Play Me (Love on Tour #2) (9 page)

But the other night with Bell was the antithesis of that. She was inexperienced, shy, and clumsy. She probably wouldn’t have been any good at it if she
had
tried to give me a blowjob. And the whole thing sure hadn’t lasted long. Which of course was my fault. All in all, it should have been a lackluster experience. But it wasn’t. It was amazing. Little Bell had made Rachel look like an amateur.

“What are you doing out here all by yourself?” Mike took a seat next to me on the loading dock.

It was thirty minutes to show time and everyone else was busy doing something. But Mike’s main job these days was to keep an eye on Baby and Bell. Baby was no doubt tucked away with Sean.

“Where’s Bell?”

“She wanted to Skype with her mom. I set her up in your green room.”

Great. I guess I’d be avoiding that spot until I went on.

“How’s school coming?”

“Good. Really good.” He paused. “Hank, don’t get mad. But you’re my buddy and I got to ask…”

“I’m not drinking Mike.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not mad. Actually, I appreciate it.”

“I only asked because you’ve been a little… I don’t know, different, the last couple days. Sean noticed, too.”

“Yeah, he already asked me.”

“Okay, well, I didn’t mean to pry.” He started to get up.

“Stay here. I don’t mind the company.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, my sponsor says it’s good for me.”

“Then I’m your man.”

I chuckled. “Tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“How’s your sex life?”

Mike laughed. “You really want to hear about that?”

“Yeah. I know the break-up with Grey was rough.”

Mike had dated the same guy for nearly two years before it all ended a couple months ago.

“I’m working on it. Having some serious trust issues.” He shrugged. “I’m probably ready to date again. But you know I never date on the road anyway. I’ll get back in the game when we get home.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear you’re in a better place about it. I always hated that fucker.”

“I know. You and Sean both. I guess that’s a lesson learned. Next time, before I get serious about someone, I’m gonna have you two screen them ahead of time.”

“Good idea.”

Mike and I stayed there shooting the shit until a couple minutes before the show. I didn’t go back to my green room. There was nothing I needed in there. So I headed straight to the stage.

Baby and Sean must’ve still been locked up in newlywed bliss, and Bell must’ve still been in my room, because my usual cheering squad was completely missing.

And when I came back off the stage, only Mike was there.

“Hank, I can’t find Bell anywhere.”

11

The last twenty minutes had been frustrating. Mike and I split up and looked at all the places backstage again. Mike talked to Sean and Baby, who joined in the search. But now that Sean was headed on stage, Baby was starting to really panic and I was downright pissed off.

“Okay,” Mike said, pulling Baby and me into a small hallway that was separated from the rest of the backstage area by a door. “Try calling her phone again, Baby.”

Baby pulled her phone out of her pocket, looked at it, and went pale. “Oh crap.”

I grabbed the phone and read the text message.

Please come find me! I’m in the managers office 3
rd
floor.

I had to give Baby back her phone before I crushed it into oblivion in my palm.

“Mike, how do we get to the Manager’s Office?” Baby asked.

Mike was dicking around on his phone. “I’m pulling up the schematic.”

“Hurry the fuck up,” I said, pushing past them both and heading down the hallway we were in, the opposite direction of the stage.

I was desperate to stay focused, use logic to find her location. If I lost focus, I started to imagine what kind of trouble she was in.

“It would be away from the stage. And the elevator or stair access to the third floor would be in a restricted area.” I said, as I walked hurriedly down the hall.

“Turn right, Hank,” Mike said, as we approached another hallway.

I turned. I could see a security door ahead of me, behind it was a gleaming elevator.

I stopped in front of the glass and metal doors. I was still looking around for something to break them with, when Mike swiped a card in the reader.

“Full access, I always insist on it,” Mike said, opening the door.

I shot through it, Baby at my heels. I ignored the elevator and used the stairwell behind it. It took me no time to run up there. I was definitely in the lead as I rounded the corner.

I spotted the fucker’s office door right away. It was at the end of the hall, staring me in the face. As I approached it, I was contemplating just kicking the door in. It was a basic wooden door, I could probably do it relatively easily. However, I didn’t know where in the room Bell was and that would risk hurting her.

I grabbed the handle. It was locked. I saw red. I started pounding on the door.

“Open up, asshole,” I shouted.

Baby and Mike were both behind me now.

