Chapter Two
Susie tried to keep up with her boss as he hurried from the auditorium bathroom. She went to stuff the brown toupee into her bag. When Jonathan yanked on her wrist, she lost her grip on the hair piece, and it fell to the ground.
“Yikes,” she said quickly and made to stop.
Jonathan stopped when she did and turned impatiently back at her. “What is it?”
“I dropped your hair thing.” She pointed behind her.
Jonathan looked at his watch and then back over her shoulder. “Leave it. After I do this documentary, I’ll go get a new one. This one could make us a bundle.”
“I thought you said that the guy wasn’t interested in a documentary,” she said slightly winded. “Why are you even here?”
“Because, you nit wit, I’m going to convince him that this is exactly what he wants. Once Jarrod Stone sees what I can do for him and his career, I’ll have him eating out of the palm of my hand.”
“But why am I here? Besides to bring your hair ... thing?”
“You’re my assistant. You’re here to assist me.”
Susie glanced down at her tie-dyed sweatshirt that had a white peace symbol on the back and her plain well-worn blue jeans. She’d made the trip not expecting to be sitting in on meeting with him. She was way too tired to be taking dictation that made any sense.
“What exactly am I supposed to assist you with?” she asked even more winded than before.
“You need to distract Greg Chambers while I talk to Jarrod Stone about the documentary.”
“Distract him?”
“From what I’ve been told, Greg Chambers is the brains of the group. Jarrod is just a pretty boy with great pipes but not much going on upstairs. I need you to keep Greg busy while I convince Jarrod to agree to the documentary.”
“I’m not really dressed for a meeting, sir,” she huffed.
Jonathan looked down at her but didn’t slow his stride. “Lift the back of the sweatshirt up to show off your ass in those tight jeans. The sweatshirt is tight enough to showcase the tits. You’re dressed fine.”
Susie grimaced and hurried after her boss. She was not going to showcase any part of her body to anyone, and, if he didn’t like it, he was just going to have to fire her. His grip on her wrist hadn’t loosened, and the skin under her sweatshirt was beginning to burn.
“Can we slow down a little?”
“No. Thanks to your stupid delay, we’re almost beyond fashionably late.”
Before she could argue further, they arrived at the desired location because Jonathan finally dropped her wrist, stopped in front of a closed door, popped a breath mint in his mouth, straightened his suit jacket, and knocked casually on the door as if it was every day that he was in a deserted auditorium in the middle of the night.
This was the same door that those three men had come out of earlier, and Susie couldn’t stop the feeling of unease from creeping into her stomach. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be back at her apartment surrounded by the healing atmosphere, sound asleep in her warm bed in sunny California, not traipsing after her boss in Cleveland, Ohio while she distracted some guy so her boss could convince some other guy that the man wanted Jonathan to do a documentary of him.
Who was Jarrod Stone anyway? Jonathan usually only did high profile people. She didn’t recognize the name. She struggled to remember if she’d heard the name before but was at a complete loss. Just her luck it was one of the men with the ridiculous painted faces on the wall. What was the name printed on the poster again? The Walking Wounded?
That wasn’t important. She was here to distract someone. Who was she supposed to distract? George? Geoffrey? Gerard? She couldn’t remember.
A man in his mid-forties opened the door. He had blond hair, brown eyes, and wore a crumpled brown suit. Whoever this guy was, he needed some color in his wardrobe, something away from the Earth tones that was for certain. His face looked like nothing special, and she couldn’t for the life of her believe the man in front of her was who they were here to see. This must be who she was supposed to distract.
Jonathan held out his hand and introduced himself. The man who opened the door introduced himself as Greg Chambers. His name didn’t sound familiar to her either. Greg looked back at her as if waiting for Jonathan to introduce her, but as usual, he didn’t.
Jonathan just strode into the room like he owned it. Susie could see the change come over his features. Gone was the annoying boss from earlier and in the room in front of her was the famous Jonathan Beeble, storyteller of the stars.
Greg looked at her expectantly.
“I’m Susie Clarkston, Mr. Beeble’s assistant,” she supplied with a smile.
