Foolish Games (8 page)

My thoughts quickly drifted back to Hawkins who I heard shuffling in behind me. Not wanting another conversation, I quickly moved past the tables to the silver-plated, covered buffet trays that were lining the back wall of the room.

I thought about Hawkins leaning into me on the elevator. It was dominant, a power trip, the antics of a bad boy. What did he mean by saying this wasn’t a good time to be around the band and that this was him being nice? Threatening me in an elevator didn’t help the situation, but I would keep my promise to him if he did the same. It sounded like a sensible plan. I didn’t have to glance over my shoulder as I headed down the buffet table to know that he was lingering behind me. It seemed most of the dining room staff was staring in his direction.

“Sunglasses, huh?” I was startled by a familiar voice from behind me. I turned around to see that Kosic was softly chuckling to himself at the sight of me in Riley’s aviators.

“Hey, if you could have won a game or two I wouldn’t be so hungover right now,” I reminded him as we smiled at each other.

“Funny how that works,” Hawkins said sarcastically as he moved around me and continued down the line.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kosic pretended to be clueless.

“Seriously, you have to ask?” Hawkins eyed him skeptically.

“What are they calling you again?” Kosic laughed. “Arrogant?…Smug?”

“I don’t know, Joie. What are they calling me, again?” Hawkins turned to ask me.

“Charismatic,” I stated the only nice thing that got posted.

“Ha, nice.” Hawkins smiled.

Quickly, I continued to stack up my plate while not liking where this was going. “Well, it’s been real,” I said turning to leave. “I’ll just be going now.”

“You do that.” Hawkins smiled at our private joke.

“Wait a minute,” Kosic interrupted. “I wanted to get your number.” Stopping midstride, Kosic pulled out his cell phone and card. “By the way, was the hotel room okay?” Kosic asked.

“Ah, yes, Joie.” Hawkins tilted his head to glare over at me knowingly. “How was the room last night?”

Oh no…too much testosterone in one room for me.

“That was really nice of you to get her one, Kosic,” Hawkins commented as all amusement dropped from his face.

Kosic looked slightly embarrassed so I smiled really big and laid it on thick. “Thank you, Nathan, that was really sweet of you to think of us.”

“I’ve suddenly lost my appetite,” Hawkins said coolly before he passed by me without a second glance and departed the hotel restaurant.

“Is he bothering you?” Kosic asked in a low voice for only me to hear.

“No,” I answered while dropping the smile from my face as we exchanged numbers. “He’s not bothering me
at all
.”

“So can I call you?” He smiled down at me. The little girl in me felt elated, but the older, more sober girl in me was starting to wonder if Kosic had tried to get me drunk last night?

“Yeah, sure,” I said as those green eyes twinkled down at me with the ability to still leave me tongue tied.

“I’m glad you liked the room,” he added. I could barely stop myself from rolling my eyes as I said goodbye.

I exited the restaurant with a plateful of food while taking one last glance at the expansive lobby before I slid in between the closing elevator doors. At our floor, I jetted out of the elevator and hurried down the hallway to our room. After slipping the key pass into the door, I quickly entered the room and shut the door behind me, making sure all the locks were in place. Riley came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and I got a whiff of his spicy aftershave.

“Boys, too many boys,” I murmured.

“It isn’t possible.” Riley laughed as he headed over to his duffle bag.

“Hawkins managed to corner me in the elevator.” I walked a few steps and put down the plate of food on the edge of my bed. Crossing the room, I reached out on either side of the window and grabbed a fist full of material to pull the curtains shut. The eye piercing light was bringing my headache into full swing again. “It got a little heated between the two of us.”

“Was it anything like last night?” Riley asked as he put one leg at a time into a pair of military style chinos.

“Not as bad, but he explained to me that I was not to write about him again, like I looked forward to that prospect.” Retrieving the plate filled with food from the bed, I sat down. I picked up an icing-laced cherry croissant and began to nibble on it.

“I don’t know, he said something else.” My eyebrows knitted together. “He said it wasn’t safe for me to be around the band right now.” I looked up at Riley while hoping he might be able to shed some light on the strange message since in a way, he worked for the band.

