Five days off. Five whole days off. Five freaking days off in a row.
No radio interview calls. No setlist meetings. No stages or sound checks or screaming audiences.
Nothing to do. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to overcome or surmount or deal with.
Rhiannon was going to explode.
What could have caused such a travesty as a five-day break in Killer Valentine’s tour schedule?
During the hard Southern Swing in late March, Xan’s voice had failed yet again in Atlanta, this time only halfway through the second set. The next two tour dates were small venues, so the rest of the band, including Rhiannon, ganged up on him to insist that he cancel them and rest his goddamn throat instead of making it worse with every damn show.
The midnight fight on the bus raged for hours as the bus veered around pokey cars that were driving the goddamn speed limit. The band members clung to whatever they could—seat backs, the straphanger bar, Rhiannon hung her elbows over the back of the diner booth,—and argued like the world was ending.
Xan argued with them all, threatened to put them all on planes back to L.A., and finally admitted defeat only because about three in the morning, every time he tried to threaten them, his voice emerged as a rasp, and he held his throat with pain lines creased around his eyes just before he turned away, his brown and blond hair swinging to cover his agony.
Xan finally swallowed hard and ground out, “What the fuck. My cousin is getting married this weekend. I should go.”
Afterward, Jonas cornered Rhiannon in the back of the bus. “I need to get away from these nutjobs for a few days,” he said, his exhausted eyes betraying what an understatement that was, “and so do you. Let’s go scout Madison Square Garden since KV will be playing there in June.”
Jonas called a car to meet them when the bus pulled into the next city, and they went straight to the nearest airport and caught a plane to New York, where he rented a huge suite at The Plaza Hotel, right across from the green and flowered expanse of Central Park in the spring.
The next morning, Jonas got them into MSG early, and Rhiannon strolled around the arena that echoed like an empty airplane hangar and that she had seen on television so many times during basketball games and major charity concerts, and she was going to sing there in just over two months. The audience’s seats weren’t raked as much as most arenas, but the rows stretched forever and packed to the rafters. The gorgeous green rooms were under the main floor, lots of places to meet the guests that seemed to always have special access, whether by buying an exorbitantly priced ticket through the fan club or by influence, usually political but sometimes celebrities who watched the show from backstage because their agents knew Jonas, and even a nice catering area.
No runner. Thank God.
Afterward, Jonas seemed jumpy, like the tour of MSG had ignited all the worry again, so he went out by himself for the afternoon while Rhiannon sat in their suite, which was decorated in Beaux Arts silver and mirrors like the Jazz Age had splattered itself on the walls, and relaxed in silence and solitude with thousands of reflected images of herself on the walls and furniture until she was sure that she was going to lose her mind.
Four more days of this madness.
The iPad chiseled into the wall said that the hotel had a spa, so she got a facial and a mani-pedi and a massage until Jonas finally texted to ask if she was all right.
She was better than all right. The tiny little spa girls had pounded on her until she was a boneless bag of greased-up jelly, and she slithered back up the elevator and down the hall to the Fitzgerald Suite like an octopus tentacling across the sea floor.
After she had showered the spa goop off of herself, she strapped a white, fluffy bathrobe around her body and flopped on the couch in the living room beside Jonas. He wore suit slacks and a white dress shirt open at the neck because he packed suits, workout gear, and pajamas in his suitcase and garment bag, and nothing else.
She asked, “I’m paying for half of this room, right?”
“No,” he scoffed.
He scoffed! Rhiannon was less than pleased with scoffing, even in her current, gelatinized state. “Hey, I’ve got money from the tour. Let me spend some of it.”
He glanced at her sideways, then shifted on the couch to face her. “We need to talk about some business realities.”
“Oh, come on, we have four days before we have to go back to the tour. I don’t want to talk business. Let’s shag before we go down to supper.”
“Even as much money as you’re making right now—” he said.
Rhiannon felt the ka-ching in her head because, when she had signed her new, year-long contract last week, the money had gotten holy-cow way better.
Jonas finished his sentence, “—managers make more.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“No, listen,” Jonas said. “I take my percentage off the top. I’ve taken three bands to success, and they’re still paying me royalties before the label takes their cut. I can afford to live like this,” his arm wave took in the Moet champagne in the silver ice bucket, the enormous, glistening suite in the middle of Manhattan, and the white-gloved butler wiping the glasses before he poured the wine,— “every day for the rest of my life. I had planned to retire after Killer Valentine, but I can’t resist working with you, so I won’t retire.”
“You’re twenty-seven,” she said, stating the obvious, but he was.
“Yep,” he said, “and I’m set for the rest of my life. You can take a look at my bank accounts if you want, but I’ve got millions stashed away. Lots of millions.”
“Holy cow, Jonas.” She had been all ecstatic when her savings account, her brand new savings account, had gotten to ten thousand. “But I don’t want to look at your bank accounts. That’s weird. And if you want to retire, you should.”
He shrugged. “If I hadn’t found you, I’m such a workaholic that I know that I would have been back in the bars in a month, looking for another potential client. I say things like I might retire, but I probably can’t. The point is: let me pay for this.”
“Well, okay. If you insist.” Rhiannon was kind of impressed, despite thinking that she should be all anti-materialistic and feminist-minded. She should at least pay her own way, especially since now she could actually do that.
“You’ve got to get used to me paying for things, anyway.”
That was weird. “Why is that?”
“I’m your manager, or I will be, once we sign a contract. The manager fronts costs until the band makes money.”
“Oh, okay.” She really needed to read a book or something about how the business end of all this worked.
He said, “So I’ll pay for recording studios, living expenses, instruments, costumes, down-payments on venues, whatever you need.”
Rhiannon dropped one eyebrow, incredulous. “How in the name of God did you make so much money while paying for everything?”
“Recoupable expenses,” Jonas said. “I get paid back. Don’t worry about me. I’d like to go over some other paperwork with you, though, one that I’d like you to sign soon.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s look at it.”
The waiter left, and the hotel room door closed with a small click behind him.
Jonas twisted, his broad shoulders spinning, and he dug into his briefcase behind him on the couch. When he turned back, he clutched a single sheet of paper in his hand.
That was weird. The Killer Valentine contracts had been massive documents, but she didn’t think anything about it. Jonas was the manager. He had done this before. She trusted him, so she took the paper and reached for a pen.
The top of the paper read Application for Marriage License.
The paper in her hands trembled like an earthquake. “What’s this?”
Jonas slid off the couch beside her, kneeled, and pulled a jewelry box from his pocket. “Rhiannon Hope Macallen,” he began.
“Oh, good Lord,” Rhiannon said, but she was already holding out her left hand, fingers outstretched.
He grabbed her hand and held it in his strong fingers. His pale green eyes searched hers, and he said, “I’ve only known you for three months, but we’ve lived together and worked together for almost every minute of that time. Your talent and your heart drew me, and it feels like I fell in love with you a lifetime ago. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, every minute, every night. Wherever you go, I’ll go, too. We should be together, always, no matter what. Marry me, Rhiannon.”
This time, her throat closed up hard, and she could only nod and croak, “Yes. Oh, yes.”
He opened up the teal cardboard box that read Tiffany & Co. on the top and shook out the black leather ring box inside. When he flipped it open, the solitaire surrounded by more diamonds flashed glittering reflections over the silver and mirrors in the suite like a laser show.
Jonas slid the ring on her finger. “I am so glad Xan overruled me about hiring a new backup singer.”
She laughed, and it broke through her tight throat. “Me, too.”
He stretched and kissed her, and Rhiannon wrapped her arms around him and held on.