Stars in Your Eyes (Queen/Roger Taylor)

13. Skylar

Roger stares at me with a slightly surprised look in his eyes, his expression otherwise neutral. My eyes flicker over to the girl who's wrapped around him like a spider monkey. Her eyes are shooting daggers at me, and I stifle the urge to turn around and walk out of here.

"Hey, Skylar," Roger finally replies in that casual way of his, my name sounding more like Sky-lah. The girl leans over to whisper something in his ear, but he doesn't react and his eyes remain locked on mine. We must look ridiculous, staring at each other in the middle of a raucous bar, but, apparently, it's all that we can manage at the moment.

"Coming through, coming through!" A petite younger woman announces loudly as she pushes her way through the crowd and weasels her way in between Roger and his date.

"Sorry, love, just need a quick chat with my brother," the woman--who must be Clare--says to the other woman, flashing a saccharine smile.

"Want to grab us another round?" Roger suggests to the blonde. Her head swivels between his sister and me, and, after giving him a cutesy little pout, she reluctantly heads over to the bar.

Apparently, the Taylor family is big into hugging, because that's the first thing that Clare does after introducing herself. She reminds me of my roommate in uni: bubbly, sassy, and able to trick you into spilling every secret about yourself within the first five minutes. Roger watches us embrace with a funny look on his face as if he can't decide how he feels about this moment.

Clare walks back to Roger and casually drapes an arm around his shoulder. "Rog, it occurs to me that I forgot to mention that Skylar phoned while you were gone."

Roger looks at me briefly before training his blue eyes on his sister. "You forgot to--" He runs a hand through his perfectly-tousled hair. "I hate you sometimes, Clare."

"I hate you too, Rog," she replies before aggressively ruffling his hair, which likely had taken him forever to style.

"Get off!" he complains, trying unsuccessfully to stop her attack. Once his hair is sufficiently messed up, she sticks her tongue out at him and traipses over to the bar with a wide grin on her face.

"Oh, Rooooooger!" Clare calls over to us. "Don't forget to tell Skylar about how you're a very important person in some parts of the world. Maybe that'll impress her." She sticks her tongue out at him again for good measure.

I cover my mouth with my hand to conceal my amusement at the look of mild horror on Roger's face. He briefly closes his eyes and shakes his head slightly before opening them again and focusing on me.

"Sorry about that... I really wanted a little brother, but what I got was her." Roger finally gives me a small smile as he hastily smoothes down his hair. His usually fair skin has a slight glow from the Australian sun, and he looks really, really good.

"So, uh, you phoned?" He shoves one hand into the back pocket of his jeans, and the other tightly clasps his pint of beer. We remain standing apart from one other as if the distance will save us from any potential awkwardness or misunderstanding.

"I did, yeah. I, uh, forgot that you were traveling."

"Took you long enough," he mutters. He stares just past me as he reaches a hand inside his half-buttoned shirt to nervously rub his collarbone.

"Yeah, about that--"

"Look, this isn't a great time, Skylar. I'm sort of in the middle of something here." He glances over my shoulder towards the bar.

My heart sinks. Look, I'm not an idiot. Obviously this was a likely outcome tonight. It's not as if I expected a man like Roger Taylor to wait around for me, and clearly, he hasn't.  In fact, I shouldn't even be here. This whole thing with him is stupid and distracting, and the last thing that I need in my life.