Rock All Night(58)

Derek noticed, though. “Why are you acting all weird?”

“Because I look terrible!”

“You look hot.”

“Liar – ”

But then he grabbed me right there in front of the hotel and planted an enormous kiss on me that made me weak in the knees.

I didn’t mind the ‘no makeup’ thing so much after that.

On Derek’s insistence (and because my grumbling stomach didn’t put up much of a fight), we walked to the nearest diner and slid side-by-side into a booth.

Before we’d even ordered breakfast, though, I started to get my first real inkling of just how famous Derek was.

For one, the thirty-something waitress freaked out when she realized who she was serving, and asked if she could get a picture with him. He graciously complied.

Then I noticed at least four other nearby customers taking pictures of him with their smart phones.

I expected it in settings like a rock concert. I mean, after all, thousands of people had paid to come see him. Of course they were going to lose their minds if he walked by (or jumped in their convertible, as we’d done last night).

And fancy hotels with paparazzi camped outside? Same general principle.

But now we were back in the real world, and people were still losing their minds.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked.

“What?”

“The constant…”

I was about to say attention, and then I remembered who I was talking to.

He thrived on attention.

So I changed it a little.

“…feeling that you’re on display in a zoo, and everybody’s looking at you.”

He laughed. “That’s very Slaughterhouse-Five of you.”

For those who don’t know, Slaughterhouse-Five is probably the most famous book by Kurt Vonnegut. Although it’s an anti-war story about the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, it’s also a science fiction novel. Among other insane plot points, the main character and a woman he’s never met get abducted by aliens and put in a zoo on the aliens’ home planet, where the extraterrestrials watch them exactly like humans would watch a pair of chimpanzees in a cage here on Earth.

And, yeah, I did have Slaughterhouse-Five in mind when I said it.

Figures that Mr. ‘I’m a rock dude but I know the collected works of Chaucer’ would call me out on a Kurt Vonnegut allusion.

“Aren’t you so smart,” I said.

“Don’t they call that plagiarism?”

“Allusions aren’t plagiarism, jackass.”

He laughed. “Touchy, touchy.”

“I’ll show you touchy,” and I launched into a tickle-attack.

He turned it right back on me, though, and had me almost crying with laughter in seconds.

“Okay, okay, cut it out, you win,” I gasped.

“You know, tickling led to something else last night,” he purred in my ear.

“Yeah, not gonna happen,” I said, smacking his roaming hands.

“We could really get all Slaughterhouse-Five,” he teased me.

By the way, in that alien zoo? The two characters were naked. And though they started out strangers, they eventually ended up having sex. And since they were always on display, they basically had to have sex in front of an audience.

I assumed that was what he was referring to.

“NO,” I said forcefully.

He grinned. “I never get to have no fun…”

“You’ve had plenty of fun, mister. And you didn’t answer the question.”

“Oh, is this Journalism Time?” he asked mockingly.

“Yeah,” I taunted him right back, “this is Journalism Time.”

He looked around at the various restaurant patrons obviously whispering about us and trying to surreptitiously take pictures.

“Enh,” he shrugged. “You get used to it. Besides, I love getting up on stage – this is just kind of an extension of that.”

“Speaking of getting up on stage, Miles is going to kill us,” I said worriedly.

“He’s going to kill you. I’m his meal ticket,” Derek joked.

“This isn’t funny – we have to call them – ”

“Alright, alright. After breakfast, okay? Let me have that much time alone with you, at least.”

Awwwww…

I melted a little bit, and didn’t mention Miles again until after we left the restaurant.





47




I brought the band’s manager back up as we walked out of the diner and down the street. We were passing by a car dealership, and it was hard to keep Derek’s attention with all the pretty, shiny things on display.

“Derek, we have to call Miles,” I pleaded.

“I can’t,” he said as he walked over to a beautiful, gleaming sports car.

“What do you mean, you can’t?”


“I don’t know his phone number.”

“What?!”

“I don’t have everybody’s phone number memorized.”

“He’s your manager! If you’re not going to carry a cell phone, shouldn’t you at least know his number?!”

Derek shrugged again. “He always finds me. I never want to find him.”