Simon: Rockstar Romance (The ProVokaTiv Series Book 3) (5 page)

“Hey, how was your trip to The Cities?” Hunter asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “It was a great business trip. Very productive.”

“And Jessie, how was she?” he asked.

I wasn’t about to disclose the truth, which was that I was taken aback by how badly I wanted to kiss her. That pink lip gloss she wore shimmered under the street light just enough to draw me in like her lips were subliminal neon lights. Hunter was pretending to tune his bass, but I knew what he was up to. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap. “She was great, smart girl.”

“So you went to visit her for her brain, huh?” Hunter continued, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Absolutely. It was all about business, not humping like wild animals who can’t control themselves.”

“That’s too bad, Simon, if she’s even half as fun as Trinity, you’re missing out.” I couldn’t believe he’d said that. I’d never talk that way about my intimate moment with someone. It wasn’t anyone else’s business.

“Hey,” Gauge said. He walked up and glanced back and forth at Hunter and Simon. “You guys ready?”

“Ready,” I said. I walked behind the drums and started to pound on them lightly, twirling the sticks in my fingers to get them loosened up. Playing drums was an excellent stress reliever and it appealed to me to be the guy who was half hidden and behind the scenes. I’d discovered long ago that positioning gave me advantages. I didn’t understand it at first, but now I saw that it was better suited to my personality, which was more of the brains behind the scenes than the flash up front. No, I wasn’t meant to be the guy in hot pants jumping around and gyrating his bulge.

We spent two hours, going over a few of our older tracks and working on the new ones. It was sounding good and when we were done, we all gathered around to coordinate our schedules for the next rehearsal. After that, I asked, “What are your openings in a few weeks?”

“Why?” Gauge asked.

“Well, I was hoping that we could do a few songs at the festival Jessie’s putting together and Blaze Line is co-sponsoring in the Twin Cities. What do you think?”

“That could be fun,” Hunter said. “So long as I can avoid having to meet Trin’s parents.”

“Relax, I’m sure that’s the last thing she wants,” I replied. I meant it, too.

“I think that would work for me,” Gauge said. “Maybe we could premier the new song there, if it’s okay with everyone. Might be kind of cool.”

“That’s a good idea, maybe,” I said. Inside I was wondering if that would overshadow Blaze Line, which would not be acceptable. That’s who needed the publicity, not ProVokaTiv.

“Whatever,” Gauge said. “Well, I’ve got to get going.”

“See you later,” I mumbled.

Then it was Hunter and I left standing there. He looked at me expectantly and I couldn’t figure out why. Out of anyone, if he had something to say he usually just said it. I actually admired that about him, the rambunctious and constantly horny band mate that he was. “Yeah?” I asked.

“Ah, nothing. I gotta fly, see you later,” he said.

“Later,” I replied. That was fine by me. I had to put together a new spreadsheet to coordinate everything for the venue and meet with Dominic. Then I could hopefully get Jessie on a Skype and tell her what was going on. Damn, I should have scheduled that in earlier so I could make sure she was available. Our two hour time difference might prove to be too much of a pain in the ass. Maybe she’d have to come out here while we coordinated everything.

I realized that I was thinking all scattered, not focused at all. Seriously, how could Jessie come out here? She had school. That was just for starters. Secondly, it was a bit ridiculous to come to LA to prepare for a concert in a different part of the world. I’d just have to find a way to swing the time to commute back and forth a few times, maximizing each visit.

“I’ve turned into my father,” I mumbled. My old man was notorious for having tight agendas that he loved having everyone adhere to, especially when we were on vacation. He was a great guy and all, but I sure didn’t want to turn into him.
 

*****
 

Dominic left my conference room with a long to-do list, one he expressed confidence in being able to do quickly and to the high standard I had set for him. I didn’t mean to be a prick, but how else was he going to know exactly what I expected if I didn’t state it in black and white? His record showed he could take it, though, because he’d worked with some of the toughest, most ruthless people in the business. If he had thick skin to handle them, he could handle me.

With a smile on my face and excited to share what I’d gotten done, I called Jessie to touch base with her and fill her in on everything. She was going  to be as excited as me, I was sure of it.

“Hey Jessie, it’s Simon. I have great news for you,” I said.

“Great, just give me a second. I’m going to put you on hold, I’m finishing up with one thing, okay?”

