Foolish Games (6 page)

I looked out at the three to five filled lanes in front of us and felt helpless.

Worried for Lizzie, I said, “Riley, I would like to make my comment now.”

Riley did a double take at me like, are you sure? I just nodded in response. He looked down at the screen and fluidly typed away at the keyboard before he said, “I’m ready.”

“Hawkins strutted across the stage,” I started, “and he continued to strut across the stage until he had made his point that he had read my stupid review that was never intended to be posted in the first place. In retrospect, I was just blowing off some steam when I said those thoughtless things and assumed it would be useless content for a professional site such as this one.” I widened my eyes sarcastically.

“My friend humored me at the time by typing out every word I babbled as we drove to the next venue. He accidentally sent the fake review to the website during a heated moment when we took the wrong exit during our travels. To his horror, I assure you, he realized what had happened and quickly emailed the website back trying to fix the problem, but we never heard back from them again.” I looked over at Riley as he typed beside me.

“With that said, I am deeply apologetic for any misunderstandings. That was until no less than two minutes ago when Hawkins insisted that I looked like a grease monkey turned street hooker tonight.

“Girls, if you are a brunette, redhead, or even possibly have a darker shade of sandy blonde hair,” I shrugged while looking out at the traffic, “you need to drop out of the Hawkins’ fan club. He will not date you, give you a second look, or speak a word to you (possibly about you, but not to you) as he has so clearly made it known that he prefers blondes. End of discussion.

“I say this as a warning, when you hear me taking a hit from him, realize girls that we’re all taking a hit. No one is good enough for him. And blondes, I fear that I speak for you too since my friend, who he complained about having to be around, just happens to be a blonde!”

“Sincerely,” I thought of the first thing that came to my mind, “Not Stalking Hawkins.”

I looked over at Riley who gave me the thumbs up.

“Can you upload a picture of Lizzie to go along with it?” I asked.

“Damn,” he emphasized because we both knew that Lizzie was a knockout and if Hawkins didn’t like her, who did he like? We were finally on the move again as the traffic started to flow out of the venue in an orderly fashion.

“We’re looking for US-250,” Riley instructed.

A few turns later, we merged onto the highway and followed the green highway signs for downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. I wondered if Lizzie was just as clueless about Warren as she was about the concert tonight. I felt a pang of sadness to know that Hawkins had thrown her under the bus as well. After a few short minutes, we came to a stoplight.

“There it is. The Omni Hotel.” Riley pointed ahead.

The hotel jetted out over top of the next street. I peered up at it as we passed through the green light and continued down the road. It looked like any other expensive hotel I had seen before except this one was packed with tour buses in the parking lot. Glancing over the mostly black and brown varieties of buses, my eyes zeroed in on the purple one.

“We’re definitely in the right place,” I said, sighing to myself. “There’s Hawkins’ tour bus.” I turned the van into the parking lot and pulled into the first available space I could find, which wasn’t easy considering how packed the place was. My intentions were to move quickly since I didn’t want to get stopped and questioned before we had a chance to reach the hotel lobby.

“This is probably going to be more like an intervention.” I prepared Riley. “Because I’m not sure that Lizzie will come willingly.”

“You want me to drag her out?”

“I want you to throw her over your shoulder and make a run for it. No one makes fun of
our
Lizzie…except us.”

“Gotcha.” He nodded before we got out of the van.

“Just follow my lead,” I said to him as we walked towards the double doors of the hotel. I saw Woodley and Hampton stationed inside just by the opening of the door. I flashed them my backstage pass, though I wasn’t sure how far it could get me now that I wasn’t at the venue. They seemed to recognize me from the concert, though I didn’t know how that was possible now that I looked like a totally different person without my slutty purple shirt and layers of cruddy makeup.

I discovered that those backstage passes could get a girl far (and apparently a guy as well) since they allowed both of us to pass by them.

Huh? I puckered my lips together and thought
, wow, that was easy
. But when I glanced over my shoulder I saw Hampton turn around to eye us warily. I could tell that he was just about to stop us when he saw that we were heading toward the elevator doors. I grabbed onto Riley’s wrist and quickly pulled him behind me between the closing elevator doors. I caught a glimpse of Hampton rushing toward us with a black radio up to his lips just before the doors closed.

