Yes to Everything (16 page)

Smirking, Brooke said, “I’m going to make you famous, girl, and I’m going to enjoy every sweet minute.” Sidney got out first and stood waiting for Brooke. The reporters were asking questions about the new look. “I finally let my BFF have free rein. We’ll see if the fans like it. Sidney takes everything to the next level. She’s an original.”

She stood and talked to the reporters for a few minutes as if she had nothing better to do. When asked again about the man on the Harley who’d dropped her off earlier, she said, “Rex is gorgeous, one of the best men I know. You should see the tattoo he gave me yesterday. Stunning work. No, it was rhetorical, you can’t really see it. Only special guests. I’m sure you understand.” When asked if Rex was such a guest, she replied coyly, “Well, he put it on my body. That gives him VIP status.” Glancing at the entrance to the arena, she added, “Gotta go, guys. Work to do. See you at the show.” The roadies and security guided her through the building.

Samson glanced up as she approached, then did a double-take with a wicked grin. “You’re smoking, Brooke. Even more than before which I didn’t think was possible.”

“All Sidney, Samson. She’s a miracle worker.” Samson took in the redhead in jeans and a leather vest beside Brooke with obvious appreciation. “Yeah, my girl is fabulous. By the way, thank you so much for sending me to Rex. He took real good care of me.” Winking, she continued to the back.

The Bradshaw brothers were already on stage when she stepped out. The entire band stopped mid-note. “Sorry I’m late. I had some things to take care of. What number are we on?” The drummer stammered they’d just started. “Excellent, I’ll just go by the set list then.”

The techs hooked her up and put her fiddle in her hand. She studiously ignored the twins.

Logan and Decklan took in the image of a pissed off Brooke and thanked god for the guitars in front of their bodies. “Brooke, honey, you look…different.” Logan could not reconcile the innocent woman they’d met a few months ago with the leather clad supermodel standing in front of them.

“Do I? I must be inspired.” Testing her sound as she passed between them, she added quietly, “Getting well and truly fucked for the first time by someone dedicated to delivering said fucking as if we’re the last two people on earth…that has an effect on a woman.” She bumped her hip against Decklan’s, “Get to work, baby.” She shouted a count and the band seemed to snap out of it, launching into a fast-paced number and frequently distracted by Brooke’s amplified hotness.

Rehearsal went well and the crew loved how much fun she was obviously having. Afterward, she called out, “See you tonight!” Then she was out the door with Sidney in her wake. They were almost to the limo when the brothers caught up. “Sidney, can you give us a minute, sweetie?” She nodded with a smug smile and got in the car. Impatiently, Brooke asked, “Yes?”

Logan’s eyes drifted down her body, “Don’t be mad. Come back to the hotel with us. Let’s start over.”

“Let us apologize, Brooke,” Decklan added with a similar visual stroll over her.

“Last night, before I went home with Rex, I made myself clear. You don’t get to stake a partial claim on me. You can’t give me your everything, so you get nothing. I still adore you and I still love performing with you.”

She stepped closer and lowered her voice, looking at them both with raw sensuality practically bleeding from her pores, “But you will not have me, you will never have me, until you grow the fuck up. Real men don’t act like this. Boys pretending to be men act like this. I may be young but I’m a grown ass woman who needs a grown ass man between her legs. Don’t bother applying for the position until you have the fucking qualifications. Being able to work your cocks like porn stars doesn’t mean shit to a real woman if you stick it in every available pussy that passes within three feet. See you tonight.” She slipped on her shades, patted their faces, and got in the limo.

Decklan watched her drive away and said quietly, “We need therapy. We need help. To take that woman last night after our talk with Brooke, man, we have a problem. Go with me or not but I don’t want to live like this anymore. We’re going to end up with someone pregnant or get a damn disease. After the tour, I’m checking myself into rehab. I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”

“I’ll go with you. We stick together. We can make it if we stick together.” Logan didn’t know how things had gone so weird in their lives. They used to have girlfriends, would sleep with the same woman for a while before moving on. “After everything, and Brooke knowing how we spent our night, we propositioned her again. I’ll go with you.”

