"He's pre-med, maybe he's used to touching."
He scowled but changed the topic. "Did you get a text from Vince?"
I nodded, dropping my eyes to his muscled midsection. I felt my lower lips swell just remembering the few short hours before. The next ten seconds of awkward silence felt like an hour. I shook the memory from my head.
"Want to come in?" he asked. He shoved the door open enough so I could see the unmade bed, a Cheshire-cat grin on his face.
I steadied my breathing. My body wanted to take him up on it. But in the glowing light of first dawn, our mistake weighed heavy on me.
I shoved my hand in my bag and pulled out the key card to my room. "I really should get to my own room."
"Did you forget something?" he asked.
I noticed he was eyeing my chest. "Like what?"
He reached around behind the door and pulled out my bra. It dangled from two fingers.
I moved to snatch it but he yanked it away, and tucked it behind his back. I held out my hand. "Come on. Give it."
He tossed it behind him and it landed on the bed. "Go get it," he challenged me. His eyes pierced into mine, and I desire washed over me. I felt my knees start to buckled so I caught onto the door frame. If I walked into that room, I wasn’t coming out anytime soon. I took a deep breath, shook the cobwebs lose from my brain and steeled my resolve.
"Keep it," I said, my voice sounded more sure than I felt. "Souvenir."
"Really?" he asked. "You sure?"
I hesitated. "Dion, last night was great. I mean, really. Really. Great."
"I could tell you enjoyed it."
"But I think maybe, well... Dion, did we do the wrong thing?"
His face clouded over. "We got it out of our system."
"Right," I said, the weight of his words dropping to the pit of my stomach.
"Right," Dion said, stepping into the shadows of his room so I could barely see him. "Later, Nik."
I took a step towards the door. "Dion—"
But he had already retreated to his room, slamming the door shut right in my face. I heard the scrape of the chain latching. I lifted my hand, my fist hovering at the door, ready to knock. Dion's words about getting it out of our systems echoed. I dropped my hand in defeat and headed to the quiet sanctuary of my motel room, ready for a cold shower.
Once inside, I kicked off my sneakers and flopped on the bed. My phone buzzed from inside my bag. I thought about ignoring it, but a part of me wanted it to be Dion begging me to go back to his room. I dug it out of my bag and gave it a look. It was from a number I didn't recognize.
You've 'Ruined' Rogue Nation. Say goodbye bitch.
My body went numb and I tossed the phone to the bottom of my bag like it was possessed. I curled into a ball on the itchy motel bedspread. If this was Dion's idea of a prank, it was taking a sinister edge. After a night like last night, how could he still be carrying on like this? Tears welled in my eyes and this time, I let them pour out. I cried myself to sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"What's with you and Dion?" Presley whispered. We were sitting around the table in front of the bunks, tucked into the rich leather arm chairs that surrounded the faux mahogany table. Rafe and Dion spent the afternoon pounding cheap beer in some asinine drinking game. They crashed out in their bunks, sleeping it off. Devlin was driving. He had us on the road by 8 AM. It was now a little after 4 PM and, according through the street signs, we were almost through Idaho.
"What do you mean, what's up with me and Dion?" I asked, refusing to meet her eyes.
"You guys are barely speaking," she said. "I mean, Vegas? Opening for Anthem? You'd think there'd be some discussion. That's huge."
"And in no small part it's because of you," Jett agreed. She had her bass guitar in her lap rather than her usual book. "If Ruined wasn't leaked—" I snorted. "Okay, air quote that. But still, you're up to..." She gestured towards Presley, who looked at the YouTube app on her phone.
"Over 868,422 views and counting," Presley announced.
"There you go," Jett said. "It'll be at one million by the time we get to Vegas."
"So why's he being such a dick?" Presley continued her line of questioning.
"Because Dion is a dick," I said with what I hoped was a nonchalant shrug. "Whatever."
"Not whatever," Jett said, tuning her G string. "He and Rafe should be kissing your ass right about now."