“Greg Chambers, the band’s manager, or babysitter as the need arises,” Greg muttered but nodded to her before motioning to some chairs off to their right. As Greg stepped away from the door, she saw the other person in the room.
Her breath caught in her throat. If she thought the tall, blond Viking who’d knocked her down earlier was handsome, the man before her was exquisite, clearly both beautiful and handsome at the same time.
His hair was platinum blond. It was cut short and styled so that parts stuck up like spikes and the other parts formed tiny whispies that curled around his angular tanned face. His skin was the beautiful bronze of the frequent beach goers of her home in Southern California. And, unlike Jonathan, whose face was falsely colored from the tanning cream, this guy’s face looked perfectly colored and wasn’t washed out by the solid black pants and black turtleneck sweater that he wore.
His head was leaning off to the one side, and he appeared to look very bored, or tired, she couldn’t tell which. As soon as his lovely hazel eyes found hers, though, all thought left her brain. His eyes were beautiful, a light greenish brown with thick dark lashes. Lashes most women would kill to have. When he saw her, his eyes widened, and he sat up a little straighter, making boredom win out as the reason for his lax posture before.
“Jonathan Beeble, this is Jarrod Stone, lead singer of The Walking Dead.” Greg turned to the beautiful platinum Jarrod. “Jarrod, this is Jonathan Beeble. He’s the one who wants to do that documentary I told you about.”
Jarrod flashed the man a toothy grin that revealed a mouth full of brilliant white, perfectly straight teeth. Geez, the guy could be a spokesperson for both tanning beds and tooth whitening, Susie thought. His beautiful hazel eyes left hers to focus on Jonathan.
“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Beeble,” Jarrod said in a polite voice. “I saw that bit you did on Ozzy Osbourne, way rad, dude.” Jarrod shook Jonathan’s hand with much more enthusiasm than he’d had when they’d first walked in.
“Thank you,” Jonathan replied in his professional tone. “That was nothing as compared to what I can do for you, Mr. Stone. Shall we sit and discuss some details?” He motioned to the chairs in the center of the room.
Jarrod didn’t move. He looked over at Susie, also expecting Jonathan to introduce her, which again he didn’t. Whereas Greg nodded to her but didn’t make a big deal out of her boss’ rudeness, Jarrod stayed rooted to the spot. He held out his perfectly manicured hand to her. “I’m Jarrod Stone,” He quirked his eyebrow waiting for a response.
Susie’s attention was stolen by that eyebrow. The rest of the man was a model in metrosexual perfection, but his eyebrows needed a lot of work. They were all uneven and growing in a direction that was contrary to where they should. He could just tweeze the ends a little and shape them up a bit.
Jarrod stood there with his hand outstretched, and a big smile plastered on his face waiting for her to acknowledge him.
Her attention returned to the hand in front of her when he politely cleared his throat. She looked back at him with a blank expression.
“Hi,” she said cheerfully, unsure of what else to say. She reached out and took his hand, letting out a startled gasp when Jarrod turned her hand over and planted a soft kiss on the back of it.
She felt an arm go around her shoulder an instant before she saw Jonathan slide up next to her.
“Pardon my rudeness. This is Susie Clarkston, my personal assistant.” His grip on her arm tightened, and Susie tried not to make a pained expression. “She was just leaving, weren’t you Susie?”
“I thought … owe,” she squeaked when he tightened his grip on her arm. Why the heck did he ask her to come in with him if he didn’t want her to be there? So was she not supposed to showcase her ass to this Greg guy anymore? Her boss was a jerk. She was so looking for another job just as soon as she got out of this miserable city.
Jonathan tightened his grip even more as he pressed her against him and walked her over to the door. “You can leave now,” he instructed her. “You’re distracting the wrong person, and you’re going to do more harm than good.”
“Fine,” she hissed at him. “Next time I’m sending your … thing Fedex and saving myself a trip.” She spoke quietly to her boss, but, instead of filtering it out, she left in the edge of annoyance. She was just about fed up with his fickle attitude. She glared up at her boss, who looked as if he was three seconds away from rudely pushing her out the door and slamming it behind her.
