Getting Lucky (Jail Bait #4)

by Mia Storm

  “Wow,” she says, backing away. “You have totally lost it.”

  I bob a small nod. “I must have, because I’m trying to talk you out of letting me fuck you, which is all I’ve wanted to do since I met you.”

  Suddenly I can’t read her expression. She’s still pissed, but there’s something else, something more feral shining out of her eyes. “Go to hell,” she says, then spins back to where her manager is still fighting with the reporter.

  And now I’m oh for two on great ideas, on the edge of striking out.

  Chapter 8

  Shiloh

  That asshole doesn’t want me to be with Max? Well, fuck him.

  I storm back to Billie. “Let’s go.”

  As we walk back to the buses, all I can think is that I wish Tro and his band were in the bus complex too. Roadkill doesn’t do buses, apparently. They fly and stay in hotels. Up until now, that’s been good. Easier to avoid him, but now I want him here to see what he’s set in motion.

  When we get to our bus, I head for the shower. I come out feeling a thousand times better. I change in my bunk, then head up front for something to eat.

  Our bus is configured pretty much the same as the guys’. The bathroom and bunks are in the middle, with a sitting area and kitchen up front and a lounge in back. If there’s not a day off between shows, we travel at night, but when we’re on the road during the day, Billie’s always at the table, right where she is now. It’s her office, more or less.

  “So,” she says, closing the lid to her laptop. “I talked to a lawyer today while you were at your sound check. He seems to think that we could make the legal guardianship happen if you’re sure that’s what you want.”

  A cold shudder skips along my spine.

  When I don’t answer right away, she turns in her seat, facing me. “I only want this if it’s something you want, Shiloh.”

  “I just don’t see why you would want me. I mean, it’s not like adopting a baby. I’ll be seventeen next week.”

  She smiles softly and pushes up from her seat, coming to where I stand at the counter and enclosing me in her arms. Her chin rests on the top of my head and I feel her warm breath in my hair as she says, “I want you because you are a special person and I care deeply for you. I know you’ve had a rough upbringing, and I know you don’t need me to be a parent, but I want to look out for you in any way I can.” She pulls back and looks at me. “I love you, Shiloh. I just want to keep you safe.”

  The icy shell around my heart melts a little. “If that’s really what you want, we can talk to him, see what it would be.”

  “He made it sound like it’s just filing the right documents with the courts. Not too complicated.”

  We sit on the couch. “Would I come live with you?” I gesture at the bus. “After this is over?”

  “You would,” she says with a nod.

  I cringe a little in embarrassment, feeling like I should already know the answer to the question I’m about to ask. “Where do you live?”

  “I’ve got an apartment in LA, but I’ve been thinking of moving to the burbs. We could find something nice in Beverly Hills or Manhattan Beach.”

  “Sounds nice,” I say, thinking of that old show that runs on late night Nickelodeon that Will Smith used to be in.

  She pulls me into a tight hug. “It’s going to be amazing, Shiloh. I’m so excited to start our new life.”

  “Me too,” I say, trying to decide if that’s what the weird ache in the pit of my stomach is.

  #

  Two hours later, I’m sweating onstage. Several times, Max come up next to me, and I don’t discourage him tonight.

  We finish our set and when we file off the stage, I glance around backstage for Tro, but don’t see him. I tell myself the sinking feeling in my chest is only because I wanted him here to see that he can’t tell me what to do.

  “So, the party’s private tonight,” Max says, slipping up behind me. He leans closer, his mouth brushing my ear as he add, “More intimate.”

  I turn and cut him a sarcastic look. “I don’t do intimate.”

  It’s not a lie.

  Lilah and I managed to keep to ourselves clean and stay out of the gangs at our school, but what happened in my group home was another story. At any given time, there were fourteen of us living there. A lot of shit went down that none of the Children and Family Services staff ever put into all those reports that went back to Department of Health and Human Services. Girls got raped all the time.

