The Rosewoods Rock & Roll Box Set

by Katrina Abbott

  Still, he was a reasonable guy. And I’d known it, but he took such a strong stand on the whole drugs and booze issue that, despite Nessa’s assertions, there was still a chance that he might toss Max out of the band. For a half a second, I thought that maybe Max shouldn’t mention the whiskey, but no, that felt really dishonest, and Tony deserved Max’s full respect, and that meant coming clean. I hoped Max knew that, too. I made a mental note to make sure he did before he went to Tony.

  “So what ‘but’ were you talking about?”

  “You can’t date him, Sandy.”

  I pulled up my sunglasses, perching them on top of my head so I could see her without the shade of tinted lenses “Are you seriously saying that to me right now?”

  She didn’t give me the courtesy of pulling up her own glasses. “I’m totally saying that.”

  I stuck out my hand toward her. “Hello pot, I’m kettle. Not so nice to meet you.”

  She pushed my hand away. “I’m not dating anyone,” she said, articulating every word carefully.

  “Oh really,” I said, swiveling my head toward the pool. “Shall we call Mr. Davidson over here to corroborate your story?”

  Her lip twitched a little, but she held firm. “You can do whatever you want, Ms. Thibeault, but we are not dating. He and I had this conversation and agreed that we would wait.”

  I barked a laugh, but kept my voice down when I said, “Right, okay, so that foiled hookup last night on the bus?”

  Her face got really pink then. “Just to talk,” she assured me.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m serious,” she said, stone-faced and then she eased up a little, rolling her eyes as she realized she wasn’t quite the saint she made herself out to be. “I mean, yeah, probably we’d have kissed a little. But it was probably a good thing we didn’t; seeing you up front was a good reminder that we need to keep things very platonic. I will not do that to my dad.”

  I knew she meant it, but... “Do you really think you two are going to be able to keep your hands off each other?” I asked. “I’m not joking, Nessa. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and it seemed like she was working very hard to not look toward the pool, where the guy in question was. “You have?”

  “Yes. And if anyone else has, they’ll know that you’re a thing. Or that he wants you two to be a thing, at the very least.”

  “Damn,” she said. “That would really complicate things. Especially with Andres...”

  “No kidding.”

  She did look over at the pool then.

  I bumped her arm and handed her my napkin. “What’s this for?” she asked.

  I snorted. “Excessive drool. There’s a lot of hot man flesh on display out there.”

  “God, Sandy, if anyone needs to mop up drool over hot band guys, it’s you,” Nessa hissed but sounded more amused than pissed.

  Ten days ago, hell, ten hours ago, I would have agreed with her, but now...something drew my attention toward the direction of the bus. Maybe it wasn’t about scoring a hot musician anymore. Because while I’d done that last night, and even though I’d wished things could continue with Ted, now, in the light of day, it all seemed different. What had started out as a quest to be able to land a musician was feeling awfully hollow and, if I dared admit it to myself, pretty damn shallow. Not that Ted hadn’t been into the hookup, but I suddenly felt ashamed of my motivation for getting with him.

  Maybe I was on this tour for a bigger reason than my own immature mission to land a hot guy, no, not even a guy, but a notch on a tally sheet, because it hadn’t really even been about the guy, but a guy. Maybe the real reason the universe had brought me here was bigger than that. Sure, I was learning amazing stuff about band publicity and management that would help in my future career, but it felt like something more than on-the-job training. Maybe the universe had brought me here to help connect with someone on more than purely an exchange-of-saliva level. Maybe I was here to help someone heal from a soul-crushing loss.

  If Max had feelings for me, it meant that at least part of him was moving on from Marie. Obviously, he needed to deal with that guilt, but he was willing to get professional help. Was it obnoxious to feel good about being the catalyst for his healing? Probably, but my heart liked it anyway.

  And that kiss. I almost wanted to fan myself because that kiss had been hot. Whatever. He had healing to do, and I had a job to focus on and a best friend who was all about abstinence (at least on tour), so I needed to pack that kiss away and not think about it.

  I took a swig of water and leaned back to take in the scene in front of me. Seconds later, I could have smacked myself when I realized I should be taping this. I was not the kind of person to keep the joy to myself, so I took some clandestine video to post later under the behind the scenes section of my channel after blurring out the non-band kids.

  Fans would eat this up. So would stalkers, of course, but I couldn’t think of that now. Tony would make sure we were safe from crazy fans. But this footage would be gold. I wished I had my big camera but was too lazy to go get it, so just rested the side of my phone on my thigh, angling it just right.

  I really did have the best job in the world.

  Bait and Switch

  Freezing cold drips landed on my belly, chest, thighs.

  “WHA???” I bolted up with a gasp, surprised when my head didn’t hit the ceiling of my bunk. Then I realized it was bright. And not just bright for the bus, but annoyingly, blindingly, sunshiny bright.

