Love in Tune (Brew Ha Ha # 2.5)

by Caitie Quinn

  I glanced around the café and back at John. “His M—I mean, Dalton’s investment guy?”

  “See? She doesn’t believe you either. You need to dress the part if you want to be taken seriously.” The teen stomped off, shaking her head and calling over her shoulder, “At least make her buy a cheese puff.”

  John shook his head and gave me an apologetic smile. “Yeah. I used to be a senior private advisor and a couple clients stayed with me when I opened this café.”

  “What investment firm?”

  He named a place and I tried not to let my eyes go wide. Okay, so the guy might not be all fluffy hair.

  “My fiancé, Sarah, thought we should start doing live music.” John grinned as he waved a hand at the stage. “Helluva way to kick it off, huh?”

  So, the mysterious Sarah was really the one I needed to thank for this. Even café owners could be swayed into chaos by a woman.

  If only I were a chaos swaying woman.

  “So,” he went on, “you’re one of Dalton’s people.”

  I tried not to growl. I hated that saying. As if we all just existed to make Dalton’s life go smoothly. Of course, most days that was true, but I didn’t need the world defining me that way.

  “I’m his…handler. For lack of a better word.”

  John glanced around and looked a little ill. “Oh.”

  Great. Who knows what he’d heard.

  Before I could guess, a hand slid across my back, pulling me out of the need to worry about it. The room was packed and the music was flowing and people had definitely pre-partied before coming to the café. It could have been any guy coming to the counter and wanting to move past me…or hit on me. But I knew it was Kyle. I knew it and my body gave a little shudder.

  Stupid body.

  I wish this were a new problem. I’d been all bright eyed and bushy tailed the first day on the tour. I’d assumed any sane person would be excited to have someone take care of the details and make things go smoothly. But, no. Not His Majesty.

  Of course, there was still the question of his sanity.

  Anything I wanted to do was wrong. Or a pain. Or slowing him down. Or stupid. I’d known within two hours that this job was severely underpaid.

  Of course, it would have been underpaid at four-times what it paid. But, someone in my position only left a tour if they were fired or put in the hospital. Which sadly happened more frequently than you’d think.

  So, when Kyle walked into the room that first day and was introduced as His Majesty’s best friend, I assumed he was the voice of reason. I also assumed that if I got to work with him every day I’d be the happiest girl on the planet. There were pheromones. Knee-weakening, heart-stuttering, brain-stalling pheromones.

  He may not have been the rock star, but when he walked in a comfortable pace or two behind His Majesty, my gaze slipped right past the leather-clad celebrity to Kyle’s soft flannel-covered, hard-muscled shoulders. The girls between us all but threw themselves at His Majesty, begging for signatures on places even my general practitioner didn’t typically see.

  But I, stupid girl that I was, had blushed when Kyle’s gaze traveled over the throng and clashed with mine. And when he winked, I thought my knees would give and I’d be trampled in the groupie stampede.

  To get past it, I focused on my new job, busying myself checking the schedule and politely moving the fans out of the room. I’d known from the start I’d have to play the bad guy to let His Majesty come off as the idol reluctant to leave his people. I just wasn’t prepared for how manipulative it would all be. I thought it would all be fun and excitement.

  But, no. Nothing had gone the way I expected that first day.

  Everything I suggested, His Majesty shot down. Even if it was just offering him a cup of coffee. If it came out of my mouth, it was wrong. It was like he wanted me to quit on day one and save us all the effort. The problem was I couldn’t quit.

  But, Kyle…

  Kyle had been just as bad. Whatever His Majesty suggested, Kyle was up for. He was the friend riding the coattails and enjoying the party. I’d been disgusted. I didn’t think people like that really existed. Weren’t most artists smart enough to know who their true friends were?

  Not that Kyle wasn’t a good friend. They’d grown up together and you could tell they had some type of bro-bond. But that didn’t mean hanging on to the edges was okay.

