Anyone But You

by Jerica MacMillan

  I bite back a smile at my dad’s penchant for strange sounding insults. “Perhaps he is. Either way, it’s time for me to go. I’ll talk to you more later.”

  They grumpily chorus their goodbyes and love yous, and I finally end the call and crawl into my bed, pulling on my eye mask after setting my phone alarm.

  My parents might drive me nuts, but at least they love me.

  A little before five, I get the text notifying me that the cars are waiting to take us to the venue. That’s my cue to gather everyone. Just like every night, I start with Marcus and Kendra. As the lead singer, he wants to be notified first about everything. Next is Danny and his family. Since they have two little ones, they take longer to get ready than everyone else, so I give them as much time as possible. They’re getting their routine down, though, with their diaper bag ready to go before I even knock.

  Danny opens the door tonight, greeting me with a warm smile, his infant daughter cradled against his shoulder. “It’s time?”

  “It’s time,” I confirm. “See you at the cars.”

  With a nod, he closes the door. He always brings his family with him to the venue. Ava stays for varying amounts of time, depending on how she’s feeling and how the kids are doing. Every day is a new adventure.

  After that, I move to the next door. Sam answers, her and Aaron’s daughter Maddy clinging to her leg. “Hey, Vi!” she says.

  “Hey, Vi!” Maddy echoes.

  “Hey, guys. The cars are ready.”

  Sam swivels her head and calls over her shoulder, “Did you hear that?”

  “I heard.” Aaron appears behind Sam, his hand slipping around her waist. “Thanks. We’ll be right down.”

  I give the three of them a wide grin. Watching these three couples and the kids is one of the most fun parts of the tour. Once we’re at the venue, we’ll have dinner together before the special fan meet and greets take place. Kendra, Sam, Ava, and the kids usually end up congregating in the greenroom during the opening act to allow the guys time to get their heads in the right space to perform. They’ve all been doing this long enough that they have their own routines. I just facilitate them as much as possible.

  Once the door closes, I turn around and face the door across the hall. Mason is last. As always. Like when I was a kid and my mom made green beans, I always pushed them to the side, waiting as long as possible before eating them. By then they’d always grown cold, which Mom always claimed made them worse. I don’t know, though. I tried them once when they were still warm and didn’t notice a significant difference.

  That’s what Mason is to me. The green beans of the band. The one I dread having to deal with, putting him off as long as possible.

  Though, to be fair, he’s been slightly less awful since Boston. And he did try to apologize that one time, even if it came out sounding like the perfunctory apology of a preschooler who’s forced to say sorry for hitting his sister. When we all know full well he’d hit his sister again in a heartbeat.

  First green beans, and now projecting my older brother onto him. Again.

  Except Mason is nothing like my brother.

  Will’s torments were stupid and childish. And left behind by the time we were both entering adolescence.

  Mason, on the other hand, seems to needle me with his very existence. His sexy stubble. His broody stares. The way his hair falls over his forehead, the way his muscles flex when he shoves it back.

  The way he kissed me that first night, grabbing me and taking control of my body like he owned it and knew exactly how to handle it.

  Which was infuriating.

  And not at all a huge turn on.

  Because he’s what my college friends would term a fuckboy. Even my parents can tell. Condoms or not, I’d never be safe with him. At all.

  But I have to go knock on his door, because it’s my job. Barring the one incident where I found him naked, nothing untoward has happened when I’ve gone to collect him. Well, not at the hotel anyway.

  Last week I walked in on a blowjob in his dressing room at the venue in Philly …

  He never has anyone to his room, though. And it’s the same call time as always. He’ll be ready to go. I have no reason to worry.

  Lifting my chin, I take the few steps to the door, raise my hand and knock.

  No answer.

  I knock again, this time louder.

  After counting to thirty, there’s still no answer. I know their suites are comfortably sized, but no one takes this long to answer me. Especially not at call time.

