Tainted Heartbreak (Tainted Knights 3)

Chapter 3

Amara

I stepped on a random rock—not for the first time—and rolled my ankle. Not for the first time.

“Shit,” I groaned as I stopped and stretched my aching foot, causing Riley and the Bombshells to pause.

“You okay?” London asked sympathetically. There were stray rocks everywhere on the festival grounds, and I wasn’t the only one to step on the damn things.

But I was the one who did it the most often. Which was completely unlike me. My mother’s voice, a constant evil that haunted me daily, was already scolding me for being so clumsy, something that definitely wasn’t thanks to her. Even if I was making a total liar of myself after showering Cash with my margarita and having nearly fallen at least ten times now.

This was worse than the time I went two days with a concussion without anyone realizing something was wrong with me. Then, I’d had a medical excuse and a few bruises to prove it. But right now, I had nothing to excuse my clumsiness.

“I’m good,” I muttered, shaking off the lingering discomfort and clutching the cup in my hand a little tighter for fear of dropping it.

Riley lifted her brows, silently asking what was going on with me. I hadn’t told her yet about my literal run-in with the Tainted Knights’ bassist, but she knew something was up with me. The fact that I hadn’t discarded the plastic cup once I’d finished my lemonade hadn’t gotten past her either, and any time she asked if I wanted to toss it in the trash, I clung to it a little tighter.

I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. Juvenile, sure, but I was keeping the cup because Cash had bought it for me.

Me, the girl who never kept anything because she never got attached to inanimate objects, was clinging to what would have been considered trash to everyone else on the planet.

I shrugged at my friend, telling her without words that I would explain later. I didn’t want to talk about the crush I suddenly found myself swimming in the deep end of with the Bombshells listening in.

“The TK guys will be going on in twenty,” Aubree announced, tossing her beer in the trash after chugging the last drink down. “Let’s go hang out over there. We can watch from the sidelines until they get the stage set up and do their soundcheck. Then we can watch the show from backstage.”

“I’m game,” Riley told her, tossing her own empty beer into the trash. “Amara?”

“Let’s go.” I was proud of myself for not giving away just how excited I was. My adrenaline had been escalating for the last few hours as the countdown to the Tainted Knights’ set ticked to the beat of my heart.

I’d been looking forward to seeing the band perform long before I’d met Cash. Now, it wasn’t about the music they played, but getting to see him again. Which was ridiculous. He was only a guy. He probably forgot all about me the minute I was out of sight. Ten other girls had probably fallen over themselves the moment they saw him, and he was probably making out with any one of them right that second.

The thought was kind of depressing, but I pushed it down and kept up with the others. We found a safe spot off to the side of the stage. There were two larger stages situated on opposite sides of the festival grounds, but Tainted Knights was the more popular band getting ready to play. Since each band’s sets were staggered, everyone was able to see every band perform. But if you wanted to be close to the front of the more popular ones, you had to get there early, which meant missing watching other bands live.

The other stages were showcased on the huge screens on either side of the stage, however, so the fans currently standing in front of the Tainted Knights’ weren’t bored. There was a sea of fans, stretching back the length of an entire football field with more people pushing forward every minute.

It was late afternoon, so the majority of the fans running around now were staggering, drunk off their asses. For the most part, they were friendly, and I didn’t doubt that new friendships had been made already. But there were the random few, the angry drunks who should never be allowed in public, that were already causing fights.

A glance at the people standing closer to the stage told me that most of those drunks were standing front and center, waiting for Tainted Knights to take the stage.

I wasn’t sure if the staff had taken Emmie’s suggestion seriously or not, but there were triple the men in yellow polos standing in front of the security fence, ignoring the verbal abuse that was being thrown at them by the drunks who seemed to be getting rowdier by the minute.

On stage, roadies were setting up instruments and doing the soundcheck. The Blonde Bombshells had done their setup themselves, but it seemed like Tainted Knights had their own crew to do it for them. There were whispers of Tainted Knights headlining their own tour in the fall, but nothing had been announced on their social media or website yet.

“Looks like we can sneak backstage now,” Aubree told us as she took Riley’s hand and pulled her around the side of the stage.

We got to the back of the stage just as the band stepped out to the deafening roars and cheers from the fans. They played their most popular song first, then went into an older song that the entire crowd seemed to know every word to as they sang along. I squeezed in closer to Riley, trying to get a better look at the guys on stage.

Jace, the lead singer, was running from one side of the stage to the other, never faltering or rushing over the words as he hyped up the crowd more and more. Gray stuck to the right side of the stage, while Sin kept to the left where we were standing out of sight, leaving Cash in the middle. Sometimes the two on the outside switched with Cash, but they always returned to their respective spots before the song was over. They seemed to have it down to an art form, the way they played up to the crowd.

From the right side of the stage, movement caught my attention, and I saw a beautiful brunette and a gorgeous blonde standing with Bruce, the muscle from earlier. I recognized the blonde, who was Jace’s sister and Gray’s fiancée. The sight of the huge, butterfly-shaped diamond on her left hand confirmed that even before he left the stage during one song to kiss her. The brunette was only vaguely familiar to me, but I thought she might be Kale’s girlfriend. The drummer posted a few pictures on his Instagram every week of him and Santana, his girlfriend.

When the music began again, the band playing a song I hadn’t heard from them before, my gaze went straight to Cash. That was where it had mostly stayed during the last half an hour, and I was glad Riley and the others were so into the music that they hadn’t noticed me drooling a time or two. Right then, he was doing backup vocals, his bass hanging off his back from its strap.

From where I was standing, I had the perfect view of his ass in jeans that hung mouthwateringly on his hips. His T-shirt had the sleeves cut off but clung to his back. The muscles in his shoulders flexed ever

y time he moved. Sweat had soaked through his shirt and caused his hair to fall across his forehead, but I liked it.

A frown wrinkled his brow, his head angling left and right as if he were looking for someone, and I wondered if he was actually looking for me out in the crowd like he said he would. Telling myself how stupid I was even to think that, I forced my gaze away from him, only to find Sin’s had turned toward us.