Behind the Strings Read online

  “Logan Kent, is he a good kisser?”

  My hand rose to my face and I could feel the warmth of my cheeks as she waved me closer. A picture of Logan and me sat clearly on the screen, but not the one I had seen before. From its surroundings, this one looked to be taken at Silver Horse Saloon, which I believe was our last stop of the night. I leaned in closer to get a better look, making sure I wasn’t seeing things wrong. That was me, all right, as close to Logan Kent as you could get without being lip to lip. My arms around his neck, his around my waist in the middle of the dance floor.

  “I…um…I don’t…” I stuttered as I stared harder.

  “It’s moments like this I wish we were a gossip magazine,” Frankie said. “People eat this kind of stuff up.”

  Her demeanor was nothing like I’d seen before. Very laid-back, yet excited. That uptight, show-no-emotion boss I’d known was nowhere to be found and to be honest, I found myself wishing she was there. At that moment I wanted to pull an Alex Mack and transform myself into a puddle so I could slither out of there quietly.

  “I’m so embarrassed. I really don’t remember that happening at all.”

  “Oh honey, it happens to the best of us. Honestly, I say ride it out for all it’s worth. What have you got to lose?”

  I gave her a half smile as I thought about it. What did I have to lose? My best friend…again.

  “Anyway, what I really called you in here for was to ask if you could spin your article a little bit to maybe include some unknown Logan Kent facts? You obviously have more inside knowledge then I thought and we could really use a leg up on the competition.”

  I nodded my head thinking it wouldn’t be too hard to get Logan to agree. I’m sure I had a few stories he’d let me include in a new write-up. I’d get him to agree to it tonight at dinner.

  When I left Frankie’s office, my legs were shaking. This was the second time in about a month the two of us had been photographed together. I had been in this industry long enough to know that was cause enough to be worthwhile of a story. Although I’d read plenty of that kind of story, I had no idea what it was to actually be newsworthy. So far though, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  I could hear Jaycie’s voice from around the corner. She had her work phone to her ear and raised her hand up to me once she saw I was there.

  “Actually,” she said, “hold on one second.”

  She placed the phone back down on the receiver.

  “You have a call on line two,” she said to me.

  “I do? Who is it?”

  “A reporter, calling to ask about your friend.” With an emphasis on the word “friend” and air quotes on her fingertips, she gave me a wink.

  “I’m busy, take a message. And we are just friends,” I said.

  “Mhmmm, that’s what they all say.”

  10

  Logan and I had planned to meet at a quiet restaurant right outside of Nashville. I’d been there a few times before, but this would be his first. It seemed a fitting place to hide from the reality of what was going on around us. I had lost count of the number of messages I had Jaycie take for me in the office. When they couldn’t get ahold of me by phone, the emails started coming in. There were the relationship ones: “How long have you and Logan been dating?” “Is it hard to have a relationship with someone always on the road?” And then there were the “I can’t believe they would even ask me that” ones that Jaycie and I gushed over. “Do you consider yourself a groupie?” “Is hooking up with musicians how you get your story?” “I thought Logan Kent was dating so-and-so, so that would make you the other woman, right?”

  It’s amazing the type of assumptions people come up with over one little picture. I could only imagine the number of blogs that picture was on by now and the captions underneath it. My stomach was churning just thinking about it. I may have liked to see my name on the bylines, but that was the extent of the level of celebrity I wanted. Gossip about my love life all over the Twitterverse was not my cup of tea.

  He was late again. Twenty-two minutes and forty-six seconds, to be exact. I had drunk a full glass of water and scarfed down two butter rolls by the time he walked through the door. The glare I shot him was enough for him to understand my frustration. If he did it again, I’d start to think it was a bad habit.

  “I know, I know, I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, “I had a radio interview that ran long.”

  I said nothing.

  “Please don’t be mad at me. I tried my best to get here as soon as I could.”

  I wasn’t mad, I needed answers I had spent the whole day wondering what the hell had happened that night. We did look pretty cozy in that picture the night before he woke up in my bed. Not that Logan had been one to lie, but he was always good at protecting me. Maybe he was keeping something that happened between us to himself so I didn’t get hurt. Once she noticed I was no longer alone, the waitress came by to take our orders. I waited until she was out of earshot before I started my interrogation.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. I had taken a screenshot of the picture earlier for easy access.

  “This picture,” I said, handing over my phone to him.

  He stared at it for a moment. A slight smirk crossed his face.

  “I can’t even believe someone got a picture of this,” he said. “What was the headline on this one?”

  To be honest, I couldn’t even remember what the first headline had been. I had been so caught off-guard by the picture, I don’t even think I looked. Right now, though, that didn’t matter. What mattered was what happened after that picture.

  “I thought we already talked about this,” Logan said.

  “I know we did, but we were both drinking that night, pretty heavily and I…”

  “And you think I’m lying to you? Celia do you really think I would sleep with you and just forget to mention it? After all these years, you think I’d want this to be the first time? You incoherent and me halfway there?”