“Not safe? Like you would be in danger?”

“Yeah, like he was trying to warn me, but he didn’t elaborate.” I exhaled loudly. “All I know is that we made a deal. Of course, all bets are off if he tweets anything else ugly about me again.”

“By the way, your post came up this morning on the message boards,” Riley informed me.

“That I already know,” I said under my breath with the memory of Hawkins in the elevator.

“Did you know people think you are Lizzie?” He grinned over at me.

“What?” I looked down at my last post on the laptop screen which included a photo of Lizzie as the avatar beside it.

“Oh, shit.” I covered my mouth before we both busted out laughing.

“Too bad it didn’t fool Hawkins,” I said regretfully.

“Lizzie’s not spending her time posting.” He laughed.

“No,
no,
she’s not,” I emphasized.

“Some of these posts from the fans on the message boards are hysterical.” He went to read one, “If that is a hooker then where can I get her number? Another one says she can jolt my bones anytime.”

“Nice,” I said, picking up another croissant off the plate.

“Oh, and here’s someone from your girl fan base.”

I stopped examining the pastry and perked up in the bed since I had been writing it for them after all.

“If you’re not stalking him then why don’t you just go home? No one wants to hear your shit.”

“Wow,” I said, widening my eyes, “some sisterhood.”

“Oh, it only gets worse,” he assured me. “The girls are thinking of calling themselves ‘Stalking Hawkins.’”

“Can’t we all just get along?” I said sarcastically before I bit into the croissant.

“Apparently not.” His eyes widened. “The next one says—”

“No, it’s cool.” I held up a hand. “I got it.”

“Seriously though, we need to do something other than stalk the band,” I stressed. “I can’t take concert after concert.”

“Like what?”

“With or without you, I’m going to do some sightseeing while I’m here,” I insisted since it would be the only sane thing I was doing now that I found myself in this crazy crossfire of he said, she said.

“Sightseeing…how about shopping instead?” he offered.

“Deal.” I popped the last remaining piece of the croissant in my mouth and rolled off the bed.

Riley slicked back his damp hair, grabbed up his black duffle bag and tucked his computer underneath his arm. After glancing around the room for like a nanosecond, I stepped into the hallway. Riley on the other hand moaned, “Goodbye, five star hotel. I will miss you.”

“Living in the van is not that bad,” I said as I pulled out my cell phone and Riley finally exited the hotel room.

“Whatever you say.” He heaved a sigh.

“I’m going to text Lizzie to see if she wants to come along.”

“And I’ll take those.” He reached out for his dark aviators that were on my face, but I gently slapped his hand away mid-text.

“I need these more than you,” I reminded him.

“Ah, so true, so true.” He smirked.

Turning down the hallway, away from the elevators, I looked back at Riley and waved for him to follow me towards the stairwell.

“Where are you going?” Riley stopped, thinking I must have gone the wrong way.

“No more elevators for today.” I rolled my eyes while thinking about Hawkins locking me in one of them earlier.

“Okay.” He laughed while following behind me to the steps.

“That was fast,” I mumbled to myself when Lizzie texted me back. “It says she’ll meet us at the van.”

We headed down the steps and exited the side door of the hotel. Once outside, I grimaced from the brightness, even with the aviators on. It was another hot summer day without a single breeze in the stagnant air. Perfectly sculptured evergreen trees framed the outer edges of the parking lot. A line of tour buses glistened in the sun along the back of the lot. In front of it were two lanes of expensive vehicles. You would have thought it was a Mercedes car dealership if it wasn’t for my pale blue clunker mixed in with them. I looked back and forth questioningly at the parking lot. Where were all the fans? Last time the parking lot was filled with them. A girl hollered, followed by a few low whistles, catching my attention. I searched for the source and discovered that the entrance was roped off, keeping the fans out. I didn’t know why the fans were being pushed back to the edge of the hotel today. I thought about Hawkins’ warning that now wasn’t a good time to be around the band and became instantly afraid. How unsafe was
unsafe
?

