by Raine Thomas
Lily, what do you like to do when you’re not with The Void?
“At you.”
He briefly looked up from the paper in his hand before grabbing another one. “Huh?”
“No one was ever her,” she said conversationally. “I always wondered why you never spent an entire night with anyone, never dated anyone, never wrote songs inspired by relationships with women.”
Jesus, what was with the female mind? he wondered as he read the next slip of paper. He was twenty-five years old, for God’s sake. Why would he have worried about any of those things? He didn’t have any interest in dealing with a psychoanalysis from Keith’s girlfriend right then, so he didn’t reply.
Lily, do you wear thongs or bikinis? the next strip read.
What. The. Serious. Fuck?
“It was because you had Lily. She gave you everything you needed except for sex.”
“I guess.” He reached for the notebook beside Lily’s computer. He had long ago learned how to translate the nearly indecipherable shorthand she had created for herself. “You’ve always known she was my best friend.”
“Oh, I knew. I just didn’t realize the significance of that until now.”
He listened with only half an ear as he reasoned out what Lily had noted down. If he was right, she was indicating that she had received over three hundred e-mails asking her these personal questions.
Could that be right?
“She screened me out, you know,” Nikki said.
He had to find Christopher and get to the bottom of this. Surely he was misunderstanding Lily’s scrawl. Glancing at Nikki, he again tuned into what she had said. Deciding it would be rude to walk away in the middle of the conversation she seemed to be having with him, he paused with the notebook in his hand.
“Screened you for what?”
“No,” she said, her eyes intent on his face. “Screened me out. For you.”
His brain took several seconds to compute the words and comprehend them. He realized she was saying that Lily had steered him clear of Nikki back at a time when Nikki intended to pursue him.
The hell if he could remember that, though. He had never been attracted to Nikki that way. It wouldn’t have taken Lily to stop him from getting involved with her.
“Really?” he managed, unable to recall a time where he felt more awkward or desperate to flee. “Huh. Well, I guess it’s lucky that she did. You might not have ended up with Keith otherwise.”
He tried a smile to keep the conversation light, but she didn’t return it. Instead, she shrugged and looked back at the television.
“Lucky?” she said without any feeling. “Maybe. But I can tell you that if I had fallen asleep at the table, Keith would have left me there.”
Archer absolutely did not want to be having this conversation. But he kept thinking about Lily’s earlier insights about Keith intending to break up with Nikki and couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
“Keith and I are just different guys,” he ventured carefully. “Don’t compare apples to oranges, right?”
“You’re right,” she agreed, still not looking at him. “Because there is no comparison.”
Suddenly all too aware of the camera operator capturing all of this, Archer cleared his throat and said, “Ah, well, I’ve got to talk to Christopher. I won’t keep you from...whatever.”
And with that pathetic parting, he high-tailed it to the back of the bus praying Nikki never spoke of her obvious feelings for him again.
* * *
“Come on, Lily. If you don’t wake up now, you won’t sleep tonight.”
Lily didn’t open her eyes at Dane’s prodding. She just tried to burrow deeper into his pillow and mumbled, “Cut it out. You know we’re not going to sleep tonight.”
“Sure we will,” he assured her, tugging at the blanket.
“No, we won’t. Sleep now.”
“Yes, we will. I promise.”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t say how much sleep.”
“Trying to kill me with sex,” she grumbled as she felt the blanket leave her body in one swift yank.
“What a way to go,” he said cheerfully, making her want to punch him.
“Gonna break your perfect nose,” she vowed as she felt herself being propped up into a sitting position.
“Why would someone want to know if you wear thongs or bikinis?” he asked.
Her eyes flew open and she found Dane squatting beside the bunk she was in so that they were on eye-level. He held her glasses out to her, so she snatched them from him and slid them on in an irritated gesture. When she saw his grin, she knew he had asked the question to get her to cooperate. That just made her glare at him.
“Maybe the question should be why someone wouldn’t want to know,” she replied haughtily, lifting her chin in a pompous pose that was ruined when some of her hair freed itself from her bun and tumbled down half of her head.
Dane’s lips twitched, which set her off. They both laughed as she reached back to tug her hair back into place. Her gaze lifted to the top of his bunk and she saw all of the photos of them together. She smiled when she saw one of the two of them shortly after they met. They were sitting at an outdoor table at an L.A. restaurant the first time she met his mother, who had taken the photo. Lily’s braces flashed in the image as she laughed at a joke Dane had made about a guy walking past them.
They looked so natural together, she thought now. How hadn’t she seen it?
“I don’t think I’ve grown an inch since this was taken,” she said, pulling the photo down to look at it a little more clearly.
“Maybe not,” Dane said. “But I have. In many ways.”
His meaningful tone had her glancing at him. She had only to see the look in his eye to understand he was saying that he had grown as a person since the photo was taken. And their new relationship was in part because of that.
Her smile softened with all of the love she held for him. She reached out to touch the side of his face, brushing the backs of her fingers along his jawline. Before she spoke, she noticed a shadow to her right. Instinct immediately told her that it was a camera operator, so she didn’t look towards it. But she did rethink what she was going to say.
