Play Me (Love on Tour #2) (14 page)

I made a signal with my hand and the house lights went up, the spotlight on me turned off. Now I could see five pockets in the crowd, spaced at various locations throughout the arena, where people had pushed together in a circle. This was where the guys were. I’d sent two of Sean’s band members and all three of mine into that mess. But I needed them back.

I stepped up to the microphone. “Hey everybody.”

There was huge response – screaming, stamping, clapping.

“I wanna put on a killer show for you tonight.”

I waited while they responded. “But I’m gonna need my band back. Can we make a path for them to the stage?”

I watched as three snakelike paths slowly formed. Greg, Tommy, and Alonso started to make their way through. Alonso reached the stage first. He jumped up onto it and held his hand in the air. The crowd went wild. Tommy and Greg followed, with the same result.

We gathered at the corner of the stage for a second.

“Well?” Alonso asked.

“They’re fine. Let’s get on with this,” I said.

We separated and took our positions on stage. The lights went back out in the crowd. But for a split second, before the spotlight hit me again, I looked over at the backstage area, and there was Bell. I took a deep breath and started singing.

16

I wasn’t entirely sure, but I was thinking that maybe what I was experiencing was jealousy. I had just gotten off stage, sweaty and tired. The roadies were preparing for Sean’s set. He was not back here. He was probably having his pre-show make-out session with Baby.

I should have been heading back to my green room to clean up. Instead, I was glaring at Bell and Sam. They were sitting there together on a piece of equipment looking like a pair of lovebirds.

He said something I couldn’t make out and she laughed, throwing her head back and exposing her neck. I clenched my fists.

Sean’s brother was a good-looking guy. He was like a smaller version of Sean. He had the same chiseled face and dark black hair, though his was shorter. He was also one of those wiry guys. Instead of being thick with muscle like Sean and I were, he was trim and looked like he belonged in a suit. He was the type I imagined Bell’s ex-boyfriends to be like.

I decided that I didn’t have to put up with watching him hit on my girl. So I walked over to them.

“Hey, Hank,” Sam greeted me.

“Hi, Sam. Good to see you.” It was, too. Because other than the fact that he was making googly-eyes at Bell, I liked Sam. “You missed your parents.”

“You must know I did that on purpose,” he said with a grin.

“Well you missed the hysterics.”

“Oh, but I heard. I’m going to be an uncle. And my mom is going to be impossible.”

“Bell,” I said, turning to her. “Can I have a minute?”

She jumped off the piece of equipment, gave a flirty little smile to Sam, and walked with me to my green room.

“Miss me?” She asked, once we were in my room.

I needed a shower, and after what happened earlier, I was an emotional mess. I hadn’t had any time to decompress before I went on stage. I was feeling a million things at once.

“Getting along with Sam?” I asked, picking up a towel and wiping down my neck and chest.

She cocked her head, looking innocent and adorable. I realized she was wearing that damn shirt she stole from me, that one every damn girl in the country had a copy of.

“You jealous?” she asked, a smile on her lips.

I was. But I couldn’t tell if she was pleased about it or just teasing me. I was too focused on that shirt. It was pissing me off. I turned away from her and rummaged through my bag. I grabbed a different shirt, a Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run shirt, and threw it at her. I’d gotten it when Sean and I helped with the run to L.A. for the state games. I’d also given them a huge donation. In return, they custom made this shirt for me. It had the regular logos on the front, but on the back, where they usually listed their sponsors, was just TOLK in big back letters. I loved that shirt.

“Put this on.”

“Why?”

“Because half the damn girls in that arena have a shirt just like that one. Hell, one those chicks in the bathroom had one. She probably caught it at a show when I threw it into the audience.”

She stared at me. “Are you okay, Hank?”

“Change your shirt!”

She pulled off the grey shirt and threw it on the floor. Then she slipped the new on. Just like the other one, it was way too big for her, so she tied a knot at the waist.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

I ran a hand through my hair. It was a good question. I would like to know myself.

“You were awfully friendly with Sam.”

She walked toward me. “You
are
jealous.”

“Maybe.”

She stood right in front me. But we didn’t touch each other. She smiled. “I kinda like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I don’t.”

I didn’t want to talk about this, and I had other things on my mind anyway. So I pulled her into my arms. I kissed her, hard. Then I pulled away and rested my chin on the top of her head, keeping her close to me.

“You scared the shit of me earlier,” I admitted.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You wouldn’t believe the things that were going through my mind.”

“I’m sorry.” She kissed my bare chest.

“Just don’t do anything dangerous anymore, like you know, going further than a ten foot radius from me, Sean, or Mike.”

She let out a weak chuckle. “Okay, I won’t.”

She pulled back and looked up at me. “Can we talk about the Sam thing now?”

“No,” I said. I pulled her over to a counter in the far corner of the room and set her on top of it. I worked at the knot in the shirt.

“I just put this on.”

“Well I’m taking it off.”

The knot came free and I pulled the shirt off. I placed it on the counter next to her and unlatched her bra next. She watched me. Once she was naked from the waist up, I moved my head down her chest and started sucking her nipples.

“Is this how you are going to react every time I flirt with someone? Because if it is, I’ll do it more often.”

I looked up at her. “So you
were
flirting?”

“A little bit.”

This made me mad. And I remembered that she had not gotten jealous over Sheila. The idea that I was not in the same place as her was foreign to me, and upsetting.

I backed up a little. “Why, you got a thing for him?”

“No. I have a thing for you. I was just… I don’t know, flirting.”

I was having a hard time with this, which was stupid because I flirted with absolutely everyone. Hell, I even fake-flirted with Baby.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said. “I know it probably makes me a tease or something. It’s just fun and I never think too much about it.” She explained.

