Bad Moon (BBW Paranormal Romance) (3 page)

'Yeah, someone that completely sucks.'

"Hey, let's get this stuff on the stage,
huh?" I said, cutting off the nasty little voice in my brain. I
turned to Aamir, giving him a grateful smile. "Thanks so much for
everything, we really needed some help."

"Sure," Aamir said, returning my smile. "But
you won't shake me just yet—"

"Is this the stuff for Bad Moon?" a short,
older man with a twitching mustache yelled across the narrow hall,
his face red.

"Yeah," I said, preparing for a scolding. But
instead he just grabbed a case from Aamir and huffed down the
hall.

"Let's get a move on then!" he called over
his shoulder. I nodded, turning to Aamir for a last goodbye.

"Thanks again!" I called out. Brandon grabbed
the other case from him and joined me in a rush to the stage. I
sincerely hoped I would see him again, but as soon as I met with my
boys and our myriad of equipment on the stage all thoughts of sexy
boys were gone. I had to get there shit together, and quick.

"Alright, let's get the speakers set up
first!" I called out, walking up to Trent to smack his hand away
from the sleek guitar he was pulling out of his case.

"Ow," he mumbled.

"You'll be with Lady soon enough," I said,
referring to the ridiculous name of his favorite guitar. He
grumbled and joined Nick at the trolley, lifting the heavy speakers
and bringing them to the front of the stage. I quickly set up the
mic stands, making sure they were at the right heights and that the
bits were screwed on properly, just enough to have some give.

The guys finished setting up and I finally
got a chance to look around the venue and take a breath. It was
bigger than I had expected, complete with a bar in the back, and a
swell of nerves bubbled in my stomach. Several thousand people
could easily fit in there, and Fun Aim was allegedly an Orlando
favorite.

"It's huge, isn't it?" Trent said, coming up
behind me. I turned around to see his anxious expression knotted in
the lines between his brows.

"Yeah, and you guys are going to rock. Don't
even worry about it," I said, giving him a smile.

"Thanks Bailey," he said, a smile spreading
across his own, hard face that made me melt a little inside. It was
that stupid cute timid smile that always turned my insides to
melted butter.

"No problem. Now go get your sound checked,"
I said, walking by him a giving him a reassuring pat on the
shoulder. It was good timing to, because the sound guy, a nervous
looking kid with bright blue hair came running out onto the stage
to badger the guys. I went back stage to look for a corner where I
could sit and read my book just in case they needed me. I was
prepared with a small emergency kit in the inside lining of my
jacket filled with extra guitar picks, strings, an electric tuner,
and a capo.

I was deeply absorbed in my romance even
through all the jamming guitars and beating drums. Jack was about
to tell Allison why he left her to begin with—but a hot make-out
session got in the way. I was admittedly getting all hot and
bothered myself, in a rickety tin fold-out chair, mere feet away
from complete strangers and some of my closest friends, but I
couldn't help myself. This story was getting
steamy
. Nothing
in the world was going to take me out of that scene. Nothing,
except a deep, melodious voice that said:

"Hey, I don't mean to bother you but—"

I looked up, and there was Aamir with a
sheepish grin on his beautifully exotic face, a Band-Aid in hand. I
actually dropped my book, like a big, clumsy idiot.

"Oh, hi," I said, scrambling to the floor to
pick up my book. "You didn't have to get me that..." I said, a warm
heat creeping over the back of my neck. I had almost completely
forgotten about the little accident earlier.

"I'm going to have to disagree with you," he
said, raising a finger to indicate to a spot below me. I followed
his finger, and saw little drops of blood littering the dark stage
floor at my feet. I groaned, completely mortified. How had nobody
noticed or said anything to me? But I knew the reason was because
everyone was so caught up in getting ready for the show, just like
I was.

"Oh God, I can't believe I didn't notice," I
said, sure that I was blushing a deep crimson by that point. My
mother would call me her little "
fresita
"
whenever it happened, which was apparently often enough that it
garnered me a nickname. Aamir just laughed and offered me the
Band-Aid. Our fingers brushed for a moment, and it was all I could
do to keep from gasping as a shot of electricity transferred from
his fingertips up through my arm.