The world didn’t need to hear the most intimate feelings in her heart.
“Why is the bus stopped?” she asked, replacing the photo. “Are we getting gas?”
“No. The driver said there was something wrong with the power steering or something. We pulled over so he could look into it.”
“That sounds dire,” she said, swinging her legs over the bunk so she could get up and stretch. “Guess that means we’re running late.”
“Not too bad so far.” Dane took her hand and led her past the camera operator towards the back of the bus. “We’ve only been stopped about fifteen minutes. Nikki went out to see if she could help move things along.”
“Nikki?”
“Um, yeah. She has some experience with mechanics, remember?”
Lily noticed how uncomfortable he seemed but didn’t comment on it. “Oh, right. But didn’t she work at a one of those quick oil change places? They don’t service buses, do they?”
Now Dane gave her a look that said she was ridiculous for even asking, which was true. What he knew about cars and other motorized vehicles could fit on a flea’s butt. It was a point of misery for him any time he visited his family in Detroit.
“Right,” she said. “Never mind.”
They reached the back of the bus where Christopher sat in the curved seating area with Sage and Xander. Spotting Lily and Dane, Christopher waved them over.
“Hey, Lily,” Christopher said. “I wanted to speak with you.”
Something in his tone had her looking questioningly from Christopher to Dane before she shrugged and took a seat, sliding over so Dane could sit beside her. “Sure. What’s up?”
“Dane found your slips of paper and notes from your work earlier,” Christopher explained. “He asked
me to check the fan mail account, so I did. We saw how many messages there were.”
Lily had already reasoned out that much because Dane knew about the embarrassing thongs versus bikinis question. She’d chat with him later about going through her things. Right now she wanted to know what Christopher thought about her ideas.
“I have to say,” Christopher went on, “I’m just incredibly disappointed.”
Surprise had her breath hitching in her chest. Her mouth opened so she could apologize or defend herself, but no words came to mind. All she could think was that she couldn’t believe he was censuring her in front of the guys.
“Disappointed in myself,” he clarified, grinning because he knew he had fooled her. “Had I known what kind of response you’d get, I would have hired you years ago.”
He lifted his arm to defend himself against the friendly smack she gave him for tricking her. “Not cool. You had me freaking out!”
His green eyes twinkled with humor. “Archer made me do it.”
Now she turned and slapped at Dane’s arm. “First you go through my things and then you have Christopher make me think I’m doing a bad job? Are you kidding me?”
Dane laughed but didn’t try to talk his way out of it. “I had to see how you’d react. And it was actually Xander’s idea.”
Her narrowed eyes shot over to the rhythm guitarist, whose wide grin fell comically when she pinned him with a look.
“Uh-oh,” Xander said.
“Yeah, uh-oh,” she said ominously, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. Then she deliberately looked back at Christopher in a “We’re not through here, Xander” manner that had the big man easing off of his seat. “What did you think about the Lily’s Grab Bag idea?” she asked Christopher.
“Coward,” Sage muttered to Xander under his breath.
“Hell, yeah,” Xander agreed over his shoulder as he scurried away from Lily.
Christopher ignored them. “I think it’s brilliant. We can work on the title, maybe come up with something a little more in line with the Lily’s Quickies concept.”
“The Lily’s what now?” Dane asked incredulously.
Lily rolled her eyes. “You really never go onto the social media sites, do you?”
“Uh, I will be now,” he assured her, pulling out his phone as though to cement his point.
“Anyway,” Christopher continued, “I hadn’t realized that Void fans would respond to you so well. You can tell me ‘I told you so’ another time, as we both know you were right. They need someone to connect with who they can relate to.”
“And she’s hot,” Sage added.
Everyone looked at him. His gaze was on his computer, but he pushed his glasses up on his nose and flicked a glance at them.
“What?” he said. “It’s true. Straight male fans want someone to fantasize over and Bubbles isn’t into guys. Lily is tapping into a whole new dynamic for us.”
Lily thought Sage was trying to be sweet. She couldn’t see any reason he would say those things otherwise. She turned to give Dane an amused “Can you believe this?” look and was surprised to see that he didn’t look happy.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him. “You’re not seriously buying that, are you? I mean, look at me.” She waved at her glasses, lack of makeup, and practical bun. “This is not what guys are clamoring after.”
“They are if they want to release that hair of yours and rip your glasses off to see the eyes they’re hiding,” Sage pointed out in his pragmatic tone. “Isn’t that what you always said about me and my look?”
Good Lord. How could she argue with that?
But her? A sex symbol?
She couldn’t think of something she wanted less. She’d never get taken seriously as a writer if she started down that path.
Anxiety had her stomach standing up and taking notice. She struggled not to bring a hand to it, knowing Dane would see something was upsetting her.
“Whatever the reason, Lily,” Christopher said, “you’ve already established a strong fan base and it’s only been a few days. We’ll monitor the accounts closely to see if this gets too unmanageable for you. While the momentum is going strong, we need to find a way to leverage your popularity to promote The Void and House of Archer. We can start by making sure the majority of questions you answer each day pertains to the band.”
