by Lisa Suzanne
I hear chants of my name as I wave my thanks, the bright lights shining right in my eyes making it hard to see the crowd. From where I stand, I only see the front row, and they look like they’re having a great time. There’s a different kind of energy in the air tonight with this sold out crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know if it’s because I’m here with Vail or if it’s because of the night this concert falls on and all it symbolizes.
It’s a chance to start over, to refresh, to bury last year’s mistakes with the past.
There’s hope here tonight, a celebration of life and optimism and excitement, and I’m just the opening act, the one who’s supposed to get the crowd ready for the main event. They’re ready and warm for Vail—but they didn’t need me for that.
I ended my set with my party anthem, “Another Shot,” and confetti canons exploded from the rafters. Bits of white paper catch the light. I always feel bad for the clean-up crew, but the crowd goes insane when confetti pours down over them—ridiculous considering it’s just little pieces of paper, yet they stick it in their pockets or purses. I like to envision them finding that paper in a week or two and being reminded of the great night they had at my show.
“One more song! One more song!” I hear the chants coming somewhere from stage left, but my set’s done. I smile harder, wave one last time, pull one of Kevin’s drumsticks from his hand, and toss it to the middle of the center section in front of me.
I blow a kiss and slap my ass, my signature move, and then I run off stage.
Ethan stands just outside the curtain, his arms crossed over his chest. It hadn’t occurred to me he might watch my set. Even in the euphoria that follows me off the stage, I notice the way the bulges of his biceps stretch the black fabric of his shirt.
He lifts his chin in my direction in acknowledgment. “Great set,” he says.
My chest heaves from the exertion of running around the stage for my last song. “Thanks,” I mutter, pretending like it isn’t the singular most important piece of praise from the one person whose opinion ever mattered to me since I was fifteen. He should be getting ready for his own set, yet he’s here watching me.
Griff hands me a bottle of room temperature water and holds a cigarette—the two things I need during my short mid-show break and immediately after. Ethan watches as Griff sticks the cigarette between his lips and lights it before he passes it to me. I take a long, deep drag off it and feel instantly calmed, but Ethan’s presence is still shaking me.
He shakes his head. “Happy New Year,” he says.
“Same to you.”
“Mark wanted me to ask you if you’d like to join us on stage at midnight.”
I lift a shoulder. “Griff, I need whiskey.” He nods and scampers off to fulfill my request, and I’m once again alone with Ethan. I angle my body toward him. I’m sweaty after being on stage, but Ethan doesn’t seem to mind. “We didn’t practice that.”
“It’s informal. You don’t have to perform, just thought you’d like somewhere to be at the stroke.”
“The stroke?”
“Of midnight. Unless you’ve got something else in mind.”
My eyes flick to the bulge in his black jeans and I decide to initiate my plan. Fuck what it might do to my career. While there are certainly many benefits to touring with Vail, the single reason I’m here stands in front of me. “Might be a nice way to ring in the new year.”
“Oh, babe, it would definitely be a nice way to ring in the new year.”
I stifle an eye roll, but I have to admit, the way his eyes stroll lazily over my body heats me to my core. Hate is such a funny thing—it’s passionate and fiery, and as much as revenge is my top priority, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun along the way.
He blinks and his icy eyes meet mine. “I’ve gotta get back to my pre-game, but Vick will come get you when it’s time. Stay close.”
I mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
He lifts his chin at me again and narrows his eyes. “That’s what I like to hear.” He starts to walk away, but he turns back to me. “Repeat that a few times. You’ll need the practice.”
I can’t help the tip of my lips at his ridiculous assessment. Any man who thinks he can get me under his thumb has another thing coming, but a tiny part of me likes the idea just the same.
*
I’ve barely taken a single hit of my joint when there’s a knock on my door. Griff goes to open it, careful not to let anyone see what I’m doing, and then he opens the door wider and Vick steps in. “Five minutes,” she says. She doesn’t look at me with disapproval, which surprises me considering how Griffin constantly looks at me like he’s about two seconds away from criticizing me.
“Thanks,” I say, taking another long, deep hit. I pass it to Griff, and he stubs it out in an ashtray. “Asshole,” I mutter.
He laughs, and I sit on the couch calmly for a minute. Ringing in the new year on stage sounds fun. My other option is to sit in this room with Griffin and let him kiss me at midnight in some misguided attempt to push us together in the upcoming year. Maybe he’ll finally get the hint what he wants isn’t what I want.
I change my shirt and fix my make-up, and then Griff leads me side stage. I stand beside the wives of the band members. The music is loud even back here, the bass thumping in my chest, and when the song ends, Mark glances over in our direction and nods. Vick motions for us all to head out to the stage.
Each woman goes to her husband, and I’m not sure where to go. I glance over at Ethan, and he tilts his head in a come here motion.
So I do, my pulse kicking up as I get closer to him.
Who would ever tell him no? I play the part of the girl who doesn’t know him, who is attracted to him and who’s lucky to be here with him. I suppose in all honesty all those things are true, but there’s still the fact that I sort of do know him—or at least I knew him in a previous life.
