Maybe during the gigs, seeing him in his element injected her with a giant dose of lust. But more than her libido went out of control during these times. Yeah. She still loved him. What she was going to do about it? Well, that was a question she continued to push to the back of her mind. Damn fucking rock stars.
Lifting her hand, she rerouted a strand of hair blown into her face by the giant fans positioned behind the Jumbotron screens. The sun baked the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, but the band and those viewing from the stage were shaded from the harsh day.
After the final song on their setlist, the guys exited the stage and departed into their dressing area. She stopped to refill her canteen at a nearby water station and considered roaming the festival grounds. Rattler had rolled into the talent gate within minutes of their pre-show interviews, and she had remained nearby, enjoying watching them. Now was her chance to explore the festival the guys had been talking nonstop about for two days. They were to be on the road again in several hours.
Rattler had begun their tour in early April, warming up as the supporting act in arenas across the country. Around the time she had joined them, summer’s outdoor music festivals had begun. As a relatively new band making a name for themselves, they were still playing indoor gigs in between the major festivals they performed. So, while many of this day’s lineup would head to a hotel after their show, Rattler’s tour bus would be eating up the road stripes with the band snug inside.
“Hey!” Gage’s hail was close enough to her ear to startle her.
She turned, finding him showered. His dark wet hair was brushed back from his face, and the wavy strands gleamed, just touching the shoulders of a black tee imprinted with the ‘U’ festival logo.
A familiar flutter tickled her insides. “Hey.”
“Where do you think you’re running off to?” Sexy and sweet, the inquisitive taunt rolled from his tongue, and one of his dark brows arched.
“Over there.” Her arm gestured vaguely, and she was happy when he fell into step beside her.
“What’s over there?”
“No idea. But whatever it is will be amazing! It has to be. Because this is Ultima!” She curved a smile to accompany the mocking lilt of her voice, and sent a side-glance up to his face. “Where do you think you’re running off to? Don’t you have band stuff to do?”
“Now that’s hurtful. Almost like you want to get rid of me.”
“If I did want to get rid of you, I’d try harder.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” They were weaving through the crowd, and she used the mass of bodies to demonstrate. Two steps to the right, and several more forward, put distance and a dozen people between them.
With a gleeful grin, she turned back, only to find her joke had worked too well. He was gone! And Gage with his giraffe stature should have been easy for her to spot. She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking until her elbows were jostled as the crowd parted and then closed around her. Craning her head, she searched, and her spirits plummeted to find herself surrounded only by strange faces. Her gaze hung for a moment on every black tee shirt with a psychedelic ‘U,’ but these shirts were liberally mixed in with costumes and vibrant attire.
An odd tingle vibrated her cells, and she shook the feeling away. Should she head back the way she’d come, or continue? The aroma of food made up her mind. She rotated away from the stage, ready to fall back into the throng, but a rock solid chest brought her up short.
Barbed wire entwined in staff lines and a smatter of music notes peeked at her from the V-neck of the black Ultima tee. She was encircled with familiarly inked arms when she wobbled. “Looking for someone?” The brightness of the day allowed her a tinted glimpse behind Gage’s shades to his amused eyes.
Continuing to crane her neck, she didn’t break the gaze. “I was looking for an asshole. But I found him.”
“Ouch! You’re so mean today! Why are you so mean, Scarlette Conterra?” His voice dropped on the last sentence, enough that it was an intimate question between the two of them.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night.” She aimlessly followed the main path. “The person in the bunk below me snores too loud.”
She and Gage were positioned one over the other. Her first night on tour, Gage had offered her his lower bunk, but she’d declined, knowing she’d feel less claustrophobic in the top one.
Gage reached, and she automatically passed her container of water. After taking a long sip, he drawled, “You never complained about snoring before.”
No? Maybe snoring was way better tolerated when the snorer was a naked mass of muscled flesh spooning me.
The internal thought had her face flaming. Had he said that purposely to take her thoughts to him in her bed? Of course he had. Although he’d been a total gentleman in the short time she’d been back in his company, she hadn’t missed the longing in his looks.
“Hey guys. Scarlette!” Landon edged his way in between the two of them. “I’m dying for some chicken wings. Please say they’re on my diet.”
One of the things she’d done was put the guys all on a healthy diet. Food derivatives were a direct effect on mood and energy level. It was her hope that a happy and energetic musician wouldn’t crave a chemical alternative on the side.
“They’re not. Not these anyway. But eat up and be sure to drink the smoothie mix when you get back to the bus.”
“Thank you! Thank you. I LOVE you, Scarlette.” Landon engulfed her body in a boisterous embrace, and she saw Gage’s jaw tighten as if he were gritting his teeth. But to his credit, he said nothing and his bandmate disappeared into the crowd unharmed.
They caught part of a show. Ate very unhealthily themselves. Took a stroll through a misting station when they became too hot. Refilled her water canteen and shared it. Dipped into an air-conditioned dance tent, and even danced in a group who waved a totem with a sign perched atop it. ‘If you’re lost, stay and dance with us.’
