The next day I reported to the concert venue with a renewed purpose. I was going to do my job. Screw Jesse and his gorgeous denim blue wandering eyes.
Only there wasn’t much to do. The guys didn’t need a soundcheck, since they’d ran one yesterday. A few people ran around the halls, but way less than yesterday. With everything already in place, there wasn’t much to do today. Or even many people around to even watch.
But Xander and Jesse were in the band’s private greenroom, plucking away on their instruments.
I hovered in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt their work. Then the sweet strains of their music hit me, and I had to grab my camera and record them. I got about two minutes of them dueling and screwing off before Jesse looked up, spotted me in the doorway, and stopped playing.
I hit the button to end the video and gave them an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You guys were having fun and enjoying the music. Besides, I don’t think anyone would believe me if I told them you knew all the words and chords to George Strait’s ‘I Cross My Heart.’”
Xander hooted. “You think that was voluntary? Chase made us learn it so he could serenade his bride back when they were on their break. But it’s a damn good song.”
Shay had swooned when the guys had set up in Mom’s living room and gave her a private concert highlighting all her favorite country songs. The things my brother did for love. It’d been so sweet. I might’ve spied on them from upstairs with my mom. We’d been rooting so hard for them to get back together.
Thank god they did.
“You’re such good friends.”
Jesse shrugged. “It didn’t hurt that he’d bribed us all with bottles of our favorite liquor.”
“Like you couldn’t afford them yourselves.” I raised my eyebrows. “Chase told me how you helped him when he was trying to figure out where she was. And then when it came to winning her back. Just take the compliment, Jesse. You’re a good friend.”
Jesse moved his shoulders like the praise made him feel uncomfortable.
“I’m gonna go bug my guitar tech,” Xander said with a distracted frown. “I think I need a new set of strings on old Bess. Don’t wanna break one onstage during my acoustic song. See you guys later.”
“Later,” Jesse and I said in unison.
Leaving us alone together in the greenroom in awkward, strained silence.
“You, uh, get up to anything fun last night after the concert?” Jesse finally asked as he moved his fingers silently on his bass.
“Just third-wheeling it with my brother and his wife, like usual. And it was especially uncomfortable last night. At one point, they actually made out pressed up against me in the back of the limo.”
“Damn.” Jesse choked on his laughter, covering his mouth with a fist.
“No, it’s fine. Laugh away. I did. It helped keep me from crying last night.”
“Bug.”
I closed my eyes as his childhood nickname for me slapped me in the face. Bug. Damn. And just when I thought I couldn’t feel lower. Right. “Don’t. Please. Just…” I sighed. “It’s whatever. I learned my lesson at least. I Ubered here today, and I plan on getting myself home. Although, technically, it’s Chase’s home since I’m still living in his pool house, but whatever.”
“Bug, you know your brother loves having you—”
“I’m gonna stop you right there. No one wants their family mooching off them and living underfoot when they’re newlyweds. I know exactly what my place is, and I’m doing my damnedest to change it. Speaking of, would you mind if I turned this video of you guys singing King George into a shareable social media video? I think it’ll really help with ticket sales in Texas and down south.”
Jesse shook his head with a laugh. “I’m not embarrassed, and I guarantee Xander isn’t either, but you might want to hold off. It would spoil the surprise.”
“What surprise?”
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now, would it?”
I groaned my annoyance and turned to leave. Jesse called my name. I paused. “Yeah?”
“Do you need a ride home tonight? I don’t mind giving you a lift. Would be safer than Uber and make it less awkward than riding with your horny brother.”
I opened my mouth to say yes when I remembered the other painful part of last night, namely the brunette. “Nah, I don’t want to cramp your style either. But thanks.”
Then I turned and walked away, not sure how to feel about that little convo.
Night two and I was standing where I’d stood last night—in the media pit behind the metal railing separating the pit from the stage. It should’ve felt familiar. But it so didn’t. Between the roar of the crowd behind me, the sparkle of the stage lights, and the music pulsing through my body, it felt like my first concert.
And I was such a huge Tin Gods fan.
I’d been there since the very beginning. I mean, I didn’t get to go to their early gigs, since I’d only been in middle school, but I’d been a fan long before they could fill a stadium. I knew every song by heart—even the new stuff.