She didn’t wait for me to answer and put me on hold. That habit annoyed me despite seeing its practicality. Why waste time explaining it…that would only delay things. Why not just put me to voicemail?

Then she was back. “Thanks for waiting. Now you have my full attention.”

“Great. I’ve gotten so much done today and this thing is coming together amazing.”

“Wow, you do move fast. What’s the scoop?” she asked.

I started sharing all the details with her. ProVokaTiv would be there, we’d feature our new song at the festival to draw in some more people.  Yes, I’d found a way to make that work with my plans, and the press and cameras would also be there, making a video as well as taking a ton of pictures.

“Oh, that sounds great. I sent you over some possible exhibitors and ideas to look at, but didn’t get your feedback yet,” Jessie mentioned.

“I saw those but didn’t get to look at them yet.”

“When will you?” she asked, her voice tense.

“Soon, they’re secondary. Getting the heart of it set up first is what’s important. Trust me, I know what I’m doing here, Jessie.”

There was dead silence. I’d said the wrong thing. I braced myself.

“Secondary?” she said, sounding a bit screechy.

“Well yes, after all, they’re paying money to see the music, you know.”

“Funny, I don’t look at it that way,” she said. Her voice was strained, as if she were trying to control it, but a shaky tremor still came through. My mind flashed to her face, that beautiful smile instantly gone and her green eyes growing deeper because she was not pleased.

“I’m not following,” I said. Probably another bad choice of words, but the woman had me treading. This was not how I conducted business, but then again…to Jessie this was all humanitarian, not business.

“You’re not following? What’s there not to follow? This is for raising awareness and money for Ebola, Simon. It isn’t just about some rock concert with a bunch of people who were coerced into joining some cause because they had nothing better to do. This ‘secondary’ thing, as you call it, is about real people and their lives. So, it seems to me that you’re not following.”

“No, no, slow up. I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, trying to reboot the conversation and start it over. “I want this to be a success; that’s why I’ve spent all this time trying to coordinate it, get some great ideas together, and ensure that it’s successful.”

Jessie sighed and released a little “grr”’ into the speaker. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your enthusiasm. If my graduate degree was in concert promotion I’d be all over it, but it’s not; it’s in botany and that means that this entire thing being all concert and no education will not work for me or for the school that’s giving me that degree to make all of this worth it. Basically, I am not working for you, Simon.”

“I didn’t say you were, Jessie, really. You’re smart and have great ideas, I’d never expect that. I just thought that you wanted me to take the music thing and run with it, that you wouldn’t care. You yourself said it wasn’t the main focus. Well, for me it is,” I confessed. She had to know that, though. At least that’s what I’d thought until five minutes ago.

“You make it sound like it’s foolish to care about people first,” she said to me softly. I hoped she wasn’t crying. That was something that I could not handle.

“It’s not foolish,” I said. Then I was onto the next thing. “Oh, and I was thinking of seeing if we could maybe get Ryan Seacrest to be the host. What do you think?”

“Simon Jefferson, do you really want to know what I think?”

I gulped and breathed in, putting my one hand in my back pocket and bracing my hand to the phone, which was pressed tightly against my ear. In case she decided to yell, I pulled it back. “What do you think?”

“I think that I can host my own damn event because I know what I want to say and what I’m talking about. I think that most of this work has to be mine, not just delegated off to someone else. This is my mark on this world and I don’t need a lot of credit by any means, but I have to be the drive behind it. I didn’t hire you to be a PR firm and if that’s all you see yourself as in this deal, a PR firm out for your own glory or whatever, then it was a bad idea. I think I’ll just have to admit to my professor and advisor that I was wrong and revamp my thesis with my back-up ideas.” There was silence and then I heard Jessie breath in deeply.

“I wasn’t implying that, Jessie.”

“What were you implying, Simon?”

“You know the plan, I’m the concert and promotion, you’re the science and…and…” Damn, what a time to not have the right word on my tongue.

“Humanitarian, the one who is in charge of the feel good so long as it doesn’t impact the financial outcome.”

“I’d never say it that way, Jessie,” I said. I was irritated at her now, but one of us had to be the voice of reason. “Look, we have a lot to do and each of us has our part. We need our conversations to be constructive, our actions meaningful.”

“You’re right, Simon. I have to go. I have a lot of work to do.”

The phone line went dead, leaving me sitting there all alone in my conference room wondering what had just happened. Perhaps it was stupid of me, but her reaction had thrown me for a major loop. I felt bad, too, because this was her project to start with and maybe I’d gone wild with it.  But that was a compliment. I thought so, anyway.

