by Raine Thomas
“Excuse us,” the female EMT said, prompting Lily to move and a reluctant Keith to rise off the couch so the woman and her male counterpart could attend to Sydney.
Archer clasped a hand on Keith’s shoulder as the EMTs efficiently got to work. The male lifted Sydney so her back was propped up on the arm of the sofa and she was in more of an inclined position. The female took Sydney’s wrist and used her watch to time Sydney’s pulse. Reaching into his first aid kit, the guy pulled out a package and started squeezing it before he pressed it against Sydney’s cheek.
Sydney moaned when the cooling pack touched her skin. Archer pressed harder on Keith’s shoulder to keep him in place as he started to move forward. Sydney’s eyelids fluttered open.
“Keith?” she said, looking at the EMTs in confusion.
“I’m here,” Keith said, shrugging Archer off and moving closer to the couch. “Let the EMTs check you out.”
Sydney didn’t say anything else as the EMTs took her blood pressure and inspected her face. When Lily mentioned that Sydney’s head had hit Keith, they also checked her scalp. Barney entered the room with several pizzas while the EMTs were doing their thing, but no one moved towards the food.
“It doesn’t look like anything’s broken,” the male EMT said to Sydney when they were done with their exam. “No signs of a concussion. Ice packs will help minimize the swelling in your face. Apply ice for ten to twenty minutes at a time at least three times a day for the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours. You can take Tylenol for any pain.”
“Keep your head elevated as much as possible,” the female added as they packed up their first aid kits. “It will help reduce the swelling. If the pain persists or seems unusually high, you should go to the emergency room.”
Christopher issued quiet thanks to them as they headed out the door. Keith immediately went back to Sydney, who was now sitting on the sofa with the ice pack pressed to the side of her face.
“How bad is it?” he asked as he sat beside her.
Her eyes filled and she shook her head. Keith put his arm around her and pulled her against his side, leaning down to murmur something into her ear. Archer caught the attention of the others and jerked his head over to the side of the room with the table and chairs to give Keith and Sydney a couple of minutes to themselves. Aria handed Keith a bottle of water, presumably so Sydney could take one of the Tylenol samples left by the EMTs, before joining them.
Xander ran a hand over his short dreadlocks in an agitated gesture. “What the hell, man? This is messed up. That guy had it out for Keith. How did he make it past security?”
“Believe me, that is going to be addressed,” Christopher said firmly. “He’s Nikki’s brother, so he was allowed entrance to the party. What is a huge issue is he was able to approach Keith in what was a blatantly aggravated state. It’s sloppy and inexcusable.”
Archer decided to reveal what he’d been considering since Barney had told him about the flowers delivered to Lily. Actually, he’d been considering it since the first time Lily received a hateful comment on social media. He supposed one good thing had come out of this, and that was it gave him an excuse to implement his idea without alerting Lily to his true concern.
“I think we need to hire more private security,” he said. “The show is creating a lot more exposure for all of us. I’m going to talk to Trey about bringing on bodyguards for each of you, at least through the tour and the first season of the show.”
Sage frowned. “Don’t you think that’s overkill?”
“I really don’t.”
“Aren’t private bodyguards expensive?” Noelle asked.
“Let me worry about that,” Archer said. “Your safety is more important. Tonight showed us that we have to be prepared for anything. Things are only going to get more intense once the show airs.”
There was a moment where everyone exchanged glances and looked back at the couch. He saw the instant they all silently reached agreement with him. The relief he experienced over that made him finally acknowledge just how worried he’d been for Lily. Having the added security wouldn’t just help his bandmates. It would help keep Lily safe.
“All right,” he said, breaking the lingering silence. “Who wants pizza?”
With nothing else to do, they all occupied themselves with eating. Archer managed to finish two slices before Keith finally rose from the couch and approached him. His expression revealed nothing...which Archer knew meant trouble.
“Need you,” Keith said.
“Sure.”
Archer glanced at Lily. She immediately put her plate down and went to sit with Sydney, Aria right on her heels. Archer led Keith into the hallway since he seemed to want privacy. Trey and Barney stepped out with them. When the House of Archer camera operator tried to follow them, Archer closed the door on him and switched off his mic.
“Where is he?” Keith immediately asked Trey.
They all knew Keith was talking about Nikki’s brother. Keith had addressed the question to Trey since he and Barney were wired into the security chatter through their earpieces. Trey looked at Archer and received his nod.
“They’re holding him in a private room until the police arrive,” Trey said.
“Take me to him.”
Again, Archer nodded when Trey glanced at him. Trey exchanged a look with Barney, who stepped back into the green room. They started in the opposite direction of the event room, Archer and Keith following a few yards behind Trey.
“So, you needed me to access my security team?” Archer asked Keith.
“No.”
“Do you need me to get your bail money arranged?”
“No.”
“Do you need me to be a character witness in your forthcoming murder trial?”
“No.”
After another beat, Archer said, “He’s bound to press charges after you do whatever you’re about to do.”