  I was thirteen when they moved me out of my last foster home. They put me in a group home to fill the gap of someone who’d just aged out and make room in the foster home for a younger kid. I figured it out fast. Alonzo was sixteen, but he was the toughest guy there. No one messed with him. Which meant, as long as I was his girl, no one messed with me. I let him fuck me whenever he wanted, and in return, he kept anyone else from fucking with me. He aged out the same month as The Voice auditions. A few months later, I was in L.A. and I haven’t seen him since.

  Max’s smile becomes more suggestive. “That’s because you’ve never had the right person to do it with.”

  “And you’re that person?” As I ask, out of the corner of my eye, I see Tro, Grim, and Jamie emerge from the back hallway.

  I lean in as Max tucks back a strand of hair that’s come loose from my ponytail and his fingers linger over the pulse point behind my ear. “You damn well better believe it.”

  “Wow,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “I think my panties just melted.”

  His eyes flash wide for a second. “I definitely like the sound of melting panties.”

  “Whoops, I forgot.” I push away from him and head for the dressing room. Tro watches me pass and I catch his eye as I add, “I’m not wearing any.”

  I feel his eyes burning through my back as I move up the hall. I don’t know whether he’s jealous or just pissed, but either way, I can use Max to my advantage. I just have to be careful. The trick is going to be making Tro believe there’s something going on and making sure Max knows there isn’t.

  When I get to the dressing room, Billie is there, on the phone. She gives me a nod as I riffle through my bag for some dry clothes, then head to the shower. The truth is, I’m pretty sure I’m never going back to the guys’ bus again. I’m on tour. This is my big coming out party. I should be partying every night. But I’m getting really sick of people. Even my own. Just like everything else since The Voice started, I’m totally out of my element.

  But when I’m cleaned up and I push through the door of the dressing room to head back to the bus, Max is there.

  “I’m not taking no for an answer,” he says.

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “Really.”

  Up front, Roadkill takes the stage, and he waits through the deafening roar of the crowd before saying, “Really.”

  I take a deep breath then stick my head back into the dressing room.

  “I’m going to the guys’ bus for a beer,” I mouth to Billie, who’s still on the phone.

  She scowls, but doesn’t shake her head, so I duck back out the door. “One beer,” I tell Max.

  He grins. “That’s all I need.”

  We walk together through the halls to the rear exit and climb on the bus. And he’s right, there are only the band, a few of the crew, and a handful of girls.

  Max grabs a beer from the fridge and twists the lid off before he hands it to me. “Chivalry is not dead.”

  I pat my chest and flutter my eyes, “Oh my melting heart.”

  He grins. “I liked the melting panties better.”

  “Avalanche!” Aram shouts, slamming a beer glass and a dice into the middle of the kitchen table.

  Everyone starts gathering around.

  “What’s avalanche?” I ask Max.

  He gives me a look. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  He takes my hand and tugs me over to the table. “Just watch.”

  Aram pour some of his beer into
the cup in the middle of the table. “I’ll start,” he says, picking up the dice. He rolls a five, and the group shouts and starts pointing at each other. He picks up the glass and looks around the table, finally handing it to a skimpily-clad Asian girl on his immediate left. She drains the glass, then wipes her hand under her chin and giggles. Aram fills the glass again then pushes the die to the Asian girl.

  Max points at the die as the girl picks it up and rolls it. “So, Aram rolled a five, which meant he could make anyone at the table drink.”

  The Asian girl rolls a three and giggles again before lifting the cup and draining it. “I’m in so much trouble,” she says as she drops the glass in the middle of the table.

  Aram fills it. “Yes,” he says, giving her a salacious look. “Yes, you are.”

  “Come on,” Max says, reaching over the girl’s shoulder and scooping up the die. “Take a turn. I’ll teach you as we go.”

  I give him a wary look before taking the die. I roll it and it skitters past the one, finally settling on two. “What do I do?”

  “Pour more into the glass,” he says as Aram lifts it for me to reach.

