10. Ten
9years ago
Their first tour together was almost over. After nine months on the road, Kat was in love with the tour lifestyle. Some nights, Kat and the band would hang around the venue getting drinks with people who had attended the shows.
They had just finished a show in Cleveland and West had arranged for a private party with another band he was friends with at the House of Blues VIP lounge. Kat still had to pinch herself daily just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
The lounge was full to the brim and the music was blasting. Kat could barely hear the surrounding people, so she spent most of her time feeling the bass flow through her body as she drank her vodka sodas.
One guy from a group she’d never heard of was sitting next to her talking about how awesome their band was because they were touring with so-and-so. Kat had lost track of the conversation as she nodded at his bragging. She didn’t feel like pointing out that the venue she’d just sang in was twice this size.
She was on her fourth or fifth drink when Lydia flew by pulling Kat from the couch.
“Sorry, I have to borrow her,” Lydia yelled.
Kat stood up, smiling at the guy, and walked onto the dance floor hand in hand with Lydia.
“Just in time, Lyd!” Kat yelled into her ear over the music.
“You looked miserable. Why didn’t you just get up?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to be rude.”
Lydia made a sound of disgust. “You don’t owe any guy your time.”
Kat just shook her head and started dancing to the beat. It was easy for Lydia to say things like that.
Song after song played while they danced and laughed. Eventually, a guy Lydia deemed worthy began dancing with her and she danced away from Kat.
She looked around for Cher and didn”t see her. In fact, she didn’t see anyone she recognized. The rest of the crew must have gone back to their trailers. Kat decided it was time for her to go too, but a hand grabbed her wrist, pulling her back.
Her body ran into a very solid object. She looked up, realizing that the object was . . . gulp . . . Weston.
What was he doing out on the dance floor? He rarely came around the crew, he was usually in the super VIP—as Kat called it—with his entourage.
“Where are you going?” He leaned down, his breath fanning her neck.
“Back to the trailers,” Kat managed to spit out.
It wasn’t that she had a hard time talking to Weston, it was just that he made her nervous, and then she became awkward, spewing out the first thing that popped into her head. Word vomit was what Lydia called it. She wasn’t the best at being social but throw in an incredibly attractive rock star and she was the worst. Alcohol helped though.
It was when they talked about music that they had their best conversations. They would go back and forth for hours about compositions or lyric changes. She had been a big part of the album they were currently touring, and she felt a lot of pride in that.
Weston pulled her body closer to his as his hands moved down her sides to the beat. “The night’s just getting started. Why would you do that?”
Her jaw dropped. Was he flirting with her? No, that was impossible because Kat wasn’t his type. Or did Weston even have a type these days?
Then again, there was no harm in dancing with him. Right?
She placed her hands on his chest and moved them up slowly, testing the feel of him under her skin. He felt entirely too good. “Is there a reason I should stay up?”
Where the hell did that come from? Kat didn’t have a flirty bone in her body and here she was flirting with the Weston Monroe, while somehow their hips had fused together, moving to the beat of the music. His hand moved from her side and splayed across her lower back, holding her possessively.
“Shit, sweetheart, I can think of a lot of reasons to stay up tonight,” he drawled.
Kat was doomed. She shouldn’t do this. She would still have to work with this man the next day, and it would be weird because there was no way he would want anything beyond tonight. She would not fool herself into thinking he would ever want more. Kat was already awkward as hell around him, and this would make it worse. She had never excelled at the one-night stand thing.
“You know, you always run around in these tight little black skirts after shows and it drives me wild,” he whispered in her ear. His hand roamed down her hips.
Kat couldn’t breathe. When had he ever paid attention to her like that? He was always in the back room with much more beautiful people than her. She looked at him, uncertain where this was coming from, but also too tipsy to fully work out if she cared. Weston fucking Monroe just said she—boring, plain Kat—drove him wild. She inadvertently licked her lips and heard him groan.
The song ended and his finger traced up her arm and over her shoulder. “What’s it gonna be?”
She nodded, and he stepped back, pulling on her hand. She followed him to a darkened hallway, and he pushed her against the wall, his tall frame caging her in, blocking out all semblance of light.
“I need to hear a yes, Kat.”
She bit her lip. This was it. If she said yes, their relationship would never be the same.
