Songbird (19 page)

I nodded toward the band and they started the song. It was one of my
favorites,
Song for us
. I wrote it in the hospital when I was getting better. It was about celebrating the small things in life, not having to wait for the big moments to do it. I had put on five pounds that week, my parents brought me balloons to celebrate.

I couldn’t stop the tears completely during the song. I wiped them away as soon as they appeared but my gigantic face on the monitors around the place couldn’t hide them completely. Damn those unforgiving screens.

I earned a standing ovation at the end and I hurried back to the main stage so I could compose myself. I couldn’t break down in front of all those people, it would be mortally embarrassing just for a start.

Thankfully, the next song was a fast one so I could switch back to performance mode and forget all about my own emotions and feelings. I concentrated on entertaining my audience and ran with it.

I managed to keep up the pace for the rest of the concert. The moment I stepped backstage, I had one of the crew go rescue my parents before they were lost in the crowd. I waited in my dressing room for them, trying to push aside all the drama that had occurred there earlier in the night.

“Where’s my daughter? Let me through.” The voice of my mother brought a smile to my lips. Ryan was probably out there trying to stop her coming in so I could change out of my costume. If I didn’t change, it would hold up the crew being able to pack everything up for the night.

I made it to the door and peeked out. “It’s okay, let them through.” Ryan stood back reluctantly. Mom gave him her custom
I told you so
look on the way through.

In the next moment, I was enveloped in the familiar arms of my parents. Feeling like I was back to being
twelve years old again, I let them hug me until they had enough.

“What did you think of the show?” I asked when they finally released me.

“Oh, honey, it was wonderful. Those girls are so loud though, I’m surprised you aren’t deaf by now,” Mom said. Trust her to worry about my hearing, not one other person in the world would care that much.

“I wear earphones, mostly all I can hear is myself and the band,” I explained, hoping to put her concern
s at ease. “Thank you for coming tonight, it meant so much to me.”

“It meant a great deal to us too,” Dad said, his eyes a little watery too.

“I promise I won’t give you any more reasons to worry about me.”

“It’s our job,”
Mom replied warmly. “If we didn’t worry about you, what else would we have to do?”

“I’m sure you could find something else to occupy your time,” I countered. “Like bingo or something.”

“Oh, old people play that.” She looked disgusted with the thought, which only made me laugh. Even though they were older than the average parents of a twenty-four year old, they would never consider themselves aging.

We said our final goodbyes and I asked Demi to walk them out safely. They were going straight to the airport, I didn’t know when I would see them again. The tour would eventually wind back to Los Angeles, but it seemed like a world away at that moment.

C
hapter Twenty

I
took one last look around the hotel room, making sure I had everything. I had a habit of leaving things in hotels, contributing more than one cell phone to the staff pool.

Arms snaked around my stomach from behind, pulling me back so I rested on Forest’s chest. At least one good thing had happened in Miami. Making up with Forest was way more fun tha
n arguing with him.

“What are you looking for?” He asked, kissing the top of my head.

I shrugged. “Anything I might have left behind.”

“You left about a dozen things in your dressing room last night.”

I turned around, careful to stay in his embrace. I laced my hands on the nape of his neck. “Did someone grab them?”

“Demi made sure she had everything.”

“Demi is a lifesaver.”

He leant down and kissed my forehead. It wasn’t enough, I stood on tiptoes so I could get some lip action. His t
ongue ran along my bottom lip, promising of so much more if we had the time.

“Demi will also kill me if I’m late,” I pointed out. I instantly let him go, every muscle in my body protest
ing against the idea. My brain won that round, the threat of a slow and painful death was enough to get me moving.

I swept the room one more time, double checking the bathroom especially, I lost
count of how many hair straighteners I had to replace around the world. Hopefully someone enjoyed all my expensive GHD’s.

We made our way down to the tour bus and let each other’s hand go before climbing on board. I didn’t care who knew about us anymore, but I also didn’t want to flaunt what we had in front of anyone. The last thing I wanted was for people to think I was giving Forest preferential treatment on the tour. I may as well draw a target right on his chest.

I took a seat next to Demi in the front of the bus while everyone else gathered toward the back. I was vaguely aware of Forest getting involved in a discussion with Ace. Hopefully it wasn’t about me. I seriously needed to tone down the paranoia a notch or two.

“I see you and Forest have patched things up,” Demi started, fishing for information.