  So much for thinking he was over his petty attempts to make my life more difficult. That was nice while it lasted, at least.

  With a sigh, I dig the key card for his room out of my bag and swipe it through the reader, waiting for the light to turn green before pushing it open.

  “Mason,” I call, hoping he’s just finishing up in the bathroom or something. Maybe he ate something that didn’t agree with him.

  A grunt comes from the direction of the bedroom. I walk slowly toward the open door, my brain not quite making sense of the slick sounds I’m hearing.

  “Mason?” I call again. “The cars are waiting. Everyone’s headed down. It’s time to—” The last word go never makes it out because my vocal chords freeze as I round the open doorway to find Mason on the bed shirtless, his jeans open and shoved partway down his thighs, his dick out and his hand flying over its length.

  His dark eyes are trained on me, his jaw working, abs flexing as his hand moves faster.

  I stare, open mouthed. My eyes can’t decide what to focus on—his stare that never deviates from my face, the broad expanse of rippling muscle that is his torso, or the way his hand works over his dick. I bounce between all of them for a few seconds, finally coming to rest on his dick as it spasms, ropes of white cream shooting out of the tip and landing on his abs.

  His eyes finally slide closed as his body shudders. The loss of his gaze seems to break whatever spell I’m under, and my face heats.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I squeak, starting to stumble backward. “You didn’t answer when I knocked. The cars are ready!”

  Flushed and breathing hard, I stagger out of the bedroom and close the door behind me. Mason’s laugh rumbles through the door. “I’ll be down in a few,” he says, his voice husky and lazy, like there’s all the time in the world for him to whack off. Like it’s not call time.

  Like he wanted me to walk in on him.

  Now my cheeks are red from anger, not embarrassment. Without a word, I stride to the door to the hall, yanking it open and storming to the elevator. Normally I’d wait for him. But not tonight.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mason

  Viola’s wearing red lipstick again tonight.

  It hasn’t made an appearance since her first night, and it’s by far my favorite. It’s haunted my dreams—my fantasies—ever since. When she waltzed into my room like she owns the place, calling my name, I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe my fantasies had just run away with me, because she’d had the starring role while I fucked my hand and imagined it was her for a while.

  The way those scarlet lips parted when she saw me and the heat in her eyes … fuuuuck.

  I’ve suspected my attraction isn’t entirely one-sided since that first night. She kissed me back. It wasn’t all in my head. And every so often, I catch her checking me out. But so much of the time she’s closed off to me, her face carefully blank, her voice neutral.

  I know I piss her off. Especially since I’ve been doing it on purpose. But her reactions are so slight that I wouldn’t catch them if I didn’t watch her closely—a brief tightness around her mouth, a fleeting flare of her nostrils—and then she’s back in control, either ignoring me completely or answering me as though I haven’t just done something to provoke her.

  Though I’ve tried lightening up on that since Boston. I don’t think she accepted my apology that night after I made her pick me up. I don’t know if she didn’t believe me or if she
was too tired to remember it the next day, but it hasn’t softened her toward me at all.

  And while I enjoyed her barging in on me, from the way her cheeks turned pink and she all but ran away after I finished, it’s easy to guess that she doesn’t feel the same way.

  Sighing, I clean myself up as quickly as possible and drag a shirt over my head before heading down to the cars.

  I knew I was cutting it close with the impromptu self-love session, but I had too much time on my hands this afternoon, which led to daydreaming instead of napping. Daydreams turned into fantasies, and try as I might to pretend otherwise, Viola has been making a frequent appearance in the movies that play in my brain. No matter how much I tried to change my train of thought, nothing helped.

  Browsing the on-demand movies only led to porn. Trying to read didn’t keep my attention—plus the hero in the action book I’m reading sleeps around as much as James Bond, so more sex there too. There was only one thing to do about the unrelenting hard-on in my pants, or I’d end up rocking a boner on stage tonight.

