This One’s For You Page 2

  “I’m babysitting.” The pride in Ian’s voice was obvious, but short lived. He cringed and looked back at Lachlan. “I’m maybe not doing the best job considering that I just lost him.”

  Ian Conroe was as famous for his outrageous behavior and long-standing substance abuse problems as he was for his music. He’d cleaned up his image in recent years, but I could see why being entrusted with someone’s kid could be a big deal for him. My old roommate, Caroline, had told me that Ian was a very different man than the media liked to portray. She’d known him for years, and as someone that worked with a lot of people dealing with mental and physical recoveries of many different types, Caroline would know. After all, she’d put up with me after my accident.

  “Hey, he’s still alive and intact. That’s a solid first step,” I replied after a moment. My natural snark was slipping through. It felt even more bizarre to be talking to Ian this time around than it had the first time we’d run into each other. Our paths never should have crossed once, let alone twice. Maybe it was fate.

  Or maybe, I reminded myself, you’re delusional.

  Ian smirked at me and his blue eyes glinted. “I’ll add that to my resume right now. Ian Conroe: I don’t kill babies.”

  His expression tugged at something in my chest, and I attempted to remind myself that a guy like him would have that effect on nearly everyone. He was charming by nature and profession; it was part of being a celebrity. That smile he was aiming at me wasn’t personal. It just felt that way because I, like every other woman between fifteen and one hundred, wanted to sleep with him. My own smile faded.

  “Pre-la-ee,” the kiddo babbled. Ian nodded seriously at him.

  “You’re right, Lachlan,” he told him. “She is a very pretty lady.”

  I felt my cheeks burn. I didn’t think that’s what the kid was saying, but I’d take it. Ian thought I was pretty?

  “What are you doing here?” Ian asked, looking down at my ‘Press’ badge and then around at the South by Southwest crowds. “I thought you were an EMT.”

  My heart thumped noisily enough in my chest that I worried he could hear it. Was he just trying to make conversation? Was he actually interested in me? I heard myself answering before I had a chance to think better of it.

  “I used to be, but after the accident…” Oops. I hadn’t meant to be honest. Ordinarily I would have thought of something clever, but Ian was messing with my head. He was making me honest.

  Ian winced. There was a reason we met at a trauma support group. I didn’t really want to get into it.

  “Oh, right,” Ian said. He seemed vaguely embarrassed. “So, um, now you do video work?” He took in the camera and put two and two together.

  I nodded, happy to change the subject. “Yeah. I’m here shooting b-roll for Channel Nine News. They wanted additional footage of ‘people at South by Southwest.’” I sighed. “So, here I am shooting random crowds.”

  This was the end of our conversation. I could feel it. Ian had no other reason to stick around talking to me. He must have better things to do than talk to a random friend of a friend. He had rock star things to do. Groupies to bang, autographs to sign, hearts to break…

  But the seconds ticked by and he didn’t leave. Lachlan was fussing, but Ian wasn’t walking away. He was staring at me, and I was staring, transfixed, right back at him. The moment teetered on awkward. I wanted to say something, anything, but I didn’t know what.

  “What if I could get you a better assignment?” Ian asked suddenly, pulling awkwardly away as Lachlan went for his hair with his chubby little fingers.

  I felt my jaw go slack. Better than shooting b-roll like a camera robot? Sign me up. Especially if it meant this moment might not end. “How would you do that?”

  An interview with Ian would probably go a long way toward helping my career, but I wasn’t a journalist. I wasn’t even a wannabe journalist. I just did the camera work. I didn’t know what questions to ask. I supposed that I could make some up if necessary. I was plenty curious about Ian. And he seemed to know it.

  He leaned forward to whisper in my ear, and I shivered before his words even sunk in. He smelled like vetiver and leather. “Axial Tilt is playing a secret show.”

  I jerked away, but only because I was on the verge of sensory overload.

  “No way,” I replied when my jaw started working again.

