Get Hitched (Hard Rock Roots Book 9) Page 3

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Dax snorts as I raise an eyebrow and pretend I'm so totally not jealous right now. It's not like I'm a vestal virgin or anything, but I just really don't want to hear about my boyfriend sleeping with a ton of groupie bitches. “They might not've been twenty thick outside my bus, but I never had to look for company—if I wanted it.” Dax glances over at me, his eyeliner smeared from the sweat of the stage, making his eyes look big and dark and sexy as fuck. “Which, you know, I didn't often. Want it, that is.”

  “You're such a fag,” Turner says and I watch as Dax grits his teeth and curls his hands into fists, making those beautiful arm muscles of his bunch with the motion. Ah, be still my aching heart.

  “Hey,” Trey says, shaking like a smack addict on a comedown. “You guys partying tonight?”

  I cross my arms over my chest and enjoy his look of lurid disgust when he sees how much cleavage I'm flashing. Treyjan runs his fingers across the brunette spikes of his hair and curls his lip at me, letting his attention move across Dax, Lola, Ronnie, Naomi … get caught on Turner. As usual, my brother's sporting a massively platonic but still creepily obsessed hard-on for Campbell.

  “Nah,” Turner says finally, dropping his cigarette to the ground and rubbing his palm down the line of rubber bracelets that trace his arm, all of them labelled with Mrs. Something-or-Other. He turns his brown eyes over to his friend. “No partying tonight, man. We're trying to, like, you know, figure out how to not die.”

  Trey's face gets tight as he adjusts his white t-shirt, plastered against his body with sweat. He might be up and moving around, even able to play a show, but that doesn't mean he should be dicking around doing drugs and staying up to all hours of the goddamn morning.

  “You should be in bed,” I say and his scowl is legendary.

  “Leave me the fuck alone, Sydney,” he snaps and I feel Dax go tense beside me. God, men are so stupid and silly when they get all defensive like that … but it also feels amazing to have somebody on my side. I glance back at my drummer boy toy and decide that maybe I'm not on tour with my brother, but with Mr. McCann over there.

  “Go grab a groupie and take her to bed or something. Hasn't it been, like, forever since you fucked anyone? You sure you still got a dick in there?” Turner flicks Treyjan in the crotch, but all my brother does is laugh. Wow. He's fucking desperate to get his best buddy's attention. Must be hard on him, seeing Turner fawn all over Naomi like that.

  “Be careful,” Ronnie says as he smokes a cigarette of his own, his left arm thrown around Lola's tiny shoulders. “Picking the wrong groupie could literally get you killed.”

  “You're too damn paranoid,” Trey says, ruffling his hair with his hand again. “The guy that shot me got arrested—”

  “And you damn well know the full story behind this crap,” Ronnie growls, pointing at my brother with the burning orange tip of his cherry. “You damn well know.”

  “So I'm supposed to just sit around here and rot? Not all of us found our fucking soul mates in the last few months,” Trey spits and there's this bitterness to his voice that surprises me. I mean, the kid didn't lose his virginity until he was twenty years old and even then, it was at Turner's urging; he's always been this hopeless romantic sort. I thought maybe he'd lost that over the last few years, but looking at him now … God, he's such a precious little screwup. “Besides, how often do we play the same venue two nights in a row? This is, like, the perfect storm of partying up here.”

  Trey gestures back at the venue, at the murmuring crowd on the opposite side, filing out onto the sidewalk, hanging out in the parking lot. There are any number of parties to be found tonight, all over this damn city. Clubs. Dancing. Drugs. Sex. Whatever we could possibly want.

  But, I don't know, maybe I'm getting old or something but everything I want is wrapped up in eyeliner, ghosts, zombies, and hard as fuck abs next to me.

  I am, like, so in love with my little Dax McCann.

  “Maybe Josh is going out or something? Go with him,” Turner says, putting his boot up on some ragged metal post that probably has something to do with the abandoned harbor next to us. Guess what's why they call this venue the Dead Sea Theater. Heh. Clever.

