Cross (Courting Chaos Book 1)

by Heather Young-Nichols

“Did you ask him?” I asked. “What’d he say? What’d the others say? What are you guys going to do?”

  “Woah. That’s a lot of questions.”

  I shrugged. “I want to know everything.”

  Cross leaned a shoulder on the wall and took a deep breath. “We asked. He says he didn’t sleep with an underage girl.”

  “Did he say he didn’t sleep with that girl?” I pointed at the television in the corner, even though it wasn’t on. “The girl accusing him. Her picture is circulating. You’ve all seen it right?”

  “Ah,” he said while scratching the back of his head. “I don’t know that we asked specifically and no. I haven’t seen anything since I talked to you this morning.”

  “Cross! You have to ask him.”

  “All right.” He held his hands up in front of him. “I get it.” He sighed and looked me right in the eye. “We want him out. We’ve wanted him out for a while, but Lawson says we either need proof, for Drink to go willingly, which he won’t do, or for him to be arrested.”

  “Proof?” I asked. “I have proof.”

  “What?” He pushed off the wall and came toward me. “What kind of proof do you have that he slept with that girl?”

  “Well, I don’t have proof of quite that, but I do have proof that he was comfortable with her.”

  “Show me,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Cross

  If Indie had proof that Drink had an inappropriate relationship of any kind with an underage girl, I would’ve kissed her right on the mouth. ’Course, I would’ve done that anyway. I didn’t want that girl to have been subjected to Drink’s attention. He was a dick on a good day. But if he’d slept with her, I’d rather have a way to prove it. For the girl and for the band.

  I blinked exactly six times. I still couldn’t believe she’d just said she had proof. There was only one thing left to ask. “What proof?”

  “A picture, obviously.”

  Fuck, of course. She had the camera on her about ninety-nine percent of the time I saw her. She probably photographed some crazy shit. But this one… I needed to see.

  “Show me,” I said breathlessly.

  Indie grabbed my hand and pulled me from the room, then the arena. The sun outside was still bright enough to blind me until my eyes adjusted. Then she weaved us around bus after bus until we got to hers. They all looked the same, but she’d know where she left hers.

  When she pulled the door open, I didn’t know why, but this uneasy feeling crept up my spine. That feeling of walking into an empty building but that you’re either not alone or someone else had just been there.

  “What the hell?” she said before I started up the stairs, so I couldn’t see what she was talking about.

  I double-timed up the four steps and saw what she did.

  Someone had been in here. Prints of pictures Indie had taken were scattered in pieces around the area like confetti. Indie bent down to pick up a piece of plastic. She turned it over and over in her hands while I tried to control the anger growing in the pit of my stomach.

  “This was my photo printer.”

  Fucking hell.

  “Mother fucker,” she muttered, almost so quiet, I couldn’t hear it.

  Indie reached out and pulled something from under the table. A silver mass that had formerly been known as her laptop.

  “I’m going to punch him in the dick,” she said as she stood.

  “Who?” Which was an extremely dumb question, but I was just trying to put this shitstorm together. She’d had longer to think about it.

  “Eric.”

  The burning in my stomach intensified.

  “We both know this was him,” she said and was right. We did know. “Look at this.” She flung her arms out around her. “He even broke my fucking computer. I had fantastic pictures of Courting Chaos on her. And Kissing Cinder.” Then she slammed the former laptop against the table three times.

  “Do you use the cloud?”

  Indie groaned. “No. I never thought it was secure enough. That’s how celebrities nude photos get hacked. I have this external drive I do backups on but it’s at home. I’ve never had a problem until I went on tour with a fucking psychopath.”

  “I’m sorry, Indie,” I said because what else could I say? “We’ll replace everything. I’ll replace it when we get your new camera.”

  “Do you think I care about the money?” she snapped back.

  Yeah, probably not. Her dad could get her whatever she needed.

  “The picture, Cross. Somewhere in this mess of paper was the picture you needed of Eric and that girl.”

  Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Indie

  This was why Eric had hated me so much. He’d been afraid I’d catch something he didn’t want anyone to know about and I had. I could’ve ripped his balls off right then and there. My weeks of work gone just like that. Damn. Longer than weeks when I took my laptop into consideration. I should’ve been better about backing shit up.

  “What can I do?” Cross asked, placing his hand on my hip and nudging my face up so he could see me. “What can I do besides go in there and beat the shit out of Drink? Because that’s going to happen either way.”

  I snorted, then said, “No. You can’t do that.”

  “I think I can take him.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said as I shook my head. I was sure he could take Eric with his anger alone. “I’m sure you can, but you can’t. It’ll just cause more problems.” Then I sighed. “Besides, once my dad finds out about all this, you probably won’t need to. He’s older. Let him be the one to go to prison.”

  Cross barked out a quick laugh. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing.”

  “Why not? It’s funny. I mean this”—I waved my hands over the mess that my bus had become—“isn’t funny, but what I said was.”

  “I love that you can make jokes at a time like this.”

