His Assurance (Assured Distraction Book 3) (16 page)

“My sister is a great person. She’s loving, and kind, and caring.” Journey was in my face which allowed her message to be loud and clear, but she upped the volume when she continued blasting me.

“Do you even know what my sister does for a living? She’s a nurse for sick children. She chooses to help babies get well, and while they are in her care, she spends time playing with them and getting to know them to make their stay a little more bearable.”

I didn’t have a comeback because she was right. Lola never said what she did, only that she had a job. We always spent time talking about band stuff and other things when we weren’t in bed.

The punches to my chest with her index finger caused me to back away with each poke. “You don’t have to worry, though. She’s not going to bother you again. You can be damn sure of that fact. Because of you, she’s going back to Houston in the morning. So yeah, thanks for that, you know, ruining my birthday week.” She spun around and stalked off with the rest of her entourage following.

“Good plan,” I said to myself as a flash went off in my face. Our little scene must have been fan-worthy because I saw phones recording me and taking pictures when I looked up. Just fucking great. YouTube here I come.             

“Gunner, look this way.”

“Gunner, aren’t you the drummer for Assured Distraction?”

“Is she your latest groupie stalker?”

“Was that group of girls one of yours and Carter’s lucky ones?”

All of this happened before I was able to get backstage away from the pack. I didn’t want them knowing my personal business. Peri and Cash were going to love it. I decided I better put in a call so they could do some damage control. I didn’t know if the whole crowd overheard or if they just caught Journey’s little tirade. Wouldn’t this look fucking great online?

Peri answered on the first ring. “What’s up, Gunner? I heard y’all had a great practice today.”

“Yeah, it was good.”

“I’m not going to see your set this evening since the party’s starting at ten, and I need to be at the party venue. I’m sure it’ll be epic playing to the home crowd.”

“Should be.”

“So are you going to keep letting me carry this conversation, or are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I swear she had a sixth sense sometimes. Peri could do this with the band. She read us from our voices and the look on our faces.

“I fucked up and let a situation get out of hand in the front of the crowd waiting for Priority to start their set. I feel confident YouTube placed it on the top trending posts by now.”

“And who’s the star of this show?” I knew I had her attention.

“Me.”

“Only you? What did you do, moon the crowd?”

“Uh, no. Lola’s sister and three other girls.”

“And what did this your party of five have recorded?”

“A loud argument and maybe someone being held back from attacking me. And then a girl in my face screaming. Yeah, that’s about it.”

“With loud obscenities, I’m sure,” Peri added.

“Yeah, there was some of that, too.”

“Really Gunner? Did it have to be just before the show and party tonight? That’s all anyone will be talking about instead of the great new music the band introduces.” She was pissed, but I knew it would be this way before I called.

“So, can you get it pulled from YouTube pretty fast?”

“We’ll see. I’ll get PR and the lawyers on it now.”

I saw the girls coming from my perch on the corner of the open-air building and knew something was wrong immediately. It was getting dark but not enough that I couldn’t see their faces. The beaten down grass was only made worse from Journey’s stomping.

“What happened? Are you hurt?” I asked Journey before she could get to me.

“Only my feelings.”

“What? Who do you know out here that would hurt your feelings?”

Lauren’s animation when she spoke up surprised me. “Journey, Addie and Gunner had an argument.”

I jerked my head around and looked at the two. “What the hell, Journey? Why would you do that?”

“He was being a douche talking about you, and that was enough for me.” Journey’s feisty posture and red face told me everything I needed to know.

Addie’s hands flew all around as she re-enacted the story with a Broadway performance. “Yeah, you should have seen her. I’ve never seen Journey so angry. We had to hold her to keep her from jumping on him.” Shit, this was not good. “Then I jumped all up in his face yelling at him about how he treated you. Once I finished, Journey took another turn and told him all the great things he didn’t know about you. He didn’t say too much after that.”

“I send you off on your own, and you can’t stay out of fucking trouble? What happened was between Gunner and me. I was as much at fault in the situation. He simply reacted worse than I thought. Now you’ve blown it all out of proportion. We’ll never get it worked out.”

“Great,” Journey added. “He’s not good enough for you.”

