Page 81 of Backstage

The room is in turmoil after the question.

“To go from tongue in the mouth to ring on the finger in one night seems excessive even by Hollywood’s fast standards,” I reply as the reporters laugh, and I’m peering to find out who asked it.

I catch a glimpse of Damian, leaning against the back wall, and when he steps forward, the journalists notice him and start snapping in his direction. Evan’s already got his hand in front of his face. I don’t think he planned this for the press conference.

“Was that a marriage proposal?” one of the reporters asks him.

“No, but that was the direction you were going in, wasn’t it? I saved you the trouble.” He winks at me, and I find myself smiling like an idiot.

“Why are you here?” asks another.

“I came to see how my girlfriend’s doing, but I see she’s standing up to you. I don’t have to worry about her.” One more wink from him and I’ll melt on the chair. How can he be this sexy even when he’s sneaking in to harass the press?

Damian’s diversion works, because the questions come back to the music.

“The next question is for Luke. Do you have a debut album ready yet?”

Why do they ask him questions about his career while they ask me questions about my personal life? I hate this sexist attitude, but at the moment, I can hardly concentrate on the answers my friend is giving because I can’t look away from the back of the room where my boyfriend, as he defined himself earlier, keeps staring at me with a smug smile on his face.

*

“You know that tomorrow all the papers will give the wedding date for sure, right? My mother’s gonna have a heart attack.” I’m kissing him on the lips, leaning over the armrest of the seat in this private jet taking us to New York.

“I wanted to make fun of them the way they make fun of us all the time. They can write whatever they want in those newspapers. Only you and I know what’s true.”

I snuggle with him, and sip from the glass of orange juice the flight attendant has brought us.

“Then don’t complain if they chase us all over Manhattan. Where’s the ‘no comment’ man I once knew?”

“I’m tired of hiding. You’re not something I have to be ashamed of, and I finally realized it’s liberating to live your life in the open. I never thought I’d ever feel like this.”

“Does this mean you’re taking me out to dinner?”

“Tomorrow night at the Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare?”

I turn bewilderedly to him. “How the hell are you gonna get a reservation for tomorrow night? There’s a waiting list a month long.”

He laughs, amused. “The advantages of being a rock star. I have to teach you a couple of tricks now that you’re famous.”

His words make me blush, but it’s true. We had our first press conference today, and we really are famous. The reporters were there just for us.

“But I have all the time in the world because I’m not going to let you get away. Today I made a joke about marriage...I wasn’t asking you to get serious so soon, but I’m going to try to go in that direction. I may not be good at relationships, but I’m good at figuring out who I want in my life or not. The people I choose to be around are few, but they’re with me for life.”

His words make my heart explode with joy. In these months, I have learned that Damian can be a very intense person, for better or worse, but when he lets you into his life, you become part of his world. It’s like an on/off switch. You’re either in or you’re out. There’s no middle ground. I just realized how happy it feels to be in.

“Do you think we got enough wine?”

“Yes.” Lilly looks at me, smiling as she opens a bag of chips and pours them into a bowl.

“And beer? We didn’t get enough meat! Maybe we should have had a full dinner...even with the appetizers.”

“Damian, stop.” She turns to me and puts her arms around my neck. “We have enough food for an army, and if they drink all this alcohol, we’ll have to take them to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Are you nervous or something?”

I lift my shoulders and look down. Yes, I am nervous, and I hate to admit it. I mean, I’ve been through so much in my life I shouldn’t be anxious about dinner. I’ve been to more parties than I can count, so I have plenty of ideas to steal from, and yet this time it’s different.

“I don’t know how to christen a house. I’ve never done it...”

Lilly looks at me with her big, sweet eyes and smiles before giving me a light kiss on the lips. “It’s just a dinner party like we used to have in your old apartment. How many did we have in two months? Ten? It’s the same thing.”

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