Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (21 page)

An odd tingle vibrated my cells, and I shook the feeling away. Should I head back the way I’d come, or continue? The aroma of food made up my mind. I rotated away from the stage, ready to fall back into the throng, but a rock solid chest brought me up short.

Barbed wire entwined in staff lines and a smatter of music notes peeked at me from the V-neck of the black Ultima tee. I was encircled with familiarly inked arms when I wobbled. “Looking for someone?” The brightness of the day allowed me a tinted glimpse behind Gage’s shades to his amused eyes.

Continuing to crane my neck, I didn’t break the gaze. “I was looking for an asshole. But I found him.”

“Ouch! You’re so mean today! Why are you so mean, Scarlette Conterra?” His voice dropped on the last sentence, enough that it was an intimate question between the two of us.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night.” I aimlessly followed the main path. “The person in the bunk below me snores too loud.”

Gage and I were positioned one over the other. My first night on tour, Gage had offered me his lower bunk, but I’d declined, knowing I’d feel less claustrophobic in the top one.

Gage reached, and I automatically passed my container of water. After taking a long sip, he drawled, “You never complained about snoring before.”

No? Maybe snoring was way better tolerated when the snorer was a naked mass of muscled flesh spooning me.

The internal thought had my face flaming. Had he said that purposely to take my thoughts to him in my bed? Of course he had. Although he’d been a total gentleman in the short time I’d been back in his company, I hadn’t missed the longing in his looks.

“Hey guys. Scarlette!” Landon edged his way in between the two of us. “I’m dying for some chicken wings. Please say they’re on my diet.”

One of the things I’d done was put the guys all on a healthy diet. Food derivatives were a direct effect on mood and energy level. It was my hope that a happy and energetic musician wouldn’t crave a chemical alternative on the side.

“They’re not. Not these anyway. But eat up and be sure to drink the smoothie mix when you get back to the bus.”

“Thank you! Thank you. I LOVE you, Scarlette.” Landon engulfed my body in a boisterous embrace, and I saw Gage’s jaw tighten as if he were gritting his teeth. But to his credit, he said nothing and his bandmate disappeared into the crowd unharmed.

We caught part of a show. Ate very unhealthily ourselves. Took a stroll through a misting station when we became too hot. Refilled my water canteen and shared it. Dipped into an air-conditioned dance tent, and even danced in a group who waved a totem with a sign perched atop it. ‘If you’re lost, stay and dance with us.’

Dark had descended, and the party had become a colorful glow when we got the text to return to the bus. We stood for a moment, getting our bearings. Neither of us had downloaded the festival app to our phone, which included a map tracker.

“This way.” I concluded after my thought process.

“Uh Uh. This way.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me back before the crowd swallowed me up.

A lick of liquid heat shot from my palm, up my arm and then somehow shot sideways to explode in fireworks in my belly.

“Sure?” Restraining the urge to snatch my hand from his grasp, and another equally strong compulsion to yank at his hand and pull us even closer, I tried to look casually around and control any quake in my voice. As casually as possible, I disengaged from him and pointed to a monstrous structure of colored lights. “There’s the Kruell stage. So that would mean―”

“You’re right. Absolutely. That way.” He pointed to the way I’d been headed before he’d closed those long talented fingers around my hand.

The bus was a dark hulk with blue running lights in the lighted parking area. The lot had been full this afternoon when the driver had eased into our designated space. Now there were empty spaces, as well as new neighboring buses. As we approached, the door burst open, and to a backdrop of light, two giggling groupie-looking girls spilled down the steps, and behind them, the door closed again.

“Well?” One asked once they had put a short distance between them and the bus. And the other giggled again. “I’ve had better. You?” Another drunken titter. “Definitely.”

Mutually, Gage and I used a luxury RV for cover until the girls passed, and then together we burst out laughing.

Two of the guys were sprawled in the back area, setting up the video game system. When one greeted us with “Hey, you just missed the party!” Gage and I dissolved into laughter again.

“What?”

“Nothing. We saw your party.”

“And why’s that funny?”

“It’s not.” I interjected before Gage could say something that would start a fight. “It’s just when we saw them, I said to Gage, ‘Aw, we missed the party.’”