“I’d like her to stay.”
Both Susie and Jonathan turned to see Jarrod looking at their exchange with concern on his handsome features.
Jonathan cleared his throat in obvious surprise. “Susie was just going to head back to California. Don’t you have a flight to catch?” Jonathan eyed her sternly.
Susie looked from him to the handsome Jarrod Stone, and she wondered how hard it would be to get bubblehead to fire her. That way she could at least collect unemployment until she found another job.
“My flight isn’t until tomorrow,” she replied smiling sweetly at her boss.
Jonathan’s expression hardened, and he was on the verge of saying something when Jarrod spoke again, interrupting his angry retort.
“Great. Then there’s no reason to rush off.”
Jonathan sighed in defeat. “Susie would be happy to stay, wouldn’t you?” Jonathan asked her with a stern expression that told her he wanted her to be seen and not heard. “You’d better not screw this up,” he muttered quietly so only she could hear.
She shrugged and was surprised to see Jarrod hold out his hand to her. She happily accepted it. Operation Get Susie Fired was underway.
Jarrod’s skin felt smooth and warm. He was a man used to the finer things in life. She wished she could remember where she’d heard of him before. Jarrod Stone. The Walking Dead. The names sounded familiar, but she couldn’t process anything at this late hour. She was someone who needed at least eight hours of sleep to function at her best, which was not saying much because most days because she rarely got more than five.
Jarrod led her over to the chairs and took a seat opposite her. He sat next to Greg, who was busy typing something into his phone, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding conversation.
“Tell me about this documentary you want to do, Mr. Beeble,” Jarrod said focusing his attention back on Jonathan.
For what felt like the next hour, the two of them talked about ideas for a documentary. Come to find out The Walking Dead was a sort of punk rock band and apparently the other three men who’d come out of the room earlier were the other band members.
The tall Viking was their drummer, Niko Wulfersen, the blond man who’d assaulted her with his wet, drunk lips was Steve Dover, the bass player, and the kind, dark haired one with the facial piercings was the lead guitarist, Tony Ramirez.
Jarrod Stone was the lead singer, and, from what she could hear of his voice, he was probably very good at it. The words seemed to float out of the man’s mouth in silky smooth ribbons. She could imagine him singing some songs of her favorite artist, Bob Dylan, and making them sound almost as good as the original, if that was even possible.
As Jonathan had non-verbally instructed, she’d sat there and not said a word throughout the entire exchange. She watched the other men in the room with interest. Contrary to Jonathan’s information, Jarrod definitely seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, and the manager, Greg, seemed more than happy to let him do all the talking, whether it was because it was easier to let the platinum blond have his way, as he was clearly used to having, or because that was the dynamics of their relationship, she didn’t know, but they were both apparently comfortable with the situation.
Jarrod held his own against Jonathan. She’d witnessed Jonathan steam roll over people to bully them into doing things the way he wanted them done, but not Jarrod. Jarrod stood his ground and made it clear that it was either his way or the highway. Susie liked that about him. In fact, she liked a lot of things about him. He was kind, as he’d shown when he’d stepped in between her and Jonathan throwing her out. He was intelligent. And he was sexy as heck. Too bad Jarrod looked too metrosexual to be heterosexual. Men who dressed as fine as he did and took care of their appearance with meticulous detail were almost always gay. Oh well, she wasn’t in the market for a new boyfriend, anyway.
After her experience with Toad, she’d sworn off men for the rest of her life. Toad’s real name was Todd McKenzie, but everyone in his motorcycle club called him Toad. It certainly seemed to suit his personality. He was fond of his motorcycle, Jack Daniels, and women in leather. How he ever set his sights on her was beyond her comprehension, and why she ever let herself get talked into moving to Missouri to live with him and his biker gang, was beyond her even more.
