Chapter 2
TWO
Eric
? Alkaline - Sleep Token ?
I’ve done a lot of difficult things in my life—completed rehab, played through a ninety-minute show after tearing my rotator cuff during the second song, even managed to walk away completely unharmed from a motorcycle accident that should have taken my life.
But leaving the most beautiful woman I have ever fucking seen alone in my dressing room when I know she’s stripping down to nothing but her underwear, is at the top of that list.
I roll my neck and take a deep breath before pulling my phone out of my pocket and calling Dani, requesting that, despite what that woman had said, she needs to get me one of every type of hot beverage she can think of. She tells me she’s already at the Starbucks down the street doing exactly that.
“And this is why you’re the best assistant on the planet.”
“Remember that when I ask you for a raise when this tour is over,” she teases.
Pocketing my phone, I follow the sound of the guys’ laughter mixed with the steady and unmistakable tap tap tap of a ping pong ball hitting against the table.
I collapse onto the couch beside our bassist, Kevin, and follow his stare to the table where Max, our guitarist, and Josh, our lead vocalist, are in the middle of what looks to be a close match.
“Is it true you pulled some poor frozen woman off the street when you got here?” Kevin asks.
“Word still travels fast, I see,” I say, crossing one leg over the other and resting my ankle on my knee.
“What’s she like?” Josh asks, absolutely crushing the ball onto Max’s side of the table and tossing his paddle to the surface. “That’s game, by the way.” Max groans and sets his paddle down on the table before making his way to the couch facing the one Kevin and I are currently occupying.
“She’s…” I trail off and scrub a hand down my face. Gorgeous. Mysterious. My future wife. “Quiet,” is the word I finally settle on.
“What’s the story?” Max asks.
“Nothing crazy. I was walking up to the doors and saw her huddled against the side of the building. She was soaked to the bone. I asked how long she’d been sitting there, and she said three hours.”
“What the fuck?” Josh says, laughing. “Three hours in the freezing rain? Why?”
I shrug. “Based on the little information I have it appears she has floor seats and was in line to make sure she got on the rail.” I pick a piece of lint off my black jeans and flick it to the floor.
“Seven hours before the doors opened?” Kevin says. “That woman deserves some kind of medal.”
I laugh. “She flat out refused to come inside at first. Said she couldn’t leave her spot. Something about a bucket list.”
“She hot?” Josh asks, wagging his eyebrows.
Is she hot? That’s like asking if the sky is blue. She’s…beyond words. Porcelain white skin, full lips, and icy blue eyes that pop against her jet-black hair. I was royally fucked the second her eyes met mine.
“You going to fuck her?” he asks. “If not, can I?” Unexplained rage seeps through my veins at his words. “Or, you know, since I’m single again, we could always share her. Been a while since we’ve done that,” he says with a wink.
“No,” I say through clenched teeth.
“To which option?”
“All of them,” I say, standing as I see Dani walking down the hall toward us, a tray of drinks in her hand. “You’re a life saver,” I tell her as I take the tray from her.
“Those for us?” Kevin asks.
“Touch them and lose your fingers,” I say over my shoulder, already on my way back to my dressing room and the woman who is hopefully still inside.
I turn to Dani and ask if she’s been back into the room yet, and she shakes her head.
“Can you go in ahead of me? I want to make sure I don’t walk in on her if she’s still changing or something. ”
Dani walks ahead of me while I pause in the hallway. She returns a minute later carrying the stack of Ty’s wet clothes and giving me the thumbs up. I enter the room, setting the tray of drinks on the table in front of the couch where Ty is sitting.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I had Dani get one of everything she could think of.”
She looks over the tray of drinks, turning a few in place so she can read the labels. When she finally settles on one, she takes a long sip and lets out a moan that goes straight to my dick.
“Thank you,” she says, clutching the drink to her chest and closing her eyes.
“She speaks,” I joke, and a smile grows across her beautiful lips.
“Sorry,” she says, opening her eyes and looking into mine briefly before looking away. “About before, I mean. I’ve been meaning to thank you since you brought me in here but…” she trails off and laughs nervously. “I kind of forgot how to function as a human being.”
I laugh.
“You’re welcome,” I say, sitting on the couch and laying my arm across the back of it, hoping like hell she’ll take the movement for the invitation it is and come closer. “Can I get you anything else?”
She immediately shakes her head and stands.
“No. You’ve done more than enough. I should get out of your hair. It’s been really nice meeting you—”
“You’re leaving?” I ask, cocking my head to the side and studying her. She looks from me to the drink in her hands. She looks anxious. Like she wants to run out of here as fast as she can and never look back. And for a second, I think she might.
“You want me to stay?” she asks instead.
“What can I say? You have my attention.” Her cheeks turn red, and she bites her lip to hide a smile. My eyes track the movement, and I want nothing more than to have that fucking lip between my own teeth. Figure out how to get her to moan like she did a few minutes ago. Again, and again, and—
“Does that line work on every woman you bring back to your dressing room?” she asks, squaring her shoulders and looking me directly in the eye.
“Did it work on you?”