I step up onto the platform where his drum kit sits. “Welcome Maci Dane back to the stage!” Mark says. I wave from my spot in front of one of the cymbals before I blow a kiss and slap my ass. Ethan throws one drumstick up in the air, where it does several somersaults before he catches it again, and then he hits the cymbal I’m standing in front of. He doesn’t hit it with full force, but it still clangs loudly and I jump. Just as I do, he slaps my ass. I turn to glare at him, but his smile is so wide it’s almost contagious.
I shake my head and force a laugh—after all, I’m on stage in front of a sold out crowd that drew in at least sixteen thousand people tonight. All eyes are on the stage, so surely someone will catch my reaction if it’s anything but jovial. The weed’s helping, though honestly I didn’t have nearly enough of it. If he would’ve hit that cymbal by my ear and then slapped my ass when I was completely sober, it might be a different story. Instead, I smile and take it, that oddly calm feeling of giving completely no fucks washing over me.
“One minute until it’s a new year,” Mark says to the crowd. He grabs his wife around her waist, and she giggles. His eyes are hot on her, something I can see even from my own vantage point. “Time to finish whatever you wanted to accomplish this year.” His mouth covers hers as if the two of them are in their own little world, not in front of a huge audience at a concert.
He pulls back and whispers something to her the mics don’t pick up, and I watch as she squirms in his arms, a smile spreading across her lips.
I want that.
I want it so bad my chest aches as I watch them. Tears threaten to fall imminently, but I won’t allow that, not here and not now.
It’s the whiskey talking, or it could be the weed—or maybe it’s my heart.
Despite the façade I wear that my life is amazing, it’s all a lie, and that lie bears down heavily on me as I watch a boy I went to high school with as he shares a private moment with his wife on a stage in front of a huge crowd. I never asked for my life to be entirely made up of this need to get back at someone for something
so stupid, but my stubbornness prevents me from giving up now.
Ethan rises from his stool and walks around to the front of the drum set. He stands beside me and together we watch Mark check his watch and then glance at the side of the stage. I can’t see the video monitors from where I am, but I assume the ten second countdown has started because I hear the crowd as they collectively yell, “Ten! Nine!”
I glance over at Ethan, and his eyes meet mine. He raises his brows at me, and I lift a shoulder and twist my lips at him. I’m not sure what our wordless conversation is saying, but I have the sudden overwhelming need to kiss him.
For the plan, of course.
“Four! Three! Two!”
Before I even hear the one followed by the screams of “Happy New Year,” Ethan’s strong hand curls around the curve of my neck and he pulls my mouth to his.
For a fleeting second, I’m a fifteen-year-old girl kissing the boy I have a crush on in the middle of an empty hallway. He’s lemons and sin, some combination of sweet and sour just like all those years ago, and I’m not standing in front of a sold-out crowd on a stage with the hottest rock band in the world.
I feel the heat pouring off him from drumming in the lights for the last two hours of Vail’s set, and as my mouth smashes to his, I taste the salt of his sweat. I taste a needy fire and a promise for more even though his mouth never opens to mine.
He drops his hand from my neck and backs away. “Jesus,” he mutters. A little louder, he says, “Happy New Year.”
I clear my throat and wait for some witty remark to hit me, but I come up short. I don’t have a chance to respond because he turns to get back behind his set. Just before he sits, he yells to me, “Move.”
I watch as he poises to hit the bass drum, and I leap out of the way so I’m not deafened again by him hitting the cymbal directly next to my ear.
The other guys in the band are still embracing their wives. I look out over the crowd. Some are watching the stage, seeing rock stars they idolize in front of them as real people with real lives and relationships; others are kissing the ones they’re with or holding a beer up in the air or celebrating with hugs.
Ethan slams the bass drum then falls into a little drum solo. Eventually Mark, James, and Steve break away from their spouses and pick up their instruments. Ethan’s drumming must be the signal it’s time to finish the show.
I glance over at Ethan and watch him for a second, mesmerized by his talent. He finishes by crashing his sticks against the cymbals, and then his eyes find mine. “Stay,” he yells over to me. “Help us finish our set.”
I shake my head.
Ethan signals off stage to someone, and Vick shows up with a mic for me a few seconds later just as the spouses leave the stage. “You know ‘One for the Road’?” she asks.
I nod. Of course I do—it was Vail’s first smash single. Everyone knows it. It was even used commercially. I’ve heard the chorus in several ads on television, and it was the theme song of a blockbuster movie a few years ago.
“Back up Mark on the chorus.”
“We haven’t practiced this,” I mutter.
She shrugs. “Just do your own thing. The crowd will love it.”
I feel like I don’t have a choice, and besides, what sort of idiot would say no?
I grab the mic from Vick’s hands. Mark starts the opening bars, and then Ethan joins in on drums. I hang back gingerly, not sure what my place is here with these guys who are so much bigger than I can ever dream to be.
The chorus comes, and I step forward. It takes everything inside me to push away the shyness and nervousness at my very core. I force out the badass bitch I’ve faked for so long.
Mark sings the words, and I join in with my own twist on the line that sticks out most of the chorus: “I’ll take one for the road and one for my heart.”
