I didn’t want to go near the farm. It was no longer my home, but a place where my broken dreams were now buried. For so long I’d dreamed of growing old on that farm, of being Wroth’s wife and raising a family there.
So I would have to grit my teeth and stay on this bus. Hopefully I wouldn’t give in to the pain that was slowly destroying my sanity…
Wroth
As soon as the door shut behind Natalie, the bus pulled out into traffic behind the first five buses. I sat on the couch glaring sightlessly at one of the flat screens that had the weather channel on, broadcasting the temperature of the city we would be in by later that afternoon.
Marissa hated me.
It wasn’t something I hadn’t already known, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to hear the words actually leaving her mouth. Fuck, I wished things were different. I wish I’d never tried to push her away last year. I’d known the second I’d done what I’d done that it was a mistake and that I didn’t really want to be without her. In that moment I’d realized that I was losing the best thing in my world. I’d come to terms with all my self-hate and disgust. I’d forgiven myself for the things I’d done while in the marines and even come to terms with the lifestyle I’d led after the band had taken off.
But by then I’d already fucked up and there was no going back from what Marissa had seen. No fixing what I’d done to us. All I’d been able to do was let her walk away, let her have time to forgive me. She hadn’t come close to doing that in the last year, and I seriously doubted she ever would. I deserved that, I knew that I did.
Didn’t mean I was going to give up, though. I was going to get her back and I was going to use this tour to do it. To show her that I was sorry for pushing her away. For so many things. If she would let me, I would spend the rest of my life making up for that night.
“You guys should get some rest,” Natalie said as she dropped her ever present clipboard on the kitchenette table and slid the chair beside Linc. “It’s going to be nothing but rushing once we get there.”
“I’m not going back there until I know Rissa has calmed down,” Liam grumbled as he lifted a cup of coffee to his lips. “Pretty sure she doesn’t like me right now.” His eyes raged at Linc as he set his cup down. “And you—you were just going to let her ride on that fucking bus. You’re supposed to be helping me watch out for my sister, not letting her do crazy shit like that.”
Linc shrugged, obviously not worried about Liam’s displeasure. “She would have been fine. Rhett wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.”
My eyes narrowed on the muscle headed personal trainer, but I remained mute as he and Liam continued to argue about the subject. Liam was right. Linc had been paid generously to be watching out for Marissa. I knew because I was the one lining his pockets with money to guarantee that she was safe. And the fucker hadn’t batted an eye when she had gotten on that bus with all those motherfuckers. Instead he’d actually wanted her to be left alone so that she could ride with Rhett. With fucking Rhett.
Jesus Christ, but I hated that fucker. Hated everything about him, but especially that he and Marissa seemed close now. So close that the damn prick was actually sleeping at Marissa’s apartment. And I fucking hated that I didn’t know if he was sleeping with Marissa or Natalie. I couldn’t have cared less if it was Natalie. Those two could fuck all they wanted for all I cared. But if Rhett was touching my girl…
I popped the knuckles of each hand, envisioning how much pleasure I would take from smashing that damn rocker’s face in. Over. And over. And over.
“Dude, you need to relax,” Zander mumbled from his place beside me on the couch. “You’re seriously going to break your hands and then were the fuck will we be?”
Clenching my hands into fists so that I wouldn’t pop my knuckles anymore, I tried to concentrate on the television by picking up the remote and turning the channel to something other than the weather channel. As long as it wasn’t raining we had perfect reception on the satellite, but I couldn’t find anything to hold my attention for longer than a minute.
“Wroth, if you don’t fucking find a channel and leave it there I’m going to break your fucking hands,” Natalie snapped as she got up and took the remote from me. “I’m about five seconds away from throwing your ass from this moving bus and the damn trip just started. Not exactly the best way to start the tour, asshole.” She flipped through the channels until she found one of the movie channels. It was a freaking documentary on two college football teams and their rivalry.
“Let’s just play a game on the PS4,” I told Zander.
“Dude, you are just asking for her to beat the shit out of you,” Zander snickered, but he got up and turned on the PlayStation.
Tossing me a controller, we sat back and waited for the game to load. Natalie shot us both nasty glares and walked back toward the roosts, muttering to herself. I shot Devlin a hard look. “Your chick is batshit crazy.”
“Fuck, I wish she was still my chick,” he muttered almost to himself. “Don’t talk about her like that, man.”
“True is true,” Zander said with another snicker. “You fuckers all know how to pick ‘em. First it was Gabriella…” Liam flipped him off. He didn’t react well to the sound of Gabriella’s name, and I couldn’t help wondering for the hundredth time why he didn’t just call her and sort out whatever the hell it was that had made him turn his back on her. Was it really because she had broken up with him right before his last stay in rehab? “…then Dallas. Now it’s Nat and I think even Rissa has flipped her lid. Fuck it. Let’s just go ahead and admit that all chicks are batshit crazy.”
“Amen,” Linc said with a grin as he took a drink of his coffee. “That’s why I keep to dicks. It’s less complicated that way.”
Liam snorted his coffee up his nose at that and started coughing. For the first time in a long time I actually felt a grin teasing at my lips. I was relieved that Linc was gay. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about him trying to get into Marissa’s pants…
Rhett on the other hand… Yeah, I wanted to slaughter that little fucker. Especially if he had already gotten into her pants.
