Love's Back Pocket (7 page)

Chapter 13

“We’re in Arizona, Tanya.” Holly leaned over the lounging room window as her eyes took in the new terrain. “I’m sure we can find something to do here.”

“Like what?” Tanya asked, standing next to her friend, her dark eyes more wary than her friend’s. “Burn our skin? Make me faint from dehydration?”

“You know,” Mitch said, coming up behind Tanya to wrap his sturdy arms around her waist, “you might actually look cute with a pink tint to your skin.” He grinned sheepishly at her before claiming the column of her throat with his lips, causing Tanya to burst into a fit of giggles and her cheeks to redden. “Ah!” he exclaimed, seeing the effect he had on her. “Much like that.” He glanced over at Holly. “What do you say, Holly? Don’t you think she looks better with pink skin?”

“I …” Holly began, a smile eclipsing her face, “I have to agree with Mitch.”

“You would,” Tanya shot at her friend, and though she tried to look far from amused, there was glimmer in her eyes that revealed otherwise. Holly studied it for a moment. She had never seen such a shine in Tanya’s eyes before, and she was left to believe that the reason for this positive change was none other than Mitch. She smiled at this; her friend deserved all the happiness the world could offer her, and as Tanya transformed, Holly found it quite fascinating to observe.

“There’s a pool at the hotel we’re staying at,” Mitch suggested, resting the tip of his chin on Tanya’s shoulder. He glanced down at her, a small frown touching his lips. “Do you realize how short you are?”

Holly laughed as the bus pulled into the hotel parking lot. Once everybody had rooms and were settled, Tanya headed over to Holly’s room where the two quickly changed into their bathing suits, having decided to take Mitch’s suggestion.

Tanya was wearing a bold purple string bikini that covered what was necessary, while leaving little to the imagination. The material of the suit shimmered, and resembled the scales of a mermaid’s tail. Tanya had a naturally tan body, with a tight stomach and toned legs. Her dark hair fell down her back, and even without trying, she looked ridiculously sexy.

Because Holly had a fuller bust, she couldn’t get away with a string bikini. Instead, she wore a white halter bikini top with navy blue anchors. Her bottoms, however, were attached by a circular object on both sides instead of strings tied together, leaving the skin on the inside of the circle bare. They were navy blue with white anchors. Her strawberry hair was left down, and as Tanya grabbed some towels, Holly lathered on sunscreen.

“How are you supposed to tan with sunscreen, Holl?” Tanya asked, once the stench of the lotion made itself known.

“I would rather be peachy and safe than tan and full of skin cancer,” Holly retorted, rubbing in the last bit of white on her arms.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Tanya said, the white hotel towels in her arms as her dark eyes all but screamed with impatience. “Let’s go.”

“All right,” Holly said, slipping her feet in her flip flops. After making sure to grab her room key, the two headed out the door and nearly ran into Tommy, who was currently glaring daggers at his door.

~*~

His pale green eyes were momentarily distracted by the two women, who wore nothing but bathing suits. He was particularly drawn to the redhead, the one he had fought with just last night. Unabashedly, his eyes swam over her bikini-clad body. He couldn’t actually believe that she was wearing something so revealing when all he had seen her in prior to that moment were hoodies and jeans. But here she was, resembling Venus in Botticelli’s painting, her hair swimming in the delicate breeze, away from her alabaster body and revealing the curves adorned on the goddess of love and beauty.

But Holly was … Her hair tumbled down her body in soft waves, stopping just past her full chest. Her torso was curvier than Tanya’s, and though Holly had a flat stomach, it was soft. Every piece of her was touched with gentle femininity, even her long legs. On the upper thigh of Holly’s left leg, there was a moderate-sized birthmark, bits and pieces coyly hiding underneath the material of her bathing suit. Instead of deterring from her beauty, the mark only enhanced it. He had never seen anything like it.

Tanya hid a smirk that Tommy didn’t notice, and grabbed Holly’s wrist before dragging her down the hallway and over to the elevators. He watched Holly walk away, admiring her taut back. As his eyes descended lower, he noticed a graceful sway that occupied her lower back before pushing out into a nice ass. Little dimples that rested just above the waist of her bikini bottoms caused him to inwardly groan. He knew she was beautiful, but he didn’t know that she had a secret weapon underneath those baggy clothes she wore. Speaking of which, why would she where such unflattering pieces of clothing when she had that? He wouldn’t understand it.

“
Damn
,” Sean said as he walked up toward Tommy, a room key in hand. “I didn’t know the psychologist had
that
underneath everything.”

“Yeah,” Tommy muttered, adjusting his eyes over to his temporary roommate’s once the two women headed into the elevator, “me neither.”

