by Salsbury, JB
A low moan of protest rumbles in my throat as I press closer to the wall. A heavy arm comes around my waist like a python. “What time is it?”
“Almost three.” Ryder’s voice is rough with overuse. “Fucking Chris.”
“What happened—”
“Shh, go to sleep. I’m so fucking tired.” He nuzzles my hair and inhales deeply. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
With my hand over his, I close my eyes and allow the gentle rumble of the bus to lull me back to sleep.
I wake alone in my bunk what feels like minutes later to the sound of whispered voices. Not just voices, but also a feminine giggle. I strain to listen.
One deep, very male whisper accompanied by a woman’s voice.
I wouldn’t put it past Ethan to bring a girl along with us to Portland. After all, it’s less than a three-hour trip home if she gets off at our next stop. But sickness stirs in my gut as the low voice rumbles with familiarity.
I rub my eyes and slip from my bunk, convinced I’m being paranoid but have to see with my own eyes anyway. When I turn toward the living space, I take in four things simultaneously.
Ethan’s privacy curtain to his bunk is closed.
There’s a gorgeous blonde sprawled on the couch with a blanket over the lower half of her body.
Her upper half is wearing Ryder’s black UFL sweatshirt.
And Ryder is facing her with his hands wrapped around a protein shake and a charming smile aimed in her direction.
He must sense movement because his gaze slides to mine. Guilt washes his expression pale, or at least I think it’s guilt. I’ve seen it enough I should be an expert by now. He jumps up from the couch a little too quickly. “Hey, you’re up.”
I glare at him and he flinches, but it’s hardly noticeable to anyone who isn’t looking. “You’re observant.”
The blinds are cracked, and it looks like we’re parked in the back of a new arena.
“I didn’t want to wake you up,” he says while slowly inching his way toward me as if I’m a coiled snake rattling my tail.
I eye the girl on the couch, big brown eyes, perfect skin, thick lips. Ryder has a type. “No. I’m sure you didn’t.”
“What?” He takes a step toward me, and I hold up my hand.
“I need a shower.”
He doesn’t stop moving and risks putting his arms around me. I tense and feel him tense in response. “Great. I’ll come with you.”
I lean back enough to glare up at him. “No. You won’t.”
He looks sad, defeated. Rejected.
Good.
I turn out of his arms and scurry into the bathroom only to slam the door into his flat palm as he pushes the thing open and follows me in.
“Jade,” he says softly, playfully. “Is there something you want to get off your chest, babe?”
“Nope.” With my back to him, I close my eyes, my face scrunched with all the things I want to say as I clench my fists and—
“I can see you in the mirror, beautiful.” There’s humor in his voice.
My eyes dart open to see his reflection as he leans on the door behind me with a smug look on his perfectly handsome cheater face. “All right.” I turn around and cross my arms over my chest. “Explain her.”
“Who?”
My glare tightens, and for some insane reason it makes him laugh. Laugh!
“I’m sorry. I know I’m being a dick, but fuck me…” He pushes off the wall and crosses toward me. “Jealousy looks good on you, babe.”
“I am not jealous.”
He lifts one brow. “No? Hm, because you looked like you wanted to rip open that poor girl and paint the bus in her blood.”
I shrug. He’s not wrong. “Why’s she wearing your sweatshirt?”
“Funny story—”
“I’m sure it is. She seemed to think so with all the giggling I heard going on.” I try to push away the warm feeling that floods my chest as his arms come around my waist. I keep my arms folded refusing to touch him back. “You really are quite the charmer, aren’t you?”
“Jade.” He tucks his chin to meet my eyes. “Our record label set up an after party, and we had to show our faces. I didn’t find out about it until after you left for the bus. I would’ve come and gotten you, but I only planned on staying for thirty minutes. When I got there…” He frowns and shakes his head.
“What?”
His eyes dart toward the door and then back at me. “Chris. Him and Dina have been having some problems, I guess. He got drunk. Fast. And he was all over this girl. Ethan had his hands full, Jesse snuck out, and I wanted to leave, but I knew if I did Chris would end up doing something that would kill his marriage.”
“Oh my God,” I say into my palm. “What happened?”
“I was trying to get Chris to leave all night. He kept looping his arm over this girl and begging her to come back to the bus. I pulled her aside and explained Chris wasn’t in the best frame of mind and that he’s married, and she swore she just wanted to hang out with him, ya know, as friends.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Thank God we had to hit the road, so Chris said his goodbyes and I got him on the bus, crawled into bed with you, and that was that. Then I wake up this morning to the sound of a woman crying. I walk out and the chick is fucking naked under that blanket, and she’s bawling her eyes out.”
“Oh, no…”
He frowns. “I know. So I snagged a sweatshirt for her and asked how the hell she got on the bus.”
“Chris.”
He nods. “Chris. He snuck her on right before we took off, promised her he’d get her back to Seattle safely.”
“Did they…?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve been keeping her company and being nice so she doesn’t run off to the paps and blab. Chris is fucked either way.”
“I’m sorry I assumed. It’s just, I saw her and… you have a type and—”
His grip around my waist tightens. “I have a type?”
