I ruffled Jagger’s hair. “Be a good boy, Jags.”
Thinking I was going to take him from his favorite person in the world, Jagger clung to his mother, but gave me a toothy grin. His blue eyes shining up at me, I blew him a kiss and turned to go. “See you guys in a few hours.”
Emmie followed me to the door. “Good luck,” she murmured quietly so that Nik wouldn’t hear her. “I’m proud of you for sucking it up and staying on the OtherWorld bus. But if things get too hard for you, just say the word and I’ll figure something out.”
I blew out a long breath. “I can deal, Em. Just know that I’m not responsible if those two never have children again. I mean, really if they have to leave the tour to have ball retrieval surgery would it be so bad?” Emmie snorted out a laugh and I winked at her as I stepped off the bus.
When I stepped onto OtherWorld’s bus it was to find everyone except for Marissa sitting around drinking coffee or watching TV. I took a seat at the kitchenette table beside Linc, ignoring everyone else as the bus shifted into gear and joined the others as the driver headed out of the city.
My head was throbbing now and I grabbed the bottle of Tylenol out of the cabinet before swallowing three of them with a glass of water. The jumbled voices on the television from where Wroth was switching channels rapidly only made my head hurt. I tried to ignore it. “You guys should get some rest. It’s going to be nonstop once we get to Chicago.”
“Dude,” Zander grunted from his spot beside Wroth. “You are seriously going to break your hand if you don’t stop.”
I rubbed at my temples as the mumble-jumbled voices on the television increased in speed. From his seat on the recliner, I could feel Devlin’s eyes on me and it only made me more irritated. I tried to keep my calm, but when my eyes started to water from the pain in my head, I snapped.
Grabbing the remote from Wroth, I turned the channel to one of the movie channels. “If you don’t fucking find a channel and leave it there I’m going to break your fucking hands,” I gritted out. “I’m about five seconds away from tossing your ass off this moving bus! Not exactly the best way to start the tour, asshole.”
“Let’s just play a game on the PS4,” Wroth mumbled to Zander.
I glared at them both as Zander stood to turn on the game console. “Dude, you are just asking for her to beat the shit out of you,” he snickered.
“Assholes,” I muttered under my breath as I turned and went toward the roosts. I seriously couldn’t deal with them right now. My head was killing me and I just needed to lie down before my head exploded or I killed someone. It was possible either of those things would happen, if not both.
“Your chick is batshit crazy,” I heard Wroth’s deep almost scary voice say to someone.
“Dude, don’t talk about her like that,” Devlin told him and my heart clenched at his defending me like that. Anything else he might have said was cut off when I closed the door to the sleep area.
After debating which roost I wanted I eventually picked the one above Marissa’s. I grabbed my pillows and blanket and climbed up. With a sigh of relief I closed my eyes and let the pain meds do their job…
I must have drifted asleep because when I next opened my eyes it was to the feel of the bus pulling over. I grabbed my phone and saw that it was mid-afternoon, which meant we were stopping to let Axton on board so the guys could rehearse for tonight. Thankfully, my headache was nearly gone and I just lay there as the bus got back on the road.
Several minutes later I heard them start to jam and closed my eyes as I pictured the band sitting around the living room. Wroth would have his guitar, while Liam and Zander would have their bass guitars and Zander’s keyboard would be close by. Sometimes Axton would pick up a guitar too, or mess around on Zander’s keyboard. He was amazingly talented and could play any instrument within the band. Sometimes I wondered what the hell he was doing in a band when he could have easily made it on his own, but he loved being part of OtherWorld.
When I heard the drums, I was finally forced to picture Devlin sitting in his recliner rocking out with his bandmates with the few percussion instruments he used for bus rehearsals like this. Just thinking of the way he brought the drums alive, how passionate he was with that long hair of his flying everywhere, made my panties instantly wet and I clenched my legs together as I fought off my sudden need for a man who was nothing but bad for my heart.
With my desire for him came all the reasons I should hate the drummer. It wasn’t entirely his fault that I’d had to buy that damned pill back in April. I’d been so caught up in the moment that I’d completely forgotten to tell him I’d gotten off my birth control at my last GYN appointment. If anything, that was all on me and was probably why I felt so guilty about it.
No, what I couldn’t get over was that fucking bet. Why had he made it? And why, once he’d won, hadn’t he just ended things then and there? I’d been an easy conquest for him, and he’d scored within days of that spring tour starting. As far as I knew that was all it would have taken for him to win the bet. So why had he kept stringing me along, letting me think that he really cared about me? Had he? Or had he just enjoyed the sex on tap that I’d provided?
Those same questions kept going through my mind and with each one it was like someone was taking a hammer to my heart. Fuck, it hurt. Even after more than a year it still hurt so damn bad. It pissed me off that it hurt, that I was still so vulnerable to Devlin Cutter. Why couldn’t he hurt as bad as I hurt? I wished he would.
I sighed and blinked my eyes, realizing for the first time that I was silently crying. Clenching my jaw, I angrily dried my eyes and face. “Damn you, Dev. Damn you for making me hurt this much,” I whispered to the roost above mine.
When my eyes were dry and I’d finally stopped crying, I blew out a long, frustrated breath. I didn’t want to lie here and be alone, but I didn’t want to have to go out there and deal with Devlin or Zander or anyone else. Not right now.
Below me I heard Marissa shift restlessly. “You asleep, Rissa?” I asked, just in case she was still sleeping. I didn’t want to bother her if she was.
There was a small hesitation before I heard her reply. “Nope.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Can I come lie with you?” I asked hopefully.
When she didn’t even hesitate I breathed a sigh of relief. “Sure, come on down.”