Brooke enjoyed the afternoon with Sidney, Jeanette, and the kids. All of them posed with her when families at the museum asked for her autograph. During the children’s show in the main auditorium, the woman narrating the show realized Brooke was in the audience and asked the Kincaids to come up and do a song.

The little band happily turned over their instruments to Brooke and her family and she thanked them with a smile. She sat on a stool with an acoustic in front of three hundred kids and played Hakuna Matata as the audience sang along. When she was done she answered a few questions before she led everyone in Spoonful of Sugar. Jeanette and Sidney stood in front of the stage laughing, taking pictures, and singing along with everyone else.

After more than an hour, she said regretfully, “I have to go now but I had so much fun playin’ for y’all. Please don’t forget to get your education then chase your dreams. It’s what I tell my own family. I hope to see y’all again.”

There were reporters outside and she told them she really couldn’t talk, she had to get to the arena. They all piled in the limo and she barely made it. As they raced to her dressing room, she told Jeanette, “Please make sure there are four tickets for Rex Black waiting up front. VIP – front row – Jeanette, whatever it takes.” The small woman nodded with a grin and took off.

The kids hung out while Sidney touched up Brooke’s hair and makeup.

Kyle stopped by as they were heading to the main stage. “Girl, you were all over the news today. I loved the museum performance. You’re my idol.” He kissed her cheek and his band saluted her as they passed.

Jeanette came in as Sidney finished. “Done, sorry it took me so long.” Brooke took in the prim brunette she adored who’d been her right hand for the past few months. She had a lovely petite figure, beautiful skin and hair, and huge brown eyes.

She’d almost forgotten about getting someone else to watch the girls so Jeanette could go out with them after the show. “Jackson, would you mind hanging with the girls tonight?”

“Course not. We’re doing a video game marathon in our suite anyway with Kyle’s band. Molly kicks everyone’s butt. No big to be the one looking out for them. You know I don’t mind. They’ll eat crap food, just saying.”

Grinning, she kept her eyes on her assistant as she said, “Sidney, fix Jeanette up. We’re takin’ her with us.” Jeanette gave a small whimper of alarm and Brooke touched her assistant’s cheek as she passed. “Don’t say no, I mean it. Do this for me and I bet you have the time of your life.” Jeanette hesitated for a long moment before nodding nervously.

Sidney clapped her hands together and said evilly, “Oh hell yes, come here, Mary Poppins. You’re about to get my version of a spoonful of sugar. Sit your pretty ass in my chair.”

Brooke was laughing as she headed out. At the entrance to the stage, she was mic’d and did her sound check. The brothers stepped up beside her and she felt the familiar ache in her chest. The tug between what she wished and what was reality.

She had fallen in love with the men they could be, the men they had it in them to be. That wasn’t reality. That wasn’t who they were now and her heart couldn’t handle the pain they would keep delivering. She locked their little piece of her heart away and turned to them with a smile. It was the first time in weeks she’d been able to give them a sincere one.

They wore leather pants, black t-shirts that hugged their gorgeous bodies, and black cowboy hats. “That’s a new look for you…very nice.”

“We wanted to accent you tonight, Brooke. You did amazin’ press today, honey. I can’t believe all the nice things you said about the band, about us. God knows we don’t deserve it.” Logan was avoiding her eyes.

“Honey, I don’t think like that. I think y’all have a problem. A real one I just can’t get caught up in. No matter how bad I really do want y’all. Not just for my sake, for the sake of the people who depend on me, because I need this job. I need this to work. We have to keep the personal BS out for a while. Let me get my feet under me, learn who I am as a woman. You two need to learn who you really are as men then start being those men. Not what you’ve become. You’re so much better than this. I know you are.”

Decklan stroked a tendril of her hair. “Thank you, Brooke. I hope one day we can be the ones that make you happy, that we don’t lose our chance because we’re so fucked up.”

She kissed his lips lightly, then turned and did the same to Logan. “Let’s blow the roof off, I’m feelin’ so damn empowered tonight.” She slipped her jacket off, nothing but the leather halter bra beneath it. They both whispered, “Sweet Jesus” and it made her laugh. The band led in and she went out between the twins.