“Yeah. Blonde, skinny, beautiful.”
He seems confused. “You see one ex-girlfriend, and you think I have a type.”
“Your mom and stepmom are the same. I figured it was a family thing.”
“Yes. You got me,” he says, bored. “I like fuckin’ women who look like my mom and stepmom. Gross, Jade.”
“What? That’s a thing!”
“It’s not my thing.” His blue eyes lock on mine. “If I have a type, it’s fiery women who push my buttons and give fantastic head.”
I smack his chest, laughing. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I’m kidding.” He nuzzles my neck, chuckling. “I don’t have a type. I just like you. Only you. And I like you… a lot.”
I believe him so I unfold my arms and wrap them around his waist. “Yeah, yeah. I know you do.”
His laughter rumbles against my cheek.
“What are you going to do about the girl?”
He shrugs. “She’s not my problem. She’s Chris’s. But he better handle it in a way that won’t piss her off.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” I’ve been in her position, and once you fuck with a female’s emotions, there’s no coming back from it. “Want me to talk to her?”
He peers down at me. “You’d do that?”
I shrug.
“What will you say?”
“First I’m going to tell her to give my boyfriend’s sweatshirt back.” I hear the word come from my mouth, and the instant it does, the air around us electrifies.
Ryder’s body is tight but not in a bad way. More like awareness. “Boyfriend?”
“Shit, that’s not what I—”
He kisses my lips and whispers, “Too late. You can’t take it back.”
Ryder
I’ve been cursing Chris in my head for the last two hours. What the fuck was he thinking? I tried like hell to keep him from making the biggest mistake of his life last night, but I realized this morning
I can’t save a man who’s set to self-destruct.
When Jade saw me sitting with Hailey, her wearing my sweatshirt no less, I saw in her eyes the conclusion she’d drawn. And as much as I wanted to shake her for not having more faith in me, for thinking I’d be so quick to throw away what we have, I couldn’t give her too much shit for it.
I gave her a little shit, sure, but not too much.
I get the feeling Jade’s last relationship left her with some trust issues, maybe even made her doubt herself. If I were a selfless man, I’d leave her alone and let her work that shit out before stealing her away and into my life. Too bad for her, I’m a selfish prick who knows what he wants. So I’m taking her.
I marvel at her stormy gray eyes as she watches me warily through the reflection in the mirror before bending forward and spitting out a mouthful of foamy toothpaste.
“I didn’t realize brushing my teeth warranted an audience?”
I shrug. “I like watching you.”
She acts annoyed, but I grin at the blush rising in her cheeks.
“Okay.” She whirls around, her face washed, teeth brushed, hair pulled up into a ponytail. “I’m going to go talk to her. Hailey, right?”
At my nod, she turns and I follow her out of the bathroom only to slam into her back when she stills in the hallway.
Hailey hasn’t moved from the couch, but she’s not alone. Sitting at her side, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a T-shirt, is Chris. He’s leaning over, elbows on his knees, hands running through his hair like he’s trying to pull the shit out.
“I can’t believe you’re married and have kids.” Hailey doesn’t notice us as we remain frozen in the hallway.
“I fucked up,” Chris mumbles.
“Do you know what it makes me? I’m the other woman. I’m the woman your kids will grow up and hate. The woman your wife will always blame for the destruction of her family,” Hailey says through tears. “You said you were divorced.”
Jade flinches.
I wrap my arm around her from behind to steady her. “Let’s give them some privacy.”
“No.” Her one-word answer is fierce and gives no room for bargaining.
As much as I feel like a creeper for eavesdropping, Chris did this shit to himself.
“She told me last week she was leaving me.” He rubs his eyes. “We’re not divorced, and I had way too much to drink.” There are tears in his voice.
I wish I could rewind to last night. I would’ve picked his ass up and locked him in the bus, sat on him if I had to, but I never thought he’d go through with it. Maybe they just kissed or made out before he came to his senses.
“We had sex, Chris!”
His shoulders slump.
So much for wishful thinking.
“Unprotected sex!”
Oh, shit. My arm around Jade tightens.
“I know, but I’m clean, I swear.” His bloodshot, tear-stained eyes lift to hers. “You’re on the pill right? You said you were last night.”
“Yes, but—”
“Oh, thank fuck.” He groans and drops his head back into his hands.
“How do you know I’m clean?” she asks.
Chris’s face pales, then turns a nasty shade of green. “Are you?”
“You’re such an ass.” Tears stream down her face, and her gaze slides to us. “I just want to go home.”
Jade jumps into action, pushing out of my hold, and crosses to her. She levels Chris with a glare that would melt steel and sits at the opposite side of Hailey. “We’ll get a car to take you home. Are you hungry?”
Hailey seems leery of Jade at first.
“Chris?” Jade says with a scary calm voice that has goose bumps rising on my skin. “Why don’t you take your lying, cheating ass back to bed and let the adults clean up your mess for you.”
“Jesus, Jade,” Chris groans through a wall of sadness and shame.
