Surprised By You (The By You Series) (3 page)

My heart sank. No one would enjoy spoiling my surprise more than Kyle.

“Please don’t say anything.”

I realized my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth. His only response was a single arched eyebrow. But it spoke volumes.

“My, my… What’s Haden going to think when he finds out you’re hiding something from him?”

“Haden Cooper?” the floozy asked, suddenly interested.

Women threw themselves at Haden all the time. I got over it a long time ago. But Kyle scowled at her. His ego was such a fragile thing. Seriously, why did he keep hooking up with such tramps? He could have a real girl if he just kept his mouth shut and his dick in his pants.

“Please, Kyle. Just don’t say anything…”

“What’s in it for me?”

“My undying gratitude?” I chirped. It was an obvious lie, but maybe he’d fall for it.

“Yawn,” he said, rolling his eyes. He turned his gaze to Sarah. “What about you, short stuff? You got something I’d be interested in?”

Her eyes glanced up over her phone.

“Like some Valtrex?”

The sneer on his face spread even wider.

“You’ll come around, sooner or later. They always do.” He raised a finger and jabbed it in my direction. “We’re not done here.”

He grabbed the floozy by the hand and dragged her out of the tent. Sarah looked at me after he was gone.

“You think he’ll say anything?”

“Probably. Just to spite me.”

She shook her head. “He and Haden are like night and day. How are they even friends?”

“You’ve seen them play… When they’re on stage together all of that other stuff goes away.” She nodded her agreement, begrudgingly. I checked my watch. “We better hurry, we have to get to Leland’s soon.”

Sarah gave me an exasperated look as we got back to work. If I’d known my troubles were only just beginning I probably would have called it quits right then and there.

“Seriously, can we go any slower?”

The cabbie shot me a hard glance over his shoulder. I craned my neck, hoping to see a clearing in the traffic ahead, but there wasn’t one. There were rows and rows of cars, all backed up against one another. People on the sidewalks were strolling along twice as fast as us.

“Maybe this was a bad idea. I should have stayed back with the cake.”

“You can’t make it bake any faster by staring at it. Besides, you needed to get away from there. You’re going a little crazy-brained.”

I sighed. She was right.
 

“There must be some kind of side street you can take, right?”

The cabbie gave me an incredulous look.

“What do you want me to do?” he barked, throwing both hands in the air. “It’s the Festival. Same thing every year.”

I let out a frustrated groan. Sarah gave me a reassuring look, though it didn’t do much to calm my nerves. Eventually the traffic started moving again. It felt like it took another hour before we finally pulled up to Leland’s Guitar Shop.

Walking into the shop, I was instantly taken aback by all of the guitars lining the walls. They were breathtaking. Before meeting Haden, the place would have looked like just another music store, but dating a rock star guitar player teaches you a thing or two. And this wasn’t just any old music store.

A tiny, hollow-faced man sat behind the front counter with a Fender Stratocaster perched on his knee. He fingerpicked some jazz scales while tuning it. When he saw us approaching, a gentle smile spread across his face.

“Afternoon. What can I do ya for?” His voice was deep and gravelly.

“I’m here to pick up a guitar. My cousin dropped it off earlier to get it engraved.”

He nodded at me and placed the Strat onto a stand. His hands were gentle and cautious as he set it down.

“Claim ticket?”

“Of course, it’s right here.” I dug through my purse for the piece of paper Sarah had brought back earlier. “It’s in here somewhere.” I gave him a nervous smile. Did I even need half the crap in there? It was definitely time to clean the thing out. “It has to be in here…”

The old man didn’t rush me as I set my purse on the counter and spilled it out.

“Lipstick. Security pass. Keys. Receipts… I can probably throw those away.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m not normally this messy.” That was a lie.

Sarah stepped up to the counter and went through the stuff with me.

“You didn’t leave it on the bus, did you?” she whispered.

I could have swore I grabbed it after Haden left. But it wasn’t there. I’d been such a flustered mess since this morning.