“Oh, no, he won’t.”
Archer didn’t say another word until they neared a door manned by two men wearing security polo shirts. When they were still far enough from the door, Keith finally looked at Archer.
“I need you to distract them.”
Archer’s eyebrows lifted. “Ah...okay. Just remember we need those hands of yours.”
Keith nodded once. Leaving it at that, Archer promptly put on his professional meet-and-greet persona and walked up to the two security guards. He gave their name badges a quick scan as he extended a hand.
“Hi there, Steve and Rodney,” he said. “I’m making my way around to thank everyone for their hard work tonight. We really appreciate all of your effort. Can I interest either of you in an autograph or photo?”
The distraction wasn’t all that hard to implement. Steve and Rodney were fans who couldn’t stop talking about the clip of Archer taking down Wingerson. Although they surely noticed Trey escorting Keith into the room beyond the door they were guarding, they didn’t issue any objections. Archer assumed that was because Trey was also on the event’s security detail.
Archer waited for shouting or screaming or some kind of commotion from inside the room. He never heard a thing. Keith and Trey emerged only a couple of minutes after they entered. Neither of them had any expression for Archer to read.
Before the door closed, Archer snuck a peek inside the room. He spotted Nikki’s brother bent over at the waist, his shoulders heaving. There didn’t appear to be a mark on him.
“Thanks again, guys,” Archer said, issuing handshakes to the guards before hurrying after Keith. When his friend didn’t even look at him, he asked, “You gonna tell me what just happened?”
“No.”
Archer glanced at Trey, who gave a subtle shake of his head as though it wasn’t the time to get into it. That just piqued Archer’s curiosity even more.
Well, Keith might be maintaining his silence, but Archer was sure as hell going to get the details out of Trey at the first opportunity.
Because he just had to know what Keith
had done in such a short span of time to make a grown man cry.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Calm down, Nikki,” Regina said, rubbing her temples to try and ease her gathering headache.
The night had been more stressful than she had anticipated. She was currently sitting in the living area of her hotel suite watching Nikki pace and listening to her whine. In another minute, Regina was going to forcibly remove her just to have a moment of peace.
“Calm down?” Nikki repeated, stopping and planting her hands on her hips. “You got my brother detained and me kicked off the tour!”
“Believe me, the producers aren’t going to let you get kicked off the tour. Not after the content you and your brother generated tonight.”
“But Archer—”
“Wants the show to succeed,” Regina interrupted, reaching for the glass of brandy she was nursing. “He’ll listen to reason once things calm down.”
Nikki’s scowl eased a fraction at that. “Derrick was still detained.”
“But he wasn’t arrested.”
Regina was actually quite curious about that. She had been sure that Connors would urge Sydney Ward to press charges against Nikki’s brother. That hadn’t been the case. Word had spread through the tour grapevine that Connors had spoken briefly with Derrick, but no one seemed to know what was said and Derrick wasn’t talking. All anyone knew was that the matter was being dropped.
“I guess Keith doesn’t care about Little Miss Perfect as much as everyone thought,” Nikki said with an abrupt shrug.
Her jealousy was absurdly transparent. She hadn’t been able to stop staring daggers at Keith and his new girlfriend all evening. It was why her brother had reacted so drastically during their dance.
In any case, Regina couldn’t be happier with the outcome. The footage of Derrick charging Connors and striking Sydney Ward already had the House of Archer producers buzzing.
She was also much happier than Nikki that Sydney Ward was back in the picture. It meant that footage of Nikki with Keith would be more likely to air in future episodes of the show. The producers would surely want to play up the split between them as well as the development of things between Connors and Ward.
Most importantly, the additional footage of Nikki would make her a key player in the show, and because she was staging the relationship with Mal, that brought Suddenly Something more into the picture. Regina’s plans to more fully enmesh Suddenly Something into the show were finally taking shape.
“Even though he wasn’t arrested,” Nikki went on, “Derrick won’t be allowed anywhere near this tour again. I had hoped to get more footage out of him. As much as I enjoyed watching him deck that bitch, he really screwed us.”
Regina swallowed a sip of brandy before setting the glass back on the coffee table in front of her. “Don’t worry about it. We won’t need him. I’ve been working on a few of my ideas to create more ripples in the show.”
“Like what?”
Shaking her head, Regina said, “It’s better if you don’t know. Let’s just say that it’s rather astonishing what some people will do for money...and who they’re willing to betray.”
* * *
Three days later, Lily was lying in one of the private treatment rooms of the spa in their Denver hotel. She, Sydney, and Aria were nearing the end of a day-long series of spa treatments. Dane had made the appointments himself the moment they had arrived at the hotel two days ago, insisting that they needed the break. So much had happened since then that it felt like weeks ago.
The past couple of days had been absolute hell.
The first problem had cropped up the morning after Derrick’s attack on Keith and Sydney in Salt Lake City. Lily had woken up at an atrocious hour to depart with the band for Denver only to discover that cell phone footage of the incident was already blowing up social media and the entertainment news channels.
