Chapter 15
15
Shane
“Did you add a show onto the schedule, Tommy?” I hold the phone with the new updated schedule in front of his face.
“It’s a small gig,” he replies, pushing my hand out of the way. “A pop-in at Continental Club. All the greats have played there when passing through Austin. Short set. Five songs. Laird and Nikki said they thought it was a fun idea. Though the pay reflects when you played gigs at the beach.”
Hotel staff load trays of food onto the large dining table. It’s noisy even in the vastness of the presidential suite. It smells good and causes my stomach to growl. “I was going to fly back to LA.”
“Save the trip and enjoy a night in Austin.” He stands when the hotel staff starts leaving. “What’s the rush to get back anyway? There are plenty of hot chicks here.”
“I didn’t say anything about other women.”
“Other women? What women are we talking about?”
The door to the far bedroom opens, and Laird emerges, stretching like he’s waking from hibernation. “Is the food here?”
Tommy walks to inspect the selection. “It’s here.”
Laird returns to the bedroom, peeking in and talking to Poppy. He flew his wife out for a few days since we’re in the same city for three nights. I should have flown my wife out as well. I grin, looking down at my phone and the last message she sent: Break a leg. Just not yours. Her nurse humor is top-notch.
I click the screen off and tuck the phone in my back pocket. “Why am I the last to know about gigs being added?” When Poppy walks out of the bedroom, that’s when it hits me. Laird has Poppy. Nikki has Tulsa and her daughter, Autumn. I look at Tommy and then at Laird. “Because I don’t have anyone who cares about me?”
“We care about you, man,” Laird says from the other side of the buffet. “What are you hungry for?” he whispers to Poppy.
“You know what I mean.”
Tommy’s digging into the pasta at the far end of the table. “Of course we care. We know your schedule is flexible.”
“Maybe it’s fucking not. Maybe I had plans.”
“Come on, Shane.” Tommy stops eating to look at me over his plate. “I’m the last guy to judge how you spend your time, but the band voted to add the gig.”
“The band didn’t vote. The twins did.”
“Either way, you would have been outvoted.”
“Would have been nice to be fucking asked.”
Laird hands the plate to his wife and looks up. “What’s going on, Shane? Why are you so upset? Missing out on a hot date?”
I’m about to lose my shit, but Poppy is a good reminder to take a breath as she comes around with one arm around her pregnant belly and her plate in her free hand. She stops beside me and says, “I agree. You should have been asked.”
Fuck. Now I feel bad. She shouldn’t have to listen to this shit. “Thanks, Pop.”
She nods, her mouth pressed together as sympathy tugs the corners down. Turning to the guys, she adds, “Shane has a life, too. It’s different from ours but not any less important. He should always be included in decisions.”
Tommy finally sets his plate down. He takes a beer from the ice bucket, and says, “Our bad. It’s not happened before. It won’t happen again.” He tosses me the beer.
We have a few hours before we go on, so I crack it open and return to the buffet. “Thanks.”
Patting me on the back, Laird says, “Sorry, brother.”
“It’s fine.” It’s not fine at all, but I know they didn’t do anything with ill intention. It does mean another night without seeing Cat, and I’m missing her so fucking much that I’m getting cranky. And we haven’t even had sex.
What have I gotten myself into?
I fill my plate and return to the living room. Tommy and Laird stand around the buffet, picking at it, but I sit across from Poppy. “How are you feeling?”
“Ready to live up to my name and pop.”
“I heard Nikki say you’re in your last trimester. I don’t even know what that really means.”
She laughs behind her hand to hide a mouth full of food. When she finally finishes, she replies, “It means I’m in the home stretch. Twins usually come early, though, so we’ll see.”
I eat some broccoli before tucking into the chicken. When I look up from the plate on my lap, Poppy whispers, “I’m good at keeping secrets if you ever want to talk about the woman in your life.”
My eyes dart to Laird and Tommy, who seemed wrapped up in their own conversation and oblivious to ours. “What woman?” I play dumb, but I can tell by the small smile forming that she’s on to me.
“Just offering an ear with no judgment attached.”
I glance back at the guys once more before saying, “I wanted to see her.” What am I doing? I exhale long and slow before my hand starts for my head. I lower it and try to calm the nerves that have come over me.
With the cat out of the bag, her smile is too big to hide. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that.”
“I didn’t realize I was.”
She nods, all-knowing with a raised brow. “You sure were. I bet you make her smile as well.”