  Right. I wasn’t on the coach. We were at the RV park, and I’d fallen asleep in my lounger next to the pool. And the sunshine was blazing into my eyes because when I sat up, I’d knocked my sunglasses off. I now recognized the clatter from a second before as the sound of them hitting the pool deck. Better them than my phone, which I groped around for, and was relieved to find on the lounger next to my butt.

  I pressed my palm to my racing heart, sure I would never sleep again.

  Even in silhouette, backlit by the sun, I knew who to blame. “Darren!” I hollered. Not that it got him to stop dripping on me. In fact, I’m pretty sure my reaction made him a thousand times more determined to soak me. Not that I was going to drown from droplets, but still...

  “Don’t you dare,” I warned when he leaned further over me and brought his hands up to his head, his hair glistening with moisture.

  Oh, he dared. He dared big time as he shook his head over me, rubbing his hands over his short hair, sending a million droplets of water flying, most to land on my bare belly and legs.

  I reached up to grab him, but he was fast and jumped back, just out of my reach, before I could get a grip. I called him a bunch of names as he laughed, nowhere near as insulted as he should have been.

  Then I heard Nessa laugh beside me. I snapped my head over to give her my best indignant look. “Et tu, Vanessa?”

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t encourage him,” I said with a huff. “Or I’ll get them to throw you in the pool.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  That was all the encouragement I needed. “It’s on,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her for a half a second before I reached for my shades and shoved them back on my face. Then I turned to the boy who’d started it all.

  “How would you like to do me a favor?” I asked Wiretap’s mischievous drummer.

  My best friend’s amusement turned to alarm as she darted her glance over toward Darren, who was standing there, hands on hips, like he was just waiting for the order.

  “What kind of favor?” he asked as though he had no idea, but the twinkle in his eye told me he knew. And was on board.

  I tilted my head toward Nessa. “I think she needs to cool off, don’t you?”

  He seemed to agree, nodding.

  Nessa laughed nervously and just said, “Don’t.”

 
Darren’s smirk told me her one word wasn’t going to cut it. Without saying anything, he turned back toward the pool and crouched down to talk to the guys who had congregated at the side closest to us.

  I couldn’t tell what they were saying in their hushed tones, but they must have come to some agreement as Darren stood up. Without another word, Will and Graeme pushed up on the deck and emerged from the pool. I set my phone to record because I did not want to miss a second of what was surely about to be a tour highlight.

  (Not to mention I so wanted to capture them climbing from the pool, water sluicing off their rock-hard chests and down their...woo boy, let’s just say some drool-catching napkins could be put to some good use. You’re welcome, Wiretap fans.)

  I dragged my gaze away from the guys and grinned over at Nessa triumphantly as she started to sputter in protest. She knew what was coming: she was totally getting hurled into the pool. She scrambled to take her phone out of her pocket, but there wasn’t going to be enough time to remove her clothes.

  “Get ready,” I said, almost squealing with glee.

  But then, as I angled my phone to capture the moment when they grabbed her arms and legs, it was plucked from my hand.

  “Hey!” I exclaimed, reaching for it, but Will held it up out of my reach.

  That’s when I realized—oh no!

  “Nononononono! You’re supposed to throw Nessa in!” I shrieked, overcome with hysterical laughter while I struggled to get out of their grasp. But there was no getting away from three determined and strong guys who were carrying me like a sack of potatoes toward the pool.

  Graeme had my arms and Will my legs, and they arranged themselves along the side of the pool and started swinging me back and forth, counting down.

  “Three!” they chanted.

  “Don’t do it!” I managed to get out between breaths and laughs, though I’m not sure why I bothered. There was no way I wasn’t going in that pool.

  “Two!”

  “Noooooooo!”

  “One!”

  A half a second later, I was sailing through the air, arms and legs flailing as I did my best to tuck my body so as not to land flat on my back. I was short of breath from laughing so hard but took a lungful of air in preparation.

  I was able to turn myself, right before I hit the water, but it felt like a small win when I realized, as I broke the surface and wiped the water from my face, that my best friend was still on her lounger. I had hoped she’d be next, but nope, she was sitting there all dry and smug while I kicked over to the side of the pool.

  “What the hell?” I demanded of the guys.

  Darren sat on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet in the water. He shrugged. “She’s the boss. We can’t throw the boss into the pool.”

  I looked around at the other guys, and they were nodding in agreement.

  “Cowards,” I said with a cluck of my tongue and an eye-roll. Funny how no one argued.

  Also, no one was insulted, including me. I loved that these guys felt that they could goof around with me. And that I wasn’t the boss; I would much rather work alongside them and feel like one of them than have them feel like they couldn’t throw me into the pool.

  As I glanced at Nessa who was smiling and laughing, it looked like she was perfectly fine with her boss role. I loved that she was so happy.

  Man, I was really going to hate leaving tour.

  A while later, I’d climbed out of the water and was back on my lounger, already nearly dry thanks to the warm summer sun. I was sitting next to Nessa, chatting absently about nothing in particular as we both semi-secretly watched the boys whose antics had turned from play to simply hanging out in the shallow end. They’d each claimed a section of the ledge, arms perched on the deck, soaking up rays and just being, away from screens and instruments.