"Must be a good book," he said, nodding down
to the paperback on my lap. I suddenly wished I had some kind of
electronic reading device, because the scantily clad woman and
bare-chested man on the cover left little to the imagination.

"Um, just some light reading, you know," I
said, turning the book over in my hands.

"Don't worry, I get it. It can get pretty
lonely on the road," he said with a wink, his long, thick lashes
grazing his russet cheek. My pulse quickened and my mouth went dry
as a desert. Was he really suggesting what I thought he was? It
wasn't helping that I was already so turned on from the book I was
reading mere moments before...

"Too into it to join the green room, I'm
guessing?" he said, nodding his head back to the corridor behind
him.

"Well, that, and I kind of like to be around
in case the sound check goes horribly...I'm a pretty nosey
manager," I said, placing the Band-Aid on my heel.

"Yeah, I understand. Your band is pretty
lucky to have someone as hard working as you," he said, causing me
to look down in embarrassment. Curse my intense shyness around cute
boys! I thought. If only I could have been like Sierra, who was
always game to talk to a hottie as long as his butt was up to
par.

"Just wear a low-cut shirt!" she would tell
me every time we were getting ready to go out to a party or a bar.
"When it comes to guys, everything is secondary to tits."

Too bad I never took her advice and was stuck
wearing a frumpy t-shirt my step-dad gave me as a weird joke before
I went off to college. It was also too bad that I was still wearing
it four years later, finger holes and all.

"I'm just over-protective," I murmured.

"I'm sure it's not just that," he said,
smiling and shifting his eyes down shyly and then up again. I
nearly died looking into is deep, chocolate eyes. It was ridiculous
how badly I wanted to taste his smooth lips, which were way fuller
than Jason's...

That's right. I had a boyfriend. I stood up
and gave him a terse smile, trying to play the interaction off with
a, "well thanks for the Band-Aid. My boyfriend's always making fun
of how clumsy I am."

Aamir's face fell, the corners of his lips
turning down from their playful arch. There was no way I was about
to believe this guy actually wanted me. Suddenly it dawned on me. I
knew this game; he wasn't anticipating that I had a boyfriend, he
figured that fat girls were easy and he could get a quickie on the
road.

'Well
not this fat girl,
' I thought bitterly, puffing my
chest up and trying to believe my own assertive thoughts.

"Oh. Well, later Fun Aim is throwing a party.
Maybe you and your band would wanna come?" he said, pulling out his
phone.

The rational part of my brain screamed,
'
Oh my God you just told him you have a boyfriend
and this guy is not letting up. Major trouble. Abort
ship!
'

And the part of me that reads naughty books
and dreams about wearing low cut shirts and dumping Jason said:

"Yeah, that could be a lot of fun."

"Cool," he said, the perfect grin with a
straight row of brilliant teeth returning to his face. He
readjusted his dorky glasses before handing me his sleek black
phone. "Just give me your number and I'll text you the
address."

I did, impressed that he remembered my name
and already had it typed into his contacts.

'Don't be impressed so
easily!
' I scolded myself. I handed him his phone back just
as I heard someone come up behind us.

"Hey Aamir!" It was Brandon, a giant grin
from ear to ear pasted on his goofy face.

"Oh, hey!" Aamir said, cheerily greeting him
back. "Not to bail, but one of my bandmates just texted me. We're
still behind and need to finish our set list," he laughed, shaking
his head. He turned his gaze back towards me, his brown eyes
shooting through my soul into my nether regions. "See you
tonight?"

"Yeah, probably," I said, trying to sound
cool and nonchalant even though my insides were screaming.

"I hope so," he said, giving us a final wave
before turning on his heel and jogging down the hall.

"Okay, what was
that
all about?" Brandon said giddily, straddling me in the chair and
popping on my lap.

"Brandon, you are not that light—" I said,
squirming under his weight.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. ‘See you tonight?' You
got some ‘splaining to do..."