“No,” she says, too quickly. I grin. Liar.
“Am I not allowed to find a woman who planned on sitting in the freezing rain for seven hours to guarantee a front row spot at one of my concerts a little intriguing?”
“I guess I do seem like someone who’s a little…” she trails off.
“Captivating?” I finish for her.
“Unhinged,” she says, and I laugh again.
“Listen,” I say, leaning forward and resting my arms on my knees.
“If you’re assuming that I expect something in return for bringing you in out of the rain, you’re wrong.
You looked miserable out there, and I was in a position to help you.
That’s it. I swear.” Her brow creases as she considers my words.
“So, what? I stay and…” she trails off and looks at me, waiting for an answer.
“We talk. Get to know each other,” I say, and she tilts her head as she studies me. Like my words don’t compute. Like she expected me to say something else entirely.
“Alright,” she says, finally sitting back down on the couch. She’s as far away as she can get, and I fight the pull I feel to move closer to her. “What do you want to know?”
“Your name, for starters,” I say, sitting back into the couch.
“Ty,” she says.
“Just Ty?” I press, and she nods. I don’t push her. “Do you live here in New York?” She shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “I’m a few hours away. I took the train in.”
“How old are you?”
“Brave of you, asking a woman her age.” Our eyes meet and we both smile before she looks back down at her drink.
I find myself wishing she wouldn’t look away from me so quickly, so I ask a few more questions and listen intently to every answer she gives as she opens herself up to me, little by little.
I learn that she’s twenty-nine, six years younger than me, and that she works full time as a stylist at a salon, but her dream is to be a writer.
She tells me about the six completed novels she has on her laptop, and that she can’t find an agent who wants to work with her so she’s considering throwing in the towel.
“All it takes is one,” I say. “It took us two years to get a record deal, and another year to finally release a single that charted.” She looks at me and when a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, I know that she knows exactly what single I’m talking about. “It’ll happen. Keep grinding.”
She nods and sets the cup she’s been clutching to her chest down on the table before pulling the sleeves of the sweatshirt up her arms.
“Did you make all of those?” I ask, nodding toward the bracelets I now see stacked on the lower half of her right arm. She nods, her cheeks blushing red again.
“I know it’s lame,” she says. “This isn’t a Taylor Swift concert, but…I don’t know. I thought it’d be fun.”
“It’s not lame,” I say. “May I?” She nods and I move closer.
I take her hand in mine and turn her arm slowly, studying the bracelets that adorn her arm.
I recognize lyrics from what I assume are her favorite songs and some of our album titles, but there are a few that contain only numbers, and those ones have me stumped.
“What do the numbers mean?” I ask, looking up into her eyes.
She looks away and nervously chews on her lip.
“Timestamps,” she says, finally looking at me. “This one,” she says, pointing to a blue and yellow beaded bracelet with the numbers 3047 on it. “The blue and yellow were the colors of your logo on the cover of the Shattered Illusions album. Song three, forty-seven seconds.”
I think for a moment to get my bearings. On Shattered Illusions the third song is “Whispers”…
“What’s at forty-seven seconds of ‘Whispers?’” I ask.
“When you come in,” she says, looking away again.
My heart does a weird little squeeze in my chest at her words.
The first forty-six seconds of that song is just Max on his acoustic and Josh’s voice.
And then, as she just mentioned, Kevin and I come in and Max switches to his electric, and the song gets heavy.
It’s one of my favorite songs, and it’s a lot of fun to play live, even though we took it out of rotation a while ago.
The idea that she loves it enough to do something like this does something to me.
I take my hand and gently grip her chin between my thumb and pointer finger, forcing her eyes back to mine.
A knock at the door forces my head out of the trance this woman seems to have me in, and I drop her chin as I look to the door to see Dani standing there holding Ty’s clothes.
“It’s time for sound check,” she says, stepping into the room and hanging the clothes on the rack next to mine.
I thank her as she steps back into the hall, and I turn to look at Ty.
“Want to come?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“To sound check?” she asks, eyes wide. I smile and nod.
“I get to come to sound check?” She squeals, jumping off the couch and to her feet.
“I mean…yeah,” she clears her throat and slowly sits back down.
“Okay. Cool.” She flashes a bright, beautiful smile and I am frozen in place.
She’s smiled a few times since she’s been here with me, but this is the first one that I know is real, and it steals the breath from my lungs.
I stand from my spot on the couch and extend a hand to help her up. She places her hand in mine, and I pull her gently to her feet. She tries to pull her hand free, but I hold onto it for a moment longer.
“Can I have one?” I ask, looking down at the bracelets, then back up to her eyes. “That’s the point, right? You give them away?”
“You…want one of my bracelets?” She asks, and I nod. “Alright,” she says. I turn my attention back to her arm and know immediately which one I’m choosing. I gently pull the 3047 bracelet from her wrist and place it on my own.
“I’m going to head down to sound check. I’ll let you change back into your clothes and have Dani bring you down when you’re ready.” She nods and I smile. Something I’m apparently doing a lot of today. “See you out there.”