  “Josh?!” Treyjan asks, his eyes wide, looking like he might actually punch his good friend in the nuts. “You really have gone all domestic and shit. Josh doesn't party; he sits on the bus and reads fucking fairytale novels or some shit.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that's what you should be doing!” Turner yells back at him, tossing a freshly lit cigarette to the ground as I roll my eyes. Here they go … “You almost goddamn died! I won't fucking go through that shit again. You want to go out and party, huh? I'll fucking kick your ass before I let you wander around San Francisco like some oblivious tool.”

  “I wouldn't have to wander around San Francisco if this place was lit up like it used to be!” Trey screams back, gesturing at the three tour buses—Indecency's, Amatory Riot's, and some band called Torn and Toxic that Paulette picked up for the tour. “It's a frigging ghost town out here. You all got domestic and shacked up and shit and I'm supposed to just sit around and like, knit or something? Screw that.”

  Trey spins on his heel and Turner chases right after him—probably what he intended all along anyway.

  “He's kind of right, isn't he?” Ronnie says with a sigh and a small chuckle, dropping his smoke to the pavement. “We're boring as hell now, aren't we?”

  Naomi meets my eyes and makes a quirky smile. I think about our little outing to the bar, the karaoke, the coke, and … the near orgy in the limo.

  “Eh, I don't know if I'd say that exactly …” I start, sliding off the car's hood and grabbing Dax's hands. I pull him to his feet and he pauses in front of me, resting his sexy tattooed hands on my hips. I'm wearing this silly slip of a dress, some ruched up white bandage thing that I stole from Lola's closet. A personal shopper picked this baby up for her, so it's expensive as shit and it sits so high up on my thighs that it may as well be a shirt.

  But Dax seems to like it.

  And that's all I really give a fuck about.

  “You want to, like, go back to the bus and knit or something?” I joke, batting my eyelashes and tugging Dax towards the sleek silver sides of what's going to be our home for the next month. “Because I'd really like to see your needle, baby.”

  Finding privacy on these buses is like finding the Holy goddamn Grail. Last night, Sydney snuck into my bunk—what used to be Hayden's bunk—and curled up next to me while we listened to Turner and Naomi have sex across the way from us. I hate to admit how hot that was, and we ended up screwing to the sounds of their orgasms.

  Tonight, we're the first couple on the bus—Kash has cleared out to deal with the one remaining girl in his love triangle, and Wren is probably off snorting coke with some roadies—but when we push the door to the back open, there's Brayden Ryker waiting for us, sitting on the edge of my bunk.

  “Last time you popped in on one of us,” I say, leaning against the doorway with my arms crossed over my chest, “you left a dead body in Ronnie McGuire's bathtub.”

  “Well,” Brayden says as he rises to his feet, his tight black t-shirt advertising the word SECURITY in all caps, “I can assure you I'm here for an entirely different reason this time.” He turns to face us fully, taking up the entire hallway, red hair bright even in the dim lighting.

  “Yeah?” Sydney asks from beside me, lighting up another cigarette, breathing smoke out towards Brayden's bemused half-smile. “Enlighten us there, cowboy.”

  “We're having technical issues,” he says, swirling a finger around to indicate the cameras tucked into the ceiling, the walls, even the floors. “Real ones, surprisingly enough. You chucked your mics?” I nod—Sydney and I dropped our mics off at the front door. There's no way I'm wearing one while I fuck my new girlfriend. Sorry, but even with that leaked sex tape, I'm not thrilled at the idea of the world watching me screw. “Good. I need you to do me a favor.�
� He digs his fingers into the back pocket of his jeans and produces a small piece of paper, several lines of text scrawled in clean, black ink on the front. When I start to read down the list, I get the idea that these places are clubs or something. Boom-Boom Shack, Rigor, Violet Slender, Open Mike's. With names that dumb, they've gotta be clubs. Next to each one, a city's listed along with a number.

  “What is this and why are you giving it to us?” I ask as Sydney takes the piece of paper from my hand, reads it, and then tucks it inside her bra. I'm still getting used to seeing her cart stuff around in there. Honestly, just the sight of her brightly colored fingernails tracing over the slick sweaty skin of her breasts makes me go nuts.

  Before I know it, I'm sporting a massive fucking hard-on. What's new, right? That's the new normal for Dax McCann. Stiff woodies: morning, noon, and night.

  “Not tonight,” Brayden says, touching a hand to his earpiece as he waves some of Sydney's cigarette smoke from the air and stares straight into my face, “not tomorrow, but in Seattle, I need you to visit the first club on the list. The numbers indicate whether to visit on the first night of the show, the second, or both. Do not deviate from this list; do not leave these clubs.”

