Van (Pushing Daisies Book 2)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  “We’ll talk later,” Lawson called out as I walked away from the two of them.

  I did what I’d said I wanted to do, but then I tucked myself away in a bunk that looked unused. Lawson had a bus to himself… well, with Daisy now and they’d sleep in the bed in the back, so I figured they were all available for me to choose from.

  That was where I stayed even when I heard Daisy and Lawson come in.

  “I thought she said she was going to the bus,” Lawson said.

  “She’s probably lying down,” Daisy offered. “Traveling is weird on the body and she had the flight.”

  “True.”

  “I know I’m exhausted.”

  There was a sound that I didn’t want to place, then a feminine giggle. Oh, man. I guessed that was something I’d have to get used to as well. Once I heard the slider to the back room close, I opened my own screen and hopped out.

  Daisy wasn’t wrong. I had come back, changed into my pajamas, and then laid down, but I wasn’t tired yet. I was playing that stupid game on my phone.

  After grabbing a bottle of water, I took a seat at the table. For the first time in days, I dared open my socials.

  Big mistake.

  There were so many vague posts about me and apparently a line of guys waiting to take their turns with me due to that fucking profile.

  At least I wasn’t home where some whacko could find me.

  “What’re you doing up?” Lawson’s voice startled me in the dark. I hadn’t taken the time to turn on any lights, but he did then slid across from me. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. The bus was moving, so I knew some had.

  “I never went to sleep,” I told him. “I was awake when you two got back, but given how suggestive Daisy’s giggle was, I decided to stay holed away.”

  Lawson gave me a lopsided grin and snorted. “Better get used to it.”

  “Oh.” I widened my eyes at him. “I’m used to it. That doesn’t mean I want to hear it.” Then I gagged like I was going to throw up.

  “Knock it off.”

  “Did you at least wash up? Brush your teeth? Or do you have Daisy breath?”

  That lopsided grin turned into a full smile as he shook his head. “Again, knock it off.”

  Now I laughed too. Harassing Lawson was one of my favorite things to do. I loved Daisy for him, but my brother in love was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked. Lawson reached out and without getting up from his seat, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. A benefit of being roughly the size of a silverback gorilla. He wasn’t that big, but compared to me… he was a giant.

  “Not much. Finished up the semester and moved home. One more year to go.” I told him these things, knowing that wasn’t what he was talking about.

  “Lexi.” Damn it. He wasn’t going to let it go. “Mom said you’ve been having a hard time. Ignoring calls. She’s worried about you. We’re worried about you.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Mom, Erica, me. I knew something big was going on if you haven’t even told Erica. You tell her everything.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Obviously.”

  We were stuck in a staredown. One of us was going to blink and I had the sneaking suspicion it would be me. This was why I was here, after all.

  “I had a falling out with Nora.”

  “Your best friend?” he asked as if he needed the clarification. They hadn’t met but I’d mentioned her several times in passing. That was what happened when you had a best friend.

  “Former best friend,” I corrected him. “But yeah. She’s pissed about something and has apparently recruited the rest of the free world to make sure I know it.”

  “Pissed about what?” He took another drink.

  I shrugged in return. Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “No idea.”

  “So what’s she doing?”

  I sighed. If I could trust anyone with this, it was Lawson, but I’d hoped to keep this trip as more of a vacation instead of continuing to deal with this.

  I wet my lips quickly and said, “Just some social media posts. About something I didn’t do with a guy, but there’s discussion among the greater population at school as to whether or not I did.”

  He groaned. This was why I hadn’t wanted to talk to him about it. “Why is there any doubt?”

  “I was drunk at a party,” I answered honestly. “And spent some time alone with him… maybe with someone else, but I swear nothing happened.”

  He clenched his teeth. “Better not have.” I opened my mouth to argue the point, but he held up a hand. “Because that would make him a fucking predator. If you were drunk, you couldn’t consent.” I snapped my mouth closed as quickly as I’d opened it. That so wasn’t where I thought he’d been going with that. “Are you sure nothing happened?”

  “Yes,” I told him quickly. “Without going into those details, I am absolutely sure nothing happened and he never indicated anything had. Trust me. He would’ve.”

  “OK.” Lawson’s head bobbed as he nodded slowly. “So they’re trashing you on social media? What? Calling you a whore?”

  I groaned. “I wish that were all. That I could handle. But then I got this weird text from a guy I sort of know, but not really. Saying that if he’d known I was into that sort of thing he’d have messaged me earlier.”

  He furrowed his brows. “Into what? Sex?”

  I bit my bottom lip a little too hard. “Not just sex, but sex with a bunch of people at the same time. Like a bunch of people. Like a dick for every hole.”

  He held his hand up. “I get it and would prefer to never hear those words from your mouth again.”

  This conversation should’ve been weirder than it was, to be honest. Yet Lawson was just that way. I could talk to him about anything. Not that he wanted to hear about my sex life, but he’d still talk to me about it if I needed to. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed it.

