Rock Hard: A Bad Boy Rock Star Romance (9 page)

“I don’t know what you guys are talking about, and we’re about to miss our cue if you don’t hurry.”

“Nope, you’re not getting away that easily,” Todd said. “Can we expect anything else like what you pulled with that girl out there? Come on man. Who is she anyways?”

I tried my best to look indifferent, but it was hard. Todd was always too perceptive for his own damn good. Blake also had a stupid grin on his face that said he didn’t believe it when I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. Well let them have their suspicions. They’d think I was crazy if I told them all I was going on here was a quick conversation in a diner.

“I’m telling you guys there’s nothing going on there.”

Blake snorted. “Oh yeah? And the way you slipped those passes to her was just because she was some random?”

I blinked. “You saw that? Was it on the monitors or something?”

Shit. That was the last thing I needed. Sometimes I got so carried away on stage that I disappeared into my own little world. A world where it was just me, though in this case it had been just me and Mia.

It would be just my luck that I was so out of it that I didn’t even pay attention to the giant monitors all around the arena that might’ve caught me squeezing Mia’s ass and slipping those passes into her back pocket. I could see that feeding the rumor mill online and creating one hell of a headache.

“No one saw anything,” Todd said. “No one but us, at least, because we know what to look for. No worries about that. It wasn’t on the monitors. We all just happened to be looking trying to figure out what the hell was going on.”

I shrugged. “Well I guess you’ll just have to wait and see what’s happening with that girl, because to be perfectly honest I have no clue right now either.”

“Fair enough,” Eric said. “Just be careful.”

I nodded. None of them needed to elaborate on exactly why I needed to be careful. No, after everything that happened with the Incident it would be pretty obvious to anyone who followed the band that I needed to be a little more discerning when it came to my love life. Of course I had a feeling that Mia was a good choice. It was crazy since I’d only had that brief conversation, but there was just something about her.

Blake clapped me on the shoulder again as the music out in the arena looped again. “We probably ought to get going or else that crowd’s going to storm the stage.”

Finally I got over to where that poor PA was waiting for me to do the change. The poor girl was probably wondering what the hell was going on what with all of us standing around chatting while an arena full of thousands of screaming women was waiting for us just a few feet away.

I stared at myself in the mirror as I moved into my next outfit. I felt a strange exhilaration that went above and beyond what I usually felt at these shows. It was the exhilaration of knowing there was someone in particular out there I was performing for. Not just the generic all-American girl out to have a little fun and see her favorite band.

I wondered if this was how Todd felt whenever he was out onstage because he knew Lisa was out there watching him perform. If so it was one hell of an inducement to get out there and have some fun. I hadn’t felt like this going out on stage in years. Since back when it was all new and exciting. How I felt about this Mia girl after so many empty one night stands was new and exciting, and that was making all the difference in the world.

I couldn’t wait to get out there and dazzle even if she didn’t particularly care for the band. No, I was out there to impress a specific girl for the first time in my life, and I was going to give the performance of a lifetime!

10: Backstage

We started making our way towards the backstage area during the second encore. They still hadn't played their biggest number one hit from way back when, but it’s not like I really cared to hear that song after spending the better part of the past decade trying to forget it.

Hey, I might be having a little bit of a starstruck experience with Grant, but swooning over a hot guy and deciding that crappy music was suddenly wonderful because I was swooning over a hot guy were two very different things thank you very much.

I was surprised Kayla was going along with it though. I figured she would be out there in the middle of the crowd until the very end whether or not I wanted to sit and suffer with her, but when I suggested we get going she’d hopped up right away muttering something about how it was well worth missing a song she’d heard a million times anyways to avoid the rush of people who were inevitably going to be trying to get backstage whether or not they had backstage passes like we suddenly did.

I was surprised at that sentiment from Kayla of all people, and I had a pretty good feeling that she wouldn’t be so understanding about, say, leaving the concert early to avoid the rush out to the parking lot in a hypothetical world where I didn’t get backstage passes and we weren’t going to meet the band.

Not that I’d ever get to test that particular theory. No, Grant, lead singer of Twenty Promises, seemed to have it out for me. It was the strangest turn of events I never could’ve imagined when I headed out with Kayla earlier in the day, but here I was so I figured I’d roll with it.

It took forever to make our way through the press of bodies, but eventually we got up to security and flashed our passes. One of the guards, a big muscular hulking thing with a bald head, smiled and stepped aside to allow us through. And then he immediately moved back into place with a scowl on his face as other women tried to rush into the opening we'd just created.

Other women who didn't have the backstage we’d gotten in the most spectacular way possible. I couldn’t help but think “tough luck girls” as I felt an irrational flash of jealousy. Oh yeah. I knew who those girls were back here to see, and even if the rational part of me thought it was ridiculous to feel jealousy over Grant the irrational part of me hiding in the back of my mind was pretty damn happy that those wannabe groupies were being kept out.

Wannabe groupies. Was that even a fair thought? What was I doing back here? I know what the fire burning between my legs wanted me to be doing back here, and I quickly stomped down on those thoughts before they could get too out of control. As it was I got a little wobbly in the knees and almost stumbled to the ground before Kayla caught me and gave me a funny look.

They were just starting up with that number one hit, the opening strains of "Txting My Luv (2U)," as we made our way into the backstage area. Hey, what can I say? They got popular back when texting was first starting to be a thing and everyone was using shorthand because the world still had to contend with godawful number pads instead of the digital keyboards we enjoyed today. So naturally their biggest hit was mired in the technology of a decade past as much as their popularity was mired in that same decade long past.

