Love in Tune (2 page)

I turned my head to tell him exactly what I thought of being
chill
at the moment. That’s when I noticed the earpiece he wore and shifted to the other ear, nearly brushing noses with him as I did.

“Do you have security here?”

“Nope. Just me and the guy at the door.”
 

My gaze narrowed as I took in the fifty-plus people hovering around the stage. Off to the left was an oversized guy leaning against the wall with a cap pulled low. On the other side was a woman who looked like she could take out a small platoon. She was dressed to party, but there was something definitely not at-ease about her. I found two more in the crowd, one behind the counter, the guy at the door, and a couple sitting by the bathroom in the back.

Even I couldn’t argue with that. It was probably overkill for the size of the venue. Eight. Well, nine if I was going to count Kyle.

I was
not
counting Kyle.

I gave him a look.

He gave me a look back.

My knees started doing that darn wobbly thing.

He winked.
 

And then, I was back to wanting to kill him.

“Why don’t you enjoy the show?” He put his hands on my waist, lifted me onto the counter, and leaned in. “You know, relax a bit and try to see what makes everyone so gaga over this guy.”
 

I glared at him. This was
so
not what I needed.

“You’ve got, what, two-and-a-half hours to get him back to the bus, right?”

Darn him for being right. I felt my head jerk down in a nod.

“He’s doing this as a favor for a friend. Just relax. It’s under control. Let go of all that stress.”

“Yeah, with you and the door guy running the show?” I pushed, seeing if he’d admit the security plan and put me at least a little at ease.

He shook his head. “Melissa, Melissa, Melissa. Don’t disappoint me like that.”

So he saw me make his guys. All right. Fine.
 

“You wouldn’t know what stress was if it was killing you.”

He mumbled something under his breath that sounded vaguely like, “
You have no idea.”
But, instead of backing that up, he leaned even closer, his cheek brushing mine and spoke so close to my ear it felt like he was in my head. “You need to understand, to see what it’s all about. You do all the work and make everything run like a machine. And, that’s…impressive. For sure. But you don’t
get it.
”

We stood there, the heat of him seeping into me as music that usually pounded my body through my earplugs played smoothly in the background via the mic’d acoustic. I was suddenly aware of the way Kyle leaned into me and his hand at my waist and the bristles of his end-of-the-day scruff against my cheek.
 

I let myself imagine just for a moment that Kyle was mine and that he treated me like gold. When I looked up at him that must have been written on my face because everything narrowed down to us.
 

“You don’t get a lot of things,” he pushed, and I had a lightening bolt of a feeling that he wasn’t talking about the tour. That he knew exactly the tug of war my heart played when it came to him.

So, I did what any sane woman would do.

I backed the heck off, trying to look cool while I did it.

Kyle grinned at me, as if he knew what had just rushed through me. His hand slid off my waist and down my thigh to stop just above my knee.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” He ran a hand down my cheek surprisingly tender in what could only be an attempt to hypnotize me to his will. “I won’t let anyone kill him tonight.”

With that, he strode off. To anyone else, he appeared to be mingling, but it was definitely a sweep. It gave me a chance to take in the set up, and the security, and the phones all in a basket by the door. Everything as I would have done it…well, except for the muscle-overkill.

This was a new side of Kyle. But, I was finding it really difficult to buy.
 

I considered calling in my own team, but after a glance at the people in place it seemed that even if he didn’t know what he was doing, they did. A good team would know when to ignore the money and just do the job.

Hopefully this was that team.

Hopefully we weren’t one song away from a riot.

I really shouldn’t have left the trailer without my stun gun.

Well, that would teach me, wouldn’t it?
 

THREE

"IF YOU'RE going to sit on my counter, you need to order something.”

I turned to find an annoyed teenager staring at me, arms crossed.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re on my counter.”

“I was put here.” What? It was the truth.

The teen’s gaze drifted after Kyle and I realized why it was okay for him and not for me.

He worked the room and for just the flash of a moment, I saw him again as I had the first time. He didn’t have the bulk of a detail or the looks of a front man or the polish of an agent. But he drew the eye. Even with His Majesty at the front of the room, female gazes traveled after Kyle, running across his shoulders and down to that rear that followed him around wherever he went.

“Yeah, but groupies are dirty and I don’t let dirt on my counter.”

“Abby.” An exasperated noise came from the man who walked up to us. “Way over the line. So far past the line I think you blew the line up as you went over it.”

The girl shifted her angry look to the man as he smiled up at me.
 

“We’re working on customer service.”

“She—” Abby poked a finger in my direction. “Is not a customer.”
 

“Anyone in
my
café is a customer.”

“But, she’s on my—the counter.”

“And if we were actually serving people that might be a problem. And then we’d ask her—politely—to hop down.” The man with the messy hair gave me a smile that made me want to do just about anything he gently asked. He stuck his hand out. “I’m John. Dalton’s investment guy.”

I glanced around the café and back at John. “His M—I mean, Dalton’s
investment
guy?”

“See? She doesn’t believe you either. You need to dress the part if you want to be taken seriously.” The teen stomped off, shaking her head and calling over her shoulder, “At least make her buy a cheese puff.”

John shook his head and gave me an apologetic smile. “Yeah. I used to be a senior private advisor and a couple clients stayed with me when I opened this café.”

“What investment firm?”

He named a place and I tried not to let my eyes go wide. Okay, so the guy might not be all fluffy hair.

