The chorus repeats in fits and spurts as Naomi moves and I rise back to my feet, tossing my mic up and spinning in a circle to catch it, smirking at the crowd, giving them a little kiss, a little taste of my bullshit. I take a few steps back, watch Naomi and Wren shred their guitars together, play homage to Dax and Lola by playing in their direction with Kash a little dollop of sound on the side.
When Naomi turns back and takes the front of the stage, I move up behind her and slide my arms around her waist, resting my chin on her hair, claiming her in front of the entire crowd.
The instrumental portion of the song revs up as Naomi and I move to the music, our sweaty bodies sliding together, the sway of our hips not unlike the movements we'd make if we were fucking. I breathe in the sweet scent of her hair, the smell of sweat, the arid dryness of the desert.
“WATCHING THE WHOLE WORLD QUAKE!” Naomi and I scream into the mic together, cutting the song off as she tears the guitar strap over her head and chucks it across the stage, letting it slide along the wood as she turns and looks at me, really looks at me.
“Giving you a second chance,” she says as she touches my lower lip with her thumb, eyes shining, wet and moist, sad and scared but also in love. We can work with that. Love is the great nullifier. It's the only thing that can truly kill grief, pain, that fights the horrid waves of depression and the constant kiss of lust, the backwards glance of regret or the future tremors of fear. Love is the base that nullifies the acidity of life. “That was the best decision I've ever made. I fucking love you, you know that?”
“Don't say it like it's the end,” I whisper as the crowd goes fucking insane behind my wife's back, scrambling and fighting for more, more, more. “This is just the beginning. Naomi, this is the start of everything. You,” I point at her chest, at the broken heart that I hope is well on its way to repair, “you are my fucking goddess. Naomi Knox, you're my heart. Baby, I love you,” I tell her, kissing her hard, my hands on her hips, the rigid painful bulge of my cock suddenly cupped in her hand.
She teases me through my slacks right there on the stage, kisses me fiercely, tears my shirt and sends buttons flying. My heart is thundering so fast that the only thing I can hear besides the frantic rumble of my pulse is Naomi's. The satin and lace of her dress squish tight to the hard planes of my chest as she works my body in front of the crowd.
I don't know why I even crack the heavy lids of my eyes in that moment. Maybe just to get a glimpse of her beautiful as fuck face. But what I see … it kind of freaks me out.
The camera crew has packed up their shit and is moving rather quickly to the side of the stage, fleeing toward a van that I can see parked not too far from the edges of the crowd. Now, Paulette's mission this entire time has been to catch us at our most vulnerable or our most wild. You know, kinda think my wife jacking me off in front of the audience as we kiss with trembling lips … that qualifies as a little bit of both.
So why would the crew leave right now?
“We have to get out of here,” I say, pushing Naomi back, watching her blink confused eyes at me.
“What?” she asks, but I'm shaking my head, feeling a ripple of adrenaline rip through me. “What do you mean?”
“I … I don't know, but we have to go. We need to go now.”
I snatch the microphone from the stand, my breath quick and ragged and painful in my chest.
“Hey, yo, um, what I need from you all is for you to leave. Right now. We're done playing for the night, okay?” I pause and stare at the confused shimmer of the crowd, listen to the low murmur of voices asking questions that I don't have answers to. I can't explain it. It's just … why would the camera crew take their shit and run like that? Why run away when we're making TV gold up here? “Just get the fuck out of here, okay! Jesus Christ.”
I shove the mic stand off the stage and grab Naomi's hand.
“What's going on?” Lola asks as we turn and head for stage left.
“Doesn't matter,” I say as I gesture for Dax, Wren, and Kash to join us. “We just … I think we should go. Let's go. All of us.”
“The camera crew?” Ronnie asks when we approach him and Sydney, waiting for us at the side of the stage. “You saw them packing up, too?” he asks and I nod, running my hand down my face.
“Why would they pack up now?” Naomi asks as we walk as quickly as we can, grabbing Trey, Jesse and Josh on the way.