They had absolutely nothing in common. She was a lifelong strict vegetarian, and the smell of leather turned her off almost as much as the smell of whiskey did. Toad tended to be heavy handed when he was drinking, so she’d learned to stay out of his way until he sobered up. When Toad had gotten so angry and drunk one night and punched her in the face, sending her flying through the front window, she’d finally had enough. When she got out of the hospital, she left, determined to finish her trek to the West Coast
And she loved it in California. There were a lot of people who had common interests with her. Her current roommate, Caitlin, was a witch who studied Buddhism, and she had a boyfriend whose mother was a real live Voodoo priestess. Not a single one of them had ever told her to be seen and not heard. And she had to land a job with one of the maybe two conservative nut jobs in all of Southern California. She was going to get on a plane tomorrow morning and start looking for another job. She wanted a job where she could express herself in the artistic way she’d always dreamed of. Was that too much to ask for?
“Okay, you have yourself a deal, Mr. Beeble,” Jarrod said in his smooth tone. “Under one condition.”
Jonathan visibly tensed. “And that is?”
Jarrod turned his attention to her. “I want Susie to do the interviews.”
Greg looked up from his phone and looked from Jarrod to her, then back down to his phone without saying a word.
“Jarrod, you don’t mind if I call you Jarrod,” Jonathon added in his sickly-sweet tone. “Let’s talk about this. There is no way I can create the masterpiece you deserve if I’m not the one doing the actual footage.”
Jarrod gave her a wink before turning his attention back to Jonathan. “Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.” Jarrod folded his arms across his chest.
Susie tried not to smile at the look of sheer frustration on Jonathan’s face, and knew he was three seconds from telling the young arrogant blond to take his terms and put them to better use elsewhere, but he surprised the heck out of her when he leaned back, mimicking the arm fold gesture and said, “Agreed.”
Susie looked over at her boss in shock. Had he just agreed to what she thought he had? She hadn’t been paying close attention to the whole discussion because it didn’t involve her. She did remember hearing something about staying with the band until the end of the tour. Had her sleazy, weasel of a boss just agreed to have her travel along with this band over the next several months to document their lives and do interviews with them?
“Wait. What?” she asked.
“I said, agreed,” Jonathan put a hand on her arm to silence her protest. He squeezed to make sure she clearly understood that she was not supposed to be talking.
She looked over at the smug expression of satisfaction on Jarrod’s face. When she went to protest again, Jonathan tightened his grip on her arm, almost to the point of bruising. She was getting more annoyed at him, and she ripped her arm from his grasp.
She was on a mission to get herself fired, so what did she have to lose? “Does anyone care what I think about this so-called agreement?” She glanced angrily between Jarrod and Jonathan.
“Of course,” Jarrod said.
“I think this is a terrible idea,” she spat out.
“Susie,” Jonathan cooed, shooting her a stern glare.
She shot him back what she hoped was an intimidating glare and heard Jarrod chuckling. She turned her fierce expression to him, which made Jarrod chuckle even harder. The one word most people used to describe her was bubbly or cute, or more often than not, naïve. She did not do intimidating very well judging from the tears forming in the corners of Jarrod’s eyes.
Jarrod wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. “I’d love to hear why you think my idea is terrible.”
Greg put down his phone. Apparently, he wanted to hear too. Obviously not too many people told Jarrod Stone what they really thought about him.
“For starters, I don’t know anything about doing a documentary,” Susie protested.
“That’s the perfect part,” Jarrod said.
Susie creased her brow. “What?”
“The only way this is going to work is if no one knows you’re doing a documentary and the only way we can pull that off is for you to pretend to be my girlfriend until the end of the tour. No one will think twice about you being everywhere backstage and at all the parties. You can interview the others discretely. Get to know their real character.” Jarrod folded his arms across his chest in his smug manner and sat back in his chair, obviously proud of his accomplishment for the evening.
Susie wasn’t sure who looked more surprised, her or Jarrod’s manager. Greg looked at him with an incredulous expression. “Jarrod, you can’t be serious. You’re going to do this and not tell the guys?”
Jarrod turned to Greg. “This is exactly what the band needs right now. Some welcome distraction. The tour is going to be over in just a few months. What’s the harm?” Greg’s face held a look of incredulous indulgence. He obviously gave in to Jarrod more than he stood up to him.
