Page 100 of You Rock My World
45
JOSIE
Dorian doesn’t call that night. My text telling him I got home sits on delivered but not read. Earlier, when Lily returned home after her shift, I left her house as fast as I could, dodging all the questions my sister had about the mystery woman saga and the kiss. She wanted to know if kissing Dorian felt as hot as it looked on the million videos of us—it did, but that’s beside the point.
I made it home uselessly fast. And now, hours later, I stare at my unread text, fighting the urge to send another one. A second message would probably share the fate of the first. So I call him instead and get sent straight to voicemail. I call again twice, but his phone appears to be off.
I hate myself for what I’m about to do, but I’m worried sick. So I call Tessa despite the late hour.
“Hey,” she picks up, her voice sympathetic.
Why does she sound like she pities me? What does she know that I don’t?
“Hey, Tessa, do you?—”
“He went to his recording studio.” She doesn’t let me finish. “When he goes there, he turns his phone off and no one is allowed in until he’s done with whatever creative shit he needs to cope.”
“Cope with the press? I thought he was taking it well but?—”
“It wasn’t the media. From what I gathered, Billie went to the house earlier. It’s always her. He didn’t let her in, but something must’ve happened.”
Billie. A pounding pressure builds in my temples. My skull is shrinking around my thoughts, squeezing them in while they’re pushing to get out.
“And you don’t know what?”
“No. I haven’t talked to him. But Josie?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t sweat it. This is how he’s been dealing with the emotional abuse for the past couple of years. He isolates, creates, and comes out regenerated. And for what it’s worth…” A pause, then a sigh. “I think you’re good for him.”
Okay, so we’re not circling around it anymore. And she approves? I wish I could be happier about the discovery. This morning, I would’ve been. Now, I’m just worried.
“T-thanks, I guess.”
“No problem. Let him have his time, and we can manage the rest from the outside. I’ll see you at the house tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, thank you again, bye.”
We hang up and I stare at the ceiling of my bedroom, unsure how to feel. Regular boyfriends don’t have gatekeepers. A security detail that can keep their girlfriends at bay whenever they feel like having a moment to themselves.
Is this how it’s always going to be? Shit hits the fan, and Dorian becomes unreachable. What did Billie want? What did she do to trigger him? And how is being shut in a recording studio alone helping him?
I get the answer two days later—after endless hours of worrying and wondering—when I receive a Google Alert that Rian Phoenix’s new single is out. He wrote a song?
But when I click on the link, it’s even worse because he didn’t write a song, he made a cover of Billie’s: “Just See (Rian’s Version).”
I play the song and it has the same lyrics, but it’s rock instead of pop. Billie’s version has a catchy chorus and that’s about it. Dorian’s take is a masterpiece. It’s rough, sexy, raw—angry. In the outro, he uses his low, seduction voice, adding a gothic-rock edge and I almost have an orgasm just listening to it.
It’s a brilliant cover and a total disaster.
His and Billie’s versions sit at number one and two in the charts. This is only going to enrage his ex-wife, escalate things, bring even more attention to their public spat, and feed the media frenzy when we need the exact opposite.
What the fuck was he thinking?
The last report I got from Tessa was that he still hadn’t returned home. The chances that he’s back now are slim, but I don’t care. I grab my keys and hop into my car without changing out of an oversized sweatshirt and crappy leggings with a hole in the butt but that I’m never throwing away because the elastic has gotten stretchy enough to be the most comfortable.
On the drive, I consider how ridiculously I’m acting. I don’t even know if Dorian will be at his place. But if he released the cover, it’s safe to assume he won’t keep living in a recording studio with nothing to record. And even if he isn’t back, I’ll squat on his porch, seething in my rage and in my hurt until he returns.