So to say it was hard to concentrate on my job was an understatement.
It also didn’t help that it felt like Jesse was staring at me. That he was singing just to me. I knew that wasn’t true. And yet every time I pointed my camera in his direction, it felt like he was looking straight back at me. But that was crazy.
Right?
The crowd roared around me as the last beat of ‘Corruption’ pounded through the stadium. I switched cameras so I could video what I was sure would be a little patter from Chase to give the guys a little breather before the next number.
And I was right.
“Thank you!” Chase said as he waved to the crowd. “All right, I’m sure you all heard the news, but since the last time we were in this stadium, a few things have changed for me.”
“One big thing,” Jesse said with a smirk.
“He finally got that penile implant?” Noah asked. “Good for you, bro.”
“Son of a—” Chase turned and glared at the drummer. “What the hell? I’m trying to have a little moment acknowledging my wife. Can you all at least pretend you have manners?”
“Sorry.” Noah shrugged. “Your check didn’t clear, so we don’t technically have to be nice to you.”
Chase whirled around to face the crowd. “I did not bribe the guys to be nice to me.”
“Clearly.” Xander raised his eyebrows. “Like Noah said, my check didn’t clear either.”
“Fucking hell.” Chase closed his eyes as his shoulders shook with his laughter. “You guys suck.”
“But we won’t swallow.” Noah broke in with a smirk. “Because like I said—”
The rest of the group finished with him, “—his check didn’t clear.”
It was so hard to keep the camera steady as I laughed along with the crowd.
“Anyway, like I was trying to say before these jackoffs interrupted me.” Chase whipped his head to the side and glared at the guys before facing the audience. “I got married a little bit ago. I did the whole cliché rocker Vegas wedding, but only because I met the love of my life. And I just wanted to take a moment, if that’s all right with these assholes.” Chase turned and glared at the band who all shrugged, feigning innocence.
“Go right ahead.” Xander waved his hand like a gameshow model presenting a fabulous prize. “You’ve got the comm, captain.”
“In case any of you didn’t know.” Chase smirked into his microphone. “Xan is a total scif-fi nerd.”
“Hey!” Xander yelled. “You mispronounced stud. It’s sci-fi stud, thank you very much.”
“Sure, sure.” Chase swung back around to the stand and made a slicing motion over his neck. “Shit, we’re running way long. Anyhow, I just wanted to acknowledge the very wonderful woman in my life, Shay. I love you baby, and I want you to know that this is all because of you, and I’m singing this one for only you.”
Noah and Xander started the opening beat of ‘Can’t Tell Her.’
But Chase was staring at the side stage area where I didn’t even have to look to know that Shay had to be standing, staring just as starry-eyed back at her husband. Unlike night one, he didn’t bring her out onstage. She must’ve threatened him.
Still, it made my heart clench. They had such an authentic, pure love story. It was the thing movies were made about. Especially the way Chase sung the song to the wing of the stage and not the thousands of people who had paid to see the show. Chase was all about his wife. And I loved that for him. He deserved it.
I just wish I had something even half as passionate for myself.
Unbidden, my eyes returned to Jesse on his bass. He looked as gorgeous and as intent as ever. And as untouchable as always.
Sighing, I swapped out my cameras again and took more photos. Something, anything, to keep my hands and my mind busy. There was no point wandering down what-if lane.
That night, after all the hoopla backstage and countless pictures with celebrities and kids, I bumped into Jesse as I was exiting their greenroom.
“Leaving already?” He shoved his hands into his front jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels.
Tingles raced through my body at his nearness, and I felt that magnetic pull again. “Um, yeah. I have to pack. Don’t want to forget anything important, you know?”
Jesse hitched a shoulder. “Not really. It’s not like we’re going overseas. You’ll be able to get anything you want in Vegas. You should stay and party with us. There won’t be much time for that tomorrow after the show.”
This was it. After all the time I’d spent wondering and wanting and watching my friends walk away with him, Jesse was asking me to stay after a show with him.
He tilted his head. “Everything okay?”
Because apparently, I was taking forever to answer and staring at him like an obsessed fangirl. Let’s be honest—I totally was one.
