Gently, I pried his fingers off of me. Standing to my full height, I brushed dirt from my jeans and gave Porter the most serious look I could. My voice was flat, all steel. “Yup.”
The answer was simple.
If only the situation could have been, too.
- Chapter Two -
Lola
“Easy with that,” I growled, reaching up to steady a speaker that had been tossed into the back of the van. “This is expensive equipment!”
The kid—he had to be younger than me, and I was only nineteen—just rolled his eyes. Like everyone else so far on this tour, he wasn't going to give me an iota of respect.
Biting my tongue was my only solution. I'm beginning to second guess this whole trip, I thought bitterly. Hoisting another case into the van, I wiped my forehead and sighed. Each time we packed up, preparing to move to the next location, I wondered if my muscles would give out.
The tour had only been going on for four days, but I'd assembled and disassembled the set for my brother's band three times. I wasn't very big, but I put my heart into helping—my everything, honestly.
Shooting a look at the guys loitering nearby, I thought, We'd be done much faster if anyone else put in even half of my effort. Most of the team consisted of groupie guys who were tagging along in the hopes of snagging second-hand pussy.
They hunted after each show, scooping up the girls who'd been denied private time with the bands. A few had even tried it with me... until I'd decked a guy so hard his jaw swelled up like a grapefruit.
They'd mostly stopped flirting after that.
Mostly.
Shutting the van doors, I felt some relief in knowing that we wouldn't need to unpack everything for another two days. The driving time to the next location, the gorgeous mountains of Colorado, would be my time to relax.
I should go make sure Sean doesn't need anything else from me before we get on the road. Walking along the asphalt, past the cars, the buses, I tried to catch a glimpse of any of the other bands.
If I was honest with myself, I wasn't acting much better than the groupies I mocked. There was a chance I'd spot a member from one of the bigger bands, like the Silver Sideways, Backwater Till Sunday, or maybe even Four and a Half Headstones.
That had me excited.
Especially Four and a Half Headstones.
The news about the fight last night had spread through the caravan of vehicles. Websites were exploding with rumors about it all, making claims that famous singer Drezden Halifax had beaten Johnny Muse to a bloody pulp.
I'd heard things ranging from him being charged with manslaughter to Drezden being the one who had actually gotten beaten up. There'd been no solid proof about any of it—which sucked, because who knew what it meant for the rest of the bands.
Four and a Half Headstones were headlining everything. If they had a fallout and had to cancel... it could be disastrous. Will my brother's band have to pull out? It was an awful possibility. Barbed Fire had been ecstatic to be invited on the tour. Sean had scared me with the phone call, he kept screaming without making sense—I'd thought he was in trouble.
The memory of his excitement made me smile. It hadn't taken much for convince me to come along. I was eager for my brother to finally get the big break he deserved.
Who knows. Maybe I'll meet an agent or someone who'll get me started in the right direction while I'm here. I wasn't as good as my brother when it came to playing guitar, but that was fine; everyone had to start somewhere. It could happen. Anything could happen.
I spotted Barbed Fire's tour bus ahead on the side of the road. The paint job was a shoddy red that had gone mostly brown, a hastily painted swirl of orange fire peeling on one side. It was nowhere near as fancy as the other buses, barely big enough to fit the members, which was why we needed the shoddy van to cart the equipment around.
Rapping my knuckles on the door, I tugged it open and peeked up the steps. “Hey, Sean! You in here?”
He was hunched in one of the seats, surrounded by the rest of the band. I'd known he was inside—of course he'd be here—it was just the most casual way for me to ask if it was alright if I came in. I