Our private booth was on the second-floor balcony, so we could look over the dance floor and take in the sight of gyrating hips and wandering hands. Jayce made sure to sit on the opposite end of the booth, as far away from me as he could manage. We tried to avoid each other’s eyes as best as we could.
“Here.”
Ren put a glass of something neon pink in my hand. The condensation felt wet and cool against my already heated skin. For all the fancy trappings and high-tech decor, the club didn’t have the best air conditioning.
“Thanks.” I took a sip and was pleasantly surprised. The drink wasn’t sickly sweet like its color made it seem. I might have looked like the kind of girl who only drank candy-flavored cocktails, but I had an appreciation for harder liquors as well. “What is it?”
Ren shrugged. “No idea. I just saw another girl drinking it. How is it?”
“Great. Keep ‘em coming.”
My phone pinged, and I snuck a quick glance at the screen. I was supposed to be relaxing, not working, but I couldn’t help it. I guessed people were right when they called me internet-addicted.
must be nice, getting to follow the band around like a stray dog
do you blow them all backstage after concerts?
Another jealous fan? Or the same one? This was getting old. Just because I ran the social media accounts for a rock band, didn’t mean I was sleeping with all of them.
I fought back a blush as I thought about Jayce and dismissed the message.
I was happy to continue drinking my neon cocktails. The rest of the band mostly drank plain beer, but Morris stuck to a glass of something lightly amber colored, whiskey perhaps. I thought he’d get more wasted than the rest of the band, but, surprisingly, he was the soberest. Kell, on the other hand, was gone after only a handful of beers. He got louder and more obnoxious as the night went on, but the rest of us were pleasantly buzzed enough to find him hilarious and not annoying.
“Okay, okay, guys, seriously now, we’ve got to play a drinking game.”
Morris groaned into his glass. “Kell, man, remember the last time that happened?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
“Our little Ailey here has been working so hard lately, let’s all let loose and have a little fun.”
“I’m in,” Ren said, raising his beer in a cheer.
“Sure, fine,” Jayce chimed in. He stared down the neck of his beer as if contemplating the mysteries it held.
“What kind of drinking game?” I asked, feeling a bit nervous.
“Never have I ever!” Kell crowed.
“What’s that?”
“We go around in a circle, and each person says something they’ve never done,” Ren explained. “If you have, you take a drink.”
“Or a shot,” Kell chimed in.
“Let’s not get too crazy tonight,” Ren said. “We have another show tomorrow.”
“You’re no fun,” Kell grumbled, but quickly cheered up. “All right, Ailey, you go first.”
I was put on the spot, so I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. “I’ve never gone skydiving.”
“Boring,” Kell declared. “You can do better than that. And preface it with ‘never have I ever,’ okay?”
“Give me a few seconds.” I thought hard. Was there a trick to this game? I supposed you’d want to get everyone else to take a drink. So maybe I could say something I knew the others have done. “Never have I ever… taken my shirt off on stage.”
Kell and Ren groaned, then took a drink. Jayce drank as well, but did so silently.
“It’s not fair,” Kell said. “You probably know way more about us than we know about you.”
I shrugged. “You chose the game.”
“I’m next,” Ren said. He was sitting to my left, so I assumed we went clockwise. “Never have I ever… masturbated in public.”
I nearly choked. Was that the kind of question we were supposed to ask?
“What counts as public?” Kell asked.
“If you have to ask, take a drink,” Ren replied.
Kell was the only one who took a drink that time and it was his turn next. He sat up straight and cleared his throat, holding up his glass to the room as if in a salute. “Never have I ever had a threesome.” He knocked back his own drink.
“Does it work that way?” I asked. “Can you drink on your own turn?”
“You can if you want to brag about something stupid,” Morris muttered.
To my surprise, Jayce also took a drink. My mouth popped open before I shut it closed. Jayce had a threesome? I wondered whether it was with two girls, or a girl and a guy. I ducked my head, looking away. Never in a million years would I ever ask that out loud.
“Jayce, your turn.”
“Never have I ever gotten so drunk I passed out in a bathroom and had to be dragged home unconscious.”
“No fair, ganging up on your lead singer!” Kell complained, although he took a drink. “Or I’ll pull a Beyoncé and leave the group to go solo.”
They ignored him, but Morris also took a drink.
I tried to discreetly take a sip of mine without them noticing. No such luck.
“No way!” Kell exclaimed, a grin on his face. “You?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Not my proudest moment.”
“Tell. Us. Everything.”
There was no use protesting. What Kell wanted, Kell eventually got.
“A friend and I went to an all-you-can-drink party at a bar. We calculated how many drinks we needed to order to make it worth our while. Let’s just say the number was a few too many.”
“I can already tell this is going to be good,“ Ren said, sitting up eagerly.
“I have no recollection of this, but my friend had to drag me into a cab. The driver deposited us on the front step of our apartment. She was too drunk to work the keys to open the door. We just laid there on the sidewalk for hours.”
“You lush,” Kell grinned. I ignored him and continued.
