Page 25 of Wild Infatuation (Rebel Rockstars #3)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Terrance

THE TEXT STARTLES ME awake.

I want to see you.

My heart rate goes from resting to racing so fast it’s a wonder I don’t faint even lying in bed. I respond with trembling fingers. Tonight?

Sure. My place.

Just like that, I have another inexplicable date with Shawn. My heart can’t handle this cycle of silence, then desire, then silence, but I know I’ll say yes every time. No matter how Shawn pulls away, I’ll run to him whenever he comes back.

I dare not focus on that as I get ready for work. It’s going to be a long day at the salon. I hope I can focus on trimming bangs and cutting off split ends while knowing I’ll see Shawn tonight, but it’s going to be a struggle.

As I drive down the highway, I can’t help wondering what inspired this change.

I know about the dinner with Olivia. The pictures made it onto Discord almost immediately.

The whole server was abuzz with news about Shawn going out with the same woman for a second time.

They’re becoming more certain she’s his girlfriend, but I’m not so sure myself.

The others on the server think it’s because I’m obsessed with the guy; they have no idea my uncertainty stems from our sporadic, explosive encounters.

I get why everyone believes Olivia and Shawn are dating.

They certainly look like a couple in those restaurant photos.

But no one knows how Shawn looks when he stalks toward me with desire darkening his eyes.

He’s never thrown them onto their own bed and ravished them.

They see nothing but those photographs, but I’ve glimpsed the truth.

Not to mention … some of the pictures that came out yesterday were kind of odd.

I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten to know Shawn better than most people.

He’s stiff in a lot of the photos, especially the ones where him and Olivia are standing outside the restaurant.

His arm is around her shoulders, but to me he looks like he’s bracing.

Then there’s that one particularly odd photo.

In a snap, Olivia and Shawn go from standing on the sidewalk with their arms around each other to standing a full step apart.

If the photographer was constantly snapping, that implies they suddenly, almost violently broke apart.

A few photos later, they get in a car together like nothing happened.

I don’t know what to make of it. Once again, I only have pieces of the truth, and I doubt Shawn will fill in the gaps.

He’s volunteered nothing extra so far. It was a publicity thing.

That’s the most he’s ever said on the matter, and the only words I have to reassure me that I’m not helping him cheat on his girlfriend.

I don’t believe he’d do that to Olivia, but maybe that’s my eternal optimism at work again.

I’ll get a chance to talk to him tonight. Theoretically, at least. We haven’t historically been very good at using our mouths for talking during these rendezvous…

I make it to work in a daze, driving on autopilot and parking behind the salon. I get out of the car, head still buzzing with thoughts of Shawn, and make for Saluxe like a sleepwalker.

I never reach the door.

A man jumps into my path, blocking my way.

At first, I think it must be an accident, but when I attempt to side step around him, he moves with me.

A pedestrian passes us on the sidewalk, and the man lets her hurry by, yet any direction I dart, he keeps on following.

He’s not large, but neither am I, so it’s not like I’m going to shoulder my way through him.

My anxiety spikes as he reaches in his pocket, but all he removes is an ordinary phone.

“Sorry, can I help you?” I say.

“I’m Blaine, with the Star. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I flutter through blinks. The Star? As in, The Star Times, that celebrity gossip rag?

I take a closer look. He has dark hair shaved along the sides, kind of like Shawn’s hair, but shorter.

He’s tall, though not towering, with a clean-shaved face and dark eyes.

He’s familiar, but I can’t place him. If he’s a reporter, maybe I’ve seen him in the background of press photos, but that’s my best guess.

Then again, if he’s a reporter, why is he stopping me of all people?

“I’m sorry, I think you might have me mistaken with someone else,” I say. I’m not the most memorable-looking guy on the planet, and I’m certainly no one a reporter would have any interest in.

“Are you Terrance? Terrance Livingston?”

I gape. “Yes, but—”

“Then you’re exactly who I’m looking for.” He taps at his phone screen and holds the device out like a recorder. “What can you tell me about your recent interactions with Shawn McKay of Baptism Emperor?”

My eyes widen. I clench my teeth, holding back a scream and all the words behind it.

He said “recent interactions,” so maybe this is a lucky guess, but how?

How could anyone know about us? We’ve always seen each other in secret.

I haven’t said a word to anyone … except Penelope that one time, but she wouldn’t tell anyone.

She’d never break my trust like that. No, I absolutely refuse to believe that. However this happened, it wasn’t her.

I’m not sure how long I pause, probably long enough to be suspicious. When I remember myself, I swallow hard and try my best to sound nonchalant.

“Sorry, I don’t know what you’re—”

“Is he cheating on his girlfriend? Is he bisexual?”

