Feverish (Bullet #3) (12 page)

She opened the door and found her voice. “You
coming in a bit?”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She closed the door and paused. She had to
catch her breath. What the hell had just happened, and how could
she go on acting normally when everything had just changed in such
a short time?

* * *

The awkward feeling between them faded,
leaving in its wake relief. Clay felt so much better having said
what had been on his mind in the short time he’d known Emily. It
didn’t change the fact that he’d had a hard time sleeping that
night.

The next day, though, it was as though
nothing had happened. Emily told him the agenda, but Clay laughed.
“We’ll be there most of the day. Don’t you wanna see these
bands?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“No
I guess
. You’re gonna watch some
of these bands, and you’re gonna like it.”

“Where?”

“Much as I’d like to mosh, I can’t get away
with it anymore. We’ll find an out-of-the-way spot and watch the
big screen. We’re there to listen anyway. Nothing like live
music.”

Emily nodded. “I do love a good concert, but
I haven’t been to one in a long time, not since…”

“Since?”

She shrugged. “It’s been a while. I’m looking
forward to it.”

Before they left, Clay put a baseball cap on,
tucking his hair underneath it. Emily smirked, and he grinned back.
He knew what she was thinking, that the cap did nothing, but it
hadn’t failed him before. And then they all got in cabs, and she
almost laughed because it was such a short distance to the arena.
Still, the place was already packed.

Last Five Seconds was on at three. They’d had
a late big breakfast and planned on skipping lunch. They checked in
backstage, and Clay and the band checked all their gear. When Clay
was satisfied, he grabbed Emily by the hand and pulled her into the
arena. She didn’t protest. He flagged down a girl toting beers
around and bought two. Emily gave him a look like she didn’t want
one, but she took it anyway.

Clay had no idea who the band was that was
playing, but they were good. They sounded new and fresh. Best yet,
they were heavy. Once they got in position, away from the crowd, he
reached in his jeans pocket and pulled out two pairs of ear plugs.
He placed a pair in Emily’s hand, and she gave him a confused look.
He showed her that he was putting a pair in his ears. They’d be
able to hear the music just fine, and with the plugs, it wouldn’t
even sound muted.

Emily sipped at the beer and seemed to enjoy
it okay. Clay smiled over at her. There were few things he enjoyed
more than live music, and sharing it with a woman he cared about
made it even better.

Yeah, he cared about her. It had happened
quickly. They’d been working so closely together and part of his
feelings revolved around the fact that he was grateful to her. More
than that, though, was the fact that she was deep down a sweet and
gentle soul. He’d known few people that kind deep down, but she
tried to hide it from him. He wasn’t sure why.

He looked over at her. Her warm brown eyes
were shining with excitement. He so wanted to grab her like he had
last night and kiss her hard. Ever since then, his thoughts hadn’t
strayed from her, and he couldn’t get the image of her out of his
head. He could still hear her low groan from behind her bedroom
door, and he yearned to make her do that himself again and again.
He swallowed. He was just torturing himself.

Still, after having heard her blow up at her
boyfriend, he couldn’t help but hope that was a crack in their
relationship. The guy didn’t deserve her. Not one bit.

Of course, she deserved better than Clay too.
He knew that. But, unlike the douchebag she was engaged to, Clay
would spend his life trying to be good enough. He’d try to be so
good she wouldn’t notice he wasn’t.

She looked over at him and smiled, then threw
up her right arm to sport metal horns that matched the crowd. Clay
laughed and joined her.

He almost kissed her. Almost. And he thought
it would be forgivable because he could blame it on the heat of the
moment. But he stopped himself from doing it. Instead, he wrapped
his arm around her and swayed to the music. So they weren’t
headbanging. Clay dared anyone to say shit. But, of course, no one
did.

Chapter Eleven

TRUE TO FORM, Clay was stressing Emily out by
the time it was Last Five Seconds’ turn to perform. The two of them
had been enjoying the band before, and she kept telling him it was
time to go, but he’d laugh and say, “Just a little longer.”

