Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (25 page)

I was awakened from one of these dreams by my own hoarse yell. Drenched in sweat and shaking, I rubbed my hand to the crown of my head, realizing I must have come up from the bed enough to hit my skull.

The bus was moving. I blinked in the darkness. Was it morning, afternoon, or night? I struggled with my memories.

After last night’s show we’d adjourned to the connecting bar where the band had enjoyed being mobbed by their fans. Both Landon and Gage had joined the others drinking. Gage had echoed my own order of a margarita on the rocks. After two, he’d switched to pomegranate juice, which I’d noticed had become a virgin favorite of his since his first try at the ice bar in L.A. But Landon, despite my best efforts to keep him in check, had become shitfaced. While I was busy trying to do my job with the obnoxious drummer boy, I hadn’t been paying attention until it was too late to the gaggle of groupies all over Gage. The female attention was nothing new. It happened almost everywhere he went, even now when his hiatus from tabloid headlines had his recognition factor at an all-time low. But even if the gals were practically—and sometimes literally—straddling his lap, I’d always seen a distance in his demeanor. Not so last night.

Last night he’d seemed to enjoy the boobs below his face and long legs extending from short skirts tangled with his while dancing. He’d seemed to thrive on manicured nails playing in his hair, caressing his chest, and stiletto heels against his biker boots while loitering at the bar. A couple of times I’d looked up, finding him missing for too long.

Throwing back the curtain, I bolted from my bunk, running from my thoughts. After stopping at the bathroom, I descended the spiral staircase. The moment my socked feet hit the first level, Landon picked his head up from the tabletop.

“Scarlette, thank fuck.” His body remained hunched, his arms on the table, and he dropped his forehead to his forearms as he begged. “Help me, please.”

“I told you. Didn’t I try to help you last night?” I slammed ingredients on the galley countertop as I bitched. “It’s not my job to cure your hangover. It’s my job to keep you from getting one. Was it worth it? I hope so.”

“Shit bitch. Save the sermon for later. Or better yet, never.” He mumbled into the table.

Gage emerged from the stairway and had obviously heard the exchange. With a fistful of hair, he jerked the other man’s head up. “What the fuck did you just call her?”

“Leave him, Gage. He’s an idiot.” The phrase pertaining to the obnoxious drummer was becoming one of my more common admonishments. Jamming the top on the canister and holding it for good measure, I hit the blender button.

“I’m sorry, Scarlette… Fuck, fuck. Just stop! Fuck!”

I whirled around in time to see Gage release Landon’s head, and Landon rub his skull as I had mine earlier after bumping it on my bunk. As I drizzled the smoothie into a cup, I glared over the mixer at the two of them, but a smile twitched my lips. Even if Gage had fucked someone else, or two someone elses, or three the night before, it felt good to have him come to my defense like a knight in shining armor—or a brother.

The ‘B’ word deflated my contented satisfaction.

“Any chance I could get one of those?”

Landon had already grimaced and made a run for the bathroom, slamming himself inside. Through the door drifted sounds of his condition—the rummage and then slam of the storage cabinet where the barf bags were kept, and retching.

“Sure?” I arched my brows when the heaves didn’t slow.

“What did you do to it?” With sudden understanding, Gage peered into the mixture.

“Just helping him clean out his system faster.”

“You’re evil, Sis.”

Stop it with the ‘S’ word!

I mixed a fruit smoothie, dumping an electrolyte juice into the concoction. After blending and serving him, I cleaned up the mess and joined him on the couch in front of the television.

The others gradually descended from the top level, blinking the sleep from their eyes. As it turned out, Landon was in the doghouse with even his longtime bandmates because tonight was a non-show night and a much anticipated hotel bed night. Because of Landon’s disappearance with a girl the night before and then his subsequent arrival at the bus in the early morning hours, we were still on the road instead of already checked into the hotel.

When at last we rolled into our town of respite, everyone began to gather their things. Once the bus stopped, no one wanted to be on it a moment longer.

I was cleaning out my bunk when I looked across to Gage’s bag yawning open atop his mattress.

Practically an invitation to look.

