Unwritten (Woodlands 5)

“Adam?” he presses.

“I’ll back you on this unless she pursues someone. I’m not going to babysit a twenty-four-year-old woman.”

After a fraught minute of silence, Davis gives an abrupt nod. “Fair enough.”

Then we shake on it, which means I’ve given my word not to seduce the one woman I can’t get out of my head.

Perfect. Just fucking perfect.

Chapter Six

Adam

A week later, all the reno is done and we’re ready to roll out. Ian and Rudd are playing with Ian’s new baby when Hollister shows up with a bunch of paperwork. Davis and his sister haven’t arrived yet. I hope that doesn’t mean they’re backing out.

“Sweet wheels, man. This your dad’s?” Hollister jerks his head toward the bus.

“Yeah. From The Crows tour.” Dad’s last album was an homage to Hitchcock. The cover was a bunch of black crows, and the band’s stage costumes had more feathers than a pillow factory. We were finding feathers in shit months later.

My stage costume is a version of what I’m wearing now—jeans, T-shirt, boots. I shake my head ruefully. Music in the 80s and 90s was a lot different for bands than it is now. We can’t all be Daft Punk and wear helmets nonstop, although I think Ian would love that.

He breaks the crazy drummer mold. He can bang the rack with the best of them, but partying isn’t his scene. He’s got a few deviant tastes—ones that he shares with his wife, though. Voyeurism do

esn’t make much sense to me. I like doing, not watching. And exhibitionism gets old after a while.

I grew up watching people fuck. I’m too jaded to be titillated by that shit. But Ian and Berry are big fans of it and that’s how their marriage works. Given that they’ve been tied together since high school, I can’t judge it.

“Mind if I go in?” Hollister asks with bright eyes, handing me a sheaf of papers.

I nod, scanning the info sheet. Our first stop is Kansas City. They have amazing barbecue and the crowds aren’t half bad. It’s a bigger city, so the bar will attract a variety of folks, not just college students.

As Hollister pokes his head inside, I call out a warning in case he’s hoping to catch a glimpse of how Dad traveled years ago. “We renovated it. There isn’t much of anything original left in there.”

He doesn’t appear to care. The interior turned out great. It helps that Finn builds for a living. He could probably construct a bus from the wheels up. I doubt that any of the bands are going to have digs as nice as ours. The downside is that everyone and their fucking cousins will want to party in our bus every damn night.

By the time we make it out of Kansas, the place will be trashed. I wonder what Landry will make of the bus, the partying, the whole degenerate scene. Some girls are really caught up in it. Even for the no-name bands, there are folks—mostly female—who will do just about anything for a guy with a guitar.

I didn’t get the sense that was Landry. Our short encounter felt more personal…or I could be spinning fantasies out of nothing. No, I shake my head. Girls have pursued me all my life—mostly because I play a guitar and have a fat wallet. There was no materialistic vibe coming from her. It was lust. One that I returned in full.

This morning, I woke up with my hand around my dick and the image of a naked, trembling Landry grinding down on my face. And my hand is the only thing that’s going to be around my dick for a long while unless I can persuade both Davis and Landry to my way of thinking.

Like I told Ian, Davis is the key to FMK’s success. Bands have broken up over smaller things than one bandmate screwing the wrong woman.

Hollister reappears. “Nice digs,” he says, coming over to join me. “You’re lucky because Threat Alert’s new label is springing for a tour bus, too. If yours had been the only one on the tour, every sucker would be squatting in here. Still, TA’s bus is half the size, so I suspect yours will be party central. Make sure you get rid of all the weed and shit before you get on.”

“I know the drill.” Bands are a magnet for police. They get an instant hard-on seeing us motor down the road and can’t wait to pull us over. Drug use is acceptable only at the venues, not while the wheels are turning. “Nice locations you’ve got here.” I jiggle the sheet. There’s a surprising number of untraditional venues designed to hold a couple thousand rather than the bars that max out at a few hundred. Hollister has come through.

He grins. “We do well for the first two months, I can see extending this into the summer. Maybe Europe.”

My eyes snag on a weird detail under a number of the clubs. As with most tour itineraries, this one has the dates, location details, and check-in times, but several have the name of a female in bold lettering. The music scene is still a sausage fest, so this is a surprising number of female promoters.

“Who are these?” I point to the first name: Anna Cairns.

“The promoters’ girlfriends. Don’t touch them.” He pins me with an accusing stare.

“Dude, that was years ago, and I had no idea who she was.”

“You should’ve.”