I got up and paced around my conference room for a bit, putting every chair in precise order so it looked more orderly. Yeah, a bit of OCD ran through me. Well, at least I had a full schedule so I wouldn’t have time to dwell on Jessie. I’d call her later and she’d be fine, and then we could move on. If not, I guessed that I’d be moving on to the next project, too. Only I didn’t want that to be the case.

“What a jerk.” I was mumbling and pacing around, not even sure where to place my anger. It was too late for a run and I was also in shock, really hurt that Simon was trying to take over my idea and turn it into nothing but a slick publicity stunt. It brought out the feisty beast in me that I tried to keep hidden. Well, tonight it was unleashed. “Who to call, who to call—Trinity, of course!”

“Hey Trin, can you talk?”

“Yeah,” she said, yawning loudly into the phone.

“Sorry, it’s kind of late. Where are you, anyway?”

“In New York, I was just settling down. I have to be on a set tomorrow morning at 7. Can you believe that shit?”

“Yes,” I said. Well, I could.

“Not all of us run on sunshine and love, baby.”

“There’s no sunshine and love right now, Trin. I’m so mad that I don’t even know what to do.”

“Why? What happened?” Trinity’s voice grew serious.

“Simon Jefferson, that’s what happened.”

“Did he spank you for not balancing your checkbook?” she said. She was joking but I was in no mood for it. That’s how Trinity tried to keep life in perspective, and I wished that I was that way just a bit more.

“No, but he’s being so controlling with this entire thing for my thesis. It’s crazy.”

“Simon’s a controlling guy. I’m sure you knew that.”

“I suppose, but I think he’s taking my idea and trying to run with it as his own. If he does that, I’m screwed…doomed…and screwed.”

“He’s screwing you twice?” she asked.

“Haha,” I said, but I’ll admit, it made me smile.

“Did you tell him about it? Maybe he’s just running with the idea because he likes it so much.”

“That’s basically what he said. Now I’m scared. You’re talking like Simon. This world has flipped upside down, I think.”

“I have to agree, that sounds scary, sista,” Trinity laughed. “So, how did this all go down? He was in Minneapolis, right?”

“Yeah, he just left this morning bright and early. Everything was great. Then he called tonight, and poof, it all went up in smoke.”

I went on to explain the conversation a bit and stopped only when I heard Trinity yawn. She’d probably been trying to stifle them the entire time. “Look, Trin, what do you think I should do? I really need your advice on this.”

“If I were you I’d just go and ask him about it. This is business, after all, not a personal relationship.” I was quiet. “Or is it?”

“It is just business, but it’s just so frustrating. I’ll admit that it’s easier to be mad at him over the phone because he’s not trying to hypnotize me with those big blue eyes of his.”

“You kind of like him, don’t you?” Trinity said. She was suddenly wide awake. I could tell because she was talking faster.

“Kind of, but that’s secondary to what needs to be accomplished here,” I said.

“You are horrible at separating logic from your heart. Simon’s the master of it, or so it seems from my perspective. This is something I do understand, actually, Jessie. It doesn’t pay to deny it or run from it if it’s living and breathing inside of you. Just give him a call and work it out. That’s what you want to do, anyway, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then do it, girl!”

“Tomorrow, maybe, it’s too late now.”

“Now,” Trin said. “He’s two hours earlier than you.”

“It’s still too late.”

“Fine, suffer then, Jessie. But you’ll have to do it alone. I’ve got to get back to sleep.”

“Thanks for listening. Love ya,”

“Love back,” Trinity said.

I tried to call Simon and got his voicemail. “Hey, Simon, this is Jessie. I wanted to catch you and leave off where we left off…before I hung up. Sorry about that by the way.”
Shut up already,
I reprimanded. Then I ended my scattered voicemail rant, pressing the send button instead of the delete one so I could leave a better message. Ugh…when things spun out of control they really went haywire.

Simon didn’t call back that night. Did he get my message? Was I officially on his lunatic list, or whatever he’d call it? Probably Bad Business Proposition list.
 

*****
 

Morning came and I had to wait until at least 10:00 to Skype Simon so it wasn’t ridiculously early. I went to one class, came back home and tried to do some schoolwork, but it was not going well. I had to get this off my chest and jumpstart this again or else admit that I’d been duped by the guy. It just didn’t seem like him, though.

