PIA
When she reaches for me, the pain in my body finally stops screaming. As she pulls me into her hotel suite and closes the door, I finally feel like my lungs can fill completely for the first time in months. When her hands grip my forearms, cautiously, and she sits me down on the bed, I fight to stay upright. Because all I want to do is crawl into her bed, to smell her rose scent on the sheets and fall asleep with my face buried in her perfect fucking hair.
“What happened?”
“Got drunk,” I offer. “Got in a fight.”
“Well, I could have guessed both of those things from this shiner and the way your breath smells.”
“You should see the other girl.”
“Girl? Knocking out six-foot-plus men got boring for you?”
“I didn’t knock him out. Only his tooth.”
“Oh, Pia,” she says, and she cups the better side of my face in her hand. “You’re a mess.”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
“But … why?”
I look up at her. Those big blue eyes. Those pink lips. Those tiny freckles that not one article has ever mentioned, even all the stupid fucking beauty tips ones she’s done forCosmopolitan. How could they not mention how fucking pretty her freckles are,jävla idioter? And her hair. How is it still so fucking glorious when she just got out of bed?
“I saw … something.”
With a big sigh, she sits down next to me. “Oh.”
“Yeah, in a newspaper.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I didn’t like it.”
“Right.”
“And Geert needed a drinking buddy, so … we went out drinking.”
“Where did you go?”
“Easy questions only, please.” I hold up a hand, but even that hurts, so I drop it again. “There were a lot of bars. A nightclub, I think. Maybe two.”
“You … you didn’t want to come to a concert instead?”
I turn to look at her so quickly it hurts my neck. Or maybe that’s from being pushed down a flight of stairs. “You expected me to be there?”
“Expected? No. Hoped? Maybe.”
My cold, dead heart kicks once at that.
“How did it go?”
“I put on the show everyone wanted.”
“But what about you? Did you enjoy it?”
“I enjoyed … singing. The fans … they were asking for ‘What I Want.’”
“Huh.” My body lifts in a rough laugh. I guess our six weeks at number one really did mean people loved that stupid fucking song that ruined my life. It’s a bitter thought, but my smile is real as I speak. “Can you imagine if I’d been there? If I’d come up on stage?”