She couldn’t believe it. What were the odds that someone would have been shooting Keith and Sydney on their phone right as Derrick unexpectedly walked up and hit Sydney?
After viewing the video on YouTube a few times, she thought she had the mystery solved. The angle was from the vicinity of Suddenly Something’s table. It wasn’t hard to reason that someone in the band—or associated with them—had captured the footage.
That told Lily that the person who shot the footage had known Derrick was going to react like he had. Lily suspected Regina had somehow orchestrated the entire thing.
Proving that was another matter. She knew the House of Archer producers had investigated the leak because it conflicted with the show’s best interests. They had checked all of The Void’s and Suddenly Something’s phones and didn’t find the footage. But there had been a number of fans sitting near Suddenly Something, any one of whom could have taken the video.
The bigger issue in Lily’s mind was who had told them to do so. Regina seemed the most likely culprit. She had been scheming since learning about the show.
Regardless of how it had come about, Lily had immediately hopped on social media to perform damage control. She had spoken with Christopher to find out the party line that the band’s PR people were taking and then she had spent nearly every minute of the trip from Salt Lake City to Denver on social media or phone calls with the media reps she knew. The rather choppy footage consisted of a brief clip of Keith and Sydney dancing followed by Derrick interrupting and punching Sydney. Stories ran the gamut from Derrick being one of Sydney’s jealous ex-lovers to Derrick harboring a secret love for Keith. Lily had to be quick to set the story straight before it got out of control.
In the midst of all of that, she received two back-to-back form rejections from Entertainment Weekly and Variety for her story on Brewer Street. She had tried not to take the rejections personally, but it was a bitter challenge when she had worked so hard on the piece. It was the first thing she had written while on the tour that she felt truly represented her as a writer. It was a hard pill to swallow knowing she had more support behind her social media work for The Void than she did for the writing she deeply wanted to pursue.
She had consoled herself with the knowledge that Rolling Stone hadn’t yet rejected the article, and even if they did she could always submit it elsewhere. She had also just finished what she felt was an impressive new piece on Mandy that would hopefully garner some attention. She just had to identify the best publications to target with her submissions.
Still, her mood was decidedly dampened as they entered day two in Denver. It shifted from down to dour when she was awakened by a phone call from Caroline informing her that she and Bridgette had just inherited their father’s old car, so they were now planning a road trip that included—surprise, surprise—several stops where The Void would be performing in the next few weeks.
When the inevitable request for concert tickets came, Lily nearly threw her phone across the room. Dane had spared the phone by grabbing it from her and walking with it out of the bedroom into the hotel suite’s living area. Lily had no idea what he said to Caroline. He had hung up by the time he returned. She hadn’t even considered telling him that he had been out of line. In fact, she thanked him.
Dane’s intervention aside, the call had generated a massive headache. Lily hadn’t been able to fall back asleep. That surely hadn’t helped when the next big wallop of bad news came her way.
She had been eating lunch in the hotel room with Dane later that day when he got a call. He didn’t typically answer his phone when they managed to get time alone together. She knew it had to be important when he took the call and walked into the bedroom...out of camera range. Curiosity ate at her until he returned.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Shelley,” he replied, sitting back at the table and taking another bite of his sandwich.
Shelley Custer was the attorney who led his legal team. Lily’s appetite had instantly evaporated.
“What was she calling about?”
“Nothing important.”
&
nbsp; She knew he was lying. It had set her already frayed temper right off. Only the rolling cameras in the living area kept her from pursuing the conversation. Instead, she had steamed in festering silence until he finished his lunch. She didn’t bother touching the rest of her salad, rising immediately when he finished wiping his hands and face with his napkin.
“Can we chat in the bedroom?” she had asked, rather proud of her composure.
“Sure.” He rose and followed her.
She closed the door behind him. “All right. Why was Shelley calling?”
He sighed. “I meant it when I said it wasn’t important.”
“It was important enough for you to interrupt our lunch over it.”
“You have enough to worry about right now,” he hedged, reaching out to touch her shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Let me handle this.”
But Lily hadn’t wanted comfort. She wanted the truth, and his words had her intuition screaming at her. She stepped away from him and struggled to hold onto her patience.
“Does it have to do with Johnathan?” she asked. His frown was all the answer she needed. “He filed suit against you?”
“Of course he did,” Dane said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I told you Shelley’s prepared for it, though.”
His response, while not unexpected, had a painful band seizing her chest. She wasn’t sure if she was more upset over Johnathan’s lawsuit or Dane trying to keep it from her. As she debated which issue to bring up first, his eyes shifted from hers. She instantly knew there was more.
“What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Lily...”
“No. I want to know.”
His frown deepened. “He’s filing suit against you, too.”
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there gaping at him, but by the time she managed to ease past her shock enough to reply, her lips felt dry. “Me? Why? What kind of suit?”
“Shelley doesn’t have that information yet. You’ll have to retain her as your personal attorney first so she can get formally involved.”