“A lovely couple walking home from a date were concerned when they saw two young girls lying in the street. They helped us into the apartment. Apparently someone had called the police, because a cop knocked on the door later that night and my friend had to convince them everything was fine. I was unconscious the whole time and only found out about this later.”
The band looked mighty impressed. Jayce looked away and hid a smile behind his beer. Kell gave me three sharp claps of his hands in wonder.
“I never would have expected that from you. Way to go, internet girl.”
“Waking up to find my purse full of vomit didn’t exactly leave me with a good feeling. From what I do remember, though, it was a fun night.”
“Now that’s impressive,” Kell said. “Your turn, Morris. Try to top that.”
“Never have I ever been handcuffed and left locked to the bed frame overnight while my date took off with my clothes and money.” His voice was flat and monotone, but I could hear the amusement behind his words.
“You guys!” Kell griped. “Seriously, you’re not playing fair.”
“You’re the one who wanted to play the game,” Morris echoed my earlier words.
Kell huffed but took a drink. “Your turn again, Ailey.”
I tried to come up with something that I’d never done that I knew at least one of the guys had. I got a brilliant idea.
“Never have I ever played this game before.”
“Cheating!” Ren pointed a finger at me, accusingly. Morris and Jayce chuckled while Kell squawked.
“Drink up,” was the only thing I said, raising an eyebrow. They did, grumbling and moaning.
“Never have I ever…” Ren trailed off, an expression of intense concentration on his face. “…been accused of being addicted to my smartphone.”
“Ugh, fine.” I took a sip. Surprisingly, Jayce did as well. I wondered if he was a reformed addict. I’d rarely seen him on his phone.
Kell looked gleefully at me when
it was his turn, and I began to sweat. “Never have I ever swooned at Jayce’s patented sex-god look.”
I coughed, sputtering, trying not to choke on my own saliva. Ren gave me a few light slaps on the back.
“I’m waiting,” Kell said in a sing-song voice. I glared at him and took a sip, avoiding eye contact with Jayce at all costs. It was his turn next. I had hoped for a moment to recover and regain my mental balance when he came out with the worst one of all.
“Never have I ever made out in an empty stairwell.”
I gaped while Jayce took a swig of his own drink. He lowered his beer bottle and looked at me expectantly, his fiery gaze trained on me and me alone. My vision tunneled, going blurry at the edges. I was focused only on Jayce, and those eyes burning into me, those full lips curved in a cocky smirk.
I felt my body going through the motions without any input from my brain, bringing my glass to my lips and taking a sip. The cool liquid went down smoothly, but I couldn’t taste a thing. All I could feel was the touch of his hands on my skin, a ghost of a memory. Those rough fingers gripping my legs, inching their way up my inner thighs, leaving a trail of heat.
Jayce’s eyes flicked away, and I was free, floating back down from the clouds and back into my body only to feel my heart racing, my cheeks hot and flushed, the beginnings of desire making itself known between my legs. I looked down into my drink, embarrassed, not wanting to see the look on the other band members’ faces.
“Never have I ever lost a drinking contest against our rivals Darkest Days.”
Morris broke the silence, and all four of them drank.
I gave a silent thanks to Morris for ending the round of gang up on Ailey. Now I knew how Kell felt.
“And with that, I think the game’s over,” Ren said. “Kell’s had more than enough for one night. Let’s hit the road.”
Kell was surprisingly compliant and let the guys drag him out of the club. I followed behind, trying to stay as far away from Jayce as possible. If things were so over between us, why did he tease me like that? Did he like watching me squirm?
I hoped the other guys hadn’t figured it out, but they weren’t stupid. I was sure at least one of them knew something was up between me and Jayce.
I also couldn’t help but think about Kell’s turn. The threesome thing.
Jayce had been with two other people at the same time.
I wondered what that felt like. The thought of multiple hands on my body, of two strong, muscled chests pressed against both my front and back, of being filled by two men at the same time. That sweet ache between my legs intensified. My imagination filled in the gaps. One set of hands was rough, dark, and callused, sliding over my skin, leaving a trail of heat. Jayce. The other set of hands was softer, smoother. They were deft, long, and thin, able to play with me expertly until I was moaning and begging. Neil.
I flushed, warmth flooding my body at the thought.
“You coming, internet girl?” Kell yelled from the back of the taxi.
I hurried over and tried to push the thought out of my mind. It was ludicrous. Something as wild and sexy as that could never happen to me. Besides, Jayce and I were done, and I hadn’t even been on a date with Neil yet.
On the way back, though, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have those two men at the same time.
Chapter Eleven
I didn’t wake up with a headache the next morning. I’d drank a couple glasses of water before lying down on my hotel room bed and completely passing out.
That was a good thing, because Neil had messaged me and asked if I was free that night after the concert. I would have hated to go on a first date still hungover from the night before.
Figuring out what to wear was impossible. I tried on every combination of skirts and shirts I’d packed, but nothing stood out as particularly sexy or date-worthy. I hadn’t packed many clothes that weren’t business or business casual. I could have worn the red dress, but that just reminded me of going out drinking with Jayce and finding out Jayce had been in a threesome. That was not what I wanted to be thinking about on a date with Neil.