  They hadn’t played together with the original lineup in years. My sudden, ridiculous infatuation aside, that was actual news. Huge news. National news.

  He just grinned at me. “Yes way.”

  “New material?” I questioned, fighting the urge to turn into a squealing, undignified fangirl. I wouldn’t do it. Not right in front of him.

  “Maybe.”

  That was as good as a yes.

  “Can I film it?” I asked hopefully. “That would be big news.”

  Real news. And even better, it would be something that I could actually do on my own and put my own spin on. All my assignments for the local news had been decidedly uncreative. Film this marathon. Film that protest. But just stand there and operate the camera like a trained monkey. Don’t editorialize, just memorialize. I was beginning to think video journalism wasn’t for me. Anytime I turned in anything that had the slightest bit of creative vision, I received nothing but giant frowns. The weddings I filmed were better uses of a creativity I hadn’t known I possessed until recently, but it still wasn’t quite right. I wanted more.

  And Ian was offering it to me.

  “Absolutely,” he told me, smiling like he knew a secret. “You’re exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

  3

  Ian

  “Um, no. No way.” Jason’s voice was a low hiss, but he was looking at me like I’d grown a second, even stupider head. That was certainly nothing new. “It’s inconvenient about Thornton, but we can’t just hire a random girl to film us because he quit at the last minute.”

  “I don’t see why not,” I replied, in as mild a voice as I could manage. In my heart I was frantic, but outside? Cool as a cucumber. Almost.

  I’d hoped Jason would see Vanessa’s arrival as serendipity, but he had to go and be all practical on me.

  “Because she’s a stranger!”

  “Vanessa’s not a stranger to me,” I told him in a low voice. “I know her.” That was a stretch. I’d met her. Once. For a few minutes. But that was neither here nor there. The point is I knew her first name and her roommate, Caroline, was a friend of mine. “She’s a safe choice.”

  Vanessa was only a few feet away, but she was busy with Don, the band’s manager, and Ryan, my brother and lawyer. She didn’t seem to realize we were discussing her. I wanted to keep it that way. “Come on,” I whined, “this is a good solution.”

  Jack was fiddling with his guitar and staying typically silent, although I could tell he was listening intently. Tom, our bassist, was ignoring us entirely. He’d seriously disliked Thornton and was clearly just glad to be rid of him, and until five minutes ago, I’d felt the same way. Whether or not we replaced the high-strung artiste was obviously of no concern to Tom. I knew that Jack would side with Jason and that Tom would go along with the majority opinion, so it was really just Jason that I needed to convince. It always seemed to come down to convincing Jason about something.

  So far, it wasn’t going well, and if I didn’t convince him, our show was going to start late. Then would Jason be happy? In all likelihood, the crowd probably wouldn’t really care. Axial Tilt attracted a devoted, nearly fanatical fanbase. Still, it felt wrong to keep them waiting.

  Jason narrowed his eyes. “How exactly do you know her? Professionally or personally?” He was looking down at the gorgeous redhead and back to me with undisguised suspicion. This was Axial Tilt’s first live show together in almost a decade. We’d done some studio work recently, but no shows. After nearly going on tour last year before cancelling (and creating massive fan disappointment and bad publicity), no one wanted anything to go wrong
this time. This was meant to be a one-time reunion show, and we all wanted it to replace the sour note.

  I frowned at his question. “Neither, I guess. She’s a friend of a friend. I met her at a support group.”

  I’d somehow allowed Vanessa to slip through my fingers the first time I met her. She was just exactly my type, and although my encounters with women were inevitably and invariably temporary, I knew what I liked. Now that I had another chance, I wasn’t going to blow it. At least, not intentionally.

  Jason’s answering frown was even deeper than mine. “Great. You met her at an AA meeting? No offense man, but that doesn’t exactly give me a ton of confidence in her.” He rolled his eyes at me.

  I shook my head and fought down my natural defensiveness. I was trying to convince Jason, not fight with him. “No. Not AA. She’s not… it was a different support group, okay? For people that had been in traumatic accidents. Are you going to hold that against her?”

