Unwritten (Woodlands 5)
Page 81
“Again?” They played it with us as the opener.
He nods in confirmation. “The second time it was slower, more ballad-like.”
“Damn.” When you resort to playing a song twice in a fifty-minute set, you know things are bad.
“Albie had a pissed-off look throughout the entire thing. I left before the set was over.” He lifts a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “Want a smoke?”
“Nah, you go on.”
He shrugs. “I’ll leave one for you on the bumper.”
The minute he’s gone, I turn to Landry. “Let’s tell Davis tonight.”
Her expression instantly goes serious. “Why? I’ll only be here for another week.”
“Right, about that.” I run a hand through my hair, trying to find the right words. “What if you stay?”
She blinks. “For what?”
“For the tour.”
Her eyes grow wide and I don’t know if it’s astonishment or excitement.
“The rest of your tour?” she squeaks.
I nod.
“You want me to go with you for the rest of the tour?”
I rub my hands together. The idea had been percolating in my head for a while, but it didn’t really coalesce until Davis brought up her parents’ return to the States. “Yeah, for the entire tour. You’ve been with us for almost two months now. Three more will seem like a breeze. What’s the downside?”
She studies me for a moment, longer than I like. I want her immediate agreement. Instead, she seems to be weighing things, and from her non-reaction, the cons are stronger than the pros.
“Even if we told Davis,” she starts slowly, “I wouldn’t want to have sex with him around.”
“I’m not asking you to stay because of the sex,” I protest. I mean, yes, I want to fuck her every five seconds, but I enjoy her company, too. “Besides, if we told him, we wouldn’t be sneaking around.”
“So anytime you wanted to have sex, you’d just kick Davis off the bus?”
“Why does he have to leave the bus? We’d go to the back.” I point toward the end of the bus. “And he’d stay here.” I tap the table.
“But he’d know.” She scrunches up her nose.
“You’re twenty-four, Landry. He thinks you’re having sex.”
“I don’t care. Now’s not the right time. Plus, there’s the whole…” she waves her hand.
“Whole what?”
“You know. The stuff with the song. You not writing the melody. You refusing to allow the song to be used in a commercial. That sort of stuff.”
“So what? Unless I give in to Davis’s demands, you’re out?” Anger rises. Why is she fighting this so damned hard?
“I never said that.”
“But Davis wants those things, doesn’t he?”
“I think everyone in the band except you wants those things.” Ice coats her words.