by Owen Andrews
I opened one eye. That seemed like a fair enough compromise. Just one eye. I could still be half-asleep if I could only see half of what was going on in the world, right? At least that was the kind of half drunken/half hung over logic that was playing through my brain.
So I opened my one eye. I looked down. The buzzing was my phone. The flashing light was my phone.
Of course it would be my phone. The only question was who was calling?
I squinted at the screen. It was refusing to resolve into a clear picture. Why was it refusing to resolve into a clear picture?
Oh, right. All the booze I had to drink at that after party. After the concert. When I'd gotten a little close and personal with…
Shit.
I have a couple of friends over the years who swore by their personal hangover remedies. One said that drinking Tylenol with a bunch of water would take care of things. I knew one girl who swore by tomato juice as a cure-all for what ails you when you had a little too much to drink the night before. She claimed it sobered you right up.
It didn't. All it did was leave you with tomato breath and a hangover.
I just mention that by way of comparison, because in that moment I discovered the perfect hangover remedy. The one thing that was guaranteed to sober me up in a flash. Waking up and seeing my friend calling me when I'd fallen into a drunken sleep in the back of some pop star's bus after I had one hell of a naughty tryst with him.
Damn!
I sat bolt upright and immediately regretted it. I might've thought I'd sobered up, I might've thought I'd gotten rid of the lingering aftereffects of getting drunk, but sitting up proved that wasn't the case at all.
No, it just made the headache that was threatening just behind my temples come roaring to the surface. It made me regret ever even considering putting a drink of alcohol to my lips. It made me wish I could crawl back up next to Grant and go to sleep, but the insistent buzzing on my phone, Kayla's name flashing at me in the darkness, meant that wasn't happening.
I swiped my phone and it opened.
Kayla's call disappeared. My phone helpfully told me I'd missed about twenty calls from her. Great. She probably knew exactly where I was, and she probably had a pretty good idea of exactly what I was doing.
No, I corrected myself. She probably had a pretty good idea of exactly what I'd done. The fun part was over. Now it was time to deal with the hangover. Damn it.
I shifted around and saw him there. My breath caught as I saw his muscular body. It was perfect. He was perfect.
Light was streaming in from that giant window along the back of the bus. It was illuminating him through the blinds. Horizontal bars of light ran up and down his body showing off his perfect form. His handsome face that looked so incredible as he was lying there asleep.
In short, he looked absolutely perfect. And all I could think about was how the hell was I going to get the hell out of here, and fast? I couldn't believe I'd actually let myself become a one night stand for a member of Twenty Promises, and my knee jerk reaction was to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Was it stupid? Maybe, but I was still slightly buzzed, dealing with one hell of a hangover, dealing with some pretty damn confusing emotions, and generally not thinking straight.
I glanced around the room. I looked down at myself. No clothes. A blush crossed my face at that. Why would I be in clothes? I'd only just had sex with one of the most famous front men in the world. I'd fallen asleep right next to him. Preferred attire for that sort of social engagement was the birthday suit, after all.
I frantically looked around the room for any sign of my clothes. I saw a slightly darker spot along one side of the wall. I thought he'd maybe tossed my clothes over that direction earlier. I couldn't really remember. Everything was sort of a lust fueled haze that ran together in my memory, and I figured one lump of potential clothes was as good as another when I was already stumbling around blindly in the back of a tour bus where, oh did I mention? I'd just had a one night stand with the "sexy one" from the most famous band of a decade ago. A band that I despised. I’d acted no better than a common groupie throwing herself at him!
How had I let myself get into this situation? Damn it, damn it, damn it!
I fumbled at the dark pile on the floor, desperately hoping it wasn't his clothes. And a smile played across my face as I thought back to how much fun it had been getting Grant out of those clothes. I shook myself. I needed to stop thinking like that. I needed to get the hell out of here. I'd had my walk on the wild side, but I was not a groupie for some rock star!
Okay, so maybe I totally was a groupie for some rock star. No matter how I tried to slice it, what I'd just done was groupie behavior. Still, I was going to get out of here before he could gloat over his conquest. Worse, I was going to get out of here before he woke up and did something like profess his undying love for me which I wasn't equipped to deal with right now.
Not that there was anything about our time together that made me think he was the type to do anything like gloat over a conquest. Not that there was anything about what he was that made me think he was the type to profess his undying love for a one night stand.
I stopped and turned back to look at him again. I thought back to meeting him in the diner. I thought to how he'd been while we were backstage together. And I felt a warmth rising inside me as I thought about that.
A dangerous warmth. A warmth that made me want to ignore my phone and climb back into bed. Into the rock star fantasy that I'd been able to live for just one night. A rock star fantasy that was so dangerous precisely because it was that: a fantasy.
No matter how nice, no matter how hot he was, the truth was plain. He was a star, and he was constantly traveling from city to city where girls who were a hell of a lot hotter than me would be throwing themselves at him. There was no chance for something long-term, and that's not what I needed in my life right now. I needed to remember that.
