Kind of Famous (Flirting with Fame Book 3) Page 10

  “Thanks for asking though.” I bit my lip and finished with more honesty. “And for letting me help with your planning. That was a pretty cool moment for me.”

  He grinned. “Awesome. And you did help. A lot. So, thank you.”

  I jumped down from my stool, chest swelling with pride and gratitude, and headed upstairs to log into my erstwhile life and try to figure out where I fit in there now.

  Upstairs, snuggled up in the covers with my laptop, I had so much to catch up on, but I didn’t go straight to the forum. Instead, I cracked my knuckles and logged into my blog. I clicked on New Post, then began typing an article for the front page apologizing for putting the ban on efforts to organize a skirmish against a poor review. As long as I stayed out of it, there was no conflict of interest. Fans would do what fans would do.

  I added a link to the thread and unlocked it as promised. Fuck Gabriel Sanchez and his ignorant review.

  Then I clicked on my bookmark to the Theater of the Absurd fan board and dug around until I found a thread dedicated to Shane. Holding my breath, I opened it up and was rewarded with a lovely photo someone had dug up of him laughing, eyes crinkled, teeth flashing, oblivious to the camera. I wasn’t surprised his thread was far shorter than those for Micah and Noah. On my board, our thread for WD’s drummer, Hervé, only attracted the drumming enthusiasts. Then again, Hervé’s dominant physical trait was a walrus mustache. Shane was boyishly adorable.

  My curiosity wasn’t sated at all though.

  I shot off a private message to Jaclyn, aka State of the Absurd. We’d virtually known each other for years, and I figured she’d be honest.

  Jaclyn—

  What’s the DL on Shane Morgan? Asking for a friend.

  —Pumpkin

  I didn’t expect to hear anything from her right away, so I hunkered down into the soft, fluffy blankets of Micah Sinclair’s guest bed, taking a moment to marvel at where I was. I wanted to squeal like a crazy fan girl. At the same time, I wanted to shrug like a nonchalant insider. Could this be my real life? Would these be my friends now?

  I didn’t want to relax into that level of expectation, because I knew that would make the retreat back into obscurity that much more disappointing. Would I be content to simply run my fan forum from a place of anonymity after this? I wasn’t sure.

  And if they knew who I really was, was there any way I’d be accepted into their inner sphere like this?

  Talking Disaster Forum

  Topic: Walking Disaster - Reviews - Horizon - The Rock Paper - Page 9

  Di$a$ter wrote:

  Testing one, two, three. Is this thing on?

  Attention boys and girls. Operation Bollocks is back on. Forward march!

  DeadFan wrote:

  Did you guys see Pumpkin’s post above?

  Di$a$ter wrote:

  Check the blog, DF.

  DeadFan wrote:

  *blushes*

  Sorry. I saw this thread lit up and wondered. Carry on.

  Insidious wrote:

  Ha ha! They don’t validate your email address, so I’ve been spamming the comments with my pithy wisdom all day under a variety of creative monikers.

  Di$a$ter wrote:

  =D

  Walker wrote:

  LMFAO Sid. I’m heading over. Doubt it will do much good, but I’ve been spoiling for a fight since I read the word “derivative.”

  RobinHood wrote:

  Give him hell, guys! *popping popcorn*

  Chapter Ten

  Wednesday morning, I got ready as quietly as possible, hoping to sneak out without disturbing Jo or Micah. I was starting to feel bad for taking advantage of their hospitality. If they fed me and sent me off to work in a glorified limo again, it would only compound the guilt. I could grab coffee and breakfast on the go.

  I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to find a place to live. The sheer number of ads on craiglist overwhelmed me, and I didn’t know the neighborhoods or how to vet potential roommates. I planned to ask around at work and do some intense research. Later.

  Once I was out on the street. I woke up my phone to locate a subway stop. The notification light blinked, and I groaned, wondering what Ash wanted so early, but the text was from Shane. With a goofy grin, I clicked through.

  Good morning. This is Shane. I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed talking with you last night.

  At the corner, I entered the coffee shop and got in line. While I waited, I texted back.

  Hi! I tapped the phone, trying to think of something more interesting, but all I could come up with was: I had a nice time, too. Hope to see you again soon.

  No response came while I moved up the line. I placed my order then pulled up my own website to see what nonsense had transpired during the night after those two trolls had stirred the pot. But all was quiet.

  I clicked on the Private Messages link and opened an administrative request from Adamant to help Scott, aka MetalNation, figure out why he couldn’t log in. Scott’s email address was included. I grumbled in annoyance. I’d instructed everyone in the Admin Info thread to contact Ash about this kind of shit for now.

  My order came up. I grabbed the coffee and pastry and moved to a table where I opened Scott’s profile and discovered that his email address on record didn’t match the one they’d sent and updated it. Then I wrote back to say:

  Tell Scott to request his password again.

  The next message was from some user I’d never heard of: Sandman. The subject of this was: Your blog post.

  I sighed.

