Someone to Watch Over Me (26 page)

“Amen to that,” Carter muttered, and walked
out of the room. Jake left shortly thereafter. Shane followed,
after throwing down a second shot.

“No rules tonight,” Tate qualified. “You’re
here to have fun.”

Raising my hand, I gave him a three-finger
salute. “No holds barred.”

“Taylor will be with you, and Marshall
too.”

“It’s not my first concert, Tate.”

“I know, but I want you to let yourself go
tonight. They won’t let you do anything stupid like getting hurt.”
Pouring a second shot, Tate lifted the glass and offered it to
me.

Fuck it. It was a onetime deal. In two
weeks, Tate would go on his way. My life would return to some
semblance of normality. Our time together would be one extended
long weekend of blissful immoderation. Everyone deserved to indulge
themselves on occasion, right?

Christ, I’d lived the straight and narrow
for so long that I almost forgot what it was like to be twenty-one.
The twenties were supposed to be the time you did things you’d
regret, party till you passed out, found yourself, fell in love,
lived check-to-check. You were supposed to live on the edge,
experiment with lovers, with drugs and engage in general
recklessness.

So I was doing it a little backwards.

As I swallowed the second shot, Tate grinned
and pressed a kiss to my lips. “Alive, strawberry girl, you make me
feel so fucking alive.”

A smile curled my lips.

“Come with me.”

I didn’t say no. Instead, I kissed him. I
didn’t want to ruin the night with false promises. It was perfect
as it was. When Sunday rolled around, I’d have to leave this
wonderful illusion and return to reality. I had a son to rear, and
in my head, these two vastly different lifestyles refused to
entwine.

Breaking the kiss, Tate leaned his forehead
against mine. His hands stayed in my hair, his long fingers
caressing my nape. “I love you, Cooper.”

“I love you too.”

Tate’s eyes glinted darkly. Letting me go,
he started backing away, toward the exit. “They’re gonna write
songs about us, strawberry girl. What we got…it’s the stuff of
legends.”

Standing on my tiptoes, I watched with a
dopey smile as he backed out the door and disappeared around the
corner. Strangely enough, that giddy high didn’t fade when he left.
His ardor was contagious. I could almost believe that life could be
as easy as he declared.

“Coop!” Smiling widely, Marshall came
through the door. He opened his arms wide, and caught me when I
hurtled into him. “Shit, Coop, you look like a million bucks.”

“And you look like one bad mother fucker.”
He had on a navy tee, marked with distinguishable yellow letters
that spelled out ‘security’ across his upper back, and the emblem
of a shield on his chest. Lifting my hand, I brushed a piece of
lint from his shoulder. “Lookit, you got the t-shirt and
everything. You’re official.”

“I finished two of the three courses. Still
working on firearms.”

“How long will that take?”

“I had to get my carrying permit first. Next
week I have to finish forty-eight hours of mandated training. But
all that’s nothing. I still have unarmed combat, tactical driving,
screening and controlling crowds, martial arts, and electronic
surveillance to complete. Most of those I’ll begin next year, once
the tour is complete.”

“So you’re really going to join the
tour.”

“Somebody’s gotta look after you.”

Just like that, my smile fell. Was everyone
under the same delusion as Tate? “Marshall, I never said I was
going.”

“Your fiancé thinks you are.”

“Ugh!”

“Come on, Cooper. You’re in love with the
guy. It’s written all over your face.”

Yeah, yeah it was. I couldn’t disagree
there.

“Besides, what’ve you got to lose? Is
sourcing costume jewelry and waiting tables so rewarding? This is
what you dreamed of your whole life. You told me so yourself.”

Marshall gave me that ‘matter-of-fact’ brow
arch.

“He never proposed. Not really.” With a
huff, I grabbed my beer and walked out of the room. We joked about
it. That’s all it was, light bantering. Nothing serious.

We joked about going to Vegas too, but it
wasn’t as if we were actually doing it.

In the hall, Taylor perked to attention.
“Miss Hale.”

“Coop, please.”