She gazed up at him, at the hunger in his eyes, and desire shot through her. Kat couldn’t even have imagined this moment in her dreams.
“Yes,” she said, more confidently than she felt.
His hand fisted in her hair, pulling her mouth to his, and then Kat forgot to think. What was she supposed to do?
Kiss back, you dummy.
She opened her mouth with a moan as his tongue pushed past her lips. He was warm and strong and made her body light up as the music pumped loudly around them. She felt like the main character in some ridiculous movie where the rock star falls for the fan in the crowd or something.
His hand moved to her jaw, adjusting the angle. And holy hell. He kissed Kat so thoroughly that she had experienced nothing like it before. The hand not igniting every nerve in her scalp slid down her body, and she had never wanted her clothes off so badly.
His tongue played with hers, and Kat pulled back, nipping his lip, eliciting a low groan from him. Emboldened by his praise, she moved her hands up his chest and around his neck, finally digging her nails into his thick hair, reveling in its softness. She thought about his hair way too much and would die happy knowing it was as soft as it looked.
“Fuck, Kat, you taste so good,” he murmured in her ear and Kat almost took off her underwear that second.
A noise sounded from behind them, making Kat jump and West groan.
“What, Dec?” he growled out.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Kat heard but couldn’t see Declan.
West looked like he might commit murder, but his eyes softened when he turned back to her. She felt embarrassed to be seen like this, especially by Declan.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere,” West told her.
With one quick kiss, he turned, leaving her in the dark hallway.
He never came back.
Kat awoke with a start realizing she had been dreaming about that night. The night that had changed her and West’s relationship. The night he had left her in a dark hallway with nothing but the taste of him on her lips and a broken heart. Not because she loved him or anything, but because he had rejected her for no reason other than she was apparently not good enough for him.
She was feverish, and while a lot of that had to do with the oozing bullet wound in her arm, she couldn’t deny that her dream had been way too realistic. She didn’t even like West, and yet all she could think about was his lips, and how they would feel if they had truly kissed again on the beach. What the hell was she thinking? Years ago, he’d walked away from her, making it clear that he didn’t see her like that. The only thing that had changed was she no longer worked with him. He was not going to care about her. He didn’t even know how. He didn’t even know what love was.
Oh god, where did that come from?
She should never even put the word love in the same stratosphere as Weston Monroe. They didn’t go together. He probably never even remotely thought about the term, but Kat did all those nights when she was alone in bed. Someone who would be with her until the end of her days. Someone who would love and cherish her and put her above everyone else. It was why she had remained single. She wanted it all, not some one-night stand while they were on the road. West didn’t do love or commitment. He lasted a year with Gia, but that was a toxic shit show of a relationship.
Kat dropped her head between her knees, groaning. The echo reverberated around the cave and through her. “Why are you so helpless?” She had never considered herself a romantic. She had forgotten what it was like to be cared for by someone other than herself. She had forgotten what it was like to have someone else wonder what she was thinking or feeling. But West was only doing all those things because they were lost on an island. It was like Stockholm syndrome or something adjacent to that.
Before he left to sneak into whatever was on top of the mountain, he had forced her to lay her head in his lap and sleep, stroking her hair. She had never felt so safe in her life, and she had slept easily. It was those little things, like holding her while she slept, that had her falling for him just as easily as the sparks that flew through her body every time she felt his skin on hers. She was dying to touch him again, and he had only been gone for maybe an hour, risking his life for her. The problem was she knew if she let him touch her more intimately, once would never be enough, and in the end, she would be the one left broken.
Her wound had stopped gushing, but she had lost a lot of blood and couldn’t sit up straight without falling back down. She tipped over rather ungracefully onto the cave floor. Her body tingled from head to toe and then suddenly went numb as the world plunged into darkness.
West learned the best thing about skulking about on an uncharted island was that the moon provided enough light to see. He reached the mountainside and quickly scaled it, cursing himself yet again for kicking his shoes off that night on the yacht when he had been piss-ass drunk. The first thing he would look for after a first aid kit was going to be shoes.
His feet were torn up beyond recognition at this point and would probably never look the same again. He could hear his dad in his head telling him to stop worrying about his prissy feet. There was nothing wrong with a man taking care of his feet in West’s mind.