  Sometimes people would contact me to respond personally to an article I’d written or an opinion I’d posted instead of just commenting right on the blog or forum. Stifling a yawn, I opened it.

  If you want your band to be respected for their music, you might reconsider sending your army of mouth breathers to infest a well-respected reviewer’s opinion piece. You give the band a bad name.

  That put Bon Jovi in my brain, and I hummed “You Give Love a Bad Name” as I hit Reply and set about typing a jaunty rejoinder.

  Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion regarding my blog post. Perhaps you’d like to post in the comments section, as that is what they are there for. Unlike the reviewer you refer to, I welcome dissenting points of view.

  I actually started out thinking our fans shouldn’t vociferously disagree with a bad review. Then I had a second thought: It’s entirely possibly the reviewer is deaf and/or musically ignorant.

  I do appreciate your feedback, but in the future, bear in mind that I have 14,000 registered users and can’t always respond to every private message.

  Have a good one.

  And send.

  That probably would merit a scorching reply, but half the fun of the Internet was kicking ass. After all, I hadn’t taken my fight to him. Unless of course, that had actually been Gabriel.

  Wait.

  I opened the original message again and hit the moderation tools link on it. The user’s IP address showed up, with an option to block or ban the user. I clicked a link to open another website that would locate the origin of the poster.

  New York City. Interesting.

  It wasn’t definitive by any means, and likely far-fetched. Still, who else would go out of their way to defend Gabriel as a “well-respected reviewer”?

  I finished my coffee and muffin as I quickly read through the rest of my messages. Then I remembered I hadn’t checked back on the TotA site for a response from Jaclyn. As I walked, I pulled up her board to find a message from her.

  Pumpkin!

  It’s been too long! How are things? I have to admit, I’m curious to know why you’re interested in our sweet drummer boy, but I won’t pry. Much. :)

  Not sure what you’re hoping to discover. I’m sure you’ve already read
his bio on the blog. We’ve got some collected vids of him drumming. He tends to favor the DW Design Series for his toms and bass drum, and Zildjian cymbals . . . but somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re after.

  If you want to know something specific, like about his temperament or whatever, feel free to ask. I won’t pretend to be the resident expert, but I’m happy to share what I can.

  Jaclyn

  What could I ask her discreetly? What would I think if she had started digging for intel about Walking Disaster’s bassist Mark Townsend out of the blue?

  I stopped at the corner so I wouldn’t run into anyone as I typed a quick response.

  Jaclyn,

  One of my friends told me she met Shane recently and thought he was super cute. She wondered if he was seeing anyone and whether there were any red flags. I did poke around your forum a bit, but I don’t think she’s looking to dig up his whole dating history.

  Pumpkin

  She could at least point me in the right direction. With her lax moderating, anything terrible about Shane would still be on her forum somewhere. And the Internet was forever.

  But all I wanted to know was whether he was someone to steer clear of. I didn’t want to learn about his every past girlfriend. Not via a fan forum at least. Jaclyn might not value privacy, but she and I had different philosophies on what constituted boundaries. And here I was breaching one.

  I dropped my phone in my bag and headed toward the nearest subway station. I felt like I’d already put in a day’s work, and I hadn’t even arrived at my real job yet.

  The subway took forever, so by the time I made it to Midtown, I was a bit later than I’d intended. The office bustled with activity as I set up my workstation. On my way to grab a second cup of coffee, I craned my neck to peer into the corner office where a long-haired hippie sat at his desk, talking on the phone. The placard beside the door read: Lars Cambridge. The editor and head honcho of the Rock Paper. An enormously influential man. A legend really. Goosebumps ran down my arms just knowing he was behind that door, probably making magic happen.

  Would I ever get to meet him? I concentrated on breathing normally so I wouldn’t alert everyone in my vicinity that I was a freak and a total fraud. How had I ended up in the coolest place on the planet?

  As soon as I sat back down at my desk, Byron called my name from the meeting room.

  “You coming?”

  I furrowed my brow. Crap. I needed to put a reminder on my phone. Not a great way to start the day. I undocked my laptop and carried it with me into the meeting room intent to listen and learn.

  On the overhead screen, Ajit had pulled up a web page covered with graphs. “There was an unusual surge overnight. Nothing too concerning, but I got an alert and went to investigate.”

  Dave leaned in. “Around what time?”

  “Sometime after midnight. Load average was coming down by the time I logged in.”

  I watched the interchange between the two developers, wondering if there was any chance an invasion of trolls in a comment section of a review could cause the servers to experience heavy load. I’d managed to optimize my own website to handle that kind of traffic. Surely a large music magazine was prepared to handle a fan war.

  “This might be off base, but—” I hesitated. I wasn’t a real developer. “I’m wondering if you’ve captured the SQL and tuned the queries. What you described of the increased load last night—”

  Ajit interjected. “That was actually going to be my first avenue of investigation.”

  I sighed with relief. He hadn’t laughed at my suggestion.

  “Would you like to sit with me while I look over the snapshots?”

  I grinned at his invitation. I loved troubleshooting. “I’d love to.”