Susie looked at him as Jarrod turned to wink at her again. She was supposed pretend to be this guy’s girlfriend for the remainder of the tour?
How the heck did she get herself talked into this?
“Yikes,” she said quickly and made to stop.
Jonathan stopped when she did and turned impatiently back at her. “What is it?”
“I dropped your hair thing.” She pointed behind her.
Jonathan looked at his watch and then back over her shoulder. “Leave it. After I do this documentary, I’ll go get a new one. This one could make us a bundle.”
“I thought you said that the guy wasn’t interested in a documentary,” she said slightly winded. “Why are you even here?”
“Because, you nit wit, I’m going to convince him that this is exactly what he wants. Once Jarrod Stone sees what I can do for him and his career, I’ll have him eating out of the palm of my hand.”
“But why am I here? Besides to bring your hair ... thing?”
“You’re my assistant. You’re here to assist me.”
Susie glanced down at her tie-dyed sweatshirt that had a white peace symbol on the back and her plain well-worn blue jeans. She’d made the trip not expecting to be sitting in on meeting with him. She was way too tired to be taking dictation that made any sense.
“What exactly am I supposed to assist you with?” she asked even more winded than before.
“You need to distract Greg Chambers while I talk to Jarrod Stone about the documentary.”
“Distract him?”
“From what I’ve been told, Greg Chambers is the brains of the group. Jarrod is just a pretty boy with great pipes but not much going on upstairs. I need you to keep Greg busy while I convince Jarrod to agree to the documentary.”
“I’m not really dressed for a meeting, sir,” she huffed.
Jonathan looked down at her but didn’t slow his stride. “Lift the back of the sweatshirt up to show off your ass in those tight jeans. The sweatshirt is tight enough to showcase the tits. You’re dressed fine.”
Susie grimaced and hurried after her boss. She was not going to showcase any part of her body to anyone, and, if he didn’t like it, he was just going to have to fire her. His grip on her wrist hadn’t loosened, and the skin under her sweatshirt was beginning to burn.
“Can we slow down a little?”
“No. Thanks to your stupid delay, we’re almost beyond fashionably late.”
Before she could argue further, they arrived at the desired location because Jonathan finally dropped her wrist, stopped in front of a closed door, popped a breath mint in his mouth, straightened his suit jacket, and knocked casually on the door as if it was every day that he was in a deserted auditorium in the middle of the night.
This was the same door that those three men had come out of earlier, and Susie couldn’t stop the feeling of unease from creeping into her stomach. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be back at her apartment surrounded by the healing atmosphere, sound asleep in her warm bed in sunny California, not traipsing after her boss in Cleveland, Ohio while she distracted some guy so her boss could convince some other guy that the man wanted Jonathan to do a documentary of him.
Who was Jarrod Stone anyway? Jonathan usually only did high profile people. She didn’t recognize the name. She struggled to remember if she’d heard the name before but was at a complete loss. Just her luck it was one of the men with the ridiculous painted faces on the wall. What was the name printed on the poster again? The Walking Wounded?
That wasn’t important. She was here to distract someone. Who was she supposed to distract? George? Geoffrey? Gerard? She couldn’t remember.
A man in his mid-forties opened the door. He had blond hair, brown eyes, and wore a crumpled brown suit. Whoever this guy was, he needed some color in his wardrobe, something away from the Earth tones that was for certain. His face looked like nothing special, and she couldn’t for the life of her believe the man in front of her was who they were here to see. This must be who she was supposed to distract.
Jonathan held out his hand and introduced himself. The man who opened the door introduced himself as Greg Chambers. His name didn’t sound familiar to her either. Greg looked back at her as if waiting for Jonathan to introduce her, but as usual, he didn’t.
Jonathan just strode into the room like he owned it. Susie could see the change come over his features. Gone was the annoying boss from earlier and in the room in front of her was the famous Jonathan Beeble, storyteller of the stars.
Greg looked at her expectantly.
“I’m Susie Clarkston, Mr. Beeble’s assistant,” she supplied with a smile.
“Greg Chambers, the band’s manager, or babysitter as the need arises,” Greg muttered but nodded to her before motioning to some chairs off to their right. As Greg stepped away from the door, she saw the other person in the room.
