by D. R. Graham
“Okay. Bye.”
I hung up and rolled onto my back. Lincoln sat cross-legged on the bed. She smiled in an apologetic way. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It’s a small room.”
It was a small room. Too small for two people who shouldn’t have spent the night together. “Get dressed. I’ll give you a ride to your hotel.”
“Was that your sister?”
I glanced at her as I folded the blanket. I didn’t answer.
“How old is she?”
I stored the blanket in the closet. “Fourteen.”
“It’s cute how you call her Huckleberry,” she said as she made the bed.
I dressed in a pair of jeans and watched as she wiggled into her jeans. When she took off the T-shirt she borrowed, I turned away to give her privacy, but not before I caught a glimpse of her pink satin bra. “What’s with that necklace?” I asked to distract my male brain.
She put her own shirt on, placed her palm over the plastic unicorn charm, and frowned. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks like something from a vending machine. I would have thought someone like you would wear expensive jewelry.”
“It has sentimental value.”
There was a knock at the door, and Gin shouted, “Hey, Cain, does Jailbait like eggs?”
She smiled and nodded.
I shouted, “No!”
She shouted, “Yes, I do, thanks!”
“All right, breakfast in five,” Gin said through the door. His footsteps got quieter as he walked away.
I shook my head at her and lowered my voice, “We’re leaving.”
“I’m hungry,” she used a slightly whiney voice and rubbed her flat stomach.
“We’ll stop at a drive-thru.”
“Ah, come on.” She shoved my shoulder playfully. “You said they’re harmless, and it’s already cooking.”
“I said they wouldn’t hurt you, not that they’re harmless. Let’s go.” I opened the door and turned left to head for the front door. She turned right and disappeared around the corner into the living room. “Jesus.” I spun around and chased after her.
Lincoln only took one step into the room and stood frozen as if she had accidentally stumbled into a pit of lions. Gin was in the kitchen and three other guys were lounged around in the living room. Mug, Gin, and Kaz lived in the house. Crow had obviously crashed on the couch for the night and smelled like it. They were all wearing jeans and leather vests over T-shirts. They all had tattoos covering every inch of skin on their arms and they all had long hair, except Kaz who was bald.
Gin smiled. “Hey, Jailbait, how’d you sleep?”
She glanced at me and stepped closer to wrap her hand around my elbow. “Fine.”
“We can’t stay. Sorry, Gin. Thanks anyway.”
He waved the spatula in the air to show that he heard me, then kept cooking.
“What’s the hurry?” Mug asked. “You don’t bring a girl home in the entire six months you’ve lived here, and when you finally do, you want to rush her off.”
“She has an appointment she needs to be at.”
“At ten,” she said.
I glared at her to make her stop talking.
“You guys have plenty of time for breakfast. Have a seat.” Crow got up and swept all the poker chips and empty beer bottles into a cardboard box to clear the table. “You look kind of familiar,” he said to Lincoln and stared at her. “What’s your name?”
“Tessa.”
“I feel like I’ve met you before. Even your voice sounds familiar. Were you ever with one of the guys from the club?” He looked around the room to see if the rest of them recognized her, too.
“She hasn’t been with anyone from the club,” I answered for her and sat down. She sat next to me.
“You’d better hope she hasn’t been with anyone from the club,” Mug said.
Crow sat across from us and kept studying her. Gin brought in a stack of plates and served up the eggs as everyone else joined us at the table. Lincoln stole glances at each of them as they ate.
“You need some Viagra or something, Cain?” Mug asked me.
“What? Why?”
“Well, either you guys are the quietest fuckers on the planet or you didn’t close the deal last night.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed. “I got a guy who can hook you up with some pills.”
I shook my head and drank the last of the orange juice.
Lincoln slid her arm across my shoulder. “Cain doesn’t need any pills.” She raised her eyebrow in a suggestive way and added, “Trust me.”
They all laughed. Mug smacked the back of my head as he got up from the table and moved to sit in his recliner. I shovelled down the rest of my breakfast. Crow still watched Lincoln’s every move. “I’ve got it!” he shouted. “You look like that Lincoln Todd chick.”
“I wish,” Lincoln said without missing a beat.
“Yup, that’s it. You look exactly like her. You should see if she needs a double or something. They’d probably pay you pretty good. Then, once you’ve met her, tell her Crow wants to show her a good time.” He sat back in his chair and smiled at the thought of hooking up with Lincoln Todd.
“That’s gross,” Lincoln said. “I think she’s only like sixteen. That would make you a bit of a perv.”
“He’s already more than a bit of a perv, sweetheart,” Kaz said. “Maybe we should make that your new nickname.”
Crow shrugged. “Sure, I don’t care. Crow, Perv, what’s the difference?”
“Isn’t there already a Perv in the San Diego club? Merv the Perv. He raped all those high school girls in a barn or something,” Mug said.
“He’s dead. They knifed that sick fuck when he got out of jail,” Gin said.
“All right, time to go.” I tightened my hand around Lincoln’s upper arm to make her stand.
“Nice to meet you all,” she said and waved as I pulled her away.
