Life On Stage: Beat Part 19

The sun is quickly disappearing behind the city skyline as we arrive in Austin, and everyone is anxious to get off the bus, especially Flynn. We pull into a spot and Flynn hops off the bus and walks toward a car parked a few spots over. A guy gets out and the two bear hug, slap each other on the back a few times, and then promptly disappear.

"You ready?" Dylan's been curt with me since this morning. I went back to the room, but I just couldn't bring myself to fool around with him. Not after Flynn's hands were on me. It's not the first time I've rejected Dylan's attempts over the last few days and he's beginning to grow impatient.

"Sure."

"Do you have everything? The bus can't park here tonight, so you won't be able to come back and search for a pair of heels, or whatever it is you forget this time, after we get out."

"I have everything. Wait. Do I need heels?"

Dylan rolls his eyes. "I don't know, Lucky. What do you normally wear to a club?"

"A club?"

"Yeah. A club. I told you earlier, but you weren't paying attention. Again. A friend of Flynn's owns a club in Austin and is going to rope off an area for us. So bring shoes, or whatever other s.h.i.+t you're going to need."

Great. Just great. I can't wait. A night out on the town with not one, but two men who are angry with me.

The Capitol may be the largest nightclub I've ever seen. And that's saying something, having grown up in New York and traveled half my life with my dad's band. During the day I would bet people pa.s.s right by the unremarkable building and a.s.sume it's just an old warehouse. But the line that stretches all the way across the front of the club and disappears around the side tonight is a testament to its popularity. If this place is at capacity, the rest of the bars and clubs in the city of Austin must be empty.

Easy Ryder's security breezes us from the dark SUV directly into the club, skipping the line that people are waiting on and causing a murmur of interest as we pa.s.s. Inside, the first floor has a live rock-and-roll band, a tremendous dance floor, and bars outlining almost the entire expansive perimeter. Looking up, I see two more floors, a balcony wrapping around each, protected by a wall of gla.s.s. People mill around, watching the crowd dance beneath them. Men who resemble tree trunks guard the entrance to the upper levels.

All the guys from Easy Ryder and their dates, except Linc and Flynn, pile into an elevator, and we're escorted to a gla.s.s room on the second floor above the dance floor. It's truly gla.s.s-the floor, the walls, everything. I look down and watch a mob of people swaying on the dance floor. Distracted, I don't notice the guy I saw pick up Flynn outside of the bus today walk in. He takes one look at my face and smiles, knowing exactly what I'm thinking. "It's one way...they can't see up your skirt."

I look around the room-there's a bar in the corner, a couple of guys who look vaguely familiar, but no sign of Flynn. Lydia, Mick's wife, walks over and hooks arms with me. "You look like someone ran over your dog." I've met Lydia a few times. She's smart, sarcastic and has zero filter-if it pops into her head, it comes out her mouth. She'd get along great with Avery. I'm actually looking forward to introducing them tomorrow night at the show.

"I'm just tired. Haven't slept so good."

"Life on the road is tough." She looks over at Mick and Dylan. "Even tougher with moody a.s.sholes like them." We both laugh. "C'mon, Lucky. Let's go live a little. These old b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are going to stand around and drink beer. I see a cute bartender with shot gla.s.ses and a dance floor calling our name."

I do one shot for every two that Lydia does; the two I drink have my head spinning and yet she seems perfectly fine after her four. I've got to be the biggest lightweight to ever own a bar.

An hour later I'm on my second fruity drink. The music is pumping and I feel it in my veins. Or perhaps it's the alcohol. Either way, it flows through me, taking away all my worries. The crowd downstairs has thickened, the music has changed from rock to more of an R&B. Bodies sway with a sensual vibe.

"Come on. Let's go dance." Lydia grabs my hand. We stop by the booth that Dylan and Mick are sitting at. Mick waves off his wife, not caring where she's going. Dylan, on the other hand, gives me a look of annoyance.

"Why don't you come with me, then?" I yell over music that seems to have gotten louder since we started talking.

"Go. But save some of your energy for me later," he says. I've feigned everything from tired to a headache the last few days every time he's tried to get intimate.

Down on the dance floor, the music is so loud that I can't even hear myself think. Which is exactly what I need. A new song with an incredible beat fills the air and I start moving my body, letting the music take control of my mind.