“I woul—”
“There you are, trouble!” Rowan, of all people, burst into the greenroom and shattered our tiny corner of privacy. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Come on, you gotta come meet my friend, Emily. She’s the one I’ve been telling you about.”
A rock could understand the innuendo in her tone. Rolling my eyes, I hitched my equipment bag on my shoulder and headed for the door Rowan wasn’t blocking.
“Bug! Where are you going?” Jesse threw a distracted look over his shoulder at Rowan before tracking my progress across the room. “I thought—”
“I got too much packing to do, remember? Raincheck.”
I know I had to’ve imagined the look of surprise in his eyes. He didn’t want to hang out with me. He had a harem to get back to.
“Hey!” Jesse called just before I reached the door. “How are you getting home? You’re going to be safe, right? I don’t have to call out the big guns?”
Meaning my overprotective brother. I closed my eyes and gave a huff of exasperation. I was twenty-seven, not sixteen. “I’ll be fine.”
And I left the two of them there without a second look.
I had packing to do and a pity party to attend.
People were rushing around me, pushing dollies, unrolling cable, and barking orders. Probably because we were packing up tonight and hitting the road for Vegas after the show. But while everyone was bustling around me with purpose, I stood in the middle of the fray with my camera around my neck and my luggage at my feet. I knew I was supposed to drop my stuff off at the bus, but where?
I really needed to come up with a game plan. Do something. Anything other than stand in the way of everyone else.
“You get lost again, Ella?” Wes popped up out of nowhere with a smile creasing his too attractive face.
“Yes. Kinda. Do you know what bus I’m on?” I jumped out of the way of two guys carrying a huge flat crate.
“You didn’t come with your brother?”
“Ah, no. He was, um, busy. So I called an Uber. And here I am,” I finished lamely.
After the awkward PDAs over the last two nights, I wasn’t looking to continue my third wheel status with my brother and his wife. Chase was too busy dicking down his wife to show up on time, anyhow. I was blaming only Chase for his tardiness because Shay was awesome, and she had an inexplicable weakness when it came to my brother. I didn’t get it, but whatever. It was still his fault.
“Right.” Wes’s expression let me know that my message had been delivered. “Let’s grab your bags, and I’ll show you to your bus. We’ll roll out of town late tonight and head for Vegas after the show.”
None of this was new information—it’d all been covered during the endless meetings the last few weeks—but it still made my heart race. Because despite working two concerts already, I was excited. We were going on the road. New cities. New challenges. And I was loving my job for once in my life.
Of course, I had to keep that newbie glee off my face and go for a more unaffected, blasé expression. I bent and grabbed my backpack, two camera cases, and my huge duffel bag. “Lead the way.”
Wes laughed and pulled my duffel bag out of my hands. “They’re over in the south forty, away from all the chaos.”
I followed silently, careful to keep one eye on said chaos so I wasn’t in anyone’s way.
“Why didn’t you tell your driver to drop you by the buses?” Wes asked as we wove past crates, cables, roadies and more huge trucks than I thought we’d ever need for a tour.
“Kinda hard to do when you don’t even know where the buses are.”
Wes laughed. “Touché.”
As we wove through the huge, chaotic parking lot, I tried not to look like a newbie by gawking at everything. Pretty sure I mostly failed. I might’ve spent two days at the venue, but I never ventured outside to see all the kit it took to put on their shows. There were even large trucks with explosives warnings on their backs.
“Pyrotechnics for the show.” Wes said as he noticed where my attention had drifted. “For the end of the show. And that one thing in the middle.”
I nodded. I remembered vividly the first show when sparks had exploded overhead, and then danced around Jesse.
Dammit, I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to do that anymore. Stupid, sexy Jesse Mala.
“All right, here we are.” Wes stopped next to a bus that looked pretty much exactly like the other ten or so buses nearby. “You’re on bus number two.”
I nodded as I spotted the number in the window. At least I’d have some hope of finding it again.
“It’s usually locked, so just knock to get in. Dallas, your driver, should always be nearby.” Wes demonstrated, knocking like a cop with a warrant.
A few beats later, I could hear someone stomping toward the door. I jumped back as the doors pivoted open.
