Behind the Strings (4 page)

8

I had to rub my eyes a few times to get a clear vision of Logan, facing me from the other side of my bed. His eyes were closed, shoulders bare and hands grasping tightly onto the pillow where his head lay. My hands lifted up the sheets that covered both of us and I let out a heavy breath to see that both of us remained clothed.

As soon as I pulled my head from the pillow the room began to spin around me. I plopped it back down and moaned. My agony was loud enough to startle Logan out of his sleep. I saw his eyes open and I turned slowly towards him, my hands grasping at my head.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” he said.

He lifted himself up onto his forearm and reached over to pat the top of my head.

“Oh, Logan, please stop.”

“Those weren’t the words you were saying to me last night.”

I froze for a moment then looked wide-eyed at him. My mouth was moving, but my lips couldn’t seem to formulate any words. I tried so hard to remember the night before, but short of reaching the final stair to the second floor, there was nothing.

“It’s okay, I won’t hold it against you.”

“I’m so sorry, I don’t…”

I sat up quickly, forgetting the significance of my hangover until I was fully upright. I placed my hand over my mouth, threw the sheets off of me and ran to the bathroom. Damn that whiskey. Nothing ever good came from it.

“Everything all right in there?” Logan asked.

I could see him peeking through the bathroom door. With my head hung over the toilet, I nodded. It took me a couple of minutes to gather myself up; then, sluggishly, I brushed my teeth and slipped back into bed. I was alone only for a minute when Logan returned with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin.

“Thought you might need this,” he said.

“Thanks.” I dumped out a couple aspirin and swallowed them. I returned my head to my pillow and curled my knees into my chest. With my eyes closed I tried to speak. “Logan, did we really…” I couldn’t get the words out.

“Have sex?” he finished my sentence for me. “No, I was just playing with you.”

“Oh my god. Seriously? Not funny,” I said, flailing my arm in his direction.

“I thought your reaction was quite amusing, actually. Well worth it. But no, I would never take advantage of a drunk girl on any occasion, you especially.”

“Good to know,” I said. Then I asked for a play by play to debunk any other facts I might possibly misinterpret as I sobered up.

Apparently the cab I got into was the back of Jesse’s Mustang. Neither Logan nor I were in any state to drive so Jesse offered his services. I was so thankful I at least made it to my driveway instead of anywhere inside his car before the alcohol really hit me.

“Yeah, you were kind of a mess,” Logan said as he lay back down beside me. “I didn’t want to leave you here all alone. I slept on the couch most of the night, but I think I was too tired to walk downstairs the last time I came up to check on you, so I just crashed.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“Yeah, I know.”

We both laughed and then Logan had the horribly awful idea to ask me if I was ready for breakfast. The thought or smell of anything at that point would most likely send me back to the bathroom. I flailed my arm at him one more time before I pulled the covers back over me and slept the day away.

9

By Monday morning, all that was left of this past weekend’s hangover was a minimal appetite. My headache was gone; everything around me had stopped spinning in circles and the bathroom was no longer my most trusted companion. You know you’re growing up when it takes longer and longer to recover from a night of drinking.

“I come bearing gifts,” Jaycie shouted as she burst through the front door.

She never knocked anymore. This place may as well have been hers, too, she was here so often. I warned her in the beginning that I liked to walk around half-naked most of the time, but it didn’t seem to bother her. If best friends couldn’t deal with each other in their underwear, what kind of friendship could they have? That was her logic, anyway.

“Coffee,” I said in pure bliss. “I knew I loved you for a reason.” I grabbed the cup from her hand and took a large sip of the double-shot macchiato before grabbing my purse and following Jaycie off to work.

I pulled my sunglasses off my half-opened eyes once I reached my desk and then settled into my chair to start the day. I had calls to make, interviews to set up, and concerts to schedule all before I headed to dinner with Logan for his final hours in Nashville before he was off on the next leg of the tour. I was making great headway until just before lunch, when a shriek came from my editor’s office.

“
Celia
!”

The other end of my phone had just begun to ring when it fell from my hand. I hurriedly felt around on the floor around me until it was within reach and hung it up before anyone answered. Hearing my name again a second time, I shot up out of my seat and looked wide-eyed at Jaycie before parading down the hall into the office of Frankie Lennox.

