Chapter 35
35
FOSTER
I haven’t been virginal the past five years. I wouldn’t dare insult someone by trying to claim otherwise. Until my sexy witch and her dick spell returned, I fully lived up to the cliché, just far more discreetly than Felix and Dev.
With that in mind, I would never hold Remi’s sex life against her. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t grind at me to have a guy on my tour who’s fucked her.
The woman has me in a chokehold, and I’m becoming a possessive bastard.
Nah, fuck it. I am one.
And since Xander’s part of her crew—she claims he’ll be invaluable—and he is clearly not going anywhere, I cut calling him Wannabe once we’re back on the road and start pretending he’s a puppy capable of wielding a camera.
By the second show, it takes less energy not to glare at him. They swapped out a couch for one that folds out on the other bus for him, and Christian left Remi on ours for the remainder of the tour.
Otherwise everyone falls back into the groove quickly. The only real change is between me and Remi. We’re not dancing around each other anymore. We feel right. No longer misaligned.
Of course it also means she’s openly calling me on my shit.
After I drop my bag in our dressing room at tonight’s venue, another hits the floor not far away. With attitude.
My lips twitch before I rake my gaze up Remi’s tight jeans and top to the set jaw and eyes narrowed at me.
I lift a brow. “You have words to go with the ice?”
“Oh, I have plenty,” she says, each one edged in brat. “It’s you who seems to be lacking them. Specifically recorded ones.”
I lick my lips to hide a smile and avert my gaze, bringing it back with a sigh. “I relent. Let’s do my solo interview after a show this week.”
She blinks like she expected more of a fight, but I have no reason to resist anymore. It wasn’t the questions I’ve been avoiding but sharing the answers with the person asking them. I couldn’t open up to her while simultaneously locking her out.
I want to share it all with her—I always have, if I’m being completely honest, but I can kick off the self-preservation mode. She can have the Adams North origin story.
“What’s the catch?” she asks, still squinting at me.
“No catch. I’ll answer every single question you ask.” I crowd her against the wall and bring my mouth to her ear. “You just have to buy each one with a piece of clothing.”
Her mouth pops open, and I smirk, walking away.
“What if I have more questions than clothes?” she asks my back.
“Guess you’ll need to find a way to negotiate for them.”
A quick glance over my shoulder verifies she’s blushing, but she also holds a challenge in her eye. I wink before heading back to the bus.
Colton’s stepping out of the bathroom when I push through the curtain to the bunks. He’s fresh from a shower, and he tracks me while I grab my acoustic case. With a sigh, I roll my head toward him and flip him off for whatever he’s thinking.
But I know what he’s thinking. Then he voices it.
“How long are you going to do this to yourself?”
My face tips up as I consider his question, but I wind up answering with a shrug. “I wish I could tell you, brother.”
He runs a hand through his wet hair and nods. “You mind if I hang out while you torture yourself?”
“It wouldn’t be proper torture without your presence,” I tell him.
When we go inside, I set up in another dressing room. It has a similar layout to ours, only with extra mirror stations. Colton flops onto his back on the floor. The exasperated sigh that follows doesn’t go unnoticed.
I haven’t recorded anything to send my mom for a while, but the asshole on the floor reads me better than I like most of the time. He knows the drill. He knows the mood. He knows me. Better than Chase, if I’m completely honest.
It’s also because of Chase. Colton had always been my brother but as an extension of Chase. Then his accident broke both of us, changed us, bonded us how only he and I understand and in ways that can’t be undone.
I’d make a lot of what happened different in a heartbeat, but not me and Colt. As much as I hate the reason we fused, I can’t imagine a life where he isn’t right fucking here every step of the journey with me.
And he has been. Even if it’s simply existing in the same room when I need to not feel alone.
I start the voice note on my phone, setting it on the side table by the sofa. Nothing happens. My mind blanks, a heaviness washing over my limbs. Tired. But not in the final stretch of a world tour, seven songs deep in a new album way. I’m exhausted by the simple act of sitting here. By knowing any pride or joy my mom might experience won’t reach the surface. By having to admit I dread every interaction at this point because none of it matters.
You can’t save someone who doesn’t believe they need saving.
It seems my mind and body have surrendered to reality. Just my fucking heart still holding out.
“What were you playing the other day?” Colt drawls. He has an arm draped over his eyes, the other tucked under his head. “You’ve been humming it whenever you think, and now it’s stuck in my head.”
I half-smile. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
His eyes might be closed and covered, but I’ll bet my career they rolled anyway. “Just fucking play it.”
Reaching over, I cancel the voice note of silence and restart. I restart the rest of me along with it. Because nothing about this song feels heavy. Not a damn bit of it scrapes.
Not anymore.