"I'm not worried about it," I lied. Dion icing me out was not that unusual, but texting me threats from an anonymous texting app? That was kind of freaking me out. It harder to convince myself that he was doing it for kicks.
"Why would you worry?" Presley asked. She pursed her lips. "Did you get another note?"
After a curt shake of my head, I looked out the window at the flat, brown landscape of US-93 in Jerome, Idaho.
"She is such a liar," Jett said. "She won't even look at us."
"Spill it," Presley demanded. "Let's see what the asshat sent this time."
I handed over my phone without a fight. At this point, maybe I needed a second and third opinion.
"Jealousy is not pretty," Presley muttered as she read over the text.
I blinked at her. "Jealousy? Of who? His groupies?"
"He's so clearly jealous of you," she clarified and handed the phone off to Jett. "Why would you be jealous of groupies? You're in the band, girl, you don't need to sleep with it."
Jett wrinkled her nose as she looked at the text. "I am still not convinced this is Dion. I mean, just because he's a narcissist doesn't make him a sociopath. And this textbook sociopathic."
"This assessment brought to you by Freshman year Psych101," Presley razzed. "Come on! It's so totally Dion taking the piss."
"Shhhh," I shushed both of them. "Keep your voices down."
"Those two put away a case of beer between them," Presley scoffed. "There is no way they are waking up until we hit Vegas."
Jett thumbed a quick chord progression. "We haven't written a song in a while."
Presley grinned at her. "You miss it!"
"No! I just—" We both stared at her. "Yeah, okay, I miss it," Jett admitted. "I like it when we write together. It reminds me of slumber parties in the forts we built when we were kids."
"Awwwww," Presley teased. "Look at you all nostalgic! You love your sisters."
"Of course I love my sisters, even the half-witted one," Jett sassed, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket.
"Pull out your acoustic," I told Presley. "Jett's been working on something."
"Cool," she said, heading to the end of the bus that held a few instruments that were not in the van.
Presley settled on the couch and we got to work on a new song. Jett's lyrics were tight and didn't require many changes. Presley and I worked up the melody.
"Crap," Presley swore. She cleared her throat. Her soprano vocals didn't like the minor keys. Forcing her voice into the right range was taking a toll.
"Stop," Jett cut her off before she tried again. "We have a major gig coming up in Vegas. You need that voice."
"Let's call it," I said, putting down the lyric sheet and my pen.
"No," Presley insisted. "This is a good song. We need to finish it."
I shook my head. "Not if it costs you your voice."
"Then you do it."
"What?"
"You," she said, pointing at me. "You take vocals on this one."
Butterflies danced in my stomach and I swallowed a giggle. "I'm not a vocalist."
"No, you're not," Presley agreed. She didn't bother buffering that one. "But this one is so in your kit. It's like we wrote it for you or something."
"Or something," I grumbled. "You know I can't do this."
"You can be all Dave Grohl like and sing from behind the drum kit," Jett teased, referencing the former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters front man. "It's not like it hasn't been done."
"I can't replace Presley."
"Who said anything a
bout replacing me?" she sniffed. "You can do this one song. But replace me? Please. You are not a front woman."
Presley just sent my competitive streak a call to action. My stomach burned with ambition. Presley wasn't the only one who could front a band.
"Give me that chord again," I said to said to her, sitting up straight. She cradled her acoustic guitar and strummed the first few notes. My voice picked up the song. I warbled at first, but once my vocal chords warmed up and I fought off some crippling self-doubt, I lost myself in the music.
I wrapped up the final note when Dion's applause shattered the silence on the bus. "That was stunning."
"Sorry I woke you up," I mumbled. The heat I felt coming off my face told me I
Rafe suck his head out from behind the bunk curtain. "Me too."
"Sorry," I repeated.
"Actually thatwasssrillygood," Rafe said.
Jett stared at him. "What the hell did you just say? Are you still drunk?"
"He said that was really good," Dion clarified. "And it was. Really good. I didn't know you sang too."