“I must have forgotten it.” I chewed on my lip then gave a hopeful smile. “But I can describe the guitar. It’s pretty unique.”

His brow pulled down as he let out a pained groan.

“Kills me to say it, but can’t do nothing without the ticket.”

“What do you mean? I’m sure this happens all the time, there must be
something
we can do…”

The old man gave me an appeasing look, holding his open palms up in the air.

“Sorry, them’s the rules during the Festival,” he said. “We get all kinds of people coming in here trying to pull fast ones.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Got into a little spot a while back… Had to put my foot down.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“You can’t just keep my guitar…”

“You can wait till the Festival ends,” he reasoned.

“No, I can’t. I can’t even wait another hour. I need the guitar, like now.” I pointed a finger at Sarah. “She dropped it off earlier, don’t you remember her?”

“Actually, he wasn’t here earlier,” she said. “There was some mangy looking guy.”

The older man nodded at her with his soft eyes.

“That would be Chet. He left an hour ago. Won’t be back till tomorrow.”

“Surely you can call him or something? He’ll remember her bringing it in.”

A gravelly laugh rolled up from the man’s chest.

“‘Fraid that won’t be possible. Chet’s a musician.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Amusement glistened in the man’s eyes.

“Don’t think that boy ever owned a phone a day in his life. Spends every last dollar on new equipment.”

Was this really happening? If I couldn’t get the guitar back then nothing else mattered. I could already imagine how the conversation would go…

“
Congratulations on your big day! Oh by the way, your favorite guitar is being held hostage because your girlfriend is irresponsible
.”

“
Thanks, babe. I love you, too…”

I touched my fingertips to my temples, trying to rub away the headache that was pulsing there. It was getting worse by the second. Then, my eyes shot open as a thought occurred to me.

I grabbed my blue, leather wallet and dug out a picture. A huge smile spread across my face as I held it up. If the picture didn’t help, then nothing would. It was of Haden and me when I had first given him the guitar. He was serenading me with it, and someone snapped a picture.

“See?” I said, excitedly pointing at it. “That’s the guitar right there, and that’s my boyfriend playing it.”

He studied it for a moment.

“Ain’t that the boy in that one band?” he said, giving me a curious look. I nodded. “Well, ain’t that somethin’? Boy, can he play. I ain’t heard fingers like those since… oh, since before you were born, I suppose.”

“Yes, he’s wonderful,” I agreed. “So can we get the guitar back now? He’s headlining the Festival tonight and I’d really like to get back before then.”

The man shook his head.

“Fraid that won’t be possible.”

“You can’t make an exception this once? Please, I’m desperate!”

He scratched at the scruffy whiskers on his chin.

“Oh, I’d love to help you out. It’s just that a fella already picked up that beauty. Couldn’t ’a been more than, oh, maybe a half hour ago.”

My insides curdled.
 

“What do you mean someone already picked it up? You said they had to have the claim ticket to pick it up.”

He nodded. “That’s right, he had it. Looked mighty happy to see it, too.”

Confusion ran through me.

“Who picked it up? What did he look like?”

The man heaved his shoulders.

“Oh, I don’t know. Fella looked like a trucker or something, all dirty and travelled. I was worried at first, but he took good care of it. He was real careful with it. Soft hands.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Someone else had come in with the claim ticket and taken Haden’s guitar? Who in the world could have possibly done that? I wanted to crumble into a little ball right there. I’d rather tell Haden that his guitar was being held hostage than that some dirty trucker had stolen it.

“We should get going,” Sarah whispered into my ear.

“But the guitar…” I looked at her, exasperated.

“There’s nothing we can do here, we’ll have to figure it out later.”

Her blue eyes were soft and considerate as she regarded me. Something felt wrong about leaving there empty handed, but she was right.

“Thanks for your help,” she said, beaming a smile at the man.

“Any time,” he said, nodding his head.

My feet were heavy as Sarah dragged me outside. What in the world was I going to tell Haden?