Frankie was the senior editor of
Behind the Strings
. She’d been in that position about three years now and was one of the people I met during my interviews and eventually the one who made the final call to bring me aboard.
We had a very professional relationship. She’d give me an idea and a deadline, I’d work to meet it and send over the final project when finished. No small talk, no personal information exchanged, always business. It had been that way for as long as I could remember. So when my name was echoing through the office hallways, I figured it would be the same kind of conversation. The smile on her face when I walked through the doorway however was anything but the usual.

“Celia, close the door behind you and have a seat,” she said.

I did as she asked.

“So tell me, is he a good kisser?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

My mouth dropped open and my fingers gripped tightly around my knees as I sat frozen in the chair in front of her. I could only imagine she was talking about Logan, thinking that she too saw the picture in front of the bus…until she turned her monitor to face me.

“Logan Kent, is he a good kisser?”

My hand rose to my face and I could feel the warmth of my cheeks as she waved me closer. A picture of Logan and me sat clearly on the screen, but not the one I had seen before. From its surroundings, this one looked to be taken at Silver Horse Saloon, which I believe was our last stop of the night. I leaned in closer to get a better look, making sure I wasn’t seeing things wrong. That was me, all right, as close to Logan Kent as you could get without being lip to lip. My arms around his neck, his around my waist in the middle of the dance floor.

“I…um…I don’t…” I stuttered as I stared harder.

“It’s moments like this I wish we were a gossip magazine,” Frankie said. “People eat this kind of stuff up.”

Her demeanor was nothing like I’d seen before. Very laid-back, yet excited. That uptight, show-no-emotion boss I’d known was nowhere to be found and to be honest, I found myself wishing she was there. At that moment I wanted to pull an Alex Mack and transform myself into a puddle so I could slither out of there quietly.

“I’m so embarrassed. I really don’t remember that happening at all.”

“Oh honey, it happens to the best of us. Honestly, I say ride it out for all it’s worth. What have you got to lose?”

I gave her a half smile as I thought about it.
What did I have to lose?
My best friend…again.

“Anyway, what I really called you in here for was to ask if you could spin your article a little bit to maybe include some unknown Logan Kent facts? You obviously have more inside knowledge then I thought and we could really use a leg up on the competition.”

I nodded my head thinking it wouldn’t be too hard to get Logan to agree. I’m sure I had a few stories he’d let me include in a new write-up. I’d get him to agree to it tonight at dinner.

When I left Frankie’s office, my legs were shaking. This was the second time in about a month the two of us had been photographed together. I had been in this industry long enough to know that was cause enough to be worthwhile of a story. Although I’d read plenty of that kind of story, I had no idea what it was to actually be newsworthy. So far though, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I could hear Jaycie’s voice from around the corner. She had her work phone to her ear and raised her hand up to me once she saw I was there.

“Actually,” she said, “hold on one second.”

She placed the phone back down on the receiver.

“You have a call on line two,” she said to me.

“I do? Who is it?”

“A reporter, calling to ask about your
friend
.” With an emphasis on the word “friend” and air quotes on her fingertips, she gave me a wink.

“I’m busy, take a message. And we
are
just friends,” I said.

“Mhmmm, that’s what they all say.”

10

Logan and I had planned to meet at a quiet restaurant right outside of Nashville. I’d been there a few times before, but this would be his first. It seemed a fitting place to hide from the reality of what was going on around us. I had lost count of the number of messages I had Jaycie take for me in the office. When they couldn’t get ahold of me by phone, the emails started coming in. There were the relationship ones: “
How long have you and Logan been dating?” “Is it hard to have a relationship with someone always on the road?”
And then there were the
“I can’t believe they would even ask me that” ones that Jaycie and I gushed over. “
Do you consider yourself a groupie?” “Is hooking up with musicians how you get your story?” “I thought Logan Kent was dating so-and-so, so that would make you the other woman, right?”

It’s amazing the type of assumptions people come up with over one little picture. I could only imagine the number of blogs that picture was on by now and the captions underneath it. My stomach was churning just thinking about it. I may have liked to see my name on the bylines, but that was the extent of the level of celebrity I wanted. Gossip about my love life all over the Twitterverse was not my cup of tea.

