Chapter Twenty-Seven

Indie

 

When I woke in the morning, Cross’ arms around my body, my mind replayed everything we’d done the night before. Every delicious kiss, every tantalizing touch, every intimate detail. And I wanted to do it all again.

I rolled slowly over so I could get a good look at him. A sleeping Cross was amazing. The lines and muscles were all relaxed, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. At that moment he probably didn’t. I knew I didn’t. He’d been breathing softly when I got up to use the restroom about an hour after I’d fallen asleep, thankful to find that Ransom and Dixon had already retired to their own bunks so I didn’t have to face that right away.

Until I realized the bus wasn’t moving. We’d left one city for another while Cross and I had been watching that second movie. Kissing Cinder needed to be in New York early for some meeting with “their people,” so everyone would’ve loaded up pretty quickly after the show. Going against my instinct of burrowing into Cross’ chest, where it was warm and comfortable, I slowly slid away.

If my dad came looking for me and I wasn’t on my bus, he’d freak out. Maybe call the police. Maybe get the FBI involved. We didn’t need that. Dad was stuck somewhere between still thinking of me as a kid who needed protecting and the grown woman who could take care of herself.

I kept my movements slow and silent as I put my bra and shirt on, then followed with my shorts. But I just carried my shoes, figuring I’d put them on right before I stepped off the bus.

“Sneaking out at the crack of dawn?” Ransom scared the crap out of me.

He was laying on the couch out front and I hadn’t seen him when I’d sat down to slip my shoes on.

“Dude.” I snapped back. “You scared the hell out of me.”

He chuckled tiredly and scratched his chest. “I wasn’t hiding.”

“You may as well have been.”

He watched me for a moment, searching my face, for what I didn’t know. “But seriously. You’re sneaking out. Is he even awake? Trying to avoid the walk of shame? Nobody’s out there yet.”

“No shame,” I said back shaking my head. “I just have some things to do.”

“Uh-huh.” Ransom rubbed a hand down his face. “He told me about Drink.”

I glanced up at him, not sure how much Cross had told him, and I wasn’t about to give away more.

“He puts his fucking hands on you again, Cross is going to kill him.”

“I know.” And I really didn’t want it to come to that.

“And I’ll help.”

I smiled over at him because it was nice to have allies.

“I have to go,” I said.

I slipped out the door and shut it softly behind me, then jogged toward my bus. There should be enough time for me to shower and change before seeing anyone.

That plan was thwarted when I climbed the bus steps and found my father sitting at the table with a cup of coffee to his lips. I hadn’t expected to see him so early.

“Hey,” I said to him.

“You don’t answer my texts anymore?” he asked, slowly lowering the cup back to the table.

I furrowed my brows and reached for my pocket to check my phone because I hadn’t seen any texts. Even though I’d moved it over to silent for the movies, I usually would’ve seen the lights flashing.

Pocket empty. Crap.

“I must’ve left my phone… ” Well, I didn’t want to say where it probably was.

“On Cross’ bus?” he finished for me.

Yeah that. I didn’t want to admit it, so I said nothing.

“Sit down, Indie,” he said, half-suggestion, half-demand. “Where’s your phone?”

I sighed. “I think It fell out of my pocket on Cross’ bus.” Of course he’d make me say it out loud.

Dad didn’t even blink. I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t mad. I’d even told him when I’d lost my virginity. I basically told him everything. And I knew what he was going to say next.

“Be careful,” he said.

“Yeah, Dad, I know. You’ve made sure I’m well aware of how guys think. What they want.” I paused to take a breath. I told him everything else in my life, so I needed to tell him this. “I think this is different.”

“Think?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Know.” I sighed and fought back a smile. Dad knew me too well. “This is different. Cross is different.”

“Different how?”

“He’s not into random girls. You confirmed that. And different because I… ” I rolled my eyes. “I think I’m falling for him. And if you tell him, I’ll have to stab you in the chest.”