After everything that had happened already, you’d think the Universe could have cut me a little slack, right? You know, nothing major, just maybe stop picking on me so much? After all, I’m a pretty decent person, just trying to do something nice. So why did it have to feel like the weight of the world was resting on my shoulders?

“I swear it was in here,” I groaned, digging through my purse. The security guard stared at me like I was some kind of vagrant, and it made me want to scream. “Look, I promise I’m not some crazy person. I just need to get back to the bus and I can get another security pass to show you.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but no one gets by without proper ID.”

Sarah frowned at me. “Where did it go?”

“I don’t know!” She jumped back a step. I took a deep breath to calm myself. “I don’t know,” I repeated, calmer this time. “I had it when I left here. I remember pulling it out at the guitar store…” A wave of nausea came over me. “Did I leave it at the guitar store?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but if you don’t have the proper ID, I have to ask you to depart the area.”

The guard’s voice was hard and unwavering. He raised his hand and gestured toward the main ticketing area. I stared at him, disbelievingly.

Sarah tugged at my arm.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Just call Haden or someone and tell them you forgot your pass. I’m sure it won’t be a big deal.”

I scowled at the guard one more time for good measure as I let her pull me away.

“We can’t do that. They’re too busy, and besides, I don’t want Haden getting suspicious. I told him we were going to hang around the Festival all day, not go gallivanting around the city.”

“What other choice do we have? We can’t finish the cake if we’re stuck here.”

I considered it, then gave her a devious look.

“I guess we’re just going to have to find another way in.”

“What do you mean?”

I tilted my head toward the security checkpoint.

“You’re not planning on flashing them or something, are you?” she said, her voice rising.

I belted out a laugh.

“No, of course not! I’m just going to have to find a way to sneak in, is all.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

I waved a hand, dismissively.

“It’s no big deal. I’ve done it hundreds of times at other shows.”

“So this kind of thing happens to you regularly?”

I shied away from her. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I’ve spent a lot of time at concerts and festivals, and sometimes a girl’s gotta know how to get backstage at those things.”

She considered it for a moment.

“I wish Billie was here, she can talk her way into anything when she puts her mind to it.” She fixed me with a worried look. “So what are we going to do?”

I held up a finger, waggling it back and forth.

“I’m doing this alone.” She started to argue, but I held a hand up to stop her. “Trust me, it’ll be easier for me to get inside by myself. Once I’m in I can go get a new security pass and come back for you.”

She gave me a hard, judgmental look, but finally gave in. It’s not like we had many options, and she knew it.

“Fine. Just be careful.”

“Of course, I’m always careful.”

I don’t know why I thought things would start to go my way when I decided to sneak backstage at one of the biggest musical festivals in the world. It’s not like anything else was working out for me, so it shouldn’t have surprised me when there were two police officers watching as I crawled through a tiny hole in one of the fences.

“Please, officers, you’ve got it all wrong. This is just some kind of misunderstanding.”

They stood in front of me, the older one with a sour look on his face and the younger one looking eager, but still uncertain.

“You see, I’m actually allowed back here, I just forgot my pass in town.”

“Oh really? In town, did ya? Well, I’ve never heard
that
excuse, before.” Sarcasm gushed from him as he gave the younger officer an amused chuckle. “You know how many girls we catch sneaking through that fence everyday?”

“No really, I do belong here. I can prove it…”

In hindsight, I probably should have thought better about making any sudden movements to dig through my purse with two officers watching me. But it really didn’t occur to me at the time.

No sooner had my hand disappeared into the purse than both officers had their guns drawn and leveled at me. I shrieked and froze in place. They instructed me to raise my hands and keep them where they could see them. I did as I was told, withdrawing the picture of Haden and me at the same time.

“I was just getting this.” I wagged the photo so they could see it.

The older officer nodded and the younger one took it from me. He studied it for a second before a big smile spread across his face.

“Hey, I know this guy. He’s in that band, right?”

I nodded, quickly. “He’s my boyfriend, we’ve been together almost two years now.”