"Listen
Ricky
Ricardo
," I said, with a dramatic roll of my eyes. "It's
seriously nothing. He invited the whole band to a party that Fun
Aim is throwing."

"Uh huuuh. That's what you're just telling me
because you have a boyfriend and want to seem like a good girl,"
Brandon said with a wag of his finger. "But he wants you and you
want him," he sang out.

"Hey, save it for the stage, won't you?" I
grimaced, still trying to push him off me. "Geeze, am I really this
weak?"

"So, what are you going to wear to seduce
him?"

"I'm
not
going to
seduce him...and I don't know, would we even have time to
change?"

"Well you sure as hell aren't going as the
world’s greatest dad, that's for sure," he said, tugging at the
neck of my shirt.

"Shouldn't you be sound checking or
something?"

"We just finished," he said, jumping off my
lap and tousling my dark curly hair. "See?"

"What are you weirdos up to?" Martin said,
coming up from behind us and shaking his head.

Before I could say anything in return Brandon
cut me off. "A hottie from Fun Aim invited Bailey to a party
afterwards."

"He's not in Fun Aim, Fun Aim is having a
party, and we're
all
invited," I said,
standing up from the chair and putting my hands on my hips
authoritatively.

"What's this?" Trent said, picking up the
book that fell from my lap to the floor. He raised an amused
eyebrow at me.

"Nothing," I said quickly, snatching the book
from his hands.

"Uh huh. Seemed kind of kinky," he joked, a
smirk spreading across his face.

"Ugh! I'm going to get some water bottles
from the van. You guys go introduce yourselves to the people in the
green room and make
sure
you go to the
bathroom," I said before storming off, all flustered and
annoyed.

"Okay mom!" Martin called after me. I heard
Nick titter and I hurried off even faster. If Nick was laughing,
and he was usually either too stoned or unconscious to know what
was happening, then I knew the teasing wasn't going to end
there.

All of Brandon's teasing aside, it did seem
like something fishy was going on between us. I held steadfast to
my belief that Aamir was just looking for an easy lay, and I wasn't
going to give it to him. I was going to go to the party strictly
for networking purposes—it was a good way to force myself into it.
If he wanted to shower me with attention, that was his problem.
Besides, it's not like it's a sin to look...

I stopped halfway through the parking lot and
whipped my out my phone to call Jason, guilt fraying my jumpy
nerves.

"Hey," his voice came through the phone. It
almost sounded like he was caught off guard.

"Hey," I said, cradling the phone against my
ear as I proceeded to the van. "Bad time?"

"Uh, sort of," he said. "What's up?"

"Oh, sorry. Just wanted to tell you I was
thinking about you," I said, forcing myself to smile and imagine
his nice green eyes. We had been having some issues lately, it was
true, but in that moment I recalled all the stuff that was my
fault. I was the one who forgot to make reservations for dinner on
our anniversary. And there was that time I told his fundamentalist
cousins I thought anyone who thought gays shouldn’t get married
could go jump off a cliff. Besides, I never clearly communicated my
hurt to him, and aside from all the fat remarks, he could be really
sweet to me.

'Maybe that's what love
is
,' I told myself, reaching for some kind of hope.
'
You put up with other people's crap
.'

"Oh, okay," Jason's distant voice came
through the line, vacant and hollow, an echo of his disinterest
piercing through my ear. "Call me later, will ya?"
"Sur—," I said quietly as the click on the other end cut me off.
Hot tears welled up in my eyes and I didn't bother to fight them. I
let them fall, the aching thud in my heart threatening to consume
me.

"What did you expect?" I murmured to myself
bitterly. The tears stung down my cheeks, coursing down in small
streams. I quickly wiped the hot flood off my face and ripped the
van door open, shoving the water bottles in the trunk into an empty
bag.

It was then that I resolved not to put up
with anyone's shit any longer. The little pools of pity I had
created inside myself welled up into hot, steaming geysers. I
grabbed a bottle of rum from our booze backpack and slammed the van
door shut, the sound of the clashing metal kindling the anger
inside of me.

"Fuck this," I muttered. I was sick of
treating myself like a second-class citizen and then feeling bad
about it later.