I can’t help blinking like a fool again.

This guy doesn’t mess around with the foreplay.

He cuts right to the heart of the matter, right to all of Shawn’s worst fears.

Yet again, I wonder how this could be happening.

Where did we go wrong? We’ve been so careful this entire time.

Even my fan Discord hasn’t said anything about the possibility of Shawn seeing someone other than Olivia, and they would hear it first if there was even a whiff of that sort of news circulating.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“I think you do.”

“You’re wrong, then. I’m a cosmetologist. I’m actually on my way to work, so I don’t have time for this.”

I try to get around the guy, but he once again cuts into my path, his phone looking more and more like a cudgel as he holds it up between us.

“Oh, I know all about your job,” he says. “You worked on the music video, didn’t you? Is that where you and Shawn met? Did something happen on the set?”

It takes an effort to keep my jaw from hitting the sidewalk. How much does this guy know? And how ? Either someone within the band is leaking information, or this reporter has a superhuman level of intuition.

“I worked on the music video,” I say, hoping to appease him, “but it was just a job, entirely professional. I would never cross the line with a client.”

It’s a lie, of course, but I don’t know how else to get myself out of this. Maybe if I give this reporter a kernel of information, he’ll take the scrap and leave.

No such luck.

“So you were the makeup artist at the music video shoot. And you say nothing happened? What about afterward? Are you still in contact with Shawn? Have you ever spoken with Olivia? What does she think of this?”

My mouth works, but no words come out. Blaine has plenty to supply in my stead.

“Does the band know about Shawn? Have any of them approached you about your relationship with their guitarist?”

Relationship. The word leaves me stunned, but thankfully, that’s when the cavalry finally arrives.

Before I can do more than squeak with surprise, someone grabs me by the arm and yanks me around Blaine and his terrifying phone-cudgel. They pull me down the sidewalk and throw me into the salon.

The second we’re inside, Penelope shuts and locks the door.

Blaine bangs his palm against the glass and shouts a question at the door, but Penelope flips him off and pulls me deeper into the salon.

She drags me all the way to the supply closet in the back and stuffs me inside, shutting the door after us.

“Our clients,” I say weakly. “The front desk girl isn’t even here yet.”

“You’ve got bigger problems than your clients, Terrance. What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” I say helplessly. “I got out of my car and suddenly there he was, shoving his phone in my face and asking a bunch of weird questions.”

“Questions such as…”

I lower my voice even though we’re in the closet. “He kept asking about Shawn.”

Penelope’s eyes go wide. “Shawn? Why? What did he say?”

I relay some of the questions, but they’re a jumble in my head. This whole morning has been a roller coaster, from the high of Shawn asking to see me to the low of whatever just happened outside the salon.

“Shit,” Penelope says when I finish. “Someone must have seen you.”

“How? We’ve never done anything in public. When I go to his place, I park in the garage and take the elevator from there. I never step outside. And when he came to me, I’m sure there were no paparazzi. They would have parked outside the apartment complex. There’s nowhere to hide there.”

“Well, someone clearly saw or heard something,” Penelope says. “That guy knows way too much.”

I rub my forehead as a headache blooms behind my eyes. “How? I don’t understand.”

Penelope reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. “Maybe you should get out of here for the day.”

“But my clients.”

“Reschedule them. If you stay, that reporter will hang around all day, and others might show up. This place will be a circus. You won’t manage to work anyway.”

The gravity of the situation falls on my shoulders like an anvil. In a blink, my perfect day is in tatters, and all I can do is run away from it.

“You’re right,” I concede.

Penelope gives my shoulder another squeeze before peeking out of the closet.

When she confirms Blaine the reporter has wandered off to his next victim, she waves for me to follow her out.

But before we make it to the door, a new figure appears at the glass, a huge man all in black.

His glasses seem almost absurd among his bulging muscles and rugged beard.

When Penelope unlocks the door, he looks right past her at me.

“Let’s go,” he says. “We’re leaving.”

It takes me a moment to recognize him.

“Seth?”

He nods, and my eyes feel like they might pop out of my head. Seth isn’t just Baptism Emperor’s head of security; he’s also the lead singer’s boyfriend. If he’s here, things have gotten way more serious than I realized.

“My car,” I say weakly.

“Someone will retrieve it. Keys.”

I pass over my keys without thinking. Seth clutches them — then me.

His hand is enormous around my scrawny arm, and when he tugs, I’m helpless to resist. I shoot Penelope one wide-eyed look, but all she can do is shrug as Baptism Emperor’s bodyguard hauls me out of the salon and toward a car sitting at the curb.

And just like that, my entire day gets turned upside down.

When Seth drives away from the salon, I have no idea where he’s taking me, but I also have no choice but to go.