She swallowed and nodded, longing for her notebook. No sooner did the thought pop into her head than Dane was handing her the notebook he had taken and one of her pens. She gave him a smile that she hoped masked her stress. Judging by the concerned look on his face, though, she didn’t think she had succeeded.
Her attention returned to Christopher. She wanted to make sure she followed his advice so her efforts best helped the band. In the meantime she would pray that Sage’s comments were off the mark.
Not long after they hammered out a few more ideas, Nikki and the bus driver returned to inform them they were getting back on the road. Lily was relieved. She hadn’t wanted to get into Glendale too late in the evening.
“What was wrong, Nikki?” Lily asked the other female as she emerged from the bathroom after washing the grease from her hands.
“Slow leak in the power steering line,” she replied. “Duct tape patched it up. Ted there had more steering fluid,” she added, indicating the driver, “so we’re ready to roll.”
Lily smiled. “I’m so impressed. You’re a handy lady to have around.”
“Good to know someone thinks so,” Nikki said with a small smile as she turned to head back to the front of the bus where Keith was sitting with Xander and Noelle.
The camera operator departed after her. Lily wasn’t sorry to see him go.
She looked again at Dane, sensing the tension in him. He seemed to relax as the camera left, so she figured he was just as ready to step away from the cameras as she was.
“Okay,” she said, lifting her pen as the bus once again started moving. “What should we call Lily’s Grab Bag?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“What about Lily’s Hand Jobs?” Dane suggested.
He and Lily were soaking in the big tub in his hotel suite later that night, enjoying a relaxing bath after their long travel day and feverish coupling once they reached the room. Since she was sitting in front of him with his arms around her, she jerked her elbow back to nudge him in the ribs, sloshing water perilously close to the lip of the tub.
He issued an “oof” sound and instinctively moved his arm to protect his side. “Hey, I’m trying to be helpful,” he said with laughter in his voice. “You didn’t decide on anything earlier.”
“Yeah, well, you’re just being crude now,” she said, fighting a grin. “The right title will come to me.”
“I’d rather come to you,” he said, bringing his hands back around and using them to leisurely massage her breasts.
“Cheesy,” she murmured, sinking back against him and closing her eyes to fully enjoy the pleasure of his touch.
She made an approving sound when his lips moved to nuzzle the side of her neck. He could provoke so many sensations in her with the simplest contact. She thought she could stay like this with him forever.
It was the perfect end to a rather promising day, she thought. Sure, they hadn’t decided on a good name for Lily’s Grab Bag, but she was beginning to think that maybe getting the Void’s fans involved in that would be fun. They’d likely get a kick out of coming up with a good title.
Outside of the name, though, she felt the concept was solid. While Dane had gone to play cards with his band mates, Lily and Christopher had hammered out how she would do the Q&A and be creative in promoting The Void and House of Archer.
They decided to give it a trial run that very afternoon. She had gotten Dane to ask her the first question, of course. They opted to go with a fan-centric question to appeal to as much of the audience as they could. To make it seem more impromptu in the video, they still had Dane reach into the plastic bag Lily was temporarily
using to hold her question strips and pull one out.
“Hey, Lily,” Dane read into her phone’s camera, wiggling his eyebrows in a deliberately hammy gesture, “what’s your favorite Void song?”
Before replying, Lily had moved so she sat right next to Dane, swiveling her camera to capture them both. “This is almost impossible for me to answer because I’m the ultimate Void fan girl,” she confessed. “But if I absolutely had to pick just one—”
“You do,” Dane interjected.
“It would be ‘Not Mine,’” she finished.
She felt Dane grow still beside her and knew she had surprised him. Christopher had told her about the song while they were brainstorming and played a clip of the creation session among the band. The song had gripped her from the first line and hadn’t let go.
“Now I know you’re all watching this going, ‘Not Mine?’ That’s not a Void song, Lily,” she said into the camera. “But you’d be wrong. It just hasn’t been released yet. Believe me, guys and gals, when you hear this song, you’ll immediately know why it’s my favorite. I have it on good authority that the band will be dropping the single the first chance they get, so stay tuned to learn more. As soon as I know, you’ll know.”
As she ended the video, Dane had reached for her chin to turn her so he could look into her eyes. “Was that your real answer?” he wanted to know.
“Yes.”
“Why is it your favorite?” Xander asked from where he and the rest of the band had gathered around the back of the bus to see how her first video went.
“Because it’s emotional, it’s compelling, and most of all,” she said softly, looking at Dane, “it’s about me.”
Dane had searched her face with his dark, sexy eyes before leaning closer to her and saying to the room, “You guys will want to leave now if you don’t want to see a whole lot of emotional, compelling kissing.”
Lily registered the sound of footfalls as people turned to leave, and almost laughed at Keith’s, “But what if we want to see the kissing?”
Then Dane’s lips had touched hers and she hadn’t thought about the others again until they reached Glendale. By that time, she and Dane were more than anxious to get to the hotel room.