"There you go, beautiful girl. Let whatever is bothering you go," Lydia says, but I more or less have to read her lips. She closes her eyes and joins me in getting lost in the music. A few guys try to dance with us, but we shoo them away and keep to ourselves. I lift my arms over my head, letting my hips sway from side to side, and my eyes drift closed.

I'm at the fringe of awareness, lost somewhere in my own semiconsciousness, when I feel it. Goose b.u.mps break out all over my skin before I even understand what it is that's happening. I open my eyes and, like metal to a magnet, I see him. Flynn. He's two floors up, standing against the gla.s.s wall, and his blue eyes are burning into mine. Even with all the s.p.a.ce between us, the anger is clear in his eyes. I watch as he tosses his drink back and hands the scantily clad waitress his empty gla.s.s without so much as a glance in her direction.

"You okay?" Lydia asks, noticing I'm frozen on the dance floor.

"Yeah. I. Uh. I was just looking at the VIP rooms upstairs, trying to figure out which one we're in."

"Oh. We're right up there." She points to the second floor. To the room directly below where Flynn is standing. Still zeroing in on us, Flynn follows our gaze, and I watch as he looks down and sees all the guys from Easy Ryder beneath him. He can see down, they can't see up. It makes me wonder how long he's been standing there. Was he watching me the last hour in the room directly below him?

Not knowing what to do under the scrutiny of his stare, eventually I attempt to dance again. But I've lost the vibe-the atmosphere changed from being lost in the moment to being lost in the man. Another drink is definitely in order. Lydia pouts but leaves with me, again hooking her arm into mine as we make our way into the elevator to return to the second-floor VIP room.

Security pushes a b.u.t.ton and the doors slide open. Inside, the guard presses number two...but then I realize there is no b.u.t.ton for the floor above us. "There're only two floors on the panel. How do people get up to the third floor?" I ask.

"You need a security card." He motions to the top of the panel. "Slips into the slot and takes you upstairs. Boss man, his friends and employees only."

I know I've had way too much to drink when I start singing in public. It's only a whisper of the words, but the beat thumps along in unison with my heart and I feel the words as I sing the song "Someone New" along with Hozier. The last few lines of the chorus croons about falling in love a little bit more every day with someone new. I sing the words looking up, wondering if Flynn's singing them looking down at me too.

Eventually, the song comes to an end. Still staring up at the opaque gla.s.s ceiling, I blow out a shaky breath. Feeling bereft, I decide I need a few minutes of privacy to clear my head. Dylan's busy arguing with the tour manager when I excuse myself telling, him I need to find a ladies' room, but really I head to the elevator to search for some desperately needed fresh air.

The security guard is on the phone, but he opens the door to the elevator when I arrive. A few seconds later, the doors slide open-I hadn't even noticed we weren't going down. "Boss man wants to see you." The hulk of a man extends his arm, gesturing for me to exit the elevator.

I don't have to ask which way to go. I walk toward the same room I was just in, only one floor up. My insides churn at the sight of a woman vying for Flynn's attention as he stands in the corner, arms folded tightly over his chest. I may notice the tall, svelte blonde, but Flynn...his eyes are trained on me.

We stand at opposite ends of the room, our gazes locked, until he pushes off the wall and, with a few long strides, stalks to me. I can see the flex of his jaw and the darkness in his normally light-blue eyes.

His friend from today approaches us, his face going through a mental Rolodex before recognition dawns. "You're Dylan Ryder's girlfriend, right?"

Flynn looks at his friend, then back to me. His response is spoken into my eyes, even though his words aren't for me. "Can you clear this room, Blake?"

Through my peripheral vision, I see his friend's brows draw down, then understanding hits him. "s.h.i.+t. You're asking for trouble." Blake shakes his head, but a minute later the room is cleared of everyone except Flynn and me.

Flynn looks down, then closes his eyes and takes a breath before speaking.

"My mother raised me and my sister, Bec, alone. She struggled every day to make ends meet and never had time for herself. Our dad left when I was eight. Had his secretary actually waiting in the car the day he moved out."

He drags a hand through his hair. I reach out to touch him, but he puts his hand up. "Don't." The disdain in his voice makes me want to vomit.

