Rocked in Pieces (2 page)

Standing in the mostly empty hotel bar, I felt like I was on a job interview. A rather unconventional one, but an interview no less. At the table in front of me sat my best chance for an ally. Becca Hall was on the phone and typing something into a tablet at the same time. She hadn’t looked up to notice me yet, and I took the time to size her up a bit, figure out the best plan of attack, so to speak.

The blonde was pretty, even with stress and severe sleep deprivation written all over her face. She wore her hair pulled back in a low ponytail and had on jeans and a dark long-sleeve t-shirt. There was no makeup on her face that I could see other than some pink gloss on her lips. Her nails were trimmed short and bare. All of which told me what I’d expected about her. She was focused and busy, professional and unpretentious. The last one was impressive, considering her boyfriend was a smoking hot Brit rocker and her father a music legend. Not to mention that from what I’d managed to pull together, she’d been acting as the band’s road manager since the death of the previous one. Very impressive indeed.

Finally, she looked up. Her eyes widened and she held up a finger telling me to wait.

I nodded and was about to look away when she cursed softly.

“Hold on one sec,” she said into the phone. “Ellie?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I can wait a minute.”

“Thanks, but at least sit down. Order a drink if you like.”

I sank down into the chair across from her. “Thank you.”

She smiled quickly and then went back to her call.

While I waited, I looked around. When Steven and I had checked in, we’d been in such a hurry I hadn’t really paid attention to the hotel. It was much fancier than anyplace I’d ever stayed before, but that wasn’t saying much. Except for one very regrettable one-night stand, I’d never slept in a hotel room.

Man, that’s kind of pathetic.

I rolled my eyes and went back to checking out the bar and restaurant. Everything was black and shiny, from the floor to the chairs to the tables. Even the ceiling lights, the long, sleek bar and the glasses. At first it was weird, but then I noticed the people. Everyone looked amazing. Vibrant and glowing in the darkness. The drabbest clothes looked impeccable. The dullest hair gleamed. It had to be intentional. I dug it and wondered idly if I could do something similar in my studio apartment. Probably not, but… maybe.

I was in the middle of estimating prices when Becca finished her call and returned her attention to me.

“Sorry about that,” she said, crossing her legs. “I can’t promise it won’t ring again in five seconds.”

“It’s no problem. I understand how busy you are. Thanks for agreeing to sit down with me.”

She shrugged. “I’m happy to make time for it. I think us chatting for a few minutes will help things go a lot smoother.”

“I agree.” I relaxed a little, glad to see she was open and friendly. Considering her history of having people she loves savaged by the entertainment press, I hadn’t expected her to be very welcoming.

“Well, most of the guys are off doing their own thing right now, but they’ll be at the meeting at five.”

“Great. Oh, we don’t have to call it a meeting, really. I mostly just want to introduce myself and my camera guy, so we’ve met and got a chance to chat before we start shooting.”

“Of course.” She scanned her eyes over something on her tablet. “I have the proposed shooting schedule here. The rest of the team is looking it over but we should be able to get any changes to you by tomorrow morning. Does that work?”

“Sure. As long as we’re still on for tonight, everything else is flexible. We won’t need much footage up front, mostly background and color stuff to ramp up to the live interview.”

“Okay, good. I don’t anticipate any problems with what you recommended, but I do have to run it by everyone.”

“I get it.” I leaned back in my seat and smiled. “You should see the approval process for things on my end.
The Hot Sheet
raised a shit ton of money to start this new project, and they’re stuck in New York and Los Angeles while we and a few other teams are doing the work across the country.”

Becca smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes, and she didn’t say anything. I guessed we weren’t bonding about corporate bureaucracy like I’d thought.

After a very long, very awkward silence, she picked up her phone and tapped at it for a while.

I cleared my throat, not sure if I’d been dismissed or not.

“Oh, sorry. Again. Lots to do. Is there anything else you want to go over?” Her voice was flat and distant.

“Um, I guess not.”

“Okay.” She looked up at me again. “I have one last thing.”

“All right.”

She smoothed down her already perfect hair and bit down on her lower lip before continuing. “Before you meet the guys, I just feel like I should make one thing clear.” She paused, tilting her head. “As everyone on Earth is aware, this has been a hard couple of months for all of us. This tour re-launch is incredibly important to the guys for both professional and personal reasons. And having you here can help a lot with the professional side. No question about that. But know
this
. At the first sign that anything you’re doing or saying is hurting them on a personal level, I’ll do everything in my power to shut it down. A bunch of guys in offices on both sides made this deal, but none of them are here. None of them care about the members of this band the way I do. I’m the one left to protect them, and I’ll do it. No matter what it takes.”

My mouth dropped open and I just sat there for a moment, unsure what to do. Half of me wanted to applaud her balls and fist bump her. The other half wanted call her a bitch and toss a drink in her face.

In the end, I did neither. I nodded silently, stood up, and walked away with as much dignity as I could manage. Which, let’s be honest, isn’t much on my best day. So, mostly I slunk off to the lobby to find Steven, and hopefully, some more liquor. It was going to be a long day.

All too soon it was time to meet the band. I’d spent the intervening hour catching my brother up on the sit down with Becca and trying to keep from sucking down the entire bottle of vodka he’d slid over to me when I finished my story.

Now we were riding up to the suite where the members of Dream Defiled were staying, working on ice-breakers. Or rather, I was. Steven was, as usual, humoring me.

“What if I just Electric Slide in, or walk in topless? They can’t hate me then.”

“Maybe if you combine the two. But warn me first so I don’t accidentally see your boobs and go blind.”

I bumped him with my hip. “Shut it. What about a joke? A good joke would do it.”

“You don’t know any jokes.”