  When I looked back up at Cross he had a small grin on his face and I knew it was honesty, not sarcasm.

  “Cross, I swear that there was a picture of Eric with the girl everyone’s talking about on the internet. There was also one of her and another girl coming off the bus.”

  “Hey.” Cross leaned in and grabbed each of my arms. “I believe you. Yeah, it sucks that we don’t have it now, but we’ll find another way to get him out.”

  “Dad probably knows a guy,” I said.

  He chuckled and wet his lips. “Not that way. We’ll find another.” Then he pulled me into his arms and held me tightly.

  We stood like that for several moments and honestly, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Though maybe not standing in the middle of a shredded paper storm would make it better.

  “So really, what can I do?” he asked.

  “Help me clean this up?” I suggested.

  “Absolutely.”

  First I used my hand to brush all the paper off the table. Next, I did the same thing to each of the bench seats while Cross went to find a broom.

  “There’s a small one under the sink,” I told him.

  He squatted down, opened the cupboard, and pulled out the handheld broom and dustpan. He looked from it to the mess, then to me. “Maybe a vacuum would be better.”

  “True.” Yet still, we worked to clean up. “How angry must he be to do this?”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “Obviously,” I said back. “But he took the time to tear up every picture. And he didn’t just tear. He shredded. That’s a lot of anger.” I stopped cleaning and sat down on the floor. My hands began shaking and my body felt like it was vibrating. “And I was uncomfortable around him already. Maybe I should get Dean to follow me around.”

  “You think Drink’s going to do something else?”

  “Uh… yeah. Look around. He came in here and destroyed the thing I spend most of my time doing. If he knows I saw the picture in the first place, who’s to say he won’t make su
re I can’t say anything?” I took a deep breath. “He kind of scares me.”

  “Hey.” Cross slid in beside me and stretched his legs out in from of him before putting his arm around my shoulders. “I’m not going to let that happen. He’s more bark than bite anyway.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him on that.

  “And if he kind of scares you, you do a great job of not showing it.”

  I looked up at Cross, enjoying our closeness. His body heat radiating into mine somehow calmed me, made me feel better. A little bit anyway. “I’ve had practice. There are great guys out there and then there are assholes. Among the assholes, there are aggressive assholes. And when you’re the daughter of a super famous rock star, you get a lot of the aggressive because they assume you think you’re better than they are.”

  “We’re going to come back to some of that, but where do I fall?”

  As if he needed to ask. “You’re one of the good guys, Cross. Of course, you’re one of the good guys.”

  “You should stay on my bus tonight,” he said.

  My eyes widened and my mouth parted. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Clearly, we were something to each other. But were we there?

  “Calm down,” he said. “If Drink did this, I don’t want him to catch you alone. If you’re on my bus, he won’t come there. You can hang out inside the venue until after the show, we can still have that movie on my bus, and then you stay. What do you say?”

  “Uh… ”

  Cross smiled and shook his head. “You can stay in the bedroom. I’ll sleep in one of the bunks.”

  “What about Ransom?”

  “He won’t care.”

  “I mean, where does he sleep? My dad’s had his own bus for so long I never know how you guys work that. Is it whoever brings home a girl gets the bed?”

  Cross’ body shook with laughter. “Not exactly. We usually trade off. Back when all four of us were on the bus, I’d just always sleep in a bunk. They’re pretty comfortable.”

  “I know. I’ve spent many nights in those.”

  “But now that we split to two, we trade. By the month. This is my month to have the room. And you’d be surprised how little some of the women care about where they do whatever they’re going to do.”

  I raised my brow at him. Not much surprised me anymore. “Then, yeah. I think staying on your bus is a good idea. But I’ll sleep in a bunk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cross

  Making sure Indie wasn’t going to be alone on her bus had been my main priority when I saw what had happened there. Fucking Drink. If he so much as got within ten feet of her again…

  Right now I needed to concentrate on the show tonight. And the fact that I’d have to face him and try not to put my fist through his face.

  “What’re you going to do until show time?” I asked Indie.

  “I’m not sure. Normally, I’d be taking pictures.”

  Indie sounded so sad that it was like a punch in the gut. I’d do anything to make her happy.

  “Maybe I’ll go shopping,” she finally said. “I need a new camera and laptop obviously.”

  “I said I’d replace your camera. Looks like I owe you a laptop as well.”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Eric owes me a laptop, but I don’t think I’ll try to collect.” When she giggled I filled with relief.

  My phone dinged and I didn’t have to look at it to know what the text would say. I needed to come get ready for the show. “Let’s finish cleaning up. I have to go soon.”

  “Right.”

  Once we actually started working on the mess, it didn’t take all that long to make it look like nothing had happened on the bus at all. Then I waited for Indie to get her things together before leaving. I wanted to make sure Drink was in the venue and far away from her until we got to the bottom of all this.

  “I’ll be back for the show,” she said when we got the venue door. “But I don’t want to go in there right now. I’m liable to do some damage if I see him.”

