Ten
“Your plane is leaving in an hour,” Becca said into my ear.
I jolted up from the mattress, the blankets falling to my waist. “What the hell, Becca? You couldn’t have given me more warning?”
“You won’t be on it.” She finished as if I hadn’t even been talking.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“You don’t have anything scheduled. All your talks and interviews have gone well. It’s time to move into phase two of your comeback.”
There was a phase two?
“Which is?” I muttered, falling back against my pillows and rubbing a hand over my sleepy eyes.
“Lying low. Working on new music. Comebacks take a lot of preparation. Have you thought at all about the sound you want for your next album?”
“I wasn’t even sure there was going to be a next album,” I muttered.
Becca laughed. “Come on now. Perfect Ten sat on the charts for nearly a year after it released. Your last music video has well over a billion views online. You were the highest grossing artist last year. Did you really think there wasn’t going to be another album?”
“I’m literally referred to in the media as Public Enemy Number One.” I reminded her.
“I’m thinking that will be a great title for your next album.”
“No one’s going to work with me.”
She laughed again. “Are you kidding? The label is already blocking out studio time, and I’ve got a few artists who want to collab.”
“Who?” I asked, my interest piqued.
“Vein.” She dropped the name instantly.
My eyes shot open. Vein was a DJ, and all the collabs he did soared right to number one.
“No way he wants to work with me.”
“Did you forget, before all this drama, you were number one for a reason? You’re talented. That much is obvious. But people like you, Ten. You had a good reputation with those in the industry.”
“We both know the industry is fickle. Everyone turns on you at the drop of a dime.” I sighed. I felt like rolling over and going back to sleep. “They only like you when you can do something for them.”
“Yeah, well, there are some people who have longer memories than others. And those people are still supporting you. Besides, it’s good business. Anything your name is attached to is going to be a chart topper.”
I knew she was right. Like I said before, people liked drama, and they were all curious as hell. They would download my next song if only to criticize it.
When I didn’t say anything, she cleared her throat. “I thought you were onboard with the comeback. Don’t you want to be back on top again?”
“You know I do,” I said. Music was my life. I wasn’t sure who I’d be without it.
“Then let me do my job,” Becca implored. “By the time your new material is ready to launch, everything that happened last year will be forgotten.”
“Fine.” I agreed. She knew what she was doing. Hell, she was the one who helped me get to number one to begin with. “What do you want me to do?”
“Lie low,” she repeated. “I think staying in upstate New York is a good call. No one knows you have family here.”
“But everyone knows I was here last night.”
“Yes, which is why your plane leaving out of there and flying back to LA is going to be a headline.”
The plane that I wouldn’t be on. “A fakeout,” I mused. A smile curved my lips. “I like it.”
“Exactly. Everyone will think you’re in California. No one will expect you to be where you are.”
I liked that idea. For more than one reason.
“I’ll do it.” I agreed without any hesitation.
Becca paused. “That was way easier than I thought it would be.” Another pause. “What happened?”
I rolled my eyes. “Nothing.”
“Ten…” She warned.
“Nothing!” I yelled into the phone. Shit! She was like a damn pit bull with a steak. “I’m just glad for the break.”
“Your uncle won’t mind if you stay longer?”
“Nah, he won’t care.”
“Good. Well, I’m heading back out to LA. I’ll work on things from there. Stay out of the spotlight. Out of the media. Behave. I can only do so much damage control.”
“Okay,” I said, ready to hang up.
“And, Ten?” Becca called as I pulled the cell away from my ear.
“What?” I grumped.
“No drinking.”
I made a sound and disconnected the call. Damn, she was worse than my mother.
Nate pushed open the bedroom door and came in wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. He was carrying a huge bowl of cereal and shoveling it into his mouth as he walked. “Oh, good, you’re up.”
“Don’t you knock?”
“This is my room,” he said, crunching the cereal. He sat down on his bed, which was on the other side of the room from mine. “Who was on the phone?” he asked, heaping another spoonful into his trap.
“Dude,” I said, staring at him. “That was an impressive bite.”
He grinned, revealing a row of teeth cluttered with chewed-up cereal in a rainbow of colors. “Thanks.”
Fruity Pebbles. It was a fave of mine, too. “You pour the whole box in your bowl?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I lay back but threw my middle finger up in the air at his reply.
“There’s another box.”
My gesture turned into a fist pump.
“So?” He reminded me.
I dropped my hand on my stomach. “Becca.”
He grunted. “You leaving today?”
I propped myself up on one elbow. “Actually, I think I’m going to stay a while.”
“Sweet. It’ll be just like old times.”
Nate and I used to be inseparable during the summers. Growing up, we’d been more like brothers than cousins. Even though Mom and I lived in the city and he’d grown up here, this place had always felt like a second home.
And since Mom had moved several times since I became famous, I had to admit this place now felt more like home than anywhere else. Even if it had been practically a decade since I stayed here.
“Think Uncle Derek will mind?” I asked.
Nate lifted the bowl to his mouth and began slurping the milk out of the bottom. When he was done, he lowered it, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and burped. “Long as you don’t out him as the media’s favorite whipping boy’s uncle, he’ll be cool.”
Sometimes I was still surprised people here had forgotten all the time I spent bicycling around this town when I was a kid. ‘Course, that was years and years ago… Well, before I was even a blip on the music industry’s radar. Plus, there was the added fact that this was a college town. People came and went all the time. It was easy to forget a face when so many weren’t permanent.