Fighting my pathetic impulse to snoop, I zipped my guitar into its shoulder carrier and listened, attuning my ears to the stairway. Losing the battle with my conscience, I took advantage of this moment alone. I twisted in the narrow aisle, and stealthily bent, reaching inside his bag with both hands. Curving my fingers into crane-like scoops, I burrowed through the disorderly mass of clothing to the bottom of the bag.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five
. Damn it. A couple of the foil packets slipped through my fingers and I lost count.
One. Two. Three
. This time I collected them into one hand and searched with the other.
Four. Five. Six. Okay. There should be two more
. I tightly clutched the ones I’d found and frantically scraped around in the bag, praying to find the other two.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gage’s bellow may as well have been an air horn; I lurched so violently some of the condoms fell, each miraculously into the bag.

At the same time, I jerked my other hand clear of his belongings. “I… Um… I thought I might need…”
Holy fuck he was looking angrier by the second.
He remained frozen, his mouth agape as he eyed my hand full of neat foil squares while I stammered. “I was just going to borrow…” And quicker than I could blink, he’d stalked the distance between the two of us and towered over me.

In one rough swipe, he seized the rest of them from my clutch and lobbed them at the bag so hard a couple of them bounced out. “Like hell!” His dark gaze was a dangerous glitter and his nostrils flared. “You need condoms, Scar? You get ’em from somewhere else.
Anywhere
else. The fuck!”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” My apology was a squeak. What the hell had I been thinking?
What a stupid, stupid lie
. On the one hand, seeing the pain in his face seemed justified given my agony of watching him with other women last night. On the other hand, I never wanted to hurt him. Ever. “I am. Really.” I reiterated my apology and since he was still a wall between me and my bunk, I took a step to the side. “Can I get by? Please?”

It was several long hard beats of my heart before he stepped aside, grabbed his bag without zipping it, left the fallen condoms on the floor, and departed. The rhythmic stomp of each stair stabbed at my ears. As the bus rolled to a stop, I took my time, checking my bunk for anything I might have overlooked, although I’d already cleaned it thoroughly, and at this point, I didn’t give a shit if I forgot anything.

When enough time ticked by that the bus was surely emptied of the band, I shouldered my bags and bumped down the narrow staircase.

“There you are.” The tour manager offered to relieve me of my bags when I stepped into the hotel lobby. When I politely shook my head, he passed me a keycard. “Get some rest, sweetheart. You look beat.”

I smiled my thanks and zombie-walked into the elevator. Glancing down at the sleeve the card was in, I punched the correct floor number and sagged against the wall as the car began to move.

Rest
. Maybe I would do just that. Mix my own sleeping potion and snooze from now until my phone alarm went off for the next entry on the itinerary. According to today’s schedule, we were in Milan. Italy! However, I’d learned better than to sightsee on my own after becoming lost on foot in Austria. It had been a Google-Maps, Google-Translator, no-taxi-in-sight disaster, and I never wanted to feel that helpless again. Asking Gage to go with me was out of the equation for a while.

He would stew angrily for a few days and then act as if nothing happened. Gage couldn’t stay mad.

“Gage, tell your sister you’re sorry.”

“No. It was her fault.”

His father hadn’t convinced him to apologize for shoving me when unseen by our parents, I’d slapped him first. But despite being grounded for the weekend, by the time Monday rolled around, he’d surprised me with a poster from the newest Marvel movie given to him by a friend who had a producer father. He’d even helped me hang it, grinning and chattering the entire time.

Coming back to the present, I picked up the room service menu. While scanning it for my own rumbling stomach, I habitually created a text of foods advisable to the diet Landon and Gage were trying to maintain on tour. Before hitting ‘send,’ I backed Gage’s name off.

After unsuccessfully trying to play guitar, watch television, choose anything for myself to eat, take a nap, I gave everything up when I couldn’t stop thinking of the condoms. I was in the wrong just as I had been years ago in the slap/shove incident. I was an adult now and should be acting like one instead of waiting for Gage to forgive and forget. Standing before the mirror, I used my fingers to comb my hair into a ponytail and dabbed at the dark circles beneath my eyes with concealer. I sent a text to the tour manager, and the reply to my inquiry came back immediately.

