Chapter Fourteen
River
Kit’s phone chimed on the nightstand on my side.
We’d shared hand jobs and steamy kisses before the lavender sky turned soft blue and we fell back to sleep.
We had room service breakfast because we weren’t ready to let anyone else into our bubble of love—well, it wasn’t love yet, but I knew I was well on my way. I just hoped he was following me.
We climbed back into bed to take a nap, and I was wrapped up in his strong arms. I swiped my tongue over his nipple before circling it, which brought a loud purr from him. “How’d you know my nipples are sensitive?”
“I didn’t, but I do now. I’m thinking about getting mine pierced. What do you think?”
I really was thinking about it because it was sort of a rock-star thing to do.
I’d noticed other guys in bands we’d seen, and several of them had piercings.
I’d thought about an eyebrow piercing, but that wasn’t edgy enough—not that I was really an edgy guy.
Pierced nipples were cool, and I’d read online that they could increase sensitivity.
Imagining Kit tugging on a nipple barbell as he railed me into the mattress made me suck in a deep breath.
Kit glanced at me and smirked as he reached for his phone. “I think that would be sexy as hell.” That sealed the deal. Piercing appointment…coming right up.
“Hello?” Kit answered his phone. He sat up and rubbed his thumb and index finger over his eyes.
I hopped up and went into the bathroom to get ready for the day. I had the idea of getting Clancy to move the bus to a park somewhere so we could work on some music for the show on Saturday night. It would be the first show that was recorded, and I was psyched.
I wasn’t sure what Kit had going on for the day—and I didn’t give a rat’s ass what Marshall was doing for the day—but I wanted us to keep the momentum going from our first gig at The Van Buren.
After I’d taken a quick shower to get the dried cum off me, I wrapped a towel around my waist and opened the door. Kit rushed in and stood at the toilet. “That was one of Uncle Nate’s employees. She’s coming here to take over managing the tour. She’ll tell you more.”
I stepped out to allow him to pee in private, but I smirked. The man had no modesty issues at all. I admired the bold way he approached life. Maybe I could figure out how to do the same?
When he came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, his hair was also wet, and he was wearing a towel. He flopped onto the bed, pulling me down with him. “What’s up for the rock star today?”
“I think I’m going to beg Clancy to get the bus out of the garage and find a park somewhere for us to get some fresh air and do some work on our set list. We’re going to make each show unique.
The metal songs will be played acoustically for one show, and the acoustic songs we’ll thrash in that same show.
The next show will be something entirely different. What do you think?”
In that instant, Kit’s opinion meant everything to me.
Now that I knew he was Nate Ashby’s nephew, maybe we could get insight into the head of our record label that would work to our advantage.
We could give him an album that would justify his projection that we’d make him a lot of money in the future.
If we knew what Mr. Ashby wanted from us, we could do a better job of giving it to him instead of dealing with Marshall, who bent everything to his whim to make more money for himself.
I needed to call Skyler about Marshall. Something was going on with the asshole, and I had no idea what it was, but I was tired of him taking advantage of us.
“I think that’s a great idea, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to do it. I’ll go meet Olive Chevalier at the airport and bring her to you guys. Will you invite Kensington to go with you? Does he still work for the band?” Kit asked as he kissed the middle of my hairless chest and sat up.
Sitting up next to him, I kissed his shoulder, happy for the freedom to put my lips on him when I wanted.
“For now, he still works for us. I need to discuss his behavior with the rest of the band. I mean, Marshall took a chance on us, and I appreciate that, but something is going on with him, and he’s acting crazy.
The Marshall we’re dealing with now? He’s not the guy we signed with. ”
“Okay. I agree, but I don’t really wanna talk about Marshall Kensington.
Would you have dinner with me tonight? You go with the guys and practice and write, and tonight, we break off from the group and find a nice place for margaritas and tacos.
This city is a foodie’s paradise.” He gave me a soft kiss, which touched my heart.
“I’d love to go on a date with you—I mean, is it a date?” I felt stupid asking.
Kit unexpectedly took my hand and stared into my eyes. “Yes. It’s a date. I want nothing more than to take you on a date, River.”
My heart smiled, I was sure. “I wanna go on a date with you too, Kit. Is Kit your real name?” It was cute, but it seemed like a nickname.
“My full name is Christopher Lars Hansen. My father is Leif. We’re descended from Vikings.”
“Wow! Vikings? That’s cool. Have you ever gone back to…? Is it Norway? Are Vikings from Norway?”
Kit laughed. “Vikings are said to be from all around Scandinavia—Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. My father says we come from Norway, and he even speaks a little Norwegian, which he learned from his grandfather. All I know is god morgen, which is good morning. Pop has tons of stories about our ancestors, and I think only about ten percent of them might be true. Anyway, dinner at eight? Will that work for you?”
I nodded. “I’ll probably be back before then, but yeah, that’s fine. Have a great day.” I stood to get dressed, and he hugged me. “You freaking out yet?” I was teasing him, but if he was having second thoughts, it was better to know early on.
Kit shook his head and blew out a big breath. “I’ll get better at this, I swear. This is all brand-spanking new to me, and I’m trying to process it, but I don’t want to fuck it up before I get my footing.”
We both got dressed and, after a nice kiss, went our separate ways. I met the guys in the lobby, and we went out by the pool.
