Authors: Christa Maurice
Throwing herself on the couch, she allowed one fit of pique before deciding it was silly. What had she lost? When she first met him, she’d only wanted to be admired by a good-looking man. She’d gotten that. In spades even. After spending time with him, she’d wanted more. That happened too. In fact, even if he didn’t show up today she hadn’t lost anything. Her expectations had been low and he’d far exceeded them. Everything after last Friday night was gravy.
She sniffed, wringing her hands in her lap. She’d start believing that when she started believing in Santa Claus again. Right now, eyes open, she could remember every detail of his face, the tenor of his voice, the way he smelled under the industrial strength soap from the garage, and she really didn’t know anything about him.
Of course as a famous person, a lot of information should be available.
After checking out the window to make sure he wasn’t headed toward her at that very moment, she went to her office. She’d forgotten to ask him last night how he knew which room was which. Usually both this door and the bedroom door were closed, so he must have snooped.
She pressed the Start button on the computer and made herself comfortable while it came on. Couldn’t really blame him for snooping when she was about to do the same thing on the World Wide Web. She typed his name into the search engine and came up with more than fifteen pages of links. She clicked on the top one and ended up on the Wikipedia. It showed a couple of pictures of him with four other men, all quite good looking in their own way. His parents were both deceased and he had one brother. He collected muscle cars. According to this he was dating a woman named Julia. No photograph of her, though.
How could she subtly ask if he was dating someone? He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to two-time, but then, she didn’t know him that well.
Clicking the band link, she studied yet another photo of the band. They were onstage and there were only four of them. All she could see of Michael was his face over a set of drums, but he looked very happy in an intense, focused sort of way. Much the same way he did when he worked on the Satellite. The other guys were laughing so they must be having fun too. According to the article, they had released seven albums including one that had just come out. Another link would take her to the tour dates.
Tour dates. Michael was going to be traveling all summer. She followed the link and corrected herself. He was going to be traveling until December. Such a long time away from home. Poor baby. And so many places. They were in a different city every day.
A knock interrupted her. No one else it could be. Excitement bubbled through her. She shut the computer down and ran for the door. She yanked it open, beaming, and his expression made hers crumble. “What’s wrong?”
Michael stepped inside, shaking his head. He gathered her into his arms and pulled her tight.
“Michael?” she asked and wrapped her arms around his neck. Standing so still and holding her so tight, he felt fragile, which seemed silly. He was too broad shouldered and strong to be weak. “Did something happen?”
“You know I’m not going to hurt you, right?” he asked into her skin.
“Hurt me?” Maybe this was about Julia. He’d left last night after midnight and it was not even nine in the morning. Had he even had time to talk to the other woman? Was there even another woman to talk to? “Why would you hurt me?”
“My brother is being a dick.” He released her and strode to the middle of the room, where he ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his face before turning to her. “Tony is convinced I’m going to screw you over and dump you. He’s totally out of his mind. I thought he’d be happy for me.” Michael paced in front of the couch.
She closed the door and waited.
“He’s always bitching about the leeches I end up with and I finally meet somebody nice. Somebody I really like, and he freaks out because he thinks I’m going to be a dick to her—to you.” He stopped. “It’s just fucking insane.”
“I’m sure if you give Tony a couple of days to calm down, he’ll relax.” Maureen resisted the impulse to jump up and down and clap her hands. Last night, pre-sex,
I love you
had caught her off guard. This morning his
I really like
carried more weight with less terror.
“He won’t. He’s really pissed. All week he’s been telling me not to fuck with the locals and I did it anyway. But it’s not like that. I’m not playing games here. He’s making me pick between my family and somebody I want to be my family.”
When she’d registered the last thing he’d said, she’d been reveling in his latest declaration of
like
and calculating how long before he’d wear a hole in her carpet and how much it was going to cost to get it fixed. “What?”
“He’s mad because him and Pam wanted you to be Nicky’s teacher next year, but if we’re dating you won’t because it’s an ethical gray area. And if I screwed you over and left town you wouldn’t because you’d be mad. I see his point. Nicky needs all the help he can get. I love the kid, but he’s no genius. He needs a good patient teacher. But I need that too. Not the teacher part, but the good patient part.”
“I’m sure we can make sure Nicky gets the teacher he needs. All the other teachers at the second grade level in my building are good. I could steer him into the most suitable class.” Maureen clasped her hands in front of her. When was Michael going to slow down? His pacing made her legs hurt and he kept snapping his hands open and closed. Maybe she should try to stop his tantrum. He just seemed to be getting worse.
“He wouldn’t have a problem with it at all if I wasn’t who I am. If I was just his brother and his business partner, he wouldn’t care who I dated. But because I’m in the band, he’s all bent out of shape. I don’t even want to be in the fucking band. I wish I’d never joined them.”
Of the pictures she’d found, except for one shot where the band looked rather stern, they really seemed happy. Honestly, how horrible could it be to be worshipped by thousands for playing music? Not exactly back breaking labor. His entire tantrum reminded her more and more of the kids when they claimed they didn’t want to go out for recess.