I was still standing there, motionless, too caught up in my confusion to speak.

She reached a hand out and put it on my chest. “But I had no intention of doing anything, Hank. I only want to do things with you.”

“Question.”

“Um, okay.”

“Why didn’t you get jealous when you found me and Sheila in the hallway?”

“Who says I didn’t?”

“You didn’t seem jealous.”

“I thought about tearing her hair out.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“You know, it’s funny. I guess I’ve gotten used to just ignoring that feeling. I mean the last guy…” She trailed off. I knew she’d been about to say something about her ex-boss/boyfriend, but she didn’t. She redirected. “I talked to Baby on the phone when she left Sean at the end of the last tour.”

It had been bad, real bad, when Baby had taken a flight out of Baltimore and disappeared on us two years ago. I knew that Baby had been a wreck. But she wasn’t talking to me at that time. I wasn’t surprised that she’d turned to Bell for comfort.

“We had this huge conversation,” Bell continued. “She told me all about the crazy women that threw themselves at him, and the naked supermodel in their hotel room. So I get it. I realize that it’s just part of the package.”

I watched her. I was still thinking about how she’d deflected away from telling me about her ex. What was she hiding? I already knew the guy was married. What else was there to the story? And why didn’t she want to tell me?

“And Hank,” she said, tugging my arm, trying to get me closer. “We made an arrangement and I trust you to keep it.”

“You trust me?”

“I do.”

“That’s insane.”

She smiled. “Maybe. Come here.”

I moved to her and pulled her pants off. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t kiss her first. I just lifted her up with one arm and took off her jeans and panties with the other. Then I set her back down on the counter.

“You are so beautiful, Bell.” I said, gazing at her naked body.

“Aren’t you tired of looking at me yet?”

“I could never get tired of you.”

I said it without thinking. Regret hit me right away, so I kissed her. I used my hands to make her moan and scream, to make her forget what I’d said. Then I slipped into her and I forgot all about it myself.

****

“Talk to me,” she said.

It had only been a few hours since the Sam incident, a few hours since she’d clearly withheld information from me, a few hours since our sex session in my green room. Now we were in her hotel room, which adjoined to mine. We’d just finished having sex again and she wanted to talk.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Tell me about your mom.” She ran her hand over my bare chest. “You never talk about her.”

“This is your post-coital conversation?”

“I just want to know more about you, Hank.”

“I don’t want to talk about my mom.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me. “Then tell me something else.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “Something about your childhood.”

“Read it in a magazine article.”

I knew I was being difficult. But I’d had a very rough night and I hadn’t had time to sort out my feelings. I wasn’t ready for this.

My callous response pissed her off. She sat up in the bed. So did I.

“I want to
talk
.”

“Well I don’t,” I said, getting out of bed and grabbing my jeans.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my room,” I said, pulling a leg through my pants.

“Are you serious?”

“I told you I don’t feel like talking right now.” I pulled my jeans on and zipped them. But then I stopped. I didn’t really want to leave.

“Hank, I’m trying to… I’m asking you…”

“What? What is it that you want from me?”

I regretted asking the question the minute I did it. I knew what her answer was going to be and it was going to send me running to the hills. She knew it, too. I could see it in her face. But she said it anyway.

“I want a real relationship.”

Fuck.

I grabbed my t-shirt off the floor. “I don’t do relationships,” I said, as I hit the door.

As soon as I was on the other side of our shared door, I locked it. Then I threw on a t-shirt, slipped on a pair of flip-flops, and headed to the elevator.

The hotel bar was quiet, quiet enough that Lyle and Raif, who were having a beer at a corner table, spotted me the minute I walked in. I ignored them and walked to a stool at the bar.

“Give me a Scotch on the rocks and a water,” I told the bartender.

He looked at me long and hard for a moment. He knew I wasn’t supposed to drink. Hell everybody in the country knew it. But he got me the drinks anyway. I slapped a fifty on the bar and told him to keep the change.

I stared at the glass of booze while I sipped on my water. After a while the ice began to melt, making tiny clear rivers in the brown liquid. I imaged stirring it with my finger, then sticking my finger in my mouth and getting that first tingly taste. Instead, I put my finger in the ice water and did the same thing. It was far less satisfying.

There was a creak as the barstool next to me accommodated a massive human being.

“Took you long enough,” I said, without looking up.

“Ten minutes. That’s not too bad.”

I peeked at him from the corner of my eye. He was staring at the glass of booze.

“It’s full.”

“I see that.” He pushed the glass to the other side of him.

“I didn’t drink it,” I reinforced.

“No. But you ordered it. It’s been awhile since you’ve done that.”

The last time I did it was four years ago, the night I found out my mother had died.

“Yeah, and I called you, just like I did then.”

“No, actually, you didn’t. Lyle called me.”

I looked over his shoulder at Lyle and Raif. They didn’t look guilty enough in my opinion.

“Fucking tattletales.”

“I’m willing to bet you were counting on them calling me.”

I had been of course.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Sean suggested.

I followed him out of the bar, across the lobby, and over to the elevator. He pushed the button for his floor.

“I don’t want a party.”

It was the nicest way I could say that I didn’t want to talk to Baby. I was ashamed. Only Sean had seen me drunk, or wanting to drink, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“My hotel room is empty.”

“Where’s Baby?”

“Either in Mike’s room or in Bell’s. I know she’s not with Sam, because he hooked up with some girl after the show.”

Great. If Baby was with Bell the cat was about to be out of the bag.

“You don’t know for sure? I’m surprised.”

Sean was always overprotective of Baby. And after her kidnapping in the girls’ bathroom tonight, I figured it would be out of control.

He shrugged. “I’m working on it.”