11. Jackson
CHAPTER 11
JACKSON
I didn’t get a chance to wish Hailey luck. I’d had it in my head I’d be the last one to see her, me and her in the wings, then she’d walk out on stage. But she wasn’t some teenager in her high school play. She was Hailey Frye, pop star. Icon. She rode in on a dirt bike, because of course she did. The bike was on rails, its tailpipe smoke fake. The rev of its engine came from speakers out back. Still, the audience screamed for her, so loud my head hurt. Even through my earplugs, they made my head hurt.
I was stationed toward the back of the stage, in a spot in the shadows where I couldn’t be seen. I, on the other hand, could see the whole space, and point my team wherever they needed to be. But the crowd skewed young, and mostly girls. They didn’t rush the stage or try to grab Hailey, or trample each other trying to crowd surf. They just screamed and cheered and held their phones high. They jumped and they swayed and bopped to the beat. Every so often, they’d dance a little too close, and my team would move in and they’d dance back.
I stood there with mostly nothing to do, trying not to let Hailey’s stage show distract me. Or, not her stage show, but Hailey herself. She vogued some with her dancers, but she mainly sang, and when she did, I couldn’t not listen. I’d assumed when we first met, she was like most pop stars, getting her music pre-packaged from Sweden, tunes engineered for maximum play. But I’d watched her on the bus, and in her rare free moments, bent over her laptop typing away. When I’d tried to peek, she’d slammed her screen shut.
“No sneak peeks.”
“What?”
“No reading my lyrics. At least, not till I get them to sound how I want.”
Sometimes she’d stand and hum into her phone, then play back what she’d hummed and smile to herself. Or she’d frown and delete it and try something else.
Her dancers lifted her. Spun her around. She threw her head back, still singing her song. Singing about childhood and the last day of school, and the whole golden summer stretching ahead. I kept my eyes on my job, but I couldn’t help hearing, couldn’t help hanging on her every word. The nostalgia made my heart ache for my own childhood summers — waiting outside on my last day of school, knowing summer was Dad’s time and he’d soon pull up. We’d go see the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or Sasquatch, or a man in the Yukon with a beard made of bees.
I was deep in that summer glow when the beat changed, and a brazen brass fanfare signaled “Night Dancing.” I’d always thought that song was loud, kind of goofy, but the way Hailey danced held a note of defiance. She stomped up and down, lifted up her guitar, spun on her heel and marched back up the stage.
“Dance,” she yelled, stomping, and the crowd stomped with her. “Dance like you never heard no in your life!” Her voice cracked with emotion, with anger. Outrage. The audience stomped so hard I felt the stage vibrate. It was all I could do not to stomp with them.
The song ended in a dazzle of pyrotechnics, so bright for a second I lost sight of the crowd. Hailey rose through the blaze, borne up by her dancers, but the glare blocked them out so she seemed to be flying. The crowd shrank from the sparks, then surged back in, phones swaying like lighters to “Stars on Fire.” After that came “Decision,” then “Birds Aren’t Real.” Hailey took us all on a wild ride, through childhood excitement to teenage rebellion, through failure and setbacks and long, lonely nights. Then she made our hearts soar with an anthem to strength, to building a new life from the wreck of the old. I felt like she’d reached out and taken my hand, and taken me on a tour of what life could be. Was that how she saw her life, and all she’d been through?
She stood bathed in light at the end of her encore, wild-haired, ash-smeared, glistening with sweat. Three girls rushed the stage and I started toward them, but Hailey bent down and touched her hands to theirs. More arms stretched out and she trailed her fingers along them, all down the line and back up again. I couldn’t have looked away from her even if I could have. Even if it hadn’t been my job to keep watch. She was magnetic, bubbling over with… I couldn’t even describe what I felt coming off her. Joy was a part of it, triumph. Elation. Her last song still echoed loud in my head.
“I love you all,” she called, and I fell back in time. Déjà vu hit me hard and we were back in my bed. Back in that moment when we lay in the afterglow, and she looked up at me and I felt like I knew her. My chest hurt, and I willed her to turn around. Then I willed her not to, because if our eyes met, I felt like I’d drown in what might have been. But she didn’t turn, and the pang passed. I huffed uneasy laughter — it was only her music. She was that good, she made my heart ache. Once that high wore off, I’d be back to myself.
Hailey did one more encore, then she headed backstage. I could see she was tired, but her fans were lined up, those who’d shelled out for VIP passes. They’d paid for time with her, one-on-one in her green room. Well, one-on-one, plus me for safety. I went in first, to check she was ready, and found her slumped half asleep on her couch.
“How many are there?” She didn’t lift her head.
“Ten with platinum passes for five minutes with you, then a whole lot behind them with singles to sign.”
“Okay.” She fumbled and spilled her water. I poured her some more, and she took a tired sip. Then she took the rest and splashed it in her face, and blotted it off with a makeup-smeared towel.
“I can hurry this up for you if you’re ready to go.”
She shook out her hair and did her clench-unclench thing. “No. I’m all right. Open the door.”
I tried to rush them on anyway, but Hailey took her time. She was warm with her fans, and gentle and patient, answering the same questions again and again. Where did she get her ideas? How’d she get her big break? When was her next album going to come out? The whole time, she kept clenching under the table, and curling her toes in her sparkly gold sandals. It was almost morning when I led her out, and rush hour was starting on our drive back. Breakfast was cooking at the hotel, fresh bacon sizzling as we passed by the kitchen. Hailey sniffed deep and groaned.
“I’m too hungry to eat.”
Weirdly, I knew exactly what she meant — that weird, gnawing feeling between hunger and nausea, when you’d left it too long between one meal and the next. “Get some sleep,” I said. “That ought to help.”