  I add beer to the glass and he sets it down.

  Max takes the die and roll a five. He grins at me as Aram lifts the glass again. “Drink up,” he says, handing it to me.

  I do, then make a fuck you face at him. The next time around, I roll a three and drink. Max rolls another five and I drink again.

  “I think you’re cheating,” I say, slamming the glass back down and filling it from my bottle.

  Three hours later, I’m way past the one beer I told Billie I was having, but I only realize how trashed I am when I get up to pee and can barely walk. I hold the furniture and walls, and when I get to the toilet and sit, the whole bus starts spinning.

  When I come back to the lounge, I don’t sit because I’m afraid if I do I won’t be able to get back up. “I have to go.”

  Max makes a sad puppy face, but stands and takes my elbow. He pulls me close and whispers, “You could lay down in my bunk for a while.”

  I shove him away. “Uh-uh. I’m drunk and you’re horny. Bad combination.”

  He smiles. “You’re right.” He guides me down the stairs and hooks an arm around my waist to steady me as we walk to my bus. There’s a second I can’t figure out which one it is, and we walk back and forth past the front of all eight buses while I try to sort it out. When I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right one, I go to the door.

  “Thanks…” I say, turning to look at him. “I think.”

  “Admit it,” he says with a smile. “You’re falling for me.”

  I start to roll my eyes, but that causes the ground to shift under my feet, so I stop. I haven’t even gotten my bearings when Max presses me up against the side of the bus. His mouth is warm and wet when it finds mine.

  I think about pushing him back, but all of a sudden, I don’t have enough energy. He’ll be done eventually.

  He draws away and gives me a blurry grin. “Told you.”

  “I’m drunk,” I mutter. “You took advantage of me.”

  “Uh-uh,” he says with a shake of his head that makes me dizzy. “That was you falling in love with me. You’ll definitely know it when I take advantage of you.”

  “I’m falling not at all in love with you,” I say, feeling my stomach churn uncomfortably, and not sure whether it’s the beer or what he just said that’s making me sick. I turn for the bus. “Go home.”

  “’Night, Shiloh,” he says through a chuckle, then I hear his receding footsteps. But I’m frozen in place.

  Tro stands from where he was sitting on the curb a few feet away and shoves his hands into his pockets.

  He saw that. I couldn’t have planned it any better. So why am I all of a sudden sure I’m going to puke.

  “Have fun?” he asks, a definite edge to his voice.

  “The time of my life… right up until this second.” I stagger a few steps forward. “Now, not so much.”

  “We need to talk, Lucky,” he says, coming slowly toward me.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  He takes a deep breath. “Listen, I never do this, but what I did earlier today was an even bigger asshole move than my usual, so…sorry.”

  His eye twitches as he says it, as though it’s physically painful.

  I shrug like it’s no big thing, but I know it is. Tro is right. He never apologizes. For anything.

  The door flies open and Billie is there in her bathrobe. “What’s going on out here?”

  Tro rubs the back of his neck as he turns to her. “I just fucked up. I wanted to apologize to Lucky and tell her it won’t happen again. I have no right to butt into shit that’s not mine to deal with.” He turns back to me. “You’re tough and I know you can handle your shit way the hell better than I can, so I’m going to get out of your way from here on out.”

  I push past him, needing the safety of the bus. “Thank you.”

  When I step up, I grab for the handle and miss, and nearly flip over backward, but before my ass hits the pavement, a pair of strong arms are scooping me up.

  “I really am sorry, Lucky,” he says, low in my ear. His hot breath on my neck raises goose bumps on my skin and tightens my belly.

  God, I hate my body for reacting to his touch.

  I shake him off. “Then stay out of my life.”

  He sets me back on my feet. “Your wish, my command.”

  Billie takes my arm to steady me as I climb the stairs. When I turn back to where Tro just was, he’s gone. Disappointment sinks in my chest because the truth is, I have no fucking clue what my wish is.

