I didn’t want to speculate on where the evening might end, but I had a good feeling we might end up in bed again, if nothing else. Even though I still had some reservations about the whole thing, I had to admit I wanted him.
We waited at the bar to get the bartender’s attention. It seemed like everyone else had the same idea as us, needing a refresher as soon as the set was over. I supposed that was a good sign for the band. Everyone had been so engrossed in the music that empty glasses had gone unheeded until now. They really were that good.
Someone suddenly dropped their arm around my shoulders, and I smiled. I turned, expecting to see Jayson there. Instead, it was the singer, Mark. He leered at me. “You know, I couldn’t keep my eyes off you the whole set,” he said. “Do you have any idea what you do to a man?”
I blinked up at him, still trying to process. Yet again, I felt like I just didn’t know the rules of the game. Was this a thing? Jayson thought he could just sleep with me and then tell his bandmates that I was easy and they could have at me?
But no. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew he would never have done that. I remembered how roughly he’d pulled Carter off of me a few weeks before. Except that didn’t change the fact that Mark seemed to think he had some right to put his hands all over me.
He leaned in close, practically nuzzling my neck. “I don’t do this very often, but how would you and your friend like to come back to my place?”
I rolled my eyes, shrugging my way out from beneath his arm. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Jayson headed toward us. The look on his face was murderous and it sent a little thrill through me. Maybe I wasn’t the only one that had caught feelings.
Still, I tried to downplay the situation so as not to cause greater turmoil than there already was within the band.
“Sorry, I’m not interested,” I said.
“Oh come on,” Mark wheedled, apparently oblivious to the approach of Jayson’s wrath. “Who are you saving it for? Does he know what a cocktease you are?”
I scowled, unable to help bristling at his words. “As a matter of fact, I’m only interested in dating guys who have a shot at making it big, not some lazy hack singer from a local band.”
Mark looked confused at that, but before he had really had a chance to react, Jayson was there, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him away from me.
17
Jayson
I was about to lose it. As if the set hadn’t been terrible enough. Now, on top of that disappointment of an evening, I had to watch Mark try and flirt with Leah? That was just too much.
I didn’t know which of the three of us I was more pissed at, and that bothered me more than anything else could have. Was it Mark for always having to flirt with another girl, and another, and another, until it seemed like there was no one left in the whole city he hadn’t had his paws on? Was it Leah for allowing him to sling an arm around her shoulders like that?
Or was I just mad at myself for not staking my claim to her before someone else gave it a try?
The thing was, I knew I couldn’t be mad at Mark. I had never really cared before about who he hit on; I just cared that his insistence on hitting on girls at the moment seemed to be interfering with his ability to be the singer in our band.
No, it wasn’t Mark I was mad at.
I couldn’t be mad at Leah, either. As she slipped away from Mark and turned to look at him with fury in her eyes, I could tell that none of it had been her idea. She didn’t welcome his advances, and she certainly hadn’t invited them.
That made relief go through me. Even if it meant that the only person I had left to be mad at was myself. Leah was different. Leah was all mine.
I yanked Mark away from her, causing him to let out a little yelp of surprise. But before I could give him what for, Leah was laying into him.
“You might have a bunch of groupies now, but do you really think you’re still going to be relevant in a year if your band is just playing the same old songs in the same old smelly bars?” she snapped, folding her arms across her chest and giving him an unimpressed look. “No, you won’t be. That’s not how it works. You either get your shit together or there will be someone new and exciting, and you’ll be forgotten about.”