“Yes, he is. Didn’t you listen? What happened is my fault. I was deceitful and kept something important from him when I should have told the truth from the beginning. This is what happens when you lie to people, and I know better.” The anger I felt toward them was only multiplied because I was furious at myself for not being an adult and telling the truth from the beginning.

“How did this skirmish between y’all end?” My glare at the four of them one at a time let me know that none wanted to finish the scene for me.

“There might be some of it on YouTube.” Journey couldn’t look me in the eye because she knew this would never be what I wanted to happen.

“Awesome girls, just awesome. Have you had enough? I’m ready to leave now.”

A collective “NO!” came back at me. “We can’t leave right now. Assured Distraction is about to go on, and we’ve never seen them live.”

My feelings didn’t seem to matter at this point judging by the looks I received. “Fine. Y’all stay, and I’ll go back to the house. I’ll take an Uber and leave the car.”

“Whatever,” Journey said. “He told us we could come to the party still because there would be lots of people there, and we were still on the list.” I suppose she looked at me to judge my reaction to this news.

“That’s great, Journey. Defend me one minute and ditch me the next. I’m outta here. Be safe.” I threw her the keys. “If all of you drink, take a cab or Uber. Don’t drive.” I spun around and headed off toward the entrance at a determined pace. I had no intention of watching AD play a set.

Before I managed to find the entrance, I heard the roar of the crowd and familiar sounds from the giant speakers at the other end of the park and knew AD had taken the stage. I recognized all of their songs since I had spent the last year memorizing their music. It made me feel closer to Gunner which now seemed wrong. The longer I walked, the slower I went. Without admitting it to myself, I wanted to listen to a few songs before leaving. KeeMac’s smooth vocals came through the mic, and it was mesmerizing the way he belted out the lyrics. The crowd went wild when they started the song that had been at the top of the charts since the last album released.

The way he and Ryan engaged the audience amazed me every time I watch them. KeeMac drew them in, and Ryan wowed them with the riffs and solos. Sometimes Chandler played up to the guys in the audience. She always wore the rocker chic look sometimes with thigh-high leather boots, bustier, and that gorgeous long black hair swinging around stick straight. I wondered if she picked out her wardrobe or they brought someone in to make her look that way. Either way, she epitomized the looks of a female member of AD in my opinion.

Guess I’d never know the answer to that now. Oh yeah, I was supposed to be leaving I thought when I saw the turn-styles, so I put my head down and walked through the exit as I pulled up the Uber app on my phone. I saw the car waiting on Lamar at the McDonald’s. I jumped in, sat back, and closed my eyes. It was a long way out to the lake house, but I didn’t mind because it was quiet with the low music the driver had playing. The mellow sounds soothed the anxious thoughts running through my head. The ride gave me time to think about driving back to Houston tomorrow morning instead of waiting until Monday as I told Journey I would. I’m angry at her for causing a scene with Gunner.

I couldn’t help myself so I opened my phone and searched YouTube, and just like the girls said, it was already posted on there for all the world to see. The embarrassment the video caused was horrible. His manager would be angry with him, too. I can’t understand them since there are so many people yelling for Priority as the band made their way on stage, but it’s obviously a heated argument when Addie was almost touching his nose, and then Journey was stabbing her finger in his chest. Before I get to the end, a disclaimer popped up saying the video is no longer available. Hmm, I wondered what lawyers got ahold of that already?

The driver pulled into the driveway, and I realized I gave the girls the key and the garage door opener was on the car’s visor. Great, just great. I thanked the driver and walked around to the side of the house. The gate was locked, too. Now, what the hell was I supposed to do? I put my cross-body purse down at the bottom of the wrought iron fence and started looking around for something to climb on to get over the fence. I was too short to jump up and grab the top bar.

The only thing available was the garden hose container, so I dragged it to the fence. When I stood on it, I could reach the top bar. Thank God. I was tired, and angry, and ready for a bath and bed. I put my foot up on the railing and pulled myself up. There were spikes on the top of each of the decorative fence posts, so I had to avoid those to keep from getting speared. As I let myself down on the other side, my shorts got caught on the spike, and gravity took over and pulled me further down on the spike. “What the fuck!”

