by Cherrie Lynn
She was halfway up the hallway, going back to the bedroom, when Ava spoke up again. “Hey, does he have any alcohol on this bitch? I’m fucking parched.”
“Zane doesn’t drink.”
Rowan couldn’t make out Ava’s muttered reply. She didn’t much care. She closed the bedroom door behind her, lay on the bed, and picked up her phone. Savannah hadn’t tried to call her back, but Rowan was in no mood to finish that conversation. To say it hadn’t been going well was an understatement, and besides that, Mike was probably getting an earful right now.
Maybe this had been a huge mistake after all.
Chapter Eleven
When Zane went up his bus steps and saw Ava already sitting on the couch, he damn near groaned out loud. Especially when he noticed Rowan was nowhere to be seen and the bedroom door was closed. The two obviously hadn’t hit it off, or she would probably be here.
“Hey,” Ava purred, smiling her reptilian smile. “Long time no see.”
“Hey, Ava. Give me a minute, all right?” He walked right past her, heading for the back.
“Cute girl,” Ava said at his back. “Where the hell did you find that one?”
He didn’t answer, just opened the door and slipped inside the bedroom. Rowan, lying on her side facing away from him, rolled over and regarded him with glassy eyes. “Hi.”
“Are you all right?” he asked, walking around to sit on the edge of the mattress beside her. “Ava can be a little tough to deal with.”
“A little tough? She’s an absolute raging bitch.”
And he had no idea what Ava had told her, so he would have to tread very lightly here. It damn sure wasn’t the right time to tell her about it now. He didn’t need the two getting into a hair-pulling brawl on her very first night here.
“Raging bitch aside, we gotta do the song.”
“Did you know this about her when you asked her to do the song?”
“I’d only met her a few times, at shows and stuff. She was always okay.”
“To you maybe. Because she wants to fuck you, you realize that, right? Or has she already?”
“Hey,” he said gently, reaching around to rub her back. “No. Nothing like that has happened. I promise.”
“I only need to know what I’m dealing with here, so I don’t make a fool out of myself.”
She was completely right. She did need to know. Sighing, he pulled his hand away and stared at the wall ahead of him. “She tried, yeah. She tried hard. But it didn’t happen.”
Please don’t ask me how hard she tried.
Rowan was silent for a long moment, so long that he finally looked at her to see how she was taking it. Her expression was distant, but none of the anger or hurt he’d feared showed on her face. In fact, she gave him a little half smile. “I guess that would explain some of her hostility.”
“Rowan, if she was hostile to you, I’ll ask her ass to leave this bus.”
She waved a hand. “She was petty and dismissive. I don’t want to interfere with what you’re doing. Go have your meeting or practice or whatever you were going to do. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No. By the way, I talked to Savannah, and it went even worse than expected. I guess I should warn you to expect a call from your brother.”
“I keep telling you, I can handle my brother.”
“I hate to be the cause of all this strife. I was lying here thinking maybe I should go home.”
That statement stabbed him directly through the heart. In fact, he could hardly breathe for a moment. He didn’t want her to go; they hadn’t even gotten started yet. But if it was what she wanted, who was he to stop her? “It’s gonna be a long day,” he said, fighting around the tightening in his throat. “Don’t make any decisions yet. We’ll talk about it when this craziness is over, okay? We have an off day tomorrow. It’ll be better.”
“Okay,” she agreed softly. “Fair enough. You’d better get up there before she starts pounding on the door.”
He chuckled, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and stood. “You can come out too, you know, if you want. You’re with me and you have every goddamn right to be here. Don’t forget it.”
“I know. I think I’ll stay here for now.”
God. This might be doing her more harm than good. “Rest up, then. Our set is at nine thirty. You’re front and center, baby.”
That brought the grin he wanted to see, lighting up her eyes to the peak of their gorgeous springtime green. “I can’t wait.”
Ava was seething with impatience when he went up front; he could see it all over her face. “She’s a needy one, is she?” she asked, coating her ugly words with syrupy sweetness that made his skin crawl. “I guess it comes with being a widow and all.”
“You know, maybe if you hadn’t been a fucking bitch to her, I wouldn’t have had damage to repair,” he said, taking the chair opposite her.
Ava shot ramrod straight. “Did she say I was a bitch?”
He laughed. “She didn’t have to. You owe her an apology.”
“Whenever someone says that to me, Zane, my reply is always ‘I have two words for you, but I’m sorry ain’t among them.’”
“Yeah. Something tells me you have to say it a lot. What did she do to you, Ava? What made you think you have a right to come in here and talk down to my fucking friends? I don’t give a fuck who you are, you’re coming out during our set because we invited you, not the other way around. If you don’t want to do it, we’ll cut the song.”
She stared him down like a snake eyeing its prey, but he didn’t flinch, meeting her dead eyes straight on. And in the end, she was the one whose gaze skittered away first. Drawing a breath, she sat back and stretched one lean arm across the back of the couch. “You got a drink?” she asked at last.
“No,” he said, no sooner than the question had left her lips.