  “Where’d he get that idea?” he asked and I’d almost forgotten the last thing I’d told him.

  “Oh, well, someone—I’m guessing Nora—signed me up for a hookup app profile and put it out there.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Lots of creepy messages coming in from there. I tried to delete it, but I don’t have the password, which is required to delete the profile.”

  “How do you know creepy messages are coming in if you don’t have the password to get on?”

  “Oh, those come to my email. I’ve talked to tech support and they won’t do anything if I don’t have the password or provide proof including a DNA sample to prove it isn’t me. I’m not anyone they deem worth impersonating. I’ve tried resetting it, but I don’t know the answers to the security questions.”

  “You’ve tried everything?” I nodded. “Even Nora’s favorite things.”

  “Yup. Nothing. I’m not a hacker.”

  “Show me.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to do, but I still did. I let him scroll through the emails because now I had nothing to hide from him. This was my deep, dark secret. I’d made a special folder in my email just for these because I didn’t know if I’d need them at some point.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Are these guys serious?”

  “That’s where the guy I don’t really know saw me and messaged me, so I’d say yes.”

  He groaned again when he looked at the profile that I hadn’t made. Lawson was pretty good about holding in his anger, but the bulging veins in his neck told the real story.

  He was raging.

  “OK,” he finally said as he slid his phone back to me. “I’m going to take care of it.”

  “How? You don’t have the password, either.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’ll figure it out. Not a lot of people know this, but up until a few weeks ago, Daisy was getting some pretty creepy messages. She had a stalker, basically. He showed up at some shows. We took
care of that and we’ll take care of this. I’ll talk to Cal in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered as the first glimmer of hope-filled me. Hope that he would indeed get this taken care of and life could get back to normal. Well, normal without any friends left. I hated that this was something he even had to know about, let alone deal with, but it was my best shot.

  This was the biggest tour of Lawson’s life and he was in charge of everything. I wasn’t going to be the one to mess things up for him by becoming a bigger problem that he needed to focus on than I already was.

  4

  Van

  My brothers were still fast asleep. I didn’t always get that. For some reason, no matter how late of a night I’d had, I’d be up earlier than the others. And trust me. I’d used up a lot of energy last night with an enthusiastic redhead after that show.

  Fuck. I was going to need some coffee and not the kind that I could make here on the bus.

  One good thing about arriving at the venues was that I could usually count on there being a coffee shop not far away. Walking distance most of the time.

  After dressing and leaving the bus, I turned left and ran right into someone smaller than me.

  “Oof.” She grunted and stumbled back. I grabbed both of her arms to keep her from falling to the ground. She’d been moving quickly when we’d connected.

  Now that she was settled, I took a good look at her. She was small, maybe around Daisy’s size. Maybe an inch or so taller with dark hair, but brown didn’t do it justice. Brown, yes, but there were flashes of red and it was pulled up into a ponytail. The ponytail still fell past her shoulders, which meant it was long. She looked up at me with these huge surprised blue eyes.

  Damn. She was beautiful.

  But she was also familiar. Yet when I searched my memory, I couldn’t come up with where I’d seen her before.

  “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going,” her sweet voice told me as she shifted from one foot to the other.

  “No problem. I kind of came out of nowhere.” She rubbed a hand over one of her arms where I’d grabbed her and shit, my stomach clenched at the thought that I might’ve hurt her. Even if it’d been to stop her from getting hurt worse. “OK. I know I know you from somewhere but can’t figure out where.”

  A sweet giggle fell from her lips. “Can’t keep track of all your women?” she asked.

  Damn. I had worried that maybe we’d had sex and I’d forgotten. That was the biggest asshole move. I tried hard not to be that guy, but it didn’t always work. Yet looking at her again, I felt reasonably sure I wouldn’t have forgotten her.

  “Ah…” I scratched the back of my head.

  That was when she snorted and brushed her hand through the ponytail. “Joking. Joking. I’m Lexi. Lawson’s sister.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Yes. Right. Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. We only met briefly and it was weeks ago.”

  “Where are you headed?” Thankful that I hadn’t really stepped in it, now that I knew who she was, the memory refreshed itself. I did remember meeting her. Fuck, I’d even joked about Lawson having a little sister. Insinuating that she could be payback for him getting with Daisy. I’d never use a woman like that but watching him squirm had been fun.

  “Coffee,” she said with such a longing that it took everything in me to not laugh.

  I was feeling the exact same way.

  “That’s where I was headed,” I explained. “How about we go together?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Lexi and I turned in the same direction. Neither of us would’ve had any idea where to go but wandering seemed to suit us both fine. There had to be coffee nearby.

  “Are you visiting Lawson then?” I asked her. Walking in silence wasn’t working for me. Something inside me demanded I hear her voice again.

  She nodded, her ponytail adorably bobbing at the movement. Given that this was Lawson’s sister, I probably shouldn’t have noticed little things like that about her.

