And Muse is right—I don't have to do it alone this time.
“Because I really need to go. Whatever other questions you have, the guys can answer.”
I rise to my feet and so does the reporter.
Luckily, Muse comes back with the glasses girl, Gillie, and finds me standing there with a wild thundering heart and a pulse that sounds like one of Ran's bass lines running through my head.
“Pictures,” I tell him and he nods. Octavia steps back in for a second, acting like the manager she was before last night, but Paxton doesn't let her forget for even an instant that she's done something wrong. The way he's treating her, it's not entirely unwarranted, but it does make me think of the way he treats Ransom.
That … there's nothing warranted about that.
We take a few group shots, a few with my arm slung around the reporter, the girl with the retainer. And then I take off, leaving the others to drink and chat with the badge holders, give them their money's worth.
“Lilith?” I call out when I get back on the bus.
The living room is empty, the bathroom door open and empty.
I find her sitting on the bed in the Bat Cave, the curtains and windows open, letting the warm Florida breeze sweep around the room. She's sitting cross-legged in a black tank and tiny pink shorts, her phone in her hand. There's the slightest kiss of tears on her cheeks and I wonder immediately if any of those salty drops have something to do with me.
She looks up at me with big green eyes and then tries to breathe past the crying, smiling at me.
“Hey Cope.”
“You don't have to pretend for me,” I tell her as I feel my heart lift into my throat, trying to choke me with emotion. “Do you want another hug?”
“I don't need you to take care of me,” she says firmly, leaning back on the bed and looking up at me. “So if that's the real reason you don't think this can work, scrap it. You'll have to come up with something else.”
“I do need to take care of you,” I say and her mouth flattens into a line as I crawl onto the bed next to her, sitting on my knees. I take the big white t-shirt in my hand and slip it over her head. Lilith pulls it the rest of the way down, putting her arms through the sleeves and then glancing down at our signatures. As soon as she sees the word Lilith, she reaches up to touch it. “We should all take care of each other, I think. It's something we should've been doing all along. But … it got messed up somewhere along the way. Ran and Pax are a mess; Michael's withdrawn. Muse has always been a little distant.”
“And you?” she asks me, holding her phone in her lap, balancing it in the hammock the giant shirt makes when she pulls it over her knees.
“I've …” I start and then notice several incoming texts hit her phone. “Can I ask who that is?”
“You mean what this is,” she says with a long sigh. “This is the shit hitting the fan.”
Lilith pushes the home button on her phone and shuts the screen off, looking up at me.
“But I want to hear what you have to say first. Ran is hurting; Pax is mean; Michael is self-absorbed; Muse is closed-off. What's your sin, Copeland?”
“Fear,” I say, my breathing still coming in rapid-fire bursts as I look at this redheaded girl with all the right curves and the biggest green eyes I've ever seen in my life. “I've been living in fear. I've been living only in books. Which is fine, but … I don't want to just read about romance anymore, Lilith. I want to try living it.”
She smiles at me, but it's only a half-smile.
“What does that mean exactly? You've changed your mind?”
“I could understand if you didn't think I had that right,” I whisper, the crashing of the ocean waves like a lullaby the earth sings to the sky. It's beautiful. I lean back on the bed and put my arms behind my head. It's dark in here now. The only light was the light from Lilith's phone, but now that it's off, everything is black. “Considering I tried to break up with you, fucked you, and then tried to get back together with you in the span of a heartbeat.”
Lilith lays back, too, her body lined up next to mine. She bends a knee and then puts one foot between my thighs, so that her leg's draped over my own.
“Do you miss Cara?” she asks, surprising me.
I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the warmth of her body next to mine.
“Yes and no. I miss the good parts of her, like the way she always laughed at her own jokes or how she used to write me notes on the toilet paper.”
Lilith chuckles, and I find myself smiling slightly.
