The Complete Groupie Trilogy Page 41

  He carried her to her bedroom and deposited her right at her door. She gave him another goodnight kiss, but he didn’t press it for anything more than a chaste peck on the lips. As always he was a gentleman of infinite patience. He wanted it to be right. He wanted it to be perfect.

  He wanted it to be forever.

  As for Andy, she had a smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep. After Vanni’s accident she had stopped worrying about the future. She wanted to enjoy the moment, and this was pretty monumental. For the first time in months, maybe even years, it felt as though things were finally aligning. Vanni was getting the help he needed and Graham was finally on the road to recovery, such as it could be for an unpredictable SCI.

  And for the first time in a long time she didn’t feel pressured by either man – or herself – to make a choice between them during this complicated process. She gave herself permission to love them both because they both needed her as much as she realized she needed them.

  There were things far more important than a relationship status one would plug into a social media website for the whole world to see. She had come to accept the fact she was taken and it was complicated. She loved two men, both who needed her in very different ways. She felt certain when the time came they could all make much better choices regarding “forever” once the immediate crises had passed.

  But then again maybe there were no happily ever afters. Maybe there were no fairy tale weddings and white picket fences. Maybe this was what love looked like in the 21 century.

  Or maybe, just maybe, she was lying to herself yet again on how she could be all things to both men what they both desperately needed her to be, without any consequence for the future. That everything else was just convenient justification so that she didn’t have to hurt anyone.

  She put off making any choice because it was an impossible one to make, especially once Vanni was released from rehab and the roller coaster started all over again. Just the thought of seeing him again made her heart race in that old familiar way. He was undeniably a part of her and likely always would be.

  But she couldn’t think about that now. Not with Graham and his breakthrough.

  It would all work out the way it was supposed to. That was the mantra she had repeated for the last four months. She held onto it tighter than ever because she knew how long the road still was and how much work they still had left to do.

  In the meantime Andy worked very closely with Gwen on the band’s P.R. It was the one thing she could control, and by God that was what she was going to do. At Vanni’s request they had incorporated Holly into doing street team. Ironically she took the place of Andy, who was still a lightning rod of publicity thanks to the tabloids. This was especially true as a fan liaison, the grunt position Andy once held. She was so eager to help, in fact, that she jumped into action without being asked much of the time. She made sure emails were answered and posts were moderated on the official website. She also kept a vigilant eye on other information being shared about the band over the Internet.

  She did so much that Gwen and Andy could actually work with industry contacts, but even then Holly was willing to come into the office at Graham’s house and do her part there too. Everything worked harmoniously and efficiently. The merry trio would then celebrate how well things were going by doing decidedly girly things. They shopped, they went to the salon. They watched chick flicks and bonded over mani/pedis, which Andy had never really bothered with before but Holly swore would make her feel pampered and pretty.

  After all she’d been through Andy found she kind of liked being pampered and pretty. In fact, she had actually never felt more like a girl than with Gwen and Holly. It was an instant kinship that made both of them welcome in Graham’s house as well, making them the first people associated with the label who got to see Graham in person, in his current condition. With his burgeoning self-esteem, he played the perfect host who charmed both women with his humor and conscientious sophistication.

  Holly returned the favor by working her magic on Graham from the moment she walked through the door. She thought of a dozen little ways to make his life easier and would race to wait on him every time the opportunity presented itself. Unfortunately she wasn’t used to the way Maggie and Andy ran things around the house. There was no babying, pampering or mothering Graham, which left someone like Holly at a loss how to fit into the bigger picture.

  It honestly made Graham feel sorry for her, and he said as much to Andy when they shared yet another night cuddled together while they watched TV. “She means well,” he said, “but I definitely get this feeling she has no self-esteem whatsoever.”

  Andy didn’t know if she agreed, unless Holly’s eternally cheerful demeanor was just a mask hiding some pretty big problems. Vanni seemed to take her at face value, which made Andy want to do the same; especially after all she’d done to help everyone. It seemed harsh or cynical to suggest it was anything other than just plain old kindness. She came across as truly genuine and God knows they had been in short supply of that.

  “I dunno,” Andy mused. “I think sometimes an apple is just an apple. Why do you need to look for the wormhole?”

  He reached into the bowl of popcorn she was holding. “You don’t get to where I am without looking a few moves ahead,” he said. “She seems like a nice girl and all but… what’s the catch? She’s either a complete phony or she’s got more issues than anyone can see.”

  “She had an abusive alcoholic dad. Of course she has issues,” Andy replied. After Vanni had gone to rehab Holly broke down and confessed how horrible it had been to relive some of that painful trauma she had endured as the child of an alcoholic. His behavior had hit all her triggers in ways she hadn’t expected. She fluctuated between wanting to help him like she had been conditioned to help her dad and the desire to run far away from the problem yet again.