  Hell, with the memory of the look on Viola’s face imprinted on my brain, I might anyway.

  She’s nowhere in sight when I get to the hallway, and I frown at Dave, who gives me a nod and pushes the call button on the elevator. “Where’s Viola?” I ask him. The two of them are usually my shadows.

  Avoiding my gaze, he clears his throat. “She went down already.”

  I eye him suspiciously. “Did she say why?”

  He clears his throat again. “Not as such, no.”

  “What did she say?” I push. He’s acting weird, like he knows something embarrassing, but doesn’t want to say it. Which only makes me want to know more.

  “Not much. She asked me to wait for you because she needed to go down right away. But after that she was kind of muttering to herself while she waited for the elevator.” Which chooses that moment to ding, and the doors slide open. We both step on, and I give him an expectant look, arms crossed. He sighs. “I didn’t catch it all, but I heard the words dick, jizz, and jack off.” He spreads his hands. “It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what might’ve happened.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my grin. I find it adorable that she was so worked up about what she walked in on. And also gratifying that I got such a big reaction out of her. About anything. Fucking finally.

  “Well,” I drawl out just as the elevator slows before opening on the ground floor, “she barged into my room. That kind of thing comes with a certain amount of risk.”

  Dave chuckles. “I’m guessing she’s learned that lesson.”

  Viola avoids me as much as possible for the rest of the night. That is, until the post-show party is about to begin.

  Once again, she and Dave have been dispatched as my babysitters, and she’s forced to sit next to me in the back of the car while Dave sits up front. She keeps her face steadfastly pointed out the window, no matter how many times I clear my throat or attempt to engage her in conversation. Every question is answered with her signature noncommittal hum.

  But I know I affect her. Dave confirmed it. So I’m more determined than ever to break down that unaffected wall she puts up. Get inside it and get to the real her.

  It probably says something about how messed up I am that the woman I’m most interested in is the one who ignores and rejects me at every opportunity. Especially when there are plenty of women fawning over me every night—from the VIP ticket holders, the interchangeable groupies that follow us from show to show, even the girl in the band that’s opening for us right now.

  I kissed one of them a few nights ago—I can’t remember her name, no big shock, and they’re all tiny blonde pixies, though I suspect for at least two of them the color comes from a bottle. But she’d had red lips, the same color as Viola’s the night she started.

  And ever since that color’s been my weakness.

  Except the nameless pixie girl-band member felt wrong. Tasted wrong. Right color. Wrong lips.

  And so I’d pushed her aside—nicely, of course. Blamed it on whisky dick and called it a night, finding Viola’s eyes on me when I looked up, that blank mask in place like always.

  If she likes watching me masturbate, how does she feel about watching me make out with other women?

  Is she a voyeur? Is that what gets her hot?

  Or is it that she feels this same push-pull of dislike and physical attraction that I do? That she can’t keep her eyes off me in a crowded room the same way I always look for her?

  We arrive at the club before I make any headway in gaining Viola’s attention. But my musings on the way here have me wondering if she’ll watch me in the party room.

  Dave leads the way inside like always, Viola and I trailing after him in size order like ducklings. The club here is all flash and sparkle, blinding lights, strobes, glitter on the walls. A hostess intercepts us at the back entrance, leading us to the room Viola reserved for our entire stay in Charlotte.

  There are already people here, word having spread before I even left the arena. Technically it’s invitation only, but as long as someone knows the password and is willing to surrender their phone, they can get in until the room is at capacity. And it looks like it’s already at capacity tonight.

  Booze of every variety flows freely, as does the MDMA, with people rubbing up against each other everywhere. As soon as I’m in the room, a flock of women surrounds me, all of them pawing at me, wanting a piece of me.

  I hold up my hands in a calming gesture. “Easy, ladies, easy. I’ll be here all night.”

  They all coo and giggle, but most of them back off. Those are the ones that’ll get more of my attention. Listening is an important skill, in my opinion.