“Yeah, we had a good talk last night.” I didn’t add that it was followed by hours of rolling around naked together. One part was way more fun than the other. However, one was definitely more important. If we hadn’t spent an hour talking, the making up wouldn’t have happened.

What I most
liked about the previous night was that Forest and I proved we had something that was capable of lasting. It wasn’t just some convenient fun while on tour. We talked, we healed, we shared, we compromised. That was four things Braydon and I had never done.

“Forest and I are in a good place,” I added. “Plus, we had a nice dinner together and the last thing I wanted to do was sneak off to the bathroom. Same with breakfast this morning.”

“That’s great, Brier. Remember to take one day at a time.”

I nodded. The doctors told me that every single freaking day in the hospital. I still don’t understand why people think that’s so reassuring. One day still leads onto another, which then stretches out for eternity.

I changed the subject before it started to get into uncomfortable territory that would feel more like a therapy session. I’d had enough of that yesterday. “So did you find out any more about the photos in my dressing room?”

“Security went through all the footage,” she explained. “There was nothing out of the ordinary.”

“So you have no idea who left them?”

She shook her head and shifted in the seat as we
barreled along the highway. “We can only guess. I’m sorry, I wish I had all the answers for you.”

There was something she wasn’t telling me, she was biting on her bottom lip. Every single time it gave her away. “What are you trying to keep from me?”

“Nothing. Perhaps we should just consider it a prank.” Now I was completely starting to freak out. Demi never classified anything as a prank, especially when there was a threat involved.

“You’re freaking me out, Demi. Tell me what you found out. The truth can’t be any scarier than knowing you don’t want me to know something.”

She stared at me, her eyes serious and her brow wrinkled with concern. My heart started racing in my chest and not in the good way that Forest made it act.

“Demi, tell me.”

She sighed. “It has to be someone in our team. We checked all the cameras and there wasn’t one that showed anyone else coming in.”

I let out the breath I was holding. That wasn’t so bad, I already suspected as much. “So what do we do about it? I can’t have someone working against me on the tour. Who knows what else they might do?”

“I know, I know.”

“How do we figure out who it is?” I asked.

She lowered her voice so we couldn’t be overheard. “Have you noticed anyone acting differently toward you? Maybe you had a disagreement with one of the crew?”

My mind whirled trying to think of something. I scanned through the faces of everyone involved in the tour. All the roadies that set up the stage and took it down again the next day, the sound guys, the band, the dancers, Ryan, Demi. I knew them all, I’d worked with many of them for a few years. I couldn’t think of one who would want me dead.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t really good at hiding their hatred. We were in show business, full of performers. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who had mastered the act of masking their emotions.

On the
outside, my life seemed perfect. Jealousy was a strong emotion that could make someone want to hurt me. Everyone assumed I was as happy as I looked in photos. I knew differently, and those closest to me did too, but I hid it from everyone else. It wouldn’t take much for someone to believe I should be brought to my knees and they should be the one to do it.

“It’s okay, Brierly, we’ll find out who it is and deal with them before they can hurt you,” Demi reassured me. My fear and confusion was probably written across my face, I had to put my mask back on.

“I know.” I smiled back. “I’m sure they thought they’d cause some drama and won’t do anything again.”

Her phone beeped with a text message and she excused herself to make some calls. I was glad of the peace and quiet for a moment. Glancing back subtly, Forest was still happily talking to the rest of the boys. I wasn’t going to interrupt that. Instead, I put my ear buds in and cranked my iPod. I needed to catch up on my sleep anyway, all thanks to Forest keeping me up most of the night. I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

I didn’t wake up until the gentle rocking of the bus stopped and people started moving around me. We were at a gas station, in the middle of a long stretch of road.

Considering using an actual bathroom was luxurious compared to the one on the bus, I joined the queue to get outside. Even a gas station bathroom was better than the bus, as least you didn’t have to breathe
in to close the door.

I mad
e sure Demi knew where I was before slipping inside. One good thing about touring with so many guys was that the queue for the ladies’ room was never very long. I ducked into a stall and could think again within minutes.

Outside
again, people mingled everywhere as they stretched their legs. I spotted Forest behind the bus, still talking with Ace and the guys. They were like their own little clique. I didn’t feel right joining them. That seemed like Forest’s world, not mine.

I didn’t really fit in anywhere with the crew. The younger ones were too scared to include me and the older ones knew better than to speak with the talent.