“I don't know,” I say, feeling my throat get tight, this cold chill chasing over me. “But they were running. Hey!” I shout at the crew members. “Everybody clear out!”
I think for a minute on a lie that might work to get them to scatter.
“A bomb threat was called in,” I say, making Brayden's men look confused and uncomfortable as fuck. It occurs to me then that maybe they're part of the FBI, too? I have no goddamn clue, but whatever's going to happen here, I don't want to see them caught in the middle of it. “Let's just … start walking.” I glance over my shoulder at the milling crowd beneath the tent. A lot of Paulette's people are missing—her assistant, her goons, that guy that was pretending to be Amatory Riot's manager.
“Turner, what's going on?” Milo asks as he catches up to us and Dax jogs over to grab that Spencer chick that cuts up apples for me.
Before I can answer, there's this … this awful sound, like an explosion. It cracks the silent air and ripples through the wind, raising the hair on the back of my neck.
“Doesn't matter. Just run,” I tell him. “Run.”
I grab Naomi's hand and make sure I've got my boys with me. That's all I can do. There's no more time. We run as fast as we can, out from under the tent, towards the gate in the back. When we get there, it's unlocked and several of the vans are missing, like some people before us were on their way out in a hurry.
We shove the fencing aside and keep running as the sounds get louder, more frequent, one after another. And then there's massive pulse of heat at my back and I'm stumbling around, watching as red and orange flames explode from the stage, bits of equipment flying into the air. A metal piece of … something whips through the desert sky and slices me right across the cheek, drawing blood.
“Get down!”
I pull Naomi to the ground with me and cover her as pieces of debris rain down on us, like they did during the tornado but worse. Some of these pieces are on fucking fire.
Screams penetrate the sudden silence, sounding like they're underwater. My ears are ringing from the show, from the sound of the explosions. It feels like they're stuffed with cotton.
And holy shit, there were a lot of them.
So … a bomb threat was my lie. Maybe it wasn't too far off?
I lift my head and find people pouring around the stage, running and screaming, tripping and stumbling. Even around me, some of the people are bleeding or burning, tearing off their clothes, lit up from the falling bits of debris.
“They tried to blow us up,” Naomi says, her voice quivering, her eyes wide as she takes in the roiling ball of flame that used to be the stage. “She … she tried to blow us up.”
The desert sky changes from its gentle indigo purple to the vibrant raging orange-red of the sun, my mouth open as fans flock in our direction, running hard, fleeing the scene as fast as they can.
“There might be people that are hurt,” Naomi says, but I grab her arm when she tries to run toward the scene. “Turner, we can't fucking leave them there!”
I switch my hand from her arm to her fingers, weaving them together and letting her pull me toward the source of the explosions. I don't have my phone to call any ambulances, but I figure Milo will take care of that—if a good hundred plus people haven't already.
We push in the opposite direction of the crowd, searching for people that have fallen, that are being trampled by the other concertgoers. We pull them to their feet, grab passersby to help those that are having trouble walking.
We don't even make it around the stage, to the worst part of the scene, before the sky is filled wi
th helicopters, the blue and red of police lights flickering in the distance, the sound of sirens howling through the stuffed up ache of my eardrums. Pushing through the fence—which is actually fucking hot to the touch—we work our way toward the torn remains of the tent.
“Help me get these people away from the fires,” Ronnie says, suddenly by my side, grabbing an unconscious woman under the arms and dragging her away from the spreading flames as they eat the set we just rocked all the way to hell and back.
I figure I'm probably in shock, but there's no time to process.
I let go of Naomi's hand and grab a man's legs while she takes him under the arms. Together we move him back from the blistering heat, just outside the circle of the fence. I notice then that my boys are there—Jesse and Trey and Josh. Even Kash and Wren, Sydney, Spencer. The only person that's not there is Lola, but probably because Ronnie like fucking handcuffed her to one of the staff trailers or something.
