Made Marian, Volume One by Lucy Lennox
Derek - Six Months Later
If I had to hear the song “Bluebells” one more fucking time, I thought I was going to vomit backstage before Jude even finished the first chord of the intro. I wanted someone to shoot me in the face. Give me a good old rendition of “Born to Be Wild” and I’d be a happy man. But I wasn’t Steppenwolf’s bodyguard. I was Jude’s. Yes, the Jude of Jude and the Saints, three-time Grammy-winning country music superstar and total pain in my ass.
My head pounded, and I was ready to be done for the day. Unfortunately, the last song of the encore was usually when my night really heated up. As soon as the star himself stepped off the stage, it would be balls-to-the wall security threats until I practically tucked the little guy into his bed around 2 a.m.
This concert was a taste of freedom, landing us in our hometown for one night before the tour took us on the road again the following day. In three days’ time, Jude and the Saints were going to be performing their final concert of the tour at the Hollywood Bowl. Finally. The tour had lasted six months, and I was so sick of the same damned songs. At least we’d have four or five months off before his manager, Clint, pressured him to go out on tour again.
Jude’s personal assistant, Ollie, stood next to me with a small towel and an ice-cold bottle of water ready for Jude the minute he finished performing. She was one of my favorite people to hang out with during downtime because she was batshit crazy. Six feet tall and sporting hot-pink spiky hair, she was about as sassy as they came. Half of Jude’s fans thought she was his girlfriend, but the two of them were really best friends from grade school. No, Jude’s actual girlfriend was a piece of work, and not the good kind.
I could never remember the woman’s name because it was something made up and stupid. Bentley? Barkley? Dandelion? Anyway, she was a wannabe country singer herself, and those of us paying attention could see she was one hundred percent using Jude as a stepping-stone to get into the business. Her singing skills were equivalent to Jim Carrey trying to sing Evita. It was pretty rough. Even money-hungry Clint wouldn’t take her on as a client. And he was a sucker for a hot piece of ass.
The woman was what my dad would call a whole lotta nothin’ wrapped up with a pretty bow. She was never there for Jude when he seemed to really need a friend, but she magically showed up if he needed someone to accompany him on a red carpet. His family despised her and pretty much pretended she didn’t exist. The feeling was mutual.
When the man himself came jogging offstage, he was electrified. If I had just danced, played guitar, and sung under the hot stage lights for two hours, I’d be about ready for a cold beer and a recliner. Not this guy. Performing cranked all of Jude’s switches to maximum. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was on drugs like so many other famous musicians. But he wasn’t. He was a vegetarian health nut. The kind of weirdo who’d much rather have a green smoothie than a nice juicy burger.
Ollie handed Jude the towel and water as the three of us hustled back to the dressing room.
“How was it?” Jude asked Ollie. He knew better than to ask me. First of all, I was usually quiet and tried to be invisible. Second of all, I hated country music and he knew it.
“Great, baby cakes. How did it feel?” Ollie humored him.
“Amazing. I was exhausted before going out there, but they were a good crowd.” He wiped the sweat off his face with the towel as we entered the room. I quickly closed the door behind us and stood in front of it to go over our plan for greeting the crowd after he showered and changed.
I began to speak as Jude pulled off his black boots, and I tried not to roll my eyes. Granted they were more like motorcycle boots than cowboy boots, but they still made him look like a poser. Jude was way more himself when he was wearing his red Converse sneakers. He was significantly shorter than I was and had the lean muscles of a runner. I’d heard people refer to him as petite, but that may have been due to the fact he was always seen standing next to me or someone my size. His long brown hair was thick and wavy and did rude things to the fit of my pants. I really thought he should get it cut off so I could concentrate on my fucking job.
“Jude, Clint has arranged for you to spend half an hour shaking hands in the lobby with a couple hundred select VIPs. They are allowed to ask for autographs and photos, but Clint wanted me to remind you to keep moving. Don’t get stuck in a conversation with one person.”
One of the things that drove me crazy about being Jude’s personal bodyguard was his over-the-top friendliness with his fans. No one could be that nice in real life. He was all smiles and bubbly chitchat until he was alone. And then he was a quiet, sometimes brooding, artist.
I had never been able to reconcile the two Judes, and it frustrated me.
I continued, “After that, we will exit through the backstage loading door where the cars will be waiting. You have dinner with Lawrence Hammond and his family at El Manjar. Clint will meet you there with… what’s her name,” I finished.
