“So I just need to find him.”
“You think he’s doing it?”
“Kinda fits, don’t you think?”
Jake didn’t shake his head, but he did turn it to the side as though to look at Brandon from a different angle. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Where are they right now?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d check one of the food tents.”
Brandon nodded. For that, he’d likely need ID to get in, verifying he was with a band, so he looked around for his shit and then headed out the bus door. He needed to stop this crap once and for all. He had a show to play—and this distraction was going to make it difficult if not impossible. It was time to get back his lucky drumsticks and focus on their set.
* * *
Brandon checked both food tents, and there was no sign of Garrett or any of their roadies, for that matter. And they weren’t on the crew bus, either. So where the hell were they?
He finally started wandering around but the heat was just too much. How the hell did the fans stand out there for hours on end? He could barely handle it for ten minutes. He started heading back to the VIP area and just a few yards away from the bus stood Garrett and JJ, another one of their roadies.
Garrett had an odd look on his face, making Brandon believe he was definitely on the right track. “What’s up, man?”
Brandon shrugged as he got closer. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”
Garrett frowned. JJ said, “Gonna get something to drink. You need a beer or anything?”
“Nah, I’m good, man.” As JJ walked away, Garrett said, “What ya need?”
Brandon decided to try subtle—at first. “Have you noticed anything strange happening around our bus today?”
“Strange…like how?”
Okay, now this was getting frustrating. The guy wasn’t stupid. “I don’t know. Like people you don’t know getting on and off the bus.”
Why the hell was Garrett—a six-foot-five two-hundred-fifty pound gorilla—acting strangely…like kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar strange? “Don’t we have security guys for that?”
“Are you wanting me to ask them? I’m just asking if you’ve seen anything.”
“No. No, man. Nothing.”
“Okay.” As Brandon walked away feeling quite irritated, he asked himself, Was that so hard?
He walked onto the bus, feeling a little weirded out but not able to do anything about it. What did they pay staff for if they didn’t, at the very least, pay attention to what was going on?
Well, in all fairness, Garrett was just one of the guys paid to lug stuff around.
Worse, though, was that it didn’t seem to bother anyone else.
He was going to try not to be jumpy, but he knew that a few celebrities in the past had died at the hands of overzealous fans—stalkers—and that was why laws had been put into place to keep that behavior regulated. But if he didn’t know who his stalker was or had only weak evidence that they’d been tampering with his stuff, he doubted he could do anything at the moment. You couldn’t file a restraining order against a vague someone.
So he needed to relax and wait for more to happen. That sucked, but in his favor was the fact that he wasn’t a little guy. He could defend himself against a lot of people.
Maybe after the show he could talk to the security guys, though, and ask if they could keep an extra eye on him—and maybe on the bus too—just until this stupid little mystery was solved or, at the very least, until they were out of Nevada. Brandon decided that was the most prudent course of action and then thought maybe there was no sense in waiting. He should talk to them before the show if he had a minute. It couldn’t hurt. What if, for example, their—or his—crazy stalker fan was the kind of person who liked to leap up onstage? Better to give security a heads up about it.
But they had good fans too. He pulled up his Facebook messages…of which there were none. But he clicked on the conversation with Beth and started typing. Hey, did you make it to the festival yet?
He decided to go to Twitter and type in the hashtag for the festival, just for something to do, and he got to see all kinds of new photos posted by fans. They all seemed to be having a great time in spite of the ridiculous heat.
He got a notification that he had a response to his message on Facebook, meaning Beth had probably answered him. He clicked and saw that she had. No, sorry, Brandon. Something came up.
That was strange. Everything okay?
Yeah. I was in a car accident. I’ll be okay but I’m in the hospital right now.
Brandon had another eerie feeling, and that probably came from watching way too many reruns of Catfish. But she was messaging him from the hospital? It just seemed bizarre.
But, if it was real, he didn’t want to be a dick. Sorry. I hope you’re okay. Maybe next time.
Her response was almost immediate. I’ll be okay.
He wanted to talk to his bandmates about all the strange stuff going on, but no one was around now. Glancing at the time on his phone, he figured he knew why. Silverblade’s show had just started, meaning the call for them was in about an hour—so the whole band was probably hanging around the stage or even watching the show.
Stepping off the bus, he had to readjust his lungs to the intense heat. Jeez. It was four-thirty, and it felt no cooler than it had at noon. How the hell would they be able to perform in this ridiculous, unrelenting temperature?
So he made his way over to Stage One, where Silverblade was currently playing and where Kyle Summers and her band would be playing soon enough. As he walked along the side of the crowd, he could feel the energy. It wasn’t just heat flowing off them—it was excitement. It was the group camaraderie Brandon had felt in the occasional metal mob. Yeah, he’d been to concerts where some asshole thought his enjoyment was more important than anyone else’s, and he didn’t give a fuck if his devil’s horns got in the way of the cellphone video you were making of your favorite song. He’d also watched shows where a bunch of stupid pricks moshed way outside the boundaries, again not caring about their fellow headbangers. There were those crowds, and then there were normal crowds.