Her breath caught in her throat. If she thought the tall, blond Viking who’d knocked her down earlier was handsome, the man before her was exquisite, clearly both beautiful and handsome at the same time.
His hair was platinum blond. It was cut short and styled so that parts stuck up like spikes and the other parts formed tiny whispies that curled around his angular tanned face. His skin was the beautiful bronze of the frequent beach goers of her home in Southern California. And, unlike Jonathan, whose face was falsely colored from the tanning cream, this guy’s face looked perfectly colored and wasn’t washed out by the solid black pants and black turtleneck sweater that he wore.
His head was leaning off to the one side, and he appeared to look very bored, or tired, she couldn’t tell which. As soon as his lovely hazel eyes found hers, though, all thought left her brain. His eyes were beautiful, a light greenish brown with thick dark lashes. Lashes most women would kill to have. When he saw her, his eyes widened, and he sat up a little straighter, making boredom win out as the reason for his lax posture before.
“Jonathan Beeble, this is Jarrod Stone, lead singer of The Walking Dead.” Greg turned to the beautiful platinum Jarrod. “Jarrod, this is Jonathan Beeble. He’s the one who wants to do that documentary I told you about.”
Jarrod flashed the man a toothy grin that revealed a mouth full of brilliant white, perfectly straight teeth. Geez, the guy could be a spokesperson for both tanning beds and tooth whitening, Susie thought. His beautiful hazel eyes left hers to focus on Jonathan.
“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Beeble,” Jarrod said in a polite voice. “I saw that bit you did on Ozzy Osbourne, way rad, dude.” Jarrod shook Jonathan’s hand with much more enthusiasm than he’d had when they’d first walked in.
“Thank you,” Jonathan replied in his professional tone. “That was nothing as compared to what I can do for you, Mr. Stone. Shall we sit and discuss some details?” He motioned to the chairs in the center of the room.
Jarrod didn’t move. He looked over at Susie, also expecting Jonathan to introduce her, which again he didn’t. Whereas Greg nodded to her but didn’t make a big deal out of her boss’ rudeness, Jarrod stayed rooted to the spot. He held out his perfectly manicured hand to her. “I’m Jarrod Stone,” He quirked his eyebrow waiting for a response.
Susie’s attention was stolen by that eyebrow. The rest of the man was a model in metrosexual perfection, but his eyebrows needed a lot of work. They were all uneven and growing in a direction that was contrary to where they should. He could just tweeze the ends a little and shape them up a bit.
Jarrod stood there with his hand outstretched, and a big smile plastered on his face waiting for her to acknowledge him.
Her attention returned to the hand in front of her when he politely cleared his throat. She looked back at him with a blank expression.
“Hi,” she said cheerfully, unsure of what else to say. She reached out and took his hand, letting out a startled gasp when Jarrod turned her hand over and planted a soft kiss on the back of it.
She felt an arm go around her shoulder an instant before she saw Jonathan slide up next to her.
“Pardon my rudeness. This is Susie Clarkston, my personal assistant.” His grip on her arm tightened, and Susie tried not to make a pained expression. “She was just leaving, weren’t you Susie?”
“I thought … owe,” she squeaked when he tightened his grip on her arm. Why the heck did he ask her to come in with him if he didn’t want her to be there? So was she not supposed to showcase her ass to this Greg guy anymore? Her boss was a jerk. She was so looking for another job just as soon as she got out of this miserable city.
Jonathan tightened his grip even more as he pressed her against him and walked her over to the door. “You can leave now,” he instructed her. “You’re distracting the wrong person, and you’re going to do more harm than good.”
“Fine,” she hissed at him. “Next time I’m sending your … thing Fedex and saving myself a trip.” She spoke quietly to her boss, but, instead of filtering it out, she left in the edge of annoyance. She was just about fed up with his fickle attitude. She glared up at her boss, who looked as if he was three seconds away from rudely pushing her out the door and slamming it behind her.
“I’d like her to stay.”
Both Susie and Jonathan turned to see Jarrod looking at their exchange with concern on his handsome features.
