Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin (16 page)

Her focus: Sacha.

Sacha, who had just woken up three minutes before and had a little bit of drool on the corners of his mouth while one cheek was pink and lined from the position he'd been in. His eyes were still heavy with sleep. After a four-hour nap, I'd woken up with a stiff back, neck and hips, and then shook his arm to get him up when I spotted the flight attendant coming down the aisle with a cart.

"No, thank you," he answered her with a slightly awkward smile on his face.

The woman, more than likely in her early or mid-thirties, stayed in that position a second longer than necessary before lowering her voice to sound… sultry. Yeah, she definitely sounded sultry. I didn’t even think it was possible to sound so sexy. "Are you sure? Anything else at all?"

I squeaked right before Sacha pinched my leg. "No thanks."

"Okay," she replied before sauntering off to the next row with her cart.

"Holy shit!" I tried to muffle my laugh, whispering because I knew she was right behind us.

Sacha shot me a look out of the corner of his eye before picking up his cup of water to sip from. "Don’t say anything," he groaned.

"Sassy, that lady totally wanted to scramble your eggs."

I heard him choke and cough before pinching the bridge of his nose with a gasp. "Jesus Christ, Gaby," he hissed as he tried to get himself under control. I made it look like I was cracking eggs in midair and then stirring them. He reached out to push my hands down with a groan.

"You think I’m joking, but I'm gonna barter your nuts for some snacks later when I get hungry. We still have two hours left on this flight." We were stopping in San Francisco to connect with our second flight to Sydney, and then one more to Perth. Thankfully, the first layover was only an hour long.

Sacha's shoulders started shaking as he laughed, his hand slapping an imaginary Band-Aid over his mouth. "I'll share my snacks with you. Just don't trade my virtue for food."

That had me throwing my head back. "Your virtue? Ha!"

"Gaby Barreto, are you trying to tell me that you think I've tarnished my reputation?" He was trying so hard not to smile, but this guy probably smiled in his sleep—it was an impossible feat.

Putting my hand on top of his wrist, I made an incredulous face. "Do you remember the Pickle Dick incident? I'm pretty sure you," I leaned closer to him because the lady on my other side was awake, "said you liked p-u-s-s-y. I'm sure your virginity's been long gone, kid."

The apples of his cheeks turned pink as he smiled. "Yeah, I did say that," he chuckled. "And I haven’t been a virgin for a while, but I have four sisters and too many fans that like me but don’t even know me. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you how many people I’ve been with.”

I didn't really want to ask when exactly he lost his virginity or what his tally was because it made me feel incredibly strange deep in my chest. Superhuman jealousy flared within my organs, which was stupid. "That’s nice," I told him because it was. Most men nowadays slept with women whose names they couldn’t remember the next day. My friends and loved ones included.

"You, Princess?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, something flickering in his light colored eyes.

I narrowed mine in return. "Me what?"

"Is your virtue intact?"

I laughed. I swear, it wasn’t like I wanted to laugh at that specific question because I knew it made me look like a total whore—which I wasn't, for the record—but still. He laughed too, right before I forced myself to sober up my expression and get as serious as possible. "Yes."

His eyes went wide and it looked like his jaw became unhinged. "No shit?"

"No, jackass." I leaned forward to dig my elbow into the meat of his muscular thigh. Sacha was slim but he had a pretty serious build. "I haven't been around the block. I've only had one serious boyfriend—," there was no point in mentioning Brandon’s name and especially not my high school boyfriend's name, "and if you can't feel it, then it didn't happen right?"

Sacha snorted with a smile; huge, bright, so magnificent it made me think of the moon. "That's right, but I don’t know what kind of guys you’ve been hanging out with if you can’t feel it…”

I scrunched my nose, lifting a shoulder.

That magnetic smile morphed into something wicked before he leaned toward me. "You should definitely feel something.”

I swallowed.

