“You hiding from me, motherfucker?”
I looked up from the well-worn copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets I was reading and watched as Gavin came into the backstage dressing room area and dropped down on the soft gray couch next to me.
“Did you want me to join you in your room?” I asked dryly. “’Cause odds are you and Leah were busy.”
When I said busy, I meant sexually busy.
Gavin threw back his head and laughed. “You know we always make time for you.”
“You know, I can be alone,” I reminded him.
“I know you can,” he assured me. “I guess I’m just… checking in. This is the final tour and there’s bound to be some anxiety attached to it at some point.”
I inclined my head in acknowledgement. “There’s some,” I admitted.
The choice to retire had been unanimous. But there was a difference between a concept and the reality. In a matter of months, a major portion of my life would be coming to an end. After the tour was over, for the first time in a decade, I’d be stationary. I hadn’t fully realized what it meant until the guys started getting into relationships. Watching them pair off and seeing them happy was a mixed bag. As happy as I was for them, I was also a little apprehensive about what it would be like going forward. Once we got back to LA and were in our home bases, I imagined I’d be alone more than I ever had been. The idea bothered me more than it should have.
“You know we’re always here for you,” he said firmly. “There’s nothing to be anxious about. You have a support system—always.”
Before the overdose, even with the band at my side, I’d felt alone and isolated. One of the biggest takeaways from dying was finally being able to accept other people caring about me.
“I appreciate it more than you know,” I told him.
Leaning back into the couch, I stretched my legs. “Gotta say, if for no other reason than sleeping on my own fuckin’ mattress, I’m looking forward to being in my house full time. Also pretty excited about reading by my pool.”
Gav rolled his eyes as he gestured down to the book in my lap. “You mean reading your one approved series. Dude, what’s this? The fifth time you’ve read it?”
“More like the tenth, and don’t make fun of my Potter books, assface. I read other stuff, too. At least I read something besides Penthouse Forum.”
Gavin threw his head back and laughed out loud. “Shut up, dick. I read regular shit and you know it. I doubt Penthouse even has a forum anymore,” he said smugly. “You just dated yourself.”
“That’s me,” I answered dryly. “Just another old bastard.”
He rolled his eyes at me as he kicked his feet up onto the table. “Wanna play some Call of Duty?”
Setting Potter aside, I cracked my knuckles dramatically. “I’m always down to kick your ass.”
We got about twenty minutes of gameplay in before everyone else started trickling into the room, which was par for the course. We’d more or less developed a pre-gig ritual so we’d known going in roughly how long we’d have to play in silence. Gavin had always been one to arrive to sound check early, whereas I’d taken to doing it after I got sober. It started out as a way of making penance for being so fucked up for the previous tours, but it quickly became an ingrained habit when I discovered I enjoyed the quiet before the chaos. As soon as Cole and Devon walked into the room, she made a beeline for the sofa Gavin and I were sitting on.
“Sweet,” she said excitedly. “I’m playing whoever wins.”
Gavin laughed as I groaned. I was winning, which meant she was going to be taking me to pound town. The girl was ridiculously good and she didn’t mind mopping up the floor with us.
“I got a sign over my head or on my body saying I feel like losing today?” I asked as I pretended to feel and look around for one.
She squinted and scrunched up her nose while she looked me over. Reaching out, she tapped me on the forehead. “Yep,” she joked. “It’s right there, large as life. I want to be Devon’s bitch… again.”
“Real mature,” I laughed. “You’re such a gracious winner, Dev. Just wait, one day one of us is bound to beat your ass in this game.”
“Hasn’t happened yet so I won’t hold my breath,” she retorted smugly.
She was right it hadn’t, and not for lack of trying, either.
“I gotta tell you, I think Devon serving you virtual ass kickings is pretty fuckin’ great,” Cole boasted. “You’ve more than earned it.”
“Huh,” I grunted. “How do you figure?”
There was a chorus of laughter from nearly everyone in the room.
“Let’s see,” Flynn chimed in. “Remember my twenty-first birthday when you had twenty-one enormous clear bags of neon colored dicks delivered to me during my interview with Barbra Walters?”
“Or the time you filled all five of my cars with buttered popcorn. I swear the damn garage still smells like butter,” Cole added.
“That’s nothing compared to him wallpapering my fuckin’ bedroom with pictures of his dick wearing different costumes while I was in Cancun,” Gavin laughed. “I came home from vacation to a nightmare.”
