After dealing with the juvenile behavior of the Terrible Threesome all night long and dragging a stoned Grayson out of yet another titty bar at ten o’clock that morning, Jonas had gone back to his room, walked past the room service cart with the cold omelet on it, and crashed for a few hours until two in the afternoon, then hauled his exhausted ass out of bed to deal with yet another monster of a day. Rhiannon had slept in her own room when Jonas had admitted that he had no hope of going to bed while the moon was up, and he blamed the Terrible Threesome for that missed opportunity, too.
However, his first order of business was to wake Tryp for his radio interview.
Though Jonas toyed with the bucket of half-melted ice on the dresser as Tryp’s drunken snore buzzed under the bedspread, he shook Tryp’s shoulder and said his name progressively louder until Tryp woke up, cursing and swinging at him.
Jonas blocked the drunken attempt at a punch and refrained from clocking him. Knocking him senseless would be counter-productive when he was trying to roust Tryp’s skinny butt out of bed for his daily phone interview.
He set the interview cell phone by the bed—they didn’t hand out the band’s personal phone numbers to every DJ who wanted to fill some air time—and told him that his breakfast would be delivered in a half an hour, band meeting was in an hour, and they would be leaving for the sound check right after that.
Tryp muttered something with his face buried in the pillow that sounded like, “Fuck off.”
Tryp’s petty act of rebellion was becoming a daily irritation. Maybe Jonas could get some roadies to barge in there and haul him out of the king-sized bed instead. They would probably use the ice water without worrying about pneumonia.
Jonas went down to the lobby to get a cup of coffee because he needed to get away from the whole lot of them for a few minutes. He sat in the cafe, drinking a mercifully over-sweetened latte, watching the normal people as they scurried to have some fun on their vacations before they went home to their houses and families.
Still trying not to scowl, he ate a cookie or something.
Jesus, an 18,000-seat theater, and it had been sold out for weeks. Killer Valentine was breaking through just in time for these overaged adolescents to explode in brilliant self-immolation.
After this tour, Xan had plans to throw them all back in the studio to record a new album the day after the tour’s last stop. He said that he had six songs already worked up and ready to commit to tape.
Jonas wanted to send them all to rehab: the Terrible Threesome for the usual substance abuse problems, Cadell for video poker addiction, and Xan for workaholism. Maybe they would strap him to a chair and force him to watch rom-com movies while he screamed for his laptop to refresh his Twitter feed to see how many new people were following @XanHimself or to check the hourly-fluctuating sales rankings on all their albums over and over.
Jonas grinned around the last bite of his cookie but let his smile drop. He was ready to snap, and he needed to check himself. The guys were all fraying hard, trying to survive and succeed in a business that could only be described as thrashing in piranha-infested waters. Swarms of people tried to take their bites out of Killer Valentine. A thousand other bands would tear them down in interviews, trying to make their own way up the charts. Record company execs were throwing contracts at the band, trying to get them to sign away rights and revenue with documents that non-lawyers couldn’t understand and even good attorneys couldn’t agree on the ramifications. Groupies tried to get pregnant every night. One of Jonas’s previous platinum-selling clients had gone bankrupt from child support payments.
Jonas was supposed to protect them from all that and from themselves and make sure that the shows went on, but he was only one man.
On the way back up to his room, the elevator stopped at the twentieth floor where the executive gym was, and the doors parted to reveal Rhiannon. Her damp curls bounced as she smiled at Jonas, and he struggled to reset his emotions around her.
She tugged on a white towel hugging her neck, her smile brightening further. “Hey! I didn’t get to the gym at noon, obviously. Were you there?”
So sunny, so sweet. He didn’t know how she did it. “I didn’t make it, either,” Jonas said. “Tomorrow, hopefully.”
The heavy doors grated closed, and they were alone in the elevator.
Jonas grabbed her soft hand and yanked. His body slammed hers, pushing her softness up against the wall of the elevator. He scrambled for her arms and pinned them above her head as his mouth found hers, open and willing, all his built-up fury pouring into his arms and hips and he pressed against her.
Rhiannon wrapped her leg around his ass, pulling him harder against her pliant body. Her light sweat mixed with the watermelon of her shampoo and vanilla of her perfume and drove him wild.
He groaned, deepening the kiss and working his tongue over hers as she gasped. One of her arms got free, and she grabbed him around the neck. He twisted his fingers in her hair, not pulling, just feeling the comforting softness in his palm.
The elevator slowed, bobbing to level itself with the floor outside the door.
Jonas broke off from her and straightened. Her breath warmed his lips. He said, “There might be someone out there.”
“Okay.” Her sweet blue eyes were dazed. She stroked the back of his neck, and he almost scooped her up in his arms and dashed to his room.
“Tonight,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. Her lips tantalized him, so close to his.
She nodded. “Tonight.”
The elevator doors parted, and by the time the doors revealed Cadell standing outside, Jonas and Rhiannon stood on opposite sides of the elevator, though they were still breathing hard.