“Susi, Susi are you in there,” Baby called.

There was no response from Bell, just a hesitant answer from Gary. “Um, hey, everything’s okay.”

“Open the fucking door,” I demanded.

“Yeah, okay. I am.” He pulled the door open and immediately jumped away from it.

I scanned the room, but didn’t see Bell. Then a door in the far right corner opened. Bell stuck her head out. Behind her I could see tile and the sliver of a sink.

Bell ran into Baby’s arms. I stepped toward Gary. He was shaking.

“Are you okay?” I could hear Baby ask Bell over the pounding of blood in my ears.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Can we just go?” Bell responded in a weak voice.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Mike asked. He was beside me now, advancing on Gary.

“Nothing. We were just talking.”

“With the door locked.”

“Force of habit.”

“Bullshit,” Mike said.

“It’s okay,” Bell said. “It was my fault.”

My anger exploded. I clenched my fists to my sides so hard I thought I might break my own fingers.

“You brought her in here and locked the door. And she wanted to leave and you wouldn’t let her. And that’s when she ran into the bathroom, right?” Mike deduced.

“It’s, um, not so much that I didn’t let her leave. See, she freaked out when I locked the door, and um, I was going to let her out, I just wanted to calm her down first.”

“Mike, it’s okay,” Bell said.

“It’s like she said. It was her fault.” Gary shrugged.

And that’s when I hit him.

He fell back against his desk. Baby and Bell both screamed. Mike had apparently thrown a punch at the same time, but he was a fraction of a second too late. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand swing wildly, catching only air.

“Oh shit. We gotta go.” Baby had grabbed the back of my shirt and was tugging hard.

“I’m not done yet.”

“Oh, yes you are,” Baby said. “Let’s go, Henry.”

Gary looked up at me and wiped blood off his lip.

“Hank, let me talk with this piece of shit.” Mike said.

“I could press charges,” Gary said.

“Sure you could. And we could make it so no musician ever comes to your theater again,” Mike said.

I was impressed with how quickly his business acumen took over in situations like this. Me, I was a raging animal at that moment. I was no more capable of negotiating my way out of this than I was of doing calculus in my head at the moment.

“Come on, Henry. Let’s get Susi out of here.”

That got my attention. I turned to see Bell, clinging to Baby, mascara running down her face.

“Go man, I got this,” Mike said.

I managed to turn my back on them. I put an arm around Bell’s waist and pulled her and Baby from the room. We walked down the hall slowly, linked together like a set of Legos. They talked. I listened.

“What happened?”

“He was so nice, and he was flirting with me. He asked me if I wanted to take a tour of the theater. I went with him. It was so stupid.”

“I disagree. You had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be safe.”

“I guess. I don’t know. We got to his office, and that’s when he locked the door behind him. I freaked out on him then. I totally lost it. He told me he’d open the door once I calmed down. And…”

I was so fucking tense, my muscles hurt.

“And?” Baby prompted, as I led them both to the elevator and pushed the button.

“He started kissing me. So I tried to relax. And then I told him I had to go to the bathroom and smiled at him like nothing was wrong. Only instead of letting me out to go use a bathroom down the hall, like I thought he would, he showed me the one in his office. I locked myself in there and sent you the text.”

“What did he do?”

“He knocked on the door after a while and tried to talk me into coming out. Then I heard Henry.”

She looked up at me. I still couldn’t talk, so I gave her a little squeeze instead.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

I couldn’t respond to that rationally. I was furious that she blamed herself for this situation, and at the same time I was furious with her for looking to get laid in every fucking place she could find other than my bed.

The elevator finally arrived and we all got in. We rode down in utter silence. I left them both in Sean’s green room. I went backstage and watched Sean’s set, then joined him for the encore. Bell and Baby were waiting for us when we got off stage. I gave them both a cursory nod, grabbed my stuff from my room, and caught a cab back to the hotel.

****

I had to call Tim. But first I wanted a Coke, and maybe a candy bar or something. This room didn’t have shit in it. So I walked down the hall to the vending machines, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone on the way.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

It was Mike. He was speaking in a loud whisper. I couldn’t see him, so he must have been just around the corner I was about to take. I stopped in my tracks and leaned up against the wall.

“I don’t know, Mike. I mean, he seemed nice, and…”

“And Jon the roadie. You said you were fucking around with him, too. Bell, I don’t get it.”

