Chapter Five – Maggie
Ramona picked up the contract and NDAs later that night. She told me what time she’d pick me up Monday morning—four in the freaking morning, kill me now. Had to be so early because apparently she wanted to take me a few places before introducing me to the rest of the band.
My life became a whirlwind. The days passed way too quickly. I hung out with Alexa every chance I got, and my mom even took some time off work to spend it with me and Cleo.
I knew my life was going to change, that this was the first step toward a future I’d never even dreamt of, and I was excited. But at the same time, I almost didn’t want to do it. Too late, now that I’d signed the contract, but the nostalgia and sentimentality of everything made me really sit there and think.
I was going to miss everything. I didn’t know if or when I’d be able to come home and visit Mom and Cleo. I didn’t know if I’d be able to see Alexa at all until my stint with Black Sacrament was done. I’d miss so much. It made me sad to think about.
But it was a once in a lifetime opportunity—an opportunity the majority of people would never get. I had to take it. If not for myself, but for my mom. I meant it when I said I’d send money back home so she wouldn’t have to keep working two jobs to keep the house. I wanted to make things easier for her.
Monday morning came, and suddenly it was time to leave.
I’d packed a few bags full of clothes and shoes I wanted to bring—Ramona had already said she’d buy me a new wardrobe, but I had the feeling she and I had very different styles. I’d wear whatever I had to wear for shows and press talks or whatever, but when I was lounging around by myself? I’d stick to my own clothes.
Ramona was waiting in the car. The night air was crisp and cool, a strong breeze blowing around the three of us at the head of the driveway. My mom and Cleo stood before me, the latter of which couldn’t stop yawning.
I’d say I knew what that felt like, but I’d be lying. I hadn’t slept a wink last night, the nerves too strong.
Mom enveloped me in a strong hug. “Be smart, Mags. Use your brain. I don’t know much about where you’re going or who you’ll be with, but rock stars aren’t exactly known for their good decision-making skills.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d told me that. “I know, Mom.”
“I love you,” she crooned into my ear, running a hand down the back of my head. “Text me when you can. And I want at least one call every week.” She was measured in letting me go, and when she did, her hands fell to my upper arms, rubbing up and down them in what was meant to be a comforting gesture.
“I love you too, and I will,” I told her. She’d already made me promise to do so multiple times this past week.
Mom stepped aside, letting Cleo rush to me. She slammed her thin body into mine. What had started out as pure, unadulterated excitement had slowly switched to dread. Now, she didn’t want me to go, even though this was literally all her fault.
She angled her face up at me, blinking away the grogginess that came with waking up at four in the morning at the end of summer vacation. “Don’t let any of those guys push you around, okay? And if they do, tell them to stuff it and—”
Mom coughed, and Cleo worked to calm herself down. Quieter, she said, “Just tell them to stuff it, and if they don’t, that your sister will come find them while they’re sleeping and—” She glanced at our mom, and then she looked back at me as she ran a finger along her neck, telling me she’d kill them for me.
Oh, I was going to miss her.
I chuckled. “Thanks, Cleo. Good to know you have my back.” Not sure how frightened they’d be if I told them my eleven-year-old sister would hunt them down while they were sleeping, but I guess it was the thought that counted. I gave her one last hug and said, “I love you.”
Cleo quickly untangled herself from me, sniffing and turning her face away. “Yeah, yeah. Love you too.” She waved her hand in the air, as if telling me to go, because she didn’t want me to see her tear up.
Oh, that kid. She really was something else.
I gave them one last smile, and then I turned my back to them and headed to Ramona’s car. As I got in the front seat, I looked back at them, at my mom and my sister, the only family I knew.
They were it, and I was leaving them. I knew it’d be hard, but I didn’t expect it to tug at my heartstrings so soon. Like, before we were out of the driveway.
Ramona’s wild black hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and she tossed her pitch-black eyes my way as she set her phone down in a cup holder in the center console. “Buckle up,” she said.
I did as I was told, and then she started backing up. I waved to my family until they were out of sight, the darkness of the night swallowing them up.
This was it. Everything was about to change.
After a while, Ramona broke the silence of the car by saying, “So, you and I didn’t really get much chance to talk. I didn’t want to say this in front of your mom, but Black Sacrament has been through a lot this past year. You’re probably going to get some pushback from them, but just know, no matter what they say, they are not the ones in charge of who’s in the band. They can’t kick you out or anything like that.”
Oh, boy. It didn’t even occur to me that the band members might not like my addition to their group. Having them hate me wasn’t something I’d prepared for.
“I warned them to be on their best behavior, but if they’re not—you come straight to me,” Ramona went on. “And I’ll put them in their place. Do not let any of them intimidate you, and if one of them so much as tries to come onto you, you let me know immediately.”