“But she was … she was really sick, sicker than my mom. I think that's why I was drawn to her, as fucked as that sounds. I felt like I had to be the one to save her. I don't miss all of that worry and that fear, all the nights I waited up for her when she didn't come home. She cheated on me a lot.”
“I'm sorry, Cope,” Lilith says, but I just reach down and grab her hand. That's not her sin to apologize for, and I've long since forgiven Cara for the things she did.
I sigh, perfuming the darkness with the sound of my past.
“She didn't … really know what she was doing,” I say on the end of another long sigh.
“At least you know the other four guys I'm sleeping with, right?” Lilith asks, trying to lighten the mood. I let myself smile again and turn toward her. I can barely see her profile in the darkness, but her skin is so pale that it practically glows.
“At least there's that,” I say, lifting our entwined fingers. “I'm sorry. I've been moping all fucking day instead of just talking to you about it. I should've discussed it before I said all of that shit.”
“No, I get it. Trust me, the last thing I thought I needed after breaking up with Kevin was another boyfriend … was five new boyfriends.” Lilith laughs softly as I press her knuckles to my lips and close my eyes, imagining her trying to dance the Charleston and totally screwing it up. My smile gets a little more real. I wish it wasn't so dark so she could see it. “But here you guys are …”
“Here we are,” I say, wondering if it was fate that put us together at that gas station in Arizona. I usually go on a run when we get to a new city, but we'd had bus trouble and showed up so late that I had one of the roadies drive me to a gas station so I could grab some snacks instead. He parked down the road a ways to smoke pot. I didn't give a shit since it gave me a second to myself as I walked up to the convenience store.
I never expected to meet a girl there.
“I panicked last night … this morning. But if you give me a chance, I'll do what I can to make it up to you. I want to see what it feels like to really belong to someone. Not just for sex, not just for a night, but … indefinitely.” I pause and listen to the sound of Lil's breathing. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but it seems to mimic the heartbeat of the ocean. “What do you think? Can I have another chance?”
“I wasn't going to let you run away,” she says, finally turning her head to look at me. I might not be able to see her eyes in the shadows of the Bat Cave, but at least I can feel her breath on my mouth. “I don't think Michael was either. Did you see how pissed he was?”
“Michael's always pissed,” I say, but then I lean forward and close that small distance between our mouths, cupping the side of her face, letting myself kiss my girlfriend.
We belonged to each other. It was inextricable, our love. Undeniable. Inevitable.
More book lingo. I can't help it. My reading permeates my thoughts.
Our tongues dance together as the clouds shift and moonlight spills in the window, highlighting the signatures on the stolen white band tee, shifting over Lilith's face. I close my eyes and kiss her deeper, try to let myself go for a second, drop the act for once and see what happens when I'm not trying so hard. When I'm just being me.
Lilith's phone beeps again, breaking up the gentle quiet and the easy blackness of night.
“Shit,” she says as she grabs it and sits up. I follow after her and wait as she glances at the screen. “Right after you l
eft, I started getting messages from both my stepmom and Kevin.”
“What the hell does he want?” I ask, feeling strangely possessive. Or maybe it's not strange at all. Last night, when I heard what he'd done … I wanted to fucking kill the guy. What kind of loser treats a woman he used to be in love with like that?
“Look,” she says, passing me the phone. I take it and scan through Kevin's barrage of hatred. Lilith hasn't responded to him, but that hasn't kept him from texting her almost nonstop for the last hour or so. I see all the typical insults: whore, bitch, cunt … groupie. But he can't have that last one. We're keeping that for ourselves. “I got upset with him when he started saying I must be fucking all the roadies. I told him I was sleeping with the band. And then he called my stepmom.”
I see Lilith's mouth tighten up in a frown, highlighted by the glow of her phone.
“And now she's calling and texting me. Now. After I begged her for help and she turned me down, abandoned me when I needed her most.”
She takes the phone from me and switches over to a text conversation from Susan Goode.
Lilith, Kevin is worried about you.