Jonathan cleared his throat in obvious surprise. “Susie was just going to head back to California. Don’t you have a flight to catch?” Jonathan eyed her sternly.
Susie looked from him to the handsome Jarrod Stone, and she wondered how hard it would be to get bubblehead to fire her. That way she could at least collect unemployment until she found another job.
“My flight isn’t until tomorrow,” she replied smiling sweetly at her boss.
Jonathan’s expression hardened, and he was on the verge of saying something when Jarrod spoke again, interrupting his angry retort.
“Great. Then there’s no reason to rush off.”
Jonathan sighed in defeat. “Susie would be happy to stay, wouldn’t you?” Jonathan asked her with a stern expression that told her he wanted her to be seen and not heard. “You’d better not screw this up,” he muttered quietly so only she could hear.
She shrugged and was surprised to see Jarrod hold out his hand to her. She happily accepted it. Operation Get Susie Fired was underway.
Jarrod’s skin felt smooth and warm. He was a man used to the finer things in life. She wished she could remember where she’d heard of him before. Jarrod Stone. The Walking Dead. The names sounded familiar, but she couldn’t process anything at this late hour. She was someone who needed at least eight hours of sleep to function at her best, which was not saying much because most days because she rarely got more than five.
Jarrod led her over to the chairs and took a seat opposite her. He sat next to Greg, who was busy typing something into his phone, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding conversation.
“Tell me about this documentary you want to do, Mr. Beeble,” Jarrod said focusing his attention back on Jonathan.
For what felt like the next hour, the two of them talked about ideas for a documentary. Come to find out The Walking Dead was a sort of punk rock band and apparently the other three men who’d come out of the room earlier were the other band members.
The tall Viking was their drummer, Niko Wulfersen, the blond man who’d assaulted her with his wet, drunk lips was Steve Dover, the bass player, and the kind, dark haired one with the facial piercings was the lead guitarist, Tony Ramirez.
Jarrod Stone was the lead singer, and, from what she could hear of his voice, he was probably very good at it. The words seemed to float out of the man’s mouth in silky smooth ribbons. She could imagine him singing some songs of her favorite artist, Bob Dylan, and making them sound almost as good as the original, if that was even possible.
As Jonathan had non-verbally instructed, she’d sat there and not said a word throughout the entire exchange. She watched the other men in the room with interest. Contrary to Jonathan’s information, Jarrod definitely seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, and the manager, Greg, seemed more than happy to let him do all the talking, whether it was because it was easier to let the platinum blond have his way, as he was clearly used to having, or because that was the dynamics of their relationship, she didn’t know, but they were both apparently comfortable with the situation.
Jarrod held his own against Jonathan. She’d witnessed Jonathan steam roll over people to bully them into doing things the way he wanted them done, but not Jarrod. Jarrod stood his ground and made it clear that it was either his way or the highway. Susie liked that about him. In fact, she liked a lot of things about him. He was kind, as he’d shown when he’d stepped in between her and Jonathan throwing her out. He was intelligent. And he was sexy as heck. Too bad Jarrod looked too metrosexual to be heterosexual. Men who dressed as fine as he did and took care of their appearance with meticulous detail were almost always gay. Oh well, she wasn’t in the market for a new boyfriend, anyway.
After her experience with Toad, she’d sworn off men for the rest of her life. Toad’s real name was Todd McKenzie, but everyone in his motorcycle club called him Toad. It certainly seemed to suit his personality. He was fond of his motorcycle, Jack Daniels, and women in leather. How he ever set his sights on her was beyond her comprehension, and why she ever let herself get talked into moving to Missouri to live with him and his biker gang, was beyond her even more.
