A Little Less than Famous (13 page)

“No,” I said at the same time Jake said, “yes.” He stared
at me and I sighed. “Sort of,” I admitted.

Justin laughed, clapping his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Man, you have got your work cut out for you with this one.”

The lights were starting to dim. “Sh, sh, shh,” I said, waving my hand at them impatiently and staring at the stage.

After the show was over, I immediately stood up. I was full of energy and my head was buzzing after seeing someone so amazing as Ben Wright. I felt extremely bouncy and happy.

“Where are you going?” Jake asked, staying seated and tr
ying to ignore the girls milling around
, looking at him curiously.

“Um, home?” I asked, raising my eyebrow at him. “Or somewhere to eat. I’m starving.”

“Well, just wait a moment. There’s no rush.”

I frowned. “Well, I’m hungry. It’s getting late and I work really early tomorrow.”

“You heard the lady, Jake. She wants to eat.”

I spun around and my eyes widened. From behind me, I heard Jake say, with undisguised amusement in his voice, “I figured we could stay so you could meet Ben Wright. But if you would rather go get food…”

“No,” I squeaked. “This is fine.”

“No, really, we can leave, McKinley.”

“Jake,” Ben Wright said, amusement obvious behind his scolding voice, “stop teasing the poor girl. And introduce me.”

Jake stood up and came up next to me. “Ben, this is McKinley Evans. McKinley, this is Ben Wright.”

“I know,” I managed to say, my voice at least two octaves higher than normal.

Ben’s blue eyes crinkled in my direction and I felt my breath catch in my throat as he lifted my hand in his and placed a small kiss
on my knuckles
. “Are you the girl that has finally managed to drive Jake Kennedy crazy?”

I opened my mouth and closed it a few times.

“Wow, I never thought you would be speechless,” Jake commented, wryly, reaching for my hand.

I glared at him but allowed him to take my hand.

“Oh, don’t worry, he deserves to be driven crazy.”

I laughed. “I’m pretty sure I can handle that.”

“Perfect,” Ben said. He clapped his hands together. “Now, who is hungry?”

*
             
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“So, how did you two meet?” Ben asked, indicating to Jake and I with his hand not clutching a wineglass. As soon as we’d arrived at the restaurant, we had been swept off into a separate, private room. One look at Jake and Ben stopped the entire restaurant. Ben was a jazz legend and Jake was a Hollywood hunk. Ben waved away the menus offered to us and ordered wine for the entire table. Admittedly, my experience with wine was pretty limited but I was enjoying the sweet taste of the red wine he’d ordered.

Jake laughed. “McKinley attacked me at Disneyland.”

“I hardly attacked you,” I protested, avoiding Ben’s gaze. Every time he turned those eyes on me, I felt like I was going to melt into a puddle on the floor. I couldn’t believe that I was eating dinner with a man I had worshiped my entire life. “I was merely protesting the inequality between you and I and the privileges you get for being hot.”

“You think I’m hot?” Jake asked, lighting up.

Justin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I think I’m going to side with McKinley on this one. Though she was a bit fiery about it.”

“Well, that’s a redhead for you,” Ben said, taking a sip from his glass. “I knew a fine redhead or two in my day.”

“Dad? Can we maybe not bring up groupies at the dinner table today?” Justin said. I froze, but at the sight of Justin’s lazy smile, relaxed, realizing that he was joking.

Ben laughed. “See, what you kids don’t realize is that there aren’t jazz ‘groupies’.”

“Don’t lie, Ben,” Jake said, taking a bite of a lobster roll appetizer. “You probably had all kinds of girls when you were a young jazz stud.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t lie about that. But they were a lot different from the groupies of all these rock bands out there. The women that were into me were amazing; beautiful and intelligent and wanting to change the world.”

Justin rolled his eyes, leaning in to whisper something in Catie’s ear. He had clearly heard these stories before.

“What was it like, though?” I asked, breathless. “Playing with all those amazing people?”

“Well, I felt pretty inadequate next to all those amazing people,” Ben said, sighing.

I felt a blush creep on my cheeks.  “Oh, no, I meant…you’re the most…you’re the best of them all.”

Jake, Justin and Ben burst out laughing. “Calm down, he’s just teasing,” Justin reassured me. “He likes to do that to pretty girl he doesn’t know.” Catie stuck her lower lip out at that, looking bored, but Justin didn’t notice. I was sort of addicted to watching the two of them together. I had always thought that I had the uncaring relationship down to an art form but Justin was even better than I was.

“To answer your question, McKinley,” Ben said, in his deep voice, “it was an incredible time. So much of the sixties and seventies was about rock and roll, hippies, the war. Punk was just becoming a thing. But jazz wasn’t the forefront on people’s minds. So the few of us that wanted to make it played, and we played all the time, in front of crowds that sometimes hated us. Then me, and a couple buddies of mine-“

“Yeah, and when he says buddies he means, like Cecil and Miles,” Justin put in.