By the time they started walking down the
steps of the bleachers where they’d been hanging, Emily was
freaking out. They still had to maneuver the crowd to get to the
back, and the band that had been playing finished up. That meant
the crew would start setting up the band’s instruments, and Clay
needed to do a sound check on his guitar.

Halfway there, he said, “Would you
relax?”

She made a sour face. “You don’t make it
easy.”

“Trust me.” He grabbed her hand and pulled
her through the crowd again. She wasn’t quite sure how he managed
to do that, but he did. People just seemed to move out of the way
for him.

And she couldn’t even admit to herself how
much she liked his hand holding hers. That was twice today that
he’d done it, and it made her wonder just how much he’d heard
yesterday. Obviously, it was enough to make him feel protective of
her, but she knew for sure he’d heard her going off on Bryce. God,
she hoped he hadn’t heard her masturbating. It was embarrassing
enough knowing all of Bryce’s goddamned friends had listened in and
had either thought it was funny or hot. She was still angry and
humiliated about that.

The beer was taking the edge off those raw
emotions.

They got to the backstage area, and that’s
when she saw Clay change. He became all business. She’d never seen
it in the man, would have, in fact, insisted that part of him
didn’t exist—until she saw it. He was serious and on task, but
behind his eyes, she could still see the playful side of him ready
to break out.

She and the blonde—girlfriend of singer Sam,
whose stage name was Silver—stood just offstage with a great view
of the band. The guys were still offstage while the crew put the
finishing touches on the set. They had about three minutes to go.
The blonde said, “So, you’re Clay’s PA? That right?”

“Yeah. I started about two and a half weeks
ago.”

The blonde nodded. “God knows the man needs
it. Good luck.”

Emily smiled. She actually felt like the
hardest part was behind them. “Thanks.”

“Just…don’t fall victim to his charms. I know
he can come on pretty strong.”

And what would
she
know about it? Why
did she feel the need to give Emily unwanted advice? Instead of
having its desired effect, the woman’s warning pissed her off, made
her feel even more protective of Clay. She knew he
liked
his
reputation as a bad boy, but aside from his little
Jet
speech
the day before, he’d been mostly a gentleman.

But that pulled her mind into thinking about
the day before. As the band started to play, Emily was doing
exactly what Clay had encouraged her to do—to think about his offer
to play around with him, no matter what her relationship status.
What she found strange was how Clay talked about himself as two
different people, as though Jet were someone he kept locked away
until needed to deal with more objectionable activities.

What disturbed her was she thought she was
starting to see the difference. She thought she had mostly been
dealing with the part of himself he called
Clay
, a
mild-mannered nice guy who cared about people. Jet was the side of
himself that wasn’t concerned about offending other people. Jet was
a bad boy, in your face and loud. He also seemed to love women,
all
women, and he would stop at nothing to get what he
wanted.

Well, no, that wasn’t true. He’d given her a
choice.

Emily was relieved when the band started
playing, sparing her from more awkward conversation.

Still, it had made her focus on the man with
the guitar strapped around his body. Just thinking about him—Clay
or Jet—made her feel warm. She could still feel the heat of his
hand on her neck and how it had given her chills throughout her
body. He’d promised to “treat her right,” but she wondered how that
would work exactly, especially if she were cheating on her
fiancé?

Well, as tempting as her boss was, there was
no way she was going to do it.

Still, he made it damned hard. She’d never
been to one of their concerts before, and he was sex incarnate
onstage. Either that or it was her own imagination going wild. His
fingers were flying all over the strings on his guitar…and that’s
when she had a
duh
moment, realizing that was probably where
the name
Jet
had come from in the first place. He was
amazing. More than that, though, she could tell he was having the
time of his life. He was pumped full of energy, moving from one
side of the stage to the other, but then he’d pause in one spot
when it was time for a solo, or he’d look out at the audience
during an intense breakdown, communicating with them simply through
his dark-green eyes. He and his crowd were sharing moments, and she
knew it would be a show they wouldn’t soon forget.