  “Hold up,” I say as I reach up a hand with black painted nails and rub at the bridge of my nose. “Now you want us to go clubbing? To party? Why? I mean, a dark club, pulsing lights, crowds of sweaty drunk idiots, that seems like the perfect place for somebody to get stabbed.”

  “No, not theatrical enough,” Brayden says with a long sigh as he stares at us, lips pursed. “Look, I understand how confusing this must all seem, but I am on your side. I didn't have enough evidence before to act, but I'm going to make it right. I'm going to shut this shite down once and for all. I need you to trust me.”

  “So you said before,” Sydney drawls with a long sigh, pausing as the door behind us opens and Naomi clomps up the steps and onto the bus. Sydney turns back to Brayden and shoves some pink hair over one shoulder. When she does that, I get the sweet floral lilt of her perfume in my nose and that does literally nothing to make my hard-on hurt any less. I feel like I'm about to cut a hole in my jeans.

  We exchange a look, Sydney and me, as Naomi makes her way over to us.

  “The fuck is going on?” she asks as she throws blonde hair over her shoulder and pauses behind us, dressed in a teal bra and jeans. The look she gives Brayden is less than friendly.

  “This fucker just said a key word,” Sydney says, pointing at him with a bright yellow nail. “Evidence. You a cop or something, Mr. Ryker?”

  He smiles tightly at her, his teeth way too goddamn white to be natural.

  “No,” he says, pausing as Turner clomps up the steps next. There is no mistaking that fucking ridiculous swagger of a walk; I swear, it shakes the entire goddamn bus. “I'm with the FBI.”

  “I've had enough talking and speculation to last a lifetime,” I say as I flop onto one of the bench seats and prop a boot up on the black velvet surface of the cushion beneath me. For whatever reason, it bothers me that I can't remember if this is the same fabric that we had before, or if it had to be replaced because of … well, either that blood soaked shit storm I walked in on … or the tornadoes. Isn't it disturbing that there are so many tragedies I can't figure out which damn one is the cause? “Let's just not discuss anything else important tonight, okay?”

  Sydney crawls onto the cushion next and nestles herself in my arms. She's dressed in this ridiculously tight little dress that makes me feel fucking insane. But now, of course, the gang's all here and the thought of sneaking her off for a quick fuck doesn't seem like it's going to happen. I mean, I'm not opposed to it or anything, but Kash just brought his bus driver girlfriend in here for a fuck, so they're currently using the first bathroom. Wren's shooting up in the second bathroom, and Naomi and Turner are sharing a beer and staring at Sydney and me.

  “The FBI?” Naomi chokes with a hoarse laugh, the silver charms hanging from the front of her bra-top jingling with the motion. “That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like, ri-damn-diculous.” She downs the rest of the beer and tosses the brown glass bottle into the sink for Spencer to clean up later. Yep, our personal roadie is back. It's just like old times except, you know, half the fucking people that were with us last time are dead.

  “How long until the cameras are back online?” Turner asks, and I shrug loosely, my gray eyes meeting his across the bus.

  “Brayden said he'd let us know,” I say with a small sigh, leaning my head back against the cushions and closing my eyes. They feel heavy, weighted, and this is only night numero uno of this damn tour. Twenty nights. Twenty fucking nights, plus travel time. I feel like I haven't been able to rest properly in months. If I had the opportunity right now, I'd fuck Sydney and then I'd sleep like the dead.

  “It feels wrong to just … go to bed on the first night of a tour,” Naomi says as I hear some raucous rustling in the kitchen and crack one eye, finding Turner Campbell digging through our cabinets.

  “Don't you have your own bus? Like, stocked with food that you could maybe go eat instead of eating ours?”

  “Milo has all the cabinets filled with hippie food. I ain't into, like, carrot sticks and wheat bread or whatever,” Turner says as he pulls out a bag of pretzels and tears the top open with tattooed fingers, shoving some in his stupid mouth as I wrinkle my nose and lift my head up, opening my other eye. “So, you guys want to, like, get drunk and snort some coke or something?”