  I could tell he was upset that I would even think that. I felt bad for the accusation, but breathed a sigh of relief that his original story was the same and the picture really was an innocent one. It was friends enjoying a night out on the dance floor. Logan tried to lighten the conversation by making a joke about how his publicist was going to kill him for that photo.

  “Just the thought of me having a girlfriend would freak her out. Two months with the same girl is not going to bode well for my ‘bad boy’ image. I can picture Ivy’s face so clear right now.” He laughed. “Her lips pursed together, arms crossed and eyes glaring at me. She’ll ask me what in the hell I was thinking, I’ll tell her I wasn’t and she’ll turn around with a heavy sigh, wondering what she’s going to do with me.”

  I guess he was used to it by now, but I was not. I sat back and swallowed hard. He could tell I didn’t find the humor in it. Reaching across the table, he squeezed my hand.

  “Oh come on, Celia, what’s the big deal? It’s just a picture. This is all way more about me than it is you. It’ll blow over in a week or two and the tabloids will be on to the next thing, I promise. It happens all the time.”

  “I really hope so,” I said. “This is not what I want my life to be like. A bunch of pictures in these cheesy magazines with my name being thrown around like a sleazy front-row groupie.”

  There probably could have been better words for me to choose that wouldn’t have sounded so harsh, but in the moment I wasn’t really thinking about it. It wasn’t until Logan’s face turned pale and his shoulders slunk back into his chair that I realized how awful I was being.

  “Well, I’m sorry that being in my life is so terrible,” he said.

  “No, Logan, I didn’t mean…”

  My apology was cut short when the waitress returned with our dinner. I wasn’t sure how much I could eat at that point; I had already shoved my foot in my mouth, and I wasn’t sure there was roo
m for much more.

  “Let’s just eat, okay? Forget about it,” Logan said as he cut his filet.

  The rest of dinner was extremely uncomfortable. Neither of us said a word. The only sound coming from our table was the occasional clinking of the fork on the plate. When the check came Logan pulled out his credit card faster than I could object and paid it. We walked through the restaurant side by side, still in silence until we stepped outside into the crisp night air.

  “Look, Logan, you’re leaving in the morning and I don’t want to leave it like this. It’s my fault anyway and I shouldn’t be getting mad at you.”

  We stopped in front of my car and he placed his hands on both of shoulders.

  “I’m sorry about the pictures, both of them. I really am. But if you want to be in my life, Celia, unfortunately, this is part of the game. The headlines, the rumors, the cameras, it all comes with me.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s just not something I’m used to.”

  “You’ve got to look at it this way. Those people, they want to make money. But me and you, we know the truth. The people who care about us, they know the truth. That’s the only thing that matters. Everything else, who cares?”

  I nodded. He kissed my forehead once again and we said our goodbyes. I sat in my car and watched him drive away. A vaguely familiar scenario filled my thoughts as his taillights faded away.

  11

  A week went by, then two. We were now into the beginning of September and the rumors surrounding Logan and his new “girlfriend” were still very much alive. People really knew how to do their research. In the beginning I earned titles like “mystery girl,” “overly excited groupie,” and “one-night stand.” Now the articles were starting to reference me by name. They knew where I grew up and what I did for a living. I had worked very hard to keep my ties severed from my father and prayed every day I wouldn’t wake up to someone figuring it out.

  I think that is what worried me the most. I could handle the relationship talk. I could handle the groupie accusations, but who I was? I couldn’t change that. I was the daughter of a rock star and a very well-known one at that. If they kept digging, it was very possible somebody was going to figure it out.

  Every day when I walked into work I could feel dozens of pairs of eyes gazing in my direction at all times. Whispers in the break room would quickly hush once I rounded the corner and I could just imagine the thoughts in everyone’s minds as the hours went on. There wasn’t much I could do except for smile, pour my coffee, and make a bee-line back to my desk, being thankful that today I was still only Celia Westbrooke, the lucky girl everyone thought was dating Logan Kent. Day after day I’d hold my breath when I opened the doors, hoping it would still be the same, no more than that, and so far it was. I drowned out the office debacle by wearing down the wood on my pencils with my teeth and pounding away at the keys on my laptop music streamed through the headphones in my ears. It seemed that while both had a way of calming my nerves, they also had a way of driving Jaycie to the brink of crazy. Two pencils and three blog write-ups later she was hovering over me and saving the life of pencil number three as she pulled it from my hand.

  “I’ll take that. You’ve killed enough trees today,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  I shook my head and she got the hint. She and my pencil went on their way back to her corner of the office, and I went back to my music. It wasn’t long, though, until I was interrupted again.

  “Hello! Earth to Celia,” a voice startled me from me behind.

  I turned around to see Frankie, arms crossed and foot tapping. The look on her face wasn’t of discontentment or malice, but more of sorrow and pity. My long fingers pulled the earphones from my ears and waited.

  “How are you doing, honey?” she asked.

  “I’m fine, really,” I said. “It’s all so silly.”

  “Are you sure? You look kind of pale. And those circles under your eyes…have you not been sleeping well?”

