Jahleel (39 page)

“Okay,” I agreed in a breathy voice, watching his lips, wanting to kiss him, but knew it was off limits…for now. Six months from now, I could taste those lips.

Chad retrieved his cellphone, dialled off a number, and told whoever answered on the other end, “Retiring. Shut down.”

Then he wrapped an arm around my waist, led me to his bedroom, and we did just what he decreed.

Chapter Twenty-Two

D
reams have ended
In the black of the night
Tears she cried
Let her heart die

Hopes have faltered
When blue velvet skies
Swallowed whole a silver line
Fate’s far, no more

Tonsils swollen
Eyes undead
Her tears for her
Her curses for him

Nose engorged
Eyes rim red
Her tears for her
Her curses for him

Is he happy?
She doesn’t fight.
Is she happy?
He doesn’t fight.

Fortune and her wheel
Icarus and his sun
Nature and her wind
Moth and his flame

Tonsils swollen
Eyes undead
Her tears for her
Her curses for him

Nose engorged
Eyes rim red
Her tears for her
Her curses for him

Curses for him
Curses for him
Her tears for her
Her curses for him

But who?
WHO gives a fuck?!

I belted out the last line with a feral roar, putting heavy emphasis on the swearword then dropping it in the mike with a sharp, abrupt end, the electrical waves of that last line traveling in echoes over the arena.

The crowd waited with bated breath, unsure if that was the end of the song, or something else was coming, as this was yet another new song I dropped at the end of a show.

One, two, three seconds passed, and when the audience realized this was the end, an uproar of screaming and whistling erupted.

I grinned out at the crowd, at the masses of fan-made posters with my name on them. ‘We love you Saskia Day!’, ‘You are my idol!’ ‘You fucking ROCK!’ ‘Be my BFF! Please!’ were just a few of the praises I could make out.

Crossing my forearms, I gave them my signature bow and started off stage. “Now, you all know how I say goodbye, don’t you?”

The crowd raved, bellowing my signature goodbye before I even began. I waited until the clamour abated, then began, “Sweden, this was…”

The crowd picked up, “Bloody awesome!!”

“This was…”

“Bloody awesome!!!”

Moving back as the spotlight dimmed on stage, I shouted, “Sweden, I
said
, this was…”

“MotherfuckingAwesome!!!!!!”

The lights went out, the crowd went nuts, and I bounced off stage.

The microphone was immediately pried from my hand. A hand-towel replaced its position, and a water bottle was shoved in my other hand, while roadies fussed around me removing ear-mikes and wirings.

Once I was free, the tour manager, Mikael, took me by the elbow and propelled me down the hall heading to the exit with Thomas and John flanking us. We couldn’t linger a second longer if we wanted to make it to our next destination in time for tomorrow night’s show.

“Did Manda make it back?” I asked Mikael as we got to the back door.

The guards there promptly opened it, and Mikael guided me out as he answered, “Yeah. Zane dropped her off an hour ago. She’s out cold on the bus.”

At the sound of his voice, a contradictory combination of gravelly and velvety, I peeked up at his profile and smiled.

My usual tour manager was a lanky lesbian brunette named Melissa. But this time, it was Mikael, hired behind my back by Lion. All the time Lion and I planned this tour, I thought he was passing on my requests to Melissa, so one might imagine my surprise to see Mikael the morning before we left.

Lion had some underlying intention when he hired Mikael, I believed.

At around six four, Mikael was a sight. He was all muscles, not the steroid-ridden type, but the scrumptious, I-want-to-rake-my-nails-all-over you type. He had buzzed dark hair, dazzling blue eyes, perfect white teeth and a commanding alpha attitude. He wore black, only black, and spoke only when necessary.

But surprisingly enough, even though his attraction to me was obvious, I kept things on a professional level, disregarding his hot bod and good looks, remembering Chad’s command to focus on work and block out all irrelevancies. So that’s what I did for the past three months I’ve been on tour.

“I can feel your eyes on me, you know,” Mikael said in that damn arousal-awakening voice as we approached the bus.

Thomas and John split up behind us, going around the bus to check the tires and for lurking lunatics.

“So?” I shot back. “I can’t look at the badass in black who’s guiding me by the elbow? Maybe you should consider wearing a mask like Batman.” I twisted my mouth to the side, “Hmm, but people would stare twice as much then, wouldn’t they?”

Like hell if I couldn’t look at a hot guy! Not after being single and stuck on the road with absolutely no intention of getting entangled. I was, of course, looking forward to going home to Chad. We could be something together. But that was three months from now. So until then, I pleasured my eyeballs with whatever eye-candy was in sight, going by the rule ‘look but don’t touch’.