“-
well
some buddies of mine,” Ben continued as if Justin hadn’t interrupted, “we got a paying gig down in a club in Louisiana, every Thursday night. And suddenly, people just started paying attention.”

“I mean, how could they not?” I put in. “Your music is beautiful.
Louisiana Rain
was…is the best song I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, thank you, McKinley,” Ben said, raising his glass in a toast. “I am honored with the compliment.”

“Oh, please,” I said, shyly. “You’ve won Grammys and have platinum albums. I hardly think a compliment from me means all that much.” I felt Jake’s hand slide onto my knee and I looked up at him. He was giving me a strange look and I realized that I was revealing a lot in this dinner. I couldn’t help it though. Ben Wright’s music was incredible and had gotten me through some seriously tough times.

“The compliments from those who really enjoy the music,
who
get something out of it…those are the compliments that mean the most,” Ben explained, sitting back as the waitress placed his food in front of him. “I don’t write music for the critics or the Grammys. Honestly, I don’t even know where mine are, probably in a storage unit, or shoved in the back of my closet. I write music for you.”

“I, on the other hand, would seriously kill for an Oscar on my shelf. No offense, Ben,” Jake said, taking a bite of his filet mignon.

Ben shrugged, good-naturedly. “So, McKinley, what about you? What catches you, grabs you, what’s your passion?”

I hesitated. It was hard enough admitting to a community college counselor that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and I had no passions. How on earth was I supposed to admit that to my idol? “Well…I like to read. I don’t know what that means to my future or anything but there’s just nothing better than picking up a book and disappearing into a different world for a little bit. It’s like, I get to be someone else for a little bit.” I suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed. “I’m sorry; that probably makes no sense at all.”

Jake smiled at me. “That makes perfect sense. Its what I do every day. I put aside Jake Kennedy for a bit and I get to be Mikey Matlock.”

Ben placed his hand over mine. “That’s a passion, McKinley. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it but it is. It makes you
feel
something. All passions are about are emotions. Sometimes people have to stop thinking so much and just feel.”

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“Are you happy?” Jake asked, as we walked to his car. He unlocked the doors and we both climbed inside.

“Definitely,” I said, smiling at him and placing my hands in my lap. “I’m really excited that I met Ben Wright.
He is even more incredible in person and he’s just so smart.
”

“You know,”
Jake
said, thoughtfully, fiddling with the radio controls, “I never pictured
you of all people getting star
struck.”

I rolled my eyes. “ I do
not
get star struck, as you very well know. I do, however, get incredible-jazz-legend-struck.” I looked at the window. “Where are we going? You’re totally going the wrong way.”

“I thought maybe you wanted to see my place,” Jake said, nonchalantly.

I laughed. “You think that by introducing me to Ben Wright, you’re going to get me into your bed?”

Jake had the decency to l
ook a little ashamed of himself, which almost made me laugh. Surely, he had brought many girls home before.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant it as, it’s late and Brea is really far to take you home and you can stay in the guest room.”

I stared at him, trying to judge his expression. After a moment, I said, “Okay, let’s go. But I can’t stay. I have work early in the morning.”

“So do I,” Jake laughed.

I rolled my eyes but chose not to respond, not until we finally reached Calabasas and Jake’s home. My mouth dropped open. “Jesus, Jake, don’t you think that’s kind of big for one person?”

Jake pulled his car into the driveway, right up to the garage. The door shut behind us and Jake led me into the house.

“Holy shit, “ I breathed, as we stepped into the most amazing kitchen I had ever seen in my life.

“Would you like a tour?” Jake asked, setting his keys on the polished countertop.

“Sure,” I said, vaguely, staring around at the kitchen, full of state of the art kitchen appliances and a full wine fridge. “Do you actually use this kitchen?”

“Sometimes,” Jake shrugged. “I don’t really have time to.”

“Ridiculous,” I said, shaking my head, as he led me out of the kitchen.

“You’ll have to come over and show me your chef skills.”

I laughed. “Oh you wish. And
, by the way,
that was insanely sexist.”

The rest of the tour of the house started with the downstairs. Downstairs was the living room, complete with a huge flat screen TV and an XBOX and a PlayStation
3
, the movie theater room, an office and a bathroom. Upstairs were three bedrooms: the guest room, which was twice the size of my bedroom, a “man cave” that I was not allowed to go in and the master bedroom. There was a
huge bed, and to the left, floor to ceiling
windows and sliding glass doors leading to a balcony that overlooked the backyard. Off the right was the master bathroom, with a glass walk in shower and a Jacuzzi tub.

I walked out of the bathroom and sat down on his bed, running my hands over his soft down comforter. “Most impressive, Jake Kennedy. I still say its too large for one person but damn, this is a house worth of
Cribs
.”