A slice of a shiver shot up my spine and I fought the flare of gooey feeling in my throat. "Yeah, probably,” I practically panted.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back, my organs all out of whack.

Sacha reached up, licked his thumb and then dabbed at the corner of my mouth. “There. You had a little dry saliva going on there.”

Yeah, I sat there like a completely dummy. My mouth was more than likely gaping. If anyone else had done that to me, I would have whacked his or her hand away. That was a fact that didn’t escape me. Neither did the fact that I considered what he’d done to be sweet. Too sweet.

But one thing was certain when I started to think him wiping my drool off was intimate…

I needed a vibrator. Pronto.

"
N
one of you
found it in your hearts to tell me it was fucking winter here?" I hissed at the three monsters standing there comfortably with hoodies on.

They stared at me with wide eyes as I bounced around the sidewalk with my arms crossed over my chest. It was fifty-ish degrees in Perth, and I'd been expecting it to be, oh, maybe eighty or eighty-five. Instead we were stuck outside baggage claim waiting for the promoter of the Australian tour to come pick us up, and I was freezing my imaginary balls off. I was from Texas. We had two seasons: fifty weeks of summer and two weeks of something between a semi-brutal winter and a crappy spring. If it were less than seventy degrees, you would never see me without a jacket on.

My lower back was bothering me after that last ridiculously long flight, and I never wanted to sit again. Well at least for a few hours. With only my cropped sweatpants and an old Ghost Orchid T-shirt on, I wasn't prepared for the wind. Apparently, everyone else had known what was in store. They were all in zip-ups or pullovers except me.

"Come here, I'll keep you warm," Mason heckled from his spot a few feet away.

I rolled my eyes and snickered. The members of The Cloud Collision were slowly trickling out of Customs and baggage claim since they'd lined up last with their work visas. I’d been fine coming in as a tourist on vacation.

"I'm sure one of us has an extra jacket you can borrow," Gordo said.

Not offering to let me borrow his.

Frowning, I walked around behind my brother and pressed myself, arms still crossed, against his back to block some of the wind. "So what's the plan?"

"What plan?" Eliza asked.

"Are we getting another bus or what?" I screeched when a particularly cold blast of wind hit us from behind.

Eliza laughed. "That's why I like you, Flabs. You're always up for whatever without worrying about the details."

"And that's probably why I always get in trouble with you," I snickered against his shoulder. It was true. Growing up, Eli would say “Let's go” and I'd go without questioning where. My trust in him had always been astronomical. Sure we'd get into trouble for being out of the house too long or doing things we shouldn't have been doing—this was namely just Eliza—but it had usually always been worth it.

He looked at me over his shoulder. "We're staying in hotels and the promoter is driving us around."

I nodded against him. It wasn't like I really cared if we were on a bus again or not, but the idea of sleeping on a real bed regularly sounded amazing. "Do I get my own room?"

"You're sharing one with me," Mason claimed.

"In that case, I'm sleeping in the hallway."

Eli snorted. "Dude, I wouldn't want to share a room with you either after that stunt you pulled—"

"I was sleeping," Mase groaned.

My brother didn't even wait for me to ask what Mason had done before he started talking. "I woke up one night when we were sharing a room a year ago, and this motherfucker was jacking off five feet away. I kept yelling, but he wouldn't wake up until I threw the phonebook at him. He's the reason why we don't share rooms anymore. I'll pay for it out of my own pocket so I don’t have to see that disgusting shit ever again."

"I was asleep," Mason echoed his earlier explanation.

Eli made a disgusted sound. "Whatever you say, man. Everybody is getting their own room anyway. I'm hoping to get some Aussie puss—"

"Please stop talking, I don’t want to know," I cried, pressing my forehead in the crack between his upper arm and ribs.

"What don't you want to know?" Sacha's voice asked from behind me.

Turning my head to look at him, I saw he was already wearing a bright red hoodie. I grimaced in his direction. "Eli wants to get laid, and I don't want to know about it."