When I didn’t say anything to that, Ramona tossed me a glance. It was so early, we were pretty much the only ones on the road. I didn’t think we’d passed a single other car. “After what happened, Black Sacrament needs to work on their public image. I don’t want this blowing up in my face because you horny kids couldn’t keep it in your pants.”
Um, I took some offense to her lumping me in with the rest of the band. They might be horny kids to her, but she didn’t know me at all.
Quietly, I muttered, “I’ve never even kissed a boy, so I don’t think you’ll have to worry about any of that.” Not that it was any of her business. I didn’t even know why I said it.
“Good. Let’s keep it that way. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t tell them that. In my experience, rock stars always get off on popping cherries.” When I threw her a questioning look, she added, “I’ve worked with Black Sacrament for two years now, but before them, I was with another band. They’d been around for a while. They look at me like I’m one of the guys since I’m into chicks too, so I hear everything.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so in the end, I didn’t say a word.
“But don’t worry. I’m keeping Black Sacrament on a shorter leash, especially with you.” Ramona nodded to herself. “As long as everybody can keep it in their pants, I have the feeling this will work out great.”
She didn’t have to worry about any of that. I sure as heck didn’t plan on letting any of these guys in my pants.
The hours passed. Turned out, Ramona drove like a crazy person during rush-hour traffic. A part of me feared we wouldn’t make it to our destination. There were some moments where I had to close my eyes and pray.
We didn’t go to the Redborne—where I’d be living for the foreseeable future. Not right away. We made a stop first, and that stop took about two hours. A salon, where Ramona told the stylist exactly what she wanted them to do to me.
Yeah, apparently my natural hair wasn’t good enough. It needed a cut, some layers, and some bleach. And then, after the full-head bleach, some toner.
When the stylist finished drying my hair for me and stepped out of the way, letting me look at my reflection in the mirror, my breath caught. I couldn’t mentally picture what Ramona wanted me to look like, and even though I’d seen myself in the mirror this whole time, now that my hair was dry, I stared at a reflection that looked both like me and like someone else.
My blond hair had been bleached and toned to the highest level, meaning it was white.
Yeah. White hair. I literally had white hair.
And now, with the new cut, it framed my heart-shaped face and made me look a few years older than my eighteen. I had short bangs above my eyebrows, layers around my face. My hair now ended just past my shoulders, the tips curling a bit due to how the stylist had dried it.
I hesitated to say it looked good—it did, but at the same time, it didn’t feel like me. But I guess that was the point.
Ramona paid for it, and she also bought me some purple shampoo that would apparently help keep the yellow tones from returning. I’d have to go back to the salon every few weeks to get my roots touched up, but Ramona said she’d handle the scheduling and all that.
We went to the Redborne after that. The freaking place was a skyscraper. It had a doorman who guarded the door outside, along with a valet. Ramona helped me grab my few bags and led me inside, through the revolving door and into the grand lobby.
It was like I walked into a movie set. It didn’t feel real. The entire lobby was wide, open, and spacious. At least three stories high, too, big chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings, sparkling in the daylight streaming through the front glass. The carpet that sprawled the floor was a rich, deep red color, designs of gold interspersed on it.
We went to the elevator, where I found another worker standing by all the buttons. He had the same uniform on as the man standing outside, and I realized it was the same color red as the carpet in the lobby. He had a tiny little hat on, and he tipped his head toward Ramona before hitting a certain button.
I guess that meant he knew who Ramona was.
Ramona was pretty much on her phone the whole ride up. The elevator played silly elevator music, which only made it feel like it lasted longer. The moment the elevator doors opened and we reached our floor, Ramona stepped out, all without even glancing at the elevator man. I gave him an awkward smile before hurrying after her, two bags strung around my shoulders. Ramona carried a single backpack stuffed to the brim with my things.
We didn’t have any actual luggage back home, so I had to make due with old backpacks from school. One of them was Cleo’s.
Ramona put away her phone only so she could pull out the key card to the room. It was one of three suites on the floor, and based on how large the building was, I’d say that meant the suites themselves were huge.
She pushed open the door and let me walk in first. “I told the guys to be scarce today, so you could get settled before meeting them. They should get back around five this afternoon, which gives you a few hours. I have to go, but I will be back to introduce you.” She set my bag down on the kitchen island—which, alone, had more cabinet space than the kitchen I grew up in.
Her dark eyes landed on me, and she gave me a smile. “Your room is the one in the back, without anything in it. Go check it out. The guys already moved in.” She said nothing else as she headed toward the door.
And then it hit me, what she’d said. I flipped around, hoping to catch her as I asked, “The guys already—” But when I turned around, I saw that she’d already stepped out into the hall and was gone.
The guys already moved in, meaning I’d be living with them? Crap. I wasn’t expecting that. That information made me a whole different kind of nervous.
