Wanting to tell Hope his ideas now, Johnny reached a hand toward her pillow, frowning and lifting his head when he found it cold.
Like, really cold. Not just she-went-to-the-bathroom cold.
Johnny jackknifed in bed. “Hope?” The weighted silence cut through him like a sword and he lunged out of bed, jogging toward the balcony. “Hope.”
When he didn’t find her outside, he spun around and spied the bathroom door open across the huge room. The light was off. She wasn’t in there. She wasn’t here.
Somehow, with his throat closing up, he pulled a pair of sweatpants out of his suitcase, tugging them on and striding toward the door, throwing it open. “Hey.” He pointed at the security guard positioned at his door and noticed his finger was shaking. “My girlfriend…she’s supposed to be here. She’s missing.” Calm down. You’re shouting like a lunatic. “Did you see a blonde leave my room? Huge blue eyes. No one could miss her.”
Was it his imagination or did the color leach from the security guard’s face?
“Who are you, anyway?” Johnny asked, ready to pull out his hair. “Where’s Stan?”
Before the new guard could formulate an answer, hotel room doors started opening along the hallway. Out of one sauntered Johnny’s manager, Gus, and Citizen’s bass player, Raoul, emerged from the other.
“What the fuck could be this important before nine a.m.?” Raoul complained, rubbing at his eye. “I was dreaming about those twins I met in Cincinnati.”
“A lot is important before nine a.m.,” Gus muttered. “Like packing. Since your plane to Detroit leaves at ten.”
“When am I ever on time for a plane?” Raoul asked.
Johnny turned his back on the two assholes, facing the security guard again. “Did you see her or not? I need to know. If she’s not here, I…” His stomach plummeted and he rocked back on his heels. “Jesus. I don’t even have her phone number.”
“Who?” Gus wanted to know.
“Hope.”
Raoul approached, scratching his crotch. “Is she the girl who turned your brain to jizz on stage last night?”
“Yes,” Johnny said through his teeth. “She was here. Now she’s gone. And if I don’t find her, I’m not getting on the fucking plane. Everyone needs to understand that.”
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Gus laughed. “You just met this girl. Now you’re going to change our plans for her? We’re on a strict schedule, Johnny. We don’t show up in Detroit with enough time to set up the stage and run through a sound check, we get sued.”
Johnny took a slow step toward his manager. “Then I guess we better find her, huh?”
Raoul stepped in between them, holding up a finger. “I have a theory,” he said. “Kind of crazy, the way you’re so attached to this girl, J-man. Matter of fact, it was pretty crazy how she turned you into a stone pillar on stage. I mean, that’s never happened, you goddamn professional, you. So after you’ve spent a night with this girl…it’s kind of got me wondering…” He squinted an eye at Johnny. “Is that writer’s block still intact?”
“What does that have to do with finding her?” Johnny snapped.
“It’s a simple question.”
Johnny plowed his hands through his hair. “No, the block is gone. I’ve got lyrics for fucking days floating around up here.”
Gus scrambled to pull the ever-present pen out of his jacket and started turning in circles, probably to find a piece of paper. “Thank God, thank God…” he muttered.
Raoul threw back his head and whooped. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“She was the muse, man. You were visited last night by the fucking muse of rock and roll.” He stumbled backward toward his room. “I gotta call Keith Richards.”
Panic blinded Johnny. Jesus, please. Please don’t let her have been a mythical being he’d never see again. His legs wanted to collapse at the possibility. “She’s not the muse,” he said hoarsely, hearing her laughter in his head. “Stop saying that.”
“Look at the evidence, bro!” Raoul came back. “She struck you stupid. Your song writing mojo is back. And now she’s vanished into thin air. Muse, I say. Muse.” The bass player leaned to the right and pointed at the security guard. “You didn’t see her leave, did you?”
The guy shook his head vigorously. “Nope. No one’s come through here, sir.”
Raoul cringed. “Gross. Don’t call me sir.” He sighed. “I’m going back to bed. After I call Keith Richards.”
“Tell him he owes me money,” Gus called after him.
The door slammed behind Raoul.
Johnny fell sideways against the hallway wall, the corridor widening and narrowing around him, his vision distorting itself. Was it possible? Could Hope have been the muse? Keith Richards didn’t say anything about falling so in love with the muse you couldn’t imagine living without her, had he? If so, Johnny had missed that part.
Gus slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go write some hit songs, huh?”