"Bec married Professor Douchebag. My niece, Laney, has a half-sister three weeks younger than her. Compliments of her father's TA."

"I'm sorry," I whisper. And I truly am. Although I'm not sure my words bring any comfort, since I'm the cause of his turmoil.

"I'm not the other guy."

The irony is, he was never the other guy. From the first time we crossed that line, Dylan became the other guy. But I nod anyway, respecting what he's saying a h.e.l.l of a lot more than I respect myself at this moment.

Flynn looks down, my eyes following his to peer through the gla.s.s floor. We're standing almost exactly over where Dylan is sitting.

"Friends?" he asks. "Can we go back to being friends?"

It feels like a heavy weight is sitting on my chest as I walk to the elevator alone. He's right to put a stop to what shouldn't have started to begin with. But now, I wonder, can we really go back to being friends after we've been through the blur and crossed the line?

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Flynn

Alana Evans doesn't shut the f.u.c.k up. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. She's been my sister's best friend since third grade, and basically it's been twenty years of one long run-on sentence. I kid Becca that Laney is really Alana's daughter, with the lack of breaths when she gets on an excited rant, but the truth is, Laney is a lot like Alana because Alana and Becca basically grew up as sisters and they're a lot alike. Nurture trumps nature with those three.

We park in the short-term lot at Bergstrom and make our way to the terminal. I'm used to people staring now. For the past year, a lot of people have recognized me, although they weren't sure where from right away. These days, the recognition dawns faster, sometimes instantaneously. More heads than usual turn as we pa.s.s, but it takes my conceited a.s.s a minute to catch on why. Alana is drop-dead gorgeous. It's not new-she didn't grow from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan or anything, she's pretty much been insanely hot since third grade. Around the age of seventeen, I thought about it for a few minutes one night when we were swimming in the neighbor's pool and she was wearing that white bikini that became translucent when she went in the water.

It was a hot July night, the stars were twinkling, my sister had fallen asleep, and the air was thick and humid around us. I'd had a few beers and my judgment was impaired, leading me to think with my teenage d.i.c.k. Luckily, one thing didn't lead to the other, and the next morning I woke to the sound of Alana's voice rambling on from the kitchen table. I love the woman. But there's not enough duct tape in the world.

My ears are nearly numb by the time I catch sight of Becca and Laney at baggage claim. The little pity party I'd been throwing myself for the last twenty-four or so hours abruptly comes to an end when I see Laney's face. Her eyes grow wide and she smiles so big, I could probably count all of her little baby teeth. She charges at me, her arms open, and nearly causes an old man to fall when she whizzes past him. "Uncle Sinn! Uncle Sinn!"

My sister rolls her eyes, but smiles and greets her best friend as I haul Laney up into my arms and spin her around in the air. "Squirt! You made it."

She squeals when I toss her around. I seriously hope she's never too cool for this s.h.i.+t. Because it's better than any medicine or high I've ever sought to relieve my pain.

I throw Laney's backpack over one shoulder and carry her in one arm to greet my sister. "How was your flight?" I lean down and peck her on the cheek.

"Good. Except I think the airline might ban us. Laney talked the entire flight. To the flight attendants, the guy next to her, the people in the row behind us, in front of us."

"Nah. I think you're good. If they banned people for excessive talking, Alana would have been grounded years ago."

Alana smacks my abs.

"By the way, she told everyone on the plane that her uncle was a rockstar and she was on her way to see him. I'm not sure if half the people believed her, but the teenagers a few rows up knew your name and asked if you would be at the airport."

As if on cue, two teenage girls hesitantly walk up to us and ask for my autograph. By the time Becca and Laney's bags pop out of the carousel, we've got a pretty good crowd around us. We'll have to teach Laney about discretion some day.

Normally when I travel for gigs, I take the cheapest room. Most times, I'm out partying until the sunrise anyway, so I never saw the point of wasting money on a room I was just going to crash in for a few hours. But this time, I booked a two-bedroom suite for the few nights we'd be in Austin, so me and Laney could hang and my sister and Alana could have enough s.p.a.ce to throw their clothes all over the floor and still walk.