I cringed inwardly, an awkward feeling rising in my stomach. I’d been talking to Neil for months, had become close friends with him, and was going on a date with him tonight, but I couldn’t stop going over what happened between me and Jayce in the stairwell.
My fangirl crush on Jayce was turning into something more. Something real. What made it worse—or better, depending on the point of view—was that he was attracted to me, too.
Except we couldn’t do anything about it.
Jayce had hordes of fans to seduce. If anyone ever found out about us, it would mean trouble. I didn’t want to deal with the gossip and death threats that would follow me around. Jayce would have jealous fangirls abandon him in droves. The band would suffer. My reputation would suffer.
I had to stop thinking about it. I needed to move on and concentrate on my work.
Besides, what happened with Jayce would never happen again. It was a one-time thing. We’d both agreed.
I eventually decided to just wear my usual black pencil skirt and white silk blouse. Sure, Neil had already seen me in these clothes, but at least it made me look smartly dressed. My only other alternative was my one pair of jeans, and that was way too casual for a first date.
I was able to fancy myself up a bit by twisting my long dark hair into a complicated side bun that looked effortless and elegant at the same time. I put on a bit more makeup than I usually did for work, but not so much that I looked like a different person. Just enough to accentuate my best features, my brown eyes and high cheekbones.
As I rode the elevator down, I tried to combine the Neil I knew online with the driven assistant producer I’d gotten to know in real life. I never thought Neil was that kind of Type-A personality. Maybe getting to know someone online wasn’t like getting to know them in real life. A person could always be hiding a different side of themselves. After all, online, I liked to think AudioAiley was sharp and funny, but that was only because I put time and effort into the content I sent out. In person, I wasn’t nearly as quick-witted. Would Neil find me boring compared to the woman he’d expect me to be?
I had to shake off those thoughts and just go on the date with an open mind. No point worrying about it. I would get to know Neil and we’d either get along or we wouldn’t. Either way, I was sure we were adult enough to handle whatever might happen after that.
Neil was already waiting when I got there. He beckoned me over to a table. I wondered if he’d been waiting long.
He was wearing the same kind of tan slacks and light-colored dress shirts he usually wore, a light blue this time. His hair looked like it’d once been tamed with a comb but was now sticking out in all directions again. It was cute in a just-rolled-out-of-bed kind of way.
“Hey, Neil.” I flashed him a smile as I sat down.
“You know, I think you’re the only one who calls me that. It’s an online nickname. I usually go by Connor.”
“Do you want me to call you Connor?”
“No. I like it when you call me Neil.” His eyes sparkled with good humor. “What’ll you have?”
“Whiskey sour, thanks.”
I tugged on the hemline of my skirt as he went to get us drinks. I should have remembered this skirt tended to ride up when I sat down. I swung my legs under the table to cover my bare thighs. If things went well, Neil could feast his eyes as much as he wanted, but not this early on a date.
He came back with the drinks and set them on the table.
“I want to apologize again.”
“For what?”
He played with the drink, rotating the glass in his hands.
“That first day when I met you. I was an ass. I know I already apologized, but I wanted to do it again. If I had known it was you—” He shook his head. “No, that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t treat anyone like that.” He leaned forward, his piercing blue eyes clear and sincere. “I
can be brusque and demanding at times. It’s something I know I need to work on.”
“I don’t mind the demanding type.” The words slipped out before I could take them back, but the slow grin that creeped across Neil’s face made me glad I’d said them.
“I always need to have my hands in every pie. I can’t just let people do their jobs. I’m always telling the camera guys where to shoot, when I know that’s the director’s job. We have a person responsible for scheduling scenes, but I’m always rearranging the dates and times. I just want everything to go perfectly. If I pull this off, I won’t be an assistant producer anymore. I’ll be able to work as a full producer.”
“I understand. I also want to get ahead in the industry. I’d do almost anything to make it.”
Of course, that thought reminded me of Jayce and what people might think if they found out about our little tryst, but I pushed it to the back of my mind.
“Speaking of, I started putting together that content you wanted.”
“The cartoon drawing thing, right? That was great.”
“There’s tons more where that came from. The internet is a weird and mysterious place.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
We shared a grin. This was more like chatting with an old friend than being on a first date. I didn’t feel like I needed to put on a show and impress him. I could just be myself.
There was a lull in the conversation and Neil took the opportunity to lean forward and push a strand of hair that had fallen out of my twist behind my ear. My heart beat a quick thrill. His eyes were crinkled at the corners, a sly smile playing on his lips. He was clearly attracted to me. With his blue eyes, messy hair, and gorgeous face, I was just as attracted to him.
“Can I ask you something?” He leaned back in his chair, letting my hair go.
“Of course.”
“I know I asked you this online, but I was only joking back then.”
Hard Rock Tease: A Rock Star Romance (Darkest Days Book 1) Page 27
