“Fucking rock stars,” I mutter as Grady Baker belts out a line from his favorite Queen song. Which I know, because he’s been asked in practically every interview ever, and he always gives the same answer. Somehow, he manages to not sound like he’s sick of it. It was research before I started working this tour, getting to know what kind of world I’d be in.

The research prepared me for jack shit.

In the narrow hallway, the sound bounces around me, loud enough to vibrate the flash pots in the road case I’m pushing. His voice invades everything, like some sort of horror chamber.

If horror is being hyperaware of a six-foot stack of pure rock star sin with a notoriously sought-after cock.

That I now owe an apology to. Dammit.

I’m exhausted just enough to have a hard time keeping the aggravation in check. It’s no one’s fault but my own that I’m in a fathom over my head.

Oh, I can handle the pyro. And if I make it another few months until Sparks can take his job back, everyone else at BlastFX, the staging company I work for, will know it too. Maybe then I can finally get one of the pyrotechnician spots I’ve been asking for instead of getting sent out on the theater tours with two candles and a fake gunshot.

Sparks deserves my eternal gratitude for making sure I got his spot on this tour while he recovers from surgery, but I’d still like to smack him for not warning me.

Caligula and Dionysus together couldn’t have dreamed up the shit that goes on around here, though I’m sure they’d enjoy the festivities.

Pushing through the double doors, the drizzle of rain is refreshing, if a bit cold. And a bit treacherous, as the case skids to the left when the wheels hit a slick spot and spin out. I manage to wrestle the case back into a forward track and make it to the truck.

I crumple down on the ramp, needing a moment to settle my nerves before checking to make sure nothing shifted. I rub at my biceps, the sensation of Grady’s arm brushing mine still lingering.

He has that kind of reckless energy that pulls people in. It makes for a great showman, but I’ve been swept up in that kind of energy before, and it isn’t worth the exhaustion of dealing with off stage.

But during a show? Damn the man for waking up my hormones like this. Maybe the next time I get home for a few days I should look into getting laid.

But for now, work. Focus.

Check the case, even though I’d bet a week’s salary nothing has moved. These are the best cases made, and Sparks did an excellent job modifying them to keep every single item secure even in a major accident. The chemicals are stored in containers designed for minimum personal risk, but I know, better than anyone, what happens when some of those chemicals mix. Throw in a spark, and you either get a beautiful effect, or a shitload of damage.

Which also describes me and dating. More often than not, I’ve gotten the damage.

My legs burn as I push to my feet and pop the latch on the front of the case. It’s second nature by now, and that nature keeps people alive, so I do it even when my brain knows I don’t have to.

“Yep, everything right where it should be,” I say out loud, just to reinforce it.

“You were expecting it to grow legs and wander about?” The voice is amused. And far too familiar.

I spin around, wet tendrils of hair sticking to my face.

And come face to face with Grady Baker, a hoodie pulled low over his eyes and a wicked smile aimed in my direction.

I should get the apology over with. Never mind that he totally deserved it, but calling your boss a cockbag is bad form, even on a rock tour. I think. Though technically, he isn’t my boss. He’s a client of my boss.

That probably makes it even worse.

But I can’t quite bring myself to do it.

“Yes. Explosives are known for it. Something I can help you with?”

His smile doesn’t dim. In three weeks, I’ve almost knocked out the lighting tech, ripped a handle off a bus door, and cut dozens of supply boxes open with a switchblade. The first two were accidents, the third a carefully constructed front, but still. It earned me the nickname Killer. Or Mantis. The rest of the crew hadn’t decided yet.

Grady could at least pretend I’m formidable.

Then again, I’ve seen the guy on stage. I swallow. Yeah, that guy’s intimidated by no one.

“Just heading to the bus. Where’s the guys to help you with that?” He looks over his shoulder and my gaze catches on the column of his neck. The smell of fresh soap makes me wonder what it would taste like to lick over the stretched tendon.

I shake my head, pissed he has any effect on me at all. I know better. “I don’t need help.”

“I didn’t say you needed it, but roadies help each other. That’s how the job gets done. You’re doing a great job, by the way.”

