Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (61 page)

“I just might!” She shoved at him enough to maneuver away from the solid wall of the bus and spoke to his back.

Do it. Have some self-respect, woman
. Again, he resisted the urge to grab her in a hug and admit he was full of shit. But he’d already tried to handle the breakup straightforward with the old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech before heading out on tour. He’d all but told her he was too hung up on someone else to continue the relationship. To drive home the point, he’d told her he didn’t want to be tied down while on tour. Instead of parting ways, she’d insisted they have an open relationship. Truthfully, he’d thought the few selfies of him and inebriated women he had posted on Instagram would enrage her enough to send her packing before the tour leg was over. But it had backfired. Instead, she was here.

Finally, he turned. Only seconds had passed, but they’d felt enough like minutes that he was surprised to see her still standing only a few feet away. The wind was ruffling her hair and drying the wet trails on her cheeks. She was staring just beyond him, and he followed her gaze to the space between the front bumper of this truck and the back one in front of it.

Ah fuck
. Scarlette.

The familiar sun-kissed, caramel colored tresses whipping around with the breeze had him wishing a sinkhole beneath the asphalt would manifest and swallow him whole.

Maybe she hadn’t heard anything.

But her famous eyes were giant round orbs, and her lips were parted in shock. The moment their gazes locked, she spun around, stumbled, caught her balance, and jogged toward the opposite side of this caravan.

Yeah. She’d heard enough.

Instinct had him swaying her way, prepared to run after her.

Chivalry had him closing the distance between him and Allison instead.

“That’s her. The one you were talking about.” Allison’s quiet observation was matter-of-fact and sad-sounding. “The one you can’t let go.”

“Yeah.” He stuck with honesty, unable to fabricate more lies and unsure if he did lie what the reason would be. To protect himself or to protect her? “That’s her.” When she was quiet, he studied the myriad of expressions crossing her face. “You ever have one of those?”

“Yeah. I do.”

God. He hoped she wasn’t talking about him and averted his eyes from her intent expression.

“It’s not you.” She read him well, and in self-defense, he made more of an effort at blanking his face.

She grilled him about how long Scarlette had been on tour while he counted Benjamins from his billfold. It took less than ten minutes with the phone travel app he habitually used to make sure she had a flight booked back to L.A. and a ride to a hotel inside the airport metropolis. Allison came from money and had flown in on an open-ended roundtrip ticket. So he paid for her room and the return ticket difference since she hadn’t stayed a week as were the travel terms.

A week
. He shuddered at the near miss and again felt horrible that after knowing her as intimately as he did, he couldn’t bear her company in close quarters for even a few days—much less seven.

Scar, on the other hand, was the bright star in the dark tour night. He knew her presence on the cramped bus and unending hotel rooms would lift his sprits and keep him sane.

If she wasn’t also on her way back to L.A
.

He was counting on her dependability and hard work ethics to have kept her from bolting altogether.

After checking the time on his phone, he pocketed it while looking around. Five hours before sound check. Had Scar gone into the bus? He eyed it and the perimeter around it.

“Question.” Landon was puffing on a joint as he emerged from the space between the rear of their bus and the front of the other bus in their entourage. “How many women are you bringing along? And will they be up for shares?”

Ignoring the insolent inquiry, Gage nodded to the bus. “She in there?”

“Stepsister babe? No. Last I saw, she was headed in there.” In the same manner, Landon tipped his head to the coliseum.

Cursing under his breath when faced with the rat’s maze of hallways, Gage closed his eyes for a second and oriented by instinct. This was his first gander inside. He hadn’t gone along earlier with the rest of his band to check out their quarters for tonight. Most of these places were close to the same in layout. The tour cases were currently being wheeled down a wide hallway. While he knew the smaller passage jutting off at the mouth of the larger was likely the one leading to the dressing and hospitality rooms, he knew Scarlette didn’t have the same experience with these types of venues. So, she would likely veer away from the ant line of activity. Heading away from the ramp and up a small stairway, he continued with his intuition.

Sure enough, just as he rounded a corner, he almost ran headlong into her. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” Her breezy smile was so phony it appeared clownish, and she slid her fingers nonchalantly into her front pockets.

“Your flight was okay?”

“Mmh hmm. Thanks for asking.”

An awkward silence fell between them as they walked, and then at the same time, they spoke.

“About that shit you saw…”

“I’m sorry.” Her aloof delivery belied the contrite words. “They told me you were out there somewhere, but didn’t tell me you weren’t alone.”

Of course. His Rattler buddies. The guys had probably all lined up at the window hoping to watch the sparks fly. He’d been smart enough to walk Allison a ways down the line of vehicles to avoid prying eyes. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been wise enough to predict Scarlette would arrive in the fifteen minutes it would take to deal with Allison.

“It’s not what it looked like.” He all but stopped, hoping she would too, but she kept up a brisk pace, and he was forced to fall back into step.

Tossing her head, she flipped a long tress of her hair from one shoulder to spill with the rest down her back. “I don’t care what it was. It’s not my business.”

The blasé answer maddened him. Didn’t she care if he was an asshole? She’d been plenty disappointed in him a year ago when she’d first arrived at his door. And her disappointment, although infuriating at times and discomfiting at other times, had been oddly reassuring. He realized that now. She hadn’t been condescending—she’d cared. Didn’t she still? “It is though, you know. Your business.”

“How do you figure?”

Reaching out, he stopped her forward motion with a curve of his fingers to her petite wrist. “Because you could never be with some sociopathic dick.”

“I wasn’t planning to be.”

