Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Calix
I was losing my goddamn mind.
As we left San Diego in our dust and trundled toward Austin for our next set of shows, all I could think about was the puzzle that was our manager.
Every song I wrote had to be trashed because the stalker vibes were strong, even to me.
From her brown hair with the blonde ends to her practical black boots, she was a walking, talking enigma.
The urge to watch her had only grown worse after finding Tobias wrapped around her, sleeping soundly in a way I hadn’t seen since…possibly ever. He’d treated her like his own personal teddy bear, and for the first time in a long time, he hadn’t made a noise the entire night. Not a whimper.
She had fallen asleep on the sofa last night, her laptop open on a spreadsheet that detailed hotels, venues, and local attractions.
Not unusual in and of itself, but I had seen the way she looked at the bunks in the bus.
It was a similar look you’d expect to see on a person staring into their own grave.
The biggest mystery was one I’d overheard when she was on the phone to her mom the night before.
While the rest of us sat around messing with new riffs and not working through my lyrics, because no fucking way was I admitting they were all about Tatum, she slipped into the bedroom to make a call.
A few moments later, I told Otis I needed a new notebook from my bunk and followed her.
The excuse had been partially true. I needed a blank page to try to find a different muse, but the notebook I’d bought before we left LA was in the too nice to use category.
I’d have to settle for scrap paper until I could buy a suitable one in Texas.
As I sidled close enough to listen in, I overheard the words “investors”, “clients”, and “portfolios”.
I never claimed to be a scholar, but I knew none of those words had much to do with the tour.
We were her only clients, and as far as I could tell, she had no management experience prior to taking us on, so there were no portfolios.
Moving up my bunk to fluff the pillow, buying more time to listen in, I heard her go into a detailed explanation about accounts and…
banking? After a few more moments, her voice softened, taking on a gentle quality as she said hello to someone who must have been younger.
She spoke about baseball and making it to another game when she came home. Did she have a kid?
I’d brought up what I overheard with Otis a couple of hours later, but in true Otis fashion, he’d only told me, “It’s her story to tell, but we can trust her.”
He knew more than he was letting on, and it killed me to know there was a secret.
We had passed the Texas border an hour earlier, and while the coffee pot was boiling, Tatum announced she was going for a shower.
Don’t do it.
I poured a mug of liquid gold, staring intently at the door and devising how I could break in and demand answers while she was vulnerable. If she wasn’t expecting it, would she let the truth slip?
Knocking my mug back in a hard gulp that burned in my chest, I decided to give it a shot.
I confirmed my bandmates were all distracted, then slipped into the hole-in-the-wall bathroom.
The room barely fit two people, with a wet area behind a curtain and the dry area I stood in, which housed a small basin and a shelf to store clothing.
Piled neatly on the shelf were her signature jeans, black fabric that was probably a T-shirt, and a lacy pair of pink panties sitting on top of the pile.
Don’t get distracted.
Before I could announce my presence, a deep, guttural groan came from behind the transparent barrier between us.
“Why do you sound like a wounded bull, Tater-tots?”
“Holy fuck!” I felt a moment of guilt as Tatum, clearly very surprised to see me, slipped. Her arms pinwheeled until she caught hold of the shower curtain, pulling it down with her as she crashed into the shower wall.
“What the hell are you doing in here, Calix?!”
The feeling passed as I took note of all the skin visible behind the thin sheet of transparent plastic.
Her rosy nipples peeked out from behind her forearm. Beneath the gentle swell of her breasts, her waist sloped in before flaring into hips wide enough to grab. At the apex of her thighs, I could see a small patch of hair…
“Calix! How did you get in here?”
“The door was unlocked,” I murmured absently, allowing myself to continue my perusal, despite the rising pitch of her voice.
“Of course it was unlocked. I need to know I can get out of this death trap. That doesn’t explain why you’re in here.”
Refocusing on her face, I shifted away from the door, bracing a palm on the wall to get into her space on my terms. It shouldn’t have been this fun to get under her skin.