--

“He was
totally
checking you out, Holl,” Tanya informed her friend as the two stepped outside and onto the pool deck. Immediately, Holly was glad she had put on so much sunscreen because the sun was literally bearing down on them, trying to drown the people outside in its flaming rays. Tanya grabbed the offered sunscreen bottle from a smirking Holly, deciding she would rather be safe than sorry, no matter how cute Mitch said she would look. “And he wasn’t even trying to hide it,” she continued as she started to lather herself up.

“Tommy Nye is so frustrating that I don’t even care,” Holly said. The bridge of her nose wrinkled at just the thought of the man, and she had to grit her teeth in order to keep her emotions in check.

“What did he do this time?” Tanya asked, a knowing grin on her face.

Holly sighed through her nose as she took a seat at the edge of the pool, dangling her legs over the side and into the cool water. “He’s just so … blunt with his answers,” she murmured, tilting her head to the side as she lost herself in the thought. “He basically told me he wanted to sleep with me. And he takes absolutely nothing seriously. I mean, you should have seen the way he came over this morning while I was talking to Victor. He made me look like such a fool, Tanya. In front of the psychologist supervising me. And he’s ridiculously selfish, you know. You should’ve heard what was coming out of his mouth.”

“So …” Tanya began, trying to get everything straight; silently, she asked her friend to put lotion on her bare back, and Holly consented, “you’re upset with him because he’s basically honest.”

“Well—” Holly said, knowing how ridiculous it sounded, but Tanya interrupted.

“You know you do the same thing, right?” Tanya asked, throwing a look at her friend over her shoulder. “I mean, sometimes, Holl, what comes out of your mouth makes even me cringe. And I know you don’t mean what you say, you’re just so …” She let her voice trail off, and once Holly finished with the sunscreen, scooted over and threw her legs into the water next to Holly. “Why do you care what Nye thinks of you anyway?”

“I just want to be taken seriously!” Holly exclaimed, her passion unintentional. Her eyes widened when she realized what came out of her mouth, and she immediately lowered her voice. “Like, I get it. I get it. I have big boobs. I’m always underestimated. I understand. But for him to ask me to be his psychologist and then not even take me seriously …”

“Prove him wrong,” Tanya said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?” Holly asked, pushing her brows together.

“When you guys had this little dispute,” Tanya began, “did you say anything in return?” Holly still looked confused, so the brunette tried another tactic. “What I’m saying, Holl, is that I know how you are. When someone criticizes you, you manage to see right through their defensiveness and into their core, take what you know, and throw it back into their face. So,” Tanya tilted her head slightly so her dark hair spilled over her shoulder, “did you see through one of Tommy’s many walls?”

Holly blushed but smiled. “I called him out, as you always say,” she said before biting her lip. “And I told him I wasn’t his booty call.”

“Did you really use booty call?” Tanya asked, already knowing the answer. The two women shared a long laugh, causing some of the other guests to glance over at them oddly. “So that’s what you should do, Holl,” she continued. “See right through Tommy Nye and let him know you know, too.” Holly smiled at this, and nodded, deciding that Tanya, as always, was right. Tanya nudged her friend playfully. “He was still checking you out though.”  

Chapter 14

Three hours later, Holly and Tanya decided to make their way back up to their hotel room. It was just after four o’clock, and Tanya wanted to spend some quality time with Mitch before they had dinner and went to the concert. Holly was hoping to have her first official session with Tommy before he scampered off to eat. She hadn’t really discussed the conditions and layout of their sessions yet, and hoped to cover everything within the next hour. As the elevator ascended, her mind swam with things she would tell him. Tanya was murmuring happily about Mitch, and though Holly would nod in all the appropriate places, she wasn’t really listening. Not that she wasn’t interested in what her friend had to say, of course, but Holly’s mind was currently distracted.

Once the elevator door sprung open, Tanya all but dashed down the hall in hopes to surprise Mitch. Holly chuckled to herself as she stepped out of the elevator and calmly headed to her room. When she stood before her door, she grabbed her room key from her bathing suit just as the door next door popped open. Tommy walked out, but stopped once his peripheral caught sight of Holly, completely damp, with a white towel tied around her waist. Her hair was dark due to its interaction with water, and tiny, rebellious droplets decided to cling to her flesh rather than allow themselves to be dried off either by her or the sun.

“Oh, Tommy,” Holly said, just as she slid her key into the door. A green light flashed, granting Holly access to the room. “I was hoping to have my first session with you in a few minutes.” Tommy paused, his eyes trailing back up to her eyes, and a puzzled expression touched his features as he cocked his head to the side. “You know,” Holly continued. “The whole psychology thing.
One
of the reasons why you asked me to join you on tour.”

“Ah yes,” Tommy replied, nodding once as though he hoped to snap himself out of whatever thoughts were currently plaguing his mind. “Um … you wanted to do it now?”

“Well, I was sort of hoping to change into some clothes and dry off first.” Holly opened the door to her room. “If you came back in fifteen minutes, that would give me plenty of time to get more comfortable.”

