Maid for the Rock Star(9)

"Why don't you have a job at a weather station? I haven't finished my qualification yet, but I thought you said you'd graduated."

Audra sighed. "Yeah, I graduated earlier this year. Most of the meteorology jobs in Australia are through the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology. They have one graduate intake a year." It still hurt to think about it.

"Did you miss out last year?"

She thanked her lucky stars that it was too dark for her to see the sympathy on his face. Or for him to see the tears escaping from her eyes at the memory of Leon's mangled car and him lying in hospital in a drug-induced coma, like an ad for why seventeen-year-olds shouldn't own V8s, drive fast and drink alcohol. "Sort of. I didn't get my application finished before the deadline. So they didn't accept it and I had to wait another year."

"When's the deadline?"

"In two weeks. My application's mostly written, but I want it to be the best it can be so that this time next year, I'm cleaning a cup anemometer, not some VIP's carpet. So every day off between now and then, I'll be picking through the words, trying to put them together better, practicing responses to interview questions...the best applicants get the best locations, or that's what I've heard. And I've never been outside Western Australia before."

Serge clinked his beer against hers. "Then good luck. To you achieving your dreams, because they sound like they're a damn sight closer than mine. Mine are up there with those stars somewhere." He waved at the Milky Way.

"Thanks." Audra drained her beer.

"Want another one? The last two are mango and ginger, I think. Guess I saved the best for last. Here's the mango one."

Just like she'd had that night with Jay. Audra reached for it and her wristband beeped. The LED illuminated the name of Jay's villa. Had he read her thoughts? "Shit."

Serge dropped the bottle back into the ice. "I'll keep them for you until you come back."

Book club with the rock star. Good thing she wasn't sober. "No, don't wait up. Who knows what the VIP wants this time. You enjoy them, or save them for another night." She rose and dusted off her shorts. "Can you drop the towels in the laundry on your way back?"

Serge nodded. "I'll save the last beers for the night you find out you've got the job, managing your own weather station in paradise."

"You mean when I get sent to the arse-end of nowhere." Audra laughed. "Wherever. You're on."





FOURTEEN



The swish of waves on the shore still permeated the jungle as Audra headed for the only illuminated villa on this side of the lagoon. Once again, work won over any chance of enjoying herself. Was Serge right – would her life one day hold something different? Or would she just work herself to death, without getting to enjoy any of life's pleasures the way normal people did?

Jay hadn't drawn the blinds, so skirting his villa was oddly voyeuristic as she watched him check his watch and glance at the door every few seconds, clenching a book in his hands. He looked like the poster boy for money's inability to buy happiness. She and Jay could be miserable together, then.

Audra swiped her wristband and waited for the door to slide open as the intercom announced her arrival. The sound of tumbling glass greeted her as she entered the lounge room – what hadn't been visible from the window were the empty bottles lined up on the tiles at Jay's feet. She leaped into action, grabbing as many as she could before she had to clean up broken glass instead of just beer-basted bottles.

Two armloads later, she'd filled the recycling bin in the kitchen. Audra eyed the tiles critically. "Do you want me to mop that now or wait 'til morning? It's only a few drops and I'd hate you to slip..." Her beer-befuddled brain caught up with her mouth. "But a fresh-mopped floor would be slippery, too. Morning's probably best."

Jay nodded, his unfocussed eyes making her wonder if he'd even understood her question, let alone her dilemma.

"You paged me. Was there something else you wanted me to help you with?" Audra wet her lips. "Or did you just want me to clean up the bottles?"

"Your rock star romance books don't help," he slurred, throwing them down on the sofa.

Audra eyed the pink book and one with a couple on the front. "How so?" she asked lightly.

Jay waved at them. "These are about girls still hung up on their high school crush, who never noticed them, until they're rock stars and suddenly they do. If I was a chick who wanted to seduce a rock star, fine, but I'm the fucking rock star."