“Cat’s smile is one of my favorite things.”
Her hand rests on her chest. “Shane, that’s so sweet.” Being a good friend, Poppy glances over her shoulder to make sure no one’s listening, and then whispers, “Do you have a picture of her?”
I wish I did. There hasn’t been a good time to ask if I can have one for the personal library of photos I’m creating of her. Yeah, totally creepy. I can never say that to her, or she’ll be out the door. “Not of her face.” Her mouth falls open. “No. No. I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t have naked photos either.” I mentally note to ask for those as well for the collection. The road gets lonely.
Poppy’s laughing hard enough to make her belly bounce up and down. She’s beautiful, so it’s a given that Laird was attracted to her, but that beauty runs deeper than the surface with her. She genuinely cares about others. I’m reminded of Cat again. I think they’d really like each other. It’s important for a band this small, that spends this much time together, to get along. It’s just as important for our partners to as well.
Laird asks, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing really,” she replies, still laughing. “Shane and I were talking about photography.” She’s not lying.
“Sounds like a riot,” he says, scooping more food onto his plate.
Setting my plate on the coffee table, I pull my phone from my pocket and tap to light up the screen to show her.
The smile ceases to exist as awe sets in. Her eyes go from the screen to mine, and she asks, “Did you take that?”
“Yeah.” I turned my phone back to look at it again. I’ve stared at it more than would be considered healthy, and I never get enough. “I was holding her, fascinated by the gentle slope of her neck, the hair that tumbled over it, and her back bare and calling to me. I’ve kissed her there, right at the curve, that freckle my North Star in the middle of the night.” I blink, then realize I’ve revealed every thought I’ve had staring at this photo. “Just took it because I liked it.”
I took it because my wife is a goddamn goddess, and I needed something of her with me. If only I could tell her the full story. If only I could tell them the truth—that I’m married, and even though it was a mistake, I’m not in a rush to get a divorce.
When Poppy smiles this time, I know she sees right through me playing it off like it’s nothing. It’s fucking everything to me, and now it was even longer until I see her and my North Star again.
“That’s got to be one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard, and my husband is a swoony guy.” She tries to sit forward but looks trapped in the cushions of the couch.
I move around the table, taking her by both hands to help her up. When she’s standing, she says, “Thank you for sharing with me. I can’t wait to meet her.” Nodding, I do feel lighter and better for talking to her. Before she walks away, she whispers, “I hope that one day you tell her everything you just said. That’s the kind of stuff girls dream of hearing.”
My phone buzzes with a message, but it’s not from Cat. Dallas Jenny. I delete her message offering to drive to Austin to hook up like we did last year and block her number altogether.
There’s only one person I want to hear from, so I go back to my bedroom and call her. As I’m standing at the window, the phone rings once, twice, and then I hear, “Hello?” mixed with laughter in the background.
“Hey, babe, I’ve been thinking about you.”
“I’ve been thinking about you, too, babe.” I grin, hearing Cat call me that. I know a part of her doesn’t feel natural saying it, but the other part takes ownership like I was hers to begin with. Maybe I always have been. According to California, I was. “I can’t really hear that well. I’m in a restaurant with Luna.”
“Early day? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, we can talk about it when you return.” There’s a shuffle of noise on the other end, and she says, “I need to go outside to talk. I can barely hear you.”
Staring out the window onto the water below, I say, “It’s okay. Have fun with your friend. I was just calling to let you know that you have freckles?—”
“Did you just say I have wrinkles?” she shouts to overcome the noise in the background.
Fuck. “No, that’s not what I said. We’ll catch up tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t hear you.”
I sigh. I was ready to talk about how I’ve been feeling about her, but now is not the time. “Don’t be, Cat. Have a good night.”
“Break a leg, but not yours, okay?” She’s going to run that one into the ground, yet I’m not bothered by it because she makes me smile every time.
“I won’t. Talk soon.”
I lie down on the bed with a stomach full of food, hoping to get a nap in before we have to leave for the stadium. But I can’t stop thinking about the conversation I had with Poppy.
She’s here for Laird. Maybe I should bring Cat with me next time. I pull up the schedule once more and scroll to see where we play next week. Grinning, I say, “Perfect.”
The next thing to figure out is how I’m going to break it to the band that I’m bringing my wife on tour next week.
It kind of changes everything once it’s out in the open.
First things first, though. Ask Cat to join me in Seattle .