The elevator doors dinged open at the next floor. I leaned out and quickly glanced down the empty hallway before I pulled myself back in. I was frantic because I was pretty sure the band and the entire crew had reserved all the rooms in the hotel for themselves tonight. We didn’t exactly blend in with them unless they thought we were family members, who probably occasionally visited, or groupies. I was pretty sure the bodyguards confused us with the latter of the two choices. Rolling my eyes, I felt my jaw clench, like hell was I here for Hawkins.

“What floor do you think they’re on?” Riley asked.

“Whichever floor we find Harrison on.” I nodded.

His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

“The other bodyguard,” I explained.

Riley suddenly bugged his eyes out at me. “
Girl
, what have you been doing?”

“I’m not Lizzie.” I smirked as the elevator doors flew open at the next floor.

I popped my head out, but the hallway was empty. “Next floor.”

By the fifth floor, I saw Harrison with his back to us down the hallway. He whirled around when he heard us coming out of the elevator. I was giving him my, I’m with the band wave, when loud laughter erupted in the room across from the elevator. I sensed that Harrison wasn’t buying an ounce of my bullshit when I saw that he had his radio out as well.

“I got them,” Harrison boomed.

Frantically, I grabbed Riley’s hand and stormed across the hallway towards the room where I heard the laughter coming from. I prayed that we would find Lizzie soon since I didn’t want my first phone call home to be from jail. Harrison yelled loudly behind us as I barged through the door.

Blinking a few times, I took in the scene in front of me. Along the far wall was a beige couch that faced the door. Warren, who looked more than content and pleased, was seated on the couch with an arm wrapped around Lizzie. He certainly wasn’t acting like someone who didn’t want her there. I saw Hawkins seated in a brown lounge chair next to the couch.

I noticed he was busily texting away on his BlackBerry. The light gray t-shirt he wore clung to his broad chest making him look like he could be Vin Diesel’s body double. I may not particularly like him, but like Riley, he was nice to look at even if it was absolutely pointless. Hawkins tossed his BlackBerry to a side table when his eyes gazed over to meet mine. I diverted my eyes quickly away from him while feeling suddenly embarrassed for barging into the room.

Suddenly “interested” in the king-sized bed behind him, I studied the embroidered comforter and dozen white pillows laid across the headboard. Hawkins followed my gaze to the bed and I realized that this wasn’t just anyone’s room, this was hotel room of all people!
his
room. I felt like a raving lunatic for barging into his

Warren and Lizzie were too immersed in their own little conversation to notice us at first. Until Lizzie did a double take across the room at us and said, “Joie? Riley? What are you doing here?”

I was shaking my head in response when Harrison, who had finally caught up to us, went to personally escort us out of the room. Riley yelped when Harrison rammed him up against the side of the door on our way out of the room.

“Those are my friends!” Lizzie exclaimed. “Wait, Joie!”

Kind of out of my hands right now, Lizzie, I thought.

“Are these guys with you?” Harrison turned us around to face Lizzie who was now standing beside Warren on the couch.

“Joie?” I heard someone call out in a neighboring room. Recognizing the voice instantly, I couldn’t believe it. What was my brother Kyle’s best friend from high school doing here?

“Kosic?” I called out.

Hawkins rolled his eyes and gave Harrison a dismissive wave. Well,
finally
, right back at ya! I thought, rolling
my
eyes. Riley got one last shove as he stumbled forward and I was released from the bodyguard’s firm grasp as well. I approached the arched doorway to the left of the room because I had to see Kosic for myself. A group of guys were situated around a wide circular table playing poker with the addition of a full bar laid out behind them.

One person in particular was smiling with a gleam in his eyes. Always the picture of coolness, he leaned back in his chair against the bar behind him. He might as well have been leaning against his red Camaro as I had seen him do so many times outside of my house. His dark hair was short and tousled, but it was those green eyes that drove the girls crazy. “Mr. Preston High” was my brother’s wing man which meant I got the perk of seeing him much more than the other girls at school. Sometimes when he visited I’d get the occasional wink or pat on my head, but that was about it. I was only twelve after all.

