Play Me (Love on Tour #2) (3 page)

“I’m in shock.” I stepped up, so that I was directly in front of Bell. “I’m going to fix this,” I said, vehemently.

****

After the Portland concert we took the bus back to our hotel. Baby and Sean were staying in a suite on the top floor. Mike had the room next door. But Bell and I were both in rooms one floor beneath them. So I walked her to her door.

“Here.”

“What’s this?” She asked, looking down at the offering in my hand.

“An iPod.”

“With music on it?”

“Yeah, I’ve included a very wide range.”

She took it and examined it.

“You know how to work it?”

“Yes, I used one at work for dictation. What kind of music?”

“Oh everything from Elvis and the Beatles to Chrome and Bantham,” I said, mentioning both Sean’s band and my own.

She looked up at me, her mouth parted. “Henry, this is so amazing.”

“It’s Hank,” I reminded her.

She looked up at me with that adorable face and smiled. “I can’t believe you did this for me, Hank.”

“It’s not a big deal. It took fifteen minutes. I did it while Sean was on stage.”

“It’s awesome.” She tugged on my arms and stood on her tip-toes.

I got the hint, and bent over so she could kiss my cheek.

“I just have one question. How did you make it to 30-years-old without listening to music?”

“It’s a good question, I guess. The answer is a little… weird.”

“Try me.” We were standing in the hallway outside her room. I leaned up against the wall.

She jutted her hip out and rested it against the door. “My parents were in a cult.”

“What? You’re kidding me.”

She shook her head. “Nope. An actual cult.”

“So you grew up in a cult?”

“Yep. I even went to a little cult school. Music, dancing, and television weren’t allowed.”

“Okay, come on,” I said, grabbing her arm.

“Where are we going?”

“I have to hear about this. Let’s go to the bar.”

3

I dragged her into the elevator and down to the first floor. It was late. We had less than an hour to last call. It was a Wednesday night in a hotel bar, so that meant that it wasn’t very crowded. I managed to get us seated at a table in the far corner without having to make too many stops for autographs. Of course drinks were on the house. Bell ordered a White Russian. I got a club soda.

“You don’t drink?” she asked.

“Twelve years now.”

“Was it bad?”

“Very bad.”

“Did you do drugs?”

She was so innocent. It was crazy.

“Yes. But my main problem was alcohol.”

“How did you get off it?”

“I went to rehab, a few times. It finally took. And I realized that I was much happier sober. So I decided to stay that way.”

“Does this bother you?” she asked, holding up her drink.

I shook my head. “No. I’ll tell you what I told Baby when she asked me the same thing. I may not drink anymore, but I still like getting girls drunk.”

“I may have been sheltered Hank, but I know what you are. You’re a player.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She smiled at me.

“Tell me about the cult,” I prompted.

She used her hands when she talked. The tiny little things were flailing all over the place as she wove her tale. She told me about an upbringing so different from my own that it was hard to even imagine.

“It wasn’t like one of those crazy drink the Kool-Aid or everybody sleeps with everybody cults. It was run by a psychologist. My mom suffers from depression. She always wanted a big family. But after she had me, she had a series of miscarriages. And she got really bad. My dad took her to this guy who’d been recommended by one of his friends. Anyway, after a couple years of sessions he tells them he is moving all his clients out to a farm on the outskirts of the city. If they want to continue with therapy, they have to move out there. He tells them that the environment will be therapeutic for the whole family, especially since I was an only child.”

“What, like, having a big ‘it takes a village’ thing around you would be good for you?”

She took a sip of her drink. “Yeah, kind of. Plus, my dad would do anything for my mom. So he figured if it would be good for her and good for me, it was worth a try. So we went. I was five. We moved into a little cabin on the farm. There were dozens of them all in a big clump on one end of the property. There was also a community center and a big communal dining hall.”

“Did you farm or something?”

“No, we had gardens, but it wasn’t how we made a living or anything. One person from each family worked in town. They drove in each morning in a big bus. The other spouse – or whoever, in one case it was a set of sisters – would stay on the farm. I hate to admit this, but most of the people who stayed behind were the women. They did all the cooking and taking care of the kids and property. They were also the teachers.”

“What was school like?”

