Cross

by Heather Young-Nichols

  Which was why I avoided them most of the time.

  As warm as her lips were against mine, her tongue was even hotter. My body responded before my mind did. And tonight Indie had my hackle up. I wanted to release some of that energy.

  I kissed her back and damn, she knew exactly what she was doing. Like every one of her moves was carefully choreographed to elicit the most pleasure. This girl could definitely get me where I wanted to go.

  The way her body moved against mine already had me hard and eager and I had a decision to make.

  “Maybe we should go out to your bus,” she purred against my ear. “I’ll make it really good for you.”

  Her words shot straight to my dick and had me aching for release. Well, that decision was made. I stood up. Macy slid off my lap. Once she was on her own feet, I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room.

  Out in the hall, she pushed me up against the wall and kissed me again as her hand slid down my stomach and into my jeans. One stroke and I was about to lose it.

  Fuck. I had to get her out of there before I embarrassed the both of us.

  Maneuvering between the buses, her hands worked my shirt up, sliding against my skin. I felt her touch everywhere but wanted skin to skin contact somewhere no one else would see us. There was still a small crowd gathered outside the fence.

  Her lips moved against mine as I tried to get the bus door open. That made it difficult, but I was nothing if not resourceful. We stumbled up the few steps to get inside and while she didn’t seem to care about getting naked right there by the couch—proven when she yanked her shirt over her head—we were at least getting into a bunk. Damn. She was wearing the best push-up bra known to man.

  Then something solid brushed against my leg. I lurched forward, taking Macy with me.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. That had scared the hell out of me.

  I looked back at the couch to figure out what had just touched me and found Indie—still in the skirt and tank top I’d saw her in earlier, sound asleep with her hand hanging off the couch. Why was she on my bus?

  “Who’s that?” Macy asked loudly, the alcohol she’d consumed in full effect.

  I leaned against my hand on the counter and looked back at Indie again.

  “That’s… an inconvenience.” Ransom had still been at the party when I’d left so I knew she hadn’t been here with him.

  “I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” she said, unbuttoning my jeans and sliding herself down onto her knees.

  Damn it.

  Indie was right there. I could fuck this girl every way I knew how and Indie wouldn’t even know. But she had a serious distaste for this part of the life and for some reason it mattered to me that it’d bother her. I couldn’t do this. Not here. Not now.

  “No,” I said, pulling Macy back up by the elbows. “Not gonna happen.”

  “What?” That’s when the too-sweet voice turned snotty.

  I got it. She was feeling jilted, but I couldn’t fuck her with Indie there on the couch asleep. And I still needed to figure out why Indie was on my bus in the first place.

  “Listen. I said not tonight. Go find your friends.”

  I glanced around for something to give the girl. Found a Courting Chaos T-shirt and a permanent marker. Marker was black, shirt was white. Perfect. I scribbled my name across the front, then saw a CD laying on the table and did that same to that.

  When I handed it to her, Macy raised an eyebrow at me and pressed her lips together tightly. Obviously, this was a lame way to get her off the bus, but I didn’t have anything else. Still, she wasn’t moving. When I pointed to the door again she stayed right where she was.

  She could’ve made this easy on the both of us. Fine. I clutched both of her shoulders and gently turned her around, then gave her a slight nudge. That was when she got that I was serious and moved on her own. But she slammed the door really hard on the way out.

  I immediately glanced over to Indie. Didn’t look like she’d moved an inch. She was really out. But why was she in my bus? All I knew was that I needed to figure out what I was going to do with her before Ransom got back here with his night’s plans. A bus with even one horny rocker was no place for a sleeping young woman to be. And sometimes Drink brought his girls to my bus so that he could just leave them there and go back to his own bus to sleep.

  And fuck. I heard them coming. I hopped up and went to the window to pull back the curtain so I could see how long I had. Not long. The guys were surrounded by girls and headed this way. But then they took a left and the bus next to us tilted as if all those people were climbing aboard.

  Shit. They were.

  That was when I realized Indie wasn’t on the wrong bus. I was. That could’ve been a horrible mistake. Bringing a girl back to my bus—fine. Back to Indie’s bus? Not so much.

  Weird that there was Courting Chaos merchandise on her bus but I’d have to ask her later.

  Now I was stuck deciding between returning to bus potentially full of debauchery or staying here where it was quiet. There really wasn’t a choice. I went to one of the bunks, grabbed a blanket, then came back and threw it over sleeping Indie, then climbed into a bunk of my own. Shucking off my jeans, I slid under the blanket, sent Ransom a quick text to let him know where I was so the caravan could pull out whenever they wanted to and turned the little light off.

  I think I’d forgotten how easy it was to fall asleep when everything around me was actually still. I think I’d forgotten how it felt to have everything around me be still. What I didn’t do was consider exactly why my mind was on Indie when Macy had her hand down my pants.

  That was a question for another time.

  Chapter Nine

  Indie

  Something hard-jolted me awake and then I was sliding, falling from the comfort beneath me. I forced my eyes open and grabbed at the cushions under me, then sprang up to a sitting position. Oh. I was on the bus and we were moving. We must’ve hit a big bump and that was what had startled me awake.

