Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (30 page)

“Nope. No, no, no. Off with the pants. There you go. Oh yeah, honey… You know what? Put the heels back on… Now get down and give me a smooth surface…”

“You have to keep your back very straight.” An offer of advice allegedly from the original ‘table.’

I reached the landing, turned and ran to my bunk where I ripped my headphones from the amp, plugged them into my phone, and brought up the music app. With music cleansing my ears, other thoughts flooded in.

How long had Landon been using? How long had I stupidly been boosting him with vitamins and organic energy while all the time he was back to stuffing synthetic speed up his nose?

This entire venture was a failure. I was nothing more than a babysitter—and not a very good one apparently—to drug addicts.

I’d been through several Fire Flight songs, lost in the catacombs of my mind when I heard shouting. Lifting one of the noise-reducing earbuds, I listened.

“Just get rid of the girls. Get ’em out, right now…”

“You get the fuck out…”

“Scarlette is upstairs…”

“Really? Get her naked and get her down here. We’ll make a movie―”

Cringing at the thud of the punch that followed, I leaped from the bed and flew to the bottom deck. What followed was a brawl of epic proportions. I had to call Jal to break it up.

Departure was delayed while Landon was stitched up. The tour manager accompanied the drummer to the first aid station. Alone with Gage, I wet paper towels and dabbed at his scrapes while he grumbled about the other man’s piercings that were the cause of the blood on his knuckles.

“You shouldn’t have hit him.”

“Don’t start on me.”

I was startled and stung by the vehemence in his voice. Wadding the paper towel in my hand, I decided he could take care of himself. Screw him. But when he spoke next, I realized his tone had stemmed from the adrenaline not yet drained from his system.

“I’m not that angry person anymore. I wasn’t looking for an excuse to fight. Truthfully though, I might’ve been waiting for an excuse to hit
him
.” He hung his head as he dabbed at his arm with a paper towel. “And then when he came at me like a rabid ape… If he wasn’t going to stop, I wasn’t either.”

“I wasn’t bitching at you. I was…”

His eyes were suddenly all over my face, stopping on my lips as I spoke. But now that I’d trailed off, thrown by the intensity of his regard, his charcoal gaze met mine. “You what?”

“I was…”

The pad of his thumb landed on my lower lip.

“…was wanting to hit him myself…”
Sweet heaven
. I became putty beneath his touch every time, particularly this one. The smooth stroke of his thumb with just the right pressure and gentleness. His strokes paused and his brows arched. “I wish I’d let you get the first punch in then.” When he resumed the ministration, I touched my tongue to his thumb and felt a groan lodge in my throat. Dampened, it felt, as always, like a kiss. When seconds ached by, I opened my eyes to his, having just that instant realized they’d drifted closed at some point. Was he deliberately dragging this out? I tasted him again, and slid my hands over the stretch of his tee shirt.

“Are you gonna kiss me or not?”

“If I say ‘not?’”

For a second, a disappointed stab pierced my heart until I registered the tone had been sexy and light and I fired the same right back at him. “Then I say cut this shit out.”

His mouth crashed to mine, urgent and then tapering to tender. I could handle the fires of pent-up passion. It was the tender moments that always riled an internal rebellion. The tiny stabbing second of fear a moment ago, was enough to tell me how paranoid I was about his affections. After all, he’d shown he was capable of pushing me away in a fit of jealousy. I never wanted to put myself in that position again.
Right?

Still it was a Gage kiss. The damn rock-star technique. My hands ignored the push-him-away signal my brain sent and instead glided up, locking to the back of his neck. His palm cupped my head, and his thumb, deprived of my lips, tickled the contours of my ear.

I became seated on the table, eventually hanging from him when the passion of the kiss and his weight progressively forced me back.

A shout and then an ensuing conversation between two men just outside the bus walls brought us both from our passionate stupor. As he straightened, pulled me to my feet, and turned, swiftly pulling open a cabinet, I was forced to acknowledge how vulnerable we were to discovery. Any one of the bus crew could walk in at any moment.

“I’m making some popcorn. Let’s watch a movie.” He began pulling out the makings.

“I don’t wanna be down here when they get back.” I threw a glance at our movie-watching couch.

“We’ll watch it up there.”

Once, only once had we watched a movie, both crammed into his bunk. I couldn’t even recall what movie. That’s how distracting it had been to lie against the heat and hardness of his body—as ‘Sis.’

Did he remember what movie it had been? I skimmed my gaze over his broad shoulders and down his back to the masculine flow of his waist into the eye candy of his ass.

“Grab you a drink and go on up. I’m doing it up extra spicy. That cool?”

I mumbled some sort of verbal affirmation and realized I’d just agreed to all of the above by answering that nonchalant question. No one was smoother than Gage.

Upstairs, I dropped my pomegranate juice onto my bed—yes, he had me addicted to the stuff now—and took a moment to make use of the bathroom.

I dilly-dallied around with my hair, checked my face for blackheads, and stray brow hairs, and anything until I heard his tread on the stairs. Emerging, I found a bowl filled with popcorn and a few napkins on my bunk next to my juice. The same rested on Gage’s bed. He was holding his tablet and turned to me. “What are we watching?”

Instead of deliberating movies with him, I found myself blurting, “He was doing coke.”

Gage’s eyes stayed on the tablet for a few seconds too long, before he looked up.

“Landon was fucking doing coke.” I repeated unnecessarily; I’d already seen the resignation shadowing his eyes, and his answering blink told me what I suspected. It had been no surprise to him. Gage knew. “How long?”

