Hard Freak

“No, you’re not.” Damo grabbed her arm.

“What if she tries again?”

“I’m not going to try again,” I said, sinking back on my bed. “I just want to sleep. This has been way too much drama for me.”

Crow would find out about this. If not tonight, then in the morning. God, that would be the most humiliating thing of all. Would he be embarrassed about it, or would he be secretly annoyed that I’d gotten caught?

“What were you doing in Crow’s room, anyway?” I asked Polly.

“He had some demos of Damo’s. I came to pick them up. And good thing, too.”

Fuck my life.

Chapter 4

CROW BARELY LOOKED at me when I went down to the breakfast buffet the next morning. Shitsticks, had I ruined things with him? My brilliant idea hadn’t been so brilliant after all. Now I felt like a big loser, and everyone kept side-eying me. I’d be the talk of the tour for the next day, at least.

I stacked my plate with bacon, then looked around for somewhere to sit. Polly and Damo sat at one end of a long table. I headed to the other end of that table. I didn’t want Polly scowling at me over my bacon. I hated being on bad terms with her, but I knew her well enough that when she got like this, it was best to keep my distance.

And I could hardly sit down beside Crow. I could imagine Polly’s reaction to that.

This was some fancy breakfast buffet. I was becoming an expert on them with this tour. Maybe I could start a breakfast buffet blog. The place even had a guy who cooked eggs to your request. I’d have been all over that any other morning, but today I just wanted to eat and get out of here. Now I knew how Elijah had felt when everyone was mocking him. It definitely wasn’t as much fun when I was the target.

A couple of the roadies gave me prolonged glances. I gave them the finger and went back to my bacon. If they thought I’d be jumping into their beds, they could forget it. Crow was the only man for me. I’d decided that back in Berlin, and Amsterdam had confirmed it. Brussels was meant to seal the deal, but the deal wasn’t being sealed.

Jax sat down beside me. Then Matt and Fiona joined us.

I didn’t like that grin on Jax’s face.

“Don’t start. Don’t even start,” I told him. I looked down at my plate, not wanting to see the laughter in his eyes.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked. “I feel like I miss half the stuff that happens on this tour.”

“That’s because you and Fiona cocoon yourselves up, away from everybody else,” Jax said. “You never hang out, and you never come drinking. You’re got to socialize sometimes.”

A weird expression flitted over Fiona’s face. I had no idea what was going on, but she really didn’t seem comfortable. She’d had a pretty wild reputation in the past. The whole world knew that. It wasn’t a hidden thing. If she wanted to live that reputation down now, that was her business. She and Matt seemed really happy together. Sometimes I envied their closeness. They didn’t seem to need anyone else.

“They don’t have to socialize,” I said. “It’s not like they’re missing out on anything, just boring talk about gear. Drinking with you guys isn’t exactly riveting.”

I smiled at Fiona, and she smiled back. If she had secrets, she should be allowed to keep them. I’d never spoken to her much. She kind of intimidated me, being a famous model and all. But then she’d helped out, giving us tips at the last photography shoot, and I’d wanted to learn more from her. Also, it’d be better to hang out with someone other than Polly for a while.

“Hey, Fiona, can you teach me how you do your eyeliner sometime?” I asked her. “I can never get mine quite right, and I end up with panda eyes onstage.”

“Sure,” she said, and nodded.

A chair scraped on the tile floor, and Crow got up from the table. I bolted down the rest of my bacon and followed him. We needed to talk. And we needed to do that somewhere without a hundred eyes on us.

He waited for the elevator. I rushed over and grabbed his arm.

“Hey,” I said.

Only I had no idea what to follow that with. What do you say in a situation like this? “Sorry I got sprung naked in your bed”? That didn’t seem appropriate. I wasn’t sorry I did it, anyway, just that I’d gotten caught.