Chapter 6 Kelsey
Kelsey
No one is on the bus when Riot carries me inside. He slides me down his body until my boots touch the floor. His big hands cup my ass and hold me close while he stares down at me.
He swallows. It’s like he has something to say. But then he doesn’t. Just keeps staring at me.
My heart beats strong and steady. Ri-ot.
Ri-ot. Ri-ot. He mixes me up inside, and he doesn’t have a clue that I would trade everything for a future with him.
One in which I’m more than his band manager slash fuck buddy.
Telling him that, though, that’s something I do not have the guts to do.
It would kill me if he rejected me. It would change everything.
There would be no coming back from that.
“What?” I finally ask.
“There’s something I want...” His head drops closer to mine. “No, I have to say it. Kelsey—”
We’re interrupted by the security team knocking on the bus door before they enter.
“Should have seen this coming.” Riot chuckles, his hands moving to my hip, his fingers tapping.
“It won’t take long,” I tell him. When the boys first became famous and were assigned a security team, it took time to get used to them always being nearby.
The conversations they’ve overheard and intimate moments they’ve stumbled onto number in the dozens. But they’re tactful. Nothing they overhear ever goes anywhere. And my guys are safe, which is all that matters.
The two guards talk to one of the other teams via their radio. “Checking now.”
They take one look at us, the scant inches between us, before checking the interior of the bus for anything suspicious.
Riot is tapping on his phone. “Sam will be here in a minute. The party’s been moved to the hotel. We’re all going to hang around until it’s time to take Neil to rehab.”
“I hope it sticks.” I hate watching my friend destroy himself.
“It will.” Riot’s hold on me tightens. “We’re all going to be back together by the time we’re ready to record the next album. You’ll see.”
“You’re right.” Neil is strong. He’ll kick the drugs and find a way to fight his demons. “So we should head over to the hotel.”
“After Sam checks you out. Got it?” He swats my butt. “You can come over with him.”
“Riot. Kelsey.” Sam climbs into the bus with his medic bag at his side.
His white hair is wild, and he sports a bushy mustache on his top lip that makes him seem kinda distinguished.
He wears motorcycle boots along with a band T-shirt from some obscure rock band from the eighties tucked into a faded pair of jeans.
“What happened, gorgeous?” His green eyes sparkle as he treads past Riot and into the bedroom. “I hear you’re not feeling too hot.”
“It’s nothing,” I say.
“Could be food poisoning. Dehydration. Or she’s coming down with something, Sam.” Riot glares at me. “Make sure my best girl is fighting fit please. This is a big weekend for us.”
“Right. Your brother Rogue is getting married, isn’t he?” Sam takes my arm and guides me to sit on the end of the bed. He crouches down and balances his forearms across his knees. “Let’s go over your day while I open my bag of tricks and check your vitals.”
“She puked,” Riot says.
I reach back and pick up the pillow from the other end of the mattress and hurl it at his head. “I can talk for myself.”
“Yeah, you can. But you’re too busy staring into Sam’s big, beautiful eyes.”
“You would be too if you were in my position.” I bat my lashes at Sam. It’s a tour joke. Sam can charm anyone into his bed. Men. Women. He has a sordid and scandalous history from spending all his time on the road with rock stars. We like to tease him about it every chance we get.
“All right.” Sam lifts a hand to quiet Riot as he asks me, “How are you feeling now?”
“Fine. His royal highness over there is overreacting.” I stick my tongue out at Riot. I don’t hate the fuss though. It feels nice. It feels like he cares.
“Go join the party at the hotel,” Sam tells Riot. “I can’t imagine this will take long.”
“You’re sure?” The pinched look to Riot’s face softens as he peels himself away from the wall.
“The longer you hover the longer it will take.” Sam smiles at me playfully. “Is he worried I’ll charm you out of your panties while he’s gone, gorgeous?”
“Probably.” I laugh. “Go. We’ll be there soon.”
“Fine.” Riot grumbles as he walks out of the bus. He starts chatting to one of the security guys outside and soon their voices fade away as the man escorts him to the waiting limo.
Sam opens his medic bag and rummages around. “So, you’ve felt fine. And then you puked once. And you felt fine again?”
“Yes.”
He pulls out a blood pressure cuff and wraps it around my upper arm. “And you ate what today, precisely?”