I shut off the recording after playing through once, press send, then settle in, working it for another hour. By the time we resurface, Colt’s the one humming the song while I organize lyrics in my head.
* * *
Coming off the stage a few days later, I snag Remi and kiss her. Right there at the bottom of the stairs, my blood pumping and the crowd still screaming.
Fuck, it seems too perfect. Being where I belong, onstage, and then feeling settled by being with her the second I walk off. I need it to last—need her to stay.
“Hi,” I say, and she grins.
“Hey.”
“You need to go be a sexy director with your crew before I get you?”
She typically meets with them for a breakdown of what they filmed, anything they missed she needs to account for at the next concert. I have to share her until she boards the bus. And I suck at sharing.
But tonight she shakes her head. “I passed it off to Xander for the rest of the tour.”
“Puppy?” I ask. “I didn’t know he could do that trick.”
A nod. “Told you he’d be useful.”
I smile and press my lips to hers. “I’ll be sure to tell him he’s a good boy. Maybe I’ll even throw a Frisbee for him.”
As Remi laughs, a member of the tour’s crew snags her attention. Audio, I think. She goes to talk to the woman before I reclaim her and head to the dressing room.
Dev and Felix have enough time on us that I pull her to me outside the door, leaning back against the wall. She sinks into my chest, face tilted up as she gives me a look.
“What?” I ask, sliding my hands to her ass.
“You could get your own dressing room.”
My lips twitch at her suggestion. “Why would I do that?”
“So you wouldn’t feel a need to avoid it after a show when Felix or Dev or both are either snorting coke or fucking women. Or both.”
“Oh, it’s both.” I shrug at the rest and tell her, “The label and our agent already view the band as two parts—Christian acts like it too sometimes when he’s following the money. A separate dressing room only feeds into it. If it backs up we’re a single unit, I’ll feel you up in hallways.”
She nods while messing with my shirt. “Mac pushed for the focus of the doc to be on you. I told Heath I wouldn’t do it, and if they press again in post-production, he said he’ll back me up. I refuse to make a cut downplaying Dev and Felix into supporting roles.”
I groan and kiss her. “Could you stop being so fucking perfect? It’s pretty disgusting.”
When she smiles, I kiss it too. “Okay, so I get the one dressing room, and I know why I avoid it after a concert.”
“But…” I tuck my fingers under the top of her tight, ripped jeans.
“You used to go in,” she says, squinting at me. “You never even hesitated until these concerts after the break.”
I scrunch my face and turn my head away from her.
“You don’t have to now, either.”
With a sigh, I look back at her. “The second I walk in there, I’ll have tits rubbing on me and need to guard my dick while dodging chicks on their knees.”
A slight pink stains her cheeks, a jealous glint in her emerald eyes. “Is that any different than the rest of the tour?”
“Remi,” I say, but she hits me with a, “Foster.”
I smirk as she blinks, like she’s forcing the next words out.
“Do I love the idea of you being in a room with gorgeous naked women getting railed? No. But it’s part of the gig. Plus, I’ve watched women throwing themselves at you this whole time, and I have yet to snap.” Her smile’s fake as hell. “So, we should be good.”
A loud as fuck moan comes through the wall behind me as she finishes. Remi glances down, lips pursed, and I shake my head. My fingers hook under her chin and lift to bring her face up again.
“Are you done?” Once she nods, I hang my head closer to her. “I haven’t touched anyone since you’ve been on tour, Remi. I haven’t even looked since I heard your name again. The reason it’s different going in there now is I won’t risk you thinking otherwise for a second. I don’t want anything to do with what’s on the other side of the door, and I won’t even let the possibility worry you. A little change in my post-show ritual is nothing.”
“I wouldn’t care if you went in, though,” she almost whispers. Her eyes bounce between mine until I press our foreheads together.
“Of course you wouldn’t, my beautiful little liar.”
She shoves at my chest with little behind it. But she doesn’t deny the lie either.
I spot Colt sauntering toward us from down the hall. “You mind if we bail and go back to the bus?”
He nods, not even thinking about it. “I’ll grab your shit.” Then he throws a glance at Remi, reaching for the door. “Close your eyes and ears, lioness.”
She rolls her eyes instead, but they drop at the sounds released when he walks inside. I’m smiling down at her as the door shuts again, her cheeks fully red.
“Tell me again how you want me in there,” I tease, hauling her even closer.
Colton’s in and out in under a minute, and we head for the exit. He lets security outside know the plan but then stops at the door. “They need a second,” he says, listening in his earpiece. “The fans are being too fucking much tonight, apparently.”
I shrug Remi’s camera bag onto my shoulder, waiting for the go-ahead. And when Colton hooks his head for us to follow and opens the door, he wasn’t exaggerating.
We’re met with an onslaught of screams and flashes, but something else hangs in the air. A recklessness to the crowd.