He says you're selling your body to a rock band.
I frown, too, and keep scrolling, watching as her stepmother gets angrier and angrier, even though Lilith doesn't respond. Or maybe because she doesn't.
I can't support this kind of disgusting behavior from you.
Call me now, Lilith, or I'll have to assume it's all true.
Fine then. Just remember your father is looking down on you from heaven. Is this the kind of thing you want him to see you doing?
And then lastly, I'll leave your share of the ashes in the living room with your things. Hopefully you get the chance to get them before the first showing with the realtor.
“Jesus Christ,” I say as Lilith sighs and leans forward to put her head on her knees. “Are you okay? And it's alright if you're not,” I add, trying to smile as I lift up a hand and rub her back in small circles. “Don't edit yourself just because I was a dick earlier. It's not you that I'm afraid of. It's me.”
She lifts her head up and glances over at me with another half-smile.
“I just think it's ironic that when I was at my lowest, the two of them didn't give a shit about me. Now that I'm …” She stops to smile a little wider. “Starting to feel like I might just be able to survive without my dad, they want to crush me into the dirt. It's pathetic is what it is. How can she even think of using my father's ashes against me like that, like a threat? He's only been dead for ten days. Ten.”
I scoot closer and wrap my arms around Lilith, pulling her tight against me.
She settles in, snuggling up to me and making my half-hard cock rock solid, speeding my heartbeat up again. I don't mean for the former part of that reaction to set in; it just happens. I'm really fucking attracted to this girl.
“What the fuck is this about you two breaking up?” Pax snarls, shoving the door to the Bat Cave open and startling us both. He points a sharp finger at me. “You better be taking the bloody piss, mate.”
“Relax,” I say, trying not to smile. “I didn't know you cared so damn much.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, looking slightly chagrined at the sight of us sitting cuddled on the bed together. “I didn't agree to this shite only to have it fucked-up in less than twenty-four hours.”
“It's not fucked-up,” Lilith promises, glancing back at me, and then turning to Paxton again. “Cope and I worked it out.”
Pax leans his back against one side of the doorframe and digs out a cigarette, lighting it up as he watches us for a long moment and then nods briskly.
“Good. Because I was about to kick your skinny arse halfway back to Seattle. Get up then and let's hit that bar on the beach, the one we had drinks at this afternoon. Maybe if you're not moping around this time, you'll actually enjoy yourself.”
He stands up and moves back down the hall as Lilith and I look at each other.
“Are you still up to go out?” I ask as she takes a deep breath. “Because we can stay here if you want.”
Lilith shakes her head at me, dark red hair falling over her shoulders with the motion.
“Nope. You promised me that we'd spend the rest of this tour exploring each city. I intend to hold you to that.”
She stands up, slides to the floor, and then turns to offer me her hand.
I don't hesitate, just reach up … and take it.
For the second night in a row, all six of us sleep in the Bat Cave together.
I can't explain how good that feels, our little group curled up in black silk and satin, the duvet twisted around heavily sedated bodies, bodies that were too drunk last night to do much but sleep when they stumbled back to the bus.
Stretching my arms above my head, I yawn and try to resist going for my phone first thing. Looking at hateful texts from Kevin or Susan won't do me any good. In fact, I should probably block one or both of them.
I sit up and look down at Ransom, brushing some chocolate dark hair from his sweaty forehead before I stand up and scoot off the end of the bed, leaving four of the boys behind me and finding Michael in the living room by himself.
He's shirtless and fucking gorgeous, as usual, wearing jeans and nothing else. One of his legs is tucked up on the couch, an elbow resting on his denim cloaked knee, a glass of orange juice in one hand, his phone in the other.
“OJ? Does it help with the hangover?” I ask, drawing his violet eyes up to mine.