  Jason paused, and then shook his head. He appeared chagrined but only slightly less skeptical. Jason and I had a history when it came to my addictions and bad decisions, so I didn’t take his attitude personally. I’d spent basically all of my twenties trying my very hardest to destroy everything good in my life—my friendship with Jason among them. There had been significant collateral damage, both to the band and to everyone close enough to me to catch emotional shrapnel. Jason had plenty of reason to be suspicious of me. I met his eyes and resolved myself to admitting the worst part. My plan required it.

  “Vanessa found Lachlan earlier when he ran off into the crowd,” I offered, ripping my gaze away from her to focus on Jason’s infinitely less attractive face. “When I lost him, she’s the reason I found him. That’s how I ran into her. She’d grabbed Lachlan and was looking for his grownups. For all we know, she might have saved him from a pack of roving baby snatchers.” If there was one surefire way to redirect Jason and ingratiate him to Vanessa, it was through his son.

  Instantly, Jason’s expression softened. “She did?” Gratitude replaced suspicion in the blink of an eye. “She found Lachlan?”

  I nodded, sad to admit that I wasn’t the hero of that story, when I actually was. I’d found Lachlan first. “I’m not sure how I would have found him otherwise,” I told Jason. “She intercepted him before he got very far.”

  Jason sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe he just got up and walked off like that! Wendy and I completely missed his first steps.” He sounded frustrated, but at least he was distracted. “Wendy’s gonna’ kill me…” he grumbled.

  “Give Vanessa a chance,” I argued. “I asked her to do this, not the other way around. She’s got no ulterior motives.”

  “She might not have ulterior motives, but you obviously do. You don’t even care about the footage, do you?” Jason accused, but I could tell by his expression that he was at least fifty percent convinced. He’d turned into a total pushover after the birth of his son. It was magical. “You’ve got a thing for her, don’t you?” But he wasn’t stupid, either.

  I shrugged innocently and was thankfully saved from having to answer when Don hopped up on stage, followed by my brother, Ryan. Ryan was hiding a smile that told me he’d already figured me out when it came to Vanessa, too. He was smarter than me, so I wasn’t too surprised. With her statuesque, curvy figure, classic beauty, wild red hair and razor-sharp sarcasm, Vanessa was everything I liked and more. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why I was so interested in her. Anyone in their right mind would be.

  “Good job, Ian,” Don announced. “Jason and Tom might have run off Thornton with their shitty attitudes, but at least we might get some usable footage now.”

  “You’re in favor of this?” Jason asked, searching Don’s mustached face for indecision. He ignored the dig about his shitty attitude. Probably because he knew it was true. For his part, Tom rolled his eyes. To be fair to them both, Thornton was a verified, genuine prick. He might be a genius, but he was definitely an asshole.

  Don shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s low risk. She’s doing this freelance, and we’ll own the footage. She wanted to share the footage with the local news, but screw that. As long as we own it, I’m happy. Plus, she’s extremely hot.”

  I frowned at Don. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He winked at me. “It’s a bonus.”

  “What Don means,” Ryan added as I bristled, “is that if we hate it, the video will never see the light of day.” I had no idea why I’d gotten so suddenly possessive, but Ryan caught it. He looked at me, and although he wasn’t currently teasing me, I knew it was coming. I blinked back at him, feigning innocence.

  “At least this way we aren’t relying on fans filming with their phones,” I told Jason, remembering the aim of the conversation. “I don’t see how anything Vanessa would shoot could possibly be worse than that.”

  Jason thought about it for a moment and then nodded. Although Jason wasn’t technically in charge, he was the lead singer and wrote almost all the music, so he was practically in charge on pretty much every decision. “I guess it’s alright then.”