He was late again. Twenty-two minutes and forty-six seconds, to be exact. I had drunk a full glass of water and scarfed down two butter rolls by the time he walked through the door. The glare I shot him was enough for him to understand my frustration. If he did it again, I’d start to think it was a bad habit.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, “I had a radio interview that ran long.”

I said nothing.

“Please don’t be mad at me. I tried my best to get here as soon as I could.”

I wasn’t mad, I needed answers I had spent the whole day wondering what the hell had happened that night. We did look pretty cozy in that picture the night before he woke up in my bed. Not that Logan had been one to lie, but he was always good at protecting me. Maybe he was keeping something that happened between us to himself so I didn’t get hurt. Once she noticed I was no longer alone, the waitress came by to take our orders. I waited until she was out of earshot before I started my interrogation.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Sure.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. I had taken a screenshot of the picture earlier for easy access.

“This picture,” I said, handing over my phone to him.

He stared at it for a moment. A slight smirk crossed his face.

“I can’t even believe someone got a picture of this,” he said. “What was the headline on this one?”

To be honest, I couldn’t even remember what the first headline had been. I had been so caught off-guard by the picture, I don’t even think I looked. Right now, though, that didn’t matter. What mattered was what happened after that picture.

“I thought we already talked about this,” Logan said.

“I know we did, but we were both drinking that night, pretty heavily and I…”

“And you think I’m lying to you? Celia do you really think I would sleep with you and just forget to mention it? After all these years, you think I’d want this to be the first time? You incoherent and me halfway there?”

I could tell he was upset that I would even think that. I felt bad for the accusation, but breathed a sigh of relief that his original story was the same and the picture really was an innocent one. It was friends enjoying a night out on the dance floor. Logan tried to lighten the conversation by making a joke about how his publicist was going to kill him for that photo.

“Just the thought of me having a girlfriend would freak her out. Two months with the same girl is not going to bode well for my ‘bad boy’ image. I can picture Ivy’s face so clear right now.” He laughed. “Her lips pursed together, arms crossed and eyes glaring at me. She’ll ask me what in the hell I was thinking, I’ll tell her I wasn’t and she’ll turn around with a heavy sigh, wondering what she’s going to do with me.”

I guess he was used to it by now, but I was not. I sat back and swallowed hard. He could tell I didn’t find the humor in it. Reaching across the table, he squeezed my hand.

“Oh come on, Celia, what’s the big deal? It’s just a picture. This is all way more about me than it is you. It’ll blow over in a week or two and the tabloids will be on to the next thing, I promise. It happens all the time.”

“I really hope so,” I said. “This is not what I want my life to be like. A bunch of pictures in these cheesy magazines with my name being thrown around like a sleazy front-row groupie.”

There probably could have been better words for me to choose that wouldn’t have sounded so harsh, but in the moment I wasn’t really thinking about it. It wasn’t until Logan’s face turned pale and his shoulders slunk back into his chair that I realized how awful I was being.

“Well, I’m sorry that being in my life is so terrible,” he said.

“No, Logan, I didn’t mean…”

My apology was cut short when the waitress returned with our dinner. I wasn’t sure how much I could eat at that point; I had already shoved my foot in my mouth, and I wasn’t sure there was room for much more.

“Let’s just eat, okay? Forget about it,” Logan said as he cut his filet.

The rest of dinner was extremely uncomfortable. Neither of us said a word. The only sound coming from our table was the occasional clinking of the fork on the plate. When the check came Logan pulled out his credit card faster than I could object and paid it. We walked through the restaurant side by side, still in silence until we stepped outside into the crisp night air.

“Look, Logan, you’re leaving in the morning and I don’t want to leave it like this. It’s my fault anyway and I shouldn’t be getting mad at you.”

We stopped in front of my car and he placed his hands on both of shoulders.

“I’m sorry about the pictures, both of them. I really am. But if you want to be in my life, Celia, unfortunately, this is part of the game. The headlines, the rumors, the cameras, it all comes with me.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s just not something I’m used to.”

“You’ve got to look at it this way. Those people, they want to make money. But me and you, we know the truth. The people who care about us, they know the truth. That’s the only thing that matters. Everything else, who cares?”

I nodded. He kissed my forehead once again and we said our goodbyes. I sat in my car and watched him drive away. A vaguely familiar scenario filled my thoughts as his taillights faded away.