  “Yeah, Lawson invited me. Had no reason not to come.” There was an edge to her voice that I wanted to investigate, but since I’d just met her… or re-met her, I thought it a bad idea.

  “How long are you with us?”

  Now she shrugged. “I’m not sure. He didn’t put a timeline on it and I’m in no rush to get back.”

  Again, I wanted to know more and had no idea why. Lexi was cute—hot even, but she was Lawson’s sister and he was my nemesis right now. Couldn’t mix business with pleasure though it didn’t seem that those outside of Pushing Daisies had an issue with that.

  We found a little coffee shop a few blocks down from the venue. Since it was before noon, the air hadn’t gotten too hot yet. It would, but this had been a nice walk without use getting sweaty.

  “I got it,” I told her when she ordered her iced mocha and was reaching into her purse to pay. After adding my Americano, I paid, left a decent tip, then we chose a table farther away from the counter.

  This wasn’t a chain. This was an independent coffee shop and it looked the part. We were alone in the well-lit building that had small tables throughout and a couch by the window. There were coffee cups of every size imaginable lining the walls and most of the people in there the barista already knew by name.

  “What brought you on tour?” I asked her once we were settled and had our coffees. It took them almost no time for the barista to make them. They weren’t complicated drinks but I think she was just fast.

  “I told you,” she said. “My brother invited me.” She kept those clear blue eyes off me.

  “Yeah, but it’s summer. Are you in school? College?”

  “Yes, but the semester ended and I don’t take summer classes.”

  “Right. Aren’t college kids all about the parties? Won’t you miss all the good summer stuff with your friends?”

  “No parties for me,” she said right away, and damn, that edge from earlier was back. I didn’t like hearing it in her sweet voice and if I knew her better, I would’ve dug deeper, but right now it wasn’t my place.

  “When did you get in? This morning?”

  She shook her head as her tongue shot out to lick the coffee drop off her top lip.

  Fuck. Did she know how sexy that was? Probably not. She wasn’t hitting me as the kind of woman who thought about those things. That was something most women didn’t understand. The ones trying hard to be sexy and catch our eyes weren’t a tenth as sexy as the ones who weren’t even trying.

  “Last night,” she finally said. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t early enough to catch Pushing Daisies, but I’ll go to the show tonight if Lawson can snag me a ticket.” Lexi finally looked up at me. “It’s sold out; otherwise, I’d just buy a ticket.”

  I chuckled. “Don’t buy a ticket. Literally, any of us can get you one whenever you want to go to a show.”

  “I’m just saying.” She leaned in and wrapped her lips around the straw for another drink. I swallowed hard and looked away, trying not to picture her doing that same move on something else. “Then I’ll be in the crowd tonight. I was disappointed I missed you guys.”

  “That’s right.” I snapped my fingers. “Lawson said you were a fan of our stuff.”

  “Yeah, Pushing Daisies gets played a lot on campus.”

  “It’s good stuff,” I said, hoping like hell that didn’t come off cocky, but we wouldn’t have been playing this music if it weren’t the kind we loved. “Have you gotten to know Daisy much? Since she’s with your brother.” I added the last part begrudgingly. They were together. It was a fact. I didn’t like it, even though it’d been weeks now.

  “You don’t like my brother, do you?” she asked with a grin.

  “Why do you think that?”

  She tapped her chin like she was thinking about it. I knew she wasn’t. “Weeellll… the way you just said that she’s with my brother sounded like you’re either constipated or mashing your teeth together so hard, you could
barely get the words out. Which would mean you don’t like him.”

  I laughed loudly. The best part of talking to Lexi so far was that even this shit about her brother didn’t seem to irritate her. It should’ve. Lawson wasn’t a bad guy, yet here I was showing my dislike. Nah. That wasn’t the best part. The best part was how easy she was to talk to. And Lexi didn’t want a damn thing from me.

  By now, most women would’ve asked for a selfie or something, but Lexi was content to sip her coffee and chat like friends.

  I hadn’t even had that in high school. Back then, all the girls had wanted something for me. I’d been the guy who hooked up indiscriminatingly. Hell, I was still that guy. And that was what they’d seen me as. That was what they’d all wanted from me and not a fucking one of them had bothered to want more. If they’d wanted more, they skipped me and went for Bonham.

  Lexi was the exact fucking opposite of that.

  “Lawson’s a good guy,” I admitted.

  “I know that,” she countered. “You just said you know this and yet…” She let that hang in the air.

  I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing. This woman, unlike most in my life, couldn’t give a shit that I was Van from Pushing Daisies. Not that we were huge yet, but we were seeing a shit ton of movement since starting this tour. So much more airplay, so if a woman wanted to be there for the big times that were about to hit, now would be the time to hook me.

  Yet Lexi was more concerned about how I viewed her brother. I was also pretty certain there wasn’t a woman who could hook me. I wasn’t looking for complicated relationship shit.

  “I don’t dislike your brother,” I admitted. “I dislike him with my sister.”

  “Why?” She sucked on the straw again.

  “He’s too old for her.”