Page 48 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
“Rivers makes them depressed?” I asked, frowning. That didn’t seem like the right slant for any reporter to take.
Then again, Rivers hadn’t exactly given them much choice, I guessed.
“It’s not that he makes them depressed, but how many times can you write about a guy who only gives you one angle to write about?” she asked. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had reporters ask me what he was like behind the scenes and what could I tell them about his background. They’re dying for something with more depth, and he can’t give that to them.”
I bit my lip. She was right about that; Rivers only showed the press one version of himself, and it was always the same. I’d seen more than that—I’d seen the lost boy he was on the inside—but I also knew he’d never let anyone else glimpse that part. He certainly didn’t want them writing about it, or even finding out that it was in there. He’d been in the music industry since he was just a kid, the new phenom on the block, and I knew for a fact that he’d learned early to give the press—and his fans—what they wanted and nothing more. It had become a mask he put on every time he went outside.
A mask that hid the real him so effectively that most people didn’t even realize there was anyone else in there.
He hadn’t told me everything about why he did it, but I thought I knew enough. He’d been fourteen when he was discovered and hadn’t had anyone to look out for him. His parents were, for some reason, out of the picture, and his managers and agents hadn’t exactly kept his best interests in mind when they sent him out on the road to perform. He’d been learning to protect himself from a very early age.
I didn’t think he’d ever stopped keeping everyone else at arm’s length, just to maintain that protection.
None of which was my story to tell.
“So, what are you thinking?” I asked, coming back to the meeting with Taylor.
Not, as I’d hoped, a meeting about the contract. But she wouldn’t be putting the time and energy into getting me more publicity if she wasn’t invested in Anna and me as an act, right?
“I’m thinking that you and Anna are the rising stars, here. You’re marketable. You’re cute and young and from good families. You have everything going for you. We get you in front of the cameras as much as possible and start sending out press releases about you, giving the reporters what they need to start writing stories. We say Rivers essentially discovered you and is head-over-heels for you but focus on your career rather than the relationship. More of you. Less of him. He’s getting moodier and harder to handle and between you and me, I’m just about done with his shit. But I want you on the stage as much as possible.”
I felt Anna squeezing my hand, urging me to agree, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. More publicity was great. More time on the stage sounded amazing. And I was guessing our contract depended on me agreeing to this new scheme. But I couldn’t get over the muttered addition that Taylor was getting tired of Rivers. Getting annoyed with him.
She wanted me to replace him in the papers.
She wanted me to essentially sell him out. Leave him behind. Take his place.
I looked over my shoulder, wondering if he was still sitting at that same table, and found him staring at me, his face still and quiet like he was afraid to let anything show. He looked more lost than I’d ever seen him, there by himself with a big stack of pancakes and way too much syrup, the other people in the restaurant avoiding him like he was a plague victim or something.
He’d opened up to me. He’d let me in and maybe—maybe—started counting on me to see who he really was and give him a safe place to land. He’d shared blueberry pie with me and forced me to help him steal a car and seen dragons in the clouds.
And now he was shutting me out, and Taylor wanted me to step in front of him and take the glory for myself.
“Your contract depends on you doing this, Lila,” Taylor said, like she could hear what I was thinking. “I can’t sign artists who won’t do the work I give them.”
I swung back to her, my heart in my mouth. I’d known that was coming. It wasn’t a surprise.
And luckily, I already knew what I was going to say.
I stuck my hand out and grinned at her. “Then it’s a good thing you’ve got a deal, Taylor. When do we start?”
She began talking again, laying out plan after plan for what she wanted me to do, and I prayed that Anna was listening and taking mental notes. Getting it all organized so she could tell me about it later. I hoped Taylor also had it all written down somewhere so she could email it to me.
Because I’d already stopped paying attention.
I was too busy building a plan for how I was going to save Rivers Shine from himself and worm my way back into his lifewhile I was doing it. Because as long as I was doing Taylor another favor and staying on the tour as a more important part…
I was going to take advantage of it and do some work on the side.
25
RIVERS
My Sunshine Girl didn’t look like she was enjoying her breakfast very much.
I watched as her face went from red-hot—she’d been looking at me like she was trying to shoot flames right at me before Taylor caught her—to pale, to... something that looked like it was carved from stone.
Whatever Taylor was saying wasn’t sitting well with her, and I could see her expression reflected on Anna’s face. True, I didn’t know Anna as well and doubted she thought very much of me, but she was also Lila’s best friend. The girl who watched out for my girl. And she’d gone nearly as still and stony as Lila herself. Like they’d both just heard something they hadn’t been expecting, and they didn’t appreciate it.