I hated that term –
talent
. Unfortunately, that was the tag put on me at most venues to differentiate me from the crew. Because apparently not everyone in the world knew who I was and they had to identify the person they really shouldn’t annoy somehow.

God, it was all so politically correct. It was the little things like that which could cause someone to really hate me. Maybe I couldn’t blame them. Perhaps I would hate me if I wasn’t actually me – hell, I’d spent a great deal of time loathing myself in the past year.

A group of girls found the band. They weren’t with us, they pulled up in a convertible car and were refilling from the pump behind the bus. The moment they spotted the boys, they made a beeline.

Two of the teenagers seemed to find Forest particularly delicious. They fiddled with their hair, flicking it to accentuate the blonde highlights – bottle blonde, no doubt. They somehow seemed to make the movements
and
press their chest together so their boobs were plump and perky at the same time. I bet Forest noticed. I hated that he would. He shouldn’t be looking at any chests other than mine.

I should have gone over there and claimed my stake on the man, but my feet wouldn’t let me. Or perhaps it was my pride. Either way, all I could do was watch and pretend like I wasn’t.

The giggles carried my way on the whisper of a breeze in the air. Whatever Forest said was apparently hilarious. Did I sound like that when I laughed? God, I hoped not. I wasn’t that much older than those girls, but I hoped those few years made a whole heap of difference.

I couldn’t imagine Forest falling for girls like that. He was smart and incredibly talented, surely he’d want m
ore substance than those bobble heads. At least I could hold a conversation with him, even if it did mainly consist of arguing.

When the sun hit him the right way, he absolutely took my breath away. Even from across a grott
y gas station in the middle of Nowheresville. His honey colored hair looked golden in the sunbeam, making him shine like he wore a halo.

And he was mine. Not those girls’, not anybody else’s but mine. It didn’t matter who he talked to all day long, it was my bed he would be crawling into tonight. It would be my body he would touch and bring untold pleasures to. I had nothing to be jealous about.

I tore my eyes away from him, not wanting to get caught staring like a stalker. I was in love with him, I wasn’t creepy. The second tour bus had pulled up while I had been lost in my own thoughts. It carried most of the crew and some of the equipment. If we waited around long enough, a few trucks would join us too.

I couldn’t fathom which one of them had left me that package yesterday. I could rule out Demi and Ryan easily. They would tell me off to my face and get it over and done with. Neither would want to scare me like that, it would only cause them even more problems than they already had.

Forest had no reason to upset me with photos. I seriously doubted he had a hero complex so wouldn’t make a problem just so he could swoop in to rescue me from it. He wasn’t the kind to play games, I was sure of that.

What about the rest of my band? I had known Ace f
or years, he had plenty of time in the past to tell me what he thought about me. I only had to ply him with a few drinks before he started spouting the truth on any subject I prompted him to. Marty? He was too laid back to even care what I did. As long as he had his guitar and knew what to play, he was happy. I doubted it was anyone in the band.

My eyes fell on Naomi, my hairdresser. Her mop of hair was bright pink, she always stood out in a crowd. She had two little kids waiting for her at home, a boyfriend that wasn’t too keen on her being gone for so long, and a lot of bills to pay thanks to medical expenses. I offered to help her out with those bills once, but she had refused. Surely if she hated me, she would have been happy to part me from my money?

She was talking to Andre, my lead sound technician. With just a wave of my hand during a concert, he adjusted my earpiece so I could hear properly again. He had never put a foot wrong, even when we were having so many hiccups at the beginning of the tour.

The problem was, I could scan the group all day long and I would never be able to say who had left those photographs for me. If Demi hadn’t proved it to be so, I wouldn’t believe it
could
be any of them.

It was pointless trying to play detective. I was apparently a terrible judge of character, especially considering my dating history. An axe murderer could look me in the eye and smile and I would welcome them inside. I would probably hand them an axe too.

I waited for the call and returned to the bus, resuming my usual seat. That was one of the perks of being the star of the tour, nobody ever took my seat. Of course, they also threatened to kill me behind my back, but it was still good.

I put my ear buds in and settled back in the seat as we took off. Closing my eyes, they shot open again when someone sat beside me. I expected to see Demi to go over my schedule or something equally as boring, but it was Forest instead.

“Hey,” he said, breaking a gas station cookie in half. “Want a cookie?”

A guy that would share half his cookie with me, what more could a girl want? I smiled and accepted it, taking a small bite. It actually tasted pretty good, considering it was probably a week old. “Thanks.”