He smiled. Miles and Carter were trailing behind him, pulling along their own suitcases. "I don't blame you." His eyes swept over me huddling into my brother. A frown came over his mouth. "Where's your jacket?"

"I didn't bring one," I said, wrinkling my face. "No one told me it was cold here."

Sacha didn't even hesitate, unzipping his hoodie, dropping his backpack to the floor and pulling free from the sleeves. "Here," he said, holding it out in my direction. "I don't want you getting sick." The right side of his mouth lifted in a soft smile.

Bless this wonderful, sweet, thoughtful man.

"Thank you!" I slipped that sucker on faster than I put on my bra after a shower in a cold room. The inside was already warm from his body heat and it had that distinct clean scent that I associated with him. It was two sizes too big, but I couldn't have cared any less.

He nodded at me, crossing his arms over his chest. The dark, thick tattooed bands on his arm popped against the simple white of his shirt and the gray of his sweat pants. He was way too good-looking for his own good, and I think that the fact he was so casual about it, so indifferent to his shockingly striking face, added to his appeal.

"You aren't cold?" I asked, being a perv and eyeing his nipples to see if they had perked up.

"Nah. This isn't that cold."

"Excuse me." I mocked him, rolling my eyes playfully. “But seriously, thank you. You’re a real gentleman.”

He just stood there, not warning me of the hard arm that wrapped around my neck a second later, squeezing down on my windpipe. "Go to sleep, Gaby," Eli's voice chuckled in my ear, reminding me of when we were younger and he would practice his wrestling moves. He used to practice the “sleeper hold” on me all the time in hopes he could make me pass out. I tried tipping my mouth down to bite his arm before he pulled away, giving my earlobe a yank in the process.

The honk of a vehicle made us all turn around. A big, white van pulled up alongside the curb with a trailer hitched to it; a young guy jumped out, immediately going toward Sacha. He introduced himself as Vince, the promoter for the Australian tour, and wrangled us into the van with all of our crap. I ended up sitting between Carter and Gordo on the ride to our hotel.

Australia reminded me of what most Americans pictured Texas to be. Texas wasn't cattle and cowboys, like Perth, Australia, wasn't kangaroos and koalas on every corner.

Vince told all of us where we could eat nearby, what places to stay away from, and other stuff I was too distracted to listen to. We pulled into a decent-looking hotel, and Julian pulled my suitcase out of the back for me. The promoter got us all our room keys, and I found that our rooms were on different floors. Half of us were on the first floor while the other half were on the second floor.

On the way to drop off our luggage, I realized I was on the same floor as Mason, Gordo, Julian and Carter.

“You sure you don’t want to share a room?” Mason asked as we both stood at our respective hotel room doors, sliding our keycards through.

Propping the door open with my foot, I nodded. “Positive.” Idiot.

“If you change your mind…”

“I’ll go sleep with Gordo.”

His mouth flattened and he blinked those beautiful blue eyes at me. “I can wait until our wedding night if you want.”

I pulled my suitcase into my hotel room and blew him a kiss when only my head was hanging out of the doorway. “You are so thoughtful. Thank you for understanding.”

I let the heavy door slam shut behind me. The hotel room was clean and small, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to complain. Unzipping my suitcase, I pulled out clothes and took a nice, long shower to wash off the millions of germs I’d picked up on the three flights to Perth. I’d barely pulled on my favorite jack-o-lantern leggings when someone began banging on the door.

“Who is it?” I yelled, tugging a black tank top on.

"Sacha,
Bloodsport
."

S
acha
?

I eyed myself in the mirror and shrugged. “Coming!” I called out, hustling toward the door as I wrapped a towel around my wet hair.

The lock had barely been flipped when Sacha asked from the other side, “You hungry?”

Pulling the door wide, I smiled at the fresh-faced, wet-haired man leaning against the door with his hands in his pockets. “I’m always hungry.”

