Rock Star Ex (2 page)

He
gently pulled her shoulders back from his a fraction and lifted her chin with
his hand to look deep into her eyes.
 
“I
love you,” he said, his tone rich with meaning and promise.
 

Her
mouth lifted in a smile and a tear escaped to roll down her cheek.
 
“I love you too.”

His
lips pressed down on hers firmly, passionately and she responded with
everything she had.
 
God, how she loved
him.
 
He was everything to her.
 
Their tongues teased each other lightly and
then he gently nibbled on her lips.
 
One
of his hands rose to cup her cheek and gently eased back to look at her,
leaning his forehead against hers.
 

She caught her reflection in the mirror, instantly
disgusted with herself at the forlorn look on her face.
 
Ugh, the awful replay of memories was always
the worst part about running into an ex.
 
As she left the bathroom, women flooded in past her.
 
The lobby was full and more people streamed
out the doors of the arena.
 
She headed
for the exit herself, eager to move on to the
after hours
party at a warehouse they’d gotten wind of.
 
She hadn’t even noticed the concert ending while lost in the memory of
him, she realized with irritation.

She was about to step past security and through the
exit when she felt her phone vibrating.
 
She stepped to the side to allow other people through and pulled the
cell from her cleavage, wishing again that women’s clothing had more pockets.

Where
r u?
 
It was a text from Kate.
 

At
the door, heading out front
, she responded.

Don’t
go!
 
Came a quick text back.
 
Head
back to our section and meet me.

She turned and headed back, stopping in front of the
door to their section where she scanned the faces coming out until she found
Kate.

Her friend beamed with excitement when she saw her.
 
“You are not going to believe this!”

“What?”

Kate reached into the waist of her skirt and pulled
out two colorful laminated squares and waved them at her.
 
“Backstage passes!
 
The security guard handed them to me right
after you left.
 
We get to hang with the
band backstage and be at their after-party!”

Eve’s jaw dropped open--she absolutely did not want
to go backstage, but she did an internal attitude adjustment in a split second.
 
“Oh my god!” she exclaimed with just the
right amount of squeal and enthusiasm.
 
“That’s so great!”
 
But it wasn’t.
 

It was so
not
great she couldn’t stand it.
 
Any other
night she would have been ecstatic, but not tonight.
 
She quickly weighed the options in her mind,
but there was no way to back out on her friend.
 
They had also come in the same car and she
couldn’t abandon Kate, especially if there was a wild after-party
involved.
 
Plus, scoring backstage passes
on a night like tonight was a once in a lifetime event.

Eve pasted a smile on her face and followed Kate’s
lead down the hall.
  
She had no
choice.
 
They were going backstage.

****

Devon lifted the guitar from his shoulder and handed
it over to one of the guitar techs.
 
It
was the usual kind of chaos backstage: there were people of all kinds,
everywhere.
 
Groupies, managers, techs,
agents, friends of friends were filtering in the door, guarded by two security
staff.
 
Roadies, dressed in black of
course, were scurrying around trying to get their jobs done amid all the
partying.
 
The musicians who had gone on
previously were already hammered and the caterers were scrambling to refill
food on the buffet as people swarmed it, looking for late-night snacks.

Several of his band mates were giving each other
high-fives.
 
Their English bass player,
Drew Haley, slapped him on the shoulder.
 
“Awesome job, brother!
 
Did you
see the crowd go wild for it?”
 
He put an
arm around Devon’s shoulders and turned to the others.
 
“I knew it!
 
I knew this guy was a keeper.”

“Good job, man,” said the drummer, Shane Nelson, a
smile on his face.
 
He turned to the tall
strawberry blond guitarist next to him.
 
“What’d
you think, Tommy?”

“I don’t know,” said Tommy slyly.
 
“We’ll have to see how he does with his shirt
on next time.”
 

Devon laughed.
 
He and Tommy, the lead guitarist, had become good friends in the short
time he’d been with the band.
 
“You’re
on,” he said.
 
“I’ll wear a shirt at the
next one.
 
But even with my shirt on there’ll
be a trail of wet panties in my wake,” he parried.
 
They all laughed as he sauntered off.

He headed for their dressing room, which was really
more of a suite, with its multiple lighted mirrors, couches, TV, refrigerator,
tables and chairs.
 
Glad to find it
empty, Devon shut the door behind him, muffling the sounds of the crowd outside.
 

Had it been Eve?
 
He could’ve sworn they were the exact same eyes, but he wasn’t so
certain of the rest.
 
Well, maybe she had
a twin she didn’t know about.
 
Or a
cousin.
 
He grabbed his t-shirt off the
couch and shrugged back into it.
 

He could easily have been seeing things.
 
The arena had been packed.
 
In the darkness, all he’d caught was a glimpse
of her face and a hint of breasts from where he’d looked down at her.
 
He’d never seen Eve wear a lot of makeup, and
the girl in the crowd had had smoky eyes with thick, black lashes and red
lipstick.
 
It probably wasn’t her.

But those eyes.

The exact same sea-foam green, the ones he still saw
in his sleep.
 
