That raises a smile.
“Must be where you get your pipes from,” he adds.
“Thank you,” I say genuinely. My mom was the best.
I hear a female voice in the background.
Then, Jake says to me, “I have to go. Good luck with the tour. Relay that message to the rest of the band. Don’t worry about Rally. Nothing is going to change your position with TMS Records, no matter what he says or does.”
“Thank you, Jake, for understanding and for sticking with us.”
“Don’t thank me. Just make this album and tour score big. Earn me back all the thousands of dollars that it has cost me,” he says with a humorous tone.
Nodding, I smile. “That I can definitely do.”
Sixty Seconds After—Tour Bus, LA
I’m just pushing my cell back into the pocket of my denim cutoffs, pondering my conversation with Jake, when I hear a commotion coming from the bus.
Sounds of cheering and loud laughter.
I look across at the bus, but I’m too far away. Even if I were close, I wouldn’t be able to see anything due to the heavily tinted windows.
All thoughts of my conversation with Jake left behind, my feet carry me quickly back to the bus. I jog up the stairs, turn into the galley, and halt in my tracks at the sight before me, my breath leaving me in a rush.
Tom Carter.
Well, it’s the back of him anyway. I know it’s him because he’s impossible not to recognize. His huge size eats up the small space of the bus. His muscular arms are sleeved in tattoos. Gone is his trademark shaved head¸ and it’s now covered in silky brown hair.
What is he doing here?
Cale spies me over Tom’s shoulder, his dark eyes all lit up. “Ly, look who’s here!” he says in an overexcited voice.
I have the sudden urge to walk over there and slap Cale upside the head.
Tom looks over his shoulder at me. His intense jade green eyes hit mine, sending an involuntary heat to travel through my body.
He turns until he’s facing me.
His gaze drifts slowly down my body and then climbs back up.
My stomach clenches. Virginia sparks to life.
Oh God.
I hate the way my body reacts to Tom Carter. Every single time I see him, my virginia lights up like gasoline on a spark. I might dislike him, but my body doesn’t. In fact, my body likes Tom—a lot.
Thankfully, my brain doesn’t. To my utter relief, my brain is in the driver’s seat when it comes to him.
Tom is an arrogant, sex-crazed mut, whom I want nothing to do with.
Only…Tom just happens to be a hot, arrogant, sex-crazed mut.
I really hate that.
He’s now also sporting overgrown stubble that’s shaping up to become a beard, and it makes him look even hotter.
Unkempt but hot.
Add that hot, unkempt look with a plain black fitted T-shirt over those thick biceps with jeans hanging low on his hips, showing a sliver of his stomach, and finish it off with black Doc Martens, and Tom Carter makes for one very lickable package.
Lord, help me.
I meet Tom’s eyes, and he’s smirking.
Because I’m staring.
Fabulous.
His eyes flicker down to my chest. I watch as his eyebrows lift, and the smirk deepens, forming a dimple in his cheek that I’ve never noticed before.
He looks cute in a hot, sexy way.
Hot, sexy cute?
What the hell, Lyla?
Men are not cute, especially not men like Tom Carter. Men like him are dangerous to women like me.
And look at him, just openly staring at my chest. Total pervert.
Yes, I’m negating the fact that I just gave him the once-over because it’s rude to stare at a woman’s boobs. Sure, I was gifted in the boob department, but that doesn’t give him the right to openly ogle them.
I cross my arms over my girls and lift my chin.
His eyes come back to mine, and that smirk is still on his face. “Lyla,” he drawls in that deep voice of his, “it’s been a while.”
Not long enough.
“It has.” I nod. “Thank you for agreeing to be our tour manager.”
That’s it, Ly. Keep it pleasant and business-like.
“No problem.” He shrugs those broad shoulders of his. “I’m looking forward to being back on the road.”
Being back on the road? He means that in a figurative sense right?
He’s still staring at me. It’s kind of getting uncomfortable, but I can’t break the stare. I feel like we’re in a staring match, and whoever blinks first will be the loser.
No way am I losing to him.
Sonny breaks the silence. “We have great news, Ly.” He has that same excited tone in his voice that Cale just had.
I tilt my chin in Sonny’s direction, but I don’t take my eyes away from Tom’s. I will not lose this game. “Oh, yeah? What is it?”
A quiet grin appears on Tom’s lips.
“Tom is staying here on our bus for the whole tour!” Sonny’s voice explodes in my ears.
Then, silence hits as the debris from his dirty ear bomb scatters slowly to the floor, my brain desperately trying to come to terms with what I just heard.
Tom is staying here?
Closing my eyes on a blink, I shake my head, trying to clear out his words. “I’m sorry. What?”
Sonny frowns at me like I’m slow. “I said, Tom is staying on the bus with us. How awesome is that?” He’s smiling.
Van and Cale are smiling.
Tom is still staring at me. Only this time, his look is curious.
I blink away with my hands on my hips, trying to figure this out in my head.
Tom is going to be living here on our bus for the duration of the tour?
No, that can’t be right.
Then, my eyes land on an oversized gym bag sitting on the kitchen table.
Oh God.
He’s staying here.
No!
He can’t because…well, for so many reasons that I don’t even know where to begin.
This is going to be a complete disaster.
It can’t be real. It’s just a bad dream. I’m going to wake up, and it’s all just going to be a stupid dream. I did think this tour bus was way too nice to be ours. I was expecting a total shithole for our first tour bus, not this awesome setup.
I close my eyes on a long blink and then look back to them.
I’m thinking I might look a little stunned because Cale searches out my eyes, his stare fixed on me.
“Isn’t this great news, Ly?”
Subliminal Cale message, Speak now, Ly, because this silence is getting really weird. And say something nice.
I do try to say something nice. Really, I do. I quickly think up lots of nice things to say—well, mainly the word yes.