Pretending to be their angel on stage and when we were in public together was one thing. Being around them while we were practicing and recording was another. But living with them, being with them at all hours of the day and night… that was another thing entirely.
The nervous excitement that had been building all morning now turned to dread. I had the feeling that living with them would make things a lot more complicated. Ramona had said she’d already talked to the guys about not coming onto me, but she wouldn’t be here all the time to keep them on their best behavior.
Knowing there was nothing I could do about it now, I grabbed my bag off the island and pushed deeper into the suite. The kitchen was attached to the living room, where a few couches sat facing a big flat-screen television hanging on the wall. A wall of windows overlooking the city was on the far side.
I went down a hall, finding it crawled on for what seemed like an eternity. I passed quite a few bedrooms, finding clothes on the floor, guitars strewn about, other things that told me the guys had indeed already moved in.
Oh, this wasn’t going to be fun.
My bedroom was the last in the hall, the one furthest in, and when I stepped inside, I gasped. The room alone was bigger than half mom’s house. A wide-open space with a king-sized bed with a wooden canopy over it. A sparkling chandelier that looked like a mini version of the ones in the lobby downstairs. It had its own flat-screen on the wall opposite the bed, along with multiple dressers, an entrance to a private bathroom, and another door that must hide a closet.
So much empty space. So much more wall space to put more furniture or hang more pictures. A few pictures already hung on the walls—canvas prints of flowers and pink designs. The bed was made, its sheets a mixture of fluffy white and fluffy pink with multiple throw pillows. It was obvious this room was meant for me.
It wasn’t really me, though. Don’t get me wrong, I liked pink fine, but right now, it was kind of bland and boring.
I set my bags on the bed, moving toward what I assumed was the door to the closet. What I imagined doing, taking a quick peek inside, was not what happened. Why? Oh, simply because, once I opened the door, I saw that it wasn’t a normal closet. No, nothing so silly.
It was a walk-in closet, completely empty, ready to be filled to the brim with clothes and shoes and even jewelry. Empty drawers, empty shelves for what must be shoes… the closet itself was as large as my room back home, and my jaw dropped when I stepped inside it. In the center, it even had its own pink chaise.
Like… damn.
I walked out of the closet and to the bathroom to check that out, and what I found made me even more speechless. The tile had to be some kind of white marble. It was everywhere. On the floor, on the wall of the shower—which had no curtain or anything separating it from the rest of the room. Just a showerhead on the wall and a drain in the floor, and a little lip to keep the water contained.
That’s… a little weird.
The giant bathroom also had a clawfoot tub and a double vanity, along with open shelving for towels and all that.
A beautiful space, for sure, but I didn’t like the lack of privacy the shower had. Of course, I knew I could lock my bedroom door and then the bathroom door too, give myself double protection when I was naked, but somehow, that didn’t feel like enough.
It was as I was walking out of the bathroom that I heard a door shut. My mind immediately went to Ramona, because she’d said she’d told the guys to give me some time here to myself—and it was nowhere near five o’clock in the afternoon.
“Ramona?” I asked as I walked out into the hall. “Ramona, I—”
What I wanted to do was ask her if I really needed to live with the guys, but when I rounded the end of the hall, turning into the kitchen, I found it wasn’t Ramona. No, it was one of the guys, and he was probably the hottest guy I’d ever seen in my life.
He looked up, his eyes a beautiful gray color. His hair was blond, similar to my natural color, and it hung messily over his forehead. A sloppy half smile formed on his face, and he strolled over to me as he flashed me his pearly whites. I spotted just the tips of a tattoo coming up from his V-neck.
God, the guy was tall, too. A few inches over six feet, I’d guess. I had to crane my neck back to look up at him, and I fought to resist gulping and taking a step back to put more space between us.
“Hi,” he said, still grinning that half grin. “You must be Angel. I’m Priest.”
Oh, right. I couldn’t tell these guys my real name. From here on out, I was Angel.
Before I could tell him, yes, I was indeed Angel, he took my hand into his and led me to the nearest couch. His hand was so large it dwarfed mine, and I was so taken aback by his presence here and how forward he was that I didn’t resist him.
Priest sat me down on the couch right next to the armrest, and then he sat on my other side, still holding onto my hand. His other arm lifted to the cushion behind me. The way he sat, how he still held onto my hand, coupled with how tall he was, it was like he boxed me in.
I had the feeling this guy never took no for an answer. Then again, I also had the feeling this guy never received any no answers, because every girl with eyes probably tripped over themselves to get to him.
“So,” Priest spoke, leaning in toward me, “tell me all there is to know about you, Angel.”
I wanted to tell him to let me go, to stop touching me, but for some reason, I was trapped, pinned down by his gray, silvery stare.
This was going to be harder than I thought.