Becca puts Laney down for a nap, which I'm thinking is a kick-a.s.s idea as I eye the spot next to her little body on the king-size bed. But Alana begs me to go to the pool with her. After my over-indulgence last night, I'm not in the mood for the scorching Texas sun beating down on my head, but she's never going to shut up if I don't go along. So I give in sooner rather than later despite my headache, hoping to catch some Zs on a lounger at least.

I open the gate to the pool area for Alana to walk through first and follow behind her, slipping on my sungla.s.ses and already feeling the blaze of the afternoon sun on my back.

"How's this?" Alana asks, pointing to two open cus.h.i.+oned lounge chairs.

"Fine. Whatever you want," I say, looking down. My phone just pinged with a text from Nolan. I respond and look back up just as Alana lifts her cover-up over her head. d.a.m.n. I shake my head. What a shame.

I tug the s.h.i.+rt off my back and set myself up on the lounger next to her. It's only when I'm settled in that I look across the pool and see her. And him. Dylan is out cold and Lucky has sungla.s.ses on that hide her eyes. Yet I can tell from her face that she sees me. Sees us. I offer a slight nod, which she returns, and then I set my seat all the way back so I'm lying flat. There's no doubt where my eyes would be if I were sitting up.

"Flynn. Can you get my back with the sunscreen?" Alana waited until I settled in, of course.

"Lie on your back and you won't need it."

"If I lie on my back I won't fall asleep. Which means I'll need to keep talking to you."

I groan. And get up. The sunscreen soaks into her skin almost as soon as I rub it on, so it doesn't take me very long to cover her back.

"Can you do my b.u.t.t?"

"If you didn't wear half a freaking bathing suit, you wouldn't need to put sunscreen on your a.s.s. Seriously, half your a.s.s cheeks are hanging out."

"Shut up and get your hands on my b.u.t.t. You know you've wanted to touch it for fifteen years anyway," she teases, jiggling her b.u.t.t cheeks.

Normally, I'd savor the opportunity to lather up a woman's a.s.s sticking out of a tiny bikini bottom. But this is Alana. It's a great a.s.s, but after so many years, it amounts to rubbing lotion on my sister's.

"Done," I announce. "Anything else before I lie down?"

She turns over. "Actually. Could we go in the pool? I'm hot."

"You just made me rub lotion on your a.s.s. Now you want to go for a swim?"

She unfolds from her chair and grabs my hands, pulling me to stand. "You are one pain in the a.s.s," I say.

"But you love me anyway. Come on. I'll tell you all about my new job."

Duct tape. There is not enough duct tape.

We spend the next half hour in the pool. My dark sungla.s.ses conveniently conceal my eyes as they drift back to Lucky every few minutes. f.u.c.k, she's beautiful. She has to know I'm watching her, even if she can't see my eyes. Although Alana doesn't even seem to notice...she's too busy babbling on about some guy at her new job.

I grit my teeth when Dylan rolls onto his side, then leans over and kisses Lucky's belly. It's one thing to know they're together, a completely different thing to have to watch any intimacy between the two of them. Pool time is definitely over. I need to get the h.e.l.l out of here. "This sun is kicking my a.s.s. What do you say we get a drink at the bar and head back upstairs?"

"Can I get a lemonadey drink?"

"You can have whatever you want."

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one opting to leave the oven for cooler pastures. Dylan and Lucky pa.s.s by as we're packing up. "Catching some rays, Beckham?" Dylan says to me, but his eyes are all over Alana. Forget that he has no idea who Alana is to me, he's standing right next to his girlfriend. The a.s.shole has no respect.

"Yep. Packing it in. Just about to head back up to our room." The statement doesn't seem odd until I see Lucky's face. It looks like mine did when I saw Ryder put his f.u.c.king lips on her stomach.

"Aren't you going to introduce me?" Alana says. I completely forgot that meeting Dylan Ryder would impress anyone.

"Alana. This is Dylan and his girlfriend, Lucky." The words taste bitter.

"Nice to meet you," Alana says with stars in her eyes.

"You too." Dylan grins, enjoying the adulation.

"I can't wait to see the show tonight. I love Easy Ryder."

"Well, make sure Flynn gives you an all-access pa.s.s."

Alana smiles. "Okay. He pretty much gives me whatever I want or I use my secret weapon on him." She takes my arm, then leans in like she's telling them a secret and winks. "My mouth."