The Complete Groupie Trilogy Read online

  For all we didn’t have, we still had a lot.

  For the rest of the trip he treated me like a queen. We never brought up the future, and he was very skilled at making me feel like the present was all that mattered. We worked hard during the day, where we both played our parts and hid away what was real behind the closed door of our hotel room.

  It only started bothering me when the fans were younger, college-aged and far more forward than I could have ever been. The public Vanni was a ladies’ man, whose self-assured swagger onstage had earned him a legion of faithful fans. They expected him to be sexy and raw and accessible, because in their minds he belonged to them.

  And maybe in fact he did.

  But I wasn’t too happy with the fact many of them tried their level best to get closer to him, up to and including slipping him hotel keys or requesting he sign their underwear – while it was still on.

  Thankfully I was able to talk him out of signing one girl’s panties, but the extent some of these girls were willing to go to, especially after drinking or other questionable recreational habits, actually made me worry for his safety. There didn’t seem to be any real boundaries between fans and the object of their affection.

  I brought it up our last night in Austin, but he teased me that I was simply jealous. Before I could protest he tickled me into submission and we spent the rest of the night making love. This activity was quickly becoming my distraction of choice.

  The next morning as we packed he came up from behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’m going to miss you,” he whispered against my ear.

  “I’m never far away,” I assured. “A few hours by plane anywhere in the country.”

  He turned me around and folded me into a close embrace. “How about next time I come to you?”

  “To Nashville?” I asked. “Why would you go there?”

  Another kiss atop my nose. “Because you’re there, silly. And I’ve just decided that is where I want to spend my thirtieth birthday. If you’ll have me.”

  I didn’t verbalize it but it occurred to me in that moment that was all left in life I really truly wanted.

  ~Andy~

  It was torture to pick up Vanni from the airport and not fly into his arms when I first laid eyes on his long, dark hair. I kept reliving our time in Austin together over and over, and his random, rushed emails were warmer and more endearing even if they were brief.

  I had undergone a subtle but distinctive change in the weeks leading up to Vanni’s visit, while I prepared my house for my houseguest. There was no charade necessary in Nashville. All the people we needed to conceal anything from were spread out across the country and nowhere near my tiny house on the outskirts of the city. So he would stay with me, in my home, in my bed, and I would get to play house for a week while we shared his birthday and even Christmas Eve together. I wanted New Year’s Eve as well, but the tour was scheduled to begin the last week in January in Seattle, so I knew that there was no way to keep him from his life for that long. They had incorporated dancers into the live performances, and they needed finish their rehearsals bringing it all together.

  I was actually surprised I got the time I did.

  So I did some uncharacteristic spending and splurged on new linens for the bed, new towels, a matching set of dishes and an entire refrigerator full of food. I was an okay cook, but it was worth the effort to be able to have him all to myself rather than keep up appearances around town just in case someone recognized him.

  No one would care where he stayed in my home, or what we’d do together while he was here. No one even really knew, except maybe my grandmother, who grew suspicious of my holiday activities when I told her that I would probably be unable to go with her to church on Christmas Eve.

  My lovely grandmother surprised me and actually supported the idea of my having a guest, and a male one at that. Maybe she was concerned I’d never settle down and be cursed to roam the country struggling to make ends meet. She insisted on meeting him one day during the week, where she’d cook a southern feast in his honor. When I bashfully told Vanni he surprised me double by agreeing to go.

  We were finally able to be real in front of one person, and an important one at that. It had me especially hopeful for the holidays.

  Granted I knew that chances were slim to none that he’d go down on one knee and promise me forever, but I found myself looking forward to his being able to be honest about what I was to him.

  Maybe then I’d finally know exactly what that was.

  I was so relieved that I never had to deal with living in the fishbowl I didn’t realize all the normal stuff I was missing. Even just walking through Central Park holding hands was now off limits.

  I kept trying to remind myself why exactly that was. The Lourdes scandal was over months ago, surely his fans would forgive him if he moved on. I was already going to shows and attending events, how much different could it be?

  It was dangerous trying to dodge some of these mental land mines. This is exactly what I told myself I couldn’t do.

  But as he walked toward me in the airport I couldn’t help the way my heart soared just to see that smile. His face was scrubbed clean and his hair pulled back, and he wore a turtleneck and overcoat with a dark pair of sunglasses obscuring his face. He masked his rock god persona so effectively I barely recognized him.

  The same could not be said for a couple of college girls standing by the luggage carousel. I heard their excited gasp as he approached, as they dug out their phones to snap a picture. He gave them a smile which of course meant they could run over to him, and I watched the interaction from where I stood about six feet away.

  There were hugs, more photos, an autograph – and one lucky girl got a kiss on her cheek since she was coming home for the birthday she happened to share with him.

  Likely story, I thought. But that they even knew when his birthday was brought the reality home to me that he was public property now. Even in my hometown he still didn’t belong to me.