“Hey,” Crow called. “You should tell everyone that you are Lincoln Todd. They’d believe you.”
“Nah. I wouldn’t want to be her. Her life probably sucks.” She winked at me. Unfortunately, Mug saw her do it. His eyes narrowed, and he studied her face.
“Gin, can I borrow your bitch lid?” I asked, trying to avoid making eye contact with Mug.
“Yup.”
I rushed her outside.
She frowned at the helmet I took off Gin’s bike for her. “It’s a bit offensive to call it a bitch lid, isn’t it?”
“They do way more offensive things than that. Hurry up.”
She scrunched up her nose and put it on. “Why do you need to live here? What kind of favor are they doing?”
Not wanting to get into it, I said, “It’s complicated. Get on.”
I drove her downtown to the Beverly Wilshire and stopped in front of the lobby. She hopped off and removed the helmet, but she didn’t hand it back to me. Her eyebrows angled together, reluctant to say goodbye. Then her face lit up with the type of smile guys will do stupid things for.
“Do you think your sister would like an autograph?” she asked.
I returned the smile—partly because I was impressed she figured out the one thing that would convince me to stay a little longer, and partly because I was glad she did. “She would love an autograph. If you don’t mind.”
“I’d be happy to.” She stepped closer and handed me the helmet. “If you want to come up to my room, I can sign a headshot for her.”
My gaze landed on her waist and made its way up her body to her face, pausing in a few spots without my full consent. Based on her confident expression, she knew I would agree, so I didn’t even bother to pretend to struggle with the decision. I turned the engine off and unassed.
It was a really expensive hotel, and I felt like everyone was staring at me as we walked across the marble lobby. Lincoln and I rode alone in the elevator to the top floor, and the silence was awkward, at least for me. She had no reason to be uncomfo
rtable with me coming up to her room since my only intention was to get the autograph for my sister, but she probably should have at least been thinking about how guys in general might have gotten the wrong idea from the invitation.
As we walked down the hall, I glanced sideways at her to see if she knew what she was doing, or if she was blissfully innocent. It was hard to tell. She was definitely not stupid, but she did seem sheltered enough to naively trust everyone she met, which was something I didn’t want to encourage. She slid the card to unlock the door and stepped into the room.
To keep everything simple and perfectly clear, I said, “Uh, I’ll wait here.”
She shot me a half-smile, maybe not sure whether to be flattered or offended by my hesitation. “It’s a suite. You can wait in the living room.”
Over her shoulder, I could see the room. It was as big as an apartment and decorated with classy and modern furniture. Arguably, she shouldn’t have trusted me, but since she could trust me, I looked both ways down the empty hall, then followed her.
“Help yourself to whatever you want to drink or eat.” She pointed at the bar as she removed her jacket and dropped her purse on the couch. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. I wandered over and stepped out onto the patio to check out the view. Fifteen minutes later, she joined me on the patio wearing black pants and a silky blouse. Her hair was brushed straight and she smelled really good. She smiled when she caught me staring.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. I took a quick shower.” She handed me a glossy eight by ten black and white photo of her on stage, already signed to Huck with all her love. It was hard to imagine that the person I’d been hanging out with all night was the same person rocking out in a feathery costume in the picture. I glanced back and forth between her and the image trying to make the connection.
“It’s a really cool photo,” I finally said.
“It was taken by a famous music photographer. There are only limited prints. So…” her voice trailed off modestly.
“Huck’s going to love it. Thank you.” I leaned in and hugged her quickly with only one arm, hoping it would come across as the friendly gesture of gratitude I intended it to be.
The close contact, although it was brief, made her cheeks turn pink. After she stepped back, she tucked her hair behind her ears in a self-conscious way. “You’re welcome. And—” After a long pause where she appeared to not know what to do next she said, “Um. Yeah. You probably want to get going.”
“Yeah, uh, before I do,” I watched her eyes widen in innocent anticipation, which is exactly why I needed to tell her to be careful. “In the future, you shouldn’t trust a guy you don’t know. You can’t expect to spend the night in his bed or to invite him up to your suite without him getting the wrong idea. A lot of guys would have taken advantage of you in situations like that.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, most guys probably would have.”
“You didn’t,” she repeated adamantly. “Maybe I’m a better judge of character than you think.”
I nodded to concede her point, but I also hoped she would take what I said seriously. I extended my hand to shake hers. “Nice meeting you.”
“Likewise,” she said and held on to my hand for longer than a normal shake before she spun around and disappeared into the suite. I followed.
As we reached the foyer, someone knocked. She peeked through the peephole, then opened the door. It was Hal. His gaze shifted from her to me and his smile transitioned into a mixture of confusion and contempt. “What’s he doing here?” he asked under his breath.
“He gave me a ride last night. To thank him, I told him to come by to get an autograph for his little sister.”
I held up the photo to prove it was true and totally innocent.
He didn’t appear to be entirely convinced, but he shifted his focus back to her. “You’re ready early. It’s a miracle. I take it that means you made your decision to go ahead with the tour.”