“Holy shit, Wes. It’s way too early in the tour to be here busting our balls.” Jesse freaking Mala stood in the doorway of my roadie bus. Like my thoughts had somehow conjured him.
Wes smirked. “It’s never too early to bust your balls. But I’m just showing Ella the ropes, since her brother left her high and dry.”
Jesse’s eyes darted over Wes’s shoulder to me, and his eyebrows went up. “Ella. Right. Well, climb aboard.”
Jesse stepped back inside the bus while I stood there frozen.
My mind whirled as I took in the implications of Jesse being inside my bus. “Wait, I thought I was on a roadie bus. You know, with the other plebs.”
“SAT word. Nice.” Wes smiled down at me. When my expression didn’t change, he raised his eyebrows. “Sorry, my son is trying to up his vocab for his test in May. Uh, I don’t know what to tell you. The band has final say on bus occupants, and you’re on this one.”
I gritted my teeth. I knew what that meant. Chase didn’t want me sleeping and riding around with the roadies. Like everything else in my life, he was trying to railroad me into doing things his way.
Like. Hell.
I stomped onto the bus, pushing past Jesse. “Chase, get your sorry ass out here! I can’t fucking believe you!”
“Uh, Ella?” Jesse called from somewhere behind me.
But I didn’t give a shit. I had to give my brother a piece of my mind. “I know you think you get to control every goddamn aspect of my life, but you’re fucking wrong!”
There was muffled laughter behind me.
I whirled around, furious. “What the hell is so goddamn funny?”
Jesse smirked at me in that way of his that always pissed me off. “Uh, well, for one, Chase isn’t on this bus, so you’re yelling at Xander and Noah.”
Xander stepped out of the bathroom and Noah peeked out from a bunk further down.
I huffed out an annoyed breath and turned back to Jesse. “And two?”
“Well, uh.” Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. “Chase has his own bus. You know…now that he’s married?”
“He wants me to stay with you all, when he has his own bus?”
Jesse’s eyebrows went up. “You want to be on the same bus as your brother when he’s screwing his wife?”
I shuddered. “Good point.”
“Look, the whole reason we have a free bunk is because he’s not here. Otherwise, you would be on a roadie bus. And trust me, that is not a scene you want to be a part of.”
“Because you all are choir boys? Seriously?”
Jesse shrugged. “Better the devil you know.”
A sinking sensation pulled at my stomach. This was real. I was going to be locked on a bus for months with Jesse freaking Mala.
Fuck my life.
“Also, since you’re the last one here you get the middle bunk next to the shitter.”
“Except there’s no number twos on the bus!” Noah yelled from his bunk.
“Right, rule number one is no number twos.” Wes clapped me on the shoulder.
I stared wide-eyed at Jesse. “Where are we supposed to poop?”
“You gotta let Dallas know you have to go, and he’ll either find you a rest stop—”
“Or a bush to hide behind on the side of the road!” Xander threw out with a smirk.
“Or a plastic bag!” Noah yelled again from his bunk. “Remember that one Jesse?”
I wasn’t imagining the red tinge streaking across Jesse’s cheeks, but he shrugged like it was no big deal. “LA traffic. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
I did not find that weirdly charming. I wasn’t a weirdo.
Maybe if I repeated it a few times, I’d believe it, too.
“You can’t tell me that you all don’t have female employees on tour with you. I’ve met some of them—Rowan, Avery, that one girl sound tech. Where do they sleep?”
Jesse blinked at me a few times like he couldn’t believe that was my response to the story of him pooping in a bag. “In their bus.”
“So why I can’t be on that one?”
Noah rolled out of his bunk and swaggered toward us. “It’s getting hard not to take this personally, Baby Robinson. Do you not like us or something?”
My shoulders sagged. “You know it’s not that. I just don’t need four older brothers constantly on my case. I wanted to be treated like anyone else here.”
“But you’re not anyone else. You’re Ella Robinson—Chase’s little sister and an unofficial member of the group.” Xander walked down the bus’s narrow aisle to us and stopped behind Noah. “And the sooner everyone on this tour gets that, the better.”
I closed my eyes and accepted the inevitable. There was no way I’d get my way now.
Great.