  When it had come to getting them on the bus, His Majesty had said he had enough time on buses and he thought he’d go for a walk.

  Of course I knew that blowing the schedule on day one was the fastest way to getting me fired.

  So did His Majesty.

  So did Kyle.

  I’d thought his friend would want to keep things moving along smoothly, to be the balance to the temperamental artist thing.

  But when I’d glanced his way, he shrugged and said they’d get to the bus when they got to the bus. Then, and I quote, “Why don’t you take your tight-assed, calendar pushing self and wait on the nice AC cooled bus? I wouldn’t want you to get all glisteny.”

  They’d shown up at the bus, sweating and annoyed ten minutes later and we’d left.

  And that had been that.

  Kyle had been undermining me for the last three months, making sure His Majesty got to do whatever he wanted and that I was constantly playing cleanup or catch up. Or both.

  “Thinking about me?” Kyle’s brows rose just a bit to drift under the flop of hair he was always pushing out of his eyes.

  “No.” I dared myself to look him straight in the eye as I lied. I’d gotten good about lying when it came to Kyle MacLean.

  “Sure you are. You always turn pink when you’re thinking about me.” He dropped his chin lower, his nose running along the place next to my ear. “Don’t worry. I’m thinking about you too.”

  And, before I could figure out what in the world that meant, he was gone again. Hand over his ear with the piece in it, off to check in with the big guy at the door.

  “So, Kyle is your boyfriend?”

  Oh, yay. Angry Teen Abby was back.

  “No.”

  “You’re just hooking up with him.”

  “What?”

  “You and Kyle. You’re like his little something-something on the road?”

  “No.” I glanced around wondering where her keeper had gone to.

  “Yeah.” Abby snorted. “I totally believe you. Do you want something to drink or not. John said to be nice to you.”

  I wondered how closely those sentences went together and shook my head. Better safe than really, really sorry.

  Just then, the crowd cheered, bringing up the noise to a point I thought the cops would bust in any second.

  His Majesty stood on the stage, waving his arms to quiet them down.

  “I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. When I lost the bet with John and knew I’d be singing on such a small stage I thought, Well, Dalton, let’s see if you can still carry a tune.”

  “You didn’t think that!” Kyle’s voice carried over the crowd. “I damn well asked you that straight out.”

  I thought the fans would rip him to shreds, but instead they cheered him on.

  “Is that so? Was that you? I thought the little voice in my head said it.”

  “I am the little voice in your head.”

  I watched the interchange knowing that this could spiral at any moment. I’d seen the two laugh off the worst remark and come to blows over a French fry. I will never understand boys.

  “So, little voice, why don’t you get up here and prove it yourself.”

  Kyle made a gesture my momma would have had him eating dinner alone in his room for. “Because I don’t have a multi-million dollar record deal I need to back up.”

  “Oh, really? You want to argue about your contract now?”

  Contract?

  His Majesty rolled his eyes and waved at the guy covering the drums to hand him something. Magically another guitar appeared.


  “Kyle, get your ass up here.”

  The crowd was way into their bromance by now and the chanting—Kyle! Kyle!—was deafening.

  He glanced around the room, gauging the crowd. With a quick word to the doorman, he wove to the front, making a hushing motion.

  By the time he made it to the stage, a second mic had been pulled around to a chair that had been dragged up on stage. Kyle gave His Majesty a glare when he accepted the guitar and sat.

  “So, we’ve been working on some new tunes for the next album and we’ve actually brought it down a little. If you’ve been enjoying this unplugged night, then get ready because the fourth album is going to really blow out everything you’ve heard us do before.”

  His Majesty leaned over and whispered something to Kyle and then did the countdown.

  I’d seen Kyle with a guitar, messing around, playing a little here and there. But, I’d never seen him really play. I wasn’t the only one noticing. Girls who had checked him out then turned their attention back to His Majesty were now swaying toward his side of stage. Great, now I was going to have to manage to get them both out of here without some drunk, musician-crazy girl trying to tear their shirts off.