  Chapter 9

  Tro

  We play Detroit and then two shows in Chicago before we have a day off, and every time Lucky and I cross paths, my heart lodges in my throat and I can’t breathe. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me and I need to figure it out before I start self-destructing, so I take my free day to fly to my place in Austin and try to pull my shit together. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, but of all my places, this is the one that feels most like home.

  The cab drops me on the curb outside an old green Victorian and I trudge up the stairs to the attic apartment. I unlock the door and push through, then tug off my hoodie and look around the dusty place.

  It’s small and in a rundown neighborhood, but it was the first apartment that was all mine. I started renting it when we finally began getting steady work. I bought the whole building from the owner two years later when we signed with our label and the real money started rolling in. In the great room, just inside the door, the ceilings taper from ten feet at the peak in the middle of the house to four feet near the walls, and the windows are dormered. The kitchen is along the wall to the right, just a long counter with a stove and sink in it, and a wooden table splits the kitchen from the rest of the room, where I’ve got an old leather couch I picked up at a yard sale and a newer TV and sound system bolted to the wall next to my overflowing CD and DVD racks. Beyond the TV in the back is my bedroom, where I’m sure the queen bed sheets are still in the tangle I left them in a few months back, last time I was here. Next to the bedroom door is the bathroom.

  All my old shit is here, including my Harley, parked in the garage. I grab the keys off the hook over the kitchen counter and pull my skull cap down from the rack, then lope back down the stairs.

  I yank on my helmet as I duck into the garage. A second later, I’m rocketing down the street. I take the straightest line out of the city, skirt past Lake Travis at the outskirts of civilization, then wind it out. I keep my head down and just go. Speed sharpens everything, and right now I need to think. I’m used to living outside the lines and pissing people off, but I just keep fucking this Lucky thing up.

  So, I’m going to do what I told her in Toronto. I’m going to back off.

  But the scene at the bus that night keeps playing on a loop in my head—Lucky pinned between the bus and Max as he kissed her.
Oily black jealousy threads through my insides at the image, so I max my Harley and keep going. I’m halfway to Dallas before I turn back for Austin.

  I make it back to the apartment in one piece and stow my bike in the garage. When I turn the corner at the landing to the third floor, I see there’s a blonde in skimpy denim shorts and a black bikini top sitting on the step near my door.

  A slow smile spreads over her face when she sees me. “Hey.”

  “How ya been, Kate?” I say with a nod.

  “Good.” She stands and runs her palms over her hips, all sweet Texas molasses. “I thought I heard someone up here, and then your Harley goes screaming out of the garage and I knew.”

  I make my way up the last few steps toward her. “Just here for tonight. Got a show in Minneapolis tomorrow.”

  Her smile grows. “Well, then, lucky me for catching you.”

  I reach the top stair and she steps into my arms. She feels right there; the only woman who ever has. Which is a little fucked up since she’s the only woman to ever be there that I haven’t fucked. That’s partly because she’s the only real friend I have and I don’t want to screw it up. But mostly it’s because Emmy, her grandmother who has rented the apartment below me since the dawn of time and raised Kate there, owns a rifle and will fill my sorry ass full of buckshot if I touch Kate.

  “How have you been?” she asks into my neck.

  I take a deep breath and pull away. “Fucked up.”

  She starts down the stairs and grabs my hand on the way, pulling me behind her. “Then good thing I’m here to straighten you out. Drinks are on you.”

  She’s straightened me out more than once, and literally saved my life in the process. It was after we’d cut our first studio CD, but before our label picked us up that my old man found me here. He never said how he tracked me down and, in the end, I guess it doesn’t matter. What does matter is what happened when he got here. He said he’d kill me if he ever found me.

  He wasn’t joking.

  We jump back on my bike and head to the food trucks on Rainey Street before ending up at our favorite bar. The bartender drops two beers in front of us and looks at me a second before sliding a bar napkin in front of me with a pen. “Wasn’t gonna be a dick and do this, but my girlfriend will shit if I get her your autograph.”