“I know. I know you. And that’s why I need you to know…” Fuck this was embarrassing. “I was trying out a different breakup technique. I don’t want to be in a relationship, and I told her, but she wouldn’t hear it.”

“Insulting her? Making her feel like shit? It was a technique?” She jerked her arm away from his grip.

“Making her hate me enough to leave. Colt always does it. I thought I’d give it a try when straight talk didn’t work with her. But I felt like shit. And then she cried instead of screamed at me.”

“So how did you leave it? Is she still here crying somewhere?”

“I told her what I did and why. She’s on her way back to Cali. She seems okay. Gonna text me when she gets home safely.”

“Where’s home?”

Hope flared in his chest at the subtle spark of jealousy lighting her eyes. “She wasn’t living with me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Allison’s flatiron, and a few of her things had taken up permanent residence in the house, but she never had.

“Men. You’re all idiots.” Presumably back to his breakup technique, she cut her eyes sideways as she started walking again. And then—and this is why he loved Scar—she showed her concern with the barest tap of her fingers to his arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He covered her hand with his, hungry for the contact. The hall was about to dump into open space and daylight spilled inside through the open bay doors. Mutually they paused here, still in semi-privacy. “You hungry?"

S
carlette’s stomach growled at the mere thought of food. In the past few minutes, a tasty aroma had begun wafting down the hall they were in.

“I could eat. Are they cooking here?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to eat the shit they’ve been serving on tour.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and she forced her eyes to avert from the snug fit of denim around this area of his anatomy. “As soon as we rolled in, I found a diner close by.”

She peered at his screen. “You have a food finder app?”

“That’s pretty much what it is,” he agreed. He pointed his phone like a compass, and she watched the navigation arrow line up. “This way.”

Unable to hold back a laugh, she followed him back outside where they wove through the busy roadies and then crossed the large still-empty parking area.

When they were settled at a booth in the café, breathing in charbroiled burger fumes while waiting on their order, he leaned both arms on the table. “I’m sorry I missed your graduation.”

She shrugged his apology off while taking a sip of iced tea. “You’re on tour—had a show that night. What can you do?”

“I wanted to be there, though. I’m sorry I wasn’t. Tell me about it.”

Thinking of graduation night brought up the unpleasant memories of Wayne Ketchum and the ugly secret her mom had kept for years. She planned to call her lawyers in the coming week and find out if a way existed to do an after death DNA test. She didn’t give a shit about the trust fund money if it wasn’t hers. What scared her more was finding out the man she’d finally accepted in her heart as a father might not be. Perhaps there was something of her father’s somewhere with trace DNA. Hell, Colt had his sweaty headband!

“That bad? Your mom must have been there.” Gage’s dry observation interrupted her thoughts.

“No. It was great, really. I just have some crap on my mind.”

“What crap?”

And so she told him. On the tail end of her explanation, their server arrived distributing their plates and the condiments for their fries. Instead of moving away, the young woman clasped her hands behind her back and hovered. Gage concentrated inordinately hard on pooling ketchup into his plate without looking up. A flinch spasmed in his jaw—was he gritting his teeth? Their waitress still shadowed the table. Confused, Scarlette looked up, taking note of the girl’s flushed cheeks and unsure eyes focused on Gage. It was then she understood and glanced back at Gage. The familiar tattoos sleeving his arms were a dead giveaway, as was the coliseum less than a mile away.

“We’re good. Thanks.” Scarlette’s words were gentle but dismissive, carrying a new tone she’d learned over the past several months.

“Um… I was… Yeah. Okay.” The woman lifted a hand, pulling nervously at her apron. “Okay. Sure. Thank you.” Clearly flustered, she apologized for nothing.

Just as she turned away, Gage’s chest lifted in a silent sigh, and he spoke. “Hey. Hold up.” The woman turned with an equal air of excitement and fear. “Hi.” The engaging smile tipped his lips, and Scarlette honestly thought the gal was going to faint. “What’s your name?”

“K-Kelli…”

“Nice to meet you, Kelli. You got a phone?” At his request, her shaky hands produced one from her pocket, and Gage nodded to Scarlette. “Scar, can you take a pic?” Holding his smile, he waited while she passed the phone over and leaned into the frame for a couple of selfies of the two of them. “You coming to the show?”

“Fire Flight?” She seemed puzzled. “I thought some other bands were playing tonight.”

Again, the barely visible jaw clench was the only thing belying his casual demeanor. Scarlette knew him well enough to see the shame and realized for the first time what it must be costing his pride to step into a supporting band instead of a headlining one. And here was a fan who obviously hadn’t followed music news enough in the last year to know the change in Fire Flight’s lineup.

Scarlette shoved the phone at the girl and made a show of coughing. “Excuse me. Can I get some water please?”

The woman dashed off, and Scarlette looked across the table to see Gage pecking away at his phone. When he set it down, she assumed he’d been answering a text. However, when less than five minutes later, a nondescript SUV parked directly in front of the establishment and no one exited the vehicle, she understood it was their ride. Smart move. Once the young waitress’ picture posted to the internet, walking back to the venue along a busy boulevard wouldn’t be smart.

By mutual, silent agreement, they made haste clearing their plates. Before they left, Gage ended up in another picture with the other waitress and a busboy who showed up from the kitchen.

Afterward, they slid into the safety of the back seat of the SUV. When the vehicle rolled to a stop near the mini city the back of the venue had become, Gage stopped her before she slid out. Speaking to their driver, he said they were going to use the privacy of the car to talk. Agreeing, their driver left, pocketing the keys as he walked.

Apparently, despite their interruptions while eating, his mind was still on track and he was upset. “So this Ketchum, he attacked you at your graduation?”