But there were also magical groups of metalheads, like this one, where you could feel the energy and love flowing off them. He’d only been part of an audience like that twice, and he would describ them as a kum ba yah crowd—spiritual, in tune with each other, and almost like they were tapping into something greater than the sum of themselves. Yeah, that idea would fit more with alternative music, but it happened in metal too. It took the right crowd, the right conditions, the right band—and apparently it was happening here. He could just feel it.
He hoped that energy would continue when he, Kyle, and Jake took the stage a little while later. Performing for a crowd like this was pure heaven. When they played for audiences like that, he felt like he could go all night. And he wasn’t the only one. His bandmates had said the same thing.
So Brandon walked along the crowd and took his time, enjoying the music and the feeling of oneness. As he got closer to the stage, he saw Mollie way at the back, probably where they’d load their instruments onstage when it came time. She happened to see him and she tapped on the shoulder of a security guy—not theirs, but someone who was able to signal someone else near Brandon. In seconds, he was escorted to just off the back of the stage.
It was loud, but Mollie said, “You don’t need to check your equipment till these guys are done.”
“Do you even have it here?”
She nodded. “It’s ready to go. As soon as Silverblade’s done, their crew dismantles and takes their stuff off and our crew immediately begins setting up. It’ll be like clockwork.” Brandon nodded, not wanting to shout. Mollie tapped on her wrist and said, “Be back in an hour.”
“Okay.”
But what to do till then? He turned back and looked at the crowd, taking in their faces filled with bliss.
Except for one face that he recognized—and
she didn’t fit in the crowd. Not at all.
After Brandon felt like he had his footing again, he wondered…what the hell was going on?
Chapter Seven
Beth, Brandon’s Facebook friend who was supposedly being cared for in the ER after having been in a car accident, was actually part of Silverblade’s crowd—and she was watching him. As soon as Brandon laid eyes on her, she flashed a Cheshire grin. Oops. You caught me.
What was up with that?
He tilted his head and half smiled while she arched her finger at him, inviting him over. As he made his way through the throng of people who, fortunately, moved to let him through and he got closer, he saw that she was holding up his drumsticks in front of her face, waving them.
She had them?
This was weird. Brandon almost felt like someone who’d walked in on a surprise birthday party but was waiting to find out that it wasn’t actually for him. Before he got to her, she shot another grin at him and then started moving away—but, if he was reading her right, she wanted him to follow her.
He hoped this wasn’t a stupid idea on his part…but he was going to follow. He had to know what she was up to.
He knew he should probably be scared or at least a little cautious. If she was some weird, possessive stalker, he shouldn’t just be following her without taking precautions, because he might be walking off to his impending doom. But, even though she’d obviously been through his shit and had even lied to him, he didn’t feel like she was necessarily dangerous or evil.
And he was curious. What was going on?
Once they’d finally managed to work their way out of the crowd, she grabbed his hand with her left. She didn’t look at him nor did she glance around. She acted like she knew exactly where she was headed—and he was just going to let her drag him along like he was going on a carnival ride.
It was just a few minutes later when they were walking through the dusty parking lot. Brandon could still hear strains of music, something vaguely familiar, when they stopped. There were a few groups of people wandering about and Beth hadn’t led him into a tight spot in between vehicles or anything, so he wasn’t going to worry—yet. But he did have questions. “Beth, right?”
She held up the hands gripping the sticks and gave a tiny wave with her fingertips before answering, “The one and only.”
“So what’s going on? Why do you have my drumsticks? And how did you get a hold of them?”
“I have my ways.”
“And was that you texting me?”
“Maybe.”
He was growing tired of her games. The Beth he thought he knew online wasn’t this person, was she? Playful even when it was no longer amusing? “Look, Beth, I want some answers. I could have you arrested for breaking and entering.”
She raised a thin eyebrow, a tiny glimmer of her smile subdued—but her voice didn’t sound defeated at all. In fact, there was a bit of defiance in her tone. “Really?”
“And theft.” Brandon couldn’t tell if he had her attention yet, so he was going to keep it up. “Those are obviously my drumsticks.”
Beth smirked. It should have annoyed the hell out of Brandon but, for some reason, he found it cute—sexy, even. “They are—which is why I found it so disturbing that you’d just leave them lying around in view of the public at a festival, just inviting someone to take them off your hands.”
Had the roadies been doing something sloppy with his stuff? “Where did you find them?”
“Does it really matter? Aren’t you just glad they’re safe—with a friend?”
He frowned but tried to keep his expression as relaxed as possible. “If I can trust you, yes, I’m glad they’re safe, but how can I know this won’t happen again?”
Beth got a little closer, touching her index finger to the uppermost curve of his tank top, swirling her fingertip on his exposed skin. “Because I don’t go to every concert you play.” She looked up from her finger to his eyes, and it was then that he noticed her dreamy expression. Beth had seemed like a lovely girl online, with her sharp cheekbones and luscious lips, but she was devastatingly beautiful in person. That, combined with her playful seductiveness, was proving to be irresistible to the inexperienced drummer.
“What are you saying?”
