MirrorMusic (2 page)

We stopped outside a shiny white door. A burly security guy
stood against it with his thick arms crossed over his colossal chest. He gave
Sylvia the smallest of nods and stepped aside as she reached for the handle.

Beneath my faded denim jeans, my knees turned watery. I
didn’t know if I could go through with this, seeing Robbie after all this time.
He wasn’t the boy next door anymore. The guy I’d lost my virginity to in the
tent at the bottom of his garden. He was an international musician, known all
over the world for his talent and his good looks. He dated supermodels and
Oscar winners. He wasn’t “my” Robbie Harding anymore. He belonged to millions
of adoring fans.

I tugged at my bottom lip with my teeth and dragged in a
deep breath. I was a little dizzy, a little nauseous.

He’d lost his virginity to me too. We’d traded. We’d done it
so we were even. We both wanted to be each other’s first—and last, if I
remembered the conversation correctly.

Sylvia pushed open the door and took a step inside. I stayed
still. Out in the corridor where the lights were harsh and the air stuffy.

But I wasn’t the girl next door either. Not anymore. I was
“Dr.” Calahan and I’d just been involved in important research into the
prevention of malaria. My name, along with the results of my study, had been
splashed about several medical journals. I no longer collected butterflies in
jam jars any more than he still had a snail farm in an old fish tank in his
garage.

We’d both changed.

“Come in,” Sylvia called to me. “Come in, they don’t bite.”

I knew for a fact one of them did when he got carried away.
In the heat of the moment he’d been known to give my inner thighs quite a nip.

I swallowed and felt the burly security man’s gaze on me. I
looked up. His eyes were a piercing, glacial blue.

“You okay, Miss?” he asked. “You look kind of starstruck.”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Not starstruck though, this is more
like coming face to face with a ghost.”

He raised his brows and his forehead creased into several
pudgy lines.

I ignored his confusion and stepped into the jumbled,
guitar- and amp-littered room. The lights were dim and several low sofas were
strewn around.

The smell was overwhelming. Spiced aftershave and heat.
Fresh sweat and sweet beer tangled with pepperoni pizza and garlic bread.

Around a long white table groaning under the weight of food
sat the four guys who made up Manic Machines. Laughing, talking, eating and
drinking.

They didn’t look up at my entry.

I spotted Robbie instantly. He was in profile, his chiseled
features highlighted perfectly by a low table lamp as he chugged on a Beck’s.
He looked hot and flushed, black locks of his hair clung to his nape and there
was a rise of color on his cheek.

“Hi, Sylvia,” Dean said through a mouthful of pizza. His
brooding eyes slid to me. “Who you got there?”

Sylvia stepped sideways so that I was in full view of the
table. “Jenny,” she said. “This is Jenny Calahan.”

The hum of conversation froze.

Silence claimed the room.

I didn’t take my eyes from Robbie. He placed his bottle of
beer on the table and turned, slowly, to face me.

His intense green gaze harnessed mine as he sucked a drip of
froth off his top lip. His chest rose sharply as if he’d hitched in a breath;
his nostrils flared. He cleared his throat and wiped the back of his hand
across his mouth. “You came,” he said quietly.

“You sent me a ticket.” I paused. “And a backstage pass.”

One side of his mouth tilted in a grin and his cheek dimpled
in a familiar way. “I didn’t think you’d use it.”

“Which, the ticket or the pass?”

“Either.” He stood, scraping back the legs of his chair on
the hard floor. “But I’m glad you did. Come on, join us.”

“I, er, I don’t know. I thought maybe there was just
something you wanted to say and then…” I glanced at the doorway. “And then I’ll
get on my way.”

Robbie smiled. “Of course I’ve got something to say. But eat
first. I’m starved.”

Sylvia placed another chair at the table and I looked around
at the male faces staring up at me expectantly. Ian carried on chewing pizza
but his mouth tilted in a lopsided grin. Tim and Dean, brothers, stared at me
with identical blue eyes. Tim chewed the inside of his cheek while Dean popped
open a beer with a bottle opener in the shape of a naked lady.

“Sit,” Robbie said, touching the back of my knees with the
chair so I had no choice but to fold onto it. “It’s been a while but I remember
how much you like to gorge on pizza.”

