Page 4 of Wild Infatuation (Rebel Rockstars #3)

Chapter Four

Terrance

IT’S BEEN A COUPLE weeks since the signing, and I still haven’t taken that autographed shirt out of my bag.

It goes with me everywhere … and by “everywhere” I mean home and the salon and home again.

When Penelope at the salon spies the shirt poking out of my bag one day, she finally asks me about the meet and greet.

“So, it went well, huh?” she says with a sly smile.

I leap on the opportunity to show off my Baptism Emperor swag, shameless as I pry the shirt out of my bag and hold it up proudly to display the signatures. Penelope’s mouth quirks toward laughter, but then her eyebrows knit and she cocks her head to one side.

“Aren’t there five of them?” she says.

“Yes?”

She points at the shirt. “You only have four names on there.”

A cold flush of panic washes through me. I turn the shirt around, the shirt I’ve been carrying everywhere for weeks. And there it is. Four names. Dan, Levi, Keannen. Shawn. And nothing more.

I don’t realize I’m gaping at my shirt until Penelope pats my shoulder. “How did you manage to miss the lead singer of your favorite band? That is truly impressive, even for you.”

“I … I don’t know,” I stammer.

That’s not true. I know exactly how it happened.

Jacob sat to the right of Shawn at the signing table.

Shawn was the fourth band member in line.

Once I approached Shawn, I forgot about everything else, even the lead singer, sitting right there next to him.

Getting to speak with Shawn for even a few brief moments fried my brain so hard that I missed out on Baptism Emperor’s frontman, the guy in the dead center of the shirt, the guy who does most of the talking, the dude whose face is always the largest in promo material.

I am the world’s biggest idiot.

“I can’t believe I missed him,” I say numbly.

Penelope gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I can.”

I jerk my gaze up to meet hers. “Huh?”

Her smirk is all too knowing. “Is it possible Shawn was the last signature you got?”

I flush before I can stop the heat from blooming in my cheeks. She saw right through me in a matter of moments.

She doesn’t need me to respond. She flops into her empty appointment chair, and I pack my incomplete shirt away and do likewise.

It’s the middle of the day, right when all the office workers are stuck at their jobs and it’s too early for afternoon appointments.

We’ll get a few minutes of peace before anyone comes here looking for a hair or makeup appointment, but I struggle to relax.

My embarrassment is the only thing available to fill the emptiness in the salon.

There isn’t even a receptionist here at such a quiet hour, and the other stylists and cosmetologists won’t arrive until later, when business picks up for all of us.

“I guess that means you had a good time,” Penelope says.

There’s no use denying it, though I duck my head as I reply. “Yeah…”

“Was he everything you hoped he’d be?”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, partly because I’ve seen Shawn so many times and so many ways.

I’m not discovering him for the first time like a lot of fans.

His quiet nature came as no surprise. The only difference was the ability to get so close, to stand a table’s width away from him.

I never dared approach back in all those dive bars, and I couldn’t hope to reach him during the tour.

Still, if I had to describe the experience… He was exactly what I expected, exactly what I’ve known for the past several years. There’s no front or pretense with him. I don’t think he could fake it for the cameras even if he wanted to.

“He was … himself,” I say.

Penelope nods in understanding. “Well, sure, you’ve been following him obsessively for how long now?”

“Not obsessively .”

She fixes me with a look.

“Okay, but I’m not some pyscho stalker or something.”

“Does he know that?”

“Yes … probably.”

I have no idea what Shawn thinks of me, most likely nothing. Why would a rockstar think about me? Though … I could swear recognition flashed in his eyes when I walked up to that table, like all those times he caught my eyes across a dark dive bar. It’s probably my “obsessive” imagination.

“Just don’t get yourself on the news,” Penelope says.

She’s probably referring to the incident that happened at the end of the meet and greet.

It was all over the local news. One of the bodyguards apparently got a bit handsy with Jacob, resulting in a scuffle that briefly wiped out the band’s entire security team.

One of their bodyguards, Seth, returned, and now things seem to be going better for the group.

Seth certainly is keeping a very close eye on Jacob.

A close and personal eye … which was a whole scandal of its own.

All of which to say: They probably aren’t looking to land in the news for that sort of thing a second time. It caused a lot of havoc for a lot of people, so if Shawn or the others got the same idea about me, I’d probably be banned from every future concert and meet and greet.

That hasn’t stopped me from following the band, however.

In fact, almost the second I got home from that meet and greet, I saw them advertising for makeup and hair people for their upcoming music video, and I impulsively applied.

