This One’s For You Read online

  I felt the same way tonight, and it scared and thrilled me. Vanessa made me feel the same way.

  “The last time we were here,” I heard myself saying, “I thought everything was going to be perfect from here on out. Easy.”

  Jason smiled his movie star smile. His teeth were not original, but they’d been very expensive and they were perfect. “Easy? Why the hell would you think that?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought we’d arrived. I mean, we had our record deal. We had fans. We were selling albums.” I sighed. “I thought it would be a long, unbroken, upward trajectory.”

  Jason shrugged his shoulders. “Sometimes things don’t quite work out the way we planned. But we seem to have gotten there in the end.”

  I nodded. “I guess you’re right. We did get there in the end.”

  All of us except Jen. We sank into an awkward, sinking silence. The moment lengthened and became almost unbearable. The seconds ticked by intolerably, but Jason seemed oblivious.

  “Come on man,” Jason told me, checking his watch and drawing me out of my memories. “It’s showtime.”

  Tonight, I’d be playing the song I wrote for Vanessa for the first time in front of an audience. I was also singing lead vocals on it. Nerves hit me like a freight train. Would Vanessa know I wrote it for her? Should I tell her? I eventually would. Once I worked up the courage.

  22

  Vanessa

  From what passed as a relatively quiet and secluded corner of the VIP area, I watched adoring fans absolutely lose their shit when they finally met Axial Tilt. It was actually very entertaining what with all the squealing, shaking, and hand-wringing, although the way some of the women reacted to Ian also made me somewhat jealous.

  The women blushed and stuttered and acted, well, the same way I had when I first laid eyes on him. I supposed I shouldn’t really fault them for that. But during the photoshoots some of them got a bit… handsy. Ian handled it well, gently and promptly disengaging any weirdness, but my inner crazy woman didn’t care. It’s astounding how quickly jealous girlfriend setting could get switched on in my brain. I’d need to ask Wendy how she handled it. She’d taken off some time back. It turns out that babies don’t really like afterparties that much.

  Girlfriend. Me. I was someone’s girlfriend again. Well, sort of girlfriend, anyways. It still really hadn’t sunk in during the past eight hours. I’d definitely need a few days to come to terms with it.

  When the band performed their new song tonight, I nearly fell off the catwalk where I was perched filming. ‘This One’s For You’ was a heartbreakingly beautiful song. Ian wrote it, and I could almost believe it was about us. I knew that I was probably being silly, but Ian singing lyrics about finding someone after years alone, and piecing together two broken hearts and broken bodies to make something new and whole… I wondered if Ian thought about me at all when he was singing it. I knew it was just probably just my delusions speaking, but I wanted to believe it was about me. I’d held my breath the entire time and was still looking for it now, hours later.

  “You’re Vanessa Evans,” a man said, sliding into the seat across from me.

  He was in his mid-thirties, average looking, and staring intently at me. I didn’t recognize him at all. However, I also didn’t like his cocky, no-introduction attitude. Men who behaved like this at the beginning of a conversation were rarely worth talking to. Learn some damn manners.

  “Yes, I know who I am,” I told him. I stared down my nose at him in a way that clearly telegraphed that I wanted absolutely nothing more to do with him.

  He didn’t take the hint.

  “How long have you two been together?” he asked me.

  I blinked.

  “What?”

  “Do you feel bad about what you’re doing?” he asked. “I’d feel terrible if I were you.”

  “Huh?” If he was trying to bait me into saying something, he’d need to make a bit more sense.

  “Is it true that he’s filed for separation? Do you feel guilty?” He leaned too close to me and I could smell his cologne. “Do you even care about the innocent lives you’re ruining?”

  I sat back, now uncomfortable and tense. I didn’t like people getting all up in my personal space. I also didn’t like getting accused of… whatever it was I was being accused of. It was time to end this.

  “You’re in my bubble,” I told the man. “Get out or get slapped.” My voice was ice cold and unambiguous.

  Separation? Guilty? What the fuck was going on?

  The man, staring at me with beady, dark eyes and brandishing a tape recorder, didn’t seem to care that I was confused or uncomfortable. I started to get genuinely angry.

  He leaned even closer. “I just want to know if you feel bad about what you’re doing. Do you?”

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked him. “What is this about?”

  “I know who you are,” he replied as if that explained it. “The story is already out.”

  On my left, a woman leaned over from a nearby table. I hadn’t noticed her before. I jumped when she invaded my bubble, too. I was now flanked by weirdos.

  “Is it true that Wendy is going to be leaving the tour after tomorrow?” She asked. “Is it true you’re staying on?”

  I gaped at her. She was older than the man, maybe mid-forties, but had his same leering demeanor.

  Was this about Wendy?

  The woman didn’t give me a chance to answer. “How long have you two been seeing each other?”

  She must mean Ian? I really didn’t understand this situation and it was making me very uncomfortable and increasingly angry.