  “Got it.” I ran my hand over her hair, then leaned in for a quick kiss. But there was never anything quick with Indie. When my lips touched hers, I wanted to taste, to linger, to savor.

  When I pulled back, her face was the best shade of pink and she licked her bottom lip, like she was still in the moment. I know I was. Alas, I had to let her go. But then I focused on the dressing room door much too hard. The closer I got, everything around me seemed to disappear. I knew what was inside that room and knew I’d have to act like things were normal at least a little.

  Ransom and Dixon were half-dressed and throwing a football. The number of women who would pay good money to be in there with them.

  “Where’d you disappear to?” Ransom asked as he caught his ball.

  “Nowhere.”

  “I’m guessing somewhere with Indie,” Dixon said and laughed. “I know I’d disappear somewhere with her.”

  I stopped, put my hands on my hips, and raised my eyebrows at him.

  “I wouldn’t, of course,” he countered. Then I turned away and he said, “But I would.”

  Ransom tossed the ball as I swung back around to give Dixon a verbal lashing and the ball hit Dixon pretty hard in the chest, making us all laugh. “You deserved that,” I said.

  This whole interaction just proved that we needed someone on bass who fit in with us better. Drink sat off to the side messing with his phone. Ignoring us, ignoring what was going on. Just ignoring.

  He hadn’t always been like that. He used to be in the band. Now he was just in the group.

  “Why would you waste your time with that girl when there are hundreds you could have every night?” Drink asked without looking up from his phone.

  “Not everyone wants a different girl every night,” Ransom answered before I could.

  “If you’re smart, you do.”

  Drink took hooking up to a new level. A nasty level. A level that had required antibiotics more than once.

  “So where were you this afternoon?” I asked Drink.

  “Why do you care?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t.” I did, but he couldn’t know that. Not yet.

  Drink glared at me and I at him until someone knocked on the door quickly and a female voice called out, “Five minutes.”

  Ransom, Dixon, and I hurried to finish getting dressed while Drink sat in that fucking chair with his phone. I didn’t care what he did or what he looked like when we went on stage. If the universe was on our side, the number of shows he had left with us would be small.

  There was nowhere in the world that was like being on stage. Most of the time I still couldn’t believe this was my life. The music, the fans singing along with Ransom… Just all of it. I played through our sets on autopilot that night. I was there but not really there.

  Then I saw Indie to the side watching us and the rest fell away. Though honestly, she looked empty without her camera around her neck or up in front of her face.

  Indie was already walking away from us down the hall when we came off stage. As much as I wanted her with me, this was better. Away from us until I could go to her alone.

  Drink didn’t shower before he left the dressing room for wherever the hell he was going. Even better for us.

  “Hey.” I caught Ransom after we each showered and were getting dressed again. Kissing Cinder was whaling in the background. “Just a heads up. Indie’s staying on our bus tonight.”

  “Oh, really?” He smirked at me and folded his arms in front of him.

  I rolled my eyes and said, “Drink broke into her bus today and shredded every picture she had. He demolished her laptop… that’s after he broke her camera earlier.”

  “What?” His head jerked back and his face reddened instantly. “You know it was him?”

  “The camera, yes. He did it in front of her.”

  Ransom’s fists clenched against his still folded arms.

  “The bus… no, we don’t have proof it was him, but she had pic
tures of him with young girls, so I think it’s a pretty good bet. That’s why he’s been pissy with her about taking his picture.”

  “Fuck.” He ranked his finger through the hair on the back of his head. “Why doesn’t he just leave if he’s unhappy?”

  “I’d guess the money and the women keep him here. But I don’t want her alone on her bus in case he decides to come back.”

  Ransom nodded. “She could always get her dad to stay with her.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t think of that.”

  “I bet you didn’t.” Ransom wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  I gave him a hard push.

  “Do you want me to stay… well, somewhere else, but that’d be on Drink and Dixon’s bus and I really don’t want to do that. Actually, I don’t think Dixon wants to do that.”

  “No. It’s not like that.” I turned and grabbed my shirt off the counter. “I just wanted you to know she’ll be there and have Dixon come stay on our bus, too. Can’t fucking blame him for wanting to get away from that guy.”

  “Noted.” He pulled a shirt over his head. “How do you think Dixon has stomached being on the bus with him all this time?”

  “I think Dixon likes that Drink doesn’t give a fuck about anything and stays out of his business altogether. I think Dixon does that same.”

  “Yeah, probably.” I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, then added, “I’ll see you later.”

  Before leaving him behind, I sent Indie a quick text to let her know I was headed out. We hadn’t made plans on where to meet up, which was pretty dumb. We should’ve had a plan.

  Turned out we didn’t need one. I ran right into her as soon as I stepped out of the door of the venue.

  “Sorry,” I said with a laugh. I grabbed her arms to make sure she didn’t fall.

  “My fault. I’m basically stalking the door.” She wet her lips again. “I didn’t want to wait inside. Just in case… ”

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

  I slipped my arm around her shoulder and led her to my bus. But before we got there, I asked if she was hungry. I certainly was. Performing did that to you.