Page 47 of Dead Rockstar

I'd release him, if that's what he wanted. If he asked me again to do it, I would. He could be free to go on and live the life he wanted to live, now that he had another chance. I knew that just because I'd summoned him didn't mean I had some claim over him. Just because I'd been his “biggest fan” in his other life didn't mean that he was obligated to me in this one. For all I knew the attraction between us, at least on his end, was just part of the spell. What if he didn't even really like me that much? Maybe I was just a means to an end, and he'd be glad to be rid of me.

I dug another fry into the puddle of sriracha on my plate – it almost looked like blood - and tried to push the thoughts out of my head. No point in worrying about it now.

“Don't do that, Stormy.” His voice penetrated my dark thoughts. “You're driving yourself nuts.”

I nodded, but didn't look up at him, content to keep shoveling in fries. If I looked at him, I might cry. “I told you before to get out of my head.”

“I'm not in your head. Anybody looking at you could see it.”

“And you're not worried? At all?”

“A little,” he said. “Mostly for you. Once you've been dead, everything else just seems kind of unimportant. I guess it puts it—life—in perspective.”

“You're like a Goth Dr. Phil,” I said with a laugh, wiping at my eyes, getting salt in them, and beginning to cry in earnest.

“Who is Dr. Phil?”

“Like a self-help guru, psychologist guy,” I said. “He's on TV. He’s bald and has an obnoxious southern accent. He gives wayward people the tough-love thing and convinces them to turn their lives around.” He looked so affronted I started to laugh. “Dr. Phil Deville, Scare-apist.”

The air was crisp, slightly cold, and there was a smell on the light breeze – the faint acridness that only came from old, well-used wood stoves. I smiled, recognizing it as one of Phillip's signature smells– woodsmoke from his home town. The sky was a bright, sun-drenched blue, not a cloud in sight. But straight above, I saw the silver-white needle point of a jet slowly streak across the sky, leaving its fine pen line behind it, growing fainter as it moved. I sat down on a park bench and pulled out a magazine and my cell phone, planning to pass at least an hour, if not more.

Phillip said the house was near this park, but he figured it'd take him a while to case the place, make sure nobody was home, get into the backyard and dig. It was going to be tricky. Regardless of who lived there – whether it was his family, strangers or nobody at all – it was breaking and entering, and he could get in big trouble if caught. He would eventually be recognized if he was. This was Boston, his hometown, and he was more famous here than anywhere else. He'd tucked all his dark hair up under a military style green cap and thrown on a royal blue hoodie over his signature black shirt and jeans, but he still looked like Phillip Deville. I'd given him my glasses – 80s style aviators with mirrored lenses- but even that hadn't helped.

I flipped idly through the magazine, scrolled through my cell phone, and was bored after ten minutes. I sent Sloan a text – my phone seemed to be working okay, now that Phillip wasn’t nearby. “Just checking in. What's going on with you? Haven't heard from you in a while. We just got into town. Phillip is taking care of biz.” I checked my voicemails and looked through Facebook and Twitter. But all the while I was worried about Phillip. I hoped he'd make quick work of this.

Sloan pinged back after a few moments. “Same old shit here. Jealous of you and your guy, sexing up in a hotel.”

Ha. If only. I wrote back. “Motel, not Hotel. Big difference. Just a biz trip. I told you that.”

“Whatever you say. Liar.”

“How's Dan?”

“Dunno.”

Uh oh. And things had been going so well.

“Trouble in Paradise?”

After five minutes she hadn't responded, and I knew I'd pissed her off. I shouldn't have been so flippant, I should have been more empathetic. Sloan could dish it out but couldn't always take it. I sent another text.

“Sorry, bad attempt at humor. Are you guys ok? Are YOU ok?”

Five more minutes and nothing. I put the phone back in my purse with a frown. I didn't have much battery left and Phillip might try to call me if there was an emergency, but I didn't like leaving things like that with Sloan. I hadn't talked to her in days, and now I'd pissed her off. I bit at my fingernails, worried.

Another twenty minutes went by, and finally an hour, and after an hour and thirty minutes I started to get anxious. I'd read the magazine cover to cover, people watched, surfed the web and for the past twenty minutes I'd been staring at a squirrel scurry along a fence post. Phillip needed to hurry up before I died of nerves or old age. Didn't he know how frantic I'd be?

The sun was directly overhead, bathing me in welcome warmth on the cool day. My hair was pulled in a side-pony and lay on my left shoulder, catching the rays and seeming to glow like white-fire. The ends tickled my chin and I looked down, momentarily captivated by the little white tips of my hair and how they seemed to glow, until I realized that I was staring at a mess of split ends. Ten minutes later, and I was still hunting through them with disgusted determination, pulling each one apart with the fervor of a serial killer.

“What in the fuck are you doing, picking for lice?” I heard a familiar laugh, and saw a figure running toward me, holding a plastic bag. He was still wearing the blue hoodie and his dark green military cap was askew, black hair streaming from it.

“Jesus, he's shit at disguises,” I murmured to myself, but I was standing up and running to him before I knew it, split ends forgotten.

“I got it.” He gave me a triumphant look and handed me the bag, almost shoving it at me, like he was afraid of it. Then he pulled me into a clumsy hug. He was out of breath, but his face was full of glee. “It was all still there, after all this time, can you believe that?”

“Wow,” I said. I didn't know why he was handing it to me. I pushed it back at him. “I was beginning to get really worried, you were gone so long. I was scared you ran into trouble. Was it hard to get in there and get it?”

“No. I just walked around back, dug it up and took it. The reason I took so long is a whole other – well...” He hesitated and looked around the park. “Can we go somewhere? To the car? I don't want to stand here and tell you the story. Somebody might recognize me.”

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