“Um.” I cover my face with my free hand while the cuff tightens.
I’ve been flat out today, making sure everything runs smoothly.
Not that it’s different from any other day.
Most days I manage to gobble down breakfast and get a run in before I start work, but I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed after spending most of the night with Riot.
“I slept in this morning. And didn’t feel like eating when I woke up. ”
“Lunch?” He takes my temperature and checks my pulse.
I wrinkle my nose. “Nothing looked appetizing. And did that chicken catering served smell funky to you?”
“I had the chicken for lunch.” He raises both bushy brows. “It was perfectly fine.”
“If I’m sick that could be affecting my sense of smell, right?” I don’t feel like I’m coming down with something.
“Possibly.” He turns on his pen light and looks in my eyes and mouth. “What have you eaten then?”
“A raspberry Twizzler.” I dip my chin to my chest as he tucks his equipment away. “Red Bull and a handful of Skittles.”
“Well, that doesn’t tell me much other than it’s doubtful that it’s food poisoning.” He takes something out of his bag that makes my heart beat so wonky that the world shifts.
These sealed foil tubes are something I’ve seen him pull out a few times for groupies who have ended up in a short-term relationship with one of the guys. Sometimes they’ll stay on the tour bus with us for a few weeks or months.
A pregnancy test. “No, that’s not—”
“Come on, Kelsey. You’ve been around long enough to know how this works. You get into a relationship with one of the guys and the first thing I’m going to check is whether you’re pregnant. Don’t take it personally. It’s routine.”
“It’s not that. I’m not taking it personally.
And I’m not in a relationship.” Holy shit!
What if I am pregnant? I can’t be. My last period was…
shit I don’t remember when my last period was.
Wait I got it on a Wednesday, but that was three and a half…
oh no, is this really happening? Do I want it to be?
How the hell is Riot going to take it if I am?
He’ll freak the fuck out. No wonder Sam told him to leave before he shoved the test in my face. “Does everyone know about Riot and me?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Sam says gently.
No. I groan. All our running around and hiding was for nothing. “I thought we were discreet.”
“Nothing stays secret on tour for long,” Sam tells me. “Especially when it comes to bus bunk shenanigans.”
It’s supposed to be casual fun. Well, as casual as one can be when their heart is already all fucked up and in it. “I can’t be pregnant. I’m on the pill.”
“Except there was that virus that went through the bus and you ended up with a mild chest infection.”
“So?”
“So I gave you antibiotics. Remember? I told you that the pill can sometimes be affected by the use of antibiotics and to take extra precautions if you were getting busy with anyone.”
“Crap. Did you really say that?” I'd been so sick I could barely get out of bed let alone fall on a dick for an entire week. I’d been so stuffy, like my head was full of cotton wool. “I must have missed that part of the prescription.”
He waves the stick under my nose. “Go and pee on the stick, Kelsey. Pretend you’re Rebel Maddox and this piece of plastic is one of those Afghan hounds.”
The middle Maddox triplet is never going to live that incident down. Thankfully he got his act together when his girlfriend came onto the scene. He used to be such a clusterfuck of bad attitude, exhibitionism, and bruised knuckles.
“Fine.” Taking the stick, I rise and go lock myself in the bathroom. It’s a small space. Big enough for two in a pinch. Riot and I managed a quickie in here a few weeks back, but it was cramped.
Unwrapping the test, I place it on the edge of the sink and peel my panties down before squatting over the toilet and willing myself to pee. Yeah, this is not going to happen with Sam on the other side of this door. “How am I supposed to do this with an audience?”
“The same way you did the deed that landed us here,” he calls out. “Turn the tap on.”
“God, was that a joke? Because if it was it was awful.” Maybe we weren’t as tactful and secretive as I thought. I twist the tap. Water gushes into the bowl.
It does make me need to pee, so I grab the stick and do what needs to be done. When I’m finished, I pop it on the packaging and wait. There’s always a possibility, isn’t there? One way or the other. I can’t be pregnant with my rock-god-best-friend-who-I’ve-been-casually-hooking-up-with’s baby.
God, what the hell am I going to do if I am?
I wash my hands while I watch the time pass on my phone. A few minutes until I find out if my life is going to change forever. Is this how Summer felt when she found out she and Rebel were having a baby?
Picking up the stick with a trembling hand I hold it up to the light and stare as the results appear in the window.