She thought it was cool, because the band
wasn’t getting a dime for this concert, and yet she could tell they
were still giving it their all. She admired that.

But above the admiration, she could feel a
slow burning in her gut for the man wielding the axe. The problem?
She wouldn’t take Clay (or Jet, for that matter) up on his offer,
but she had taken his suggestion. She was thinking about it. Oh,
yes, she was thinking about it way too much.

* * *

Clay hadn’t expected it, but he didn’t like
fame as much as he would have thought. He’d enjoyed being in a band
back in the day when they’d played small venues and the largest
audience he’d ever played to had a mere three hundred people. That
was manageable. Hell, yeah, he enjoyed the admiration of thousands
of fans and really liked the money he made from selling his music.
But what he didn’t like about the fame that studio albums and
nationwide (and even international) touring brought him was that it
was overwhelming.

He’d first noticed that feeling of being
sucked under a couple of years ago when he was on his Facebook fan
page. He’d posted a picture of him and Brian goofing around a few
minutes before going onstage. It was a funny, intimate shot, one he
thought fans would appreciate. By the next morning, he had over a
thousand likes and forty-two people had shared the picture. There
were over fifty comments as well, and at first he’d been smiling as
he scrolled through, especially when one woman commented that he
and his bassist friend were her ideal sandwich. But as he continued
to scroll, he just started feeling like maybe he wasn’t a real
person
to these folks. They somehow seemed to think he
belonged to them.

It was unsettling.

Jet didn’t mind. Jet loved it, and it was a
good thing, because Clay just couldn’t handle it.

It was the first time in a long time he was
watching Fully Automatic play, and it brought back memories of days
gone by, back when he’d played to smaller crowds, always dreaming
about fame but not caring one way or another if it really came.

He didn’t have much chance to talk with the
guys because they had to hit the road. They were in the middle of a
tour and had another show the very next day across the country, but
Brad did talk to Clay for a few minutes. After both asking how each
other’s kids were, Clay had to know. “How’s Val doing?”

“Great. In fact, I needed to ask you when you
guys are dropping your next disc.”

“Why?”

Brad smiled. “She’s starting a new project
and is going to need to be an opening act. I was thinking—”

“Oh, hell, yeah. We’ll find a way to make it
happen. You thinking the American leg of the tour or—”

“Not sure yet. They’re just recording right
now.”

“I gotta know. All female?”

“No. The bassist is a woman, but she has guys
on drums and lead guitar. She’s playing too.”

“You’re shitting me. Fuck. I can’t wait to
hear it.”

“It’s amazing, man. Anyway, gotta go.”

“Wait. What’s the name of her band?”

Brad grinned again. “Oh, you’re gonna love
this. It’s
Val Hella
.”

Clay laughed. He almost said, “God, I love
that woman,” which would have been true, but he didn’t think her
husband would appreciate that, in spite of their history together.
He was happy for Val. She was a sweet soul who deserved a good
life. Clay said
hi
to the other guys in Fully Automatic,
including Ethan, Val’s ex-husband, but there was no love loss
between the two. Ethan had always felt like Clay had stolen Val
away from him, but the truth was the guy had lost her long before
Jet moved in on her.

Still, it was water under the bridge. Val was
one of the first women he’d used his full-blown Jet persona on,
propositioning her one of the first times he’d met her. Nowadays,
it was a standard act. Jet got all the action. Jet was the part of
him that just didn’t give a fuck, and it was the part of him
without deep emotion. It was the part of him that liked fun and
play.

Clay was the man he had to protect. Clay was
the part of him that could get hurt.

The problem was Clay was starting to fall for
Emily…and Jet didn’t quite know what to do about that.

Chapter Twelve