Love on the Rocks (Love on Tour #1) (13 page)

18

Before any of us could respond to him, Sean pushed Mike out of the way and knelt down in front of me. He moved the ice pack and cupped my chin in his hand.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Actually, I’m worried about Mike. I think he might need stitches.”

But Sean didn’t seem to hear me. He got up and spun around. He grabbed Mike by the shirt and shouted. “What the fuck happened to her face?”

I stood up, alarmed. “Sean, it wasn’t his fault.”

Mike didn’t look scared. Instead, he looked resigned to his fate. “She wanted to come back and some douchebag punched me while we were making our way through the crowd. My head hit her face.”

“Hey, you gotta go on, Sean!” One of the roadies shouted from nearby.

Sean whirled back around and leaned over me. “Why did you want to come back?” He asked gently.

“Honey, please, we can talk about this later?” I pleaded.

He kissed my forehead, very tenderly, then spun around to Mike again.

“Call the Doc and don’t let her out of your fucking sight.” Then he stomped off.

Mike took the icepack from my hand and pressed it to my cheek again. “That went better than I expected.”

“Better?” I asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, I didn’t get punched in the face.”

“Speaking of which, will you please take care of this?” I touched his lip again.

“Is this bothering you, Baby?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

Mike took my hand and pulled me down the hall to Sean’s green room, then into the bathroom. He sat me down on the closed toilet lid.

“Why are we in the bathroom together?” I asked.

“Because he said not to let you out of my sight and I need a sink and a mirror.”

I watched Mike clean out his cut and wash the dried blood off his chin.

“I think you need stitches.”

“I don’t need stitches, Baby. But I do need to call Doc Brown.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

That’s when Henry burst in. “I heard Baby got hurt.” He took one look at my face and he, too, freaked out. “Holy shit, what happened?”

“Look, Mike is the one who got punched. Not me. I just got knocked by his noggin is all.”

“Mike’s been punched before Baby, don’t worry about it,” Henry said. “You call the Doc yet?” He asked Mike.

“Trying,” Mike said, in what was now an ornery tone. He stepped out of the bathroom and into the green room.

I stood up and looked in the mirror. My cheek had turned a light purple and was slightly puffy. It was going to get worse before it got better.

“Did you hit the back of your head?” Henry asked.

“No, one of the security guys broke my fall.”

“That could be fractured.”

“I doubt it,” I told him. Though I wasn’t so sure. It did hurt like hell.

I shooed Henry out of my way and walked back into the green room in time to hear Mike finish his conversation on the phone.

Mike practically slammed the phone on the counter. “The Doc thinks he might know somebody in the area. He’s going to get back to me. What do you want to do in the meantime, Baby?”

“I want to watch Sean. And I want a beer and a cigarette.”

I figured at this point I deserved all those things. First, I had to put up with those insane women, then the crowd, then Sean’s freak out, and now these two mother hens.

So Mike and Henry set me up near the edge of the stage. They put me in a folding chair between them. I had a beer and a partial packet of American Spirits in my lap. Henry held the ashtray for me. And Sean was on stage. If my face didn’t hurt so much, it would be as good as it gets.

Sean looked over at me a few times, and missed a few lyrics as a result. I could tell he was distracted and angry. His energy was off the charts.

He left his band to do solos and made his way back stage. It was too loud for normal conversation back here. But he knelt in front of me again and looked at my face in the dim light. Then he kissed the end of my nose and walked with Mike to an area where they could have a conversation. They talked for a minute before he went back to the stage.

I leaned over and shouted into Henry’s ear, “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”

Henry just nodded.

About two songs later, Mike pulled me up and we walked down the hall back to Sean’s green room. Henry followed, but lingered in the doorway rather than entering the room. A man was in there waiting for us. He was dressed in ripped jeans and a Bantham
t-shirt.

“Baby, this is Dr. Haley. He’s going to take a look at you.”

“Hi, I’m Dani,”

“Hi, Dani. Forgive my appearance. They were able to track me down here at the concert.”

“You’re not high are you doc?” Mike asked.

“No. No. I’m working the ER tomorrow morning as a matter of fact. Dani, why don’t you have a seat?”

I obeyed the doctor and let him examine me. I told him I was hurting a little, but mostly I was just tired.

“Your body is in shock from the injury. It wants you to rest. It’s perfectly normal. Mike, do you think you could rustle up some over-the-counter painkillers? We’ll take the edge off that ache.”

Mike left the room and the doctor turned to me. “You got in the way of a fight, huh?”

“Something like that. I think Mike got it worse than me.”

“Yeah well, your boyfriend is much more worried about you than himself. Maybe you can talk him into letting me stitch his lip.”

I heard Henry chuckle from the doorway.

“Mike’s not my boyfriend. But I can try.”

****

I was barely able to stay awake and was now leaning on Henry. On my other side the doctor was moving and swaying to the music. He was clearly enjoying himself. I looked over at him and smiled. The doctor grinned back at me and opened his eyes wide, as if to say, ‘aren’t we two lucky people?’ I couldn’t agree more. I turned my head and leaned it into Henry’s chest. Henry stroked my hair. I closed my eyes.

When Sean’s set ended he came straight over to us. “Why don’t you quit cuddling with my girlfriend and get ready for the encore, Hank,” he said, crouching down in front of me again.

I sat up and rested my arms on his shoulders. “Hi, honey.”

Sean turned to the doctor. “Are you the Doc?”