“It’s not all he remembers about you,” Dean said, lifting
his bottle to his lips and flashing me a naughty grin.

I swallowed a rise of nerves and fought a flush spreading on
my chest and around the back of my scalp. I didn’t feel in the slightest bit
hungry.

“It’s good to meet you,” Ian said. “We’ve heard ‘Jenny this’
and ‘Jenny that’ for so bloody long.” He crunched down on a wedge of garlic bread.

“Yeah, all right,” Robbie said, leaning across me for a
slice of ham and pineapple. “I can take it from here, guys.”

“Yeah, sure you can,” Tim huffed. “That’s why you had to
name a song after her just to get her here.”

I shifted on the chair, uncomfortable with being the topic
of conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Robbie said, turning to me with a concerned
glint in his eye. “They’re a bunch of morons.” He swung a stern glare at his
bandmates, then looked back at me. “We’ll get out of here in a sec.” He grinned,
flashing his perfect white teeth. “We’ll go somewhere alone, pumpkin.”

I caught my breath at the pet name I hadn’t heard for so
long. One Halloween, Mum had made me dress up in an orange pumpkin costume that
made me look as if I’d swallowed a rhinoceros. Robbie had laughed so hard he’d
almost peed himself when I’d stepped out of the house. Just ’cause he’d looked
all cool in a skeleton outfit with luminous bones on his chest and hips.

His face turned serious. “I’m glad you came. I’d almost
given up hope that you would.”

“Why didn’t you just ring me, you know the usual way of
contacting someone? Writing songs and sending tickets—it’s all a bit
unconventional.”

“Ain’t nothing conventional about our Robbie,” Ian said. I
raised my brows at him. As if I didn’t know
that
already.

Robbie shrugged. “I just wanted you to be part of my world
for a while, see how it is for me.”

“What, eating pizza and drinking with your mates?”

“Exactly, eating pizza and having a beer with mates.” He
grinned and shoved a hand through his damp hair. It stayed sticking up over his
right ear and my hand twitched to smooth it back down. But he wasn’t mine to
touch so I curled my fingers so tight my nails dug into my palms and looked
around the table at the faces I’d seen on posters and on MTV. The strange thing
was they were looking at me with equal fascination. As if I was some curiosity,
someone they were fascinated with.

Clearly I had been discussed at considerable length.

A bubble of anxiety popped low in my stomach and I wondered
just what Robbie had told them. We’d been young and lust-crazed, our hormones
out of control. And once we’d had sex that first time there was no stopping
us—not for three steamy years. We went for it every opportunity we could,
trying out new positions, new ideas, new and risky locations.

“Do you still use vanilla shampoo?” Dean asked me suddenly.

My heart fluttered in my chest. “Er, no, not anymore.”

“Shame,” he said. “I liked the way Robbie described it. It
made you sound good enough to eat.”

Robbie gave a little huff of amusement. “Yeah,” he said,
looking at me with a twinkle in his eye. “It did make her good enough to eat.”

“I have to go,” I said. This conversation was sending me to
toe-curling hell. Clearly Robbie hadn’t wanted to do anything more than embarrass
me. “It was nice to meet you all,” I said, swinging a gaze around at Tim, Dean
and Ian. “Robbie,” I said, “I’m glad it’s worked out so well for you, the
concert was great, but I have an early start in the lab tomorrow and it’s
already late.”

“No, don’t go,” Robbie said, jumping up and grabbing my
upper arm. “Hang on just a sec.” He turned to Sylvia, who was hovering by the
door. “Can you get a car? I need to take Jenny home.”

His fingers pressed through the soft material of my hoody
and sent a snake of sensations long forgotten up my shoulder and into my chest.

“It’s important,” he said, lowering his head to mine. “It’s
important that we talk.”

I heard Sylvia order a car on her mobile. “It’s waiting,”
she said to Robbie as she clicked the phone shut.

Robbie let go of my arm and paced to one of the sofas. He
dragged on a loose, black sweater and shoved a wallet, keys and a phone into
the front pockets of his jeans. “Come on,” he said, slipping an arm around my
waist and steering me to the door. “This is long overdue.”