Author: Olivia Cunning

“Okay, you do seem to know everything about him. Why do you want to meet him?”

“Duh. He’s Trey Mil s.”

“Yes, I know who he is. Why do you want to meet him?”

“I love him. I want him. I need him.” She clutched her hands in front of her chest and rol ed her eyes for emphasis.

“And what do you hope comes from this meeting?”

She laughed. “A baby. Are you a reporter or something?”

“No, I’m just curious. So you want to have sex with Trey Mil s?”

“Yeah, of course. Don’t you?”

Myrna laughed uneasily. “I have other interests. Have you had these feelings for any other men? Study their lives in detail, think you know them, profess to love them, and try to have intercourse with them?”

She shrugged. “Just other band members.”

“Let’s say that Trey isn’t interested in you, but Jace Seymour invites you to the tour bus for sex, do you go?”

Her brow furrowed. “Yeah, I’d do Jace. He’s hot. He might introduce me to Trey. A win-win situation. You know what would real y be awesome? A threesome with Trey and Master Sin—”

Myrna lifted her hand to silence her. “So how do you act toward regular men? Ones who aren’t famous.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you regularly engage in promiscuous sex?”

The girl stared at her for a long moment. “Are you asking if I’m easy?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“As long as you’re okay with it, it’s fine. Have you ever had sex with a man you’ve just met?”

She looked puzzled, as if thinking hurt her brain. “On a first date, you mean?”

“No, I mean, some hot guy comes out of that door, walks up to you and says, ‘Let’s have sex.’ Do you go?”

She scowled. “No, that’s sick.”

“Let’s say Trey Mil s comes out of that door, walks up to you and says, ‘Let’s have sex.’ Do you go?”

“Yeah. I already said I would.”

“What’s the difference between the first guy and Trey?”

She paused and then shrugged. “I know Trey.”

“You know facts about Trey’s life, but you don’t know him. You’ve never met him, have you?”

“I do know him,” she spat. “I love Trey. And as soon as he meets me, he’l love me back. Understand?”

“Yeah, I think I’m starting to understand, actual y. I real y appreciate your talking to me.”

“So can you introduce me to him?”

“I’l put in a good word for you.”

She smiled. “That would be awesome!” She pul ed a tube of lip gloss from her tiny purse and applied several coats. Myrna talked to several other young women while she waited for Brian to finish his show. A trend emerged among them. They al had similar attitudes. She even found a girl in love with Brian. Talking to her was weird.

“How long have you been in love with Brian?”

“He prefers Master Sinclair, actual y.” The girl rol ed eyes surrounded with far too much blue eyeliner. Myrna knew for a fact that he didn’t, actually, but let Fan Girl think what she would.

“Um,” the girl continued. “I saw him live a couple of years ago, before the band got real y famous. Have you seen him on stage?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t he sexy?”

“Yeah. He’s definitely sexy.”

“And when he fingers his guitar, like…” She wriggled her fingers in rapid succession. “It’s like, oh my God, I want him, you know?”

“Yeah. I total y get that. How do you know you’re in love with him?”

“I think about him constantly. I have every picture of him ever taken taped to my wal . I watch his videos in slow motion.”

Creeped out, Myrna didn’t bother suppressing a shudder. “Isn’t that obsession, not love?”

“No, it’s definitely love. I’d do anything for him.”

She couldn’t stomach talking about Brian with obsessed fans any longer. “Thanks for talking to me.”

“Can you hook me up with Brian?”

Fuck no. She smiled at the girl. “I don’t think he’s interested, honey.”

Maybe she should stick with studying the rest of the band’s groupies, but avoid Brian’s. The back door swung open. Brian emerged, steam rising from his skin as the cool evening air hit his sweat-drenched body. He raced toward her and wrapped her in his arms, seeking her mouth for a welcoming kiss. Camera flashes went off. Something slammed into the back of Myrna’s head. Hard.

She jerked away from Brian, rubbing her scalp. “Ow.”

Brian looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Something hit me,” she said, her eyes watery with tears. “It real y hurt.”

He retrieved a black ankle boot from the ground. “Who threw this?” he demanded, scanning the congregated fans. Only one girl stood beyond the barrier with a matching boot on one foot and nothing on the other. Brian approached the girl and shook the boot in her face. She flinched. It was the same girl who had claimed to be in love with Brian minutes before. “Did you hit my girlfriend with this?”

“Your girlfriend!” she wailed.

“Your girlfriend?” Myrna murmured.

Myrna rubbed the lump on her head, stunned more by his words than being clobbered in the back of the head.

“I’m sorry, Master Sinclair,” the fan girl said. “I love you. I love you.”