“Psychopaths don't play games they can't watch, right?” Naomi says suddenly, and I look up … to find Paulette Washington standing in the open gate with a gun in her hand.
“You just had to see the grand finale, didn't you?” I ask, setting an injured woman gently on the ground, the cries of pain slipping between those blistered lips turning my stomach.
Hundreds—maybe even thousands—of innocent people will have died or been maimed today. And for what? Because of a lover's quarrel way back when turned into a dispute between powerful families? These people—us included—were just pieces for these psychos to move around the board when it wasn't easy to get to each other. Let's see who can make more money, get more popular, drum up more media. Like a cat with a moth, tearing off its wings, watching it run.
“I still don't see how this fucks the Hammergrens up,” I whisper as Paulette stands there stone-still, not smiling that usual plastic smile of hers anymore. That scares me the most, the fact that she's so stoic. “Doesn't get them back for this afternoon.”
“Don't worry about the Hammergrens. They've already been dealt with,” Paulette says with a sigh, taking a step closer, the revolver held steady in her hands. “But you … I was really looking forward to seeing you go up in flames.”
Paulette turns her gun and shoots a random woman to my left, dropping her to her back in the dirt, blood pooling in a cherry red puddle around her body.
“And yet, here you are. Did Brayden Ryker tip you off? Was that it?”
I reach up and run my hands over my hair, wondering how to get to the gun tucked up underneath my dress. As soon as I get it in my hands, I'm going to cap this bitch in the face and put an end to this. A real end. Finally. Finally. Fucking finally.
I just want to live a happily ever after with Turner Dakota Campbell.
Really, that's all Blair wanted, to be happy. Katie wanted. Even Hayden.
It's what Ronnie's children's mothers probably wanted.
I sink down to the ground, letting my skirts pool around me as I pretend to wallow in despair, dropping my head forward and praying this move doesn't get me killed.
“Just do it,” I whisper as I dig for the weapon, slide it from inside the tight fit of my garter belt. A scuffling sound draws my attention up as I finally free the gun from my skirts, and I find Turner tackling Paulette to the ground, a shot firing up into the sky as I scramble to my feet.
Oh, hell no.
No way.
Not after all of this. I will not lose that asshole now.
He might be a womanizing douche, but he is my womanizing fucking douche.
Turner tries to wrestle the gun from Paulette's fingers, but she manages to take a shot that nails him right in the stomach. I scream as Turner falls back, blood blooming on his belly, staining his white shirt as he collapses back and I raise my pistol at the same moment Paulette lifts her revolver.
I breathe out, aim for that one perfect shot, and pull the trigger.
Her head snaps back and the gun falls from her fingers to the desert floor.
“Turner!” I scream, moving over to him, reaching for this face. “Look at me,” I tell him, remembering that awful moment after Eric shot him, right before the tornado struck. “Just look at me, baby, and we'll get through this.
“God, that fucking hurts,” he whispers as Ronnie falls to his knees next to us and tears his shirt off, moving his friend's hands and pushing the fabric to the wound. “I am … so over … being goddamn shot,” he gasps as law enforcement officers—police, SWAT, FBI, I have no fucking clue—spill from their vehicles along with medical personnel.
Brayden Ryker is there with them, stopping at our little group and waving over a stretcher.
“We've got this,” he says, “you'll be alright, Mr. Campbell.”
“Will he?” I ask, trying not to shriek as Turner lifts a hand up and rubs one bloody thumb over my lip. When he moves forward to kiss me, I close the gap, taking his mouth with mine, kissing him like it's the last time. I have to do that everyday from now on, don't I? Just act like that moment is our last and make it perfect.
But that shouldn't be hard, should it? Because even with our love/hate bullshit, our bickering, my bad attitude, his arrogant cocky one … every second that I spend with Turner Campbell is perfect.
I follow along with him as they load him on a stretcher, as I climb into the ambulance, as we leave the destruction in the desert behind us.
And I never look back.
