Ransom (Courting Chaos Book 2)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  “She was still on the bus when I left,” Cross told her.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” Lawson said, holding up his hand. “Bellamy, that was crude of me. Sometimes the guys get the best of me.”

  She smiled at me, then leaned over so she’d be able to see Lawson. “I can only imagine what wrangling this group of assholes would be like.”

  Lawson laughed loudly, as did the other guys. As for me, I went over to her, cupped her cheeks, and leaned down to kiss her softly. “I’ll text you when I’m done with this.” She nodded, then left the room and left me wanting to follow her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bellamy

  Yikes. When Ransom had mentioned me taking a shower in their dressing room, I hadn’t wanted to do it. Me naked in the shower with all those guys right there would’ve been weird to me since the showers in the venue weren’t like showers at home. They were usually more like the showers in gym class. One big open area with a dozen showerheads. No thanks.

  The day was still too young for any fans to have shown up, which meant I got a nice, quiet walk to the bus, during which my thoughts replayed every single time Ransom had touched me that morning. Heat flashed across my face as the memories replayed in full living color. Thankfully, I made it to the bus before I embarrassed myself out in the open.

  I didn’t even get the door shut before Indie pounced. “You didn’t come home last night. I was worried.” She stood in the kitchenette with her arms folded under her breasts and a hip leaning against the lower cupboard.

  “Sorry, Mom. I told you I was staying on Ransom’s bus.”

  “Uh-huh.” She squinted her eyes at me. “You had sex, young lady. Clearly, I need some details. Is Ransom dirty? I always thought he’d be super dirty.”

  I released a loud laugh. “Why are you thinking about Ransom’s sex life?”

  She shrugged. “I wonder about all of them, but I don’t think about them.”

  “Are you showering this morning? I need to and I wasn’t sure where would be best.”

  “You need a shower?” She raised her eyebrows. “I knew he was super dirty.”

  “I need a shower because I haven’t showered since the night before last.”

  She giggled her way through my answer and I knew she was just messing with me, but I really did want to clean up. I threw a pair of shorts and a T-shirt into a small bag, along with underwear and my shower caddy, then met her out front of the bus.

  “My dad said we could use their shower. None of them are even functional yet.” She glanced around, then asked, “Where are the guys anyway? Cross left the bus so quickly, it was like his ass was on fire.”

  “Ransom got a text, then they had to meet about the fight last night.”

  “Ah,” she said.

  As promised, Kissing Cinder’s dressing room was completely empty when we got there. Indie locked the main door behind us since the shower room didn’t have one. Yeah, it was sort of weird to shower next to another naked woman, but Indie and I were like sisters, so the weirdness came more from a lack of personal space than anything else.

  “So details, please,” she said once we’d gotten our water running and the room had filled with steam.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. If I really wanted to, I could’ve just told her I didn’t want to talk about it. She’d understand. But this was the kind of thing we always talked about.

  “It was good,” I said.

  “Well, duh. Of course he was good. They’re all good. They’ve had enough practice.”

  “I really don’t want to think about that.”

  She giggled. “I didn’t mean to be gross. I’m just saying… ”

  “I know what you were saying.” I squirted a blob of shampoo in my hand and began to lather. “He’s great. I don’t just mean the sex. That, too, but he gets me.” I didn’t know how else to explain the connection with him.

  “Does this mean you’re together?”

  “We didn’t talk about that. Besides, I should probably go home soon.” Even if that was the last thing I wanted to do.

  “You better not,” she countered.

  I didn’t look over at her as I conditioned my hair, but it was nice to hear she wanted me around as much as I didn’t want to go home. We finished up and went out into the dressing room to get our clothes on. Plus, I had a bunch of junk to put in my hair because of the curls. I received a ton of compliments on the red color, totally natural, and the curls, also natural. But they didn’t know the amount of time and product all that natural beauty required.

  Courting Chaos played in the background, meaning they were doing their soundcheck. Which meant we were on our own until the show. Well, if we were incredibly lucky, we might be able to steal a few minutes with the men between, but the guys had some radio interview to do and I’d overheard something about a VIP meet-and-greet before the show. Meaning we probably wouldn’t get that lucky.

  We got back to the bus an hour after we’d left it. I figured we’d get something to eat next since I actually hadn’t had a bite yet today. I was actually about to suggest as much when I heard, “Ho... ly… crap.”

  I dropped out of the bunk I used to store my clothes. “What?”

  “I was just scrolling through some news and that girl, Hope, did some interviews this morning.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes were wide when she looked up at me. “A lot of interviews.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Let’s watch them.”

  She slid into a seat at the table with me beside her. I thought we’d be watching on her phone, but she flipped open her laptop and typed away. At first I figured we’d have to scour the internet to find the videos, but I was very, very wrong. The moment she pressed the search button, the videos were there in front of my face.

  Hope had decided to do an interview on a popular morning news program. One that covered the real news and also covered pop culture news. Fortunately and unfortunately, Courting Chaos was part of that pop culture and also living up to their name. Not to mention the news was still all over our situation with Eric and the underage girls. Felt like we’d never get out from under the idea that we were all a bunch of asshole pervs.