“We went to the community center every morning for two hours and learned English, math, science, whatever the teacher that day felt like. Then we’d all split up and go to someone’s house. Whatever it was they did before they came to the commune, they taught us to do it. There was a painter, a chiropractor, an accountant, a carpenter… a few other things I can’t remember. But I spent most of my time with the writer, at least after I was old enough to pick for myself.”

“What about your mom?”

She smiled affectionately. “My mom’s a cartographer.”

“Like a map maker?”

“Yeah, not a common profession.”

“No, it’s not.”

“She taught us geography mostly. Though a couple kids got into the mapmaking thing. It wasn’t my gig.”

“It doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It wasn’t. It was a happy childhood. But it was sheltered. I left the farm only a handful of times in the ten years we were there. I saw the same people everyday. I wasn’t exposed to the outside world. So when we left, it was a bit of a shock.”

I was completely wrapped up in her story. “Why did you leave?”

“Sy, that’s the name of the head guy–”

“Really, a psychologist named Sy?”

“I know. I know. Anyway, he was great at first. And, of course, he was the reason we were all there. He held therapy sessions all the time, was always around guiding us, at least at first. But then he started disappearing all the time. He’d be gone for weeks at a time. And he was upping his fees.”

“Fees?”

“Well that’s not what he called it. It was more like dues that you had to pay to live there. But my parents aren’t stupid. They understood paying for rent, food, and my education. Those were things they would be paying for anyway. But after a while the budget just didn’t add up. The accountant started to do some calculating and it seemed that Sy was making a lot of money off these people.”

“Even though only one from each family worked?”

“Yes, because when he raised the dues and things got tight, they would liquidate retirement funds or call on family and friends to help. And so it turned out, Sy was making a killing.”

“And where was he disappearing to?”

“Vegas.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, so my parents were among the first to leave. We moved back into Portland, my mom started working again, and we were back to being regular people.”

“And your mom?”

“She’s fine. She still sees a counselor regularly, but she’s doing well.”

“And you?”

“At 15 I found myself in the public school system. It was terrifying. But I kept my head down and persevered through high school. Then I went to college and I found myself with Dani as my roommate. She was everything I wasn’t – extroverted, fun, worldly. At first I was scared of her.” She laughed. “But we became inseparable fast. God, we had fun. And she introduced me to so many things.”

“Not enough music, though.”

“Maybe not by your standard. But we went to parties, parks, museums.”

“Museums? Wow, you guys were wild.”

“We had a good time. We stayed roommates until senior year when she moved in with her boyfriend.” She made a face.

“Yeah, I met that piece of shit.”

“I heard. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what happened to Brynn?”

I shook my head. Baby had tried a few times to get me to reveal how my confrontation with her asshole ex-boyfriend had ended. But I wasn’t telling. She had been told that no one went to the hospital and no one went to jail. And that was all she needed to know. The truth was that I wanted to send that guy to the morgue. But I settled for scaring the shit out of him.

“So, after college?”

“I interned at a publishing company. That’s where I got copy editing experience. I always wanted to make money as a writer,” she shrugged. “But I ended up in this career path.”

“So you still haven’t realized your dreams?”

“No.” She was clearly getting melancholy. “And now I don’t even have the stupid copy editing job.”

“Hey, it was a job you didn’t like anyway,” I said.

“Yeah, but, it was my fault.” A tear slipped out of her eye.

I panicked. There was nothing worse than a crying woman. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.”

“I was sleeping with my boss.”

“What?”

She nodded. “And he was married.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah, bad.”

“This was the boyfriend you just broke up with?”

“Yeah, he said he was separated from his wife. And I was an idiot. I don’t know. Anyway, it ended with me being fired.”

“I think you have a lawsuit.”

She waved her hand at me and took a long sip of her drink. “Not interested.”

I knew I needed to cheer up this little party.

“Come on.” I stood and gently pulled Bell up by her arm.

She gave me a quizzical look. “Where are we going?”

“First we need to do something about the music in here.”

“What?” She followed me to the bar.

“Hey,” I said to the bartender.

“Oh my God. Hey, um, you’re Hank Tolk.”