  “I want you both to leave me alone!” I didn’t mean to yell, but I no longer did well in claustrophobic, stressful situations. After my accident, I was prone to becoming quickly overwhelmed.

  My heart was hammering in my chest, and a growing wave of nausea was threatening to crest. While vomiting on them would probably get them to go away, it would also be very embarrassing. And gross. I swallowed hard after my outburst and pressed my lips together. I wasn’t saying another goddamn thing to either of them.

  They probably would have continued to pelt me with bizarre questions that I couldn’t answer, but thankfully, a rescue arrived at the sound of my raised voice.

  Tom and Jack came over to join me and the two strangers suddenly got up.

  “Don’t talk to them,” Jack said, watching the two skitter back into the crowd. His eyes were narrowed and angry.

  I was perfectly happy to do just that. “I won’t,” I promised. “I didn’t want to in the first place. They came up to me. What in the world was that? Who were they? They asked me some weird questions.”

  Tom snorted. “Yeah. They’re paparazzi. Well, more specifically, those were gossip columnists. That’s what they do.”

  Paparazzi? Revolting. As a profession, that was right up there with used car salesmen and conmen.

  “Damn leeches,” Jack added. “We should have warned you this could happen. Anyone in our entourage is fair game to them.”

  I shivered. I didn’t like the thought of being hunted by strangers.

  “They gave me the creeps,” I told Jack and Tom. “Thanks for the assist.” I shook my head, trying to sort through what they’d said. “They kept asking me about Jason.”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah. He bears the worst of it. It’s the price of fame.”

  “They knew who I was.”

  Tom’s face revealed his disgust. “It’s their job to know stuff like that, and you’ve been in the media lately.” He shrugged. “Welcome to notoriety. It sucks.”

  “I’m going to go splash some water on my face,” I told Tom and Jack. “That freaked me out more than it should have.” My hands were shaking.

  They looked understanding, but I was embarrassed. In the quiet of the ladies’ room, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I plucked a brush out of my handbag and went to work on my tangles. Maybe feeling a bit more put together would calm me dow
n.

  A girl washed her hands next to me and did a double-take. She glanced down at her phone, then back up at me.

  “Are you Vanessa?” she asked.

  I nodded warily. Was this girl paparazzi? I couldn’t believe it. She looked like she was underage. In fact, she had big, black X’s sharpie’d onto her hands. She was just a kid. Maybe I’d met her before somewhere.

  “Yeah. I’m Vanessa. Do I know you?” I answered.

  She was backing away like I was on fire.

  “No,” she said coldly. “But you should be ashamed of yourself. He deserves better.” What the fuck? “Slut!” she yelled over her shoulder.

  Feeling like I was super late on the uptake, I googled my own name. The first result was a gossip story on a very popular blog.

  The headline didn’t pull punches: “Camera Girl Vanessa Evans Destroys Jason Kane’s Happy Home!”

  There were pictures of me in the lobby of the building where Jason lived, and a story about how I’d been seen coming in and out late at night. There were also details from an anonymous source that suggested that Wendy wouldn’t be staying with Jason on the entire tour. Then there were a few candid shots taken at a long distance of Jason and Wendy seemingly arguing as well as one of Jason innocently helping me unload some of my equipment from the bus.

  It was all lies.

  The story had a half million views, and hundreds of reposts. It was going viral. The things people were saying about me were unbelievable, and unbelievably cruel. I sank to the ground in front of the sink, suddenly unable to support myself.

  The hate and abuse in the comments section just went on and on. Jason Kane’s fans were legion. And they were incredibly livid.

  The entire internet hated me.

  23

  Ian

  “Have you seen Vanessa?” I asked Jason. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and I was starting to get worried.

  Jason shook his head. “Maybe she got tired of all this and went back to the bus?”

  I nodded. That was probably it. She wasn’t used to the endless after partying. As someone who now had to watch other people get slowly drunk while staying sober, I could empathize. Drunk people are boring when you aren’t one, and therefore after parties were boring. I made my way back to the bus.

  Vanessa was there alright, alone and poring over something on her laptop.

  She looked up and me, and the light reflected the unshed tears in her eyes.

  “Did you know about this?” she asked.

  I slid next to her and looked at her screen. It was a comments section of a particularly salacious gossip website. And the comments were about Vanessa.

  Vanessa Evans is a disgusting whore.

  He’s technically as guilty as she is, but somehow, I just hate her so much more.

  There’s a special place in hell for women like Vanessa Evans. I really believe that.

  Maybe she’ll do the world a favor and throw herself off a bridge.

  Maybe I’ll buy a ticket to his show just to throw rotten vegetables at her.

  Jason’s kid deserves better.

  I feel so bad for his wife. You think you have your life together and then some groupie wannabe comes and fucks your husband and ruins your life with her magic tits.

  I ripped my eyes away from the last comment, torn between laughter and concern. The laughter died when I saw the look on Vanessa’s face. She looked like she wanted to throw up. Her always fair skin was slightly green-tinted. She was staring at me in clear, obvious horror.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked her. “Why are you reading this?”