  Um, okay. What was next? Were there wrinkles in my blouse? Was my hair flat? Did I have two different-colored heels on? Go ahead, Frankie, twist that knife a little deeper here, I thought to myself.

  “I’m sleeping fine, actually.”

  “Okay, well if you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me.” Before she left me to my lonesome once again, her hand patted me gently on the top of my head as if to say “There, there, Celia.” A striking reminder of how obviously pathetic I seemed to be, as if I hadn’t had enough of them already today.

  I untangled the earphones that lay limp next to my landline and placed them back into my ears once again to finish streaming this week’s country releases. Each song that passed I hoped would be the one to finally mask the meddling thoughts of what my life had become but, right in the middle of the newest Chris Young song, I was interrupted again by Jaycie, who was no longer accepting of my silence. She had rolled her chair over to me and stared relentlessly until I hit the pause button.

  “Liar,” she said.

  I shot a glare in her direction. A few moments of silence had passed before I was able to muster up any words.

  “And what do you think I’m lying about?”

  “You’re not fine, I can tell,” she said.

  I thrashed the earphones down onto my desk as I turned my chair to face her.

  “No, I’m not, but there’s no use in whining about it, so let’s just forget it,” I snapped.

  Jaycie’s eyes widened as she shook her head.

  “How about we not and go get some lunch?” she said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well I am,” she said as she bounced up from her chair. Before I knew it she was pulling me from mine, dragging me through the hallway and out the door into the mid-afternoon sunshine.

  12

  The warmth of the sun was perfect for lunch outside on one of my favorite patios over in the Gulch. Jaycie and I sipped on glasses of sangria while waiting to devour our skillet nachos. I hadn’t stopped talking the entire ride over to the Gulch for fear that the conversation would turn to Logan. I talked about the scenery we were passing, the new shoes Jaycie was wearing, and even the dogs that were panting around us. It was only a matter of time, I knew, and as soon as I stuffed that first bite of nachos in my mouth, there was an opening.

  “So have you talked to Logan at all?” Jaycie asked.

  I shook my head. We had exchanged mostly texts over the last few weeks. None of them good or bad, just generic “it’s all gonna be okay” and “try to ignore it” from his end. I didn’t want to seem too out of sorts so I would reply back with “no worries” and “I’ve got this.” Whether or not he believed me was another story, but I tried my best to be convincing.

  “I can’t imagine what it’s like being thrust into the spotlight like you have. I’m sure it’s unsettling and you have a right to be upset. I just don’t think you should take it out on Logan, that’s all. You of all people should know, in journalism you do whatever you can to sell a story.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said as I shoved another nacho in my mouth.

  “Are you sure this is all that’s bothering you? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  I shrugged. I had no answer. Jaycie and I had confided a lot in each other over the last couple of years, but I had yet to tell her about my past. She, like so many others, had no idea who my father was. And even though I knew I could trust her, I wasn’t ready to explain it all to her yet.

  “Can we talk about something else, please?” I begged.

  Jaycie turned the subject to other office drama. Who was mad at whom for stealing their yogurt from the fridge, who was caught making out in the copy room and who was secretly dating (though really not so secretly). I laughed at her impersonations as she went through each story, wondering how she had so much detailed information and I knew nothing about any of it.

  “My dad i
s a private investigator, remember?” Jaycie said. “Totally not as exciting as all those shows you see on TV, but he did teach me a thing or two about reading people and paying attention to my surroundings.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said looking around a bit before I leaned in closer to whisper. “What do you see around us now? Anything exciting?”

  She scanned the crowd for a minute. First she started with a couple around our age.

  “They are on their first, maybe second date. Conversation is still awkward. See how she’s tapping her fingers together, desperately trying to think of anything to break the silence. And he takes constant sips of his drink as an excuse for not talking.”

  I laughed as I sat there analyzing the two of them. Jaycie’s assumption made perfect sense. I was actually feeling awkward for them, but the entertainment was just what I needed to take my mind off of this whole Logan thing.

  Panning the rooftop for our next target, I pointed to a young boy, maybe two or three. He was munching on a French fry across from a girl too occupied by her cell phone to care that his face was smothered in ketchup.

  “That has to be his nanny. I’m gonna say a live-in one because of the accent and she’s holding the keys to a Jag. With no ring on her finger or a single designer on her whole body? No way that’s hers.”

  Right as I was about to point to another casualty, I caught Jaycie’s eyes widen as she peered to the side of us. She slowly but stiffly placed her drink back on the table and clenched her fists.

  “Do not look to your left,” she said to me.

  “What? Why?” I said, of course looking to my left.

  There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary I could see, but we were in the middle of the lunchtime rush and it had become quite busy. It would be impossible for me to find what I didn’t know I was looking for and I was shocked that Jaycie actually caught it.

  “Look at him, all jazzed up in a blue collared shirt hiding behind those sunglasses like we wouldn’t notice him. Either he texts in a very weird position or he’s totally trying to nonchalantly take pictures of you.”