You got to Me (Love on Tour #3)

YOU GOT TO ME

By Kay Harris

Copyright 2016 by the author

http://www.kayharrisauthor.com

For my awesome sister and my two amazing brothers – siblings rule!

1

“No, I’m serious, Lisa. Tell me.”

“I talked to you on the phone like every other day through the whole thing,” I say, exasperated.

“You left a lot out.” Dani takes a sip of her wine. “Besides, this is the first time in in a long time that I’ve been out of the house with an adult and a glass of wine in my hand.” She takes another sip. “If I’m going to have to pump and dump, we are staying out
late
. So there’s plenty of time.”

I can’t help but feel that tug of affection for my sister. I love her so much, and I love it when she is happy. Being here with me in a bar drinking wine, away from the baby for the first time in weeks, she deserves this. After all, I just spent the last month traveling the country with her husband while she was stuck at home with an infant.

“Plus,” she says, throwing her hands in the air, “how am I going to help you fix your love life if I don’t have every tiny detail?”

I give her a “bitch, please” look.

“I’m serious, Lisa. This needs fixing,” she says, for the umpteenth time today.

“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t turn it into a disaster.”

But it is a disaster, a huge one. I do want to fix it. I just don’t think I can. Dani grabs my hand and squeezes it.

I fight back tears. “You want me to start at the beginning?”

She nods.

I think about how it all began. It was her fault, really. Dani had wanted me to go with her husband on his five-week tour. He’s a rock star, and she’s just a regular girl who fell in love with him. She didn’t want to drag a baby on tour, so she asked me to go along with him. That was the beginning of this whole mess.

I decide to tell her the story, starting with the very first leg of our tour, from Malibu to San Francisco. “Okay,” I say, setting down my wine glass. I can’t drink this stuff right now, even though I kind of want to. “I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

“Don’t leave anything out.”

“Ugh. I won’t.”

****

Five weeks earlier…

How the hell did I let myself get into this situation?

This was the question that kept running through my mind as I watched him sleep. He was curled up on the tiny bed, his legs tucked up to his chest, his arms tucked under his chin. He might look like an angelic little boy, if he weren’t a hot hunk of a man.

My bladder reminded me of my original purpose for this little trip to the back of the bus. But I didn’t open the door to the bathroom. I kept staring at him. It was something I had to be careful about when he was awake. But right now, I could look my fill and no one would know.

Except me… Damn, I sucked.

He moved, and I jumped, bolting into the bathroom and shutting the door behind me. I lay my head on the door and took a couple deep breaths.

I was an idiot. I should have just said no. But how could I? I had no excuse to give. I wasn’t going to teach a summer class just to get out of it. I had no freaking life. I couldn’t think of a single good reason not to come on this tour, except that I had a serious crush on my sister’s husband.

When I got out of the bathroom, Sean was still asleep. But I resisted temptation, and instead of staring at him some more, I made my way back up to the front of the bus. Thirty-five days, I had thirty-five days of this hell.

I looked at Hank and Bell cuddled up on the couch, before plopping down in the booth across from Mike. These were my companions on this trip. Hank, whom I was not so fond of, Bell, whom I liked, but who was crazy insane for Hank, Mike, whom was great, but liked men, and Sean, my sister’s insanely hot husband. There was also Tony, the bus driver, but he was silent and slovenly.

And here I was, 34 and divorced, with a ticking biological clock. But my little sister, the very sister who begged to me come on this trip, was at home with her beautiful baby, whom she got by sleeping with the most gorgeous, considerate, kind, and downright amazing man I had ever had the pleasure to know. Fuck my life.

“We’re hitting Frisco traffic,” Tony said from the driver’s seat.

“They don’t like it when you call it that,” Mike said.

“Fuck them,” Tony called back.

Mike chuckled.

“I don’t get it. If Sam organized this whole tour, why the hell didn’t he meet up with us in L.A.?” I asked.

Mike shrugged. “Said he had some last minute meeting in San Francisco.”

“Do you think he’s going to screw this up?”

“Naw, Sam’s not really a fuck-up. His family just thinks he is. Sean wouldn’t have trusted him with this if he didn’t think he could handle it.”

I’d met Sean’s brother a few times. He seemed nice, but kind of obnoxious, though he did have the family good looks. He’d just graduated from law school, and he’d somehow talked Sean into letting him be the tour manager, even though he had absolutely no experience. In fact, Sam was the very reason we were on this damn tour. Sean would never have left his wife and three-month-old baby at home to go on a stupid tour, except that Sam begged him for this chance.

And that’s where I came in. My sister wanted me to keep her hot rock star husband company. I was still not entirely sure why the hell I was needed. After all, his best friend and his girlfriend, plus Mike, plus his brother, were all here. What the hell was I needed for?

“Mike, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

I was acutely aware that Bell and Hank were in hearing range. So I looked over at them. They were talking quietly about a car and a bet, or some damn thing.

I turned back to Mike and lowered my voice. “Why did Dani want me to come on this tour?”

“Didn’t you ask her?”

“Yes, she gave me some bullshit about keeping Sean company. But he has plenty of company.”

Mike grinned. “Maybe she wanted you to have fun?”

“Jesus Christ. She’s such a meddler.”

“You came, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I came,” I griped.

“Hey, we just got started. You’ll have a good time. I promise.”

“If it’s so fun, why does Dani hate tours so much?”

Mike screwed up his face. “Well, shit can get kinda crazy.”

I knew a few things. I knew that Dani had once been socked in the face at a show. I knew that a super model had once shown up in her hotel room, mostly naked, looking for Sean. And I knew that on the last tour she and Bell had been locked in a bathroom by some rabid groupies. I guess that all counted as crazy shit. It certainly did in my book.