I wait for him to say something about Sparks making a good recommendation, but he doesn’t. I wish I didn’t have to get my hackles up, but I’ve been here before. Standing with the charismatic lead, falling for the lines. I’m not buying into it this time. Career first.

Pissing the guy off wouldn’t do much for my career though, so I shrug and say, “There’s a lot of staging still to come down. They need to focus on that, not pushing wire and fuses around.”

He steps around me and puts his hand on the edge of the case. Every instinct screams at me to pull him back, but I grind my heels into the ground to stay still.

The case moves only a few inches before he says, “Feels pretty heavy to me. Especially on this wet concrete. Let me give you a hand.”

My eyebrows draw together before I can stop them and he laughs. “Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve loaded my own gear, but I do know how stuff works.” He points to his face, a gorgeous arrangement of striking features framed by glistening dark hair that would have fit in perfectly with the posters that plastered my bedroom walls as a teenager. “There’s a few brain cells behind this pretty face.”

“Well, at least you admit you’re pretty,” I grumble as I haul myself onto the ramp and grab the handles on the front part of the case.

“Important part of the rock star package, don’t ya know.” He’s smiling at me in an odd mixture of triumph and resignation.

There’s a bit of commotion at the fence a few dozen yards away. It borders the overflow parking lot. Not the best arrangement, as it lets fans watch us as we work all day. Not a terrible thing, but it gets disruptive.

Grady must hear it too, because he tenses up when someone shouts his name. There’s a question in it, like they think it’s him, but aren’t quite sure.

I slam my hand against the lid of the case and shout loud enough for the kids to hear. “Hurry the fuck up, cockbag, before your ass gets fired!”

The lights from inside the truck catch the flecks of copper in his eyes as they widen at me. I tilt my head toward the fence and he finally catches on, pushing the case up the ramp as I pull. When it’s flat with the floor of the truck, he gives it a shove and follows it inside, out of view.

I peek my head around to see the fans walking away, figuring he was just some roadie and not the rock star they’d been screaming for an hour ago. No one would dare call their hero a cockbag after all, though I’ve now done it twice in one night.

“Thanks for that,” he says when I turn around. Taking no chances, he’s moved to the front of the truck. “Quick thinking there.”

“Not my first rodeo.”

The first one hadn’t gone as well. He’d loved the attention, and I’d gotten reprimanded for making out with the lead cast member in a truck. When I broke up with him two weeks later for cheating on me with another cast member, he got me fired and I’d been stuck working corporate picnics for six months.

“May want to step to your left unless getting rammed with this case sounds like a good time to you.” I don’t wait for a response, but push the case toward him. He gracefully steps aside then helps me position and secure it against the wall. The space is tight. So tight I can feel the heat of his body.

“I see how you are. Don’t blow up my balls, then bust them later.”

I don’t want to think about his balls, but now it’s impossible. My face heats so I duck, grabbing a clipboard to mark in the case.

A drop of rain runs out of my hair and down my face, making a sticky trail out of the dirt and sweat. Wiping at it does nothing, as my hands are as filthy as the rest of me. If I’m lucky, I can grab a fast shower in the arena before getting on the bus.

“Look here,” he says, taking my chin in one of his hands. His fingertips aren’t soft. There’s calluses, though not nearly as big or as rough as a guitar player’s. I don’t know whether to jerk back or not and then it’s too late to decide. He raises his other hand, cuff of his hoodie pulled over it, and gently wipes across both my eyes. He takes another pass over my forehead and then runs his hand back over my hair.

His smile is different when I finally open my eyes. Not the cocky grin or the debauched leer I usually see. It’s open, reaching his eyes, and my stomach does a little flip.

Nausea. From not eating yet. Has to be.

Then his eyebrows draw down and he steps closer, tilting my head up to the light.

“I thought it was dirt. You have huge black bags under your eyes. You could pack for a month in Europe in those things.”

I swat him, hard, on his shoulder. “Thanks. You can get the fuck out now.” Because I can’t have him in my space anymore. There’s work to do, and he is entirely too distracting. I’ve had a security perimeter fully engaged where he’s concerned, and if he doesn’t back off, it may crack.

“So ladylike with the swearing,” he says, but he’s smiling. And not stepping back. “How long does it take after a tour to stop swearing so much? Used to take me at least a month, now I don’t bother.”