Opening the door, I recoiled from the heat coming out of the van. I tossed the keys over to Riley who opened his door and mirrored the same reaction so we waited for the van to cool off. Over my shoulder, Lizzie was quickly crossing over to us from the side entrance of the hotel. She didn’t even hesitate as she flung back the side door and got into the van. We were both waiting for her to run out of it in a screaming rage, but to our surprise she didn’t.

“Can you hurry?” she asked in a small voice from within the van.

Riley and I just shrugged at each other before we slowly eased ourselves into the scorching hot van. I shoved the keys into the ignition and turned it on. Trying not to touch the hot steering wheel, I floored the gas to the ground to create some air conditioning the old fashioned way with the windows down. 

“I’m so glad to be out of here,” Lizzie groaned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Warren’s smothering me!” she said with exasperation. “All he wants to do is talk about hockey. It’s a puck and some ice, calm down already. Apparently, The Stanley Cups are going on—”

“Stanley Cup,” I corrected her.

“Whatever, once again…who cares,” she said. “And it’s all he talks about. I mean I get it, he’s a Canadian, blah, blah, blah. I just need a break.” She exhaled loudly.

“So it’s been hard for you?” Nodding sarcastically, I humored her.

“Yes,” she whimpered.

“I thought that you liked him?” Riley asked.

“I do, I like that he’s hot, rich, and famous. I like that the only thing that I would have to worry about is popping out babies for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, to dream,” I said. “So it’s been hard for you?”

“Yes,” she sulked.

“So what are you going to do? Go back to Ryan?” I was hopeful. 

“I could always move on to Hawkins.” She shrugged. “He seems okay with just texting, drinking, and
avoiding
conversations.”

“Apparently,” I added dryly.

“He had you pretty fired up last night, didn’t he?” Lizzie noticed.

“It was the alcohol talking.” I dismissed the thought.

“Yeah, thanks to Kosic.” Riley snickered.

“We just had a couple bad hands.”

“The rest of the night?” Lizzie asked skeptically.

“It does seem a bit fishy now that I’m sober.”

“And Hawkins didn’t like it, did he?” Riley mused.

“Okay, it would be a lot easier to list the things Hawkins
did
like. Anyway, I’m not going to focus my trip on him, that’s your job Riley. Mine is to sightsee, which is coming up.” My attention drifted outside to a large, round building with a white domed top and a clock centered over the doorway.

“Okay, sightseers, that is The Rotunda of UVA,” I said, pointing with my finger. “It was designed by Thomas Jefferson. He created it in the image of the Pantheon in Rome. That long stretch of land in front of it is called ‘The Lawn.’”

“Oh god, you sound like a tour guide,” Lizzie groaned as she came up to lean her arms on either side of our seats.

“She’s just practicing for her mom,” Riley commented.

Not that it mattered, but I
did
want to do something other than go to concert after concert.

“Over there, sightseers,” Lizzie announced in her “tour guide” voice, “Is UVA’s finest attribute.”

Riley snickered as we approached a group of guys jogging down the side of the road.

“Now, that’s what I’m interested in getting out and seeing more of.” Lizzie nodded and tapped Riley’s shoulder. “How about you?” They both pealed into a fit of laughter.

“The Historic Downtown Mall will have to suffice,” I muttered to myself as we pulled into the parking lot behind Main Street in downtown Charlottesville. “I hope they have a book store.”

“But you have a Sony Reader.” Riley picked it up.

“I know, I just love the smell of an old book store and the feel of the crisp pages along my fingertips.”

“Okay, okay.” Lizzie stopped me as we exited the van. “We got it.”

We headed down an overly crowded sidewalk that opened up to what was probably once a street, but had been turned into an outdoor mall at least a century earlier. The walkway hummed with people going in and out of stores that were tightly packed side by side. The jingle of bells could be heard as the shoppers came and went out of the buildings. Up ahead was a bookstore, and I headed straight for it since I finished my last book three concerts ago. Riley and a reluctant Lizzie followed behind me.

“How can you read when there are so many other things to do on this tour?” Lizzie asked.