Finally at 10:00, I tried.  There was no answer although it said he was online.

I called his phone at noon.  There was no answer.

Okay, I was getting desperate and a bit crazy. At 3 p.m. I called his home—answering machine. Yes, it was obsessive, but I called at 4 p.m., too.

“Yeah,” a harsh voice said, almost out of breath. For a second I thought he was maybe having sex. No, there was no way! I hoped.

“Simon, it’s Jessie, I’m glad to get a hold of you. Sorry to bug you? Do you have time?”

“Not right now.”

“When will you?” I asked.

“Not sure.”

I paused, waiting for him to say something else. He didn’t. “You must be really busy, been trying to touch base with you again and get things organized, keep the project moving forward.”

“It’s moving forward.”

“Great, hey I just wanted you to know that I feel bad about the way things went down when we talked. I’m sorry for my role in it.”

“Oh, no problem.”

He didn’t take the hint. What about his role in it?

“Well, I’ve got to go. I’m in the middle of something.”

“Hey, are we good?” I asked. There was no answer, he’d hung up.

I justified that he must be really busy and tried not to make a lot out of it, but it was hard. I was officially freaked out. Wow. Some guy was messing with me and he was practically on the other side of the country. He was doing it on purpose, I just knew it. But there was more at stake than me being bent out of shape about it, there were peoples’ futures on the line, too. Simon had clearly thought that just because I was nice he could be a jerk.  Well, he was wrong!
 

*****
 

Brynn smiled and waved at me, meeting me by the luggage rack of LAX airport. Thank goodness for Southwest and crazy affordable airfares and my parents willingness to give me my birthday money early for my emergency.

I’d determined that I was going to find out what was happening with Simon face to face. I knew I owed him an apology and he owed me one, too. Whether he knew that, yet to be determined. So, I’d say sorry first, but after that, it was time for the smack-down. I was going to get the truth from him about what was happening, bring out what I’d learned from journalist Brynn and ask the tough questions. Are you trying to cut me out of my own idea?

“Hey,” Brynn said, coming up to me and giving me a big hug. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“You didn’t give a warning, did you?” I asked.

“Nope. I told Gauge, but he won’t say anything. He’s the guy who doesn’t want to get involved, especially with something like this.”

“I feel so dramatic. I can’t stand it,” I said, lifting my shoulders up. Then I glanced over to the luggage carousel and saw my hard covered bright green suitcase moving slowly in my direction.

“You still have that thing?” Brynn asked.

“I can’t help it, I love it. Plus, if anyone tried to steal it they’d be easy to catch.”

A half hour later we were walking into Brynn’s comfy, cozy apartment and I instantly felt a bit more relaxed. I was trying so hard to calm down before approaching Simon, but truthfully, I was scared senseless. And nervous…really nervous!

“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” I said, staring at Brynn and then taking a sip of my wine.

“Don’t be silly, it was the only idea,” she said.

“I just can’t figure out why he wouldn’t at least call,” I said.  “Do you know something and you’re not telling me?”

“I don’t know anything. They had the last few days off of practice. I don’t think anyone’s seem Simon at all, not that it would be so unusual. Hunter is off to New York to see Trin and do whatever it is they do, and me, I’m here working.”

“And enjoying time with your boyfriend. Is that going good?”

Brynn smiled. The contentment on her face created a bit of envy inside of me, but also made me so happy for her. “We’re great.”

“I can tell. You radiate like the sun.”

“I sure could use some tan from that sun. I cannot believe I’m more pale than I’ve ever been even though I live in LA.”

“You look great. Hey, I have an idea, let’s go to the beach and hang out this afternoon. That would be so much fun.”

“No,” Brynn said.

“Something else?” I offered.

“I am working and you are going to go visit Simon this afternoon. That’s why you’re here, after all. I don’t know what’s going on with him, haven’t been able to get in touch, but you’ve got to figure it out.”

“That’s not fair, I miss you.”

Brynn looked at me and tilted her head. “Go get ready.  I’ll drop you off over there, on my way to work, okay.”

“What if he’s not home?”

“Then you can do a stake-out or take a cab back here.”

I knew that Brynn was right and that I’d gone through a whole lot of effort to deal with this situation. I just wasn’t as keen on it now that I was actually here, ready to live the moment I’d played out in my head for the past few days.

Brynn dropped me off outside Simon’s large house. I knocked on the door and waited, my heartbeat jumping.