Dad’s face remained frozen as if it was made out of stone. Whatever his feelings about Cross and me, he wasn’t giving anything away. “Like I would,” he finally said. “My loyalty is to you. You could choose worse, but what’s going to happen when the tour ends and you go back to school?”

“We haven’t talked about that yet.”

“Well, in the future, when you’re not coming home, at least leave a note or something. I came looking for you this morning and you were gone. You know what that does to me.”

“Yeah, I know.” And maybe I should’ve offered up why I hadn’t stayed on my own bus last night besides having sex with the super-hot drummer from Courting Chaos but I didn’t. I didn’t have to.

“Why would you stay on his bus when he has a roommate but you have a bus to yourself?”

I swallowed hard. Dad was going to freak out when I told him everything.

“Yeah. About that.” I got up from the table and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, then drank almost half of it while he watched. “There was actually a reason I stayed on his bus.”

“Is this something I want to hear?” He scrunched up his face like he was cringing.

“Not really, but I should’ve told you earlier. Eric Drinkswine and I haven’t exactly been meshing.”

“What do you mean? He’s actually why I came to see you. With the accusations, we’re meeting with our lawyers to work out a deal to get them off the tour.”

“What?” I snapped. “You can’t kick Courting Chaos off the tour.”

“Indie. If one of them is fucking around with underage girls, you better believe I’m going to do what I can to get them gone. If I was that girl’s parents, I’d snap his fucking neck. Since I can’t do that, I can get rid of them.”

“But they’re trying to figure out how to get him out of the band.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I don’t know the details, but they’ve wanted him gone for a while. He’s a fucking mess and this just pushes them over the edge, but Cross said right now it’s just an accusation and they need proof.” I knew I was rushing everything out and just hoped Dad would understand what I was trying to say.

“That’s true. If there isn’t any proof.”

“Except I had proof that he knew that girl.”

His lips fell open in surprise. “What proof?”

“I accidentally took a picture of him and her in what could be seen as a compromising position.”

“Accidentally.”

“Well, I was taking a picture of Cross and Ransom, but Eric and the girl were in the background. It’s not proof he slept with her, but that he at least met her.”

“Where is it?” he asked, leaning forward onto his elbows.

“That’s the thing and also why I was on Cross’ bus and not my own.” I took another long drink of my water. “Eric warned me early on not to take any pictures of him. Which of course I wasn’t doing unless it was with the entire band. But he must’ve suspected that I did because he broke my camera to warn me yet again.”

“What?” Every muscle in his body tensed in anger as his fists squeezed closed tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me, Indie?”

“I didn’t want you to freak out and Cross said he’d replace my camera and take care of Eric.” But I didn’t think that explanation was going to be the end of the conversation.

“And did he?”

“He talked to him. Threatened him, I’d guess since Eric grabbed me by the arm. Cross was pretty pissed that he’d put his hands on me.”

Dad’s hand tightened on the coffee cup he’d just grabbed. I half expected the glass to shatter. His control wasn’t going to last long.

“Then we came back here so I could show him the picture and everything was destroyed. All of my pictures were shredded. My computer was in pieces, my photo printer. All of it. Cross was with me and he didn’t want me to stay here in case Eric came back.”

“You know it was him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. But I think it’s easy to guess.”

“Yeah,” he said, then went quiet as he contemplated something or other. “OK.” He shifted in his seat. “We are still going to see what we can do, but I’ll take all of that into consideration and probably talk to Lawson to see where they’re at on getting Eric out. But you, you’re going to go get a new camera, computer, and printer. Today. I’ll send Dean with you.”

“I can go myself.”

“Dean will go with you. As a matter of fact, I think Dean should become your shadow. In case that fucker tries anything else.”

“Dad,” I said with a sigh.

“That’s not negotiable.”

I smiled over at him and said, “Just let me shower and change.”

After the quickest shower of my life, I grabbed some shorts and a shirt, then did a blow out of my hair, grabbed my purse, and went to find Dean. I knew he’d have a phone on him so I’d just go check Cross’ room later. As I was about to open the door, someone knocked on the other side.