  Shaking off the hands of the more aggressive ones, I make eye contact with Dave and nod at the three women in front of me. He nods back and immediately wades over, offering to get the women drinks as he subtly escorts them to the door. I’m not sure what he tells the people he boots out, but that’s not my problem. He does the job, and that’s what counts. The club has its own bouncer at my door, and he knows not to let in anyone Dave’s kicked out.

  Finding an open spot on a couch, I ask one of the women who greeted me if she’ll get me a whisky, and she nods eagerly and scampers off. The other women cluster around me, settling at my side, almost in my lap, two of them even kneeling at my feet, like I’m a king surrounded by his harem.

  They’re pretty, beautiful even, dressed in club wear, perfect makeup and sleek hair every last one of them. But I’m just using them.

  I’d feel bad, except they’re using me too. For a fuck. A story. A memory.

  They don’t care about me. They care about the drummer for Cataclysm and their brush with someone famous.

  Looking around, I lock eyes with Viola. She’s watching me, as I knew she would be, but her face gives nothing away. Like always.

  Deliberately, I put my arm around the girl next to me, watching Viola for a reaction.

  Nothing.

  Turning my face, I break eye contact with Viola and kiss the girl next to me. I don’t let it last too long, and when she’s got one hand curled in my shirt trying to yank me closer, her leg going across my lap, that’s my sign to end the kiss. I want to get a reaction out of Viola, not have sex with a random woman in the middle of a room full of people.

  Sure, I will sometimes if I’m horny enough and had enough to drink. But I haven’t even gotten the drink I asked for yet.

  “I got your whisky,” says a loud voice, clearly annoyed.

  I shift the girl off my lap and give the one who fetched my drink a wide, lazy smile. “Thank you,” I say, disentangling myself from the cluster of female limbs and standing to accept the drink.

  She steps into me, pressing her breasts against my chest. But I look past her, and when my eyes clash with Viola’s, I finally get a reaction.

  Only it’s disgust. Contempt.

  Which has my pulse racing, but not in a good way. Of cou
rse she looks at me with contempt. She doesn’t think I’m good enough for her. Not even good enough to respond to my apology. Or grace with even a few degrees of her warmth. I get all her coldness. All her disdain.

  With a sneer curling her lip, she looks away, going so far as to turn her whole body toward Dave at his place next to the door. His face is impassive as he scans the party, always on alert, always scanning for threats. I see Viola’s lips move as she speaks to him, and I’m torn with wanting to know what she’s saying, because I know it’s about me, even if I know it’s something terrible.

  She doesn’t like me. Of course she doesn’t. I haven’t given her any reason to like me. And I seem to have given her plenty of reasons not to.

  Suddenly the clingy grip of the women surrounding me feels suffocating.

  The whole atmosphere with its loud music and bright flashing lights bouncing off the glittering walls is too much.

  And I’m exhausted. Ready to go back to the hotel and curl up in bed with a soft body.

  But I don’t get to do that.

  Blaire left. Cut me off with barely an explanation, ran off with another artist and fell in love with him.

  None of these women are here for more than just a quick fuck. Bringing one of them back to my room isn’t an option. Aside from my own personal rule not to bring groupies and randoms to the floor where my band stays with their families—and that’s because I care about them and not because Marcus would tear me a new asshole for doing it—bringing one of them there would be like bringing a piece of the club. Bright, loud, flashy. Not comforting. Not warm.

  Truthfully, this clichéd rock star life lost its appeal years ago. Fucking hot chicks is still fun, but I got used to the steady reliability of having someone I know, someone who knows me available when I needed her. She’s gone, and I’m the odd man out.

  So I’ve thrown myself back into this existence, hoping it would drown out the melancholy that’s been swirling inside me since Blaire bailed.

  And it does. For a while. But the melancholy’s still there, waiting for me when the night falls quiet.