  We watched as Hope tearfully told her story and what she knew about Eric. That she was pregnant with Ransom Drake’s child and all she wanted was to provide for her child. That Ransom was giving her the cold shoulder and even suggested she have an abortion. Something she said she was morally against. Indie turned to me with raised eyebrows, which was a silent question. Did Ransom tell her to have an abortion? That was what everyone wanted to know.

  “Not that I know of,” I said to her. “I haven’t been there for their conversations, so I suppose it’s possible, but he’s never said anything like that to me.”

  We returned to the video and continued watching Hope spin her story.

  “What do you think is holding him back?” the journalist asked her.

  “There’s another woman. Bellamy has latched on to his fame, but he can’t see it yet. I believe in the end, he’ll realize his mistake and come back to me, but I really wish she’d stop trying to break up our family.”

  Fucking hell. She was going to pin this all on me? I hadn’t even been there when they’d broken up.

  “That bitch,” Indie muttered beside me.

  The journalist went on to ask her about the culture within the band given everything that had happened with Eric Drinkswine and the underage girls. She tried to play it off as if she’d thought Eric had just been a bad seed in a band of good guys, but that now she wasn’t so sure.

  If there was more after that, I didn’t hear it because I’d become so wrapped up in my own thoughts. How was this going to affect Ransom? Was Kissing Cinder going to eventually get sick of the drama Courting Chaos obviously brought with them? It was a clusterfuck, to say the least.

  “What’re we going to do?” Indie asked as she closed her laptop.

  “I h
ave no idea. I don’t know this world. You tell me.” Indie quietly chewed on her bottom lip, something she often did when studying or trying to figure out a hard problem. “What about your dad?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Is this going to hurt the guys with the tour? This is two scandals within a few months.”

  She shrugged. “I doubt it. KC has had their fair share. Though, my dad might want to pull Ransom’s balls off if he finds out he’s turning his back on his kid.”

  “That sucks,” I said back. “They’re good balls.”

  Indie snorted, which made me laugh and all of a sudden we were a fit off giggles and ball references. It was a weird way to handle the stress of what we’d just witnessed, but at the same time, it was totally us.

  “And,” she continued, “I know that’s not true. But I’m just saying… if it was.”

  We didn’t have a lot of time before the show at this point and we were going. Indie called her dad to arrange some tickets and asked if he’d heard about Ransom’s ex. He had, but she said he didn’t seem overly concerned. Actually, he told her we shouldn’t worry about it too much. Those things happened to every band and it’d work out in the end. That only made me feel marginally better.

  “We probably don’t have time to go see them before the show,” Indie said, as if she could read my thoughts.

  “Yeah.” I knew that was true but decided I had to at least talk to him. “I’m going to call him, though. If he doesn’t answer, totally fine.” I pulled out my phone and selected his contact, then realized I needed to get a pic of him to add to my phone so that it would pop up whenever he called. Assuming he’d call.

  “I swear I never told her to get an abortion,” was how he answered the phone.

  I let out a small chuckle. “I didn’t think you did.” There weren’t a lot of places for privacy on the bus, so I climbed into my bunk, which wouldn’t mean Indie couldn’t hear us, but at least it’d feel a bit more private. “What’s her problem?”

  “I don’t know. But I want to make sure you and I are clear. I never told her that. All I asked for was a DNA test, which I think anyone would.”

  “Yeah, for sure. Obviously.”

  “Now for some more bad news.”

  My stomach clenched tightly. With no idea what he and I were, whether a relationship, a hookup, whatever, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “We don’t have time to deal with this shit right now, so Lawson is insisting we have a band meeting tonight. As in on a bus all fucking night to figure this out. Unfortunately, Drink screwed all of us in a lot of different ways, so something that previously would’ve been annoying… ”

  “Is now a big fucking deal,” I finished for him.

  “Exactly.”

  The way he sounded, that defeated, yet pissed off and annoyed tone he tried to hide from me, made me want to make things better and I couldn’t do that. There wasn’t anything I could do about Hope or the baby or Lawson being upset. But I could be the thing in his life that was easy. Well… psycho ex-boyfriend wasn’t exactly easy, but I didn’t need to be a problem for him. I could be where he found comfort and normalcy. Someone he could lean on as much as I would lean on him.

  “Can I ask you something?” I finally asked to break the silence. We didn’t have long to talk, so I thought it was now or never.

  “Anything,” he said immediately.

  “Why does Courting Chaos hate women?”

  He snorted. “We don’t hate women,” he said back. “As a matter of fact, I think you know very well that I love everything about women.”

  I smiled, which he couldn’t see, obviously, but hopefully, he’d hear as well as I heard the noticeably lighter tone of his voice.

  “You do seem to love women, I guess. Or at least you know your way around them, which isn’t exactly the same thing.”

  “Bellamy… ” he said as a warning.

  “I’m just messing with you. I’ve been on tour long enough to see how you guys treat people and honestly, if you were the kind of guy your bassist was, I’m pretty sure Vince would have murdered you by now. Or kicked the band off the tour.”

  “Very true. Listen, I have to go. I don’t want to, but I have to. I’m sorry I can’t see you tonight.”