  Don rubbed his hands together and grinned a devilish grin. He was alright, but he always looked just one mustache twirl away from being a cartoon villain. “Okay, so if we’re all decided then, there are a thousand people outside those doors over there that want to see a surprise show. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

  4

  Vanessa

  My ears were still ringing when I woke up the next day. I felt emotionally and physically drained. The show had been an insane, high octane rush, and then the five and a half hours I’d spent editing the footage had somehow been even more insane even though they were experienced alone in my apartment. I’d ridden the entire thing on a high unlike anything but the very best pain medications I’d been given after my accident. I hadn’t been drinking last night, but I still felt hungover from staying up until 3 a.m.

  I rolled over in my bed, disoriented, tired, and limp. My left arm, permanently weaker from being ripped off during my accident and then reattached, buckled when I tried to steady myself, and I found myself on the wood floor of my bedroom a moment later. I stared up at the ceiling, wondering if I’d be getting a nice new bruise on my backside.

  I was on the ground.

  This day was off to a great start.

  When the stinging sensation in my butt from the impact faded, I reached up to grab my phone off the nightstand. It was nine a.m. and I needed to be at work by nine forty-five. I blinked at the first of four hundred unread texts on my phone. One caught my eye. My boss, a man I didn’t know could text at all, had texted me.

  Albert Scranton [8:20 a.m.]: Please call me immediately.

  I dragged myself into a seated position next to my bed and dialed Al’s number. He answered on the third ring.

  “Vanessa?” Al sounded harried, almost frantic. In the background, I could hear phones ringing. A lot of phones. An entire newsroom’s worth of phones.

  “Yeah, it’s me. What’s going on? I saw your text. Is everything okay?”

  “Vanessa, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go from the station. We’ve been receiving nothing but calls for and about you and Axial Tilt all morning.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “You’re fired, Vanessa.” He said it about as kindly as anyone could, but it didn’t help.

  My heart sank and my eyes started to water. “I’m fired? Why?”

  I needed my terrible job at the news channel. I was just getting into video work after quitting my job as an EMT, and although I was being paid abysmally, it was steady work. I didn’t make enough as a freelancer to support myself. I was working to develop my portfolio and gain clients, but I wasn’t there yet. I barely made enough to support myself with my job. It might not be my dream job, but I was good at shooting boring b-roll. I needed that boring b-roll to pay my bills.

  Al laughed, which didn’t make me feel any better. He was laughin
g about firing me? That was just rude. “Well yeah. Sorry, Vanessa. Not only were you supposed to be shooting b-roll for us last night, but I’m fairly sure you used our camera—”

  “I shot your b-roll! I have it ready,” I argued. “Please don’t fire me.” Al had always been reasonable and nice before now, and we had an agreement about me using the equipment. I didn’t understand what had changed.

  “It’s gonna’ be okay, Vanessa. You haven’t seen yet, have you?”

  “Seen what, Al?” I asked, suddenly frightened. Something must have happened. Something bad.

  “You’re going to be fine, Vanessa. I have a feeling you’re about to have more freelance work than you know what to do with. You aren’t going to need this job. You wanted to do more artistic work anyway. Check your social media and reach for these opportunities. You’ve basically just won the lottery.”

  What the fuck was happening? I was not keeping up. I should have had some coffee before attempting this conversation.

  “I don’t under—”

  Al cut me off with another little laugh. “I’m sorry, Vanessa, but I’ve got to go. You’ll figure it out, and we’ve got too many phones to answer. Please come drop off your equipment and press badge when you can,” he said, unceremoniously hanging up on me afterwards. I frowned into the ensuing silence.

  I was fired, but Al wanted me to check my social media? Okay. Fine. Considering that I was now unemployed, I didn’t have to rush to get ready for work. I might as well lay on the ground and look at my phone like the unemployed failure I was. I could lay right here on the ground all day long.

  The feeling of being a failure didn’t last long. I pulled up Twitter to discover that I had gone from five hundred to thirty-five thousand followers overnight. I had thousands of friend requests on Facebook. My Instagram was even more insane. Somehow, I’d become internet famous, and it didn’t take much digging to figure out why.