Page 28 of Knocked Up by a Rockstar

“Are you okay?” Sylvester was watching me with soft concern. “I wondered if I should come after you...”

“No, no. You made the right decision. Wouldn’t have been a pretty sight.”

“So you get sick on planes, huh?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t want us to dwell on the facts of my sickness, for obvious reasons, so I tried to remember where we’d been at. “Did you know your whole lives that you were twins?”

“From fairly young. My mom was the kind of parent who believed in being honest with kids. We didn’t ever believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or whatever. She explained it in simple terms, trying not to scare us with the ‘threat’ that our biological dad might arrive one day and steal one of us away. But it was hard not to, in private, think of our dad as a kind of Boogieman, and that one of us had to choose to be the braver one and get taken away if he ever returned.”

“You had a choice?”

Sylvester nodded. “It was pretty clear that I was the more outgoing twin, the more capable of handling stress. Felix is great, but, well, you know Felix. He’s reserved, not a fan of parties and attention. And I...”

“Love parties and attention.”

He grinned. But his cheesy grin masked something deeper in his eyes. A kind of loss.

I thought about it. If Emory had come for Felix, instead of Sylvester, then Sylvester would have been able to have his music career. He claimed to have ended things with me and his bandmates because he knew that the inheritance was upcoming. Which meant that, if Felix had gone in his place, Sylvester and I would have stayed together, and the band wouldn’t have broken up. It was a parallel universe I suddenly longed for.

In that moment, that was the first time I truly understood what Sylvester had given up when he had gone in his brother’s place to be Emory Brock’s official heir.

Without really thinking, I started to say something to that effect. “Sylvester...”

But Sylvester’s eyes flashed suddenly and he sprang to the window. “Ooh, we’re nearly there! You know, I’ve not seen my brother in an age. He doesn’t really like travelling, and I don’t like sitting through boring poetry lectures, so...”

Sylvester didn’t want to talk about what he’d given up.

“Beautiful St. Louis.” He stretched as if we had arrived at a premier holiday destination as we in fact stepped out onto the rainy runway of the airport nearest to the university.

I wasn’t convinced. But I’d already earned more than my fair share of intel from coming on this trip. Plus, it would be nice to see Felix. I’d always liked him. He was like a less arrogant Sylvester.

In the back of the car ride to the university campus, Sylvester turned to me. “You might want to stay in the car while I retrieve my brother. If Apollo doesn’t know you’re working with me yet, he’s bound to find out if he’s having some of his agents keep tabs on my brother.”

My first instinct was,fuck Apollo, he’s not the boss of me.He kind of was, but he was a client, it was different. He wasn’t myonlyboss. But the Brock brothers certainly were the highest paying.

The next thought I had was of the outburst I’d caught on record. For all I knew, the person Apollo was seething about had committed a crime as minor as daring to also work for one of his half-brothers. Maybe I’d be ‘dealt with’ by Abigail, the security guard, whatever that had meant. I shuddered.

“You won’t miss much.” Sylvester had maybe sensed my unease. “I’ll just pop in and get Felix, keep an eye out for Apollo’s agents, and then we can go somewhere more secure to chat. Honestly, he teachespoetry. There won’t be anything interesting to see.”

Even though I quite liked poetry, I kept my mouth shut. In truth, I was feeling both wary of Apollo, and still a little uneasy following my sickness on the jet. It would give me a chance to recuperate somewhat. “Sure. I’ll wait in the car.”

We pulled up at the impressive campus. Sylvester tapped on the windows before he left. “These are one-way. No one will be able to see in. Just taking full precautions, here.”

Then I sat alone in the car. I waited, realizing I had been optimistic to think I would have a chance to ‘recuperate’ when alone. Instead, I was plunged back into my own thoughts. I thought back over Sylvester’s story about his family, and everything he had sacrificed.

Did I forgive him for dumping me unceremoniously – both as a partner and as a tour support act – now that I knew? ...No. But I was a little closer to a point at which I might possiblyconsiderthinking about forgiveness. One day.

I was almost glad when I was interrupted from my thoughts by the driver, who hadn’t yet spoken, speaking up from the front of the car. “Miss. Do you know those people?”

I craned around to see who he was looking at. Two figures, a man and a woman, were examining the exterior of the car and drawing closer. Both of them were tall and broad, wearing sunglasses and casual attire. But when the woman stooped to examine our wheels or numberplate, her coat slid aside to reveal she was carrying a gun. At least one gun.

There was also something else more telling about her that I noticed: she was Abigail, one of Apollo’s security team. She was the security guard who had been there to witness the tantrum that I’d witnessed, and who’d acted like it was nothing unusual.

Felix was right: Apollo’s agentsweresniffing around at his university. Or at least, they were at this very moment.

My mind flashed between a few possibilities of what I could do next. I decided, rather rashly, to step out of the car. I didn’t like the idea of one of them getting any closer and banging on the window.

I closed the door behind me. “Abigail?”

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