Chapter 2
TWO
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CALUM
I shouldn’t have looked back. Not even to check if he’d caught me making my escape, which of course he had. I may as well have held up a sign: this way for blow jobs.
My sex-deprived brain leaps at the idea, eagerly supplying images of me sinking to my knees for the beguiling stranger.
Right there in the middle of the crowd. A rush of saliva fills my mouth, and I clamp down on a needy moan in the instant before it reaches my vocal cords.
That’s it. I’ve officially crossed the line from desperate to utterly pathetic. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Bursting free of the VIP tent, and the tempting man within, I stride through the throng of festival goers in search of food.
It’s been a long day, and my chance of grabbing lunch was forfeited when Kerbside Desire’s drummer failed to show up to prepare for their two o’clock set.
I found him passed out in the band’s trailer, snoring fit to shred the metal roof.
Five more minutes and the whole thing may have popped open like a tin can.
I’d prodded the poor guy awake, poured a cup of hastily made coffee down his gullet, and deposited him on stage with drumsticks in hand and two whole minutes to spare.
Arthur, the band’s manager, patted me on the back—literally—before sending me off to solve the next crisis.
As if it’s not his incompetence that keeps landing us in these messes in the first place.
Thankfully, I’m now off the clock until tomorrow morning.
It’s time for one of the other lackeys to take their turn doing Arthur’s job for him.
My stomach growls as a row of food trucks comes into view. I scan the lines in front of them more closely than their offerings. I don’t much care what I eat at this point, as long as it’s food. Joining the end of the short burrito line, I pull out my phone to call Hannah.
“Hey, big brother.” Her soft drawl is relaxed and sleepy… and a little slurred.
An amused smile curves my lips. “Hey, little sister.”
She tuts. “I’m nineteen now, Cal. Don’t you think it’s time you stop calling me little?”
“Nope.” I’ve replied the same way every year since the day she turned fourteen to my eighteen.
“You’ll always be littler than me.” Reaching the front of the line, I quickly buy a burrito and a bottle of iced tea before finding an empty seat at one of the long picnic tables.
The nearby amphitheatre is alive with music and cheering, but it’s quiet enough back here to talk. “How was your birthday?”
“I had a morning lecture at uni. Then, at work, I got to spend my whole shift stocking shelves. Barely talked to anyone. It was perfect.”
I snort a laugh. “You know, sometimes talking to other people can be an enjoyable, life-affirming experience. You should give it a shot.”
“No, thanks,” she counters. “I’m willing to overlook your social quirks when I have to, but don’t go trying to drag me into your weirdness.”
Rolling my eyes, I move on. “What did you do for dinner?”
“Chinese food and a bottle of merlot.” There’s a teasing smile in her voice. “Are you jealous? Be jealous.”
I stare at the sadness that is my hastily assembled burrito. “I am one hundred percent jealous.”
“Good.” A delighted giggle fills my ear. “Oh, and I bought cake. I even blew out some candles because… why not?”
The smile slides off my face. “I’m sorry I’m not there. You know I wanted—”
“Stop being stupid,” she grumbles. “They were just candles. You know I like to watch the wax melt.” Her words are quiet now, almost self-conscious. “Who knows, maybe one day one of us will even make a wish or something.”
A sigh sneaks out of me. “I hope so.” We gave up on wishes years ago; it hurt too much when they never came true. But the idea of Hannah sitting alone in our dingy two-bedroom apartment, lighting her own birthday candles just so she could blow them out again… it’s too much.
“Besides,” she says, interrupting my guilt-fest, “we can do it all again when you get home on Monday.” She pauses to clear her throat. “You will be home on Monday, right?”
“Yes.” I don’t allow so much as a millisecond to separate her question from my response. “I’ll be heading straight to the office, but I’ll text you when I reach Brisbane.” The fact she posed the question at all bothers me. “Did something happen?”
“No.” There’s a longer silence this time. Her breathing turns ragged. “I looked through some old photos today is all.”
I close my eyes, my mouth twisting with the need to swear. Out loud. With excessive force and creativity.