The words had barely come out of my mouth when Carter and Julian walked by. “Come eat with us, Gaby.” That was my fellow merch salesman inviting me out.

I almost asked where they were planning on going, but really? It wasn’t like it mattered. “Are you guys leaving right now?”

Sacha nodded but his attention was focused lower. On my pants. And he was grinning.

“Okay, give me two minutes to change,” I said already taking a step back and pulling the towel off my head.

He lifted his gaze, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. “Why? You look adorable.”

My cheeks went warm, but I groaned, pushed the compliment out of my head and took another step into my room, holding the door with my hand. “Yeah, yeah. These pants aren’t warm anyway. All I need is one minute, I promise.” I dashed inside, stripped off my leggings, threw the towel over a chair and put on a clean pair of jeans. Slipping Sacha’s hoodie on and my shoes, I grabbed my purse and room key. I opened the door and found my friend where I’d left him. Down the hall by the elevators, some of the other guys were waiting around.

“Ready?” Sacha asked, dragging the hood part of his jacket over my too-damp hair.

“Ready.” It was right then that I noticed he was only wearing a long-sleeved shirt since I had his jacket on. Guilt poured through my veins. What if he got sick? He was the most particular singer I’d ever met; he was always trying to take care of himself and his voice. Hell, his warm-up routine alone before each show took an hour. “Do you want your hoodie? I don’t mind staying, especially if someone brings me food back.”

He took my elbow, his fingers so long they wrapped around it with length to spare. “Keep it until you get one. You don’t need to be getting sick, Princess.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, looking up at him and eyeing his own not-so-dry hair. “No one cares if I lose my voice, but I might get stabbed if you lost yours.”

Sacha looked down at me and sort of frowned. “I’m positive. I’ll be fine.” He blinked. “Have you always been this short?”

That had me groaning. “Yes, Captain Obvious.”

“Are you sure?” He reached over and patted the top of my head through his jacket. “You’re so cute. I can put you in a carrier—”

I hit him in the arm with a cough. “
Stop
. God, stop it.”

Sacha laughed, squeezing the elbow he was still holding. “I’m joking.” He dodged my next hit just barely. “But really, how tall are you? Five feet?”

Tipping my head back, I glared at him. “I should have pawned you off on that flight attendant when I had the chance…”

“
F
labs
, let me get a bite of that,” Mason said, his hand already extended across the table as he wiggled his fingers.

I didn’t even bother responding before passing my burger over in mid-chew. The Australian promoter had pointed out a restaurant on our drive to the hotel that was within walking distance. We’d all met up in the lobby and made the three-block trip like we were training for a marathon. Needless to say, the last time we’d eaten had been on the flight hours ago and everyone was starving.

Without bothering to ask for permission as usual, Eli took the opportunity to grab my glass and take a big gulp of water just as Gordo, who was sitting on my other side, snagged a few fries off my plate. In the seat across from my brother and next to Mase, Sacha raised his eyebrows as he watched Mason hand me back my food.

I smiled, taking another bite. “I’d offer you some…”

He snickered. “Yeah, thanks. It looks like everyone else is eating half your food anyway.”

I shrugged, popping a fry into my mouth. “It’s why they tell you not to feed stray animals—“

My brother pinched the back of my arm hard.

“Oww, E, you ass,” I cried, rubbing the spot where he’d gotten me.

From the other side, Gordo pinched my other arm.

“Damn it, Gordo,” I hissed.

Down the long table, some of the guys were turning around in their seats to look at something, but I was too busy trying to pinch Gordo in revenge to notice what it was.

I’d just got him back when I overheard one of them say, “Look at those monsters.”

It was Miles whose voice that I recognized that answered. “How big do you think those things are?”

There were murmurs as replies that I couldn’t hear clearly, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew exactly what they were talking about. Which was why my spine went a little rigid without conscious prompting. I tried not to listen.