It was the best show they’d done yet and everyone felt it. Brooke danced, played, and sang her heart out. She jammed back to back with both brothers and laughed as they sang in one another’s faces. She alternated between mandolin, guitar, fiddle, and piano.

The cameras got close-ups of the three of them and each of them individually, the screaming was more obviously masculine when they focused on her. They twirled her out and she skipped along the edge of the stage.

They were more than halfway through their set when she spotted Rex and his equally alpha friends in the front row. She winked at him and he smiled. One of the lines in their songs was ‘the one to rock my world’ and she pointed at him as she danced by. His friends’ jaws dropped and they all yelled, “Hoo-rah!”

When they returned to the stage for their encore, they did Hotel California and the crowd went wild. Logan sang and Decklan played the electric guitar while Brooke backed him up on her acoustic. Their background vocals were spot on. During the final instrumental, Decklan tore up the solo while the rest of them backed him up.

They gave their instruments to the roadies and bowed and waved to the crowd. The twins lifted Brooke between them, making a chair of their arms. They tossed her up and caught her while she laughed hysterically then kissed her cheeks and set her on her feet.

As was becoming the norm, they waited while Brooke introduced herself to any little kids in the front row. When they’d realized after the first show that they’d left her alone on stage because they were so focused on picking a lay for the evening, they made sure it never happened again.

They talked to young men who were hopeful of breaking into the business and often met people they wouldn’t have met without Brooke’s influence. Despite their whoring ways, she’d done wonders for their images on and off the stage. They owed her and they’d taken her for granted.

When she lowered the little girl she’d been talking to down to her parents, she thanked them and gave a last wave as the three of them headed backstage. The two bands and the roadies were all over her with congratulations. She was whisked into her dressing room and Sidney freshened up her hair and changed her makeup after she’d taken a two minute shower and changed into a similar outfit in chocolate brown. Pulling on boots and hat to match, they waited for the kids and Jeanette.

Travis and the Bradshaws came in and the three of them groaned at her appearance. She shrugged, “I let Sidney, not Jesus, take the wheel.” They all told her she’d been beautiful before, this took her natural beauty to a whole new level.

When Jeanette walked in with the kids, the men did a double-take. She was wearing high heels and a pretty black mini-dress that cupped her perky breasts and flowed out in delicate layers. It was the first time any of them had seen her brown hair down and it flowed past her shoulder blades in soft curls. Sidney had done soft makeup on her and her big brown eyes were stunning.

Staring pointedly at the brothers, Brooke said clearly, “She is off limits. Do not mess with her, I’m not kidding. She’s too good for y’all. You’ll ruin how perfect she is and hurt her.” They nodded. Ashamed she’d had to say it.

Sidney came out of the bathroom and Travis rasped weakly, “Is this a fuckin’ conspiracy?”

Hands on her hips, Brooke informed them, “Rex is here with a few of his Marine buddies. We’re all going out after the meet-n-greet.” She saw emotions cross the twins’ faces and steeled her heart against it. “I talked the girls into going with me. Don’t they look great?”

Sidney wore leather pants and a soft shirt that had a built-in bra but didn’t hide her lovely breasts in the slightest. Her hair curled around her heart-shaped face and her green eyes jumped from her fair skin. Her heels were the highest but she was the shortest so they all ended up being close in height.

Jeanette said quietly, “I see a horrible joke coming. A blond, a brunette, and a redhead walk into a bar…”

Brooke laughed hard, “I’m the punch line then. Redheads and brunettes always come out alright in those jokes.” She grabbed a short leather jacket that matched her outfit and they were out the door, the stunned men in their wake.

They arrived at the fan area and once again, as after every show, Brooke signed Dean’s and Abel’s chests and posed for pictures. “I hope you send me copies of all these at the end of the summer.”

For an instant, Brooke could have sworn something flickered over Dean’s face. When she blinked he was the same happy young man he’d always been. “Oh yeah, once the tour is done we’ll make sure you get everything we have. You’re going to love it!”

Smiling, she waved them off to their own groupies who all emulated the way Brooke dressed and acted. Dean and Abel were becoming well-known on their tour circuit and seemed to love it.