Page 16 of Undercover Star
"More or less. He specialises in jewellery. He'll do his research and give you a price. If you pay it, he does the job."
"Who's paying for the jet ornaments, then?"
Josh turned back to his carbonara sauce. He took it off the heat and added the eggs, the lump in his throat too big to get any words past.
"You don't know?"
"No."
"So... are you hunting the thief, or the guy who ordered the goods? And is it even illegal to... I dunno... order something stolen? Handling stolen goods is illegal, but that's when you're selling them. Right?"
Josh listened to Matisse ramble and it reminded him of the day they'd met in Montgomery's office: when Matisse had gotten all flustered over being called a rock star. Maybe it was time to do a bit of digging of his own.
"Why don't you like it when I call you a rock star?" he asked, taking the pasta off the heat and draining it.
Matisse sighed, and when Josh chanced a quick look he found Matisse frowning.
"I love rock," Matisse confessed. "It's what I did when I started. I write a lot of it. Rock music speaks to me the most, but my first big hit was pop and I ended up being marketed as a pop singer. I was barely seventeen. When you suddenly have a hit like that, at such a young age, you try and repeat it, you know? And before I could turn around I was someone I barely recognised."
Josh had nothing in his past that would have allowed him a comparison to Matisse's life. He'd never been shoved into a box that fitted him as well as a straitjacket. But there was no denying this was how Matisse felt about his current career. It was written in the tight lines of his shoulders and the turned-down corners of his mouth. "Can't you go back to writing and singing rock?"
"I'm working on it." Matisse hopped from his barstool and found plates. "I've been at this game for ten years. I'm ready for a change, but I can't just walk out on my fans. It wouldn't be fair."
"Does fair even come into it?"
"It does for me. I wouldn't be where I am without them. If I want to stop doing what I do and try something different, I have to package it so they understand."
"Can't you just... I dunno... put a band together and give a rock concert? People might not wait for your usual music if you make it a charity gig."
The sudden arrested look on Matisse's face was good to see. He grabbed a notepad from a rack on the wall and started scribbling while Josh stirred the sauce into the pasta.
"Maybe something with guest musicians," Matisse mused. "ARock Against Povertyor something like that." His voice died away to a soft mumble, but the notes on his pad grew and grew while Josh dished up and directed Matisse to the dining table. "Thank you," Matisse said finally, when he settled in front of his plate. "That's an idea worth running past Marissa and Lynn."
"Lynn, your stylist? Why?"
"Do you know she's almost sixty? She's been in the industry since she left school. She has the absolute best concept ideas."
"I suppose she's seen it all before. She has fantabulous ideas for suits, too," Josh teased. "Is it in her job description to make you look droolworthy?"
"I do not look droolworthy."
"Sure do. You make sexy look so effortless I'm struggling to keep my hands to myself."
"I wouldn't kick you out of bed, either," Matisse shot back, and Josh felt his jaw drop.
How the fuck had he missed this? He was usually spot on when it came to reading men. Or had he simply ignored what he knew because he didn't want to believe it?
"What?" The acid in Matisse's tone suggested Josh had spent too much time on his carp impression.
"You're gay?"
"Yes."
"But you're not out."Someonewould have said something if that were the case. Josh was sure.
"No, of course I'm not out. My fans would go ballistic."
"Matisse, you can't let—"
