Chapter Thirteen

Indie

 

 

The way Cross smiled at me when I turned my camera on him as he sat behind his drums sent my heart racing and made my knees weak. He had the kind of bright smile that when he unleashed it, I’d swear I could hear a bling like in the cartoons. His smile was that good. I was almost embarrassingly excited to see if I’d captured it forever.

I immediately stopped, leaned against a railing, and turned the function dial from camera mode to display the pictures I’d just taken. When I got to the one of Cross and that smile, I didn’t go any further.

Cross smiled up at me from the screen and I couldn’t look away. I wet my lips and kept staring at him. This was the shot where he’d just looked up and his gaze landed right on me, making it look like he’d posed for me. He hadn’t.

I wet my lips again, then glanced around the room, worried that someone might catch me swooning over this picture of Cross. Thankfully, no one seemed to pay me any attention. But they would if I didn’t get moving.

As I snapped more pictures, the music stopped. I kind of hoped Cross would have a minute to talk, though I wasn’t sure if I would apologize for outing him at the coffee shop or not. I probably should have, but I knew I wouldn’t. He’d earned that.

Then Courting Chaos’ manager called Cross and they walked away in the other direction. But the big one was walking right toward me. He got stopped a couple of times by a sound guy, security, and someone else I didn’t know. I thought about high tailing it out of here but assumed he was just walking in my direction and it had nothing to do with me. So instead, I watched him out of the corner of my eye and continued doing my thing.

“Indie,” he said as he came in much too close to me.

I took a step back to put more room between us. “Eric,” I said back hardening my gaze on him.

“I think you’ve taken some pictures of me.”

“I’ve taken pictures of a lot of people.”

“Well, maybe a lot of people don’t care, but I do.”

I swallowed and grabbed my camera bag. For some reason, I really wanted to get away from this guy. He set my stomach swaying. My parents had told me to always trust my gut and my gut was saying that this guy was trouble.

“Trust me, if you’re in any of my pictures, I didn’t focus on you.”

“Trust me when I say I want the pictures deleted.” He stepped closer. “. I get it. You like what you see when you look at me and if it’ll make you happy, we can find a closet, and I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk.” His voice was low yet threatening and his face hardened. “But I want any pictures that have me in them gone.”

“Gross,” I muttered then sighed. “If I tell you I’ll delete them, will you go away?”

He shrugged, gave a look around him, then stepped closer to me. “I don’t know. I’d kind of like to watch.”

It took a lot of effort to keep me from kneeing him in the balls right there. Acid burned its way up my throat and my muscles tensed, ready for a fight if necessary.

I wanted to move away from him but knew I couldn’t. If I did, he’d know he was making me uncomfortable and would remind me of it every chance he got. I’d known guys like this before. “I suggest you take a step back.”

“Or what?”

“You really don’t want to know. Second, I don’t take pictures of you. You might think you have something I want to see, but rest assured, you’re the last guy I’d consider for, well, anything. If by chance I find any of you, I’ll make sure they end up in the trash where they belong.”

Eric’s jaw tensed as he leaned in even closer to me.

“Careful,” he said just loud enough for me to hear. The hair on my arms stood on end. “I’d hate to see something happen… ”

“Drink!” Cross called out. Eric took a step away from me and turned toward Cross.

I sighed in relief. As tough a front as I liked to put on, Eric scared me and I really didn’t like being alone with him. Even in a room full of people.

“That reporter wants you next.”

Eric snorted and Cross groaned.

“To do the interview,” Cross said.

Eric turned back to me and said, “I guess I’ll see you later.”

Yeah, I’d rather not. I winced at the way it had sounded when he’d said he’d see me later because there were very few things I was absolutely sure of. However, one thing I knew with certainty was that I’d love to never see Eric Drinkswine alone again.