  As the meeting came to an end, Byron asked me how my requirements doc was coming, reminding me my responsibilities lay in product management. The truth was, I was happy with that, too. My own site was a one-man operation, and I could do anything they asked of me, coding, testing, writing, marketing, provided they gave me time to learn.

  “I should have something ready by tomorrow.”

  He nodded, and I near sashayed back to my desk, so happy to have a purpose, I forgot to check my phone until lunchtime. When I did, I discovered another text from Shane.

  You should skip out early and come hang out with us at rehearsal.

  I stared at the words, wanting to say yes. Regretfully, I had to turn him down. Really wish I could.

  That was no lie. I didn’t want to play hookie from the world’s best job, but it killed me to miss out on an even rarer experience to witness a band while they jammed out on their own music. It was like I’d scored tickets to a great concert yet envied the people with a backstage pass.

  Except this time, I literally held a backstage pass I couldn’t use.

  Poor me.

  One glance at the office where Lars Cambridge worked reminded me that I had enough going on right here. I checked my lack of gratitude and conjured up the excitement of knowing that just sitting here constituted a dream come true.

  Shane’s next text made me laugh. Dooo it!

  Rain check? God, I hoped there could be a rain check.

  When do you get through? Time is both dragging and fleeting at the same time. How is that possible?

  Adorable.

  I wrote back: I leave at five.

  I turned back to my work, grinning like a maniac, until a voice harshed my mood.

  “What’s got you so happy, Red?”

  Sigh. Gabe peered over the cube wall. Thankfully, I had my requirements doc pulled up, so he didn’t catch me wasting company time on my website.

  “What’s up?” I didn’t bother to stop my fake typing.

  “Are you free for lunch?” He moved into my cube, nearly touching my chair. “I enjoyed our conversation yesterday about my review.”

  “Did you?” My eyes flitted up to check for traces of sarcasm. My recollection had been that we’d argued.

  “Especially since all of a sudden, I’m being viciously maligned online.” Such drama. He needed a fainting couch.

  I was tempted to say, “So, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?” Instead, I faced my Word doc, masking my reaction. “Are you?”

  “Come out and cheer me up. We could talk about what you liked about my writing.”

  I felt a little guilty for having kicked a hornets’ nest his way, but if he’d been the one PMing me during the night, then he could suck it. “I don’t think I’m your girl.”

  He pouted. “Why are you being so mean to me, Layla?”

  Considering I’d known him only two days, that was a good question.

  “I’m sorry. I’m going to work straight through lunch.” And go read these vicious comments. “Maybe another time?”

  “How about after work then?” His eyebrow rose slightly, like I wouldn’t be able to resist his invitation.

  I tilted my head, trying to find a way to say no without pissing him off. Who knew if he was the kind of guy who might retaliate after a rejection? On the other hand, I didn’t want to keep giving him a flimsy pretext every day either. I wished I had more experience dealing with people face to face or knew how to handle men pursuing me.

  The best I could come up with was: “I promised Jo I’d spend the evening with her. Sorry.”

  “One of these days you’ll run out of excuses.”

  My stomach knotted up, but I smiled to keep things light. “Thanks for asking. I’ve really got to finish this doc.”

  I put my head down and focused on doing just that.

  The afternoon flew by, sitting in with Ajit and occasionally Dave, presenting my ideas and learning more about the system. Before I knew it, five o’clock had rolled around, and I texted Jo to let her know I was getting ready to leave work.

&
nbsp; She texted back: I’m going to make up for abandoning you last night. Save your appetite. I’ll send the car over now.

  My imagination took off, and I wondered if I’d get to spend another evening with Micah’s band.

  And Shane.

  I flashed back to that kiss, and my stomach went into free fall. His texts this morning proved that his interest wasn’t fleeting. As did a new one that came in while I was heading to the subway: Can I come over tonight after work?

  I had to assume it would be okay with Jo. He’d been over once before. And I wanted him to. I wanted to get to know him better and figure out who he was. So, I said, Yes, then squeezed my fists together and held back a squeal of excitement.

  The Rock Paper

  Review of New Horizons - Discussion

  Big Fart:

  I feel embarrassed for you.

  Sabe Ganchez:

  New Horizons is the best album I have ever heard. Every single song has a unique hook. This album will be huge.

  FanPop:

  You need a hearing aid.

  Sage Fanchez:

  You’re not entirely wrong that the sound deviates from past albums, but you forget that WD’s music has been ubiquitous for the past few years. They’ve mastered the rock-pop chart sound, and this album pushes them out of their comfort zone. It’s a reinvention that might take adjustment, but if you listened to this album more than one time, you’d recognize it for the genius it is. Maybe critics spend so little time just enjoying music that they forget it’s meant to be broken in, lived in, experienced. It’s not a piece of fruit.

  AnonyMouse:

  U suck!

  Vencor:

  If this is any indication of your music understanding, you need to quit your job.

  Chapter Eleven

  Micah sat on the patio, strumming his guitar, but I couldn’t hear him through the plate glass, especially with Jo sorting through the refrigerator.