Dark had descended, and the party had become a colorful glow when she and Gage got the text to return to the bus. They stood for a moment, getting their bearings. Neither of them had downloaded the festival app to their phone, which included a map tracker.
“This way.” She concluded after her thought process.
“Uh Uh. This way.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her back before the crowd swallowed her up.
A lick of liquid heat shot from her palm, up her arm and then somehow shot sideways to explode in fireworks in her belly.
“Sure?” Restraining the urge to snatch her hand from his grasp, and another equally strong compulsion to yank at his hand and pull them even closer, she tried to look casually around and control any quake in her voice. As casually as possible, she disengaged from him and pointed to a monstrous structure of colored lights. “There’s the Kruell stage. So that would mean―”
“You’re right. Absolutely. That way.” He pointed to the way she’d been headed before he’d closed those long talented fingers around her hand.
The bus was a dark hulk with blue running lights in the lighted parking area. The lot had been full this afternoon when the driver had eased into their designated space. Now there were empty spaces, as well as new neighboring buses. As they approached, the door burst open, and to a backdrop of light, two giggling groupie-looking girls spilled down the steps, and behind them, the door closed again.
“Well?” One asked once they had put a short distance between them and the bus. And the other giggled again. “I’ve had better. You?” Another drunken titter. “Definitely.”
Mutually, Gage and Scarlette used a luxury RV for cover until the girls passed, and then together they burst out laughing.
Two of the guys were sprawled in the back area, setting up the video game system. When one greeted them with “Hey, you just missed the party!” Scarlette and Gage dissolved into laughter again.
“What?”
“Nothing. We saw your party.”
“And why’s that funny?”
<
br /> “It’s not.” Scarlette interjected before Gage could say something that would start a fight. “It’s just when we saw them, I said to Gage, ‘Aw, we missed the party.’”
Behind her, Gage was ransacking the fridge, and he snorted, drawing suspicious frowns from his bandmates. Thankfully, the door burst open and Landon stumbled in with a “Honey, I’m home!”
“Fuck! What’s that smell?” Gage scrunched his face and Scarlette held back a gag.
Ignoring the way they skirted out of his way, Landon sauntered to the fridge and it was then the muddy-looking streaks on the backside of his jeans were revealed. Bending for a moment, he selected a covered tumbler and straightened, holding the smoothie up for Scarlette’s approval.
“Yeah. Good boy.” She praised, deliberately, as if he were a puppy. But curiosity got the better of her. “What the hell is that on your jeans?”
“My jeans?” He poked a straw into his cup, took a long pull of the drink, and looked down his front.
When she directed him with a finger to turn and he continued to look confused, Gage chimed in. “Backside, dude.”
Comprehending, at last, he arched and immediately began to gag. The smoothie dropped from his hand, barely righting itself on the table, while Landon unzipped. The two gamers, drawn by the fanfare, appeared, just as Landon stripped the jeans off right there in the tiny kitchen. Still gagging, he raced for the door, ripped it open, tossed the garment out, and pulled the door closed again.
“What! What the hell?” They all echoed some version of the same sentiment.
“Banged this chick in the porta potty.” Landon’s confession was sheepish. He closed himself in the bathroom. The sound of the shower running didn’t cover his retching.
“Scar, my darlin’.” Gage set his own smoothie in the sink. “That pretty much killed the smoothie for me. Forevermore.”
The bus soon settled down and they were on the road. She dumped extra sanitizer down the toilet, splashed it around the bathroom, and tried not to think that less than an hour ago the guy who had been covered in strangers’ shit had showered and puked in this small space. She tried not to remember that Jax had offered her a choice of travel arrangements, and she had chosen the band bus.
Gage was sitting at the table when she emerged in her comfy clothes—yoga pants and a large long-sleeved tee. His features were intent and his attention was on the screen of his phone. She knew that look. He was composing lyrics.
“Shower stall was boring with no lyrics on the wall,” she joked.
Snapping out of his trance, he looked her over and then settled his gaze on her face. “I’ve reformed my ways.” Her inquisitiveness must have shown on her face, because he added, “Except at my own house. If you’re missing shower lyrics, you’ll find them there.” She knew he was joking—sort of—but an uncomfortable silence descended, and he broke it with another more respectable invitation. “Want to watch a movie?”
“Sure. Okay.”
The guys had resumed their video game in the back, and Landon was sprawled fast asleep on the front couch. She gently slipped the remote from the relaxed grasp of the drummer, and Gage commandeered it to put a movie on. They both settled in the booth seat of the kitchen table that faced the screen and propped their feet across on the adjacent bench.
“You doing okay?” Gage’s inquiry was soft, and she knew he was speaking primarily of the tour more than anything else happening in her insane life when he nodded his head to their surroundings. “With all of this?”
“It’s weird, you know. But I’m good, I guess.”
Perhaps it was the ‘I guess’ tacked onto the end that drew his gaze from the television to the side of her face. She felt the trail of his eyes as surely as she’d felt the heat from his touch earlier.
“You don’t have to stay. If it gets too much, or it’s more than you thought, you should leave.”
