Chapter 5
Chapter Five
M attie glared at the phone and thought seriously about changing her number. That way Della couldn’t text her at odd moments and stir up her emotions again.
I love you Mattie Cake. I miss you. Please talk to me.
What was she supposed to say to that? She thought about it, then tapped out a quick response. In a meeting.
She was about to go back into the studio when another text came through. This time from Piper. When did this happen?
Piper included a link to an article on the LA POP website. Mattie tapped the link and waited for it to load while dread danced in her stomach.
When the headline came up, she swore.
Mattie Bellamy Moves on to Next Victim?
Beneath it was a blurry image of her standing just inside the front door of the Delusions of Glory studio, shaking hands with Adam Brooks.
Mattie checked the hallway. She didn’t think anyone could get a good shot all the way back here, but she instinctively stepped out of sight just in case .
She closed her eyes and tried not to panic. She wouldn’t normally care what they said, but with everything Devon had posted over the past few days she was more than a little jumpy. A headline like this would make his lies sound true.
This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t possible that gossip blogs had picked up the story so fast. They must have followed her from her house. Nobody knew she was coming here.
She thought about that. Kat knew. So did Adam’s manager, because he’d made the call to Kat. The entire band and maybe their families knew, too, of course.
That left quite a few people who could unintentionally leak information.
She looked at the image again. Did it look like she was swooning over Adam?
He was maybe three or four inches taller than her, with dark hair shaved close and stubble along his jaw that gave him an edgy, street-wise vibe. He wore jeans, a plain black T-shirt, and combat boots.
He had an athletic body but didn’t look like he spent a ton of time in the gym. He was good looking in a bad-boy, rough-around-the-edges sort of way.
Devon Morales, by contrast, was a pretty boy. He was so photogenic that it had given him the idea that every woman swooned the second she laid eyes on him. It was part of what went so very wrong on the last project.
She hadn’t swooned.
After Kat had told her about Devon’s tweets, she’d spent hours combing over all of his recent posts. He hadn’t just complained about how she’d ruined his life by leading him on. He’d doubled down on the lie by posting some of the selfies they’d taken while working together.
Somehow he’d turned innocent friendly poses into suggestive intimacy with clever use of filters. She had to admit by the time he was done it really did look like they’d had a six-month romance, at least on the internet.
Now the gossips had this new photo to add fuel to the already raging fire. Maybe she should just pass on this project right now, before it went any further.
Another text from Della sang out. When’s the meeting over? I’ll call you.
Her first instinct was to send back a retort along the lines of “never talk to me again and lose my phone number,” but she couldn’t bring herself to do that.
Piper texted again. If you’re still there, stay till the sun sets. Do you need cover? I can pick you up.
Mattie closed her eyes. Piper was offering to take the headlines off her back. If they saw Piper, they’d forget about boring Mattie.
The problem was cover only lasted so long. Once they got over their Piper Bellamy sighting, the gossip rags would focus on her again. The longer she was here, the more they’d have to sell. She could only imagine the next headline: Mattie Bellamy Gangbanging Delusions of Glory.
Dammit.
She was usually so careful to avoid prying eyes, but thanks to Devon she’d become front-page news in a way she’d never wanted to be.
She should leave.
She spun around to get her bag from the couch where she’d dropped it and bumped into Adam.
His hands immediately went to steady her. They were warm, solid, and entirely too comfortable.
“I’m sorry.” She stepped away. Had he told the paparazzi she’d be here?
Adam lowered his hands. “What’s going on? You look tense. ”
“Nothing, really.” She studied his eyes. Concern and curiosity stared back at her. She relaxed and shook her head. “It’s just Twitter drama.”
“We can run through the other songs,” Adam suggested. “Might take your mind off Twitter.”
Mattie thought of several reasons why she should say no to that suggestion. The one song she’d heard nearly ripped her heart out, and she was too emotionally spent to deal with another one like it. Plus, cameras with long lenses were probably still waiting outside, counting the minutes she was spending in his company. The more minutes, the more sensational the gossip.
On the other hand, it felt safe in here. Nobody could see in. She liked the band. Adam seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders, and his second run-through on the song had been perfect. Bonus points for not giving her the puppy eyes afterward like Devon usually did.
Even better, the guys all seemed close, like a family. She’d had that once. Watching Delusions of Glory be the brothers they obviously were hurt in a way she couldn’t define.
“Hey, we can take a break, if you want.” Adam’s concerned look had been replaced by a carefully neutral mask. “No pressure. Or we can do this another time. Your call.”
He was being so nice, and here she was contemplating running out the door. It would be unprofessional to walk out now. She’d come here to prove a point, and to get the chance to write the Song of the Year, and there was no way a few paparazzi were going to scare her away from that goal.
“No, that’s okay. Let’s do it.” She nodded and offered him a professional smile, just to prove she could put aside personal issues. “This time I promise I’ll just sit and listen.”
Adam’s grin lit up his whole face. “Feel free to step in any time. We could use your voice in there. ”
“I know what I sound like. It’s more important to hear what you all sound like. I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of girl now.”
She sat in front of the board, put the headphones on, and tapped out a quick reply to Piper. Still here. Will stay in hopes they get bored.
Piper responded with a quick answer. K.
Adam tapped her shoulder. He’d obviously been talking to her, but she hadn’t heard a word. She lifted the headphones. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said there’s no way you’re ever behind the scenes. Your words are out in front, all the time.”
A hint of something flashed across his face. Admiration, maybe. It vanished so fast she thought—hoped—she imagined it.