They had absolutely nothing in common. She was a lifelong strict vegetarian, and the smell of leather turned her off almost as much as the smell of whiskey did. Toad tended to be heavy handed when he was drinking, so she’d learned to stay out of his way until he sobered up. When Toad had gotten so angry and drunk one night and punched her in the face, sending her flying through the front window, she’d finally had enough. When she got out of the hospital, she left, determined to finish her trek to the West Coast
And she loved it in California. There were a lot of people who had common interests with her. Her current roommate, Caitlin, was a witch who studied Buddhism, and she had a boyfriend whose mother was a real live Voodoo priestess. Not a single one of them had ever told her to be seen and not heard. And she had to land a job with one of the maybe two conservative nut jobs in all of Southern California. She was going to get on a plane tomorrow morning and start looking for another job. She wanted a job where she could express herself in the artistic way she’d always dreamed of. Was that too much to ask for?
“Okay, you have yourself a deal, Mr. Beeble,” Jarrod said in his smooth tone. “Under one condition.”
Jonathan visibly tensed. “And that is?”
Jarrod turned his attention to her. “I want Susie to do the interviews.”
Greg looked up from his phone and looked from Jarrod to her, then back down to his phone without saying a word.
“Jarrod, you don’t mind if I call you Jarrod,” Jonathon added in his sickly-sweet tone. “Let’s talk about this. There is no way I can create the masterpiece you deserve if I’m not the one doing the actual footage.”
Jarrod gave her a wink before turning his attention back to Jonathan. “Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.” Jarrod folded his arms across his chest.
Susie tried not to smile at the look of sheer frustration on Jonathan’s face, and knew he was three seconds from telling the young arrogant blond to take his terms and put them to better use elsewhere, but he surprised the heck out of her when he leaned back, mimicking the arm fold gesture and said, “Agreed.”
Susie looked over at her boss in shock. Had he just agreed to what she thought he had? She hadn’t been paying close attention to the whole discussion because it didn’t involve her. She did remember hearing something about staying with the band until the end of the tour. Had her sleazy, weasel of a boss just agreed to have her travel along with this band over the next several months to document their lives and do interviews with them?
“Wait. What?” she asked.
“I said, agreed,” Jonathan put a hand on her arm to silence her protest. He squeezed to make sure she clearly understood that she was not supposed to be talking.
She looked over at the smug expression of satisfaction on Jarrod’s face. When she went to protest again, Jonathan tightened his grip on her arm, almost to the point of bruising. She was getting more annoyed at him, and she ripped her arm from his grasp.
She was on a mission to get herself fired, so what did she have to lose? “Does anyone care what I think about this so-called agreement?” She glanced angrily between Jarrod and Jonathan.
“Of course,” Jarrod said.
“I think this is a terrible idea,” she spat out.
“Susie,” Jonathan cooed, shooting her a stern glare.
She shot him back what she hoped was an intimidating glare and heard Jarrod chuckling. She turned her fierce expression to him, which made Jarrod chuckle even harder. The one word most people used to describe her was bubbly or cute, or more often than not, naïve. She did not do intimidating very well judging from the tears forming in the corners of Jarrod’s eyes.
Jarrod wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. “I’d love to hear why you think my idea is terrible.”
Greg put down his phone. Apparently, he wanted to hear too. Obviously not too many people told Jarrod Stone what they really thought about him.
“For starters, I don’t know anything about doing a documentary,” Susie protested.
“That’s the perfect part,” Jarrod said.
Susie creased her brow. “What?”
“The only way this is going to work is if no one knows you’re doing a documentary and the only way we can pull that off is for you to pretend to be my girlfriend until the end of the tour. No one will think twice about you being everywhere backstage and at all the parties. You can interview the others discretely. Get to know their real character.” Jarrod folded his arms across his chest in his smug manner and sat back in his chair, obviously proud of his accomplishment for the evening.
Susie wasn’t sure who looked more surprised, her or Jarrod’s manager. Greg looked at him with an incredulous expression. “Jarrod, you can’t be serious. You’re going to do this and not tell the guys?”
Jarrod turned to Greg. “This is exactly what the band needs right now. Some welcome distraction. The tour is going to be over in just a few months. What’s the harm?” Greg’s face held a look of incredulous indulgence. He obviously gave in to Jarrod more than he stood up to him.
Susie looked at him as Jarrod turned to wink at her again. She was supposed pretend to be this guy’s girlfriend for the remainder of the tour?
How the heck did she get herself talked into this?
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