  To the untrained eye, it might have seemed like they weren’t doing anything, but they were: they were taking time and recharging. Resting was important; not only did they have near-daily rehearsals, but from the second they walked on stage, they needed to be on, and that meant refreshed and ready for hours of grueling, hard work.

  The clang of the metal gate drew our attention to Tony’s arrival. He was in board shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops. I thought he was going to get into the pool, but instead, he greeted the boys as he passed by the pool and sat down on the lounger beside Nessa’s—the one Kiki had been in before diving into the pool and claiming her section of the pool ledge.

  “Hey, girls,” Tony said and didn’t waste any time waiting for us to respond before he started going over details about San Francisco—our next tour stop—with Nessa.

  “We don’t need to roll out until late tonight,” Nessa said in her professional tour manager voice after they’d done a quick once-over of the next day’s concert run sheet. “So I was thinking we could do a cookout for dinner before we leave here. I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired of restaurant food, and there’s a pit on our site beside the bus. I think the guys would enjoy that.”

  “You’ve got my vote,” I said, in case they needed it.

  Tony smiled at me and nodded before he returned his gaze to his daughter. “Great thinking. Can you arrange that? I think there’s a grocery—”

  “On it,” Nessa said as she started to tap away at her phone. She obviously had this all planned out, right down to the arrangements. “They’ll deliver here, and there are bags of firewood up at the campground office. I’m sure they have a grill we can borrow, too.”

  Tony shook his head, a wide smile on his face. “Thanks. It’s great having you on top of these things. By the way, speaking of people who are on top of things...” he turned to me. “Linda is keeping an eye on that girl’s social media, and if there’s anything off with that or any other odd tags or accounts, she’ll let us know. I don’t want you worrying about it, okay?”

  “Are you sure?” I asked because it felt like my responsibility—it was my phone she’d stolen, after all.

  “Absolutely sure. Linda’s also engaged a security firm, so if she gets more sophisticated with her hacking, we’ll know about it and hopefully will be able to trace it.”

  I nodded. That was definitely more than I could do on my own. Especially with how busy I was and how most of my monitoring was done on my cell—it sounded like he was engaging more tech than I had access to.

  “Have they been able to figure out if she’s following us?”

  Tony sighed. “Unfortunately, no, but the detail will meet us in San Francisco. We haven’t publicized where we’re staying or even that we’re here for the day, right?”

  “No,” I confirmed. “I’ve taken some video today, but I won’t post that until we’re well gone from here.”

  “Good, thanks, Sandy,” he said. “So, since you’ve got that handled, maybe I can have a quick swim and—” he was interrupted by his phone going off. “Famous last words, huh?” he said with a chuckle as he pulled the device from his pocket.

  He frowned over at the pool, his eyes scanning over the boys as though he was doing a head count, and then back to his phone. “It’s Max. He wants to talk.”

  My heart lurched. I casually pulled out my phone, as though it had nothing to do with anything other than me checking social media, which I did a million times a day. Totally believable.

  You okay? I sent to Max

  No. but I will be. Going to talk to Tony.

  Is now the best time? I asked, not wanting to say anything about the booze, but...

  Yes. Need to do this. I’m ok—nap helped.

  Want me to come and hold your hand? I asked, adding a smilie face.

  Yes, please.

  So that was unexpected. really?

  I sat forward and was about to get up, but then received his response: No.

  Did you just make a joke? Because I liked the Max Lindstrom with the sense of humor. I liked him a lot.

>   Apparently.

  He was doing the right thing, getting help. But as Tony got up and started toward the bus, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. What if Tony drew a hard line and kicked Max out of the band? With six members, he could afford to lose one. I wasn’t sure who could play bass, but surely one of the three guitar players could take up the slack.

  Tony’s on his way to bus, I tapped out.

  Deep breaths, right?

  You got this, Max.

  A second later, I got: Thanks for the support. Seriously.

  Anytime, I sent back. And I meant it.

  “You texting with Ted?” Nessa asked, reminding me she was right beside me. Oops.

  Even though I’d told her Max had kissed me, did I want to go there with her? Now? With the rest of the guys just a few feet away?

  Most importantly, did I want her to think that something real had happened between us?

  Had it? I probably needed to sort out my own feelings on the subject before I filled her in.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s Ted.”

  “I knew it,” she said. “That goofy smile on your face says it all.”

  That goofy smile disappeared because: uh oh.

  Sticky Fingers

  It was late when we put out the campfire and climbed on the bus.

  We’d all gone to the campground bathrooms and showered, changing into our pajamas for the overnight drive. But even after that, we’d still managed to spend a final few minutes around the campfire, soaking it up and roasting the last of the marshmallows.

  By the time we got on board, we all smelled of smoke and had marshmallow-crusted fingers, but no one seemed to mind; it was all the signs of a great day. We’d probably feel different the next day when the bus reeked of smoky clothes, but whatever. We’d deal. If San Fran wasn’t too crazy, maybe I’d grab everyone’s sheets and find a laundromat.