“Do you think they remember today is my birthday?” She sniffs. “I mean, parents aren’t supposed to forget stuff like that, right?”
“That’s it, I’m coming home.” I’m halfway to my feet, my food forgotten. “I’ll be there in two hours.”
“Don’t you dare,” she jumps in. “I’m a big girl, Cal. I don’t need you to come rushing to my rescue over every little thing.” I freeze, unsure what to do. She takes a deep, shaky breath. “If you want to make me feel better, tell me about your day. Give me some juicy festival gossip or something.”
My shoulder’s sag, but I sit back down. “All right, fine.” Hannah’s right.
She’s not a kid anymore, and she can handle more than I give her credit for.
Not to mention, if I leave in the middle of the festival I’ll be kissing my job goodbye.
Working at Rush Music Management may not be my dream job, but it’s gaining me rungs on the right ladder.
I need to keep my head down and my mouth shut long enough to get where I want to go.
Managing my own musicians—and doing it right.
“You won’t believe the shit I’ve seen in the past twelve hours,” I begin.
Between bites of burrito, I regale Hannah with anonymised stories of snoring drummers and vocalists behaving badly.
“I swear, some of these musicians are like really tall toddlers. I want to take away their liquor bottles and put them down for a nap.”
Hannah is laughing her head off now. “But then you’d wake them up again.”
“True,” I concede, wincing at the thought.
“I feel bad about that one, though. That band has been touring non-stop for months. They’re all looking frayed around the edges, but the drummer is a step beyond the rest. Meanwhile, Arthur’s so busy signing new bands, he’s failed to notice his most valuable asset is on the verge of burnout.
” Kerbside Desire are talented, and they work hard.
They deserve better than to be flogged to death by a manager who’s already on the lookout for his next new and shiny.
“The man is sloppy with people’s lives, and the boss lets it slide.
It’s not just unethical, it’s bad business. ”
Hannah gives a dutiful hum of understanding, as she does at the end of all my rants. “Remember, you won’t be stuck under Arthur’s thumb forever. Soon you’ll sign a band of your very own, and you’ll take good care of them. That’s what you do,” she adds, “you take care of people.”
The words are nice, and I appreciate them, but they’re mostly bullshit.
Yes, I did my best to take care of Hannah.
I made sure she always had a full belly, a roof over her head, and a near-perfect school attendance record.
But I was never her parent. Hell, I was little more than a kid myself the day we realised our parents weren’t coming home.
No amount of brotherly love could ever fill the hole their absence left behind or repair the damage they did to her confidence.
“You know, if you wanted, you could perform here one day.” I shouldn’t go there, but some days I can’t help myself. “I can see it now. You up on stage, thousands of fans screaming your name.” I cup my free hand around the phone so I can do the whisper-roar. “Hannnnahhhh.”
She laughs, the usual traces of chagrin keeping to the edges of the sound. “All I can see is the heart attack I would have, being in front of all those people. I’m so out of practice.”
The fact that she hasn’t already shut the conversation down lures me in, makes me push a little further. “What about when I’m a big shot music manager? Will you sign with me then?”
This time the silence seems endless. “Maybe.” The word is pinched; it’s placating. It’s also a lie. “Tell me more about the festival,” she says, changing the subject with forced brightness. “Are there tons of hot guys for your workaholic self to ignore?”
I swallow my last bite of burrito before answering.
“There was one.” With jet black hair, smooth olive skin, and the kind of intensely baffled stare I’ve only ever seen in romcoms. His gaze alone was like a live wire, zapping me from a distance and setting off sparks beneath my skin.
Even the memory has every hair on my body standing on end.
“Don’t go speechless on me now,” Hannah cries in my ear. “Tell me about the one.” Christ, now she’s making it sound like we’re in a romcom.
“There was a guy. We locked eyes across the crowded VIP tent. He was hot. The end.”
She gasps, unreasonably excited. “That can’t be the end. What happened?”
“I did what any grown man who values his professional reputation would do. I turned tail and fled.”