“I can’t, really. When Jax first spoke with me about it, he kinda said the decision to put Rattler on tour hinged on whether or not I accepted his offer.”
“But he can hire someone else.”
“You trying to get rid of me?” She used his tactic of this afternoon against him. It was an attempt to divert the subject before she let it slip that he was quite possibly who Jax was the most worried about.
“I just want you to be happy.”
“I am. This is what I want to do. To create a business around this to help anyone whose life is on the road. Because that’s where most slipping happens. Right?” He nodded, and she looked down at the table, knowing he was remembering the times he’d fallen off the wagon. “Even if I’m not out on the road, I still need the experience of being on the road to run my business right.”
“Who’s blowing up your phone?”
Accepting the subject change, she acknowledged the notification tones that had been drifting from her bunk for the last hour. “Henni, probably. Or Logan.” She knew she was testing his reaction to the last name, but chickened out of meeting his gaze and concentrated instead on threading and unthreading her fingers.
“Logan?”
“You knew we were going out, right?” Now she brought her chin up and found him wearing a look of resignation.
Instead of answering, he asked, “My Dad call you back yet?”
“He sent an update text yesterday. Said the lawyers were going to fax him something that seemed promising.” Hopping up, she pulled open a cabinet and produced a box of microwave popcorn. “Screw their rules. I need spicy popcorn!”
The day she’d unpacked it from the bags of groceries she’d brought in, Landon and the others had been quick to tell her popcorn stunk up the bus for days.
Gage eased out of the seat and opened the spices while she got the bag ready and popped it into the microwave. The tiny kitchen had them brushing together with almost every move and her heart pounding.
As the random pops began, she fiddled with the cayenne pepper shaker. “I should tell you something.” She kept her voice low, but knew he could hear since he was standing less than six inches away. “The video on the beach.” Her heart pounded harder and a flush spread through her body. “Of us.” As if he needed to know what video. She gulped and tried to pull herself together and cool her horny thoughts. “My mom said that was Ketchum’s doing.” She explained how he’d been following her—even apparently to Mexico—when her mother refused to tell him where she was staying while in L.A. “He, um, supposedly had a way of checking flights. But I think she may have accidentally told him or something. And then even if he didn’t know where we were staying… Well that tweet thing happened where he could have found us at the club and followed us from there.” The popcorn was exploding in earnest while Gage was too silent for too long. Still, she couldn’t look at him.
Popping slowed and she extracted the bag, carefully opened it, dumped their spice mixture in, and rolled it closed so she could shake the mixture.
Gage’s response when it came at last sounded emotionless, but she knew him well enough to know when he seemed cold and unaffected, he was furious. “Fuck him. I’m going to find him and make him sorry he ever started this shit.”
“Don’t do anything stupid. That’s exactly why I wasn’t going to tell you!”
“You weren’t going to tell me?” In one smooth maneuver, he was in front of her, forcing her to look at him. “You weren’t going to fuckin’ tell me? Fuck that, Scar. Christ… This shit is my life too, you know. Fuck this!”
He spun about but his exit was blocked by the two gaming band members who’d obviously been drawn by the sound and smell of the forbidden popcorn.
“I know. I know. At least try it before you bitch at me for making it.” Scarlette shoved the bag at them since her appetite for the snack was gone.
“They’re not going to say a fuckin’ word. If you want popcorn, you can have fuckin’ popcorn anytime you want. End of story.” Gage shoved his way past the two of them, and a second later was swallowed up in his bunk.
&
nbsp; “Dammit, this shit is good!” Both were shoving fistfuls of popped kernels into their mouths. They asked if she wanted some and when she answered ‘it was all theirs,’ they disappeared into the back again.
Eyeing the curtain across Gage’s bunk, she put away the spices, rinsed out the cups in the sink and wiped up. After turning off the television and tucking the remote into its holder, she dimmed the lights and stood, slightly hypnotized by the road humming under her feet as she considered what to do next.
Padding to the middle of the bus, she paused, instead of climbing into her bunk. All was dark behind Gage’s curtain. No flicker of a television, which even when he didn’t have his headphones on, he normally slept with it muted like he had in his own bedroom.
“Gage?” She knelt and spoke to the slight gap between the curtain and the wall where his head would be. “I’m sorry.” Nothing. “Okay? Don’t be mad.” Fuck, she couldn’t handle even a day on this tour with him mad at her. “Okay?”
The drape suddenly shot open, one of his arms came out, hooking her, and when she fell onto him, he closed the curtain again. “Okay.” The word was husky and agreeable.
Her body burned pleasantly in every area of contact with his. He smelled of popcorn, the festival, and himself. She’d never forgotten his scent, or the feel of his breath fanning her face.
“Okay then.” She braced on her hands, pushing up as far as the small confines allowed and rubbed her elbow when it hit what clearly felt like one of his guitars. She understood. She slept with her guitar too. “I should go to bed.”
“Says who?”
“Me?”
“Do I get a say?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because. I know what you’ll say.” Her thoughts went back to the day she’d arrived and the conversation left hanging. It is though, you know. Your business. Because you could never be with some sociopathic dick.
Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance Page 43