Six weeks later …
“We don't have any fucking cottage cheese,” I say when Trey tries to push me out of the way of the fridge and I curse, shoving him back with an elbow to the gut.
“Hey!” Sydney says from behind us, grabbing our shoulders and pushing us apart. “Are you fucking serious? You're still recovering, you dumbass. Trey, you should know better. Jesus, what is it with you people and getting shot and not giving two fucks about your recoveries?”
She rolls her eyes as she leans between us, digs around through old takeout containers and some hippie shit that Milo had our personal shopper pick up last week that nobody's eating. She grabs a container of cottage cheese and hands it to her brother.
“Told you,” my friend says as I flip him off and step back, raising my palms in surrender.
“Whatever. Only a complete and total douche would put cottage cheese on canned fruit and eat it like a ninety-five year old cat lady.”
“My dad used to make pears and cottage cheese on holidays,” Trey grumbles and I raise my eyebrows. Oh yeah. When Trey and Sydney's cocksucker of a father was only half-cut on a holiday, sometimes he'd have enough fortitude to get a can opener and dump some pears into a bowl with a dollop of moldy cottage cheese on the top.
Merry fucking Christmas, right?
“You're such a freak,” I say as Dax comes in the kitchen and we nod at each other. Last night, we had some kind of weird foursome again and watched the girls make out and finger each other. Maybe we'll do some more of that? I have no idea, but at least the cameras are gone. After the fucking nightmare finale of the Hard Rock Roots concert, the network pulled the show—despite record breaking users tuning in to watch on both TV and online.
So the cameras are gone … and so are the families.
Their assets are frozen and whoever's left alive is in custody. I guess this was some big fucking thing that's been going on a long time, since the original Mr. Harding and Mr. Hammergren opened Spin Fast Music Group together back in the sixties. I don't know the full story, but this feud has been brewing for, like, ever. The Washingtons were only involved because of Paulette, I guess. I dunno. Brayden Ryker explained this shit to us, but I honestly don't fucking care.
The only question I needed to have answered was: is it over?
And yeah, it's over.
No more snipers, no more crazy girls with bald heads, no more fires or explosions.
Just me and a house full of my boys—and a few extra Amatory Riot members—and my wife, sitting by the pool in a black and white striped bikini.
&n
bsp; “You want a beer?” I ask as I admire the luscious curves of her body, the way the tiny triangles of fabric just barely fucking cover her nipples. Hell, even as I'm standing there, she sits up and shoves her shades into her hair, turning and reaching back to untie the knot at her neck. “Holy shit,” I curse as the cups fall forward, exposing her breasts to the sunny perfection of the backyard.
“Sure,” she says as she spins the top around and undoes the clasps in the back. Naomi reaches up for her drink and wiggles her fingers at me. “Give it,” she says, but my cock is already trying to escape my swim trunks and find its way into her soft, silken heat.
“Do you have to sit there with your bare tits hanging out?” I ask as Naomi smirks at me and I finally hand over the bottle, draping myself onto the chair next to hers so I can stare at the slow rise and fall of her chest, the black shades parked on her face, the way her full lips curve around the bottle as she drinks.
I rub at the bandage on my midsection and wonder when the fuck I can go swimming again. I mean, not that lounging around in the sun is a pain in the ass or anything but the water looks so cool and easy and calm right now. Or maybe it's just because I caught Ronnie and Lola fucking in the pool last night and thought it looked hot as shit. I want to take Naomi in there and grind her against the cement edge with my hips.
“Hey there,” I say to Ronnie's daughter, Lydia, as she steps out onto the porch with her hand tucked into Lola's. Ronnie's right behind them with Phoebe in his arms. His parents are still being fucking twats about the whole thing, but at least they're letting him take his kid a few times a week. As far as the baby goes, Shannon's parents ended up giving her to Ronnie with an agreement in place that gives them visitation rights. Whatever works, I guess. “How'd it go?”
Get Hitched (Hard Rock Roots Book 9) Page 19