I waved him off. “You came home to art. Senõr Fuentes, Mrs. Mayonnaise, and Harvey Hardcock were excellent and original characters,” I argued.
“You had hats and outfits made for your junk. It might’ve been original, but it wasn’t art,” he smirked.
“There are literally millions of girls who would’ve loved that wallpaper. I was hurt when you took it down.”
“Yeah, it really seemed like it while you were pissing yourself laughing at my expense,” Gavin pointed out.
Our conversation was interrupted when Lacey, our coordinator, came into the room.
“Oh good,” she said cheerfully, “you’re all here, right on time. I want to introduce you all to my new assistant, Daisy.”
My attention diverted from Lacey to the girl standing at her side. She had long auburn hair and plump lips that immediately made me think of hot, wet kisses. Although she was on the tiny side—I normally went for real subtle attributes like watermelon shaped tits—something about her drew me in. Wearing black leggings, an emerald green top and some brown boots that stopped just below her knee, she was the stuff of wet dreams.
When she looked up, her dark eyes connected with mine. For a few seconds there was nothing, just the two of us. It felt as if something monumental had just occurred. I was so astounded by my reaction to her I couldn’t form thoughts. It was a first for me. I’d never had any such issue before. Not even close.
“… Be really great if you would say hello, Tyson.”
Realizing I was being spoken to, I pulled my eyes away from Daisy and looked to Lacey.
“Huh?”
Lacey rolled her eyes as she looked at me with visible exasperation. “I was introducing you to my new assistant, Daisy. Remember I told you she was going to be helping me for the rest of the tour so I’ll be able to shift my focus to the record company?”
Her expectant look and the tone of her voice both indicated I was supposed to have retained the information. In the moment, I was so busy staring at the new addition that nothing I’d previously known was readily available in my memory.
“Oh yeah, right,” I said unconvincingly. “I remember. Sure.”
What I remembered was vague at best. I sure as fuck hadn’t been told the new assistant was gorgeous. Nor had I been warned that I would be drawn to her lips like they were pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.
I was surprised when I realized I was up from the sofa and crossing the room toward Daisy. I hadn’t intended to move. When I got to her, I stuck my hand out to shake hers. She was even more beautiful close-up. There was a smattering of freckles across her nose and she had the longest natural lashes I’d ever seen on a woman. My gaze dropped down to her full and plump lips, and all I wanted to do right then was trace them with my tongue and nip at her bottom lip with my teeth. Near as I could tell, she was wearing almost no makeup. She didn’t need to since she was beautiful without it.
She had not even one similar characteristic to any woman I’d ever fucked. Tits that could operate as a flotation device? Negative. Ass that could be used as a table? Nope. Lips so full of collagen they looked like they might explode? Not even close. False eyelashes? No to them, too. She also wasn’t that weird orange color fake tanners had. From head to toe, everything about her was authentic and I’d only ever been with the exact opposite.
When her hand connected with mine everything inside of me ground to a halt.
“Tyson,” she murmured.
Hearing her say my name was like coming home. It shined a light into my darkest places and warmed me from the inside out. She felt so damn warm and solid, an anchor in a raging sea. My gaze dropped to her lips just as she licked them, and my groin tightened. I blinked down at her in shock as I realized two of my fingers were over the pulse point on her wrist and I could feel it racing. And then, I heard it.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Every hair on my body stood on end. I let out a panicked sound as I yanked my hand away and took a step back. The only reason I didn’t lose my shit was because as soon as the connection to her was severed, the sound went away.
When I realized people were looking at me funny, I covered for my odd behavior by putting my hand over my mouth and coughing dramatically.
“Sorry,” I said after I finished pretend hacking. “These dressing rooms are always so dry.”
“Seriously?” Lacey asked incredulously. “With the four humidifiers spread around, so Flynn’s voice doesn’t dry out, I think it’s so humid in here it feels like a tropical island.”
Goddamn my rookie mistake. I’d forgotten about the humidifiers. What the hell was wrong with me? I was normally a lot more alert.
“I meant the hotel rooms,” I covered as I coughed again, forcing myself to look to Lacey instead of continuing to stare at Daisy. “It makes me all dry, and then I get here, and the humidifiers are going, and I start coughing.”