  Because of all these problems Holly swore that her feelings for Vanni were purely platonic. She had no desire whatsoever to sign on for another tour of duty of co-dependent enabler to an addict. One day she wanted to have children and she didn’t want to put them through what she went through. Her delicate strength instantly endeared her to Andy, who had never had a sister but felt an immediate kinship all the same. The same vulnerability that made Vanni want to protect her touched upon something protective in Andy as well.

  Best of all, despite it all, she was no threat. The fact that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about Vanni’s celebrity was what sealed the deal for Andy. She was quite through with climbers who wanted nothing more than to bed a celebrity. Holly had dated her fair share of musicians over the years and learned the bitter lesson early that fame did not facilitate fidelity, and Holly made it clear she wasn’t the type to share.

  Andy believed her to be a smart girl who knew what she wanted out of life, but more importantly what she didn’t want. Honestly she kind of envied that about her. She was younger, but seemed so much more mature than Andy herself had been at twenty-two… or even now at twenty-seven.

  She felt like it was exactly what Vanni needed. He needed to see there were people out there who didn’t give a rip about how famous he was. His ego needed to be kept in check, and Andy felt comfortable leaving that to someone like Holly.

  She was small but she was tireless when it came to getting the job done.

  As such she steadily climbed through the ranks over the 30 days Vanni was away in rehab. It helped that she seemed to smooth Leo’s edges when it came to his possessiveness of the band. She made herself the unofficial go-between for Leo and Andy, who realized quickly they couldn’t stand each other.

  Since Graham decided Leo was the best in the business and the smartest way he could handle the band while he was incapacitated, there was little Andy could do but find a new way to communicate with him.

  Holly, who had known Leo a while, stepped into this role naturally. She knew how to defuse his explosive temper and she knew how to temper some of the things he said to Andy. If he said
a cross word about her Andy never knew it, and she liked it that way.

  The downside to this new arrangement was that Andy didn’t get to see her friends Yael and Felix much, or even get to know the new bassist Davy Gray. With the equally new Julian as part of the lineup it felt to Andy like a whole new band. Her emotional investment had been severed, especially since they no longer played the songs written for her.

  The exception to that was “Baby, Say My Name,” but Julian and Yael had rewritten the guitar tracks to it making it much harder than the original version. They planned a re-release of this popular tune as a bonus track on their new CD.

  Though she knew it wasn’t intentional, it was like she was being effectively written right out of the history of the band. She had already been extricated from the fandom, with Holly and Gwen rewriting much of the work she had invested before. With the new direction of the band it only made sense and was certainly nothing personal.

  It just felt that way.

  She was now very famously Vanni’s ex, which was ironic considering she was never publicly acknowledged as his “current.” And she wasn’t just an ex, she was the Ex. To put it plainly, it hurt less the less she had to deal with it all. Besides, Holly was happy to do it.

  By the end of September, when Vanni was due to arrive home, it was Holly who uncovered a tabloid story that would blow up their carefully constructed house of cards once again. She was silent as she presented it to Andy, who sank down in a chair in shock as the sensational story slapped her right in the face.

  Her eyes shot back to the younger woman. “Is this true?” she asked.

  Holly nodded. “I took it upon myself to do some investigating. The story checks out.”

  Andy glanced down at the rag mag in her hands, which screamed a headline she had almost convinced herself she’d never see.

  ESTRANGED FATHER OF GIOVANNI CARNEVALE, DESTITUTE IN NYC, WISHES TO REUNITE WITH HIS SON.

  Chapter Eleven

  October 10, 2010. Los Angeles.

  Vanni

  As Vanni rode in the company car from Santa Barbara back down to his Redondo Beach home, he had a lot of time to think about the next chapter of his life. He was proud of what he was able to accomplish in rehab. He shared the experience with actors and celebrities of all sorts, and they all spent a great deal of time getting to the root of why fame and excess made one vulnerable to self-destruction.

  Vanni understood now that the triggers were always there. His propensity to drink was probably hard-wired into his DNA, which he could attribute back to his own father, just like every other problem in his life. His mother didn’t say much about him but her intolerance for alcohol told its own tale. It wasn’t hard to believe that his father had skipped town to chase the bottle, and whatever else, while leaving his wife and child alone and in poverty.

  When Andy, the first person he had allowed himself to love and trust, “left,” he felt as abandoned as he had as a child. He started drinking to numb himself once again to the pain of not being good enough to be loved. Because he felt unlovable and weak, he needed to punish himself in the most effective way he knew how. One drink led to another until he couldn’t function without it. Courtesy of his environment he had plenty of access and very little accountability.

  He unwittingly set the timer on his own internal bomb.

  It had been 30 days and he finally felt as though he subdued the monster that lived within him. The urges were still there, of course, especially when he had to dig deep to confront some of his long buried emotions, but now he knew that he was back in control of the drinking… just like he had been before this latest unfortunate episode.