“Wait a minute,” Nate said, glancing across the room. “You didn’t embarrass him last night, did you?”
I made a sound. “If I did, don’t you think he’d be in here reading me the riot act already?”
Derek was the head of the music department at Blaylock University. It was a position he’d worked his way up to in the last ten years. My mom always said I got my love of music from him. She was right. Hell, if it weren’t for all the summers I spent here, I never would have picked up an instrument or been exposed to much music.
When Becca called to see if he could get me in for a publicized lecture in his department, he’d agreed on the condition we not tell anyone he was my uncle.
He had his reasons:
1. It would look like he was giving me special treatment because we were family.
2. He liked his anonymity and the peace of not being hounded by the press.
3. He didn’t want Nate subjected to the—and I quote—“corruption in the music industry”—aka: he didn’t want Nate to be a fuck-up like me.
And…
4. He was embarrassed of me.
I told myself his lengthy list of reasons was understandable. I told myself it didn’t bother me I was an embarrassment to the closest thing to a father I’d ever had.
“True dat.” Nate agreed, setting the bowl on his nightstand and going to his closet to get some clothes. “How long you staying for?” he yelled.
“Not sure,” I called back.
He came back out wearing a pair of jeans, but they weren’t buttoned or zipped up. Nate was a little bigger than me even though I was almost a year older. He was taller, broader. I wasn’t a small guy, but I wasn’t that big either. What I lacked in size, my face made up for.
I had the perfect amount of baby face and sex appeal. It was one of the reasons I became so popular. I looked good on a poster, and all the girls liked to pretend I was singing to them when I crooned about love.
The clothes in his arms were dumped on his bed before he snatched up an old Blink-182 T-shirt and pulled it on over his head. “I have classes now. But maybe later we can hang?”
His mention of classes over on campus made me think of Violet. When Becca mentioned she was surprised I agreed to stay here so readily, the image of her sitting in my Wrangler last night, giggling over the fact I had to tape it back together to get home, flashed into my brain.
I wondered what my manager would say if I told her I’d been hanging out with a local, one who didn’t even realize who I was.
She probably wouldn’t believe me. Hell, even I wasn’t convinced she wasn’t pretending not to know me.
You know she didn’t, I told myself. That girl was totally clueless.
And she hated you. Well, Ten.
Something large and semi-hard whacked me in the face and bounced off into my lap. “What the fuck?” I said, reacting after the fact. My hand fell onto the big pillow Nate had just thrown at me.
“Earth to Ten! Are your ears broke?”
I snatched up the pillow and whipped it back at him. It hit him in the center of the chest. “Asshole,” I muttered.
Nate tossed the pillow down and pulled a wine-colored BU hoodie over his head.
“Hey, you know a lot of people on campus?” I asked, curious.
He shrugged. “Some.”
“Girls?” My voice was skeptical.
“Are you kidding?” He scoffed and gestured to himself. “Chicks dig this.”
I lifted one eyebrow. “You have a girlfriend?”
He blanched. “I like to keep my options open.”
Nate strolled over to the mirror above his dresser and glanced at himself, adjusting one of the strings on the hoodie that was stuck in the neck. Then he took his hand and plowed it through his dark-red hair.
“You know anyone named Violet?” I asked, trying to not seem too interested.
He grabbed his backpack off the floor and slung it over one shoulder, then looked around to me. “Don’t think so. She go to BU?”
I nodded. “I, uh, met her last night.”
A large smile bloomed over Nate’s face. “Was it love at first sight?” he asked, pretending to swoon.
What a dick. But I laughed anyway because he was funny. “More like hate at first sight.”
“Tell me more,” he invited.
I smiled and told him how I hid out in the art gallery and found her sitting there. “She was drawing some kind of cartoon strip that was totally making fun of me.”
“Ooh. Burn!” Nate laughed.
“I gave her a ride home in the time machine.”
Nate came over and offered me his fist. I smashed mine against his. “Mad props to ya, bro. You’re the only guy I know that can find a girl making fun of him, then charm her into your car.”
I shrugged like it was a given. But then I confessed. “Actually, she didn’t know who I was.”
Nate guffawed, then made a face. “You mean to tell me she didn’t recognize you? Even as she sat there and drew your face?”
“Actually, the comic wasn’t of me. It was just about me. Kind of a satire of everyone who was falling over themselves to see me last night.”
Nate shook his head and made a sound. “Uh-huh. No way. She was playing you.”
I shook my head, adamant. “She wasn’t. I’d have known.”
Nate wagged his eyes. “Was she hot?”
“Not bad,” I replied, thinking of her blond hair, blue eyes, and imperfect skin. “Not my usual type.”
“I thought your type was two legs and boobs.”
I flashed a smile. “No, that’s your type.”
Nate spread his arms wide. “I don’t discriminate. All aboard the Nate train.” He gestured like he was tugging a whistle. “Woot! Woot!”
“That shit is why you’re single,” I deadpanned.
He cackled and headed toward the door. “I missed you, man. I forgot how much.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly kinda thick. “Hey, so can you find out about her?”
He stopped abruptly and turned around. “Find out about the only girl on campus who isn’t obsessed with you? Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“I owe you one,” I said and then told him what building I dropped her off at. “Oh, and she’s an art major!” I called out as he left.
When he was gone, I flopped back down in the sheets and smiled up at the ceiling.