“This?” he asks, swirling the liquid around for a moment. “This isn't just orange juice. This is the hair of the dog that bit you.” He smiles with that ridiculously beautiful mouth of his. Looking at him now, it's easy to see that he was a heartbreaker. Everything about him says warning: bad boy in residence. And it's not just the tattoos or the leather jacket he always wears. No, it's in the way he holds himself, the shape of his mouth, the puncturing gaze that stabs right through me. “Vodka and orange juice.”
“A screwdriver,” I say as I pad across the heated hardwood floors and sit down next to him. I take the drink when he hands it to me and sip it slowly. It's fucking strong.
“I needed it to deal with this fallout shit.”
“Fallout?” I ask as he drops his knee and squeezes his hand around his phone. It's got a padded black case with a skull on the back of it. It almost looks like he might crack it he's gripping it so hard. “From … Vanessa and Tim?”
“I walked in on them, her gold bikini pushed aside, his ass in the air …” Michael grits his teeth and glances away from me, toward the door of the bus. We're not moving anymore, so I figure we must already be in Charlotte. It's barely a six hour drive from Jacksonville, so we didn't leave until early this morning. According to the clock on the wall, it's just past noon. “Anyway, I finally blocked her number. We have nothing to say to each other. The texts and voicemails she's leaving me are all bullshit, just her flinging insults my way.”
“Kevin started doing the same to me last night,” I tell him, drawing his attention back to me. He's kind of scary when he's pissed like that, Michael is.
“Are you fucking serious?” he asks, looking shocked and incensed on my behalf. “Why?”
“He called my stepmom and told her I was whoring myself out to Beauty in Lies.”
There's a long pause and then, “give me the phone.”
I blink up at him, at those long lashes over eyes the color of aubergine.
“Why?”
Michael holds out a hand covered in tattoos and gestures at me, the phoenix on his chest brilliant in the early afternoon light leaking through the curtains.
“Because I'll verbally fuck him up, that's why.”
I smile and turn to face him, dressed in that baggy shirt Copeland gave me last night. Michael looks at me and then down at it.
“You're missing my signature,” he says, reaching out and running a finger over Cope's handwriting. I still don't know why he wrote my name on it; I didn't th
ink to ask.
“It's not missing,” I tell him as I stand up and grab my purse, digging a pink Sharpie out of an inner pocket. I grab my phone, too. “It's the last one to be added, a little behind the curve.”
He smiles at me, this razor-sharp version of the expression that leaves my heart in my throat and my body in a state of heated bliss, remembering the thickness of his cock inside of me last night, the strength of his arms as he held me up.
“But I wouldn't have wanted you if you'd cheated on Vanessa, so …”
“So give me the damn pen,” he says, and I reach out and drop it into his palm. Michael grabs a handful of my t-shirt and tugs me toward him, pulling me into his lap. He pulls the cap off the pen with his teeth and yanks the fabric taut, scrawling his name in swirling pink letters diagonally across my belly. “You still smell like my fucking shampoo,” he whispers, his voice a little ragged, a little hoarse. “Goddamn it.”
Michael tosses the pen aside and pushes me back into the couch, covering my body with his. I swear, my legs spread of their own accord, welcoming him in as he presses the hardness of his crotch to my own.
“It's been so long, I might be a little crazy for a few days …” he explains, like he's trying to apologize for his own libido. But I guess he just hasn't realized that I've got one to match. His eyes are so goddamn intense when he stares down at me that I find myself struggling to catch a breath, getting caught up in them, in all the wild anger buried down there. I want to see him unpack it all, feel myself standing in the middle of the storm when it happens.
I must be crazy.
Michael slants his mouth over mine, curling his fingers around the side of my throat. The kiss is as possessive as it is arousing. He claims me with that kiss, puts a possessive stamp right over my mouth that tangles me up in him completely. Fuck, he practically demands that I surrender to this intensity of his. It's so much, almost too much, but I'm slick and hot and aroused when he shoves my shorts to the side and unbuttons his jeans.
Roadie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 2) Page 7