Finally, he reached a plateau and, muscles screaming in protest, walked shakily to the other side. Terraces had been cut into the mountainside and it was clear that some sort of crop was being cultivated. That answered one of their questions. The island was definitely inhabited. People were farming on it. He walked up to the plants and looked at them closely. It was dark, but he saw the little red buds that were unmistakably the coca plant that was used to make cocaine.
Christ! No wonder the men had been chasing them. What the fuck had they stumbled into?
There were a series of huts that he assumed were where the workers slept. He didn’t want to go near those, but he wanted a pair of shoes. He also noticed a large structure that he hoped would be their main supply area, where it might have items like first aid. Two guards walked by the door and he cursed his bad luck. They were on a deserted island, who did they think would come around trying to take their cocaine?
His eyes scanned the rest of the compound, noticing a few smaller buildings and some Jeeps, which must mean there were roads on the other side of the mountain. The dock had to be on this side of the island too.
Sticking to the shadows, he inched his way to the largest building first. He watched the guard turn the corner, and then West snuck through the primitive wood door. It was a large room that looked like a mess hall with a kitchen at one end. He made straight for it and, grabbing a canvas bag off a hook, he opened the pantry and had to stop himself from completely emptying the shelf. He couldn’t carry everything.
As soon as he laid eyes on a jar of peanut butter, he praised the gods above. He took hold of it along with a package of crackers. Noticing a cluster of bananas, he swiftly tossed them into the bag. He opened the fridge and saw a container of water. It was a gallon and going to be heavy to carry down the mountain, but it would be useful, so he took it. He opened a drawer and grabbed a spoon for Kat. She deserved at least one utensil.
The building had nothing else to offer, so he crept to the door and peered out. He looked through the window to see where the guard was. It was all clear, so he flitted over to the next building. It had no windows and was in almost complete darkness. When his eyes adjusted, he realized why. This was where they turned the coca plant into cocaine. Thankfully, the building was empty.
Looking up, he noticed a mezzanine floor with what looked like a manager’s office. If there was any kind of first aid kit, it had to be up there. He stalked slowly up the stairs, wincing as they creaked under his weight. He reached the office just as he heard the door open.
“Who’s here?” a voice barked into the darkness. “Show yourself.”
West ducked into the office, finding a closet to squeeze himself into, barely fitting the bag with him, and closed the door quietly behind him. The sound of footsteps echoed on the stairs, and even though the sound was muffled, each footstep seemed to thud through him almost in time to the thundering of his heart. The light from the man”s flashlight gleamed under the crack of the door, and West held his breath, praying the guard wouldn’t find him. But then the knob turned, and West pushed himself back as far as he could.
“What are you doing in there, Salinas? You know you’re not supposed to be in the office.”
The other voice seemed to come from a long way away, but it was enough to distract the guard, and the knob stopped turning.
“I thought I heard something in here.” The voice was so close, merely inches from him, and West held his breath, willing the man to leave. His heart beat so loudly that for a moment he was convinced the man would hear it.
“It’s probably that damn monkey again,” the other man said.
Salinas laughed, and to West’s relief, the light moved away. “You’re probably right but can’t be too careful. I heard they saw two randos on the beach this morning.”
The other man grunted. “They’ll be taken care of before they make it up here.”
West held his breath as he listened for Salinas’s footsteps on the stairs and for the main door to close.
He waited, listening for any sounds outside the closet. After a few moments, he released the breath he had been holding and let out a sigh of relief. His mind raced with thoughts of getting back to Kat as soon as possible.
He scanned the shelves in the closet, searching for anything useful. His eyes landed on a large first aid kit, marked with a bright red cross on a white box. He grabbed it and quickly opened it up, revealing bandages, Neosporin, and a needle and surgical thread.
As he stepped out of the closet, he took in his surroundings and spotted an office desk covered in stacks of cash and shipping documents. They were clearly running a drug operation. West carefully sifted through the paperwork, making sure not to disturb anything. He grabbed a handful of incriminating documents and stuffed them into his canvas bag.
The next thing he needed was shoes. He left the manufacturing building and crept to the first bunk room, nothing was sitting out. He moved to the next one. Opening the door a crack, he spotted a backpack and a pair of shoes—they were size eleven and he was a twelve, but he’d take what he could get.
He gingerly picked both items up and slid them outside, slowly closing the screen door. He slipped on the shoes and transferred everything into the backpack, then took off at a run back to the edge of the mountain and to Kat.