He focused back on the electronic screen, swiping his finger this way and that, clearly uneasy with and avoiding my question. When I firmly repeated it, he sighed.

“No idea, really. I’ve noticed it off and on since not long after the start of the tour.”

A rush of air passed through my mouth when my jaw dropped just as I sucked in a breath. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He seemed uncomfortable and paced a few steps closer. “I don’t know. A lot of reasons.”

A turmoil of reactions boiled. Anger. Betrayal. Fatigue.

He was watching my face as closely as I watched his, and suddenly his eyes widened. “
I’m
not doing it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Was that what I was thinking? That Gage was using again? And if it was in my thoughts, would he lie about it? I tried to think if Gage had ever fibbed to me other than by omission.

“Look. I’m the new guy. The unwanted fill-in member of this band. At first, I guess I didn’t want to stir shit up. And then he saw us together that day… After the shower…” His eyes burned intimately into mine, sharing the memory. “It was easy to keep him quiet about what he saw when I had something on him.” Something in his tone—far more earnest than his lost-boy wheedle over last ice cream bars—begged my understanding.

“I know.” Relenting, I relaxed my battle stance, and my body swayed toward him. “I know this Rattler gig hasn’t been easy for you.”

“You either. Don’t get mad if I say this. You don’t belong here, Scar. You’ve been great with what you’re doing. With
everything
. You being here is the only reason I’ve made it through this tour without losing my mind. But this isn’t the life you belong in. Not in a bus with a bunch of degenerates.”

“This tour is just a learning experience. So that I can send someone else out into the field if I do this for real. If I open this type of practice.” I deliberated a moment and then added honestly. “And I came because of you. I wanted to be sure everything went okay for you.”

The answering look in his eyes had me wanting to throw myself on him again. Instead, I kept talking. “I’m glad I did when it comes to you. But, knowing that Landon’s been using all along makes me feel stupid and useless. I’ve had my doubts lately. I’m not sure anymore this is what I want to do. Shit, Gage. I’ve just finished all that school, and now I’m…” I couldn’t say it. That I was feeling like the direction of my studies had been a big mistake.

“You’re gonna figure it out. You’re upset and disillusioned right now. Whatever you figure out, it’s never too late to change things up. Damn, Scar. The world is your oyster and all of that. Money is no object. You’re…”

“I know. One of the lucky ones.” Why did ‘lucky’ feel so bitter on my tongue?

“I was going to say incredible. At anything you do.”

Damn. There was no fighting it. I was hopelessly in love with this man. Always had been. Always would be. Still, in the interest of self-preservation, instead of falling into his arms, I followed that pivotal realization with a simple, “Thanks.”

“I haven’t showered yet.”

Is that an invitation?

If you want it to be.

Our minds communicated through our locked gaze.

The bus rumbled to life with a mighty hum, vibrating the floor beneath our feet and effectively breaking the trance. If the driver was warming up the bus, it meant everyone was on their way back.

“I’ll just be two minutes.”

True to his word, he was quickly back just as the babble of voices sounded downstairs. We settled on the movie and each rolled into our own cave. Beneath my bunk, I heard him making himself comfortable. I listened to his “One, two, three, play!” and hit the button on my own tablet before settling my headphones on. We texted each other through the first quarter of the movie until I fell asleep.

Rotterdam the very next evening
was the last stop on the bus leg. The show in a popular pub and theatre had ended just over an hour ago. As had become my habit, I’d come almost directly to the bus afterward. I busied myself doing a preliminary gather of my belongings. Before the night was over, we would abandon this mode of transport for the train, and chill in a hotel while the truck with the gear caught up. The remaining gigs were spaced farther apart at this leg of the tour, and the last was a support slot in a festival with a yearly attendance of over a hundred thousand. Fire Flight would be the headlining band on the same stage, that same date, at that festival, and I knew although it wouldn’t be easy for Gage, he was looking forward to seeing Colt.

The small crowd outside stirred, their shouts filtering through the bus walls, and I peeped out to see Rattler parting the sea of fans. Heading them up, walking backward just in front of staff security was a young woman. Her arms stretched above her, holding a totem with what looked to be a camera or video camera attached.

The guys looked to be having fun, signing autographs—on skin—and posing for pictures with fans. They neared, and the young woman stepped aside as the bus door was held open. Gage was the first to board. High on the after-show energy, he winked and curved one of those toe-curling smiles that came so naturally.

He seemed to move with purpose as he stalked my way, and in a mild panic as the rest of the guys filed onboard, I looked for escape. With another secret shit-eating smile, which was hidden from those behind him, he reached for the fridge door—and boob grazed me in the process!

I sucked up his post show essence, and my nipples reacted, as always his to command. An attempt to slip by him only succeeded in treating—or torturing—myself with another bold and personal contact with his arm.

“Did I tell you?” His whisper warmed my ear. “I dreamed about them this morning.” Popping the cap from one of Landon’s fancy label bottled waters, he took a swig, and his voice was normal pitch with his next words. “So good.” With a lick of his lips, he made the declaration that only the two of us knew had nothing to do with a refreshing drink.

My back hit the pole of the stairway, and I clambered up several steps and sat. The woman was on the bus now, and Landon appeared to be leading a bus tour.

“…the driver’s area. …And this TV is for movies. The one in the back we use for games.”

“What games do you guys play?”

My attention on the interview-slash-bus-tour wavered every time Gage swallowed a sip. Watching the bob of his throat was far more interesting.

“…our kitchen. And oh look, it’s stocked with assholes
and
food.”