  Kyle’s voice was smooth and low, more bluesy than the rock-gravel of His Majesty’s. But, somehow the two of them blended together perfectly.

  “So, are you just going to stand there looking dumbstruck?”

  Oh, yay again. Extremely Angry Teen Barista Abby was back.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That guy’s been all over you. Flirting and hands and trying to make you laugh. If he thought standing on his head would get your attention, we’d be picking crumbs out of his hair now. He’s glared down every guy who looked at you. And now there he was, up there basically getting every single and not-so-single girl’s attention.”

  “So?”

  “Really? Are you that stupid?” She threw her rag down and leaned over the counter. “Since I started working here, all I’ve seen is twenty-somethings come in, buy their fancy, overly-specific drinks, and ignore the good things in front of them. Don’t be one of those girls.”

  With a shake of her head, Abby moved back down the counter to snip at someone making origami out of her napkins.

  I glanced back at the stage to find Kyle looking right at me and singing about a girl who made him crazy. And, just as I wondered if Abby had been seeing things, he winked at me. A row of girls whipped around and glared, which pretty much meant that I couldn’t convince myself I’d been seeing things.

  That warm feeling I’d had the first time and that I’d tamped down every time since, rushed over me again in a more complicated mix of lust, tenderness, and confusion. I couldn’t forget that he was my third biggest pain in the butt, the guy who made my day so much longer. But, as I stood there watching him sing—watching him watch me—I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe…just maybe.

  They finished the song and then played another before Kyle stood, putting an end to that. Girls practically rushed the stage when he stepped off it. Security was not loving this. If there was one thing I knew about security, it was that they hated surprises. Doubling targets was exactly that kind of surprise.

  How glad was I that this wasn’t my team?

  FOUR

  “THAT WAS…”

  “Amazing? I know, right?” He slid his arm around my waist, pulling me back into his side. And I, stupid girl that I was, let myself be pulled in. Just like he could with a grin or a joke. Pulled. Back. In. “I’ve completely blown your mind and now you want to jump me…I know. I’m irresistible.”

  He smiled down at me, his hand running up and down my spine in a slightly hypnotic way.

  “I don’t know about that,” I tried not to smile even as I could feel the tips of my lips turning up. This was not the time to be flirting with the enemy.

  “You do. You totally know. You know that we’re more than co-workers and that you want more than to just be annoyed with me.”

  “But, I’m constantly annoyed with you.”

  “It’s the lust. It’s skewing your brain.”

  “Right.” I shook my head and focused on the front of the room. “You’re so hot you melt all my senses into a puddle of useless female sensibilities.”

  “As long as you’re admitting it.” He grinned, seeming so proud of himself.

  “I admit nothing.” Who I was reminding, I’m not sure.

  “Mel.” He pushed my hair back out of my face and looked at me the way that made me feel like we were the only two people in the room.

  Everything dropped away, the security issues, the fans, the music, my over-stressed job. All that was left was Kyle and the way he looked at me.

  “You know, you’re amazing.” He grinned at me, a little less certain than before. Especially since so often it felt like he was laughing at me instead of with me.

  A wash of panic swept through me, turning my hands to ice. I stepped back, out of his reach, afraid that he’d suck me back in. “Is this you trying to distract me. Is that your job tonight? Keep Melissa busy so you boys can have your little show?”

  He stepped back, a deep crease forming between his brows. “Is that what you think this is?” Even as he was running his hand through his hair, he had shifted to keep an eye on the stage. “You think I’m hitting on you to keep you busy?”

  “Well, it’s quite the coincidence tonight is the first time you’ve hit on me…or even just flirted with me since we met.”

  At the look he gave me, everything I believed flew out of my head. He looked angry and frustrated and confused and like he couldn’t decide if he was going to kiss me or scream at me.

