Up some stairs and into the elusive, exclusive backstage area the bodyguard and I went. A high wall sheltered us from the actual stage and its surrounds. But it soon opened to a larger corridor with people rushing back and forth. The banging vibration of the bass seemed to seep through the walls, the music loud enough to make my ears ring. We made a sharp right turn, and the sort of industrial look gave way to a slick little lounge with a bar and fridge, a large arrangement of white orchids, bottles of water lined up on a side table, a glass bowl full of M&Ms (Adam’s favorite), and an Amazonian woman busy with her cell. Tall, brunette, vaguely terrifying, and wearing a pair of fifties-style Saint Laurent platform heels I’d had wet dreams of owning. Oh, good Lord, those shoes. I could have drooled. A cheap knockoff of them sat at home in my wardrobe. I was still saving them for a special occasion. But not this sort of special occasion. Coming here tonight, doing this, had seemed like more of a combat boot kind of situation. Storming the rock ‘n’ roll castle and all that.
“Thanks, Ziggy,” she said, dismissing the bodyguard before her gaze flicked over me with obvious disinterest. “You’ve got sixty seconds. Talk.”
“And who the hell might you be?” I asked, not so politely, refusing to be cowed.
At this, she smiled. “I’m Martha, Adam’s manager, and you?”
“Jill. Adam’s ex. But I’m sure the bodyguard already told you that.”
The speculative look in her eyes increased some hundred-fold. “So, what do you want, Adam’s ex?”
“To talk to Adam about something he sent me recently.”
She raised her chin. “The check. I didn’t know he’d done that.”
“You know everything he does?”
“Basically,” she said, tone blasé. “You have to understand, rock stars are all big, whiny babies who need someone running their lives, or everything goes to hell in a handbasket. For Adam, I am that someone. Next question. If the check is real, and you are who you say you are, why not just take the money and run?”
I sighed. “I thought about it. That album has been the bane of my existence ever since it came out. I can’t go anywhere without hearing the damn thing. Bars, gas stations, the grocery store…it’s like I’m being musically stalked.”
“The songs aren’t exactly complimentary toward you,” she allowed.
At this, I rolled my eyes. A terrible habit, but I couldn’t help myself. If someone said something breathtakingly obvious, my first impulse was always the silent and deadly, duh. “I’m not getting into that with you. It’s private. Well, it should be private. Though it would be fair to say that Adam’s version of our relationship and mine differ significantly. But the fact is, he’s been working on making it in the music business since long before I met him. It was his dream, and he worked hard and saw it through. Kudos to him. If he’d just sent me his share of the rent and so on for the period we lived together, then I wouldn’t be here right now. Because this check…it’s too much. Way too much.”
“Seven digits is impressive. But he can afford it, if that’s your concern.”
“I’m sure he can, but that’s not the point.”
“You’ve never given any interviews about him. Never sold any photos from when you were together. I’d have been alerted to it if you had.”
“And?”
Her gaze scanned my body, up and down. “Are you pregnant?”
“No.”
“Do you hope to get pregnant?”
“Good Lord. Get your mind out of my uterus. I just want to talk to him about the check.”
For a long moment, the manager chick, Martha, just stared at me. Then she said, “Interesting. Come with me.”
Then she was off, striding in those elegant towering high heels. I bet she could sprint in those suckers. It was like the whole world was her runway and she had places to be.
“Where are we going?” I asked, not quite jogging to keep up. Short legs sucked sometimes.
“You want to talk to Adam?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“Yes or no, Jill? I don’t have time to screw around.”
“Yes, I want to talk to him,” I said, brows drawn down. “I need to talk to him.”
The various dressing rooms and storerooms and who knew what else gave way to larger hallways. Props, lights, and all sorts of things sat in neat piles here and there. Plenty of people moved to and fro, and more just hung around. Out through a pair of big double doors, and we were in a tunnel with a couple of security guards waiting alongside a large, shiny black Mercedes Benz SUV.
Martha opened the car’s back door. Once more, her cell sat in her hand, her gaze glued to the screen. “Get in.”
I hesitated. Of course, I did. Because where I came from, being lured into vehicles by relative strangers was generally believed to be a bad thing. And this woman didn’t even have the decency to first offer me candy or a kitten.
“I repeat, I do not have time to screw around. In a little less than two minutes’ time, Adam will be rushed straight through the backstage area and out here to the car,” said Martha, sounding vaguely bored. “Your choices are either getting in said vehicle, or having Bon return you to the audience area. Which will it be?”
The security dude gave me a glance. Pretty sure those bulges beneath his suit coat weren’t from carrying an excess of chewing gum or Kleenex. Nope. Bon was packing. How insane this whole world was.
“Truth is, I shouldn’t even be doing this,” she continued. “But you’ve ever so slightly woken my cold dead heart. Turns out, I happen to know what it’s like to be in your position. Someone wrote an album about me once, too. Not what you’d call a pleasant experience.”
Huh. Though, in Martha’s case, I’d hazard a guess that any lyrics about grinding a guy’s heart beneath five-inch heels would be deadly accurate.
She tapped her foot against the concrete. “So?”
“Where will Adam be going?” I asked, stalling.
“Straight home, if I have anything to say about it. But I can’t guarantee that.” Her eyebrows bent with the merest hint of a frown. “Sometimes he can struggle to unwind after a show.”
Interesting. I resisted the urge to smile at the irony. I’d had trouble getting Adam off the couch. And now it seemed the new woman in his life had trouble keeping him there.
In all honesty, the whole situation was kind of doing my head in. Adam’s new life could officially be labeled: crazy town. Bodyguards and luxury cars and this terrifying woman running everything. Back when I knew him, all of a year ago, he’d owned exactly one pair of socks, and they both had holes in them. Not so sexy. You can guess what he got for Christmas that year. He spent his days writing songs or jamming with friends at various bars around town. Sometimes, he’d manage to get paid for a gig or land some delivery work at a pizza place. Do a few shifts behind the bar at a local club. But that was about as far as his behaving like a responsible adult went. He’d couch surfed for years, living with various friends and acquaintances, until he and I hooked up. Now this was his life.
Mind blown.
“You can talk to him on the drive to wherever he goes, then Mac will take you wherever you want,” said Martha. “In a couple of days, Adam’s on a plane to start the European leg of his tour. Trust me when I say this is the only opportunity you’re going to get to talk to him face-to-face in the foreseeable future. Do you want it or not?”