Her lips curled in a devilish grin before she said, “I’m saying I like you a lot, Brandon, and I’m sure, being the youngest guy in the band, that all kinds of girls throw themselves at you every chance they get.” Ha. If only she knew. “I needed to get your attention and stand out from the crowd. And it worked—I know, ‘cause you’re here with me and not some other girl.”
He probably shouldn’t have been, but he was flattered—and all the worries he’d had were gone in an instant. “So you did all this—”
“Just to get your attention.”
Brandon nodded. “So you have it. Now what?”
The finger that had been burning his damp skin pulled away and Beth grabbed his hand, opening it so she could place his drumsticks in it. He still had so many questions but knew now that she’d tell him when she felt like it—and he wasn’t as worried as he had been, so she could take her time, as far as he was concerned. After handing him the sticks, she looked up in his eyes and slid her hand behind his neck, turning her lips up to his—and he was responding to her invitation before he fully realized what he was doing.
The heat of the air and the sun beating down on him seemed to fade away as his internal combustion kicked in. Her lips brushed his before she traced the upper one with her tongue. He’d made out with plenty of girls before and had been told more than once that he was a good kisser, so he felt confident in that department. It was just everything else that made him sweat. He snaked his hand behind his body and tucked the drumsticks in his back pocket before taking her head in his hands and pressing his lips more firmly to hers. The first kiss—light and teasing—but the second had a little more passion as she let his tongue enter her mouth.
And he thought maybe a few fireworks exploded around them.
As he deepened the kiss, he felt Beth’s other hand on his right pec, the tips of her fingernails digging into the flesh through the fabric, and he felt the muscles underneath response by growing tighter, inviting whatever she wanted to inflict upon him. And then, he realized, he had it bad. He wanted her—but he had no business wanting her. He barely knew the girl, had only just met her in person, so feeling a desire this deep wasn’t appropriate.
Or was it? He felt the fingers of her hand on his neck snake their way into his hair as the fingers of her other hand dug deeper into his skin and, had he not been wearing a shirt, he suspected her nails would be cutting into his flesh right now. He felt the blood rushing down his torso to the one place it shouldn’t be going right now, but not having a lot of experience in that department made it a little harder to control when he was getting this kind of attention. Still, he’d been in this position once or twice and knew he could stop himself from growing hard—but that meant he had to stop kissing her.
Right. This. Second.
So he did. He ended the kiss but he didn’t remove his hands from her face. His voice was strangely quiet when he said, “I gotta head over to the stage. I think it’s almost call time.” He wasn’t positive, but he knew it was close—and Mollie would kill him if he didn’t report when she expected him.
“Okay.” Beth loosened her grip on his hair and withdrew her fingernails from his chest. “But let’s meet later?”
Brandon wasn’t feeling weirded out by any of this anymore, and he was definitely intrigued. “Yeah, let’s.” Beth kissed his cheek and then he asked, “But tell me—how’d you get on the bus and stuff?”
She grinned. “Guess that’ll just have to wait till later.” Grabbing the drumsticks out of Brandon’s back pocket, she added, “And you’ll have to come get these first.”
“But those are my—”
Beth pressed her index finger on Brandon’s lips. “I promise…it’ll be worth it.”
* * *
Holy shit. It was almost like he’d lost track of time. He was looking down at his phone now that he was back in the thick of the festival, and he was pretty sure Mollie was gonna rag him out bad. Call was five-thirty, just half an hour before the show, and he knew she wouldn’t want him to cut it close.
It was now five thirty-one.
As if she could read Brandon’s thoughts, her name flashed above a text appearing on his phone. Where are you?
With Mollie, no explanation was needed. She called them excuses anyway. On my way.
The problem now was that the crowd from Silverblade was disbursing. He wanted to ask them why the hell they weren’t staying for the Kyle Summers show, but he knew that would be dumb. A lot of them would be back—but after standing in the same spot for an hour or longer, they no doubt needed refreshment, restrooms, and stretching. But Brandon felt like a fish trying to swim upstream. He’d make it where he needed to go, and it wasn’t like he was a tiny guy getting shoved around—but he most definitely was going against the flow, and that made his progress slow.
ETA?
Jeez. He was no more than a minute away if his progress weren’t impeded. In fact, he could see one of the roadies on the side of the stage.
I’m close. Two minutes maybe?
As he got nearer, he saw that Silverblade’s stuff was still coming off the stage. Kyle’s band’s equipment wouldn’t be placed onstage until they were done. And he could make the argument that he didn’t actually need to be there till a couple minutes before go time, but he and Mollie had had that conversation before. She was of the mind that the band be present and accounted for long before the show started.
And she’d skin him alive if he pushed it.
He’d finally cleared the crowd and was now just a few feet away from the stage. Mollie spied him and nodded. He would have liked to head back to the bus and change clothes, but then Mollie would injure him. Nope, he’d just have to suffer. He knew already that he wouldn’t miss this heat when they left Vegas. It was beyond anything he was used to, and he marveled at the staying power of the fans, wondering how many of them were spending the entire day here—or even both days. No clouds in sight, triple-digit temps, no drops of cooling rain.
Dirty Boys: Bad Boy Rock Star Romance Box Set Page 120