Gage was just a few doors down from me. Staring at the four numbers in the text, I waited for courage to miraculously rain like manna from the heavens, but it didn’t. With the room number etched into my mind, I pocketed the phone. My legs felt like weighted sandbags as I stepped into the hallway and carried myself past one, two, and then stopped before the third door with the matching four numbers. Lifting a shaky hand, I knocked.

I had rapped three times over a five-minute period when I decided he was either sound asleep or out. Equal parts relief and depression overtook me when I turned away. The elevator pinged open down the hall and Gage stepped out.

His attention was on his phone screen as he walked. I drank him in as he closed the distance between us, unaware of my presence. Putting the device closer to his lips, he spoke, seemingly dictating a text.

“Haven’t decided. But I’m really in no position to say no. Not like anyone else is beating my door dow―” And here, he cut the end of his sentence off when he suddenly locked eyes with me.

His arm fell. The text appeared forgotten as his long legs, encased in the sexy straight jeans that looked so good on him, slowed their stride. He wore a belt today, which was rare for him, and I had a split second fantasy of it looped around my wrists.

What the hell?

Gage and I had never been straight vanilla, but neither had he ever restrained me with more than a grip of his long guitar picking fingers.

“Wassup, Sis?” His casual tone sounded recovered from his fury of a couple of hours ago, but his features were still stony instead of relaxed.

Stop calling me that!
“I have a confession.” Across the hall, a door opened, and one of the faces I recognized as a tech on the tour nodded at the two of us before departing toward the elevators. Unnerved at the interruption and our lack of privacy, I lost what focus I had. “Can I come in?” He’d made no move thus far to unlock his door, and I chewed at the inside of my lip while waiting for his ruling.

Without a word, he jabbed the keycard into the slot, flipped the latch, pushed the door open with one arm, and motioned with his chin for me to go ahead. After crossing the threshold, I hovered near the door when it clanged closed behind him. He flicked his phone to one of the tightly made beds and turned to face me, hands resting on his hips.

When I was quiet too long, he repeated, “Wassup, Sis?” And this time I was sure he’d stressed the ‘S’ word.

Shifting my weight, I forced the words out. “I was counting them.” My throat constricted, refusing to say the word condoms. His brows drew together, clearly not yet understanding what I was blabbing about, and I tried again. “I was going through your bag to count them. Not take them. See, when you left your bag with mine the morning of the festival—was it Budapest?” The towns were a blur. “It was the time you stayed in my room. I looked in your bag to make sure you had everything before our guys took the luggage. Anyway, I started folding the clothes that looked clean, and by the time it was all said and done, I noticed there were eight.” I braved a look and found his intent gaze roving my face. “Condoms. Eight. I don’t know why it stuck with me.”
Yeah you do…
“But this morning… This morning I just wanted to know if there were still eight.”

“Why?” His look had softened, and the borderline pity lurking in the depths of his dark eyes suggested he knew exactly why I’d felt the need to count condoms the morning after he’d had gorgeous women draped on his lap and rubbing against him on the dance floor.

I felt one of my shoulders lift in the barest shrug, and my reply was mumbled to the carpet fibers. “I don’t know.” There was no way I would say it aloud—would give a voice to the wondering if he’d banged one or more of those women against a bathroom stall. When I thought about it, despite the gentleness of his question, ‘why?’ had been a kind of asshole thing to ask me. Boldly, I lifted my gaze to his and tacked on, “
Bubbah
.”

I’d put up with ‘Sissy’ for the better part of a week, but ‘Bubbah’ was his undoing. I saw it in the set of his jaw and felt it in his fiery glare.

Pivoting away from me, he bent, jerked his bag from the floor, and slung it onto the bed. The grate of the zipper was loud in the silence that had settled. He upended the bag, letting the clothing free-fall to the bed. A charging pad and an electronic tablet bounced onto the mattress. His shaving kit skittered to the edge of the bed. Grabbing the foil packets as they appeared, he placed them together in a haphazard pile. But they were easy enough to count. Six. He seemed confused and frantically rummaged some more. When one of them fell to the floor, he stilled. Seemingly, we’d both remembered at the same time the two left on the bus floor.