Behind me, Gage was ransacking the fridge, and he snorted, drawing suspicious frowns from his bandmates. Thankfully, the door burst open and Landon stumbled in with a “Honey, I’m home!”

“Fuck! What’s that smell?” Gage scrunched his face and I held back a gag.

Ignoring the way we skirted out of his way, Landon sauntered to the fridge and it was then the muddy-looking streaks on the backside of his jeans were revealed. Bending for a moment, he selected a covered tumbler and straightened, holding the smoothie up for my approval.

“Yeah. Good boy.” I praised, deliberately, as if he were a puppy. But curiosity got the better of me. “What the hell is that on your jeans?”

“My jeans?” He poked a straw into his cup, took a long pull of the drink, and looked down his front.

When I directed him with a finger to turn and he continued to look confused, Gage chimed in. “Backside, dude.”

Comprehending, at last, he arched and immediately began to gag. The smoothie dropped from his hand, barely righting itself on the table, while Landon unzipped. The two gamers, drawn by the fanfare, appeared, just as Landon stripped the jeans off right there in the tiny kitchen. Still gagging, he raced for the door, ripped it open, tossed the garment out, and pulled the door closed again.

“What! What the hell?” We all echoed some version of the same sentiment.

“Banged this chick in the porta potty.” Landon’s confession was sheepish. He closed himself in the bathroom. The sound of the shower running didn’t cover his retching.

“Scar, my darlin’.” Gage set his own smoothie in the sink. “That pretty much killed the smoothie for me. Forevermore.”

The bus soon settled down and we were on the road. I dumped extra sanitizer down the toilet, splashed it around the bathroom, and tried not to think that less than an hour ago the guy who had been covered in strangers’ shit had showered and puked in this small space. I tried not to remember that Jax had offered me a choice of travel arrangements, and I had chosen the band bus.

Gage was sitting at the table when I emerged in my comfy clothes—yoga pants and a large long-sleeved tee. His features were intent and his attention was on the screen of his phone. I knew that look. He was composing lyrics.

“Shower stall was boring with no lyrics on the wall,” I joked.

Snapping out of his trance, he looked me over and then settled his gaze on my face. “I’ve reformed my ways.” My inquisitiveness must have shown on my face, because he added, “Except at my own house. If you’re missing shower lyrics, you’ll find them there.” I knew he was joking—sort of—but an uncomfortable silence descended, and he broke it with another more respectable invitation. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Sure. Okay.”

The guys had resumed their video game in the back, and Landon was sprawled fast asleep on the front couch. I gently slipped the remote from the relaxed grasp of the drummer, and Gage commandeered it to put a movie on. We both settled in the booth seat of the kitchen table that faced the screen and propped our feet across on the adjacent bench.

“You doing okay?” Gage’s inquiry was soft, and I knew he was speaking primarily of the tour more than anything else happening in my insane life when he nodded his head to our surroundings. “With all of this?”

“It’s weird, you know. But I’m good, I guess.”

Perhaps it was the ‘I guess’ tacked onto the end that drew his gaze from the television to the side of my face. I felt the trail of his eyes as surely as I’d felt the heat from his touch earlier.

“You don’t have to stay. If it gets too much, or it’s more than you thought, you should leave.”

“I can’t, really. When Jax first spoke with me about it, he kinda said the decision to put Rattler on tour hinged on whether or not I accepted his offer.”

“But he can hire someone else.”

“You trying to get rid of me?” I used his tactic of this afternoon against him. It was an attempt to divert the subject before I let it slip that
he
was quite possibly who Jax was the most worried about.

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I am. This is what I want to do. To create a business around this to help anyone whose life is on the road. Because that’s where most slipping happens. Right?” He nodded, and I looked down at the table, knowing he was remembering the times he’d fallen off the wagon. “Even if I’m not out on the road, I still need the experience of being on the road to run my business right.”

“Who’s blowing up your phone?”

Accepting the subject change, I acknowledged the notification tones that had been drifting from my bunk for the last hour. “Henni, probably. Or Logan.” I knew I was testing his reaction to the last name, but chickened out of meeting his gaze and concentrated instead on threading and unthreading my fingers.