The night had been fun, but I needed to get out of here before he woke up and things got really complicated.
Because I'd realized something in that moment while I was looking at him. While I was thinking back to all the fun we'd had. To that moment we'd shared in the diner. Nothing in our time together had made him seem like the love'em and leave'em type even though I didn't see how he couldn't be given who he was and what he did. No, he seemed very sincere, very real with his emotions and how he was feeling even if there was more than a little bit of booze involved which made it questionable to begin with. And that scared me. I was terrified that he might want a relationship, and I don't think that was something I could handle. Not with him.
I finished slipping my clothes on. I must've looked a sight but I didn't care. It was too dark to see in a mirror anyways. I moved to the door leading out into the bus, and prayed there wouldn't be any security people waiting on the other side.
Before I left I did turn to look at him one final time. I stared at his gorgeous body. I stared at his beautiful face with just a hint of stubble that I knew was there even though I couldn't see it in the darkness. And I felt a profound ache in the pit of my stomach. I felt a fire burning in between my legs.
I shook my head. This was dangerous sitting here and staring at him like this. It made me think dangerous thoughts. The kind of thoughts that would have me crawling back into bed with him and waking up in the morning to see where things fell. I turned and quietly made my way out.
I hated myself for doing it, but it had to be done.
The lights were out in the living area as well. I started towards the door from memory and immediately banged my ankle against something. It was hard not to curse, and then I realized I was an idiot. I still had my phone with me! I definitely wasn't thinking straight.
I flicked the screen on and ignored the missed calls from Kayla. I made my way to the door. I finally saw my first security guard when I stepped out. The same one from earlier. He seemed to be having a quiet but rather heated argument with s
omebody. Somebody who was waving a phone in his face and looking particularly hostile.
I smiled as the glow from the phone passed across her face. That was an angry whispering face that I recognized. Kayla. Her eyes fell on me as the door opened and she rushed around the guard, pushing him to the side and ignoring his protests. She wrapped me in a hug.
"Kayla! What's going on here?"
"I was so worried! You disappeared and then you weren't answering any of my phone calls and they said he went in there with a girl but I couldn't go in there to try and find you and…"
Her breath was coming in quick gasps and I realized she seemed like she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Damn! That definitely wasn't the reaction I'd been expecting. Not that I'd been expecting to see Kayla at all when I stepped off the bus.
"What happened with your guy?"
Kayla sighed. "It was fun," she said. "But let's just say that after we finished having that fun time he was more interested in drinking and playing video games than hanging out with me."
I felt a pang of guilt as she said that. The way she was sighing made it clear she would've loved it very much if he did want to cuddle up with her. Maybe fall asleep together. Maybe sit and talk about things. Exactly what I'd gotten from Grant, and here I was running away from it like a stupid idiot.
"What about you? You slut!" Kayla said.
I shrugged. "More or less the same thing."
The lie caused another pang of guilt to run through me, but whatever. Let her think what she was going to think. Given her recent experience she probably wouldn't have too much trouble imagining that I'd had a love'em and leave'em one night affair with Grant in much the same way that she'd enjoyed her time with her guy. That would be a lot easier to deal with than the inevitable questioning that would follow from telling her that I had a brief glimpse of something very special developing between me and Grant and now I was sneaking away in the night like a coward rather than confronting it. No, she wouldn't like that at all. I’d never hear the end of it.
The lie was easier.
Kayla hooked her elbow in my own and pulled me away. She gave a pointed dirty look to the guard who'd refused to let her into Grant's trailer, though it's not like I could blame the guy. That was his job, after all. He shrugged and went back to his ebook when it looked like we weren’t going to try and get back in.
"Come on Mia," Kayla said. "Let's get out of here. Away from these rock star users!"
I was surprised at the heat in Kayla's voice. From the way she'd been talking on the way over here, hell from the way she talked about the band over the years, it seemed like a one night stand with her favorite member of the group wouldn't be entirely unwelcome. Only now the way she was reacting made me think that maybe there was a little bit more to her rock star fantasy then a slam bam thank you ma'am one night stand.
Interesting. Very interesting.
And that just made me feel all the more guilty that I'd achieved the dream and now I was leaving it behind. Yeah, I definitely needed to never tell Kayla about that. On the bright side, if Kayla was this pissed off then there was a good chance I was never going to have to hear her lecturing me about Twenty Promises ever again.
16
Grant
Light. Buzzing. Confusion.
I opened my eyes and immediately regretted the decision. The sunlight streaming in through that huge back window definitely wasn’t good for a guy nursing a hangover. Usually I closed the blinds the night before so I wouldn’t have this problem, I tended to run a pretty vampiric schedule so good blinds were a must on the bus, but they only worked if I wasn’t distracted.
Distractions. I smiled as I thought about the delicious distraction that kept me from adjusting the blinds the night before. Yeah, that had felt good falling asleep with Mia in my arms.