“Huh,” Lacey said with a shrug. “I never noticed. If you want, we can start having a humidifier put in your room each night. That should even things out. Daisy, can you make a note, please?”
I wanted to tell her I didn’t need a humidifier, but doing so would only draw attention to my odd behavior. Daisy nodded before pulling out her cell phone, and I watched as her thumbs moved at lightning speed while she made the note. Her nails were painted a shiny purple color, and I couldn’t help checking out her ring finger. I felt something in my chest relax when I didn’t find one. It seemed she wasn’t engaged or married. Realizing that alone didn’t mean she didn’t have a serious boyfriend, I grimaced. If she was in a relationship… I put the brakes on that line of thought and tried to remember to breathe. What the fuck was wrong with me and why did I care?
When she lifted her head, her eyes met mine again, and I felt fuckin’ poleaxed. The panic hit me hard, damn near taking my breath away. Once again, I heard the fucking sound.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
I almost lost my shit right there. Something was seriously fucked to have me hearing things and it wasn’t okay. Not in the goddamn least. The girl was fucking with my carefully regulated emotions just by being in the room with me and apparently looking into her eyes or touching her caused me to hear shit. My fight or flight response kicked in hard and I was desperate to get the fuck away from her.
Forcing myself to look away, I turned and went back to the couch and plopped down like I didn’t have a care in the world. I pretended to play Call of Duty as the rest of the band chatted her up and tried to make her feel welcome.
“We’re happy to have you joining our team,” Flynn said kindly.
Gavin and Cole both concurred and made small talk with Daisy. Naturally their women joined in, and for the next ten minutes Devon, Leah and Tessa peppered her with questions and made jokes with her. I didn’t join in, instead focusing like a laser on the television as I continued playing. It didn’t matter because I was as affected by Daisy’s voice as I was by her face.
It was melodic and soothing as the sound of wind chimes, and in it, I could hear the rhythm. My knee jerk response was a desire for her to read something to me. Like the phone book or even War and Peace. It didn’t matter as long as it was something long with lots of words. I could’ve listened to her all day. There was a hint of the south in her voice, and I was enthralled by it. I was also freaking the fuck out as I dead-stared at the TV and tried to calm my pounding heart. I’d never given two fucks about a woman’s voice or the number of freckles she had on her goddamn nose before, and I sure as fuck had never met anyone who made me hear that sound.
I wasn’t dealing with the sudden interest in Daisy at all. Every cell in my body was clenched and on high alert as I fought to stay in the room.
“You’re acting weird and your stats are horrible,” Devon announced when she sat down next to me.
I was so keyed up I had no idea what the hell she was even talking about. I glanced over at her in a daze. “Huh?”
“You’re clutching the controller like it’s a lifeline, but you haven’t opened fire even once the whole round,” she murmured.
I stared at her blankly as I tried to formulate a response.
“Shit connection,” I said finally. “I keep lagging.”
“Connection looks fine to me,” she teased. “No, you’ve been over here ever since you ran away from Lacey’s new assistant like she had some weird fungus.”
I shook my head in denial. “I didn’t run,” I mumbled, “I’ve got a headache.”
She let out a snort. “Which is it? A shit Internet connection, or a headache? You’re not fooling me, Ty. Your head might be about to explode, but it isn’t why you’re sitting over here. You’re specifically avoiding her. Why?”
Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead. “I’m not,” I answered gruffly.
“Tyson—“
“Fucking drop it, okay?”
Her head reared back in shock.
“I’m sorry—”
“No,” I said through my clenched teeth. “It’s not you who needs to be sorry, it’s me. I was rude.”
She waved me off before patting my knee. “Whatever is going on with you right now, just remember I’m always here if you need to talk.”
My shoulders instantly relaxed. Devon was good people, and she knew when to stop. I appreciated it more than she knew.
Whatever the fuck was going on with my reaction to Daisy, it wasn’t acceptable. I planned to stay as far away from her as possible. I didn’t want to be genuinely interested in any woman, and I meant to maintain the status quo. Did it make me an asshole? Sure. Did I give a fuck? No.
I knew my limitations and being in a relationship was never going to happen. I didn’t just accept my fate; I embraced it. Therefore, someone who interested me in the way Daisy did was downright dangerous. Ridiculous as it may sound, I felt she was a threat to me, and I decided right then and there to avoid her like she was my personal kryptonite.