“Logan?”

“You knew we were going out, right?” Now I brought my chin up and found him wearing a look of resignation.

Instead of answering, he asked, “My Dad call you back yet?”

“He sent an update text yesterday. Said the lawyers were going to fax him something that seemed promising.” Hopping up, I pulled open a cabinet and produced a box of microwave popcorn. “Screw their rules. I need spicy popcorn!”

The day I’d unpacked it from the bags of groceries I’d brought in, Landon and the others had been quick to tell me popcorn stunk up the bus for days.

Gage eased out of the seat and opened the spices while I got the bag ready and popped it into the microwave. The tiny kitchen had us brushing together with almost every move and my heart pounding.

As the random pops began, I fiddled with the cayenne pepper shaker. “I should tell you something.” I kept my voice low, but knew he could hear since he was standing less than six inches away. “The video on the beach.” My heart pounded harder and a flush spread through my body. “Of us.” As if he needed to know what video. I gulped and tried to pull myself together and cool my horny thoughts. “My mom said that was Ketchum’s doing.” I explained how he’d been following me—even apparently to Mexico—when my mother refused to tell him where I was staying while in L.A. “He, um, supposedly had a way of checking flights. But I think she may have accidentally told him or something. And then even if he didn’t know where we were staying… Well that tweet thing happened where he could have found us at the club and followed us from there.” The popcorn was exploding in earnest while Gage was too silent for too long. Still, I couldn’t look at him.

Popping slowed and I extracted the bag, carefully opened it, dumped the spice mixture in, and rolled it closed so I could shake the mixture.

Gage’s response when it came at last sounded emotionless, but I knew him well enough to know when he seemed cold and unaffected, he was furious. “Fuck him. I’m going to find him and make him sorry he ever started this shit.”

“Don’t do anything stupid. That’s exactly why I wasn’t going to tell you!”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” In one smooth maneuver, he was in front of me, forcing me to look at him. “You weren’t going to fuckin’ tell me? Fuck that, Scar. Christ… This shit is my life too, you know. Fuck this!”

He spun about but his exit was blocked by the two gaming band members who’d obviously been drawn by the sound and smell of the forbidden popcorn.

“I know. I know. At least try it before you bitch at me for making it.” I shoved the bag at them since my appetite for the snack was gone.

“They’re not going to say a fuckin’ word. If you want popcorn, you can have fuckin’ popcorn anytime you want. End of story.” Gage shoved his way past the two of them, and a second later was swallowed up in his bunk.

“Dammit, this shit is good!” Both were shoving fistfuls of popped kernels into their mouths. They asked if I wanted some and when I answered ‘it was all theirs,’ they disappeared into the back again.

Eyeing the curtain across Gage’s bunk, I put away the spices, rinsed out the cups in the sink and wiped up. After turning off the television and tucking the remote into its holder, I dimmed the lights and stood, slightly hypnotized by the road humming under my feet as I considered what to do next.

Padding to the middle of the bus, I paused, instead of climbing into my bunk. All was dark behind Gage’s curtain. No flicker of a television, which even when he didn’t have his headphones on, he normally slept with it muted like he had in his own bedroom.

“Gage?” I knelt and spoke to the slight gap between the curtain and the wall where his head would be. “I’m sorry.” Nothing. “Okay? Don’t be mad.” Fuck, I couldn’t handle even a day on this tour with him mad at me. “Okay?”

The drape suddenly shot open, one of his arms came out, hooking me, and when I fell onto him, he closed the curtain again. “Okay.” The word was husky and agreeable.

My body burned pleasantly in every area of contact with his. He smelled of popcorn, the festival, and himself. I’d never forgotten his scent, or the feel of his breath fanning my face.

“Okay then.” I braced on my hands, pushing up as far as the small confines allowed and rubbed my elbow when it hit what clearly felt like one of his guitars. I understood. I slept with my guitar too. “I should go to bed.”

“Says who?”

“Me?”

“Do I get a say?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because. I know what you’ll say.” My thoughts went back to the day I’d arrived and the conversation left hanging.
It is though, you know. Your business. Because you could never be with some sociopathic dick.