Bell leaned over the aisle. “So Mike, spill. What is Sam up to in San Francisco?”

Before Mike got a chance to answer, Sean walked down the aisle toward us. He was bent over, because at 6’6 he couldn’t stand up all the way on the bus. His long black hair was loose, rather than in its usual ponytail, and was hanging down his back. I had to look away.

“You think Sam’s up to something?” he asked sleepily.

“Well, it’s weird, right, that he didn’t start the tour with us?” Bell commented.

Sean took a seat beside me. I could feel the heat coming off his body. He yawned. “Sam’s weird.”

“Come on, Sean,” Bell coaxed.

“Hmmm,” he mumbled. He stood back up and took, what was to him, one little step back to the kitchenette. The bus bumped and swayed, but Sean stood there at the counter, like a rock, immovable. He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Anyone else?”

“You realize, man, that we just got on the bus four hours ago. The rest of us are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Mike said.

“Didn’t sleep much last night. Henry’s got an ear infection.”

We all watched Sean make his way back to the booth. He sat down next to me again. He drank his coffee.

“Sean!” Bell said, exasperated.

He looked up at her. “Oh.” He let out a deep breath. “After Baby had Henry,” he began.

I was still getting used to this. Everyone, I mean everyone, now called my sister ‘Baby.’ It didn’t bother me so much when Sean did it, though. It sounded like an affectionate nickname.

“I made a big donation to the hospital. I told her about it a few days later.” Sean made a face, like he was remembering something pleasant. But whatever it was, he didn’t share it. “Then, Baby made arrangements for a donation to the maternity ward at the hospital in Kalamazoo, where I was born. So I’m making a donation at a hospital in Baby’s hometown. It’s a surprise. Sam’s finishing up the paperwork for me. There’s a lot of fucking paperwork.”

This was a very long speech for Sean, and when he was done he folded his arms across his chest, as if to say we weren’t getting anything else out of him.

It was the sweetest damn thing I’d ever heard.

“Fucking bleeding heart,” Hank said, grinning.

I rolled my eyes. Hank thought he was funny. But I just found him irritating. I couldn’t believe that my sister had named her baby after him.

“Really big donation?” Bell asked.

“You just never stop being a reporter, do you?” Hank said to her, an affectionate smile on his face.

Bell, whose real name was actually Susi, was a freelance writer, and it brought out the nosey in her sometimes. She just shrugged and grinned at her boyfriend.

“Just don’t write about it,” Mike said. “I’m guessing it’s anonymous.”

Sean nodded.

“Why?” I asked. I would like to plaster his generosity all over the world if I could, tell everyone how great he is.

Sean shrugged. “I always make anonymous donations. And I asked Baby if she wanted me to put her name on things, but she doesn’t want that either.”

“But you could name something cool,” Bell pressed. “Like how Hank had the shelter named after me.”

“If we ever go that route we’ll have something named for Henry,” Sean said.

Of course he would, he was the best dad in the world.

****

We pulled up to a gorgeous hotel in downtown San Francisco. It was wedged between Market Street and the Bay, and looked to be at least a hundred years old. From the bus window I could see the top of the Bay Bridge peaking out over the fog. I was home again, even though I’d just left a few days ago.

“Is it weird to stay in a hotel when your house is right over there?” Mike asked, pointing across the Bay.

“It’s kinda cool, actually,” I said. “I’ve never in my life stayed in a hotel here.”

San Francisco was home in one way, but not in others. We’d lived in the city until my senior year in high school. I knew all of her ins and outs, her charms and her sadness. But I’d been living in the East Bay so long that the City still felt like a wonderland when I came back.

The other two busses that traveled with the tour were already in the parking lot. People were streaming out of them and into a back door, luggage in their hands. I watched as one man approached our bus, smiling.

Tony parked and opened the door. I followed Sean off the bus. While everyone else started to get bags out of the compartments underneath, Sean greeted the man walking toward us.

“Hey, Joe.”

“You need a hand with anything?”

“Probably not.”

I stood beside Sean, watching them.

“Are you Baby’s sister?” Joe asked.

He was cute, way cute. And he looked to be about my age. He had a fuzzy-looking light brown beard, a sharp roman nose, and a pair of incredible bright blue eyes.

“Joe, this is Lisa. Lisa, this is my drummer, Joe.”

Joe stuck out his hand and I took it. It was rough and calloused. We shook hands.

“You didn’t tell me she was hot,” Joe said to Sean.

“She shares genes with Baby, how could she not be hot?” Sean said.

Oh my God. Sean thought I was hot. I tried to refocus on the cute drummer.

“Point taken. Hey, I just wanted to let you know that Sam’s inside in the lobby directing traffic. He’s doing great.”

“Thanks.”

Joe slapped Sean on the arm, winked at me, and headed toward the hotel.

Sean turned to me. “Where’s your bag, Lisa?”

I looked back toward the bus. Tony was pulling my bright purple bag out and holding it up. He made a face as he gazed at it.

“That’s it.”

Sean grabbed my bag from Tony, picked up his black backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then started walking toward the entrance. I tried to keep up with his long stride.

On the walk across the parking lot, I examined my internal behavior. Drooling over Sean, gazing longingly at his drummer, I was acting like a desperate girl in need of a man. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Since my divorce I had become a strong, independent woman. I had a full life, with a thriving career. I took care of my family, I volunteered my time, I sat on boards and chaired fundraisers. I did not need a man to be fulfilled.

But I started to see things differently when one day, three years ago, my mom and I flew to Florida to save my sister from becoming the seedy plaything for a rock star. We found them in a fancy hotel, with a hot tub right in the room. She looked well laid. He looked terrifying, with plentiful tattoos, massive biceps, and hair longer than mine.