Another text dragged her attention away from him. This time it was Kat. Devon’s posting again. You might think about responding.
“Great,” she told the screen, “that’s what I need.”
“Were you talking to me?” Adam sounded confused and uncertain.
“No.” She looked up, embarrassed. Her thoughts were so fractured she couldn’t even pay attention to the good-looking man standing next to her. “I…thanks. I think. Sorry, I’m a little distracted.”
“I can see that.” His lips lifted in a crooked smile that she found incredibly charming.
Her professional mask softened a little.
The phone chimed again. She winced.
His eyes sparkled. “You’re very busy and important.”
She scowled at the phone. “I should change my name and number, or maybe move to another country.”
“Sounds drastic. ”
Piper sent another link, this time to a Twitter post. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it said. “My sister likes to make sure I know about all the potential disasters on Twitter.”
“Twitter is like watching a fire that’s trying to take down a city,” Adam said. “It demands an audience while it roars and eats everything in its path.”
“Especially when the story is something like this. Did you know the paparazzi already got a shot of us together?” Mattie searched his face for any flicker of recognition.
Adam’s eyes widened a little in genuine shock. “When? You’ve only been here thirty minutes.”
She nodded at the hallway. “At the door, when we shook hands. I’m sorry. I should have known they’d follow me. Especially this week.”
She pulled up the image.
“It’s part of the game. No big deal.” Adam peered at it, then shrugged. “Why this week?”
“My sisters are in town, for one. And my name has been trending lately, for another.” There was nothing special about the photo. It was just a handshake, and a blurry one at that. But she knew it would mean so much more than that to one particular person. “And it is a big deal. At least, it could be. Dev—my previous project is…never mind.”
Adam’s eyebrows raised in recognition. “Ah, you mean Devon the Douche.”
She stared at him in shock before giggles erupted. “That’s so wrong. He’s not like that, not really. You know Devon Morales?”
“Not personally, but I follow a lot of people in the music industry. He posts everywhere. It’s hard to miss.” He glanced at her phone. “What’s the jackass saying now?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The link Piper had sent taunted her, but she was afraid to touch it. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t know what he was saying.
Adam sat down next to her and leaned on the board. “It does matter. Whatever is going on is obviously causing you stress, and since songwriting would be a lot easier if you weren’t feeling like that, what can I do to help?”
She sighed and pushed on the link. Devon’s latest post filled the screen.
A faker is hooking up with a sellout who’s only interested in money. #sad #AdamBrooksDelusionalGlory
She cringed. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help with this.”
He leaned over to get a look at her phone. She almost hid it from him, then realized how ridiculous that was because he was tagged in the tweet, so he was bound to see it eventually.
“Delusional Glory? That’s the best he’s got? Hell, my own father came up with something more creative than that.” Adam snorted and sat back in the chair.
“He did?” She tried to picture her own father saying something like that and couldn’t.
“Oh yeah, he told me we’d forged new advances in noise pollution, and that we all demonstrated a complete and total absence of talent.” Adam’s eyes danced with amusement.
She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “He did not. He didn’t tell you that.”
“Ask him. He’d tell you that, and more. He’s actually the one who came up with the Delusions of Glory name. Not that he knew he was doing it. Mostly he was trying to convince me how stupid the whole band thing was. Look how that turned out. Seriously, forget about that crap. If you don’t react, they get bored and go away.”
Her lighthearted amusement vanished in the face of harsh reality. “No, not always. The last time I ignored a post like that, the guy camped out on my doorstep. He brought a tent and everything. The video of him singing to my door went viral. The police finally hauled him away, but not before a horde of paparazzi had documented it from every angle. The look of betrayal on his face will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“He deserved worse than that.” He pressed his lips together.
She raised an eyebrow at that. She didn’t disagree. The incident had been creepy and made her feel unsafe, and she’d asked the guy to back off too many times to count. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Well, anyway, that’s why I try to stay off social media. It doesn’t usually end well, for me.”
He nodded. “I get that. But you shouldn’t have to hide who you are just because some people can’t get a grip on reality.”
“Maybe not. But life’s easier that way.” Mattie looked back at the tweet. “I just wish some people could figure out that writing a song is not the same thing as having a relationship. They take the emotions around the project and turn them into forever, and nothing lasts forever. The project ends, and they’re supposed to move on to something—or someone—else.”
Mattie bit her lip to stop the babble. She’d said more than she meant to say, but Adam was surprisingly easy to talk to, and he seemed sincere in a way a lot of industry people weren’t. It was probably because he had family around him. That firm foundation of love and support kept things real. A tiny flare of jealousy ran through her, followed by the cold realization that she was in trouble. Adam Brooks made her forget she was supposed to keep her distance.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Adam said. “Sure, the project might end, but the song can last a really long time, right? Might as well be forever. I still sing ‘My Girl’ in the shower, or ‘Purple People Eater’ while I’m driving.”
She saw the goofy look on his face and couldn’t stop the giggle. “Point. I still like to sing ‘Over the Rainbow’ when I’m in a bad mood.”
“See? Some things do last forever.” He looked smug.
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. And those songs are only from the forties and fifties. That’s hardly forever.”
“Hey, they came out long before we were born, and they’ll be going strong long after we’re gone. That’s as close as it gets, right?”
He sounded so sure of himself. He had no idea how quickly things could change.
“We should get to work.” She turned off the sound on her phone and placed it upside down on the table. “Let’s give the paparazzi something to talk about and run through the rest of the album.”