“Did you expect sympathy?” Jade leans in, and I get closer in case I’m going to have to jump in to keep her from beating the shit out of Chris because her body language makes me believe that’s the direction this is heading. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to open yourself up, give the most vulnerable part of yourself away to someone only to find out they lied to you? And worse, they turned you into a home-wrecker? You can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be used, stomped on, and cast aside like you’re trash.”
Chris’s jaw gapes.
“Dina said she’s leaving you? Maybe that’s because she’s home, holding down the fort so you can be out here living your dream.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.
“Don’t I? It’s not rocket science. Men are all the same.”
The vicious emphasis on that one word has my balls crawling up inside my body, and I bite my tongue rather than interject a defense for myself.
“Leave it alone,” Chris says, but it’s clear he must have at least a few brain cells left because he stands to leave, understanding he won’t win this fight. “My relationship is none of your business.”
Jade pushes to her feet. Her glare shoots directly at Chris’s back. “Do you know how long it takes to build up the kind of walls that keep others from hurting you? Only to have some smooth-talking rich guy swoop in and knock them all down by simply paying attention to you? And no matter how hard you try to push him away because you can tell immediately that he’s going to destroy your heart, you can’t seem to tell him no. Because he tells you how beautiful you are, how smart you are, how much he fantasizes about a future with you and how maybe, just maybe, if you play your cards right, you’ll get a shot at that future.” She thumps her chest with a closed fist. “I know what it feels like to be so blinded by someone that you’d believe every single word out of their mouth, even if those words contradict everything you know to be true.”
“Fuck,” I whisper. My pulse pounds, and my stomach twists with sickness at her raw confession.
Jade blinks and seems to remember where she is. Her gaze darts from Chris to me, but she quickly looks away to focus on Hailey. “You should probably get dressed while we find you a ride home.”
With tears in her eyes, the girl gathers the blanket around her waist and nods a thank-you to Jade before moving to the back of the bus. When she passes Chris, she stops and stares directly into his eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell my dad if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Chris is momentarily knocked off balance. “What? You said you were twenty-one.”
She pauses. “I am.”
His face turns back to that pasty shade of green, and he asks in a low voice, “What’s your last name?”
When she passes me toward the bathroom, she grabs her clothes from Chris’s bunk and answers, “I told you last night. Arenfield.”
And with the slam of the bathroom door, she puts the final nail in Chris’s coffin.
22
Ryder
“I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m so fucking fucked.”
This has been Chris’s mantra since Hailey Arenfield was picked up and taken back to her home in Seattle. Apparently she assumed we all knew who she was. It’s how she arranged for an after party with a dozen of her closest college friends.
Chris looks like he’s got one foot in a psychiatric facility with wild eyes and even wilder hair as he rocks back and forth in his boxers and T-shirt. He’s on the verge of a total nervous breakdown, and Jade sits off in a corner with a smirk on her sexy lips.
“She said before we…” His face flickers green. “Ugh… I can’t. I…” He swallows, repeats his mantra, and says, “She asked me if her last name was going to be a problem, and I said no because I didn’t fucking know her last name, and… oh, fuck—” He takes off running to the bathroom, and the sound of him dry-heaving fills the bus.
I look at Ethan who woke a bit ago and just heard the story, and he has been shaking his head ever since. “You think she’ll tell her dad?”
“Depends on how much she hates the man,” Jade says, calling all our attention. “If she has a good relationship with him, she won’t talk. But if she wants to hit him where it hurts, this would be the best ammo.”
“She’s right.” I toss the sweatshirt she left behind into the dirty clothes. “Jade and I are going to the hotel.” I look at Ethan. “You stay with him, okay? Don’t leave him alone.”
“Dude.” Ethan groans. “Why do I have to babysit? He’s going to be crying all day.”
I shrug and hold my hand out to Jade, and I’m grateful when she takes it. I honestly wondered, in the man-hating mood she is in, if she would. “Serves him right.”
“The door is open, ya know!” Chris yells. “I can hear you!”
“Good! Man the fuck up. Finish the tour, then get your ass home and make things right with your wife, asshole!” My blood has been pumping fire all morning. I need to get away, alone with Jade, and find out where the hell all that shit she spouted to Chris came from and then we need to get back to normal.
Chris is a good guy. He’s like a brother, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and allow his problems to become mine.
Jade
From the back of an executive car, I watch the city of Portland pass by with a small grin on my face. There’s a sick sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing Chris had an affair with his boss’s daughter. I know it makes me a gigantic bitch, but the bad guys rarely have to pay for the lives they ruin.
I hadn’t pegged Chris for a bad guy though.
Ryder sits next to me, tapping his fingers on his denim-clad thighs while his right knee bounces nonstop. If he weren’t a drummer, I’d assume he was anxious about something.
“Everything okay?”
His fingers freeze, and he looks at me. “Yeah.” He goes back to the finger-tapping, but I’m not convinced he’s telling the truth.
The rest of the ride is silent until we pull up to a historic brick building that I assume must be our hotel. Rodger, our security, circles the hood to be there just as the valet pops the back door. A manager meets us at the glass doors to offer us our key, and Roger thanks him before politely telling him we don’t need an escort. When the elevator opens on the club level, we’re met by Ty and Max who point us to our room.