Audra rubbed her fuzzy eyes, wishing she could do the same to the inside of her head. He wasn't making any sense. "I thought you said the girl you've been pining over since high school is a rock star, too. Your guitarist...isn't that what you said? You're out here sulking, all sad and lonely, because she's thrown you out and you're trying to find a way you can crawl into her good graces again so she'll take you back?"

"Fuck no!" Jay roared. "Rock stars don't sulk and they don't crawl for uppity chicks, either."

Audra tried to hide her scepticism. "So why are you hiding out here?"

"I'm not hiding!" With what appeared to be considerable effort, he lowered his voice to a more normal volume. "I'm planning. Regrouping. Taking some much-needed time to consider my future. The next stage in my career."

Rock stars had to make career choices? She'd never really thought about it. They wrote and recorded albums, performed the songs at concerts, while millions of fans screamed their names, bought their music and obsessed over them. But the wrong choices could end his career just as surely as they could hers. And while she could always find another job somewhere else, cleaning hotel rooms or serving food, that wasn't an option for a rock star whose meteoric rise had turned into a freefall that could only end in a crash to Earth. Did he mean he had to decide on which country to tour next or what style of music to write for his next album? Sobriety descended on Audra like a cold shower. It wasn't his career future he was considering – it had to be the girl he denied having feelings for. Career angst didn't create chaos with your emotions the way love could. Jay wasn't just a rock star – he was a man, too.

"What are you going to do next?" she asked softly.

It seemed like his macho mask slipped away and she saw genuine fear in his eyes. "I don't fucking know."

Silence hung between them for a moment. In two strides, Audra crossed the room and hugged him. One minute she was safely, dispassionately ensconced on her own seat, the next she had her arms around a slab of miserable man-muscle and she didn't want to let go. She had no idea how to disentangle herself from the crazy situation, but she knew her wristband would record every word she said.

His arms encircled her far less awkwardly, though no less firmly. He emitted a muffled "thank you".

Then he lifted his head and his eyes met hers. His mouth was so close and still slightly open, as if preparing to kiss her. Audra's lips parted to take a shaky breath before she surrendered to her desire for Jay.

"You know what'd make me feel even better?" Jay began, looking hopeful. "If you got your tits out. Then we could – "

Thank God his rock star ego had broken the moment.

"No. I'm sorry, Mr Felix, but we can't." Audra took that as her cue to retreat a few steps before collapsing into her chair again, relieved to be on the other side of the coffee table from the mess of contradictions that was Jay Felix.

"Bugger." His pause was barely perceptible. "Want a beer, then?"

She nodded silently. Better to wrap her lips around a bottle than do anything dangerous with them.





FIFTEEN



Morning light stung Audra's eyes and she cursed. She must have fallen asleep with the blinds open. She forced her eyelids up and blinked away the bleariness. This wasn't her room. It looked like...Maxima.

Uncurling her stiffened limbs, she rose from the armchair that had cradled her all night, it seemed, as Jay's recounting of the all-too-familiar plots of those two romance novels had made her nod, then close her eyes, until finally...she guessed she'd drifted right off into la-la-land. Well, she could cross one thing off her bucket list that she'd never expected to achieve: she'd spent a night with a rock star. Jay Felix, no less. And hadn't she hugged him for a moment, too?

She ran her fingers through her hair, hoping to smooth it out enough so that no one would know where she'd spent the night. Though sneaking out of Maxima at this time in the morning would probably give her away, anyway.

Audra almost made it to the door before she met Jay carrying a covered tray.

"I ordered you breakfast!" He seemed really proud of himself and not put out at all that she'd passed out on his couch.

"I'm sorry – " she began.

He waved her into silence. "Nah, you looked wrecked last night. I asked if you wanted me to read you to sleep and you sort of nodded, so I cracked open that last – " he coughed " – romance book you got me and started reading aloud. Haven't done shit like that since I was at school. Got to admit, it was a bit of a relief when you started snoring. Doesn't do much for my rock star reputation, reading romance books." His eyes strayed to the sofa where he'd been sitting last night and Audra felt a little smug to see that the book lay face-down, open at a page well past the middle. So much for his reputation, if this ever got out.