“Are you sure you’re not comfortable now?” Tommy asked, crossing his arms over his chest, tilting his head in hopes to rid his face of a few stray locks that clambered down. However, instead of doing that, even more hair fell into his face, so he had to reach up and push them away himself. “I mean, I’m sure I can handle doing my first session with you in a bathing suit. Let’s face it, it’s hot. I totally wouldn’t blame you if you decided
not
to change. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend changing. What if you fainted because it got so hot? I would blame myself. Well, there you have it. No changing for you.”

Holly laughed at his charm. If anything, the man was definitely persistent. She cocked her head to the side as she chuckled. “Come over in fifteen minutes, and I think we’ll be fine,” she told him.

“Okay,” Tommy agreed, “but let me ask you a question. When you say you’ll be getting into something more comfortable, do you mean an outfit with more material, or less, because you do realize how you sounded, don’t you? If anything, I think you were trying to seduce me.”

“Fifteen minutes,” she said again, before slipping through the door and shutting it behind her. Tommy let an amused smile eclipse onto his face as the sparkles occupied his eyes once more, staring at the shut door for a moment.

Fifteen minutes later, Holly let the singer in. Much to Tommy’s dismay, she was in a UCLA sweatshirt and pajama pants. Her hair still tumbled down her back in damp ringlets, getting the material slightly wet. A pair of mismatched socks adorned her feet, and the left corner of his lips curled up into a smirk.

“So when you said comfortable,” Tommy started as he took a seat on the couch, “you meant it in the literal way.”

“When I say things,” Holly said as she grabbed a clipboard, “I usually say what I mean.”

“So you don’t play games,” Tommy stated, his eyes studying the woman who took a seat in an armchair adjacent to the couch.

“Not if I can help it,” Holly told him. “I feel games are a waste of time.” She grinned tightly at him. “But I digress; this session isn’t about me. For the next hour we’ll be focusing on you and whatever you want to talk about. As I’m sure you are aware, everything you say here is strictly between you and me, unless I feel you are going to harm somebody or yourself. Do you have any questions?” She glanced up from her papers to look him in the eyes.

“So we’ll be talking this whole hour?” he asked. When Holly nodded, he sighed, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “You know, talking, I feel, can be such a waste of time. What are words, you know? How would you be able to tell if I was lying or not? I think … maybe if I expressed my feelings in a sort of physical manner, it might help me get them off my chest. And hey, we can get your feelings off your chest, too. I assure you, an hour will give us plenty of time.”

Holly sighed through her nose. She had never gotten this frustrated so quickly before. Her index finger and thumb gently gripped the bridge of her nose and she closed her eyes, trying to control herself. Usually, controlling her emotions had been quite easy for her, but Tommy was making it increasingly difficult.

“You’re never going to stop, are you?” she finally asked, snapping her eyes into his green ones. She was obviously upset.

“Stop what?” he asked.

“This,” she muttered, gesturing between the two of them. “Hitting on me. Soliciting sex. I feel …” Another sigh escaped through her nose as her eyes looked up at the ceiling, hoping maybe she could find the answer scrawled up there rather than trying to weasel it out of the man in front of her. “I feel as though you’re never going to take me seriously as a psychologist. I feel that the only reason you invited me here besides the whole sex endeavor is because it was new, it might be fun, and you didn’t think things out quite clearly. Now, I talked to Victor about this whole thing and he said your manager required you to have a psychologist on tour with you. He didn’t tell me why. So if you’re going to prevent me from doing my job, if you’re going to prevent me from helping you, you need to tell me so I can leave. I don’t want to waste any of your time, and I’d really not like to waste anymore of my time. So …” She perked her brow up, regarding him with an unspoken question as she caught her breath.

Tommy thought for a moment, taking in the odd expression on her face. “You know,” he told her softly, shifting so he could see her better, “there really is no harm in mixing business with pleasure.”

Holly’s mouth dropped open a bit, her eyes surprised and maybe even a bit hurt. She had basically told him what she didn’t want to happen, and hoped that maybe he might take her seriously. But alas, who was she kidding? From what Tanya told her about him, women were his primary focus besides his music, and it was highly doubtful that anyone, especially her, was going to change that. She quickly closed her mouth and closed her eyes in slight dejection as yet another sigh slipped out of her nose. She knew she was upset when she sighed constantly. When Holly opened her eyes, she knew she couldn’t try and continue this when it was obvious he wasn’t actually going to take this seriously.

“Okay,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “Okay.” She met his eyes with hers.

---

Tommy noticed a look of defeat inside of them. Something deep within his stomach clenched, seeping an unfamiliar emotion throughout his body. Immediately, he pushed it away, despite its consistency.

“Can you please leave, then?” she asked.

Her voice was so soft, almost lost. Now she wasn’t looking at him, just scrawling some notes on that clipboard of hers. As he stood, he opened his mouth in hopes to say something, but he didn’t know what. It wasn’t like he was going to apologize. So he shut it, and headed out the door without saying a thing.