“Well, if it isn’t Josephine Hall.” He lit up those emerald green eyes like a switch.

“Nathan Kosic, what the hell are you doing here?” I tried very hard to drop the lopsided grin across my face.

“I’m the manager for these fools.” He pointed to the guys around the table.

Ryan, Lizzie’s ex-boyfriend, looked the same since the last time I had seen him. The only difference was the pissed off expression across his face, probably because he had a direct view of Warren and Lizzie on the couch. He quickly grimaced up at me before looking back down at his cards again. With Ryan being here, I realized that Kosic meant he was the manager of the local band, turned famous overnight, and the opening act for the tour: The Larks.

“I could ask the same of you,” Kosic said with genuine surprise. “Does Kyle know you’re here?”

“No, why should he?” I smirked.

I leaned against the side of the arch doorway so I could look in on Kosic because I didn’t feel comfortable sitting at a place where I was not
invited
. Still, it had been way too long since I had last seen Kosic that I decided Hawkins could spare a few minutes of his time to have unexpected guests, especially after his rude tweets.

“The only reason I’m asking,” Kosic smiled, “is because someone needs to keep all these boys away from you.” Giving me the once over, he blatantly checked me out. Holy crap. I beamed over at him. God, I had prayed for the day when Nathan Kosic would look at me like that! I just didn’t know that it would come at such an awkward time. Looking over at Hawkins, I realized he had noticed the exchange between Kosic and me.

Interrupting my thoughts about Kosic, Lizzie—always wanting to be the center of attention—picked this moment to ask, “What are you guys doing here again?”

I turned to Lizzie and explained, “We came because we were, umm, worried for you.”

“Worried for me?” she asked as a smitten Warren lovingly twirled a strand of her blonde hair in between his fingers.

“Not worried for you,” Riley interjected. “Because why would we be worried for you?” He forced a laugh. “It’s just that you left your fake I.D. behind in the van.”

Errr!

That was never going to be a good enough excuse to crash Hawkins’ party. Plus, I wanted Hawkins to know the real reason we were there because his tweet was obviously bullshit. So I added, “In case someone questioned why you were here.”

“Huh?” Lizzie looked at me like I had gone mental.

Hawkins stopped mid-text to look up at me. I glared over at him as the realization took effect. He sighed before tossing his BlackBerry to the side again. His eyes flickered right back up to mine, matching the intensity of my glare.

“By the way, what happened to the purple shirt I bought you?” Lizzie asked.

“Funny story,” I said as Hawkins took a sip of his drink. “A hooker stole it right off my back.”

Hawkins sprayed his drink in laughter. He coughed and hacked, clearly pleased with himself. Lizzie and Warren turned to look at him questionably from the couch.

“Oh, umm, I’m sorry.” Hawkins leaned back in his seat. “Who knew our
guests
would be so entertaining?” He glared back up at me with those deep blue eyes, but a glint of amusement replaced the previous death stare. More “entertaining” things were about to come out of my mouth when I suddenly heard the uproar of shouts at the nearby table. Turning back around, I watched Kosic lay out his cards. “A straight flush,” he sang, “pay up.”

“Kosic, are you counting the cards again? You lousy prick,” another guy said as they all took a shot of alcohol around the table.

“I don’t have to count the cards when you’re just going to give them to me, Daniels.” Kosic flashed a devious grin. He pulled the stack of chips over to his side of the table and smiled up at me. “Joie, why don’t you sit down and play a game with us?”

“It’s a drinking game,” Lizzie piped up. “Joie won’t play.”

“Another one of your rules?” Hawkins said under his breath, but still loud enough for me to hear as we eyed each other once more.

Before walking to the table, I turned to Riley who was still by the door where Harrison had roughed him up. It was easy to see that he didn’t know what to do with himself so I nodded to the open space by Lizzie on the couch. “Why don’t you sit down?”