“No.” She shook her head, and a crease formed in her forehead. She definitely hadn’t spent the night deciding on her future the way she was supposed to. “I didn’t make up my mind yet. I’m only up and ready and in a good mood because I spent the night with Cain.”
“What?” Hal and I both exclaimed at the same time.
“It wasn’t like that,” I clarified, but he appeared more concerned by her not wanting to do the tour than by what she said about me.
“You can’t throw away your entire career and everything we’ve worked so hard for because you met a punk in a leather jacket.”
“This has nothing to do with Cain. I just don’t—” she trailed off and leaned back against the wall as if she lost her nerve to stand up to him.
“You don’t what?” His voice softened as if he genuinely did want to know what was bothering her.
She shook her head, losing assertiveness by the second. “Nothing. Never mind.” She glanced at me but looked away again, maybe worried I would judge her for not fighting harder. “It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled. She fidgeted with the hem of her blouse as she grappled with the decision. She was on the verge of tears from the pressure when her face brightened with a light bulb idea. She walked over and stood right in front of me with a wide-eyed expectant look. “Will you come with me on tour?”
“What? Uh. No. I can’t.” I checked Hal’s expression to see if he was going to shut the idea down. He seemed to contemplate it. “I can’t go to Europe. I have school and I need to work.”
“You’ll get a salary,” Hal interjected, obviously on board with her crazy plan.
Lincoln grinned and jiggled around excitedly. “You can do online courses on the road. Don’t you want to see Europe?”
“A salary for what?” I asked Hal.
“You’d be a handler.”
“Handling what?”
“Lincoln.” He pointed at her. “Hang out with her, keep her company, and help her have some fun.”
I frowned and avoided eye contact with her as the possibilities of what Hal meant by handling her ran through my head. “How much does a handler make?”
Hal’s eyebrow raised as he made mental calculations. “In this case, about ten thousand dollars a day.”
I shook my head to clear my brain. “How many days is the tour?”
“Forty-three.”
I blinked, and my mouth hung open as I rewound and replayed his words in my brain. I glanced at Lincoln who held her breath waiting for my response. “You want to pay me four hundred and thirty thousand dollars to hang out and talk to Lincoln?”
“Yeah. How’s that sound?” Hal rubbed his palms together and grinned, assuming that it was too good of an offer for me to turn down.
Lincoln laced her fingers into a prayer type gesture. “Say yes.”
It was an insane amount of money, and tempting. Even though Digger used Noir et Bleu funds to pay for security to protect Huck because my dad was like a brother to him, he didn’t support us. And my grandparents weren’t wealthy, so I hated to burden them. There were expenses for my mom’s medical care that insurance didn’t cover, my student loan was only going to get bigger, and I hadn’t been able to save anything for Huck’s college fund yet, despite wanting to.
“Forty-three days,” I clarified.
Hal nodded. They both watched me as I thought about what I could do with that kind of money. I’d be able to move my mom to a private room at the long term care facility, buy a two-bedroom place so Huck could live with me instead of at our grandparents’, and send her to any school she wanted.
Taking more than a month off from searching for the third suspect wasn’t ideal, but the trial was still six months away, and the Noir et Bleu were also keeping an eye out for anyone who fit the description I gave them. If the guy was smart, he probably wasn’t in L.A. anyway—even though I had convinced myself he was so I could feel like I was doing something productive while waiting for the trial. Lincoln was right,
I could study on the road. I honestly needed the break. I always wanted to travel. Liv would blow a gasket, but the money would really help my family.
I didn’t need much time to think about it. “Yeah, all right.”
Lincoln leapt forward and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Yay.”
Whoa. Maybe I should have taken longer to think about it.
Hal tapped his watch. “We need to get going for the radio interview.”
“Okay. I’m ready,” she said. “I just need to put my boots on. Be right back,” she sang as she took bouncy steps into the bedroom.
Hal handed me another stack of money. “Here’s your five grand. Nice work, kid.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s the beauty of it. Pack your bags. The flight to Rome is tomorrow at five.”
Really? It was that easy? “Hold on. Don’t you want to do a background check on me or anything first?”
He typed on his phone and didn’t even look up to respond. “Why? Are you a criminal?”
“No, but you just hired a guy you know nothing about to hang out with an impressionable and presumably naïve girl. It’s irresponsible.”
He shrugged as if it either hadn’t occurred to him, or he didn’t consider it important. “I can set up an interview with the head of security if that makes you feel better.”
“It’s not about making me feel better. It should be standard procedure. You can’t let just any nut job near her.”
He tucked his phone into the inside breast pocket of his suit and slapped my shoulder. “I’ll arrange for you to meet with security while she does her radio interview. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t be around her?”
That depended on the head of security’s feelings about the Noir et Bleu. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.”
“Good,” he said as Lincoln returned and met us at the door. He handed her an itinerary that she barely glanced at before giving it back to him. “Okay, so after the radio interview you have lunch with Gayle.”
“Gayle?” she asked but didn’t actually seem interested in the answer.
“The songwriter working on your next album. You met her last year,” he reminded her. “She wants to go over a few things with you. You have a photo shoot for the concert promos at three, and dinner with your mom at seven. After that, you can take the night off and hang out with Cain.”