Then they started laughing, and I swear it was like reliving that moment two years ago when I’d overheard my loved ones talking to our tour mates about boobs—specifically mine.

“I’d motorboat them—”

“Motorboat? I’d love to—”

I scratched at my eyebrow and blew out a breath, telling myself to ignore the conversation. They weren’t doing it around me, technically. They weren’t talking to me. It also wasn’t like guys didn’t talk about women like that all the time either, because they did. Not to be a hypocrite, I’d willingly admit I ogled half-naked hot guys from time to time.

“They look fake. Don’t they look fake?” someone whose voice I couldn’t pinpoint asked, and that had me really sitting there uptight.

Eli nudged my hand with his, meeting my eyes. He had this weird little tilt to his lips, and I knew he was well aware of what was bothering me. He nudged me again.

“Every girl I’ve ever met with fake—”

I started shaking my leg beneath the table, telling myself to keep my mouth shut.
Not your business, Gaby.

“—slut—“

I dropped my fork on the table, at the same time my face got hot. Really, really hot. Even my ears heated up enough that they began to ache a little.

When I was a kid, I grew up watching an actress on television with huge breasts and equally magnificent blonde hair, become a sex icon. While, on the other hand, magazines portrayed women with small chests, slim frames and narrow hips as a standard of beauty. But I was short, had wavy dark hair, a little chubby and had my poor, irregular-sized chest. I didn’t fall anywhere close to either of those body types.

I’d had an A-cup and a C-cup for almost ten years, from my final growth spurt at fourteen to my surgery at twenty-three. No one could ever understand what it was like for me to deal with that or the lengths I went to hide it. I only wore shirts made out of certain materials. Never anything even remotely low-cut despite how much I would have loved to if only because I knew I couldn’t. None of my tops had ever been tight.

I wore T-shirts over my one-piece suits because there was special, waterproof padding on my ‘small side.’ Picking out my prom dress had been a nightmare. Bra shopping gave me severe anxiety. Wanting to mess around with my boyfriend in the back seat of his car in high school had been an awkward experience of telling him not to touch my chest when he’d obviously really wanted to, and I’d really wanted him to as well.

There were so many times I cried because of how I detested my body.

It wasn’t as if I wanted much. All I wanted was to be normal. I’d hated what I’d been born with and wondered
why me
. Why did I have to grow up to be shaped like that? I’d fucking
hated
it with every fiber of my being.

So what was I supposed to do? Was I going to live like that the rest of my life? Sure, I could have, but it was such a debilitating fear that someone would notice the imperfection that I would never be comfortable in my skin. As much as I didn’t want it to bother me, it did.

I didn’t want guys staring at my breasts. I didn’t want to do porn or make money off my body. All I wanted was to feel better about myself. To get an even tan. To wear a bikini for the first time in my life because I didn’t have to worry about padding coming out. I wanted to be with a guy and not worry about what they would think, or who they would tell if they found out one of my breasts was so much bigger than the other. I wanted to be confident with myself.

So I made it happen.

No one had tried to talk me out of it. No one shamed me into feeling like having implants made me a bad person or a floozy. My loved ones had been behind my decision from the beginning.

I saved up as much money as I could while on tour with Ghost Orchid to pay for the best cosmetic surgeon in Texas, and it had been worth every single penny. I would go through the initial soreness, pain and fear all over again. The first bikini I bought four months afterward had probably been the most conservative bathing suit on the planet, but I’d cried anyway when I put it on for the first time.

Who was anyone to make me feel bad about what I had done? And while every woman had her own reasons for doing what she wanted to do with her body, I was a firm believer that people needed to mind their own business. If you weren’t hurting anyone and weren’t asking for handouts, no one had a right to open their traps.

Just as soon as I opened my mouth to tell the TCC guys I had implants and that they should shut the hell up, two people beat me to it. Two totally unexpected people.

