Gritting his teeth in frustration, Staffan returned his attention to the rest of the headlines.
The Three Pussketeers
He rolled his eyes when he caught sight of what the press had dubbed him and his friends. What the f**k did that even mean?
The other headlines were just as bad. What was it with American media and their inexplicable obsession over the most absurd titles? The U.S. leg of his tour had barely started and already they had a dozen nicknames for him.
Mr. Fucktastic
Europe’s badass version of Justin Timberlake
Sweden’s #1 Sex God
These people were insane. They made it sound like his countrymen were so f**king obsessed – literally – that they actually kept a list for man whores.
He clicked on the next page that Constantijin – a Dutch billionaire who had been his friend since their boarding school days and was also one of the so-called Pussketeers –had emailed.
This one you will love, Constantijin had typed on top of a red arrow pointing down.
Staffan almost choked at what he had read. Clearly, his friend had saved the best for last.
Mr. Rockstar Chic.
A fan-made collage created by someone named Starry Eyed had been pasted below the title, featuring rows and rows of his red carpet photos and paparazzi snapshots.
He wanted to puke at the title. They made him sound like a f**king fashionista with a dick.
So he liked his clothes f**king decent. So he preferred his blazers custom-designed, his shirts made from the finest cotton and smoothest silk, his trousers bearing only labels of European’s leading houses of fashion and his shoes and belts cut from hand-sewn leather.
All those didn’t mean he welcomed being in every fashion police’s Best-Dressed list. Other men might have considered that an achievement, but as far as Staffan was concerned it just made him sound f**king g*y.
They didn’t know that his almost fanatic obsession in having the best clothes was a by-product of his childhood, of the times Staffan had been forced to alternate between two shirts until there were more holes than clothes in them, had no f**king uniform to use for school, and had nearly peed in utter shame whenever he was forced to go to Mrs. Gustav next door because he was close to starving to death.
Running an irritated hand through his hair, Staffan tossed the iPad on the opposite row of burgundy-colored seats in disgust.
His phone rang. He accepted the request for the FaceTime call and a second later, the faces of Constantijin and his friend’s girlfriend popped out on the screen. “How was the email?” Constantijin asked with a grin. An extremely good-looking man in his own right, Constantijin used to be known as Netherlands’ #1 Playboy. He had also been notorious for his unsmiling ways, but that, too, had changed when Yanna Everleigh entered his life.
Staffan answered his friend by flipping him off.
Constantijin’s bark of laughter was cut short when Yanna slapped his arm. She gave Staffan a sweetly apologetic smile. A pretty, dark-haired charmer, Yanna had easily won him over with her sometimes-shy and sometimes-bubbly personality.
“Don’t mind him, Staffan. He just misses you.”
Constantijin choked.
Staffan deliberately lowered his voice, adopting a seductive tone as he teased, “And what about you, my beautiful darling? Did you miss---?”
Yanna blushed.
“Goddammit, Staffan, I’m the only one who can make Yanna blush,” Constantijin growled.
“Constantijin!” Yanna wailed as her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink.
“Just tell him what we called him for so I can get you naked---”
Eyes widening, Yanna slapped her hand over Constantijin’s mouth. Clearing her throat, “Umm, anyway, I just wanted to remind you that it’s the 30th today, Staffan. And you haven’t yet made a call.”
Shit. He had forgotten about that.
“I know you’re tired after your concert and you’d rather relax---”
Staffan shook his head. “You were right in reminding me.” He checked his watch, a slim gold type that had no doubt added to his newfound “fashionista” image. Earlier, he had even heard one of the popular morning show hosts refer to him as the music industry’s very own David Beckham.
God save him from all these f**king comparisons. David Beckham? He had utter respect for the man, but they were too different. The soccer player had the patience to stand in front of camera for hours, but Staffan found it literally hell to be still for more than five minutes, and especially when it had to be for photo shoots.
“Staffan?”
He shook the irritable thoughts of photo shoots away and glanced at his watch again. Fuck. 10 minutes before midnight. “I need to put the phone down. I have to make the call now.”
“Understood.” Yanna beamed at him. “We look forward to spending more time with you when you come here to Florida!”
He gave her his sexiest smile. “After the tour, I’ll go straight to you, darl---” The last thing Staffan saw was Constantijin kissing Yanna as his friend reached for his wife’s iPad to end the call.
It almost made him smile. These frequent displays of Constantijin’s possessive jealousy were extremely amusing, mostly because his friend had never been like that until Yanna entered the picture.
Staffan used to think he had that with---
Fuck.
To distract himself, Staffan reached for his iPad again and signed in for the administrator account of his fan club’s website. He went to the members’ page, clicked a button to have it sorted according to birthdays, and picked the first name he spotted on the list who was celebrating her birthday today.
One of the perks that his fans club members enjoyed was having the chance to receive a birthday call from Staffan himself. He had been doing it for eight months now, and so far all the women he had called had acted the same. They would pretend they didn’t recognize his voice, did everything they could to prolong the call, and when they finally realized that he would be putting the phone down, they’d ask him to f**k them.
He had no reason to believe this call was going to be different.
~~~
Sapphire “Saffi” March tumbled out of her bed in her haste to get to the phone. It had to be him. It just had to be. She didn’t have any close friends, had never gone out on a date, and none of her family would ever have considered calling her at this hour of the night.
After all, an eccentric bookworm like her had no reason to be up this late. No one would have reason to expect that she was the most diehard of all fangirls and that her locker had a pin-up of Staffan Aehrenthal, hidden behind the evolutionary chart of ichthyology she had taped to her locker door.