“I needed to make sure you were alive. You sounded like—”
“A wounded bull. You said. I accidentally used the conditioner before the shampoo and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t bubbling. Anyway, you shouldn’t be in here. Shoo, so I can finish my shower.”
Sensing the metaphorical door closing on this interaction reminded me of my original mission.
“Why does your mother think you work in finance?”
She froze, her hand hanging between us as something like panic flitted across her face.
“Why are you listening in on my phone calls? They’re private.”
I leaned in a little closer, forcing her to back up into the corner.
“There’s no room for privacy on tour. If you can’t be honest with your parents, how can I be sure you’re being honest with me?”
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and I felt the urge to grasp her jaw and do the job for her.
Danger was written all over this situation, and I was finding it harder to resist the pull as the shower water began to soak through my shirt sleeve.
“Do we have to have this conversation while I’m naked and soaking wet?”
My dick kicked hard against the zipper of my jeans, but I ignored it. Her eyes hadn’t left my face, so I knew she hadn’t noticed my state of arousal. I couldn’t help the response. Something about her so vulnerable but still fighting was doing it for me.
“Do I want to give you time to come up with more lies or avoid the conversation altogether? Pass. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll leave you alone.”
She shifted her grip on the shower curtain, regrettably covering her nipples.
“I’m making a PowerPoint presentation on boundaries after this,” she muttered, giving me a dark glare.
I raised an eyebrow in response, happy to wait her out.
“I was an accountant. Long, long story short, I’m not anymore, but my parents don’t know about my change of employment.”
“Why not?”
She growled, and fuck if it wasn’t the cutest little noise.
You have to stop thinking like this.
I couldn’t be attracted to her. We couldn’t trust her. My dick might have had a mind of its own, but I’d be damned if I let myself soften toward her. Heh, talk about word play.
“Because it’s been two weeks since my entire world got turned upside down. Forgive me if I want to take a moment to get my feet on the ground before telling my parents how much of a fuckup I am.”
I…could actually understand that. But something else still bothered me.
“Why does Otis get to know?” I leaned in far enough for the water to run over my head, rivulets cutting through my eyebrows and over my cheeks as she flattened herself against the far wall.
Her breath caught as I licked the water away from my upper lip.
“Because he doesn’t think I’m the enemy.” The words were barely a whisper; her eyes locked on my mouth as I wiped away more water with my palm.
The tight space suddenly felt claustrophobic.
The urge to do something I might regret overwhelmed me until alarms blared in my subconsciousness.
Taking a step back, I slicked a hand over my saturated hair, trying to regain my composure so she wouldn’t know how epically I’d lost this round of whatever game we seemed to be playing.
As she shifted, a dark spot on her hip came into view.
Maybe the girl next door had a wild side.
Pasting on a smirk, I leaned against the door and gave her a slow once over, channeling my inner De Beaux to make me look like a proper asshole.
“Nice ink.”
For the first time, she seemed to realize just how much was on show.
With an indignant squawk, she grabbed the nearest bottle—maybe the offensive conditioner from earlier—and threw it at my head.
As I ducked out the door, a weird noise bubbled out of my throat.
It almost sounded like a chuckle.
I needed to get laid.
It wasn’t like I was a monk, but unlike others in this band, I could usually contain my baser urges. Usually being the keyword.
I glared at my cock, silently berating it for refusing to soften despite two separate sessions with my hand since this morning’s incident.
Luckily, the roadies had almost finished bump in, and we had the night off.
“Get dressed. We’re going to a bar.”
Harvey jumped to his feet, practically launching his guitar across the bus in his eagerness to get his dick wet. A place where women were drinking, where he might be recognized and fucked because he was part of the band, was his idea of nirvana.
Otis glanced up from his notebook with a small frown creasing his brow. “Has Tatum okayed this?”
I snorted. “It’s our day off. You can come and babysit if you want, but I’m going.
And it looks like Harvey’s in. How about you, brother?
” I glanced over at Toby, half of me hoping he would stay put because I needed a break, and I wouldn’t be able to relax if I was watching him write himself off all night.
“Sounds good. Let me get a jacket.”
“At least let her know where we’re going,” Otis urged, reaching for his sneakers without breaking eye contact with me.