“My fiancé, Sarah, thought we should start doing live music.” John grinned as he waved a hand at the stage. “Helluva way to kick it off, huh?”

So, the mysterious Sarah was really the one I needed to
thank
for this. Even café owners could be swayed into chaos by a woman.

If only I were a chaos swaying woman.

“So,” he went on, “you’re one of Dalton’s people.”

I tried not to growl. I hated that saying. As if we all just existed to make Dalton’s life go smoothly. Of course, most days that was true, but I didn’t need the world defining me that way.

“I’m his…handler. For lack of a better word.”

John glanced around and looked a little ill. “Oh.”

Great. Who knows what he’d heard.

Before I could guess, a hand slid across my back, pulling me out of the need to worry about it. The room was packed and the music was flowing and people had definitely pre-partied before coming to the café. It could have been any guy coming to the counter and wanting to move past me…or hit on me. But I knew it was Kyle. I knew it and my body gave a little shudder.

Stupid body.

I wish this were a new problem. I’d been all bright eyed and bushy tailed the first day on the tour. I’d assumed any sane person would be excited to have someone take care of the details and make things go smoothly. But, no. Not His Majesty.

Of course, there was still the question of his sanity.

Anything I wanted to do was wrong. Or a pain. Or slowing him down. Or stupid. I’d known within two hours that this job was severely underpaid.
 

Of course, it would have been underpaid at four-times what it paid. But, someone in my position only left a tour if they were fired or put in the hospital. Which sadly happened more frequently than you’d think.

So, when Kyle walked into the room that first day and was introduced as His Majesty’s best friend, I assumed he was the voice of reason. I also assumed that if I got to work with him every day I’d be the happiest girl on the planet. There were pheromones. Knee-weakening, heart-stuttering, brain-stalling pheromones.
 

He may not have been the rock star, but when he walked in a comfortable pace or two behind His Majesty, my gaze slipped right past the leather-clad celebrity to Kyle’s soft flannel-covered, hard-muscled shoulders. The girls between us all but threw themselves at His Majesty, begging for signatures on places even my general practitioner didn’t typically see.

But I, stupid girl that I was, had blushed when Kyle’s gaze traveled over the throng and clashed with mine. And when he winked, I thought my knees would give and I’d be trampled in the groupie stampede.
 

To get past it, I focused on my new job, busying myself checking the schedule and politely moving the fans out of the room. I’d known from the start I’d have to play the bad guy to let His Majesty come off as the idol reluctant to leave his people. I just wasn’t prepared for how manipulative it would all be. I thought it would all be fun and excitement.

But, no. Nothing had gone the way I expected that first day.

Everything I suggested, His Majesty shot down. Even if it was just offering him a cup of coffee. If it came out of my mouth, it was wrong. It was like he wanted me to quit on day one and save us all the effort. The problem was I couldn’t quit.
 

But, Kyle…
 

Kyle had been just as bad. Whatever His Majesty suggested, Kyle was up for. He was the friend riding the coattails and enjoying the party. I’d been disgusted. I didn’t think people like that really existed. Weren’t most artists smart enough to know who their true friends were?

Not that Kyle wasn’t a good friend. They’d grown up together and you could tell they had some type of bro-bond. But that didn’t mean hanging on to the edges was okay.

When it had come to getting them on the bus, His Majesty had said he had enough time on buses and he thought he’d go for a walk.
 

Of course I knew that blowing the schedule on day one was the fastest way to getting me fired.

So did His Majesty.

So did Kyle.

I’d thought his friend would want to keep things moving along smoothly, to be the balance to the temperamental artist thing.
 

But when I’d glanced his way, he shrugged and said they’d get to the bus when they got to the bus. Then, and I quote, “Why don’t you take your tight-assed, calendar pushing self and wait on the nice AC cooled bus? I wouldn’t want you to get all
glisteny.
”

They’d shown up at the bus, sweating and annoyed ten minutes later and we’d left.
 

And that had been that.
 

Kyle had been undermining me for the last three months, making sure His Majesty got to do whatever he wanted and that I was constantly playing cleanup or catch up.
Or both.

“Thinking about me?” Kyle’s brows rose just a bit to drift under the flop of hair he was always pushing out of his eyes.

“No.” I dared myself to look him straight in the eye as I lied. I’d gotten good about lying when it came to Kyle MacLean.

“Sure you are. You always turn pink when you’re thinking about me.” He dropped his chin lower, his nose running along the place next to my ear. “Don’t worry. I’m thinking about you too.”

And, before I could figure out what in the world that meant, he was gone again. Hand over his ear with the piece in it, off to check in with the big guy at the door.

“So, Kyle is your boyfriend?”
 

Oh, yay. Angry Teen Abby was back.

“No.”

“You’re just hooking up with him.”

“What?”

“You and Kyle. You’re like his little something-something on the road?”

“
No.
” I glanced around wondering where her keeper had gone to.

“Yeah.” Abby snorted. “I totally believe you. Do you want something to drink or not. John said to be nice to you.”

I wondered how closely those sentences went together and shook my head. Better safe than really,
really
sorry.

Just then, the crowd cheered, bringing up the noise to a point I thought the cops would bust in any second.

His Majesty stood on the stage, waving his arms to quiet them down.

“I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. When I lost the bet with John and knew I’d be singing on such a small stage I thought, Well, Dalton, let’s see if you can still carry a tune.”