“Noooo,” she moans. “Tell me you didn’t pull a Cinderella on the hot dude.”
“Both of my shoes are still securely on my feet, thank you very much. What did you expect me to do? I was with Arthur discussing tomorrow’s schedule.
Could you imagine his reaction if some random musician hit on me right in front of him?
He’d be dobbing me in to the boss before I could say, Thanks, but no thanks. ”
“He can’t get you fired for someone else’s actions.”
“He’d sure as hell try,” I mutter. “Fraternising with potential clients would be the perfect excuse.” Arthur and I stopped getting along when I realised how poorly he treats the people whose work underpin his success, artists and interns alike.
He’d show me the door if he could, but the CEO of Rush, Genevieve, happens to like me.
She took a chance by hiring me as an intern despite my lack of training in entertainment management.
My eagerness to speed-learn the business over the last year and a half has kept me in her good graces.
Still, if Arthur can find a way to make me look bad in front of her, he’ll jump on it.
There’s more tutting from my sister. “What if he wasn’t a musician? Would you still have said, Thanks, but no thanks?”
I huff out a laugh. “Not convincingly.” Or for long. “But he was in the VIP tent, so…”
“That doesn’t mean anything. You were in the VIP tent and you’re not a musician.”
“I’m also wearing what are obviously work clothes. Mr Hottie had on jeans and a t-shirt.” The denim clung. The shirt was snug. Oh yeah, his eyes weren’t the only part of him that caught my attention. That man reached out to me on all the relevant levels.
“You do know all work and no play makes you a dull boy, right?”
“I believe you’ve told me a time or twenty.”
“And it’s always true,” she teases. “Hey, I know what you should do. You should go back, find your man, and seduce the crap out of him. That would be fuuun.” The final whispered word drags out into eternity.
Dropping my head into my free hand, I groan. “This conversation has taken an oddly disturbing turn.”
“Come on, it could be like a bonus birthday present.”
I choke on the shock first, and the laughter second. “How do you turn me screwing some random stranger into a gift to you?”
She gives a sigh of exasperation. “When you put it like that it sounds weird.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re weirder.”
We fall into a comfortable silence as I finish the last of my iced tea.
The festival crowd wanders past my table.
Groups of friends, lovers holding hands.
Around and between them, I catch a glimpse of movement in the shadows beyond.
A man, standing alone. His body is turned side-on so I can only see his profile, but his feet shift in a restless way that seems vaguely familiar. I peer closer. Is that…?
“I don’t believe it.”
“Don’t believe what?” Hannah asks.
“He’s here.”
“Who? Arthur? Because you’re supposed to be done—”
“Not Arthur,” I hiss. “The one.” Damn it, we need to pick a different nickname. “I mean, the guy from earlier.”
Hannah gives a loud gasp. “Where is he?”
“About five metres from where I’m sitting.
” I don’t know why I’m whispering, it’s not like he can hear me over all the noise.
I sit frozen to the spot, staring at him.
His hands are jammed deep into his pockets, and his jaw is clenched tight.
There’s an edge of expectancy to every subtle shift of his body, as if he’s waiting for something. Or someone?
He glances left—straight at me—before his gaze darts away again.
My heart rate spikes and I sit up straighter. “Holy shit, I think he’s stalking me.” The thought is way hotter than it should be.
Hannah shrieks her excitement. “Take a picture.”
Eyes widening, I growl into the phone, “I’m not taking a picture.”
“Why not? I want to see the one.”
I’m still staring when he turns to look at me again. His limbs tremble and his chest heaves, but he doesn’t look away this time. Neither do I.
After a brief hesitation, he starts wending his way towards me through the passing crowd.
“Hannah, I’m gonna go. He’s headed this way.”
A delighted squeal threatens to burst my ear drum, and I pull the phone further away before she deafens me. “Yes, you go and have fun. Don’t forget to take a picture for me. You know, before you get to the good stuff.” The rambling cuts off as she hangs up.
Apparently, my little sister thinks I can’t get laid fast enough. Ugh. So disturbing.