It wasn’t just the color,
though.
 
There had always been something
in their expression that captured him.
 
There
was something more behind her eyes.
 
It
was that something more that had always intrigued him.
 

He hadn’t meant to stand there for so long, staring
at her, trying to figure it out.
 
At
least it seemed no one had noticed.
 
They
would already have been teasing him mercilessly by now if they had.
 
It was amazing how much a part of the band he
felt already.
 
He was only a few months in,
but joining Arsenal was a vastly different experience from the others he had
bounced around to.
 
They were
professionals who had their acts together.
 
They worked hard on their craft and drew the line at any kind of
addiction or laziness. That was made clear from the beginning. In addition, the
support team was sharp and organized.

His mind went back to the girl in the crowd and he wondered
what Eve was doing these days.
 
No doubt
she was married to a doctor and had kids by now.
 
Isn’t that what all the normal kids did after
college?
 
Not him.
 
He actually never even spared college half a
thought.
 
He’d known since he was very
young that his life wouldn’t follow any ‘normal’ path.
 
At the moment, he was pretty satisfied with
where it had led him…except for one thing.
 
He went to the fridge and pulled out a beer.
 
Twisting off the top, he flipped it in a
supreme basketball move to the trashcan on the opposite side of the room and
went to rejoin the party.

He was immediately accosted by a flock of groupies
waiting just outside the door.
 
It was
something he’d had to get used to in his years on the road, on a smaller scale,
but ever since joining Arsenal the throngs of women had gotten larger.
 
The band had brought him in quietly, keeping
him a secret so they could do the big reveal tonight.
 
But even before everyone quite knew who he
was and what he was doing hanging out with the band, the women had set their
targets on him.
 
They must have had a sixth
sense for new band members or something.
 
Or maybe they were just big sluts.
 
Who really knew?
 
He tried to give
them the benefit of the doubt on that last, but it was hard sometimes.

Several had managed to make it into his room.
 
He had his suspicions about how so many made
it through locked hotel room doors.
 
He
supposed his band mates were just trying to help him out, help him to
relax.
 
Tommy was always saying how
intense he was.
 
But he wanted, more than
anything else, to make it.
 
He’d dreamed
of this since he was five.

Smiling, he welcomed the flock of girls good-naturedly
and slung his arm around the one who seemed shyest, a rail thin redhead.
 
She giggled nervously.
 
The shy ones were always the safest, least
likely to try and sneak their hand down his pants or their tongue in his
ear.
 
They were very young and extremely
scantily clad, with long limbs, perky breasts and barely-there outfits. They
looked at him with shining eyes, as if he were a god come to life.

As a red-blooded male, his eyes appreciated the view,
but that didn’t stop the red flags from going through his mind.
 
He bantered with them, trying to figure out
how old they were.
 
It was crazy, the
resources women had to disguise their ages these days.
 
You never could tell, when they were all
dressed up.
 

Unfortunately he wasn’t really into groupies.
 
They were hot, but they had this way about
them that turned him off.
 
Simpering,
that was it.
 
They simpered.
 
The word fit, but he couldn’t remember where
he had heard it.
 
It wasn’t a word he
would use out loud, at any rate.

Safest thing to do was get back to the crowd, so he
steered them towards the bar.
 
A steady
supply of alcohol was always a party pleaser and he considered building fan
loyalty a part of his job.

One of the girls, a pale blonde, stood on tiptoe
with her hands on his shoulders and breathed, “Can I get your autograph?” into
his ear.

“Sure,” he said nonchalantly, giving her one of the
slow grins that was his specialty.

She then gave a fake gasp and covered her mouth with
her hand. “Oh!
 
I left my autograph book
in the car.”

He knew what that was all about.
 
He’d seen this strategy a million times.
 
The other girls barely suppressed their
giggles.
 
He winked at her, playing along.
 
“Don’t worry about it.
 
I know how to leave a mark.”

He borrowed a pen from the bartender and when he
turned back around the girl already had her shirt lifted so he could sign her
red satin bra.
 
He was actually relieved
when he saw it.
 
Ah, the number of body
parts that had been revealed to his eyes for signature in the last few
years.
 
At least this girl had the
decency to have a bra on.

He stuck to his role, nestling his hand on her
ribcage just beneath her left breast and then leaned in to sign the right
one.
 
The other girls crowded in to get a
good look.
 
His pen had just made contact
with the material when he got a glimpse of shapely legs and long dark hair
through a break in the bodies surrounding him.

He signed as quickly as possible and straightened
up.
 
With his six-foot-five frame it was
easy to see over the girls’ heads and across the room, where Arsenal’s manager
and the rest of the band stood talking to two women.
 
One was of medium height, with brown hair and
a red dress.
 
The other had her back to
him but she was taller, in a black leather dress, with thick glossy hair.
 
The fishnets she wore had that sexy seam on
the back that ran up the middle of the leg.
 
From the predatory expressions on the band’s faces, he could tell she
was no ordinary groupie.
 
Which meant her
front side had to be as hot as her backside.