“And you think hitting someone I care about in the back of the head wil get positive attention from me?”

“I didn’t mean to,” the girl cried, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at me.”

He shoved the boot into the young woman’s chest. “Get out of here!”

He looked at the back of Myrna’s head, fingering the lump there. She sucked a pained breath through her teeth.

“Are you okay, baby? I think this is bleeding.” He looked down at his fingertips for signs of blood. The rest of the band exited the building then. Sed paused in front of Myrna, who looked up at him, stil grimacing in pain.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Some bitch hit her in the back of the head with a boot.” Brian touched the lump on the back of her head again. She wished he would stop already.

“What is this?” Brian asked, fingering the back of her head again. “A scar? What—”

She twisted away from him. “It’s nothing.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Sed said. They ignored the group of fans who were growing in number by the minute and went directly to the bus. Sed told the girls fol owing him to wait outside.

Brian directed Myrna to a seat at the dining table and treated her scrape with peroxide from a first aid kit. The entire band was looking at her like she’d been in a horrible accident and was expected to die at any moment.

“I’m okay,” she insisted.

“You’ve got to be more careful, Brian,” Sed said. “You know what some of these fans are like.”

“I wasn’t thinking.” Brian tossed a wad of wet gauze on the table and kissed Myrna on the back of the head. “I was just happy to see her.”

Sed grinned. “Yeah, I get it. But be happy to see her in private. Okay? We don’t want her to get any death threats.”

“I don’t know how you guys deal with some of this stuff,” Myrna said.

“What stuff?” Brian asked.

“The fans. They honestly believe they know you. That chick who hit me knew more about you than I do. They say they’re in love with you and they mean it. It’s pretty twisted. They’ve never even met you.”

“It gets us lots of pussy.” Sed grinned.

Myrna chuckled. “I guess so.”

“Are you going to party with us, Myr?” Eric asked.

“Not tonight, Eric. I’ve had a long day. I think I just need to go to bed.”

“I agree,” Brian said.

“We’l just leave you two lovebirds alone.” Trey grabbed Eric by the arm and pul ed him out of the bus.

“Take good care of her, Brian,” Sed said. Jace nodded. They fol owed Trey and Eric out. The fans cheered their return.

“I’m real y sorry about this, Myrna.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“It was worth it. What I real y wanted to do was tel that girl you were mine and she better turn her obsessive attention elsewhere.”

He smiled broadly. “You did?”

“Yeah. Wil you do me a favor?”

“Anything?”

“Go wash off your eyeliner. I want to be with Brian right now. Not Master Sinclair.”

“Can Master Sinclair have a kiss first?”

“I’m not sure. I think my boyfriend might get jealous.”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her. She clung to his shoulders as he plundered her mouth. When he pul ed away to gaze down at her, her heart throbbed with excitement. “You’re right, Brian is a little jealous,” he said. “But he’s stoked that you cal ed him your boyfriend.”

She shrugged. “Boyfriend I can handle. It’s that m-word I can’t tolerate.”

“Magical?”

“No, magical is fine. It’s that other m-word.”

“Al right,” he said. “Brian promises not to ask for a massage after a show any more, even though he real y, real y enjoys it and was hoping you’d indulge him in a few minutes.”

“You know what I’m talking about. Why do you keep asking me to marry you? It real y bothers me that you joke about it.”

“Who’s joking?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I hope you are.”

Brian lowered his gaze. “It figures the first woman I ask to marry me thinks I’m joking.”

Her breath caught. “The first?”

“Yeah, the first. Only.”

He moved away from the table and went into the bathroom. Water splashed into the sink. Myrna took a deep breath and climbed to her feet. She had assumed he was the type to ask every girl he liked to marry him. Was she honestly the first? She stil didn’t want to get married—not ever—but she knew she should be more sensitive to his feelings. He couldn’t understand why she kept turning him down. She should probably explain it to him. She fingered the lump on the back of her head and then the long, thick scar beside it.

She fol owed Brian and stood in the bathroom door, watching him scrub off his stage makeup.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought… I didn’t realize you treated me special y.”

He looked at her. “Why wouldn’t I? You are special.”

She snorted. “Brian, you could have any woman you want. There’s nothing special about me at al .”

He shook his head in disagreement. “You sel yourself short, Myr. You’re wonderful. And I don’t want just any woman. I want you, but I guess you’re total y against the idea of marrying me.”

“Brian, I’m not against marrying you. I’m against marrying anyone. Besides, we barely know each other, how could you even contemplate such a crazy idea?”

“Sometimes you just know.”

“Know what?”

“You know when it’s real. This. You and me. This is real. I’ve never had anything that felt so real.”