?"
"You don't know the business, Mom. Today's headlines will be lining next week's litter boxes. The more I do the more it feeds the story."
"I'm not talking about that damn article, Summer Staite. I'm asking what you intend to do about the fact that you've betrayed the man you love."
Summer looked at her hands. She closed her eyes for a moment and allowed the thought to linger in the back of her mind. “I never said I loved him."
"I read the article, Summer. That was written by a woman in love."
Summer shot up from the stool and pressed her hands on the tiled counter between them. “So what? Do you think he cares? I'm just another notch on his bedpost, Mother. No different than the hundred or so who came before me."