The doctor, looking very much in shock, nodded.

“Is she okay?”

Dr. Haley explained about my being tired and assured Sean it was normal. Then he explained about the ER and the x-rays. Sean told him we’d be there first thing in the morning. Then he thanked the doctor.

My leaning post had gotten up to join Sean on stage, so Mike took his place. Sean kissed me and laid me, reluctantly, into Mike’s arms before heading back on stage with Henry.

I was asleep by the time the show ended just two songs later. I was vaguely aware of Sean carrying me out to the bus. I wasn’t conscious of anything else until I woke up in pain.

It was definitely still the middle of the night when I woke up. There was a faint glow coming from one of those hotel night-lights, but no light peeked around the fringes of the curtains. My cheek was on fire.

When I stirred I could hear Sean’s concern. “You okay, Baby?” He was sitting up in bed, leaning against the headboard.

I sat up next to him. “I could use an aspirin.”

Sean reached over to the bedside table and retrieved a glass of water and two pills. “Here, Baby. This is the best I can do right now. We’ll get you something stronger when we go in to see the doctor in the morning.”

I took the pills and downed the glass of water. My eyes were adjusting and I could see Sean better now. He was staring at my face with a naked look of concern, his brow puckered up.

“Do I look like Frankenstein?” I gingerly touched my cheekbone. I found it to be surprisingly puffy.

“I’ll get the ice pack,” he said quietly.

He walked across the room to the mini-frig and returned with the icepack carefully wrapped in a washcloth. For a while we sat there, side-by-side, in silence, me with the ice on my face and Sean gently rubbing my thigh.

Then I heard his voice in the dark, quiet and anguished. “I’m so sorry, Baby.”

I turned to face him. “Sean, this is not your fault. I’m the dumbass who wanted to change spots during the intermission in the middle of a rowdy crowd in freaking Detroit.”

“Three weeks, Baby. You’ve been with me three weeks. And in that time you’ve been drugged, knocked around, and had your picture plastered all over the internet. Tell me that you would have this much trouble if I was a busboy at Denny’s.”

I almost laughed at him, but thought better of it. “Well, if I hadn’t been with you, I’d have been traveling and hiking alone these past three weeks. I could have run into a bear, taken a fall, drown–”

“Stop,” he said, louder than normal. “That’s not the point and you know it.”

“Sean,” I said, placing a hand on his cheek, “I wouldn’t trade it.”

We were quiet again for a while. He searched my face. Then he asked a hard question. “Tell me why you wanted to come backstage.”

I hesitated.

“You were all excited about watching me from out front. Then at intermission you just tell Mike you want to leave. He didn’t hear what was being said between you and the girls, but he’s not stupid, he knows you were upset. What happened, Baby?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“If you don’t tell me I’ll think the worst,” he persisted.

I was embarrassed as hell, and more important, I didn’t want to upset him. But the bottom line was that we both valued honesty. And I needed to step up to the plate.

“I was stupid. I thought it would be good if I could get along with the other women, and Michelle presented that opportunity. Everything went great at the bar before the show. And then during the intermission they started talking.” I paused.

“About what?” Sean prompted.

“There’s this thing called the ‘The Deuce.’ Have you heard of it?”

“Yeah, I know what that means.”

“It’s gross,” I told him.

“Yes. Hank and I have tried to discourage it. But some things take on a life of their own. They were talking about this?”

“Yes. Specifically, Michelle was talking about her ambitions. I probably should have just walked away then, but I got mad.” I waited to see his reaction to this.

“Of course you did.”

“Yeah, and I flew off the handle a little bit. I told her that nobody was going to be sleeping with you but me.”

“Damn right.”

“Damn right. But her reaction was so messed up. She was calm and matter-of-fact as she told me that it was okay, I could have Hank for the night.”

“Over my dead body.”

I smiled at him. It hurt a little, and I tried not to wince.

“That was bad enough to make me want to get away from those girls, but then this other girl, her name is Ricki.” I looked to see if there was any recognition. He just looked back at me, waiting. “Ever hear of her?”

He shook his head, “Doesn’t sound familiar. Why?”

“Well she claimed to have slept with you.”

“I don’t think so, Baby.”

I shrugged. “Whatever right. It’s not like that won’t happen. We already ran into one of my exes and one of yours on this trip. It’s bound to happen.” I tried to sound casual. “But that’s not it. It’s that they were talking about having sex with you right in front of me. Who does that? Who behaves like that?”

Sean looked in my eyes. “Baby, I say this with no pride. I’ve slept with quite a few women. I do remember all their names though, first names at least. And for each woman I’ve actually slept, with there are a dozen more that claim I did, like that Ricki girl.”

“And the other women? Were you as overprotective with them as you are with me?”

I didn’t want to fight with him. But we did need to talk about this.

“Not really, no. But obviously I’m not over-reacting. Look what happened tonight.”

I shifted on the bed so I was facing him more fully. “There’s something I want to ask you about.”

“Anything.”

“Your sister. Your mom said you’re really protective of her.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “It’s a family trait.”

“She made it sound like more than that.”

He was doing that long pause thing again. He was searching my face and choosing his words. I waited.

“Her Senior year in high school she was raped.”

“What?” This was not was I was expecting. I was floored.

“So, I came home from school for a couple months to be with her.”

“Oh my God.”

“It was a tough time. But I think Stacey actually handled it better than the rest of us, certainly better than me.”

“What happened to the guy?”