I stood up and stretched my legs. "I don't."
"But you just did," he insisted.
"But I don't, not really. I only did that because it's in the wrong key for Presley. Not a good time to fuck with her voice."
"So if it's the wrong key for your singer, who gets the song?" Rafe asked.
"I didn't really think about it," I said. "Jett?"
Jett shrugged. "Me neither. We just write them."
"You could sell it," Dion suggested.
"Who would buy one of our songs?" Presley asked. She crossed her arms and slumped further into the leather chair.
"Plenty of singers," Rafe said. "You do know the majority of pop singers don't write their own songs, right?"
"Of course we know that," Jett scoffed.
"So then why aren't you selling yours?" Rafe shot back.
"I guess we never really thought about it," Presley said with a shrug.
"Our songs are our songs," I added. "We write them for us."
"Not if you write them in the wrong key," Dion pointed out. He bent over and pulled a bottle of water out of the mini fridge. I admired his ass while it was in the air.
"Have you sold any of your songs?" Jett asked Rafe.
"Sure," he said, dropping out of his bunk. "All the time."
"You guys don't save them for Rogue Nation?" Jett continued to prod him.
"Nah," Rafe said. "We'd have too many songs. What do you do with your rejects?"
"Reject them?" Jett said.
"And that means what?" he asked.
"We throw them away."
Rafe whooped. "That's like burning money, girl."
"Why are we even discussing this?" I moaned. "We write for us. For Satan's Sisters. Not for pop tarts."
"No wait," Jett said, holding up her hand. "I want to hear this."
I looked at Presley. "You want to hear this too?"
She shrugged. "Jett and I do the bulk of the songwriting. It'd be nice to not just toss the rejects."
"But I do the arrangements," I cut in. "And I can't arrange shit if we start selling our songs."
"Wait, you side gig all the time," Presley started to argue.
But Jett jumped up and paced the narrow corridor. "What do we do with a song like the one we just wrote? Presley can't sing it."
"We can change the key," I argued.
"Or you could sing it," Dion said, his tone off hand.
"Me?" I asked with a laugh. I shook my head. "No way. I can't sing in front of anyone."
He smirked at me. "You just did, Nikki."
"No, I sang in front of my sisters."
"And me and Rafe," he said.
"You were sleeping."
His eyes crinkled and he flashed me a smile. "What are you afraid of?"
"Nothing," I said, jumping to my feet.
"Not like a performer to have stage fright," he continued.
"I don't have stage fright," I insisted. I squeezed past Jett, who was still taking out her agitation by pacing the push carpet of the bus. I moved to my bunk.
"I'm not judging," Dion said, following me. "I just think you have that works and you should sing it."
I ignored him and climbed into my bunk, pulling shut the privacy curtain.
Dion pulled the curtain back. "Are you upset?"
"No," I lied, turning my back to him. "I'm tired. Some of us didn't nap the day away."
"Shove over," he said, climbing into my bunk.
I didn't budge from my spot. He squeezed himself into my bunk, his firm body pressed against mine. "Stop it, get in your own damn bunk."
"Come on, shove over," he said, pushing me back towards the wall. I was no match for him physically so, despite my protests, he snuggled into the narrow bunk with me.
"What the hell are you two doing?" Presley called out. They all watched Dion scramble into bed with me. I pulled the pillow over my head.
"Having some sibling time," Dion shouted back at her before pulling the curtain closed again. "Now that I have you alone," he whispered, crawling under the covers with me. "That song was kick ass. You were kick ass singing it. Now what do I have to do to convince you?"
His hands snaked around me and wandered into my yoga pants before I could answer.
"We can't do this here," I whispered, straining my ears to listen to Rafe, Presley and Jett discussing how to sell our songs to pop tarts more famous than us.
"Why no?" he asked. "Our siblings are otherwise engaged."
I steadied my breathing in as his fingers brushed over my panties. "I mean, we can't do this. At all."
"It's not like we haven't done this before!"