In the darkness of the night, I might have glimpsed the mighty Mikael roll his eyes, but I wasn’t sure.

To change the topic, he said, “Lion said to tell you, and I quote, ‘save those fuckin’ new songs for the next album’.” We reached the bus and he opened the door. “You’ve sang about fifteen new songs since you started the tour. And they’re all incredibly good. Billboard potential.”

My turn to roll my eyes. “Tell Lion not to worry. When you have a broken heart, lyrics come to you in abundance.”

When I made to enter the bus, I only got one step up, because Mikael was still holding onto me. I peered over my shoulder at him to find him staring at his hand on my arm.

Catching himself, he let go of me and cleared his throat.

As I got another step up, he called, “Saskia?”

“Yeah?” I turned around.

“Whoever he was,” he said, staring me in the eyes, “he didn’t deserve you. And he doesn’t deserve those songs you keep singing for him. He doesn’t even deserve your curses.”

He does
.

Breaking eye contact, I lied, “I know.”

Mikael looked down at his scuffed black boots and stuffed his hands in his front pockets, then looked back at me. “You were amazing tonight.”

“Thanks.”

We stood without a word for another awkward minute until he cleared his throat again. “You go get some sleep. I’ve gotta help Thomas and John prepare to get outta here.”

I continued on into the bus and he closed the door behind me. Loud snoring came from Amanda, Jamie and Amy’s sections as I moved down the aisles and went straight to my room at the back, diving into bed, clothes and all.

Feeling inexplicably content.

Going on tour immediately after you’ve had your heart broken was probably the most curative prescription there was. God bless those who’s got the luxury to do so.

See, after watching the man you love choose another woman, leaving you feeling worthless, pointless, without value, with a bruised ego and shattered confidence, nothing could be more therapeutic than getting up on a stage where people, masses, strangers, admirers, are all chanting
your
name, screaming and hollering their love and devotion for
you
. Reminding you of your worth, your value, inflating your ego and boosting your confidence. Feeling fucking
loved. Idolized
.

So what if one undeserving asshole didn’t?

Forget him. He was nothing. Something small, minuscule in a life that was great, awesome, grand and extraordinary. Damn straight I didn’t need him for my happiness.

About a month after I left for tour, I received an email from him, titled, ‘You Were My Sheba.’ In the body of the email was a link to the film ‘
Solomon’,
which he abridged to focus on just the love story between Solomon and Sheba.

Apparently King Solomon, a man of great wealth, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, but only one woman whom he truly loved: Sheba, Queen from another land. Solomon gave her everything she desired, except the one thing beyond his control: making their son heir to the throne. So Sheba left him and went back to her land.

Highlighted below the link in the mail, was a line Solomon spoke to Sheba, “
You are the Queen to my King. I sought you ever since I was a youth. Without knowing what it is I was seeking.
”

What did he mean by that email? I had no idea. Or maybe I didn’t care. He chose Krissy over me. With nothing but an apologetic glance. The email held no tone of apology, nor intimated he wanted me back. Therefore, I didn’t see its purpose. My days of trying to figure him out were over.

Everyone had a breaking point, and that was mine. There would be no reconciling.

Even as I came to this resolution, I fumbled under my pillow for the iPod I kept there, one song on repeat for the last three months. Sticking the earplugs in, the sweet melody of A Great Big World’s ‘
Say Something
’ lulled me to sleep.

A month later, we were all lounging and idle-chatting about nothing of relevance during our long drive to Tucson.

Amanda was cross-legged on a sofa, and I laid with my head in her lap. Amy and Jamie were sitting across from us—Jamie staring unabashedly at Mikael, where he sat working at a table at the front of the bus.

Jamie had a serious crush on him, but he hadn’t so much as smiled at her. Poor girl. I knew all too well what it was like to be ignored.

Somehow the conversation landed on whose name? Yep. Jahleel Bloody Kingston. Thanks to frigging Amy.

With a groan, I turned on Amanda’s lap and pressed my face to her stomach.

Please, no. I did not want to hear his name. But Jamie and Amy kept babbling, because, of course, they had no clue what happened between us, and telling them was out of the question. So I kept quiet while they babbled on about the show he judged on.

“…and TMZ wrote, JK owns that show like Michael Jackson owns the moonwalk.”

Tired of people giving undue credit to that arseshit, I flipped over and glared at them. “He can’t own a show that’s not about him. It’s about the goddamn contestants! He just sits behind a bloody desk giving opinions nobody gives a crap about, because he’s
no one
.”

Jamie and Amy blinked at me, looked at each other, then back at me. “You haven’t been watching the show, have you?”