“I hear we’re shopping today,” Dean said when I opened the door.

“Yup. Going to spend Dad’s decades of making the girls swoon.”

Dean chuckled as he stepped aside for me to join him outside. A lot of the time Dean dressed the way bodyguards did. A black suit and sunglasses. Just so everyone knew who they were. But today he was in dark jeans and a button-down dress shirt, sleeves rolled up. His wife was a lucky, lucky woman.

We grabbed a cab and headed into the city. Shopping in New York was amazing and overwhelming. I could find literally anything and everything I could ever want, but today my wants were quite limited.

First stop was for the computer and photo printer. Those were the easy items. I picked them out, had them swipe my card, and we were on our way out.

“Dean, did Dad tell you why he wanted you to come with me?” I asked when he took the bag from my hand and we started walking down the street.

“He tells me everything.”

“That must be fun for you.”

“If I don’t know what’s going on, Indie, I can’t protect people.”

Obviously, that was true. “Why do you do this? What if some crazy fan killed you trying to get to them? You’re away from your family a lot.”

“Not as much as you’d think,” he said as he put his arm up in front of me so I didn’t step off the curb. A car turned quickly and would’ve hit me if he hadn’t done that. “I take care of people. It’s my nature.”

“Yeah, but you could be cop or a firefighter or something.”

“I could, but those jobs don’t pay what Vince does. And when Kissing Cinder isn’t on tour he doesn’t need me as much.”

“But he still pays you to be available, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Did you know that he wanted to send you to college with me?” I asked. We made the turn toward the store I really wanted to look for a camera at.

“No,” he said with a laugh.

“Yeah. He didn’t think I’d be safe and said he’d get me an apartment near campus and you one across the hall. What would you have done if he’d asked you?”

“My wife and I would’ve moved to Michigan.”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve known you since before you were born, Indie. Yeah. I’d move to Michigan.”

He pulled open the store door for me to step into a magical place. For me anyway. I browsed and tried out one camera after another. The settings, the lenses—I explained to the salesperson that I had lenses from a former camera and would love it if those would work with the new one.

Dean leaned against the wall near me and he looked pretty relaxed to the outside world. To me, I could see his eyes scan left to right every few seconds. Always looking for danger. His lifestyle made me wonder how his blood pressure was. It couldn’t be easy to always be on alert.

In the end, I chose the exact same model Eric had broken. I knew the functions. I knew how to use it. Most of all, I’d loved it when Dad had given it to me not so long ago so it was exactly the same, no upgrades.

“Done,” I said and for some reason was breathless. Having my camera back was like regaining an arm. It hadn’t been long, but I’d reached for it so many times already that I was salivating at the idea of getting it unpackaged.

“Already?” Dean asked with a smile. Sarcasm.

“How long have we been here?”

“Two and half hours.”

“Are you serious?” It hadn’t felt that long, but he nodded anyway. “I’m so sorry. You should’ve hurried me.”

“If you could’ve seen your face, you wouldn’t have hurried you either.”

“Well, to reward you, I’m going to make you my first subject once it’s unpacked.”

“That’s really unnecessary.”

We hailed a cab right outside the store. It took a few minutes, but soon one pulled up in front of us. Then we stopped for a quick lunch before heading back to the arena. Hanging out with Dean was awesome and I promised myself to do it more often without him having to babysit me. He was like the uncle I wished I had.

He walked me all the way back to my bus but left me alone to deal with my purchases.

First, I unpackaged the computer and hit the power button so that it could run through all the setup stuff while I worked on the camera. When I opened the box and pulled out the camera, the SD card flung out, hit the table, and bounced its way to the floor.

I crawled underneath the table to grab it and saw something white poking out from under the bench, so I pulled it out. Then I turned it over and found one of my pictures.

One Eric hadn’t torn up—because it had fallen either in his flurry or when I’d printed it.

In my hand was the one picture out of all the others I would’ve wished to be saved. The one with Eric and the girl accusing him.

I really needed to go find Cross.