  He allowed the interaction to linger until their ride appeared, and he waited until after they left in a giggly, giddy huddle to cross those remaining feet between us.

  He gave me a friendly bear hug that nearly lifted me off the ground and planted a chaste kiss on the cheek. These were acceptable PDAs for any platonic relationship, and certainly no more special than the girls who had just left. The only difference was I got the murmured command, “Take me home,” into my ear. It made me break a few speed limits to get him back to my place where I could finally have him all to myself.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and followed me up the steps to my wide country porch, and paused only briefly while I unlocked the door. Before I knew what was happening he swung me up into his arms and carried me across the threshold, a gesture that didn’t help my romantic delusions in the least little bit.

  The minute we were inside he bent for a kiss, which I happily returned as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Where’s the bedroom?” he whispered against my lips, and after I nodded my head toward the direction of the hall he kicked the front door shut behind him and carried me to the place I had long come to fantasize he’d be.

  He placed me onto the bed and followed quickly behind, his weight pinning me down as he kissed me like he had been waiting to do so since September. My orange tabby jumped on the bed to inspect this interesting new development, but Vanni wasn’t willing to share me yet. “Sorry, Simon,” he said as he gently pushed him off onto the floor. “It’s my turn.”

  We didn’t come up for air until the sun had sunk and the room grew dark. He was breathless and glistening with sweat as he collapsed beside me. “Now that’s what I call a homecoming.”

  I wanted to tell him this could be his home whenever he wanted, but I didn’t want to spoil his sweet words with something as scary as reality. Instead I leaned over to him and traced my hand along his chest. “Hungry?” I asked.

  Again with the smirk, before he flipped me on my
back with lascivious intention. “Only for you,” he said in between kisses that trailed down my body.

  We didn’t make it out for actual food until roughly 10:00 p.m., by which time Simon had decided to punish us by not giving us any attention at all. He was missing quite a sight. It wasn’t every day you’d see a naked man stroll around my kitchen, or for me to be in a similar state. I don’t think I had ever gone out into my kitchen or living room without at least wearing a robe.

  After a quick snack of cheese, wine and fruit that we fed each other, he chased me back into the bedroom again and we fell laughing back into bed. That night I fell asleep in his arms, lulled by the steady, strong sound of his heart beating against my ear.

  He woke me the next morning with tiny, well-placed kisses, and as I reached into the nightstand for a condom I realized that my stash was getting low. We were much more active the night before than I expected. “Looks like we have to get more of these when we go out today,” I said with a teasing smile.

  “You’re the boss,” he said with a smirk, and actions, that said otherwise.

  When I brought him breakfast in bed later, he asked what I had planned for him for the day. “I thought we’d see the sights, I could show you my town. Was there anything special you wanted to see?”

  “More do,” he said. “I was thinking that it’s been a really long time since I’ve had a Christmas tree. I noticed you didn’t have one so I thought we’d go pick one and decorate it for the holidays, such as they are.”

  A part of me wanted to “aw” until my jaw hurt, instead I just reached over and kissed him. “Anything you want,” I said.

  We did go and see a few sights, since he’d never been to Nashville before. But even at the Grand Ole Opry he was stopped by those who recognized his face from Jasper’s media blitz. It soon became apparent tourist spots were out of the question, so we went to a tree lot and picked out the most robust specimen they had. Since I’d never had a tree we also had to pick up decorations, which took up the rest of our afternoon as we drove around the city looking for stuff to hang on “our tree.”

  By nightfall we were both exhausted, and so we grabbed some barbecue takeout on our way back home. We were fairly content to hold off the actual decorating of the tree until his birthday, after we got home from eating dinner with my grandmother.

  The next morning he brought me breakfast in bed, where we stayed for hours talking. He told me about his mom while he rubbed my naked shoulders. He spoke softly and lovingly about the woman who had worked two jobs to support him after his dad split when he was only two. He didn’t even remember him, he admitted sadly.

  I stroked his hair as he laid his head on my shoulder and told me the story. His mother did the best she could but wasn’t really around, so he was left to raise himself in one of the rougher, poorer Philadelphia neighborhoods. When he was approached by a street gang his mother decided to uproot them and move to Brooklyn to live near their only surviving relative – his great aunt Susan, who promptly decided he needed to be more productive with his time. That was how he found singing, thanks to the grandmotherly figure who taught piano lessons twice a week.

  His voice softened as he spoke of the lace doilies on her furniture, the plastic fruit on her table, and the upright piano that was decorated only with an antique metronome that would tick almost in rhythm with the ceiling fan that cooled their tiny living room in the summer. “When things weren’t going well that metronome reminded me to slow down, to count, to breathe,” he said. “It was the only thing I wanted to keep when she passed, but it was given to her church instead. She had studied to be a nun originally, very old school Catholic. So she didn’t take any of my shit,” he recalled fondly. “She passed away about three years ago. A year after my mom, ironically.”