I clear my throat and in my prim impersonation of Lass, the self-proclaimed laundry mistress, say, “I do not swear. I merely express my aggravation at all the bullshit.”

His laugh catches me off guard. It’s almost a giggle, though deeper and richer in tone. I must be as exhausted as he says because it makes something inside me stand up and beg for attention.

“Feel free to call out my bullshit anytime, but seriously. What’s with the bags? It can be hard to sleep on the bus, but maybe you can try switching bunks?”

“I sleep fine on the bus. Mostly. If there aren’t too many bumps.”

“Okay.” His face scrunches as he thinks. I go to the back of the truck and pick up the smaller boxes I brought out earlier. He takes them from me halfway back and puts them on top of the case. “You and Lass get along okay. She doesn’t snore or something, does she?”

Maybe if I just tell him, he’ll go away. It’s not like he’s going to do anything about it. “No, she doesn’t. But Gobber does. Terribly.”

“No shit. What does that have to do with the bags under your eyes?”

I sit the last box down and slump against the case. “Swear you won’t tell.”

“Swear. Tell what?”

“Lass and Skeet are together. Have been for a while. So I’m rooming with Gobber so they can share hotel rooms since they’re on separate buses.”

“Lass and Skeet. Holy shit. How didn’t I know?”

“It’s this funny thing called discretion. Though I’m not sure how the rest of the crew doesn’t know.”

“And you’re rooming with Gobber, who literally snores louder than any human being on the planet. We used to ask hotels to put him in a separate wing.”

“Yeah, well I sleep in the next bed. Or don’t sleep, actually. And I can’t ask the driver to leave the bus unlocked for me because no one is supposed to know.”

His shoulders slump and he tilts his head, like exhaustion is getting to him too. Only he gets a room to himself every night, while the road crew only stays at hotels on nights off. I’d rather have no nights off and sleep on the bus.

“And we have a three day stay in Vegas coming up,” he says flatly.

I’m not looking forward to it. The hotel is fully booked and since the buses are scheduled for cleaning, there’s nowhere else for me to stay unless I spring for a room at another hotel myself. It may be worth it, even if my bank account takes a hit.

I stretch up on my toes, biting my lower lip as I barely manage to hook the clipboard back on the wall. When I put my heels back on the floor, he’s looking at me funny, like I have gaffer’s tape on my nose or something.

“So, um… Sorry about calling you a cockbag earlier. Both times,” I say, trying to break the tension.

He smiles again. “No need. I deserved it. Never been called that before though, so points for creativity.”

“Well, that’s me. All the creativity. And the paperwork, which I have more of, so…”

“I wouldn’t have thrown it if I didn’t know, with absolute certainty, that you were going to catch it. You never miss a cue, fire woman. I can feel how close you watch to make sure we’re on our marks when the pyro goes off.”

It’s a weird compliment, the way he lowered his voice the only thing making it sound sexy instead of creepy. Like I’m the stalker roadie or something. No idea what to say, I give a jerky nod.

He shifts his weight, leaning toward me, and it shifts the moment. The storm is closer now, bringing a static charge that’s nothing compared to what’s going on in this truck.

My tongue darts over my bottom lip, where I just bit, and it draws his gaze to my mouth. There’s no mistaking his intent. I swallow. Hard enough to hear, but that only makes him raise his hand. I should stop whatever he’s about to do, but whatever he does to audiences, he’s now done to me. I’m in thrall, pathetic as that is.

There’s a rattle and a shout outside the truck. He snaps up straight, putting enough space between us to be proper.

“Thanks for the info. I didn’t realize how much of that stuff we used per show. No wonder I wasn’t getting the right numbers.” He taps the clipboard. “Can you send over an updated supply list?”

“No problem,” I say, seeing one of the newer roadies, Steve, no nickname yet, standing at the back of the truck. The guy doesn’t like me, and though I don’t have concrete evidence, I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m a girl. I wonder how much he saw and hope Grady’s ploy works as well on him as mine did on the fans at the fence.

If there are gods of rock and roll, Grady better be one of them. The last thing I need is rumors spreading. Again.