The last thing I wanted to do was have a conversation with our little manager. Hey, Tatum. I can’t seem to get rid of the hard-on I got checking out your naked body this morning, so I’m going to go find a random hole to stick my dick in. Wanna watch?
I snorted again and rolled my eyes for Otis’s benefit. “If you’re so worried, tell her yourself.”
Without waiting for a response, I jumped down out of the bus and went to find a man about a car.
The bar we chose was the kind of dive that promised the drinks would be as cheap and nasty as the patrons, and people would have a memory as long as their next shot.
Harvey and Toby whooped as we breezed through the doors, each as excited as the other to satisfy their vices in the dark, dank corners of the establishment.
Otis followed slowly, with a fretting Tatum on his heels.
The whole gang had come along for the ride.
Sliding up to the bar, I ordered a round of beers and took a moment to check out the prospects.
It was still early, but I hoped that as the sun went down, more opportunities for debauchery would present themselves.
I didn’t have to wait long.
A disturbance at the front of the bar preceded the entrance of a gaggle of young women.
Wannabe influencers, if the posing and creative phone angles were anything to go by.
The loudest was a small blonde—her hair was completely blonde, not the half and half shit that a certain manager wore—who was cute enough and perused the crowd with a critical eye until she landed on me.
Her plump lips curled into a predatory smile I pretended not to notice as I gave her my own quick once over before turning away. I knew this game.
My eyes caught briefly on Toby, who had dragged Lainey onto the dance floor.
Their movements were erratic, not quite with the beat of the music, but I could tell that at least for the time being they were just having fun.
Otis would watch over them while I was busy, and I didn’t intend to be gone long, only the length of time it took to get off, and then I’d go back to my role of stick in the mud, keeping them all alive for another day.
Fuck Lainey. She knew better than to supply shit to my brother.
“You here alone?” The southern drawl crawled over my shoulder in a way that could have been attractive if I’d had any interest in attraction at all.
My smirk was tight, but convincing enough, as I turned slowly, pretending I had all the time in the world to decide whether she was worth the effort.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
She tittered, flicking a glance at her group of followers who were watching intently from a table nearby.
“I can keep you company, if you like. This can be a dangerous place for rockstars, you know?” She tilted her head, fluttering her lashes in a way I was sure she thought appealing.
So she knew who I was. Chasing groupies was definitely more in Harvey’s wheelhouse, but as I glanced over to where Tatum and Otis sat with their heads together in deep conversation, I figured, fuck it. I had needs, and I was damn well going to get them met.
Dialing up the smirk, I ran my tongue over my teeth, leaning back against the bar so my shirt would ride up a little.
As expected, her eyes dropped to the sliver of skin I’d revealed, and then further to where the outline of my semi hard dick was visible through my tight-as-fuck jeans.
She didn’t have to know she had nothing to do with the erection just as long as she took care of it.
Her tongue swept out across her lower lip as she continued to stare, and in a bold move, she reached forward to cup me. Before she could make contact, I caught her wrist, redirecting her hand toward my mouth where I placed a kiss on her knuckles.
“Not here,” I murmured, noticing the shiver that rippled over her shoulders. It did nothing for me.
My eyes caught on Tatum again, and there was the reaction I’d been missing. Fuck. Reaching for my beer to cover my expression, I took a long draw as I resolutely turned back to the groupie who had flipped her hair behind her shoulder and moved too close for comfort.
“There’s a glory hole in the men’s bathroom, if you want to have some fun.”
Don’t choke.
My breath came out in a wheeze as I swallowed repeatedly to keep the beer out of my nose. A glory hole was fucking perfect. I got off without having to see her, and she couldn’t touch any more of me than I wanted. Win fucking win.
Bracing myself, I hooked her hair behind her ear and flicked yet another look at my manager. What the hell was wrong with me? This time, she was staring back.
It was immature and totally uncalled for. I should have just stuck with the plan and gone straight to the bathroom to get my dick sucked through a hole in the wall.
Instead, I collared the girl in front of me with a rough hand, pulled her in, and kissed the fuck out of her.