“Mike, I’m coming out of my shell, okay. Give me a break.”

“Bell a million guys are going to flirt with you, you don’t have to respond to them all.”

“I’m not. There was something specific about both of those guys.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” He asked.

She paused for a long moment. “Well, Jon, he used all the same lines Hank uses. I mean, word for word.”

“That’s because he stole them from Hank.”

“Maybe, but it worked on me. And Gary, he had these arms.”

“Arms?”

“Yeah, I kind of think that arms are sexy. And Hank has the sexiest arms ever. They’re ripped, and covered in just the right amount of ink. They’re gorgeous.”

“And Gary’s arms reminded you of Hank’s?”

She didn’t say anything, so I figured she nodded.

“Okay, I gotta ask the obvious question here,” Mike said. “Why don’t you just fuck Hank?”

“I can’t believe you’re suggesting that.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I thought you didn’t think I should fuck around with players.”

“Hey, if you’re going to, I’d rather it be Hank.”

“Why?”

“Because he won’t lock you in a bathroom or make you cry.”

“Are you saying Hank’s a gentleman?” I could hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“Kinda, yeah. He’s a slut and a player, but he’d never hurt anyone. And he would never do anything with a woman without first hearing a resounding ‘yes.’”

“So that’s your advice, fuck Hank?”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

I could hear their feet moving so I hightailed it back to my room. I was sitting on the bed, feeling twenty kinds of fucked up. My mind was going in circles. Sleeping with Bell again was a bad idea. I knew it. But I wanted it, bad. And, I argued with myself, maybe Mike was right. I was certainly better for her than any of these other douchebags she’d been trying to hook up with.

I decided to quit trying to analyze myself and let Tim do it for me. So I called him up.

Ten minutes into our conversation I still hadn’t mentioned Bell to Tim. But he’d picked up on my bad mood, and he was really fishing. He was also really worried about me.

“I told you I am not in the fucking mood to hang out with anyone,” I told Tim for the third time.

“Is there booze in your hotel room?”

“No, Mike always has it removed.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you like you this, Hank. Maybe I should fly out there.”

“Don’t you have a fucking life of your own?”

He sighed. I shouldn’t have said it. His wife had left him years ago when he was drinking, and he was still working on repairing his relationship with his daughter. Work and the guys he sponsored, that was his life.

“Sorry, I’m just really fucking cranky.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened today?” He asked, also for the third time. “Start at the beginning.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Is it this girl, Baby’s friend?”

Finally, I confessed. “I slept with her, last week.”

“And?”

“And nothing. That’s all she wanted.”

“Hmmm.”

“I fucking hate it when you do that.”

There was a knock on my door.

“Tim, I gotta go. Someone’s here.”

“Is it a girl?”

“Probably, I’ll call you tomorrow.” I hung up.

I wasn’t entirely sure who’d be behind that door when I opened it. It could have been Sean or Mike coming to check on me. Maybe it was Bell. A part of me hoped it was. But for some reason, I felt completely disappointed when I opened the door to the little sprite.

“Can we talk?”

In answer I opened the door wider and stepped aside. She walked in and plopped herself down on the edge of the bed. I pulled the chair away from the desk and set it opposite her. I sat down low in the chair and propped my feet on the bed beside her.

“I wanted to explain.”

“You already did.”

She ran her hands through her shiny hair and grimaced. “I… I fucked up.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I told her.

My voice was flat. I was having a hard time. I did not blame her for what happened. But I did blame her for flirting with the guy. It was a fine line.

“I’m not going to go looking for trouble any more. I promise.”

This perked me up. “No more casual sex?”

She sighed. “No. Not that I was having any anyways…”

I laughed. “You make it sound like you just gave up your new puppy.”

“It’s just that, the other night, with you…” She looked at her hands. “That was… it was incredible. And I have so many more things I want to try.”

I pulled my feet off the bed and leaned toward her. “Then why did you kick me out?”

She looked up at me. “You didn’t want to leave?”

“No,” I admitted.

“No?”

I was getting pissed again. “No.”

“Henry…”

“Hank.”

“Hank, I don’t know what I’m doing,” she pleaded. “I thought it was supposed to be a one night stand. I thought you would leave right after. I didn’t want you to, but I didn’t want to be upset when you did. Do you know what I mean?”