Mark grins at me, a clear indication this is okay even though Ethan was the one who invited me up here, and I start to lose the inhibitions I’m masking. We sing the rest of the song like a duet, and it goes off perfectly despite our lack of preparation. It’s natural and fun, and I have the sudden urge to do a collaboration with these guys. With their audience and my voice, we’d surely shoot straight to the top of the charts and sell a fuckload of records.
But then my eyes meet the darkening, smoldering gaze of Ethan Fuller, and reality snaps me firmly back into place.
I can’t record a song with Vail. I’ll still be Maci Dane even after I exact my revenge on him, and doing a song with Ethan’s band will forever connect me to him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MACI
I hole myself up in my hotel room after I exit the stage. We don’t have a show on New Year’s Day, and I’m ready to sleep for a hundred hours and enjoy a comfortable hotel mattress before we hit the road and I’m forced to share a tour bus with Griffin for the next couple months.
I love Griff, but sometimes I just want the space to myself. I’ve already decided the first hour of our bus trip to the next stop on our tour—Phoenix—will be a good time to sit down and have the chat I’ve been avoiding. No more sex, just business. I’m going to tell him I’m into Ethan and want to try to pursue something with him, that our midnight kiss last night meant something to me and it’s a new year and all that jazz.
I know Griff won’t take it well, but I don’t have a choice. The good news is I have an entire day in Vegas to myself. The bad news is I don’t know what to do with it.
A knock at my door has me on high alert. What if it’s Ethan? I’m not wearing my contacts. I’m not ready for visitors. I sneak quietly up to the door and peek through the peephole, my heart pounding the entire way.
It’s Griff.
I open the door and let him in as I hide myself behind it.
“How are you this gorgeous fresh out of bed?” he asks. He leans in and kisses my cheek before he hands me a venti cup from Starbucks.
“Stop,” I say, ducking my head. I have a hard time taking compliments, especially when I don’t believe them. I look like shit when I first get out of bed—I look like that mousy pig Dani Mayne, not like the rock star I become once I’ve taken a shower, changed my eye color, and applied enough make-up to mask the ugliness underneath.
I take a sip of the steaming coffee, and then I hold it up. “Thanks.”
He nods. “What’s on the agenda for the day?” he asks.
“I was planning to sleep the day away, though I don’t hate the idea of a massage. Book me some time at the spa.”
“You got it,” he says. “Anything else?”
Get Ethan over here so I can seduce him. I shake my head. “I think that’s it. Do you know where the Vail guys are staying?”
“Vick said Mark was going home. I guess he has a place here.” As he says it, I remember Reese inviting me to stay with them. “I don’t know about the other guys. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“You wanna hang with them?”
I clear my throat and take another sip of coffee to stall for time. “Mark’s wife seemed nice.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. Maci made a friend.”
“Fuck you.”
Griffin laughs. “You know I’m teasing.”
“Don’t.”
His smile falters. “Sorry.”
“Book the spa in an hour. I’m gonna hop in the shower.”
“Want company?” He raises his brows suggestively.
I glare at him and then turn toward the bathroom. “No.”
I take my time in the shower, thinking about that kiss with Ethan last night. It was nothing. It was silly. He kissed me at midnight because he wanted someone to kiss, because he’s the ultimate bad boy who loves to make headlines, and what better way to do that than to start rumors about the two of us on the first night of our tour?
After my shower, I decide to text him. I type in the number Vick gave me for Ethan Fuller.
Me: Still thinking about the first second of this year.
That’s all I
say. I stare at my phone with shaking hands as I wait for a response, but when one doesn’t come after ten seconds or twenty, I draw in a deep breath and focus my attention on getting ready.
I leave my phone on the bathroom counter and allow Griffin to lead me down to the spa so someone can work this awful tension out of my neck.
It’s a VIP spa closed to the general public, and as I walk in, I spot a supermodel I’ve seen in Victoria’s Secret advertisements and an actress I just saw in a movie last week.
“Change into a robe in the locker room and then take a seat in the quiet area,” the receptionist tells me in a bored tone. “Your therapist today is Adam. He’ll be back to get you shortly.”
I follow directions and end up in the quiet area, where I choose an isolated seat out of the ten or so leather chairs as I wait for Adam to come get me. Another actress I recognize from a popular nighttime drama sits a few feet away leafing through a magazine. I slump into a chair and stare off into space. When the door opens a minute later, I expect it to be a massage therapist to get me or the actress sitting a few chairs away from me.
It’s not a massage therapist.
It’s another client.
And it’s not just any client.
Of all the people in the entire universe that could walk through the door, it’s Ethan Fucking Fuller.
His eyes meet mine with surprise. “Maci,” he says softly so as not to disrupt the mood of the quiet room. My name sounds positively musical coming out of his mouth, his timbre deep and his pitch perfect.
“Ethan,” I say, matching his tone.
The actress glares at both of us, and then the door opens again. “Kate?” a female worker asks, and the actress stands and follows her out the door, leaving Ethan and me alone.
He settles into the chair directly next to mine despite the eight other possibilities. His leg brushes mine, and my pulse unexpectedly hitches.
I cross my leg away from him.
“Cold,” he mutters.