There’s no shot I’ll actually get the job, but it doesn’t hurt to throw my name out there.

It cost me nothing but a few minuets of uploading my portfolio and resume.

Anyway, none of that matters. I’ll never get closer to Shawn than I did at that meet and greet, and now my life will go back to normal.

In fact, it’s going back to normal already.

Penelope and I rise as our brief grace period ends.

The receptionist arrives, as well as a couple other cosmetologists renting chairs at Saluxe.

We all get to work as the busiest parts of the day kick off.

I have a few hair appointments, but fortunately there’s a makeup appointment wedged in there as well.

I prefer makeup, but it isn’t going to pay the bills on its own, not unless I get several miracle jobs like the Baptism Emperor music video.

I scoff at myself in the midst of trimming a little girl’s bangs. Her mom shoots me a look, but stuff like this is so routine my mind can’t help but wander.

I won’t even get one miracle Baptism Emperor music video gig, let alone enough to cover my rent. It’s better to focus on the task at hand.

The little girl hops out of the chair when I finish and take her cape off.

Mom might be pissed enough about that laugh to take it out on me in the form of a lower tip, but I put my head down and sweep up stray hair instead of thinking about it.

We all have to amuse ourselves somehow, don’t we?

Maybe Mom will go to Penelope next time her kid requires a trim.

I get through that entire day, and the next day, and even the one after that.

I start leaving my signed shirt behind out of sheer embarrassment, but every time I come home and see it hanging up on my wall I can’t help thinking about that missing signature.

Even so long after the signing, I can’t believe I was actually so distracted by the same dark eyes that have pinned me so many times.

They were a lot closer that time, but that’s no excuse for missing an entire lead singer.

Then I make the mistake of checking my phone before work one day.

Most of the emails I field are about appointments, so at first it doesn’t even register that there’s something unusual in my work inbox. I read the address again and again, blinking like it might vanish off my screen. The sender reads rainiertalentmanagement.com.

I click on the email with a shaking finger, my morning (ish, it’s almost ten) coffee sitting like a brick in my stomach.

My eyes flicker over the email that appears on my screen. I have to read it twice more to get through it, my mouth hanging open the whole time.

“No fucking way,” I breathe.

Then I’m flying to my car. There’s virtually zero traffic heading south toward Seattle this late in the morning, all the office workers having arrived hours ago, so I speed with abandon toward the city.

I barely manage to slow myself down once I exit the highway and join the smaller side streets that lead to Saluxe.

I jump out of my car the second I park, charging toward the salon like a maniac. Penelope startles when I burst through the doors, nearly dropping her phone.

“I got it,” I say.

She blinks and shakes her head. “Sorry, what?”

“I got it!”

She rises slowly from her chair, like I’m a wild animal that might attack if she moves too quickly. “Terrance, slow down. Breathe. Is anyone hurt? Is this bad or good? I’m getting mixed signals here.”

“No one’s hurt,” I say, panting like I ran ten miles and not a few feet. “It’s good. It’s so good.”

“Okay, what’s so good?”

“I got it.”

This time, I hold up my phone. Penelope squints and comes closer, her eyes flickering back and forth as she reads the email I received this morning. Then those eyes fly wide, and my phone clatters to the floor as she tackles me in a hug.

“You got it,” she screams in my ear. “Oh my God, you got it.”

We jump and hug and scream, and when it passes, I’m just as shaky as I’ve been for the past hour. Because I got it. I got the Baptism Emperor job. It’s going to be me doing their hair and makeup on the set of their new music video.

The miracle gig isn’t a miracle. It’s real. It’s happening.

“You know what this means,” Penelope says. “You’ve finally got a chance to get your man.”

Heat floods up my neck. “That’s not why I applied.”

“I know, I know. And you’re a damn good cosmetologist. You deserve this. But you can’t deny that you’re going to be very, very close to him for a couple days at the very least.”

I swallow, not daring to respond. She isn’t wrong. I’m not going to watch Shawn from the back of some dark bar. I won’t even stand across a table from him. If I need to do his makeup, that means I need to be right there in his face, touching him.

Touching him.

I start trembling all over again. If my heartrate has lowered at all this morning, it’s right back up to “heart attack.” I can’t give in to those thoughts, however.

Even if this was some other band, it would be a massive opportunity, a chance to transition my career toward my true passion instead of sticking to kids’ trims. I have to walk in there and act like a professional, no matter how hard my heart is pounding when I have my hands on the man I’ve fantasized about for several years.

“Do you realize how close you’re about to get to him?” Penelope says.

I do, and suddenly it terrifies me to my core.