Jude stripped off his sweaty T-shirt and I tried not to look at his bare upper body. Eyes on the ceiling, Wolfe. Nothing to see here. You’ve seen his ripped chest and abs enough to reproduce them in your dreams every fucking night, so there is absolutely no need to look at them again. I looked down at the very interesting hangnail on my index finger instead.
“Wolfe, I’ve been seeing her for months and you still don’t know her name?” Jude asked. “Really?”
“Paisley?” I guessed.
Jude snorted as he began undoing the fly of his jeans. Holy mother of god, how was I going to continue talking to him while he was wrestling off tight pants? Things were jiggling, for god’s sake. Think of something else, Wolfe. Weeping sores, naked grandmas, anything. You can do this.
“Not Paisley.” Jude chuckled in his melodic voice. “But close. It’s Jae.”
“Like hell,” I muttered under my breath.
Jude turned around and finished pulling his jeans off as he walked into the small bathroom, leaving on only a thin pair of royal blue boxer briefs. Not that I noticed, because I was totally doing triage on my fingernail problem.
“Wolfe, I’m counting on you to bust me out of that dinner as soon as humanly possible,” he called back over his shoulder. “You know that guy always tries to set me up with his daughter even if Jae is there.”
“Sure thing, boss,” I called back to him, letting out a sigh of relief as he turned out of sight before revealing his perfect freaking ass. Jesus, I needed a shot of vodka.
I turned to look for a bottle of water instead and caught Ollie staring at me. “What?” I snapped.
She burst out laughing. “Oh, Wolfe. You don’t fool me one single bit.”
I looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, feeling my blood run cold and my stomach begin to knot. No way could she tell how much I was lusting after Judy's body. Could she?
“You know exactly what Jae’s name is. No way in hell would you let someone that close to Jude without knowing every single thing about her.” I felt my insides relax and I prayed it didn’t include bowels loosening. The last thing I was expecting that night was a sudden outing after thirty-one years of being nice and cozy in the closet. “You just don’t like her and you delight in reminding Jude every chance you get, don’t you?”
I smiled a shit-eating grin at her. “Don’t you?”
She laughed. “Hell yeah, you know I do. I hate that skank. But I also know better than to believe everything I see, Derek. Sometimes people aren’t what you think they are. Be careful you don’t fall into the trap of judging an apple by its skin.”
I was just getting ready to tell her I thought she got that saying wrong when Jude came out of the bathroom dripping wet with only a small towel slung low around his hips. Goddammit. I needed hazard pay for this crap. If I wanted to pretend to ignore sexy men roaming around in their skivvies, I’d re-up in the damned Marines. Ollie handed me something out of her big bag.
“What’s this for?” I asked, holding the fingernail clipper.
“Didn’t you want to go back to fixing that pesky invisible hangnail?” she asked. Shit.
“Never mind,” I muttered, chucking it back in her bag.
I looked at my watch and turned back to Jude. “Put a spring in your step, Bluebell,” I told him. “Time’s a-wasting.”
He finished buttoning his fresh blue jeans and slipped a crisp charcoal-gray button-down shirt over a faded Clint Black concert tee.
“Coming. Jesus, you’d think I work for you the way you boss me around sometimes,” he muttered. “Let me just grab a banana. I’m starving.”
I tossed him a banana from the bunch in the bowl on the coffee table and stuck a pack of peanuts in my pocket to tide me over through Jude’s dinner meeting. I’d eaten something a few hours before, but I still had several more hours before I’d get a chance to sit down again and relax long enough to eat another meal.
Jude left the shirt unbuttoned and rolled up his cuffs before slipping the boots back on. I caught a whiff of his clean, soapy smell and hid a smile. I loved the way he smelled after he’d gotten out of the shower. It didn’t matter what kind of soap he used, he always smelled like soapy Jude.
He peeled the banana and put his full lips around it to break off a piece. Anndd hell. I turned and put my hand on the doorknob to wait for the signal he was ready to go meet his fans. After months of lusting over the body of a person I didn’t much care for, I was over it. Maybe I needed to request a new assignment. What danger was this guy really in anyway? Rabid teen fan tries to maul him with a permanent marker? Middle-aged woman tries to hug him to death? Not likely.
I felt a warm hand on my lower back, and the hairs prickled on the back of my neck.
“What’s the holdup, He-Man? Let’s go,” Jude’s teasing voice said from behind me.