  “Don't make it sound so glamorous,” Sydney says as I lean forward, resting my chin on her shoulder, breathing in the sweetness of her shampoo. “I thought being a rock star was supposed to be fun?”

  “It was fun,” Turner says as he gets another beer from the fridge and pops the top on the counter. “You know, until people started dying and shit.”

  “Should we talk about what happened in the limo?” Sydney says suddenly as I slide my hands down the front of her ridiculous little white dress. It's a fucking scrap, dude. A scrap. But goddamn, it's hot as fuck.

  “Talk about what?” Turner asks, shoveling food in his mouth and glancing over at Naomi as she shifts against the counter and the silver bracelets on her arm clink together.

  “Like maybe about how Sydney and I made out?” Naomi asks with a slight shrug, her mouth twitching a little. “Like how I kissed Dax?”

  “Yeah, well,” Turner snaps, tossing the pretzel bag on the counter and getting up close and personal with our lead singer/guitarist. “I was super fucked off my head. I barely even remember that shit.”

  There's a long pause and then he turns to stare at us, snapping his fingers and pointing with a single inked up digit.

  “I know; I've got this.”

  “Got what?” Naomi asks, raising her blonde brows at him.

  Turner smirks and sets his beer aside, slapping his palms together to brush off the salt and crumbs from the pretzels. His self-assured smile makes me want to stab him in the eye with my drumsticks.

  “We're a cute young couple; you're a cute young couple; Ronnie and Lola … well, Lola's cute and young, at least, even if Ronnie is gross as fuck.”

  “Do you have ESP or something?” Ronnie asks as he moves up the steps and pauses in our doorway with Lola on his heels. “Some knack for insulting people as they walk into a room?”

  “I was just saying,” Turner starts, nodding his head and leaning back against the counter again. He taps his fingers in a steady rhythm against the granite surface. “We're all, like, young and in love or whatever.” Dark hair falls across his forehead as he glances sidelong at Naomi. “Let's get married—at the same time. Three weddings, one ceremony. Wouldn't that be epic?”

  “How did we go from discussing Naomi and me making out to discussing a triple wedding?” I ask as I rub the tight sweaty skin of my forehead.

  “You and Naomi made out?” Ronnie asks with surprise, giving Turner a weird look and then me, like he suspects our mutual hatred/jealously wo
uld never permit such a thing. Frankly, I'm a little shocked myself. Although, I mean, in the moment, it was hot. I wrap my arms tighter around Sydney and rest my chin on her shoulder. “Never mind,” Ronnie says as Lola steps up behind him and rests a forearm along the back of the captain's chair. “I don't want to know. What's this about a wedding?”

  “A triple wedding,” Turner says, going for the fridge and digging around until he comes up with a pudding cup. “Let's all get married at the same time. And don't give me that shit about not being ready, blah, blah, blah—we'll all probably be dead by the time this tour's over anyway. What are we waiting for? A fucking invitation?”

  “I'm not arguing,” Ronnie says, his brown eyes falling on Lola and holding there for a long, tense moment. A million things pass between them that I can't read before she looks away. “But, pray tell, how do you expect to plan this 'wedding of the century' while we're on these buses? If you even say the W-word in front of the cameras, Paulette and her people will be all over it.”

  “Um,” Sydney says, extricating herself from my arms and standing up, her dress riding up so high on the backs of her thighs that I can see her ass. I reach out and tug it down an inch or so. The fabric basically refuses and I find myself frowning as she glances back at me. “Neither Dax nor I have proposed to one another and,” she pulls the piece of paper from her bra and waves it around, “what the hell do you guys want to do about this?”

  Ronnie takes the list from her fingers and then glances back up.

  “What is this shit?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Turner says as he scoops a jiggling spoonful of pudding into his mouth and smiles at his friend, “Brayden Ryker gave us this list of clubs that we're supposed to visit or whatever.”

  “Aren't you forgetting the teeniest tiniest little detail?” Naomi says with her eyes narrowed and her long fingers measuring out a small space that I figure's about as long as Turner's dick. “Like how he's with the FBI?”

  “Ryker's a fed?” Ronnie asks with a groan, closing his eyes and sliding a tattooed hand down his face. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck?” Ronnie opens his eyes and scans the list again. “Why the hell would he want us to visit these clubs? You think either the Washington family or the Hammergren family owns them?”