  It was too early and coffee was my first priority. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the couch. Most certainly didn’t remember getting a blanket. But maybe Dad had checked on me and covered me up. I’d have to thank him for doing it but remind him he really didn’t have to babysit me. He’d told me he wasn’t “coming home,” as it were, last night.

  The minutes I spent waiting for coffee in the morning were the longest minutes of my day. Even with the quickness of the new single cup machines where I didn’t have to wait for a full pot, it still seemed to take forever. Until finally the mocha cup I’d dropped in the machine was done and I could get my day started.

  Two sips in, one of the bunk screens slid open and a pair of masculine legs jutted out into the air. Followed by the full body of Cross Rhodes jumping out.

  What in the hell? I hadn’t expected anyone else on the bus with me at all, but I certainly hadn’t expected him.

  Cross barely glanced at me as he passed by. I took another sip as Cross reached around me, dropped a new cup in the maker and pushed the start button. Being so close to him was weird for me. I moved over to the table and sat down. Minutes later he joined me and this awkward silence fell over us. It wasn’t any quieter than it had been before he’d shown up, but now we were facing each other and couldn’t pretend the other wasn’t there. Like the weird morning after a one-night stand without the drunken sex the night before.

  “What’re you doing on my bus?” I finally asked.

  “Sleeping. That a problem?” He blew into the coffee cup before taking a drink. A puff of steam poofed up in front of his face.

  “No. Just didn’t know anyone else was here. Could’ve been dangerous.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. What if I was walking around the bus naked and then you popped out?”

  He choked and sputtered on that last bit of coffee, his eyes widening as he coughed.

  “Talk about awkward,” I continued.

  Cross cleared his t
hroat then gave a deep chuckle. “That would be awkward.”

  His just-woke-up, grainy, morning voice made my body tingle. Like a warm blanket someone had wrapped around me.

  “So?” I prodded him. “What are you doing here?

  Cross sighed. “I don’t think I want to tell you but I thought it was my bus by accident. And there was some Chaos merch so you can understand how I’d think that.”

  Interesting. But him not wanting to tell me something made me want to know even more. I wanted to reason he’d chosen to sleep on my bus instead of his own. “Right. I was going to send that stuff to my friend Bellamy.” I took a breath then asked, “Can you tell me if you’re the one who covered me up last night?”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch. I meant to go to bed, but by the time I got in here, I was so tired, I just… fell asleep.”

  “Been there,” he said. “Is your dad going to come out here and get the wrong idea?” He pointed down the hall at the bedroom.

  I shook my head. “He didn’t sleep here last night. Had other plans.”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “Not really.”

  Cross’ face tightened and his eyes narrowed on me as he readjusted himself in the seat. His mouth opened but shut again, as if he decided not to say what was on his mind.

  “I know what you guys do. I just appreciate that my dad doesn’t do it around me,” I said, answering the question he hadn’t asked, but I thought he wanted to.

  “If you don’t have a problem with what your dad does, why then did you lay into me last night when you saw the girls with Drink and Ransom?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Last night Cross had called me out about judging him, the guys, the girls waiting backstage, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. Watching my dad navigate this exact life never bothered me and it shouldn’t now that it was Cross. Yet it did. But last night was more about the fact that one girl, in particular, looked underage. I knew I shouldn’t base my opinion of age on looks. Some people appeared younger than they were. Yet that girl last night gave me a bad feeling.

  He propped his elbows on the table and leaned closer to me. “You sure about that?”

  I swallowed at just how near he was. Unfortunately, the coffee had done its job and everything about him was awake and alert. I wanted that sleepy, adorable voice that matched the messy hair back.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to lay into you. I saw those girls earlier and they just looked so young. Especially the brown haired one.”

  “You look young.”

  “Not that young.”

  He paused again, as if thinking something over, shook his head, then pushed up from his seat to drop the coffee cup in the sink. When he turned back around, he folded his arms over his chest and looked at me.

  “Do you not like that it’s Drink they’re getting attention from?”

  “Drink?”

  “Eric Drinkswine. We call him Drink.”

  “You think… you think I’m jealous that he was giving them that kind of attention?”

  He shrugged.

  I winced, scrunched up my nose, and suddenly felt the need to shower. “That’s so gross.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you like.”

  “Not that.” All this time he’d thought my irritation was due to jealousy over that big Neanderthal. Not even close. Cross was much more my type, but no way in hell would I have said it to him. Still, I had to chuckle.

  “OK, OK.” He held his hands out in front of his body in defense. “I think I’m going to try to get a little more sleep before we get to Cincinnati.”

  “Me too.”

  I tried to pretend to be innocently rinsing the coffee cups when in reality I was watching Cross lift himself back into the bunk and pull the curtain closed. My body flooded with warmth and I suddenly became aware of my own heartbeat erratically thumping against my chest.

  There would be no more sleep for me until that night. I wouldn’t be able to relax enough with Cross just feet away. Sleeping. In boxer briefs and a T-shirt.

