ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (43 page)

“That sounds incredible,”
she murmured, still carefully watching my eyes. “What time?”

“I’ll have someone pick you
up here around 4 o’clock. That’ll get you there in time to see our set… And all
the other sets, too. We’re sharing the stage with some fucking legends.”

She was quiet for a moment.
“Old Greg is out of town tomorrow. He probably won’t even know that I’ve left.
This could work.”

“You think so?” I asked.

“Alright,” Angel nodded, not
without some reluctance. “Yeah. I guess it’s a deal.”

“You bet it is,” I
whispered, slipping a fingertip below her chin. She shivered at my touch,
staring into my eyes fearfully. It would be so easy to kiss her right now.

No.
I’ll wait.

There’s
a better time for this.

Instead, I told her goodbye,
slipped into my jeep, and whipped out of the parking lot. Before she
disappeared from view, I turned over my shoulder to give her one more little
wave. I smiled knowingly to myself.

Just
a brief delay.

No
big deal.

I felt my usual confidence
rush back into my veins, my swagger emboldened by my understanding of where I
belonged in the universe.

Where
she
belonged.

Which was around my cock,
tomorrow night.

Who
needs the back of a rickety old bar?

I’d
rather fuck you in the tour bus, anyway.

Chapter 8

Angel

When I woke up hours later
in my familiar old cot, I crawled out of bed and brushed my teeth. Peering at
my sleepy gaze in the mirror, I wondered why I was so exhausted. But then, it
all came flashing back, in a slideshow montage of events in my head.

The bikers, trying to rape
me.

The rocker, shirtless and
oh so handsome
.

The seductive way he looked
at me.

How close I’d been to giving
myself up.

Sweet
Caramel Jesus on a stick.

How fucking stupid had I
been? I could barely believe it. Hot or not, no boy had
ever
had that kind of effect on me. I mean, yeah, I felt like I was
a little indebted to him for rescuing me and taking those punches. But…

Old Greg had been right.

I’d almost fucked him.

I’m
such an idiot.

That look in his eyes…that
seductive, low yarl of a baritone in his singing voice… and then there was all
that bullshit at the end of the night. He’d been putting
serious
moves on me, coercing me to come along to see him play
life. I could see the burning lust in his eyes, and I knew that he didn’t
really give a rat’s ass about me.

No.

Nuh-uh.

Ain’t
happenin’.

I groaned angrily at myself.
I held myself to a higher standard than this. Sure, I owed him for what he did
for me – but did I owe him
that?

I mean… he
was
really hot.

UGH.

No.

Still mentally grumbling to
myself, I went on with my morning routine. After brushing my teeth, I hopped
into the freezing cold shower for the millionth time. I’d learned to clean up
fast
without access to hot water in the
improvised bathroom for over a year.

It was only while I was
toweling off that I thought back to the concert he’d mentioned.
Didn’t he say that he was going to send
someone for me?

I looked over at the time.

It was coming up on 11 AM.

Great.
Only five hours of waiting.

Throwing on a long-sleeved
shirt and a pair of shorts, I cracked a few eggs, slapped on some bacon, and
made myself fried egg sandwiches for breakfast. A tumbler of frigid tap water
from the bar rounded out my breakfast of champions.

As I dwelled on recent
events, I found myself savoring the warmth of the eggs. Alabama rarely got what
you could consider
cold
, but there
was a slight chill to the air outside – a cold front must have snapped through.

Didn’t help that this bar
had the approximate insulation of a paper bag.

Should
I go?
I wondered to myself.

Could
I have been wrong?

Does
he REALLY want to see me again?

Trent probably saw me as
just another notch in his bedpost. It
had
been a long time, and he
was
really
hot. Could I be okay with that?
After
all,
I thought to myself,
maybe he’d
already lost interest from being interrupted by my landlord.

It was just so utterly
lame
that the only time I brushed with
fame, with someone from well beyond this shitty little town, it was with such a
conflicting, obvious asshole.

He rescued me.

He wanted to fuck me.

I had wanted to fuck
him
.

Well… that thought had only
lasted a few minutes. I’d been caught up in the moment, in my brush with fame.
But I couldn’t let him have that kind of control over me… and wouldn’t you know
it, the guy looked the type to get
angry
over that.

UGH
.

Why is this shit always so complicated?

I had to admit, though – if
he was telling the truth about the concert… that would definitely be a hell of
an opportunity. I’d only ever seen small, shitty shows here. This was way
different. An opportunity I wasn’t sure that I could pass up.

Being backstage for a major
rock venue.

Watching the rock stars go
balls out.

It could be fun.

Resigning myself to this
course of action, I decided to stop fucking around and just see where that
went. However, I made it very clear to myself that he and I were
not
going to be doing
anything
that might sully my innocence.

So, I put on the radio while
I tried to clean the back of the bar up. I went ahead and took my inventory
count, swept out the storage rooms, reorganized the cold stock, and tried to
fix one of the creaky shelves back there.

Just for kicks, I tuned it
to the Top 40 station.

All the while, I kept my
ears open for one of Trent’s songs, dragging the little battery-powered
boom-box around from room to room as I worked. The stuff that was playing was
mostly the kind of crap I didn’t have any patience for. Lots of young TV stars given
a platform on the radio. Some super repetitive electronic music or whatever.

Is
this the shit that people listen to now?

Luckily, there were some
familiar sounds, older pop mainstays either making a comeback, or showing that
they still really ruled the roost.

I missed the days of
alternative rock on the radio. Living in this bar had given me an appreciation
for country music, but still… the Nineties really pushed some stellar
alternative rock bands to the forefront.

Finally, what I wanted to
hear came on:

“
Featuring, by popular demand, their latest single, here’s ‘Wicked
Wilds’ by Trent Masters and the Whiplash! Go see ‘em live at RIPFEST tonight!
This is The Pitbull, and you’re listening to 106.7 The Pit!”

A low growl of the guitars
swung into gear, building up a crescendo. A few bars in, the drums kicked in,
complementing the instruments until Trent’s voice finally poured in over the
music:

“
My lonely walk along the highway / A silent king with feet a-peelin’ /
Empire of dust that shattered my way / My soul regret, I’ve lost the feelin’…”

I smiled to myself.

It was him.
Definitely
him.

I could see a clear picture
of Trent Masters in my head, scrawling notes in a dirt-stained notebook. His
boots were kicked up, while his band practiced chords and strummed along to
their own hearts.

I liked the thought of it.

That’s why, when the private
car finally crunched gravel just after 4 o’clock, I was dressed up in my best.

I’d even been waiting for
half an hour.

Chapter 9

Trent

Turns out, I’d been a little
harder up after my brief skirmish with the bikers than I’d thought. As much as
I hated to admit it, Old Greg had been right to send me towards a clinic.

My body had been already
seriously aching by the time I arrived there, and it was only going to get
worse.

The overnight doc who saw me
patched me up, nice and well. Turned out that I only had a slight concussion,
nothing too major. She commented that whomever had tended my wounds had done a
good job of it, but that was small substitute for getting a few bruised ribs
checked out.

Still, the place had a
pharmacy built in, so I walked away with a bottle of decent painkillers and a
smile on my face.

That smile faded when I got
back.

The manager of our band, a
scrawny, middle-aged fuck named Steven, climbed out of the bus as soon as I
pulled up. His hands were up in the air – a classic sign that he was
pissed
– and his beady little eyes
blazing with fury.

“Where the fuck
were
you, Trent? You can’t just traipse
off like that in the middle of the fucking night drunk as shit!”

“I wasn’t drunk,” I
commented blandly, tossing him the keys to the rental.

They bounced limply off his
chest, and he quickly bent over to scoop them up. When he jumped back up, he
followed me back towards the bus.

“You must have been. The
others said you were drinking like a fucking camel.”

“The
others
were too busy with their tongues down some groupies’ throats
to have half a rat’s ass of what I was doing,” I corrected him.

“You need to cut the prima donna
act, you son of a bitch,” he grumbled angrily. “How the fuck am I supposed to
do PR on you fuckers when you scatter to the winds after a show?”

“I don’t know. Figured
that’s what you were paid to do.”

“I ain’t your goddamn
babysitter.”

“Never said you were.
Frankly, I’d hate that. But if you want some advice…” I poked my finger into
his chest, “…back the fuck off. The others, I can’t really speak to their
maturity. But I haven’t given you shit that you haven’t started first. Trust
me. I wanted to clear my head, took a drive. That was it.”

Steven snatched the
prescription bag from my hands. Before I could grab it back, he was eying the
small, orange bottle inside.

“Just out for a drive, eh?
Is that the load of horse crap you’re feeding me? What kind of bullshit is
this
, then?”

“So, I got into a fight.”

He glowered at me.

“A fucking
fight?
”

“Yeah. Went to a bar.
Stepped aside for a piss. I walk back in, and these biker fuckers were trying
to rape the poor bartender. I roughed them up. They outnumbered me, so I took a
few hits.”

“Look at you, Mister Hotshot
‘Knight in Shining Armor,’” the manager sardonically told me. “You’re on thin
ice, and I’m holding onto these.”

I tugged the bottle back.

“Nice fucking try. The last
thing I need is a reprisal of your goddamn pill problem. We’ve only got a few
more shows on tour; just keep your shit together and we’ll be home free.”

Steven simmered with
mounting anger, but I took the last few steps towards the bus. Being
intelligent for once, he didn’t bother to follow me inside, waking up anyone.

As I closed the door behind
myself, I wondered why we even had to deal with him. Music labels didn’t
usually assign managers out anymore, but this guy was dumped on us as a
condition of our contract.

Probably because we’d pissed
them off by bringing a decent lawyer along to renegotiate the terms of our
royalties and earning potential, because
fuck
making pennies on the dollar.

I stepped over a few
sleeping bodies – it looked my guitarist, Waylon, had barely escorted his pair
of sweet little honeys inside before fucking them in our tiny little kitchen.

Well,
Papa’s home now.

And
Papa says “No bare asses in the kitchen.”

I nudged one of them with my
foot. She murmured in her sleep a little, and I persisted. Finally, she rose
up, yawning and looking at me in the semi-darkness.

“Time to go, sweetheart. You
and your friend. How long did
Pound Town
last?”

She sighed sleepily. “Not
long enough.”

“Yeah, didn’t think so. He
talks a tough game, but that’s about it. I think I’ve clocked him at about
forty-five seconds before.”

“Well, it was longer than
that.
”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Anyway, you should get
going. Need a ride? I can call you a taxi or something, but you need to get
gone.”

“Nah, we drove. Thanks
though.” She smiled quietly, her sultry little eyes locked onto me. “You want
to pick up where he left off?”

I seriously considered that
for a moment, but Angel’s face entered my head. My cock twitched a little, but
only because of how close I’d been to fucking her.

Nah.
I’ve already made my pick.

“Don’t do sloppy seconds.”

“Fair enough,” she muttered.

The groupie woke up her
friend, and they bid me goodnight before leaving my sight.

My drummer was asleep with
his cougar. I could tell that he was still dressed in his wife beater – he was
unusually attached to those. Paired with cargo pants and sweat stains in some
interesting places, Dylan usually went with a style that I affectionately
called
Divorced, Single Nebraskan Dad
Chic
.

I decided not to bother
either of them.

Dylan was a total idiot, but
he was a more rational idiot than my impulsive guitarist – although I didn’t
like how chummy those two had been getting lately.

The bassist, had already
sent his piece of ass away for the night. Lying in bed with a book, Terence
gave me a brief nod as I passed by in the hall.

Our bassist didn’t talk
much.

He was a thoughtful guy.
Reserved.

It made him someone easy for
me to work with.

Settling down in bed, I
curled my fingers behind my head and waited for sleep to rear its ugly head.
Unfortunately, it was a bit busy that night.

Instead, I wound up thinking
about Angel.

Those sweet hips of hers.

That nice rack.

Her gorgeous hair.

Those beautiful eyes…

As I’d done so many times in
the last few weeks, I rubbed one out to help myself sleep. It was
dispassionate, unfeeling, just a burst of chemicals in my head to subdue my
thoughts.

My self-loathing.

My lack of emotion.

My private little
clusterfuck of imbalances.

I felt filthy. Disgusting. The
groupies, the fame, the attention, none of it fucking mattered. But when I saw
the way that
girl
was looking at me…I
forgot, briefly.

Forgot how screwed up I was
inside.

Huh.
Imagine that.