  “I understand. It’s something I’ll have to get used to with a rock star boyfriend and all that.” My hand froze halfway to my face. I’d been about to brush a strand of hair behind my ear when those words had fallen out of my mouth. Damn it. That was a pretty presumptuous statement and it was one I hadn’t planned on saying. I honestly hadn’t even thought of Ransom as my boyfriend and we certainly hadn’t talked about it. “Ransom, I didn’t mean—”

  “I like the sound of boyfriend. You should use it more often.”

  My face heated up. Ransom might not get embarrassed, but I’d just shoved both feet into my mouth. “I—”

  “Listen, I really have to go. Lawson says he’s going to flush my phone down the toilet.” Ransom hung up without me having a chance to say goodbye, but it was probably better that way. Who knew what I’d say next.

  I went back to where I’d left Indie and she was still there. The best thing about being friends so long was that I knew her mood just by the way she looked at me. I knew what she was thinking and had to hold back a nice long eye roll.

  “He confirms that he didn’t tell her any of that,” I said, but that wasn’t what she would focus on.

  “Boyfriend?” she asked.

  Now I did roll my eyes. “It literally fell out of my mouth. I didn’t mean to say it.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said he liked the sound of it, but I’m such an idiot.”

  “I mean, yeah,” she said with a shrug.

  “Don’t be an asshole.” I smiled back at her. She laughed and slid out of the seat by the table.

  “Ransom does relationships, so I’m not surprised. Don’t get me wrong. They’ve all gotten around. In this life, it’d be weird if they hadn’t. But Ransom has always come off as more of a relationship guy.”

  “That doesn’t mean he wants one with me.”

  Indie pinched her face together as she narrowed her eyes one me. “I’m pretty sure he did. You might have to think over his words a bit.”

  Instead of figuring it out right then, Indie and I went to finish getting ready for the concert. I’d think about all of the other stuff later.

  That evening, Indie and I pushed through groups of people to our seats. Down front to the right. Which suited me fine. It wasn’t until the third song that Ransom saw us. He scanned the crowd left and right all the time, but his gaze never quite landed on me until it did. Once he’d found me, the corner of his mouth turned up as he continued singing the words Cross had written for him. Cross wrote pretty much all the songs as far as I knew.

  But the fourth song was when everything changed and it was unfortunately my favorite. “Take Your Time” had been their most popular hit to date and usually the crowd loved it.

  But not tonight.

  I glanced to Indie when I first heard a small section of booing. She shrugged and kept swaying to the music. Then the booing grew louder. When the song ended, an uncharacteristic quiet fell over the crowd. Quiet enough for someone to yell, “Asshole!” and be heard. Indie took my hand in hers and held tightly, giving me a reassuring squeeze.

  The next song started. A loud, much more active song, yet the booing still became loud enough to be heard over Cross’ drums. I looked from Ransom to Cross and back several times. When Ransom finished a lyric, he turned sideways to look back at Cross. Cross nodded and lifted his chin to something—or someone—off stage. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed, but Lawson crept up next to the drums and Cross said something to him before Lawson shuffled back off.

  Before I knew what had happened, Dean stood in front of Indie and me, grabbed one of each of our arms and dragged us out of the crowd. I’d almost gotten through the exit
when someone yelled, “Homewrecker!”

  That cleared everything up. The guys were still getting booed as Indie, Dean, and I hurried through the backstage corridor.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” Indie asked Dean, half-serious and half-joking.

  “Ransom and Cross wanted you two out of there. You can hear the crowd, right?”

  “So I take it people saw Hope’s interviews this morning?” I asked him.

  “I have no idea about any of that,” he replied. “All I know is that Lawson grabbed me and asked that I get you two backstage, so I did.”

  “Thanks,” I said quietly.

  “No problem.”

  Eventually, Dean broke off from us, but I continued to follow Indie. She led the way to Kissing Cinder’s dressing room. I was both thankful for being somewhere safer but also didn’t necessarily want to see what Vince Cinderstone had to say about the whole thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ransom

  First of all, I was incredibly thankful that Cross could read my mind. Yeah, it was as annoying as shit some of the time, but in situations like that one, I loved it. He’d known what I’d wanted without me having to say it. I’d wanted Bellamy and Indie somewhere else while the crowd unraveled before our eyes.

  Playing to a crowd that wasn’t loving you was hard as hell. Playing to a crowd that hated you was even worse. Every band played to empty rooms starting out or to people who couldn’t give two fucks about you or your music and it didn’t matter. We were just happy to be somewhere playing. But now… on tour with Kissing Cinder, part of our job was to win over the crowds and we’d been doing a bang-up job. Until news had broken that our bassist had been having sex with underage girls. Even that, we’d handled. We’d kicked him out, had a slew of replacements, and I thought found someone permanent, though the invitation had not yet been handed out to Booker. It would’ve been, though.

  Yet here we were, being booed again, this time my fault and for something I hadn’t even done.

  Somehow we played our entire set as if we couldn’t hear the jeers from the crowd. I tried to focus on the few cheers that made themselves heard through the boos.