Page 17 of Dead Rockstar

I smiled faintly. “What?”

“I don't think you need to worry about me, ma chere,” he said, and bumped under my chin with a finger. I scowled. “I'm a big boy and I can take care of myself, I promise.”

“Well, considering you were dead two days ago...”

“How long are you going to throw that in my face?”

“I've only known you for a few hours. I'm thinking a little while longer.”

He was inches from my face, and I desperately wished I'd had a chance to get up and brush my teeth. “Let me just throw on some clothes and I'll go talk to him, tell him to get the fuck out of here.” For some reason, I didn't want Phillip near Lee Courtenay. He was right, I knew, he could take care of himself, but...I didn't want it to come to that. I had a strong urge to keep him away from Courtenay at all costs. “I can handle it.”

He cocked his head to the side and then smiled. “Actually, I don't think you need to – I think he's gone now.”

“How do you know?”

“I can't really explain,” he said. “I just know. He's gone. He didn't find anything.”

“How do you know he didn't?”

“Because he's looking for me,” Phillip said again with a devious look. “And I'm right here.” He brushed a hair back from my face and stood up. “Stay right there. I'll bring you some coffee.”

A few minutes later I was propped up on pillows in bed, my knees curled up under me, watching Phillip Deville serve me coffee from a pretty silver tray – one that I'd never used, a wedding present Tess and I had received; from whom I no longer remembered. It had sat on top of my cabinets for years. I smiled, enjoying the domestic feel of it all, as Phillip poured me a cup, added a teaspoon of sugar, then frowned at the creamer. “I looked for plain cream, or some milk, but all you had was this stuff. I remember coffee creamer, of course -” he made a face- “but what on earth is pumpkin spice?”

“Hey, don't judge.” I took the cup from him. “They always start selling it in September and I only buy one bottle a year, I swear.” I had only recently been able to find a vegan pumpkin spice creamer and I was still over the moon about it. Sloan told me I was a basic bitch, but I didn't care.

“But I mean. Why? Why would you want your coffee to taste like a pumpkin?”

“Not pumpkin, pumpkin spice. You know, like the flavor of pumpkin pie.”

He poured himself a cup, and I wasn't at all surprised to see he drank it black, no cream or sugar. He shook his head. “No, thanks. That's fucking weird.”

“I guess there are a lot of things you'll have to get used to,” I mused. “Wait till you see how many flavors there are of Mountain Dew.”

“I never drank that stuff in the first place,” he said. “Well, except to mix with vodka when they didn't put fresh orange juice in my rider. I read somewhere that it makes your balls shrink.”

“Did you guys do the whole crazy request thing?” I had always wondered this. “Like Van Halen and the all brown M&Ms? I know you always asked for donuts.”

He laughed. “Nah, we just asked for everything we could think of,” he said. “We were shits. We always wanted expensive crap like sushi and fresh fruit trays and top-shelf vodka and whiskey. Drugs. Condoms. Shit like that.” He looked at me and shrugged. “And the donuts. I always did love those.”

“I'm pretty sure that 'everything we could think of' is the epitome of crazy requests,” I pointed out, and he laughed again.

I wanted to ask if he had sex with tons of groupies on tour, but I didn't. Anyway, I knew the answer to that already. Lots of them had talked after his death, gave interviews. One of his 'girls' had even posed for Playboy. I wondered how he'd feel about that. He'd find out soon enough, if he decided to ever go googling. First, though, he’d have to learn what Google was.

Instead, I said, “You need some new clothes, huh?”

He looked down at his worn shirt and boxers. “Oh. Oh, yeah. I guess I do.” He picked at a thread on his shirt. “This is what I was buried in.”

I must have looked horrified. He hastened to explain. “Oh, don't worry. They're not all...gross. They're clean. I guess they kind of, uh, rejuvenated when I did. They are old, though. I wore this just about every day on our last tour.”

“You were buried in a t-shirt and jeans? And motorcycle boots?”

He looked surprised. “Well, yeah. What else? Can you imagine me in a suit?”

“I think you'd look very handsome in a suit.” I'd kill to see it, now that I thought of it. His uniform his entire career had been pretty much what I saw before me – a sea of black, with the occasional army green or burgundy. T shirts, jeans, black boots. Black leather jackets. Black bandannas and hats.

“For now, I'd settle for a fresh t-shirt and a pair of pants that don't fall off my hips,” he said. “I seem to have lost a few inches when I came back.”

I smirked, and he grimaced at me. “Not there, thank you. There I'm good.”

---