As we were walking through the backstage area I heard some commotion behind us and turned in time to see the bouncers let in another couple of girls. They looked just as excited, though they were probably a couple of years younger. Definitely still in college.

I fought the urge to scowl. It wasn't polite to think bad thoughts about the younger generation, but I couldn’t help but wonder what a couple of obviously younger girls were doing back here. I figured Kayla and I were on the younger end of their target demographic, and those girls had to still be in elementary school when Twenty Promises was popular. Now they were back here with their silly smiles and their hair highlighted a shade of blonde that definitely came from a bottle and…

I stopped myself. What the hell was wrong with me? Why was I getting so upset about other women being back here? So what if they probably thought Grant was hot? Only women who preferred the company of other women wouldn’t think he was hot, and even then there might be some wiggle room.

It’s not like I had a good reason to be jealous either. I’d just had a quick conversation with him at a diner, that flirtation during their set, and that one brief shining moment of perfection where he serenaded me on stage. It’s not like we were engaged to be married or anything. It’s not like I had some sort of claim on him.

So I stomped down on that jealousy. Or tried to. I didn’t do a very good job of it from the way I still felt heat rising as I looked at those girls, and not the kind of heat I felt when I thought of Grant. So I turned and pulled Kayla farther backstage where I wouldn’t have to think about Barbies one and two.

As we walked along I caught a glimpse of what I would consider to be the true "backstage" area. Roadies carrying equipment this way and that. Technicians doing who knows what with wires. And I thought I could even see somebody from the band, though I wasn’t entirely sure so I elbowed Kayla and pointed in his direction. The resulting squeal was loud enough to be heard even over the music pounding through the massive speakers somewhere overhead and very near to us.

Okay, so there was a pretty good chance that guy was in the band.

The final strains of Txting My Luv (2U) faded and I figured the rest of the guys would show up soon. Goose bumps ran all along my skin as I thought that he was so near.

It occurred to me that we had backstage passes, so why not make use of them and do some exploring? Unfortunately as I walked towards the roadies and technicians another security guy stepped in our way.

This one was even beefier than the last to the point that he didn't have a neck. I'm talking like his bald head, why is it that all security guys at concerts seemed to have that bald head, was more of a dome that gently sloped down to his shoulders than a head and neck.

The guy was a fucking mountain holding out a beefy arm blocking us from going any farther. Damn it.

"What's the big idea? We have passes!" I said.

"Trust me, you don't have backstage passes for this area," he said.

"Then what the hell are these passes good for?" I asked.

The guy jerked his head off to his left, our right. Away from the stage. Away from the real backstage area. Away from the tantalizing glimpses I was getting of members of the band walking around doing their thing after the show.

"Those get you into the green room for the meet and greet. It's that way. The guys will be over there shortly."

"This is bullshit!" Kayla said. Her voice carried all the anger of a cornered animal. Or a fangirl who just discovered she might not get to meet her favorite band up close and personal after all. Same thing, really.

I turned to her and nodded. "Definitely! What good are backstage passes if they don't actually get you backstage?"

I figured backstage passes that Grant Thompson personally slipped to me while pretending to squeeze my ass would be better. Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to get in a squeeze? What if he did that with all the girls? No, I wasn’t going to think like that. I also shouldn’t be getting as giddy and turned on as I was at the memory of him squeezing my ass while singing to me onstage.

The guard shrugged, though it was more like a mountain that was rolling its shoulders. I half expected to see rubble and boulders come crashing down from his insanely thick neck.

"I don't make the rules, I just enforce them," he said. He sounded like he didn't care at all. And why would he? His job was to keep us out and he was just doing his job. Sure he was crushing our dreams, but for him it was just Tuesday.

That didn't stop me from thinking he was a huge asshole though. "This sucks."

"What's going on here?"

I felt a thrill. I felt an impossible heat as though my entire body was on fire. As though I'd just contracted a fever. I felt weak in the knees, and I almost started shivering. All of that from a few words from Grant. I’d recognize that voice even if I couldn’t see him yet.

A part of me hated that I was reacting like a groupie getting excited at hearing the lead singer of Twenty Promises, a group that I despised. The rest of me, the part of me that was thinking of how hot Grant was, quickly stomped down on the skeptical band-hating part of my mind that had been in control for so long.

No, the part of me that was excited at a super hot guy being interested in me was in control, and it was on fire! Damn!

But could you really blame a girl for reacting that way? Because when I turned and looked past the mountain that was a bouncer I saw him standing there. Grant. My mysterious man from the diner who was oh so sexy. Looking every bit as gorgeous in person as he had out on stage when he treated me to that rock star moment.

He was looking particularly delicious now in a leather vest and nothing underneath which showed off his sculpted body perfectly. He looked every bit the rock god he'd been when he was up on stage singing to the crowd, reaching down and touching my hand, pulling me up on stage for a song I shouldn’t have enjoyed because it was a Twenty Promises song but I’d already downloaded it to my phone to listen to later and oh God he was corrupting me. Making me actually like a Twenty Promises song, damn him.

I shivered again as I thought of that brief moment of heaven together on stage.

Grant looked at me and his eyes lit up. Damn. It wasn't fair for one man to look that good. It wasn't fair that one man could make me feel this way with just a look.

"Mia!" he said.