“Ugh. Zane. Okay, I’m sorry, Jesus. I’m sorry. Bring the cute little widow out here and I’ll tell her, too.”
He wanted to snap back at her for that, because that was the very shit he was talking about. But hell, that was Ava. That was how she spoke and how she was. Best to get this shit over with and done.
“No, I’m not going to bring her out. But I still don’t have a drink for you, because I don’t drink.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to keep up with who’s trying to ride the wagon and who’s eaten dirt.”
“Still riding it,” he told her.
“So are we gonna do this, or what?”
Zane nodded, still on his guard, but for the next hour, she was good. Music was a common language for them; it was the one they both spoke fluently. By the time she left, he felt a remnant of the euphoria he recalled from watching her work in his studio. For all her shortcomings, she was so talented that little else mattered, and he was still in awe of her.
The sun was beginning to go down by then. He wandered back to the bedroom to find Rowan taking a nap, and while he didn’t want to disturb her, if she wanted to hunt down something to eat, they needed to do it now. Sitting beside her again, he simply watched her for a moment, then gently shook her shoulder. Her sleepy eyes cracked open to look up at him.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm,” she said while he swept an errant lock of hair behind her ear, and her full lips curled in a little smile. So beautiful.
“We need to go ahead and grab something.”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“Hell, if I could crawl in there with you and sleep until morning, that would be fine with me.”
Rowan stretched her back, wincing a little, and he helped her sit up. “Ava’s gone, right?” she asked with an anxious glance at the door.
“Yeah, don’t worry.”
Beyond the bus walls raged the thunder of the band on the main stage, and he was surprised she’d been able to sleep at all. He was used to the noise by now. They headed to
catering, where he watched in amusement as her restless gaze roamed all over the large room in starstruck awe. He could’ve had Jase bring something to the bus, and he would’ve preferred it, but he figured Rowan would rather explore. Every time she excitedly spotted one of his brethren rock stars, or uttered an “Oh my God, that’s . . .” Zane mentally supplied his opinion . . . usually asshole, steer clear. The ones who weren’t, came over to speak and he gladly introduced her, even if he didn’t quite appreciate the strange looks some of them were giving him.
Yeah, he’d shown up with a pregnant woman. It was going to cause gossip. He’d known that, expected it, but he hadn’t quite considered how other people’s assumptions would affect her. The urge to explain her predicament was there; he wanted to protect her. But he couldn’t do that, could he? It was her story to tell. But people were looking. People were talking.
It was only a matter of time before the gossip began to spread like wildfire throughout the fan base.
Fuck.
* * *
It seemed like forever before it was finally time for August on Fire’s set. She supposed the thing that surprised her most throughout the day was how little the band members interacted with each other when they didn’t have to. Zane had chuckled and said, “That’s how we’re still a band.”
When showtime came around, everything changed.
Rowan sat quietly in Zane’s dressing room while he ran through scales to warm up his voice. He drank tea, he drank water, he paced, he bounced on his toes, and went through deep-breathing exercises.
She couldn’t imagine the stress of knowing she was about to step out there in front of thousands and thousands of people under a spotlight and sing. Even if she could sing, which she couldn’t. She would throw up from nerves.
“I have before,” he told her when she shared that thought. “Once I get up there, I’m fine.”
It showed. He was a captivating performer.
The other guys in the band roamed in and out, firming up plans for the show, laughing, giving each other shit. She’d briefly met them before, and each of them had been nice, but not particularly talkative to her. Tonight was the same. She supposed the girlfriends came and went, and there was no reason to get attached to any one of them in particular. It was a sobering thought to have.
Jase was on his game as well, in and out on errands for his boss and finally out to do a sweep of the stage to make sure everything was in order. Zane worked the entirety of the space while he was out there, so Jase had to make sure there were no cords or trash that might get in his way.
The enormousness of it all astounded her. And how everything just . . . happened. Of course, it took hundreds of roadies to make it happen, but if there was a need, someone was there to address it, and there wasn’t a desire that couldn’t be granted within minutes. All the musicians had to do was show up and rock out and have their every wish magically appear in front of them.
As Zane’s guest, the same applied to her. She studied her laminate—the second one of these she’d collected now—and couldn’t believe this was her life for the moment. His picture with the rest of the guys in the band was smoking hot, narrow-eyed and intense. She could’ve stared at it for hours, but she had the real thing pacing in front of her right now, trilling to loosen up his tongue.
She could think of other ways for him to do that, but she tried not to dwell on them.
Lately on tour, he’d worn white. Tonight it was simple head-to-toe black, and with his long hair loose around his shoulders, he looked sleek and dangerous.
“Hey, Jase?” he said, stopping his vocal exercises when the bodyguard strode back into the room. “Get her set up, would you? And watch her.”
“Got it.” Jase extended an arm in her direction. “Come on, sweetie.”
She stood, feeling a little awkward with some of the eyes on her. Should she wish him luck? Was that taboo in show biz? Break a leg? Should she just kiss him? “Um . . . knock ’em dead,” she said, and he grinned.
“Hey. Come here.”