Remi and I haven’t discussed an us outside of there being one, but knowing she shies away from attention because of what happened to her and Roman, I doubt she’d love how much she gets with me in public. So I give her a quick smile and slip out first after Colton. Another member of security falls in behind me, and I glance over my shoulder, checking one follows with her.
I stop for normal autographs and pictures, but it all feels off. The walkway’s narrower than usual—the barricades closer together. Claustrophobic as fuck. Especially with people grabbing and able to reach from both sides.
It all turns to a buzz at some point. Flash, Adams , scream, hands grazing me. One latches onto my shirt and jerks hard enough I have to step while signing a shirt. Colt knocks them off and then shakes his head, nixing the autographs.
“Let’s just get to the bus,” he shouts, guiding me forward with a hand on my shoulder.
I check back on Remi again. She usually walks out separate from us, ignored by everyone. Right now, though, she has her head down while the flashes go off. One look tells me she’s fighting her anxiety with all the cameras, and it fucking kills me. I shouldn’t have brought her with me at all.
Colton follows my line of sight, and I practically hear his eye roll over everything else. He tows Remi ahead, so he’s covering both of us. The guy who was with her moves behind us.
Then a chant starts.
No, two chants.
One’s for me, but the other…
“Shit,” Colton shouts, and I realize it about the same time.
The second is a countdown from three already to one. Our heads whip around as a group of fans surges forward into the barricade. The metal scrapes over concrete, moving inward with the force and nearly tipping.
Fuck .
I pull Remi to me, tucking her against my side to save Colt from splitting his attention. A breath later, she’s yanked away by someone catching her arm over the fence. Colt’s right there to body block as I haul her back and tighten my hold, not chancing anyone fucking touching her again.
The countdown restarts, but I’m pushing Remi in front of me and up the stairs onto the bus. I’m right behind her, and Colt’s right behind me, quickly closing the doors.
“Jesus, fuck.” He swings his head toward us. “Everyone good?”
I’m already cupping Remi’s face in my hands and scanning her over. Panicked green eyes jump between mine, her arms wrapped around herself.
“Are you okay?” I ask, needing her to say it.
“Yeah…” She glances out the tinted windows. “It’s never been like that.” She looks back at me. “Right?”
It hasn’t. The other two shows back since the break were more intense when we walked out. But not this level.
I shake my head. “I don’t want you walking out with me again.”
A sad smile appears, but relief sneaks in there too.
Colton’s barking orders through his radio, coordinating to get things locked down before they bring Felix and Dev out. He finishes and audibly sighs on his way over. “Fuck, I’m sorry, brother. My gut told me we needed more crowd control tonight. And those barriers were too close together.”
I shrug it off, not blaming him in the least. “No apologies,” I tell him. “But we can’t deal with that every time.”
He nods. “Yeah, it’s time to restrict access to the backstage exit. I’ll have it set up for the other venues. That shit’s not happening again.” Then he scans Remi and pats her on the head. “I’ll put security outside the bus, but I should probably make sure everything runs smoother for Dev and Felix. You two can…” He waves us off, not finishing as he walks away.
I shut the doors behind him and turn around. “Come here.”
Remi drops her arms, and once she’s close enough, I pull her the last few steps. She appears less shook up, but I want to hide her away. And hide with her.
My gaze trails up the footholds in the wall.
“You mind if a sweaty dude takes over your refuge up there for a bit?”
“Hmm.” She pretends to consider her options, so I remind her she has none, picking her up. “Foster,” she squeaks and throws her arms around my neck as I climb to the loft.
I drop onto my back on her bed, dragging her down on top of me. She laughs but cuts off when I grab the back of her neck and bring her mouth to mine.
Fuck, I could do this for the rest of my life with her—having her melt into me and how she fills my chest. But there’s still the ache behind my ribs, the guilt I keep avoiding. Just until after the tour and the doc wraps.
I bite her lower lip and tuck an arm behind my head. She folds hers over my chest, setting her chin on them while my eyes search hers.
“You swear you’re okay?” I ask.
“Are you?” she counters. “I wasn’t the one those people nearly stampeded trying to get to.”
I lower my brows. “There were people out there? I never even noticed them.”
She fights the smile, poorly. “Right. Now who’s the liar?”
“Nah, baby, I only saw you.” I brush my thumb over her cheek. “Awake, asleep, eyes open, closed—all I ever see is you, Remi.”
When she fully smiles, I kiss her, then I really kiss her, knowing it’s only partially a lie.
If I let myself, I could forget anything else exists outside of her. Outside of us.
I did forget before—about the world. Except, forgetting about the world doesn’t mean it stops moving. It just leaves you completely oblivious to what’s going on right in front of you. Until all those things you were missing blindside you. Like they did me.