“That’s not true.”

He crossed his arms. “Really? Tell me one.”

“I will. Okay… I… shit. You’re right. I don’t know any jokes.”

“Told ya.” Steven turned and put his hands on my shoulders. “Look, you’re going to do fine. If you could charm Bree the B, you can charm anyone.”

I smiled and nodded. “You’re right. There’s no way these guys are tougher than her. That woman made your social worker cry, and she was practically a robot.”

He shuddered dramatically. “Don’t remind me.”

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open.

Steven hefted his equipment bag up and gestured for me to go ahead of him. Even though we weren’t shooting and he didn’t need it, he never went anywhere without the thing.

I ran my tongue over my teeth to make sure I didn’t have any lipstick hiding there, took a deep breath, thrust my shoulders back and sauntered out like I wasn’t secretly terrified.

The elevator opened right into the massive two-story suite. The floor under my feet was gleaming white marble, and the walls a rich patterned paper. There was a glass table directly ahead, loaded down with a giant bouquet of flowers.

I went around it and got my first good look at the living space. Windows that stretched from the marble to the ceiling of the second floor displayed the setting winter sun over the city. The wide open space was dotted with seating areas interspersed with sculptures. It was part lounge, part modern art museum, and I couldn’t possibly have felt more out of place. Who knew Louisville even had places like this. The rest of the hotel was nice, but I had no idea this kind of luxury was waiting for me. I wondered if I should have put a skirt on. Or a ball gown.

What I didn’t see in the room was any people. I glanced over my shoulder at Steven and he shrugged.

“Are we early?”

“No,” he said. “Right on time.”

“Hmm. Should we go looking for them?” There were hallways jutting out from the room to the right and left of me, with no hint of what was where. “Scratch that. Let’s just wait here.”

By the time I’d finished getting the last word out, Becca appeared. She’d taken down her hair and it fell around her shoulders in golden waves. I thought I might be developing a bit of a girl crush on her.

She strode over to us, smiling. “Hi, guys. We’re running a little behind schedule as you can see. Have a seat wherever, I’ll gather the troops.”

“Okay.”

“Great.” With that she was off in the opposite direction of the way she’d come, and I could hear her yelling for the guys as she went.

“I like her,” Steven muttered.

“Told you.”

He grinned and followed me over to a white leather sectional sofa. We sat down, hip-to-hip, and listened to the minor din coming from what had to be the bedrooms. There was muffled stomping, some door slamming, and the low hiss of Becca’s voice.

I bit down on the tip of my tongue to keep from laughing as familiar famous faces began to appear in the hallway.

First was Joe, the band’s lead singer. He was lean and appallingly gorgeous in person. His dark hair was artfully messy and his blue eyes actually fucking twinkled as he approached us. In his typical tight jeans and sleeveless t-shirt that showed off the tribal-style hawk tattoo on his shoulder, being in the same room with him was a surreal experience. Like watching a character from a movie climb out of the screen.

Steven and I stood up.

“Hi,” Joe said, not quite smiling, but pleasant.

“Hello. I’m Ellie.”

“I figured.” He looked over at Steven and nodded.

My brother crossed his arms and grunted. In guy speak that meant they were best friends, probably.

Joe plopped down on the sofa and pulled out his phone. Before I could say anything else, he was engrossed in the screen, and completely ignoring us.

The next band member to show up was drummer and well-known jerk, Rick. In person he was, well, huge. Close to six-and-a-half feet tall, and massively muscular. But not in a gym rat kind of way. More like he’d been roughly chiseled out of a whole slab of granite. He was shirtless and even though skinny was more my type, I had to appreciate the view. Skin damp, he strode into the room, frowning.

“What the fuck. Where is everyone?” he asked no one in particular.

“Still gathering,” Joe answered casually. “It was hard to concentrate on being on time with all the screaming coming from your room, bud.”

Rick snarled at him, but it was more playful than actually angry. “Can’t help it if I know how to satisfy my woman. Maybe if you had better moves in the sack yours wouldn’t spent most of her time so far away.” He grinned.

Joe flipped him off and went back to typing on his phone.

I glanced at Steven, unsure what to do. They were acting like we were invisible, which could be good or bad. Possibly both. So, I just stood there silently, waiting to see what would happen.

And within a few seconds, what happened is Rick’s aforementioned ‘woman,’ Julia appeared. She was rushing down the hall, zipping up jeans while her long red hair dripped everywhere.

She looked up, noticed us, and swore under her breath. “I’m going,” she said to Rick who was crossing to meet her. She waved him off while adjusting the brief, clingy fabric of her tank top that revealed a rather large amount of her lacy red bra.

I could feel Steven practically drooling next to me. He’d had a crush on Julia since we were kids, and she was on some TV show about a singing and dancing clan of loving family members or some shit. Stupid, if you asked me, but I certainly wasn’t the expert on family.

Julia planted a quick kiss on Rick’s lips and went over towards the door before noticing that she was barefoot. She headed back the way she came, nodding in our direction as she went.

Rick noticed my attention on her and his frown deepened. “Seeing that must make you happy,” he said, deep green eyes staring at me intently.

“What? Why?”

“You probably think I’m too dumb to read, but I’m not. I saw all the shit you wrote about her. I bet you’re drafting some special new poison right now.”

I shook my head and held up a hand. “That’s not why I’m here. I won’t be writing anything or reporting anything about this meeting. And unless you guys choose to include her, Julia’s not part of my coverage of this tour.”

He grunted. “So what, I’m supposed to thank you?”

“No, I’m just clarifying.”

The big bastard got right in my face. Well, right far above my head, actually, because he’s a giant mutant. “Clarify this, you vulture. We don’t want you here,” he said, muscles flexing.