She went, her pulse rate kicking up. His arms went around her, holding tight, and she decided then and there she would never get used to it when he held her. Or when he kissed her forehead, as he did then. “See you out there,” he murmured as she stared worshipfully up at him.
Rowan nodded, then went with Jase, glancing back for one last look before he led her out to the side of the stage, gently holding her arm the entire time. She knew that with the slightest stumble, that light grip would turn ironlike to hold her up.
When she caught a glimpse of the absolute ocean of people in the crowd, she almost tested it. “Dear God,” she muttered to herself as Jase led her around to her chair. Night had fallen and roadies were still zipping around onstage making whatever last-minute adjustments needed to be made. AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie” played over the speakers. The crowd milled and swayed with impatience, their restless energy palpable. Someone was checking Zane’s microphone.
Rowan perched on her seat, watching the flurry of activity. She hardly noticed the beautiful brunette who sat down next to her until she spoke. “Hi, are you Rowan?”
Oh God, who is this now? “Hi. Yes, that’s me.”
“I’m Nikki. I’m William’s wife.” She offered a hand and Rowan promptly shook it.
“Oh, hi! So nice to meet you!” Now that she looked closely, she recognized her. Rowan hadn’t followed Wills as closely as Zane, but she’d seen pictures of him with his wife on social media. Nikki was ravishing, with a long sweep of dark hair falling from under a jaunty leather cap and a wrap shirt that fit her perfect body like a second skin. Her red lips were wide and generous with their smiles; she could tell that right away.
“Are you handling all of this okay?” Nikki asked. “It’s overwhelming at first, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Rowan admitted.
“It is what you make it. You can be as involved as you want to be. Or not. I’m not very involved, myself. Just here for support. I’m able to travel more in summer, since the kids are out of school.”
“That must be difficult.”
Nikki gestured to Rowan’s belly. “When are you due?”
“Halloween.”
“I’m sure you’ll miss it by a few days. I was a week late with my first, two weeks early with my second.”
God. This woman had two kids. Rowan wanted to crawl under her chair, but she wouldn’t have fit.
“Zane told me some of the things you’re going through,” she said gently. “I am so, so sorry about your husband.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Zane’s one of the good ones,” she said. “He’s a great guy. He hasn’t let all this shit get to him. Trust me, there are some bad ones.”
“Yeah. I think I’ve already met one.”
“You can usually spot them pretty quick.”
Rowan was enjoying the conversation, but gradually she noticed the onstage activity slowing until it finally ground to a halt.
“Looks like it’s almost showtime,” Nikki said.
“Do you ever get used to this?”
The other woman laughed. “No, not really.”
The lights went out.
Rowan wanted to jump up and scream with everyone else in the audience, but that might have been incredibly uncool. She wasn’t on the fan side of the stage, like she and Savannah had been last time when Mike invited them to the Houston show. She was on the guest side. The friend side, the family side. But dammit, she was still a fan too. How could they all remain so freaking calm?
Because they had all seen this hundreds of times by now, maybe. It was all so new to her.
Zane didn’t open with his a cappella performance like he had that night in Houston. This time they did a more traditional entrance, one at a time. Holden banging out a heavy drumbeat, Wills walking out from across the stage to add his bass. Nikki did cheer then, standing up to clap for her husband. Then the two guitarists: Deke f
rom one side, Sol from right beside where Nikki and Rowan sat. Rowan turned around, craning her neck, watching for Zane, but he didn’t surge up the steps and swagger out onstage until seconds before it was time for the vocals of “God Complex” to kick in.
The place went wild at the sight of him, and if Rowan forgot all decorum and screamed like a fool herself when he grabbed the mic like it was something he needed to wrestle into submission, well, no one was watching her anyway. Every eye was on him. As he said in the song lyrics, this was his church, these were his prayers. The crowd worshiped him for it.
It was a full hour and twenty minutes of chaos. Song after song after song, lights and video and fog and thundering noise, Zane used his entire body to give the crowd everything he had; sweat soaked his clothes and dripped from his long hair. He sang and growled and snarled through every grueling, throat-shredding lyric. Rowan could tell after four songs that her ears were ringing. The baby was kicking up a storm inside her, and she had to laugh; it was like a free hearing test.
The first time she’d met him in Houston, that time in his dressing room had passed in a daze; she could barely recall anything about it. But she could have sworn that he made eye contact with her several times during the set that night, though she figured it was unintentional.
Tonight, it was intentional. A wink here, a grin there. Occasionally he walked off to wipe down with a towel and guzzle a bottle of water—even though dark had fallen, it was still pushing ninety degrees out here—and he tugged her hair when he went past. She felt giddy inside, thinking about this morning, thinking about later, thinking about all those women in the audience who wanted to be where she was right now.
Nikki smiled at her knowingly, but Rowan wondered if she didn’t detect a hint of worry in her eyes. She decided not to give it much thought: tonight needed to be perfect.
Then she heard Zane’s voice addressing the audience, and a little sick feeling settled in her stomach. “Some of you might know,” he began, pausing to wait for the swelling of cheers to die away somewhat, “that we’ve been working our asses off in the studio the past few months. Right?”