“Dammit, dammit, dammit. Why me?” I hung there with the worst wedgie I had ever had. I started wiggling around, and the spike ripped through the material. So much for these shorts, but if I moved around enough, maybe I could rip myself out of them and off the spike. I started jumping up and down as much as I could, while the hole ripped more and more with each determined jump. The material finally let go all at once, and I landed on the ground in a humph that came close to knocking the wind out of me.

I lay there catching my breath when I saw some yellow and red lights shining from the driveway. “What now?” I said out loud. A bright flashlight came around the side and up to the fence and shined right in my face.

“These homes are protected by security that reports directly to the police department. Breaking and entering is a serious offense, ma’am.” He was still shining the damn light in my face.

“No shit? Can you get that out of my face, please? I’m not breaking and entering. I’m renting this house for the week.”

“Why are you lying on the ground, miss?”

I rolled over and showed him the butt of my shorts, and he also got a perfect shot of my ass since I was wearing a thong. “Because the spike ripped my shorts and when it did, I fell eight feet.”

“If you’re renting the house, why did you climb the fence?” He shone the light to the hose reel box, obviously making the connection on how I got up there to begin with.

I stood up and looked at him. “I left ACL in an Uber after giving my sister the keys so she could drive the car home. The house key is on the ring, and the garage door opener is in the car. That meant I was going to have to sit out front until they got home from the big after party, so I decided I was going to sleep on one of the patio lounge chairs until they get here. To get in the backyard, I had to climb the fence, but my shorts got hung on the way down. They ripped and dropped me to the ground from up there.” I pointed to the black spike above my head.

He looked at me like I was psycho. “That’s a pretty good story you have there, miss. Do you have any ID or is it at ACL, too?”

“No, it’s not at ACL.” I reached through the fence, but he reached the purse first.

“How do I know this isn’t stolen?” He was pissing me off. Rent-a-Cop had the, “I have a badge so I’m a badass syndrome.” It would have been different if he was actually the police, but he was a damn security guard with a flashlight and radio.

“If you look at my driver’s license, you’ll know it’s me.” I remembered I only had a paper one since I didn’t need one in Paris. This situation kept getting better and better. He opened my purse and pulled out my wristlet with my cards in it.

“There’s no driver’s license in here, miss. There are credit cards though and a large amount of cash.”

“Yes, and it’s all mine.” I was ready to throat-punch this guy because his tone bordered on accusatory, and I had done nothing wrong or illegal.

“How do I know that? I could all be stolen, purse, money, cards. All of it. I think I better call this in, and we’ll let the police take a look.”

“Oh, great. I bet the police will be thrilled to drive out to the fucking lake to look at my ripped up shorts and my ass showing.”

“In the meantime, you need to sit down with your back against the side of the house, please miss.”

“Do I have the right to a phone call? My sister can come here and verify who I am and bring the keys to the house.”

“Yeah, sure.” I called Journey as he called 911. Unfortunately, my call went straight to voicemail. I looked at the time, and it was 11:15, so they were probably in the crowd to get out and couldn’t hear the phone.

“This is just fucking great.” I leaned my head against the brick and closed my eyes. I wanted to sit down and cry. My bad day continued to get worse with each minute that passed.

We waited for what seemed like forever for the police to show, and I kept trying to call Journey. I had no clue why she wasn’t answering her phone or texts.

They shined the light in my eyes and asked for an ID, and I had to go through the whole story since they dismissed the guards immediately. I hoped to wake up from the nightmare any minute now.

“Miss, you are going to need to get in touch with someone who can verify your information, or we are going to have to take you to the county jail.”

“Oh. My. God. Can anything else go wrong on this vacation?” I tried Journey’s number again, and again it rolled to voicemail. I didn’t have the others’ numbers, so I couldn’t call them. The only other number I had in Austin was Gunner’s, and there was no way I would call him. I would go to jail first. “Does this mean I’m under arrest?”

“No, but we can take you in on suspicion of B and E. If you can get us some proof, we will let you go.” The officer was a lot nicer than Rent-a-Cop, so I tried to be nice, too.

“Okay. When my sister finally answers the phone, she can get my passport here inside the house and show you I am who I say I am.”

“The next problem, Ms. Reitzell, is we have to get you out of the fence.”