  This could be a really long tour.

  Chapter Ten

  Cross

  I laid in the bunk on Indie’s bus wide awake for the rest of the ride to Cincinnati. Sure, I could’ve put my pants on and gone out to the main area, maybe watch some TV or talk to Indie for the rest of the way. But I really didn’t think more time with her was what I needed. Fortunately, when the bus stopped, she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she really did go back to sleep.

  The bus went straight to the hotel to unload the personal items each of us would want to take with us for the duration. A regular bed was really nice and when we had a few shows in a row we stayed somewhere that had one. Once the other guys woke up and brought an overnight bag into the rooms, the buses would set up shop at the venue until it was time to pull out again. What I needed was some space to myself.

  I grabbed my messenger bag and headed down to the lobby, where I’d noticed a little alcove that looked like a perfect spot to work on some new songs. That was exactly what I needed. Work.

  Three lines got written down, then two got erased. Over and over until an actual song showed up on the paper. That was just how creativity worked sometimes.

  “What’re you doing down here?” Ransom asked as he and Dixon dropped into the seats across from me.

  I glanced at my phone to check the time. I’d been down there two hours already. The guys had still been asleep then, or so I’d assumed, given I was on the wrong bus.

  “Writing.”

  “Oooh, anything good?” Ransom snatched the paper right off my lap. “These are pretty good. This one’s fantastic actually.”

  Some movement to my right caught my attention. Indie was outside with Dean, a bag on her shoulder and one of those rolling suitcases next to her. He said something to her that made her laugh. Her head dropped back and her body shook.

  “What’re we looking at?” Ransom’s face was suddenly right next mine, his cheek brushing against me.

  “Nothing,” I responded much too quickly and pushed him away.

  “Oh,” Dixon said from much too close to Ransom. It would’ve been comical if not for the fact it was actually happening to me. “I see. Someone’s got a thing for the boss’ daughter.”

  “Boss’ daughter?” Ransom laughed. “That’s good.”

  “First, Cinderstone isn’t our boss. Second, I don’t have a thing for anybody.”

  Yet even though those two idiots had sat back down and were now not so close I could feel their breaths, they were still there with me when I’d hoped they would’ve left. And I couldn’t help but be drawn back in by Indie.

  “Cross,” Ransom called, then nodded his head toward Dixon.

  “Right,” I said. “Dixon, we want to tell you about something.”

  “Drink?” he asked back. None of this should’ve been a surprise to any of us. So him automatically knowing what we wanted to talk about also should not have taken me aback, yet it did. Actually, Dixon shared a bus with Drink, so he’d know even more than we did.

  “Yeah, man,” Ransom said but didn’t continue.

  Apparently, this was my job.

  “So Ransom and I talked to Lawson. Asked him to quietly start making a short list of bass players. Just in case.”

  “You want to replace Drink?”

  “No,” Ransom replied. “We don’t want to.”

  “But he’s becoming less and less reliable,” I explained. “And he doesn’t seem to care.”

  “We can’t fuck this up,” Ransom said. “But we think he’s going to.”

  Dixon sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest, giving me a hard look. The silence between us wasn’t normal. I really didn’t think Dixon would take this hard, considering the three of us had started Courting Chaos and Drink had come along later.

  “Can we just get rid of him now?” he finally asked.

  Ransom s
norted and a sense of relief washed over me.

  “Lawson says we have to wait for him to actually do something because of our contracts,” Ransom explained.

  “When did he say that?” I asked.

  “I ran into him after we talked to him.”

  “Honestly, I wish he’d just straighten the fuck up.”

  “Let’s just keep an eye on him,” Dixon said as he stood. “I’ll see you guys at soundcheck.”

  He walked away, but Ransom didn’t move.

  Once again, Indie walked by the window. She hadn’t been there a couple of minutes ago. Not that I’d been checking. This time she was climbing off the bus with the ever-present camera in her hand. I couldn’t imagine she’d forgotten it.

  “That’s going to be trouble, you realize that, right?” Ransom said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He smirked and tilted his head as he pointed out the window at Indie. “Her dad kind of decides whether we get to stay or not.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Dude, you’re staring at her. We’re just lucky she doesn’t seem to notice, you fucking creeper.”

  I snorted. “I was just looking out the window.”

  “Yeah,” he said and he rolled his eyes at me. “Listen, you know I don’t care where you put your dick, but maybe not in Vince Cinderstone’s daughter. Wouldn’t want to have to replace you, too.”

  Like that was possible. I gave him two middle fingers for that one.

  “First, you’re an asshole. Second, she and I aren’t even friends. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  He pursed his lips and narrowed those beady little eyes on me. Fucker didn’t believe me. “All right,” he said. “I’m just warning you. That’s trouble right there.” Then he left me alone.

  Indie could’ve been a lot of trouble, but Ransom was crazy. I didn’t have a thing for her and even if I did, she could barely stand me and my lifestyle. Though I wished she’d look a little closer. Yes, guys in bands could be awful, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends.