And if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t want to be the asshole who makes her life miserable anymore.
She shifts, and I expect her to stand and leave me alone, but she perches on the edge of the couch and looks at me. I meet her gaze and raise an eyebrow. “Is there something else?”
Opening her mouth, she seems to hesitate. But then she straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin, that same defiance she gave me in her hotel room that morning I barged in to apologize, unable to wait for her to come to me. “For some reason you’ve chosen not to address me by name. Even now, when you haven’t deliberately called me the wrong name in weeks, you still won’t call me Viola. I don’t know if you just have an aversion to my name, or what your deal is, but if you can’t call me Viola, can you at least call me V?” Her throat works as she swallows, like just asking that question took all her courage and now she’s trying not to puke.
I drag my hand down my face and shake my head. When I look at her again, I see that she’s deflated, and she’s nodding like she’s accepting an answer I haven’t given.
“V sounds good. I can remember that,” I tell her, my voice once again gruff with an emotion I don’t want and refuse to name.
She blinks at me a few times, then gives me a trembling smile. “Thank you.”
The words are far too sincere for such a paltry gesture, but I don’t have time to say anything else—her name, another apology, anything—before she stands and strides back to the front of the plane where she rejoins Kendra and Sam. Ava’s moved to another couch with Danny, where she’s nursing their baby and leaning against him.
V. She’s granted me the right to a nickname. A nickname no one else uses.
In my lust-fogged brain, that seems more significant than it probably is.
Chapter Sixteen
Viola
I’m not quite sure what I expected when I approached Mason and asked to be friends. But it wasn’t being tackled.
And it certainly wasn’t what’s happened since.
Mason has stopped avoiding me. Which I should be happy about. Right? That’s what I wanted. I wanted him to treat me like everyone else.
Except that “friendly” Mason doesn’t treat me the same way the other guys treat me. Oh no.
He still stares at me, just like he’s been doing for weeks. Only this time it’s up close and even harder to ignore. If I ask him what he’s looking at, he just gives me a lazy smile and says, “You.”
And when he calls me V?
Oh ma gahhh. It’s like he caresses that single syllable with his tongue on its way past his lips.
And thinking about his tongue and his lips is dangerous. Incendiary.
Especially given how often I catch him staring at me.
These aren’t polite glances or even absentminded abstract gazes.
No. These stares are hungry. Like he’s a wolf prowling through the forest, and I’m a lonely deer, barely aware there might be danger lurking nearby.
To make matters worse, he’s not only ready on time for everything, he’s actually become helpful. Solicitous, even.
He takes my suitcase from me. Asks if I’ve remembered to eat when I’m checking up on him. Invites me to sit next to him at the group dinners before shows and offers to get me refills.
It’s … disconcerting. I don’t know what to do with this version of Mason.
He looks at me and raises his eyebrows as he chews his bite of chicken at the pre-show dinner. “Do I have something on my face, V?”
Gah. There he goes again. I shake my head. “No. You’re … fine.” You’re perfect, is what I almost said.
My mother would say that my dalliance with popular fiction has addled my brain. I’ve read too many stories with broody bad boy heroes, and now I’m seeing one in the flawed man who’s gone from a thorn in my side to … a girlish fantasy.
I drag my attention back to my own dinner, scooping up a forkful of risotto. The caterer tonight is excellent. I’ll make a note to use them again if we ever come back through here.
But risotto and chicken and caterers can’t hold my thoughts for long. Not with Mason seeming to take up all the air in our vicinity. Not when I’m thoroughly attuned to his every glance, every breath, every move.
Why am I so hung up on him?
It doesn’t make sense. He was mean to me. Even if he’s not mean to me now, even if the nickname I presented as an option feels like a wicked promise or a dirty secret between us in his mouth, even if …
I rub my forehead with my fingertips. I completely lost my train of thought there, caught up in the dirty secrets and wicked promises of his voice, his lips, his tongue. And it doesn’t help that the memory of those lips and tongue on mine is still as fresh as if it happened yesterday instead of two months ago.
My mom’s right, though. Too many romance novels have addled my brain. Mason’s not some romance hero. He’s not going to fall madly in love with me because I bring him snacks and water.
“Hey.” He nudges my arm. “Are you okay? Should I get Blaire’s special cold prevention recipe and force it down your throat?”
I turn to look at him, my face still resting on my hand. His brows are adorably wrinkled, his lips wet and shiny, framed by artfully trimmed scruff. He’s never without it. It looks like he’s forgotten to shave in a few days, but since it’s always the same length, it’s clear he maintains it that way.
I offer him a smile. “I’m fine. No need to threaten me like that.”
His forehead smooths, and an answering smile pulls at his lips. “So you admit it’s a threat.”
Chuckling, I sit up straight and push my food around my plate before scooping up another bite of chicken and rice. “I’ve never been on the receiving end, so I’m just taking your word for it.”
When I glance at him, he’s got his mouth open like he’s about to speak, but seems to be locked in an internal conflict on whether or not to actually say what he wants to. “What?” I prompt, trying to fight down a smile. For some reason, I’m almost always smiling around him these days.
He makes a low rumbly sound in his chest and shakes his head, looking away as he reaches for his drink. “Nothin’,” he says in that gruff tone he sometimes gets.
But now I’m curious. I poke him in the side, and he flinches away. “Tell me,” I demand, poking him again.
Flinching away, his mouth full of water, he makes a sound of protest. When I go to poke him again, he catches my hand and holds it hostage. Undeterred, I poke him with my free hand. “Let go! And tell me what you were going to say.”
He shakes his head, deftly capturing my other hand and pulling both arms across his body so that I’m almost lying across his lap. I twist and squirm, trying to get free, but his grip is like iron. “Gah! Let me go!” But I can’t keep the laughter out of my voice.
“Are you going to stop poking me in the ribs?” His own laughter rumbles out of his chest with the question.
Shaking my hair out of my face, I glare up at him. “Are you going to tell me what you were going to say?”
“No.” His eyes flicker all over my face.
“Then you have your answer.” I resume my struggle to get free, and he just holds my wrists like it’s no big deal. With a chuckle, he transfers his grip so he has both of my wrists in one hand, pulls me farther across him so I’m not blocking his access to the table in front of us, and calmly resumes eating.
“Hey!” I yelp. “You better not drop food in my hair!”
“Maybe you should be still, then,” he suggests calmly, completely unfazed by the fact that he has me trapped and practically draped over his lap. Only my insistence on trying to get free has me arched over his thighs instead of lying on top of them.
But my back is getting tired of holding myself in this awkward position, and yanking against his hold isn’t getting me anywhere. “Fine,” I mutter. “You win.” Maybe if I lure him into a false sense of security, he’ll relax his grip and I can break free. And I go limp, righ
t there on top of him.
“I like the sound of that. Say it again.”
When I twist around to look up at him, intending to let fly some kind of snarky retort, it hits me. Or more precisely, I hit it.
Either he’s smuggling an iron bar in his pants, or I’m turning him on.
Our eyes meet, his eyelids drooping as mine flare wide with realization.
And just like that, he lets me go, his grip releasing like a lock springing open. He levers me upright with his hands on my shoulders. Without even a glance at me, he scoops the rest of his food into his mouth and stands. “I’m gonna get ready for the show,” he mumbles before tossing his paper plate in the trash and leaving.
I blink at his retreating back, not quite sure what just happened here.
Was that … were we just flirting?
When I turn back from the doorway, my gaze clashes with Kendra, who gives me a wide smile and a thumbs up. A quick scan of the room shows that everyone else is smiling and casting furtive glances my way too.
Apparently there’s no question in anyone else’s mind about what just happened. Cheeks heating, I scarf down the rest of my dinner and scurry out of the greenroom. I have things to do before the show, like always. But right now I just want to find a closet and hide. At least for a few minutes.
Chapter Seventeen
Mason
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I’ve been trying to keep my shit together around Viola for weeks. Trying to ignore the fact that spending time with her is an exquisite type of torture. That I still can’t stop staring at her lips, especially when she wears that scarlet lipstick. That she’s the feature in all my fantasies. That groupies have lost all their appeal.
Has she noticed that the revolving door of women in and out of my dressing room has stopped?
Shoving a hand through my hair, I pace the narrow confines of my dressing room to try to work off my frustration.
It’s not helping.
Having her squirming and twisting in my lap had been the next level of masochism, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her go. Not when that’s the most I’ve gotten to touch her since our misunderstanding her first night.
That kiss … that kiss means we could be amazing together. And I sound like a love-sick fool getting hung up on a girl over one stupid kiss.
I’m not, though. Just a lust-drunk moron.
Maybe I should pitch that to Marcus as a new song title. It has a certain ring to it.
But any hope I’d harbored of her eventually coming around and giving me a chance was effectively extinguished by the look on her face when she realized what she was rubbing against.
That wasn’t the look of someone looking forward to what comes next.
No. That was the same look on her face just after she pushed me away when I kissed her. That same wide-eyed shock.
I didn’t stick around for the breathless rebuff this time.
Motherfucker. All the work I’ve put in to turning around her idea of me—poof. Gone in a few minutes of flirty fun.
That she started.
I didn’t ask her to start trying to tickle me. She did that on her own.
Dropping my head in my hands, I let out a low groan of frustration.
This chick is killing me. And I don’t think she even realizes it.
A knock on the door interrupts my disgusted thoughts. I scrub a hand over my face and do my best to compose myself, assuming it’s Viola.
But when I pull open the door, Aaron’s smug face is grinning at me. “How’s it goin’, Mason?” he asks slowly. He makes a great show of looking all around my dressing room. “You alone? Can I come in?”
I gesture him inside with a jerk of my head. “What do you want, Aaron?” I’m not in the mood for pleasantries. Or gloating. Or whatever this is.
Closing the door behind him, he steps inside, still peering past me at the corners of the room. “Where’s Viola?” he asks.
“How should I know?”
He sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Wellll, it looked like you two were getting pretty cozy at dinner. And then she disappeared less than five minutes after you. So …” He spreads his hands for me to fill in the blanks.
“Soooo …” I cross my arms over my chest. “You decided to see if you could interrupt anything? Is that it?”
That smug grin settles back in place, and he shrugs. “Not precisely.”
“What—precisely—were you aiming to do?”
“I dunno, man. I was just curious what was going on. I didn’t really think she was in here, because I’m pretty sure I saw her ducking into the janitor’s closet. Which made me a little bit more curious, I’ll be honest. Because why would she need to hide in a closet? Especially when you have a dressing room all to yourself?”
“Nothing,” I grit out. “Nothing’s going on.”
“And all that giggling and squealing at dinner? What was that?”
I open my mouth to answer, shut him down, but—I can’t. What was that? I don’t even really know, and I doubt Viola does either.
Shaking my head again, I look away as I answer. “She poked me in the ribs. Right in that ticklish spot. I was stopping her.”
His eyebrows have climbed his forehead when I risk a glance at him. “Tickle fights, huh? I never thought I’d see the day.”
I know he wants me to ask, Never thought you’d see what day? And so I refuse to ask on principle. Besides, it’s not like I can’t fill in the blanks. He never thought he’d see the day I’d have a tickle fight with a woman in the greenroom. Especially a tickle fight that doesn’t end in sex of some variety.
I’ve never had drawn out flirtations since I joined Cataclysm. Not since high school, actually. Relationships? Sure. Sex partners? Plenty. But not this kind of … juvenile teasing and flirting and horsing around.
I’m a man. I should’ve outgrown this by now.
Aaron claps me on the shoulder. “It’s good for you, man. You’ve been too serious for too long, and then after Blaire left …”
I tense up, waiting for the lecture. The berating.
But it doesn’t come. Instead he shrugs. “I know that was hardest on you. Not that any of us were happy to see her go, but …” He shrugs again, this time looking a little uncomfortable. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you getting back to your normal self.”
“I’m not sure I’d call anything that’s happened the last two months me being my normal self.”
Aaron opens his mouth to respond, then shakes his head. “Maybe not. But you’re not trying to set the world record for how many chicks you can fuck in a single night anymore. You’re not showing up to everything drunk or hungover. And you’ve stopped antagonizing the one person who can make your life literal hell. And you know we’d all help her, too, right? Because you were seriously being a dick.”
I want to protest, but he’s right, so I swallow down the bitter truth of his words and nod. “Yeah, fine. I was. I’m not anymore, though. I’ve turned over a new leaf and all that shit. Are we good? Don’t you have your own pre-show ritual to get to?”
He just shrugs. “I could play this show in my sleep by now. And so could you. I can keep talking for a while if you want to.”
“Fuck off, man.” I say it with a smile blooming on my face, though. “We might’ve shared a lot of things, but we don’t sit around and discuss our feelings.”
“Maybe you should,” he says with another shrug. “If not with me, then with someone. Viola. A therapist. Your mom. Whoever. You might feel better.”
His words strike a nerve, but probably not the one he hopes. “Yeah … I don’t think my mom cares much about my feelings these days. Unless those feelings are of regret and repentance. And even then …”
Aaron’s face falls, like he realizes that was a dick thing to say, even if he wasn’t trying to be hurtful. “Right. I’m sorry, man. I forgot—”
I wave away the rest of his apology. “It’s not a big dea
l. Forget about it.”
He stares at me like he wants to say something else, but I give him my best asshole glare. “Seriously. Forget about it.”
“Fine, fine.” Sighing, he scratches the back of his neck. “Sam and Maddie are waiting for me in my dressing room, so I better go hang with them for a while.”
“And you said you didn’t have any pre-show rituals.”
With a laugh, he flips me off and opens the door, the soft snick of the latch sealing me in with my thoughts once again.
Only this time they’re even darker, realizing that Viola’s right to push me away. What would she want with a fuckup like me, anyway? My own mother wants nothing to do with me. Why would anyone else?
Whatever flirtation Viola and I might have had going on at the pre-show dinner, it doesn’t resume afterward.
Or the next day.
Or the next week.
And even though I’m getting occasional meaningful looks from Aaron and the other women along for the tour, they’re all ridiculous. It’s the same thing with Blaire all over again—Viola and I are the only two single people they’re aware of, so of course we’ll end up together. Right?
Only that didn’t go over well with Blaire. In fact, she hated the assumption so much that she ended even our casual relationship and ran off to join another tour.
These fuckers better not drive Viola off with their loaded looks and faulty assumptions. Just because they’re all disgustingly happy with their relationships doesn’t mean that I need that. Or want that.
Or that Viola does either.
Plus, there are plenty of other guys on the tour for her to date or sleep with or whatever. It’s not like I’m her only option. I still think there might be something going on with her and Dave the security guard. They’ve spent enough time together as my babysitters, exchanging looks when they thought I was too drunk to notice. He’s never been rude to her or tried to make her life harder out of spite. So it makes far more sense that she’d end up with him than with me anyway.
Anyone But You Page 9