She pressed for the elevator. “I can’t sleep like this.”
“You mean with your makeup on?”
“No. And it’s not on. I sweated it off.” She thumbed at her eyes, all smeared with eyeshadow. “I mean I’m still wired, like I’m still up on stage. Here, feel my heart.” She held out her hand and I took hold of her wrist. I found her pulse point, and she was right. It was racing.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m just… high. It’s like a drug up there. It takes time to wear off.” She slid her hand into mine and pulled me toward her. “Come talk me down.”
I stiffened. “I can’t.”
“Just for ten minutes. That’s all I need. I have this new song, and it’s stuck in my head, and I need you to sit with me while I work it out.” She tugged me again, toward her suite. I made myself heavy and refused to budge.
“I can’t be alone with you.”
She laughed. “Why not?”
“Because—”
“I mean, look at me! Look! I’m disgusting. You think I’m going to jump you stinking of sweat? Covered in backstage dust, with my costume all ripped?” She rolled her eyes and let go of my hand. “I’m not going to force you, but trust me. It’s fine. I just want to talk to you. Work off my buzz.”
I wanted to tell her, she had no idea. No clue on earth how she looked to me. She wasn’t disgusting or dirty or gross. She was an Amazon sweaty from battle, her face streaked with makeup like smears of war paint. I could’ve grabbed her right there and flung her up on the door, and kissed the last of her lipstick off her chapped lips. Pulled her tangled hair till she hollered my name. Instead, I relented.
“Ten minutes? All right.”
She heaved a sigh of relief and dragged me inside, kicking her sandals off as she slammed the door shut. Even that turned me on, her haste and her violence. Her ragged exhale, and the sweat on her lip. She pulled off the hoodie she’d shrugged on in the limo, tossed it on the floor, and flopped down on the couch.
“Come sit and listen. Tell me what you think.”
I sat carefully, not too close. She scootched up beside me.
“Hailey—”
She dug in her purse and pulled out her phone, and passed me one earbud and took the other herself. “Okay, just listen and don’t think too hard. Like that game at your shrink’s office, I say blue, you say red. Just say the first thing that pops in your head.”
She pressed play and her voice came through, not humming, but singing. At first, all I thought was God, what a voice , rich and deep, sultry, a little bit hoarse. She must’ve recorded this right after rehearsal, or fresh out of bed while her throat was still dry. Then I caught the lyrics and my body went hot. Did she just say?—
—on my lips, the taste of your name…
I coughed. Caught my breath. I’d heard that all wrong. I was thinking of her taste, her lips on mine, all the places I wanted to be kissed and touched. Of course she wasn’t singing?—
Your touch, your taste. Five senses of you. I dream in five senses I’ll wake up to you.
Hailey’s lips moved. Her eyebrows went up. I stared at a smudge of ash on her neck, a couple of inches below her left ear. All I could think of was the salt of her sweat, the prickle of gooseflesh when I breathed on her neck. Five senses of her — her smell, her taste. The silk of her skin as it slid against mine. The sound of her breathing, harsh, fast, and hard. The sight of her, all of her.
“Well? Don’t you think?”
I pulled out my earbud. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I said the rhythm’s off, right?” She reached for her water and unscrewed the cap. Sucked a stray droplet off the joint of her thumb. The way she moved was hypnotic, like a cat on the hunt. If her rhythm was off, I had none at all.
“It doesn’t quite scan,” she said. “The words with the tune. But I love the idea, five senses of you. Being so in lust, it’s this full-body high.”
“Full body. Right.” My throat clicked as I swallowed. “You could put something like that in there, like, uh…”
“Like what?”
I couldn’t think how to put it without sounding crude. How you touch me in one place and I feel it all over. How you light up my nerves like an electric shock. You get me so high I forget what I’m here for, and I just want to grab you and bend you over that couch, and kiss my way down your spine till I make your toes curl.
“I like the full-body thing,” I said at last. “Like a flashback, almost. When you smell someone’s perfume, and it’s like they’re right there.”
“Mm.” Hailey played the clip back again. I could still hear it faintly through my discarded earbud. She closed her eyes and swayed to the beat, and I knew I shouldn’t watch, but I did anyway.
“Not a flashback,” she said. “I don’t do breakup songs, and a flashback sounds like it’s about an ex. But a flash forward, where we haven’t touched yet, but all I can think about is how it would feel. I’m dreaming of it, and it’s so, so real. So real I can feel it like a memory.” She leaned in just a hair, maybe on purpose, or maybe she was only shifting her weight. “You ever want someone so bad you could taste it? So bad your whole body was one solid ache?”
I bit my tongue to distract myself. She let out a sigh.
“They said I need a horny song. My label, I mean. What do you think? Can I pull off horny?” Her lips were half-open, her eyes half-closed, and if she closed them all the way, I knew I would kiss her. Could she pull off horny? Who was she kidding?
She made a mm sound, and I leaned in. Professional, fuck it. She had all my five senses. If I didn’t kiss her, I might just?—
“You up?”
We both jerked back at a knock at the door, my guilt reflected in Hailey’s eyes. She smoothed down her clothes, though I hadn’t touched her, and moved to the loveseat before shouting “Come in.”
Mina rattled the doorknob. “I can’t. It’s locked.”
I hurried to let her in and let myself out, rushing so fast to put distance between us I was halfway to my room before the door slammed. Where was my head at? What the hell had I done? I stalked straight to the bathroom and turned the shower on full blast, and stood under the cold spray till my skin went numb. I was here to guard Hailey, not to hook up with her. Not to get distracted and risk her life. What had happened tonight couldn’t happen again, no matter how Hailey teased, or how she tingled my senses.
I got out of the shower and toweled myself till it hurt.
“Never again,” I growled.
Never again.