“Of course, ma’a—Coop,” Taylor corrected
himself, shaking his head. “After years in the service, some habits
are hard to break. If you’ll follow me, Coop, I’ll take you out to
the floor.”

“I can take this with me, right?” I held up
my Dogfish Head. I wasn’t leaving home without it. Taylor paused
and looked over his shoulder. I hugged the bottle like a teddy
bear, illustrating my affection for the beverage.

“Usually, no, but you’re with us
tonight.”

“Day-um! Taylor’s the may-on!” I said,
pumping my arm.

“It’s all part of the job,” Taylor
dismissed, trying not to laugh. “Tate told us to make sure you had
a good time tonight.”

“Gosh, he’s so thoughtful, Coop, don’t you
think?” Marshall observed. “He’s getting ready to perform for
twenty-five thousand people, and he’s thinking solely of your
entertainment.”

“He didn’t propose!” I exclaimed, spreading
my arms out wide in exasperation. I wasn’t one for talking with my
hands, but I was pumped up and feeling fine. “It was a joke.”

“Did he at any time say the words ‘marry
me’?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t serious.”

“Coop, hate to tell you, but he announced to
the greater Philadelphia area that you’re engaged. I think it’s a
safe bet to assume he was serious.”

“Marshall.”

“Coop.”

“Try not to talk anymore. You’re killing my
buzz.” Twisting off the cap to my beer, I drowned out the voices
that told me Marshall was right. Tonight, I didn’t care. I wanted
to have fun. I could deal with Tate’s fabricated marital
engagements tomorrow or the next day.

Taylor led us out a side door that locked
only from the outside. He and Marshall both had swipe cards to gain
reentrance if needed. I wasn’t sure where I was standing. Tate and
I never discussed it in length. I just knew that I would have
Marshall and Taylor with me.

The first thing I noticed was the waist high
fence separating the fans from the stage. There was seating to the
left and right, but fans along the pit tended to pack themselves in
front of the gate like cattle during feeding time. If the crowd was
as pumped as Tate warned, there was a considerable amount of
physical contact in the form of jumping, shoving and dancing as you
pushed your way to the stage. All of this was encouraged and part
of the experience.

“Can I stand in the pit?”

“That’s—and these are Tate’s words, not
mine—out of the question,” Taylor apologized. No bother, where they
took me was the next best thing. That four-foot section in front of
the fence where all the bouncers hung out, that’s where they let me
stand. The loss of the pit experience was well worth the unimpeded
view of the stage. I mean…I could see
everything
.

“So what’s new, Coop?” Marshall inquired,
standing with his back to the stage. Most of the fans in the pit
had packed themselves against the gate, anticipating Hautboy’s
entrance. Some had glow sticks. Others held cups of beer. Flashes
went off, blinding you if you made the mistake of looking into the
crowd. Those in the front were hand in hand, or holding onto the
fence, physically struggling to defend their space on the floor.
The crowd wasn’t so far gone that they were braving to scale the
waist high divider. Yet. In time, it would happen.

Looking up at Marshall, I stuck my tongue
out. He blinked and grimaced.

“Good lord, Coop, put that thing away. This
is a public establishment. You can’t show that shit in here.”

“What are you talking about Marshall?”

“That knob massager for Christ’s sake. It’s
practically pornography.” Squeezing the bridge of his nose,
Marshall shook his head. “Things that I don’t want to see are
running through my mind already.”

“Pervert.”

“I have an active imagination.”

“Only you would have fantasies over a tongue
ring.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m not, and if I
were involved in those fantasies I might feel differently, but
right now all I’m picturing is you and my employer.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I’d swear I saw
Taylor laughing, but when I turned my head, his face was
expressionless. For some reason, this made me giggle
uncontrollably.

I think the JD was starting to kick in.

“It just isn’t right, Cooper.”

“Wanna see what else I had pierced,
Marshall?” Grasping the hem of my shirt, I tugged it up a few
inches, bearing my torso. From the pit, I heard a few hoots and a
“Take it ooofffffff!”

Marshall reached and yanked it back down. In
a split second, he took the bottle from my hand, hitched me over
his hip, and carried me toward the exit.