There was a round table with a yellow umbrella to block the late-morning sun. We all sat and ordered coffee. “How would you feel about taking a ride?”
Goldie stared at me. “What’s going on, River?”
“I think we need to talk about Marsh and whether he’s doing us any favors, but I don’t want to do it here.
I don’t believe he’s acting in our best interests, and it seems smart to look into getting other representation.
” I glanced around the table at the guys, seeing that they were as confused as I expected.
“What the fuck, Riv? He’s a dick, but he seems to know his stuff, right?” JD asked.
Glancing around the table, I knew someone had to look out for us.
I was the only one who knew anything about the music business, and even my knowledge was limited.
None of the other band members knew how people could get chewed up and spit out, based on the whims of other people.
If we were going to make it as a band, someone needed to step up like Skyler had done for us last fall.
Could I do that? Could I be the voice of reason to protect us from being like the Claymont Sprites?
After bribing Clancy with lunch at his favorite fast-food place, he took us to a park not far from the hotel.
We rolled off the bus with our acoustic guitars and Arlo’s little keyboard.
Hardy had a fucking shoebox, which made no sense, but we were there to talk about our future and plan the next steps of our career.
We found a picnic table and sat down. Hardy put the shoebox on the table and pulled out a pair of drumsticks from his pocket, tapping out a rhythm that surprised me.
I grabbed my guitar case and opened it, so the other guys followed suit. It seemed as if they were following my lead, which was good. That was what I wanted.
We all tuned our guitars, and when we stopped, all eyes were on me.
“So, I know we didn’t hate the idea of playing again at The Van Buren on Saturday, but we can’t do so many back-to-back shows or we’re gonna be burnt out and not able to give good performances toward the end of the tour, and what’s at the end of the tour? ”
“Black Rock,” they said in unison.
“We owe this chance to that performance last year, and this year, we’re playing the east stage on Friday at four, so we have to be in top form.
Michael Cruz was our connection to Masterson Management, but with Michael and Marsh no longer working together, I don’t know if we’ll get the opportunity to get a better slot if someone drops out.
He won’t exactly have any pull when it comes to Michael.
I think we need to get some advice from Mr. Ashby about representation.
” Of everyone we had on our team, I believed Mr. Ashby would be the most honest with us.
“Dude, he owns the record label. He’s always going to work it to his advantage,” Arlo griped.
“Maybe, but you can’t say Marsh isn’t as well. At least we’d only have to have one fight on our hands.” Sounded reasonable.
JD reached under that stupid fedora he’d started wearing and pulled out a fat joint. “We need to chill. We don’t have a gig until Saturday night, so let’s blaze.”
I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t strung pretty tight, so after he lit it and passed it my way, I took a big hit, holding it in as long as I could before I puffed out smoke rings. I passed it to JD as we heard the quick siren blast.
The four of them started to get up and run, but I wasn’t leaving my old Yamaha acoustic behind. “Guys, seriously? Pot’s legal in Arizona. Let me do the talking.” I could handle it, but I cracked up when I saw Arlo holding the joint. I thought he was going to eat the damn thing.
“Gentlemen, what’s going on here? Let’s see some IDs, please,” the shorter of the two cops asked.
We all pulled out our wallets and fished out our driver’s licenses. I had one, but I rarely drove anywhere. Maybe I could talk Kit into teaching me to drive his huge truck?
The taller black cop collected our IDs and walked back to their patrol car. Goldie kicked me under the picnic table. “Ouch.” I gave him the evil eye and turned toward the short cop. “We’re practicing.”
“Practicing what?” His right eyebrow was lifted, which was a red flag.
“We… Uh, we’re a… We’re a band. Accidental Fire. We’re playing The Van Buren Saturday night.” I sounded scared—which I was. That wouldn’t put forth a strong, confident image at all.
“So, do you know where you are?” The cop looked around, his eyes settling on the playground about a hundred feet away. There was a little boy on a swing, and a woman was helping another kid go down the slide.
“We’re in Phoenix. Like I said, we’re playing The Van Buren on Saturday. We just wanted to get outside and work on our set list,” I said.
The taller cop returned. “Mr. Timmons, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us. There’s a warrant for your arrest.” He removed zip cuffs from his back pocket.
“And you and you, come with us. It is illegal to smoke marijuana in a public space, especially a park with kids nearby.” Shorty grabbed two zip cuffs from his pocket and stepped around the table to where Goldie and I were sitting.
I hadn’t thought about not being able to smoke pot in a public space. How damn dumb was I?
That left Hardy and JD sitting at the table. “Can you get our stuff back to the hotel and tell Kit we need a lawyer?” I then turned to the cops. “Which station are you taking us to?”
“Central City. Let’s go, guys.”
Arlo was already in the back seat of the cop car. When we got to the car, Shorty made us lean forward over the hood as he patted up and down our legs. “Is there anything in your pockets that could stick me or hurt me in any way?”
“N-n-no.”
He slid his hands into my pockets and patted up to my balls through my jeans. He repeated the same on Goldie, and then the two of us were put into the cop car with Arlo.
The tall guy was the driver, and after he backed the car out of the spot, I turned toward the picnic table where we’d been sitting. Hardy and JD were laughing so hard they were holding on to each other. Stupid fuckers.