My brother.

And Sacha.

They spoke at the same time, making it was hard to figure out what exactly was said, but it sounded like a mix of “Would you shut the fuck up?”

I blinked. Then I blinked some more, totally caught off-guard by the ugly, unyielding tone in both of their voices. A knot formed in my throat, and I swear, for one long minute I just sat there absorbing the fact that they’d said something. Finally, quickly, the moment clicked and I remembered what was going on.

“Why?” That might have been Mateo asking.

It was Sacha that leaned across the table to glare at his bandmate, a no-nonsense expression on his face that made the corners of his mouth go tight. “Because you sound like ignorant assholes. My mom had surgery done. Are you calling her a slut?”

The silence that came over the table was deafening.

And so, so, so fucking awkward. Holy shit.

But it was the anger and loyalty radiating off the TCC singer and how it made me feel that shocked me the most. Did he know he was standing up for me? Of course not, but I took the victory to heart anyway, like he was my champion too.

I tipped my head to glance in Eli’s direction only to find him already looking at me. He gave me a wide-eyed and more than slightly impressed look that said, “what was that?”

I told him with my eyes, “I have no idea.”

His gaze said, “that was bad-ass.”

Mine replied, “I know.”

No one said much for the rest of dinner. Whether it was because we were all tired, too busy eating or if someone was feeling crabby because of how Sacha had reacted, I had no clue. I fell into the first two categories; I was also busy thinking about what he’d said about his mom. The curiosity was killing me, even though I knew full well it wasn’t any of my business whether it was true or not. Everyone finished eating and we all lined up to pay for our meals individually, with me paying for Eli’s when he happened to disappear. I waited by the doors for Sacha.

One of the last few people to pay, he was busy stuffing Aussie currency into his wallet when I said “Boo.”

He smiled faintly as he stuffed his wallet into the pocket of his jeans.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Sacha rolled his eyes and raised a shoulder. “Nothing that matters.” He reached up to tug the hood over my head again. “I’m glad you’re at least talking to me.”

I smiled at him, hoping the pleasure and pride I was feeling over what he’d done radiated onto my face. “I think you’re pretty wonderful right now.”

He had a funny expression on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I bumped my shoulder with his. “That was really nice of you, you know. Saying something to them,” I explained just in case he didn’t know what I was referring to.

Sacha glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, getting to the door first to hold it open before waving me forward. “Let’s go before everyone else finishes paying. I don’t want to deal them right now.”

Nodding, I went into the cool night with him following behind.

We walked in silence for a little bit before he suddenly said, “They’re real assholes sometimes.”

I shrugged my shoulders so that I wouldn’t outright say,
yeah they are.
“Well, you’ve known them for a long time and you’re together constantly. It happens.”

He nodded, his attention on the sidewalk as we made our way toward the hotel a few blocks down. “You know from experience?”

Another flashback of the incident so many years back flashed through my brain, and I had to fight the urge to snort. “You have no idea how mad those three have made me. I can feel a headache coming on just thinking about it.”

Sacha let out a soft little snicker.

Sensing he was still frustrated, I kept going. “Once, I went five months without talking to any of them. Before that I’d never gone more than a week without seeing them since kindergarten.”

“What happened?” he asked, and why wouldn’t he? If he’d mentioned the same thing to me, I would have asked too because I’m nosey.

“Well…” Damn it, what the hell could I say? I wasn’t exactly ready then—or possibly ever—to tell him about my boobs. I’d told Brandon about my operation the night I decided that I was ready to sleep with him for the first time. The three idiots knew because we’d been friends forever. There were no secrets between us. I’d been talking about getting the surgery done for years, but they knew mainly because it was them: my twin and the two guys who were pretty much skin tags I couldn’t get rid of.

But Sacha wasn’t a lifelong friend, and we weren’t about to strip down or make him my third boyfriend, so he was only going to get a small part of the story.