  Honestly he didn’t even feel as though he had a disease like other alcoholics. It was the first real foray down that road he’d taken and the accident was a wakeup call that happened almost immediately. He learned quickly that alcohol didn’t solve his problem. He wasn’t like some of the others in rehab whose rock bottoms kept sinking ever lower with each bender.

  Most importantly he wasn’t weak like his father. He knew he’d never allow himself to stumble down that path again.

  So all in all he felt pretty confident as they sailed along the freeway back to his home. He couldn’t wait to show Andy, and even sweet Holly, that he had mastered his demons.

  He called Andy first the minute that he arrived home. He asked that she come visit him. He didn’t say as much but he wanted her to see the place he got for them to share. He believed eventually they would be together and he wanted her to know – again – he thought their future was worth the wait.

  She chose her words carefully, which led Vanni to believe that Graham was within earshot. She didn’t say his name and cryptically told him she’d be there shortly, which sounded far more ominous than it should have.

  He tried not to think about it as he went over to his liquor cabinet. He pulled out a trash bag and placed the booze right inside. He kept thinking to himself this was an inanimate thing that had no power over him; it seemed silly to just toss it all out.

  But rehab was a safe environment where the temptations were few. Why take any chances now that he had come home?

  He changed into some cargo shorts and a button down top over a DIB T-shirt, and pulled his hair into a long ponytail as he stepped out onto his deck. He had missed it, though most of his drinking binges had happened there. He thought about Andy racing toward his home and thought with a smile it was time to make some new memories.

  He didn’t want to push her like before, but he knew he wanted to feel her in his arms again. She was his drug of choice now simply because she made him better.

  He was ready for better.

  His heart warmed when he opened the door and saw her there on the doorstep. She had gone back to her natural hair color of reddish brown, which she wore layered around her shoulders. It was casual and low maintenance, just like Andy herself. She didn’t layer makeup on her face, and looked up at him with those bright, amazing eyes that peeked out behind the dark frames of her glasses.

  He smiled as he looked down at her. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, but had somehow fooled the world into thinking she was ordinary.

  He didn’t ask as he took her into his arms. She filled his embrace with a hint of perfume and a glowing warmth that could not be substituted by any other. And he should know. He had certainly tried.

  He lifted her up into his arms. There were no words that adequately described how he felt, but in her arms no words were needed. That’s why he had always loved it there.

  He eased her back down to her feet. “You look amazing,” he said softly as his eyes fell down to her mouth. Such full lips, so kissable, irresistible…

  He smiled as he made a mental note to write that one down. He’d written a ton of music and lyrics over the past 30 days. As always it was how he had healed.

  She was likewise overwhelmed by Vanni’s appearance. He looked so much better than the last time she saw him in court with fading bruises and cuts from the accident. His hair was long and luxurious and he definitely wore the evidence he had exercised and eaten right over the past month. He was still lean but more toned, and even the softer part of his tummy felt firmer against her. He had earned new strength, which she knew he was going to need after she told him what she needed to tell him.

  “You look well, Vanni. It’s good to see.”

  He grinned like a silly boy as he turned around so she could see how he had healed. It had been a really long six weeks. “Not ready to tour yet,” he said. “But definitely ready to get back into the studio.”

  She nodded. That was her Vanni. The show must go on.

  He took her hand and led her into the beach house. It wasn’t carrying her in like he had imagined, but there was time for that later. He watched with delight as she drank in the view.

  “It’s lovely,” she said.

  “I’m glad you like it,” he replied. He led her up the steps and out onto the deck for his private view of the Pac
ific. He wanted to pull her body to his, to hold her from behind, his chin buried in her hair, just like he had dreamed. But her body was rigid and her eyes were troubled. He got the not so subtle hint it was not the time to indulge in his romantic fantasies.

  In fact, his heart started to pound. Something was coming and he sensed it was bad. He just hoped it wasn’t another goodbye. He’d barely survived the last one.

  “What’s wrong, Andy?” he asked her directly. After all they had shared there was no need for games.

  Though he projected strength, his dark eyes were vulnerable. It made her want to take her back into her arms and shield him from the blow. Instead she withdrew a piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to him.

  The blood drained from his face as he read the article. “Fuck me,” he breathed as he staggered backward toward the hammock stretched across one corner of his deck.

  She joined him as he sat, taking his hand in hers. She more than anyone knew the impact this would have on him. All the anger, disappointment, resentment and hostility he’d ever felt toward this stranger bubbled up in him as he read each word.

  “Angelo Carnevale, the alcoholic father of Dreaming in Blue’s lead singer Giovanni Carnevale, wants to get in contact with his troubled son. After a long absence, Angelo seeks to reach out to the child he abandoned three decades ago and help him through this next painful step of recovery from addiction, as well as support him through his legal troubles.”

  Vanni’s deep brown eyes hardened. “Wonder how much he wants to get paid to go away? Or is that in another article?”

  She sighed. There was no way to tell him that there were, in fact, several articles and even a few interviews he could reference. Just as they had faded to minor gossip pages, this story put them back on the front page.