  I knew I should hope for screaming for my own sanity, but kissing sounded really good too.

  Really, really, good.

  Like…good-good.

  You get the picture.

  “Melissa, are you that insanely naïve?”

  “Um…no?”

  He stepped into me again, backing me into the counter his voice dropping to a rumble that shook my nerves. “Are you sure?”

  “But, you and His Majesty—”

  Kyle’s hand dropped and he stepped away. “Don’t call him that. I get it. He’s difficult, but you’re not exactly a fluffy bunny yourself.”

  “I have to be tough to do this job.”

  “So does he.”

  I glanced to where His Majesty—Dalton—was smiling out at the crowd, trying to see him objectively, to notice how he might have to hold people at bay and still be the good guy. I guess at least I didn’t have to pretend to love everyone as I dealt with all the details. I could be blunt. I was hired to be blunt.

  “Ok. Maybe you’re r—”

  “Kyle!” Dalton shouted into the mic. “Is that our favorite pain in the ass?”

  Kyle’s head dropped back as his eyes rolled shut.

  “I wrote a song just for her. Kyle, it’s a shame you’re not still up here to help me out.” Dalton picked up his guitar strumming away to a slightly familiar tune and making the words up on the go every line ending with a word that ended with itch.

  The crowd ate it up, some of them turning to snap my photo.

  “Melissa—” Kyle reached for me as I took a step back.

  “You know what? You’re right. I have been too naïve. Here.” I pulled open my bag, shoving my iPad, phone, and the car keys at him. “The Jag is half a block down. Have a great tour.”

  “Mel!” Kyle tried to grab me, but with his hands full it gave me a second to make a break. I tried to ignore the crowd who had picked up on the nifty chorus that said something about Killer of Joy as I made it to the door.

  The doorman looked me over as I made my way toward him and, at the last second, opened the door for me. “Ma’am, they all have a rough side.”

  I looked up, up, up at him realizing he was trying to tell me not to take it personally. Letting me know we were on the same team just as I quit. But, I really was done.

  “Thank you.”
I gave him a slight smile and headed out the door. My luck held as the train came to the stop at the end of the block. “Hold the train! Hold it!”

  The college students mulling around pointed at me as the driver started to close the doors. The woman was a saint, because she held the train. I didn’t even know where it was going. All I knew was I’d somehow manage to just quit the job I’d basically sold my soul to get.

  Guess my soul wasn’t worth as much as I’d thought.

  FIVE

  SOMEHOW I'D JUMPED on a train going the right way. No idea why I’d felt such a dire need to escape. Even if Kyle had wanted to come after me, he couldn’t leave His Majesty—no, I was not calling him Dalton—alone unsupervised.

  But, after a quick chat with the driver, I waited for my stop and walked back to where the vans were.

  I’d just grab my bag off the bus and head on out. Kyle could let Lenny know I was gone. I was pretty much toast in this business leaving mid-tour anyway, so who cared?

  And Kyle, well, he could deal with it himself. I hoped he had enough of a soul to know playing with someone like that, knowing she was about to be humiliated, was evil.

  Make that Evil. The capital is important.

  Or, I dreamed a little…Maybe Kyle wouldn’t tell Lenny and they’d get all the way down to New York City and not know where to go from there. Sure, they’d know the venue and maybe the hotel if Lenny paid any attention to his emails. But, where to park the bus? What time to be at the Today Show? What appearances to make? Yeah. Not so much.

  I took a moment, pausing outside the gates and thinking of all the chaos it could make.

  Yeah. A girl could dream.

  Finally, I waved to security as I came through. At the first bus, Buck opened the door and stopped me.

  “Where’s the boy?”

  “He’s on his way!” I gave Buck the brightest smile I could and started heading back toward bus 4 before turning back. “Buck? You’ve been great to work with. You’re a pro and I’ve always appreciated how you balance keeping the tour on track with your client’s temperament. It’s truly been a pleasure working with you.”