I’d never done that before. Like, ever. A definite first for a girl I brought back to the place where the magic happened. I hoped it would be the first of many occasions where I’d fall asleep with her in my arms. That had been nice. Last night was a very real and concrete demonstration of something I’d suspected for a long time: getting your rocks off was getting your rocks off, but making love to someone you cared about was something else entirely.
It made me all the more jealous of Eric and Todd and what they had, but now that I had Mia I was hopeful that things might blossom into what those guys had.
My stomach rumbled. Food. Breakfast. I should get food. I didn’t have anything to cook on the bus even though it came with a fully furnished kitchen. All I really needed was a microwave, but when we bought the thing it had been one of those deals where it would’ve been more expensive to get something custom that didn’t have the cookie cutter option of a full kitchen. Still, it would be a good idea to get something for Mia.
Odd. I didn’t feel her in my arms where she’d been last night when we went to sleep. Then again I suppose it would be weird to expect her to spend the whole night wrapped naked in my arms even if that would’ve been a pleasant experience to wake up to. I’d settle for waking up next to her naked. Or even if she’d woken up in the middle of the night and decided to put some clothes on. She was beautiful no matter what.
I rolled over and moved my hand out across the bed expecting to feel her glorious curves at any moment, but nothing. I blinked and sat up.
The bed was empty. Well, I was in there, but there was definitely no Mia. Just rumpled sheets where she’d been last night.
Damn.
I moved over to the foot of the bed on the off chance she’d rolled off in the middle of the night. She’d had a bit to drink, after all, as had I. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d heard of someone falling off the bed in a drunken stupor even if she hadn’t been all that drunk.
No Mia. Also none of her clothes. I was pretty sure I’d tossed them down to the foot of the bed the night before when we were having our fun. Fun that brought a smile to my face as I thought back on it. That really had been one of the best nights of my life.
Even if it wasn’t exactly shaping up to be one of the best mornings after.
What the hell was going on here? I was experiencing all sorts of firsts with this girl. The first time I’d actually found myself interested in someone who was dressed up to go to one of our concerts. The first time I’d actually felt something other than a little bit of old fashioned lust when I pulled a girl on stage. The first time I’d been interested in what a girl had to say as much as I was interested in how hot she was.
Apparently the first time I’d been stood up and left high and dry after a one night stand. Talk about one hell of an odd reversal there. I was used to being the one who did the ditching. I thought back to all the times that I left early in the morning and had a note along with breakfast and an autographed picture talking about what a great time I had the night before.
I felt like an asshole even thinking about that. I felt like I was getting everything I deserved and then some as payback.
Of course there was still a small sliver of hope. There was still the chance that Mia would be waiting for me on the other side of the bedroom door instead of a metaphorical karmic note and autographed picture that was payback for all the asshole things I’d done to my fans over the years.
I pulled on some pants from the night before. I could shower later. If Mia really was gone then I needed to get the ball rolling on a couple of things before I even thought about showering or breakfast.
And if she was here, well the shower in the bus was small, but one thing I’d made sure of when I bought this thing was that it would be more than enough to accommodate two people showering at the same time.
I had different priorities back then.
The only problem? It looked like I was going to be doing a one man shower after all. I glanced through the living area and even on the floor around the couch on the off chance she’d stumbled out here in the middle of the night and passed out, again wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened, only
there was no sign of her.
The bus was completely empty. Just like it had been for most of this damn tour.
Fuck.
I popped my head out the front door, not caring that I was completely shirtless. I heard some cheers and blinked in the morning light. I couldn’t believe it. Looking over at the chain link fence separating the buses from the rest of the world there were actually a few girls standing there with their phones in hand trying to take pictures. There was even a tent in one spot making it clear they’d stayed the night.
Damn. Talk about crazy. Not that I was too worried. It’s not like a camera on a phone was going to get much of a picture. For that matter it’s not like it would be the first time a picture of me shirtless made the rounds of the Internet. I had no shame to hide from the world at this point. Well, I’d never been naked on the Internet, but other than that.
“Morning Grant,” Jake said.
“Morning yourself Jake,” I replied.
Jake was usually the one guarding my bus through the night. It was a pretty sweet gig for him too. Mostly that meant sitting outside the front door reading a book or maybe playing a video game on his phone to break up some of the boredom. Not that I minded him breaking up the monotony. I figured it had to be a pretty boring job keeping back all the women who didn’t storm the chain link fences like in the old days.
Jake had earned his pay back then. I figured the least I owed him now was reading on the job. It was also nice having someone out there to keep an eye on things. I was particularly glad this morning that he was out there waiting.
“You didn’t happen to see a lady come through here the night before, did you?” I asked.
Jake chuckled, a deep bass rumble, and shook his head. “You talking about the hellcat that came over here demanding to get into your bus in the middle of the night, or the one who stepped off your bus and ran off with the first one?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. Damn it. That was all the confirmation I needed. She was gone. And all I had was a phone number. Then again if she really didn’t want to talk to me it’s not like having a phone number was going to do a hell of a lot to get her attention. She could ignore me all she wanted and I’d be screwed.