“That’s it, you’re flagged. Who gave you
that shit anyway? They should’ve known better. Everyone knows
you’re a lightweight.”

“Tate. He gave me a shot of JD too.”

Setting me back on my feet, he gave me back
my beer and smacked my rump. “I’ll let you off easy this time, but
slow it down. The show hasn’t even started yet.”

“Jerk.”

“What did you say?”

“I said WORK, you’re in the right line of
work.”

Above, the lights flickered off, sending
everyone into silence for a brief second before the black lights
flickered on and everyone erupted into cheering. People began to
filter in through the entrance doors, either forfeiting their spot
in line for the bathrooms or the bar. You could actually
sense
the atmosphere charge. It was a palpable spark of
excitement. If the pit wasn’t already crowded, it was now. I could
almost feel them pressing at my back, despite the barrier.

Carter’s killer bass line began choking
through the amplifiers. A lone spotlight zeroed in on the
instrumentalist with the glossy brown curls. All conversation other
than ‘YEEAAHHHH” or “WWWHHOOOOO’ was positively lost in the roar of
the crowd.

Shane began pounding on his drums somewhere
in the back of the stage. I could barely see him because of the odd
angle of where I was standing, but my arm immediately went up in
the air and began pumping with the beat.

The keyboards were next in line. Jake’s
hands arched over the keys, skipping and dancing down the length of
the keyboard, hammering out a silvery treble down to a fuzzy bass
which he played with a soft dissonance that fell unobtrusively into
the background.

Spotlights began crisscrossing the stage,
highlighting the platforms and risers with ever-changing streams of
colored light. Several others worked the audience, highlighting the
fans as the camera men walked the edge of the stage, zooming in and
out of the pit.

Tears filled my eyes, and the real show
hadn’t even begun.

God, I was such a sap.

Tate began strumming a lick on his guitar
just before the last spotlight settled on him. As he opened in his
mouth and belted out the first line, flames burst from four points
along the back of the stage.

This is what I dreamed of

Traveling the world and free love

Cocaine, girls, booze and weed

What else could a man need

Except maybe some sanity

God where did I go wrong

My life’s a fuckin’ country song

I’m crying in my beer

Wondering what the hell I’m doing here

Where did I go wrong

Nick another hand rolled

To get me through this dog and pony show

Publicity and photo ops

My head’s spinning so fast it’s starting to
throb

What the fuck

Is that really me

I can’t recognize a single thing

Christian Dior, Michael Kor

Don’t know who I am anymore

Fancy colognes and designer clothes

I don’t need any of those

God where did I go wrong

My life’s a fuckin’ country song

I’m crying in my beer

Wondering what the hell I’m doing here

Where did I go wrong

Lose the jacket and the tie

I’m not that kind of guy

Fuck—You don’t like the way I dress

You can hit the road

Take a trip

If you don’t like my ways

You can all suck my

Lick your wounded pride

My manager said to no surprise

You crossed the Ts and dotted the Is.

God where did I go wrong

My life’s a fuckin’ country song

I’m crying in my beer

Wondering what the hell I’m doing here

Where did I go wrong

Drop on down the head shop

Blast a roach

Blast a tick

Shit

Roll me up another spliff

Parties, sex and rock and roll

Fuck it

If you can’t beat em

Why bother with self-control

God where did I go right

I’m living the easy life

Cocaine, girls, booze and weed

What else could a man need

Except maybe some XTC

I knew I looked ridiculous. I was
half-drunk. Yet I couldn’t stop from idolizing him on stage. He was
brilliant. He was captivating. All I could do was stare.

“Coop?” Marshall shouted over the crowd. I
had fallen still, gazing up at the stage with starlights in my
eyes. “Hey, man, you all right?”

“He’s beautiful!” Marshall laughed as I
stumbled forward and wrapped my arms around his chest. “God, he’s
so beautiful, Marshall! Just look at him!”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I
suppose.”

“You don’t get it. He’s mine! I feel like I
just won the fuckin’ lottery! That’s Tate Watkins! Tate Watkins is
in love with
me
!”