  “The internet thinks I’m having an affair with Jason Kane. And now they’re out for blood.”

  I blinked.

  “With Jason?”

  I ground my teeth at the injustice. The internet didn’t believe I could have the girl with the magic tits? That almost hurt.

  Vanessa scrolled to the headline and I skimmed the article. It quickly began to make sense. My blood pressure skyrocketed as I read.

  It was a tale as old as time. Some asshat with a camera that probably lived in his car outside of Jason’s loft got a picture of Vanessa, and managed to put together that she had a connection to the band. Then he filled in the details with real and imagined information to make something that just begged to be clicked. It was all held together with conjecture and assumptions, but it didn’t matter. The audience bought it.

  The sad thing was that these gossip mongers were good at what they did. They knew the sorts of stories that their readers wanted, and they worked overtime to make sure that they created just enough evidence to hook and convince them. And they didn’t give a damn about the collateral damage.

  Vanessa had never signed up for any of this. She wasn’t a celebrity. And she definitely wasn’t a homewrecker.

  Vanessa sniffled. “Some of them actually want to hurt me.”

  I wanted to put my arm around her, so I did. It felt good that she didn’t wince away. “It’s just a stupid story,” I promised her. “It’ll go away in a few days.”

  “There were paparazzi at the afterparty. They asked me about this.”

  I frowned. That wasn’t good.

  “You didn’t tell them anything, did you?”

  She shook her head. “No. But it really freaked me out. They wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry this is happening.”

  This wasn’t my first rodeo with the world of professional gossip. As a former centerpiece of the tabloid circuit, I’d been the target of a wealth of unflattering stories over the years. Many, if not most of them were true. But this was different.

  For one, it was entirely fake. Wendy and Jason were doing great. Vanessa was seeing me. Nobody was wrecking anybody’s home. That alone was enough to make my blood boil.

  But more than anything, it irked me that Vanessa was being targeted. The fact that they called her a ‘Camera girl’ also implied a very different profession than the one that she actually had, and it was all downhill from there. She was made out to be a complete villain.

  The worst part was that this was entirely my fault. If I hadn’t booty called Vanessa while babysitting Lachlan, this never would have happened. It was my fault, so I was going to have to fix it.

  The good news was that I thought I might know how to do just that. The only way to fight fire is with fire. We’d have to give the press something just as juicy as what they were currently salivating over.

  “I need to call Ryan,” I told Vanessa. “I have an idea how we can fix this.”

  24

  Vanessa

  When I saw Wendy the next morning at breakfast, I felt a weird sense of misplaced guilt. I sank into the chair next to her.

  How does one tell someone that the world thinks you’re sleeping with their husband? I decided to plunge right in.

  “Did you see the story?” I asked.

  She nodded and smiled gently at me. “Good morning and don’t worry,” she promised. “It’ll blow over in a few weeks. It always does.”

  A few weeks?

  I grimaced and she laughed lightly and patted my hand. “I promise you’ll be okay. I heard something happened this morning?”

  I shifted uncomfortably at the memory. “Someone delivered a dead possum in a box to my hotel room with a note that said ‘Play whore games, win whore prizes.’ I opened it up this morning and just about fainted.”

  Her eyes widened. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed. Then she covered her mouth and stared at Lachlan who didn’t seem to notice or care. He was too busy pushing his breakfast into his face. It didn’t seem like he was even trying to aim for his mouth. Just anywhere on his face was good. It looked like he was trying to completely coat it in yogurt and was doing a credible job.

  “Did you call the police?” Wendy asked when she regained her composure. She had a thick, Texas drawl that came out more heavily when she was worked up. “That’s really sick, and I can only imagine a terrible way to wake
up.”

  I nodded at her. It had been a whole big thing, and Don and his assistant, Jay, had been involved. It was only nine a.m. and I felt like I’d been awake for hours. Getting on a bus and driving all the way to New Orleans sounded horrible, but it’s what I was going to do.

  “Yeah,” I explained, “they came and, um, retrieved the box and took a statement. They didn’t really seem that interested in it, but maybe they just wanted to get away from the smell as quickly as possible.”

  “What a mean prank,” Wendy said.

  “I know, right? At least it was pretty clearly roadkill. I don’t think any possums were harmed.” It certainly hadn’t smelled fresh.

  Wendy raised an eyebrow. “You’re concerned about the possum?”

  “I like possums. They’re cute. It hardly seems right to blame the possum for this situation.” Possums were pretty great. I felt like they got a bad rap just because they tried to survive in a world now filled with humans, and their defense mechanism was to pretend to be dead. They were just doing what they’d always done. Plus, they ate snakes, cockroaches, and centipedes. They were nature’s pest control. Given the choice between gross rats and lovely possums, I’d go with possums any day. I’d cried over the possum. Partly because I felt sorry for myself, but also partly for the possum.

  Wendy’s expression was skeptical. She clearly didn’t share my affection for possums. “If you say so.”