  He grew quiet and held onto me as he pressed on. “I never really thought she’d die. Maybe I just didn’t want her to. She was all the family I had left.” He kind of shrugged. “Three months later I found Yael by responding to an ad in the paper, and the rest, as they say, is history. Music gave me a new family I guess.”

  “I’m glad you had music,” I said. I knew how it felt to be alone in the world, having one last relative to call my own.

  “It’s the only thing that’s left. It can’t leave you. It can’t die. It will be as true to you as you are to it.”

  He glanced up at me and I gently brushed the hair from his face. My heart broke for the little kid who had been tossed aside like so much garbage by his father.

  “Think your dad will ever come find you now that you’re famous?”

  He laughed. “I don’t know how famous I am. But I don’t care if he does. He made his choices.” The hardness in his voice broke my heart. “What about you?” he asked. “Is there grandma and no one else?”

  I nodded. “From very early on, actually. Truth is I don’t remember my parents at all.”

  He rose up on one elbow and waited. I pulled a photo album from my night stand and handed it to him. Even after all this time I couldn’t say the words outright, even though by now the memories seemed like they belonged to another person entirely.

  He opened the album and read through the clippings yellowing against the sticky pages. All I saw was the black and white photo of the burned out house, a visual that had been tattooed on my brain for a lifetime.

  “Where were you when this happened?” he asked.

  “I had a most fortuitous case of pneumonia. I must have been three or four, I guess. Anyway, Grandma took me in and raised me.”

  He took my hand in his. “Then I have a lot to thank her for,” he said, then pulled me into his arms and held me close the rest of the night.

  The next morning I served him breakfast in bed with a candle stuck in his stack of chocolate chip pancakes. He blew out the candle but protested he already got his wish. We fed each other, which turned out to be quite messy with the syrup. Vanni insisted we not use napkins to clean up the drippings, but rather our own mouths. This became so erotic it actually led into the first birthday celebration of the day.

  I pulled the other gift out from under my bed. I had purchased and wrapped it at least a week before he arrived. I was surprised Simon had not discovered it and mangled it to pieces, which definitely would have put a damper on the moment. Vanni grinned like a little kid as he ripped through the paper and opened the flat package.

  It was a leather-bound journal engraved with his name on the cover. “From Thoughts to Music,” I had included in the inscription. He pulled me close for a long hug. He was overcome when he thanked me.

  “The first one’s for you,” he promised.

  He insisted we go to the store to purchase flowers for my grandmother, and then at his insistence we stopped by my parents’ gravesite to leave pretty, fresh flowers over the frostbitten graves. I didn’t make it a point to come here, much like my grandmother did, and I had never brought anyone here – not even Iris. But Vanni insisted. He said that paying his respects to his beloved great aunt on a regular basis reminded him of the good times, so she never seemed far away. And this particular Christmas he wanted us to connect the past to the present.

  It made the occasion all the more monumental, and I was overcome with emotion. I dropped my head into my hands and sobbed quietly, and Vanni took me into his arms and rocked me quietly as he held me close. There were tears in his own eyes as he rested his forehead against mine.

  We were two orphans who had somehow found each other, who understood our secret pain on a level that so many others did not.

  Neither of us spoke about it on the ride out to my Grandmother’s, who lived on the opposite edge of town.

  Lydia Foster may have only been 4’10 (she claimed she was shrinking in her old age, but she had always been a pixie) but her wiry frame and agile mind would convince anyone that the old adage is true: dynamite comes in small packages. She weighed probably 90 pounds but her spine was ramrod straight, and her eyes were still the clearest blue.

 
Even at 67 she actively participated in her community, especially church. She gardened and then sold her own vegetables as a means to supplement her income. They had finally forced her to retire from her career driving the school bus for the rural areas around Nashville after she failed her last eye exam. As a result she traded her car in for a good pair of walking shoes and kept herself active by walking anywhere she needed to go.

  The minute we walked in the door and I smelled the glorious aroma coming from her kitchen I knew that she had cooked enough to feed an army. She had it all: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, okra, biscuits and her special recipe red velvet cake to celebrate his birthday.

  Even though he towered over her she reached up and gave him a monstrous bear hug and welcomed her into her home like she would have welcomed anyone. Lydia knew no strangers. She oohed and awed over the beautiful flowers he brought, and sent me a wink that if I didn’t snatch him up she sure would.

  He laughed and followed her into her comfortable and tidy, though small, living room.

  If I learned how to live on meager practical means it was through Grandma. She taught me the value of saving my money, getting the most out of what you buy and paying for value. That was why I could own three pairs of really nice pants, rather than an entire closet full of discount clothes.

  She perched on the edge of her Queen Anne chair and proceeded to drill Vanni about everything short of his social security number and shoe size. After his old school Catholic great aunt, my little southern Baptist grandmother probably didn’t intimidate him much. He answered each question with the same confidence and poise he demonstrated in front of a microphone.

  “And what are your thoughts on family?” she asked as she peered over her glasses at him.