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to focus on anything but his hand coaxing my vulva to slick attention. "Come on, Dion. After what you did this morning."
He stilled beside me. "What I did this morning? How about we talk about what you did?"
"Me?"
"You walked out, Nik, not me."
"And your pissed enough about me doing things on my terms that you decided to send me another stupid threat."
He pulled on my shoulder, turning me to face him. "What are you talking about?"
"You're behaving like a spoiled little boy. It's not funny anymore. In fact, it's downright weird now, and kind of freaking me out."
"Dammit, Nik," he said, raising his voice.
"Shhh," I pressed my finger over his mouth. "Keep your voice down."
"How many times do I have to tell you, I have nothing to do with those threats," he whispered.
"Dion, who the hell else can it be?" I asked. "Rafe?"
"Why the hell would you think it's Rafe?"
"Because you guys don't want me on this tour—" I started.
"Didn't," he corrected me. "We didn't want you on this tour. But now we do. I told you before, you are an asset to the band. Why can't you trust me?"
I bit my lip. "Because, you're Dion Davis. You're an asshole."
"Really? That's what you think of me? After everything we've shared?"
"Shared? What have we shared?" I asked my own voice rising. "Apart from body fluids?"
"According to you, not much," he fumed. "You were a decent fuck. Pity it meant so little to you."
"Meant so little to me? I was just another notch on your well-worn bed post. You made that very clear."
"Did I?"
"You wanted me for a threesome. Or a foursome.? Or, how many other women were there in Seattle?"
"You were about to go off and screw that Brian guy! I figured you may be up for whoring around. Your mother was."
I shoved him, hard. He lost his balance and fell out of the bunk. But before he plummeted to the floor, he grabbed onto me and we both tumbled out of the bunk and onto the floor. We stared at three sets of feet tapping the floor beside us.
"You want to tell us what you two have been up to?" Presley asked.
"I mean, really, Nik?" Jett said. I looked u
p at my sisters. As their tone didn't clue me in, both their faces displayed a mix of shock and disappointment.
Rafe pressed his hand to his forehead. "Dion, you get your pick of ass but you decide to shit where you eat? Not cool."
"I mean, he's our brother," Presley gasped.
"He's not our brother," I said, scrambling to my feet. It was easier to defend myself without lying on top of Dion. "Not really."
"But you were twelve," she gasped again.
I put my hands on my hips and challenged her. "I certainly wasn't 12 when this happened. We're adults, Presley. We can make our own choices."
"But the band, Nik," Rafe groaned. "You hate us that much you're willing to break up the band?"
"She's not breaking up the band," Dion scoffed. "We're just messing around. Right, Nik?"
"Right," I lied. "Just messing around."
"The messing around ends now," Rafe fumed.
Dion got to his feet and went to his brother. "Relax, man. I've got this under control."
Rafe got in his face. "It looks to me the only thing under control in this situation is your dick. Or, more likely, she's got control of you and your dick."
Dion took a step back from Rafe. "You need to chill, Rafe."
"Chill? You think I can chill? You remember who her mother is, right?"
"Whoa," Jett stepped in between the two guys. "You want to rail about band members hooking up and how uncool that is, I've actually got your back. But seriously, do not compare any of us to our mother."
"And this is totally different anyway," Presley jumped to my defense. "This is nothing like mom and Vince, not even close."
Rafe glared at us. "Is it? Tell me, after you moved into our home, did Vince ever go out on tour again?"
"Anthem retired," I said. "The band went on to side projects. Vince didn't want to tour anymore."
"Wrong," Rafe shouted, getting in my face. "Vince wanted to tour. Pamela wouldn't let him."
Dion stepped between us. "Back off, man. Just take it easy."
"Please," I scoffed at Rafe. "Our mother had zero control over Vince."
"Pamela didn't trust Vince," Dion said, shaking his head. "He stopped touring because she didn't want him around the groupies. Temptation."
Rafe snorted. "Ironic, right?"
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