I always thought it was weird that people felt the need to tell me who I was, as if I didn’t know. After sixteen years of fame, I still hadn’t gotten used to it.

“Yeah, nice to meet you,” I shook his hand. “Can you hook us up with some better tunes?”

The guy nearly jumped out of his skin with excitement. “Yours?”

“No, not mine. Something I can dance to with my girl.”

“You got it, Hank.”

“Come on.” I took Bell’s hand and pulled her toward the small clearing near the front of the room.

“We’re dancing?” she asked.

“Absolutely.” I pulled her to me.

She was fourteen inches shorter than me. Jesus, I hadn’t given this much thought. Her head came up to the middle of my chest. Oh well. I put an arm around her waist.

The music changed and got louder. I looked over to see the bartender giving me a thumbs up as one of Sean’s songs played on the overhead speakers. Sean’s songs were not usually ‘dance with a girl’ kind of tunes either. But the one that was playing was an exception. It was a hot, sexy song he’d written for Baby.

Every other person in the bar was staring at us as well. This didn’t really faze me anymore, but when I looked down at Bell, she was wide-eyed as she gazed around the room.

I whirled her away from me. She spun and stopped at the end of my arm. Then I whirled her back to me, pressing her against my chest. The distraction worked. She looked up at me and smiled. Then I started to move against her. The song was sexy. It called for some sexy dancing. So that’s what I did.

The girl didn’t have a clue how to move on the dance floor. She was awkward. When I went one way, she went the opposite direction. I grabbed her hips in my hands.

“Just follow me, Bell,” I told her.

She swallowed hard, her deep brown eyes bigger than I’d ever seen them. I put my leg between her thighs. She sucked in a breath. I used my leg to move her hips. She let me lead completely.

And before I knew it, I had a killer erection.

I waited until the song ended, but as soon as it did I pulled her off the dance floor and out of the bar.

Her cheeks were flushed and she was smiling. “That was fun.”

“Yeah, it was. But I’m pretty beat,” I lied.

“I bet you are. Let’s head upstairs,” she said.

I escorted her to her door and said a quick goodbye before escaping to my own room.

I lay awake in bed that night staring at the ceiling. What the hell had happened? I liked Bell, like I liked Baby. She was sweet. She was also so damn innocent that she automatically triggered my protective instincts. But she was absolutely, in no way, my type. I liked tall blondes or redheads with big boobs, round asses, short skirts, and decidedly slutty attitudes. This girl was the exact opposite of all those things.

I determined that my physical reaction to her when we were dancing was merely the product of celibacy. I needed to forget it.

****

“And I also really liked the Rolling Stones. Wow, was that great!” Bell was giving me a rundown of her impressions of each and every one of the songs I’d put on the iPod.

“You ready for more?”

“More?”

“Yes, we’ve only scratched the surface,” I said, amused.

“Okay,” she handed me the iPod over the table.

I pocketed it. “You’ll have it back tomorrow,” I assured her.

“Hey, Tony, that’s perfect. Stop there,” Baby called out.

“You’re in the mood for barbeque, eh?” Sean said.

“Definitely. Does that sound good to you, Susi?”

“Works for me. Since I gave up being a vegetarian I am all about the pulled pork sandwiches.”

“I tried being a vegetarian once,” Mike said. “I was trying to impress a guy.”

“Me too,” Bell admitted.

“It was the second dumbest thing I ever did to impress a guy.”

“See, now you have to tell us the first,” Sean said.

“But, alas, we’ve arrived at the barbeque place,” Mike said.

“This isn’t over.” Sean got up and followed Mike off the bus.

Going in and out of venues was one thing. Going in and out of hotels was usually done by backdoors. And even the experience at the bar the night before had been pretty tame. But when we hit that restaurant on the outskirts of Seattle, all hell broke loose.

Sean hit the crowd first. Which was bad, because he wasn’t nearly as good at handling the crowds as I was. Sean was essentially a quiet guy, when he wasn’t singing. I was the loud one, so I usually dealt with the fans.

By the time I got to Sean, he was completely surrounded. Baby had been pushed back and was standing with Mike on the outskirts of the crowd. Susi was right behind me. I grabbed her wrist and moved her over toward Mike. He leaned forward and grabbed a hold of her.