“I don’t want to go on tour. Being dragged around like a piece of furniture. Doing this promotional shit all the time in the hopes that we can sell enough records to pay back the record company. I just want to stay home with you.”
“Stay home with me?”
He stopped pacing and crossed the room to her. Taking her in his arms, he kissed her. “I love you, Maureen.”
“I love you too, Michael.” She leaned her cheek on his chest. At least he wasn’t pacing anymore. “I’ll talk to Tony about Nicky. He could still end up in my class. Class lists won’t be settled for a couple of months yet.” That required working around her relationship with Michael, but she’d burn that bridge when she came to it. “He’s just worried right now. Once he sees there’s nothing to worry about, he’ll be fine. You are already committed to this tour so you might as well make the best of it. If you hate it at the end, you could still quit, right?” She looked up at him to see if the flames in his eyes had gone out yet.
His face had settled into the lost expression he had appeared at her door with. He hadn’t shaved this morning either. Somehow that fact had escaped her despite her scratched cheeks.
“When did you have this fight with Tony? This morning?”
“Last night. He threw me out.”
“Where did you sleep?” She had visions of him hunched in the backseat of the Satellite.
“I went to a hotel. I figured you wouldn’t be too happy if I showed up here.”
She stroked his cheek and felt some of the tension drain out of him. “You could have showed up here if you wanted to. If this happened last night, Tony might already be regretting it. People don’t think straight when they’re tired. He was up late waiting for you and got upset. Maybe we could stop by the garage on the way and talk to him.”
“Marry me.”
6
Maureen blinked. Stress was making her hear funny. It sounded like he’d just proposed, but he couldn’t have because that would be crazy. “What?”
“Marry me.”
He
had
proposed.
She’d only met him a week ago.
She didn’t know him at all.
He lived on the other side of the country.
He wasn’t even going to be at that home for months.
What about her job?
Marriage wasn’t something to be rushed into.
“Yes.”
He picked her up and swung her around. “I love you so much. I am going to make you so happy.”
“I hope I can make you happy too.” Her feet dangled above the floor and her heartbeat still hammered from the suddenness of being swooped into the air, but she felt safe, protected. As if it wasn’t such a bad idea to marry a rock star she’d met a week ago. Michael would make it right. Everyone had to see that they were perfect for each other.
“You already make me happy.” He grinned with more brightness to his face than she’d ever seen on anyone and leaned her into the wall. “Everything about you makes me happy.”
As his hard body pressed into her, she moaned. She kissed him, relishing his flavor. That rich, exotic, wonderful flavor. This was what movies were always going on about. Two people meet and fall madly in love at first sight. Destiny. No need to ever think about anything because when it was right, it just was. Everything else was details.
His phone started to ring. He cursed, pulling the phone out of his pocket, but didn’t release her. “What?”
She could hear the person on the other end as clearly as if she’d had the phone pressed to her ear. At this proximity, she practically did. “Just checking to make sure you were on your way to the radio gig.”
“I’m kinda busy here.” He caught her eye and his frown turned to a grin. “Hey! Guess what!”
“What?”
“I’m getting married.”
Breath caught in her throat, she waited for a response.
“Married?”
“Yeah.” Michael kissed her cheek.
“To who?”
“You’ll like her. Maureen.”
“This woman you just met?”
“Yeah, but she’s fantastic. Here, talk to her.” He twisted the phone to her ear. “Talk to Marc.”
“Hello?” she said.
“You’re Maureen?”
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you, Marc.”
“How did you meet Bear?”
“Bear?”
“The guy you’re apparently marrying.”
“I met him at the garage. My brakes were making a terrible noise so I took it in and he happened to be there working on the Satellite.”
“The Satellite?”
“His car.”
“So you’re going to marry Bear.”
Utter joy welled through her body. She met Michael’s gaze. This guy. She was going to marry this guy. Whatever his name was. “Yes, I am.”
“Well, good luck. Can I talk to Bear again?”
She handed the phone to Michael, who stepped away this time. “She’s great. You’re gonna love her.” He paused beside the coffee table, but she didn’t need to be near the phone to hear Marc this time.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? You just met this woman and you’re going to marry her? You haven’t even told Tessa about her, have you?”
“You don’t know her.” Marc’s voice dropped out of her hearing, but Michael looked angry. “Well, you married a stripper, what did you expect?”
“This is not about me!” Marc bellowed.
“Like fuck it’s not. You know what? I just got engaged. Somebody should be happy for me.”
Her heart ached for him. He sounded so forlorn, but Marc was right. They had just met and they were talking about forever. To keep herself from trying to go to him and fix it, she knitted her fingers together. How was unclear, but in any case, she shouldn’t be. This was his fight. She couldn’t start diving in to rescue him every time things got difficult. It set a bad precedent.
“Fine. I’ll talk to you when I get back.” He snapped the phone shut and then opened it again.
“Your friend not happy?”
“He’s in the middle of a divorce. He’s jealous.” Michael fiddled with his phone for a minute and then stuck it in his pocket, grinning. “Now where were we?”