Around lunch time the buses stopped and Axton climbed on board. We spent the next few hours going over our playlist for the night and rehearsing. It was our normal routine while on tour, so that we didn’t have to worry about it once we got to whatever venue we were preforming at. If the noise from our rehearsal woke Marissa or Natalie, neither came out to complain about it.
I hadn’t seen Marissa since she had stormed off before the bus had filled up with everyone else. I’d wanted to go back into the roosts and confront her, comfort her, but Liam had taken one look at my face and told me to give her a few days to cool off. Halfway through our set list, Natalie came out and nuked something in the microwave, completely ignoring everyone around her. Devlin’s eyes locked on her the moment she walked in and didn’t leave her until she walked back toward the roosts with her food.
Poor bastard.
Chapter 6
Marissa
My head was killing me and the sound of the guys jamming from the front of the bus wasn’t helping.
I hadn’t been able to sleep. Instead I found a roost and just stared up at the bed above mine. Silently crying, hurting…trying to talk myself out of doing something stupid. It wouldn’t do Liam any good if he found me in a puddle of my own blood. I had to think of Liam. He was the only one who mattered.
So I curled up into a ball and closed my eyes, letting the tears fall and the pain consume me.
“You asleep, Rissa?” I’d heard Natalie come back not long after the bus had started moving, but thankfully she hadn’t tried to talk to me until right then. She’d taken the roost right above mine and I hadn’t heard anything from her until now.
I wiped my damp eyes and rubbed my aching head. “Nope.”
“Can I come lie down with you?” Her question was softly spoken, as if she were scared I would turn her down.
The thought of having someone hold me for just a few minutes made my chest ache. “Yeah, come on.”
When the curtains of my roost were pulled back, I saw that Natalie’s eyes were just as red and puffy as my own. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who had been having a pity party today. I opened my arms, silently offering her the love and understanding that we both needed. Natalie climbed in, closed the curtains and then cuddled up to my side, her head resting on my shoulder.
Some of my earlier pain faded until it was almost bearable and I breathed a sigh of relief. Natalie and I lay there for nearly an hour, neither of us speaking, but we didn’t sleep either. Eventually her stomach grumbled and mine wasn’t any better. She offered to make us a snack and I accepted with a smile and a nod. “Be right back.”
Ten minutes later she produced a frozen pizza and a bag of baked chips with two bottles of water. I sat up as much as I could and nibbled on a slice of the pizza while she opened up the chips and started crunching away. When the food was gone and our stomachs were no longer demanding attention I lay back down, listening to the band continue to rehearse and trying to tune out the sound of the guitar solos.
Natalie remained where she was but I could tell that her earlier pain was turning into a burning fury. I wished I could get that mad, and stay that mad. It would be so much better than all the pain I was feeling…
I grimaced at my thoughts, hating that I sounded like such a wimp. Suddenly I hated myself for letting a man do this to me. For giving him the power to make me hurt to the point that I had actually been considering... Yeah, that wasn’t me. I was stronger than that, damn it.
Glancing at Natalie’s set jaw and her angry eyes only made me even angrier. Men were such pigs. They thought they could walk all over us, cheat on us, or even make bets on whether they could sleep with us. I wanted to hurt the two men who had destroyed me and my friend. I wanted to make them pay.
“I keep thinking about that fucking bet,” Natalie said, twisting the napkin in her hands until it started to tear. “How could they…he do that to me? I thought we had something special, but all I ended up being was some kind of immature fun for him and damn Zander.”
I don’t know why the idea suddenly entered my head. I wasn’t a vindictive person, but the past year had seriously changed me. Hardened me. The grin that suddenly lifted my lips was evil and I didn’t care. “Let’s have a little immature fun of our own, Nat.”
“I love you and all, Rissa, but I’ve never been interested in experimenting with a girl before.”
For the first time in what felt like a million years I burst out laughing. I gripped my sides; I was laughing so hard it hurt to breathe. “No, no,” I got out through my giggles. “I wasn’t going to suggest that.”
“Oh,” Natalie said and grinned. “Sorry. What were you going to say?”
Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I sat up again and moved closer to Natalie so that no one else would hear if they happened go come back there. “I was thinking about that bet that Dev and Z made. How about we make one of our own?”
Blue-gray eyes widened and then the evil grin I’d had on my face earlier broke across her beautiful face. “You’ve roused my interest, my friend.”
“Let’s make them sweat. It’s obvious that both Devlin and Wroth want us to take them back. Especially Devlin, he’s like a kicked puppy when he’s around you.”
Natalie’s grin faltered. “Wroth isn’t much better, Rissa.”
“Whatever, I don’t care.” I didn’t. I. Didn’t. “I don’t want a man who is going to cheat on me.”
“And I don’t want one who treats me as nothing more than a game.”
I caught her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “So let’s make them the game. I bet you that I can make Wroth beg me for another chance, seduce him and then drop him before you can do the same to Devlin.”
“You want me to seduce Devlin?” Natalie whispered fiercely. “Have you lost your fucking mind? I don’t want to get within touching distance, let alone let him kiss me.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy. They deserve some payback for breaking our hearts. It’s not fair that they got to move on while we are stuck in misery. It’s obvious that they want another chance, so we will let them think they can have it, let them get their hopes up, their hearts invested. And then we get one last good fuck, the closure that we both need, and drop their asses, shatter their hearts like they did ours. Don’t tell me that the idea doesn’t tempt you, Nat.”
She bit her lip, taking her time to think over my offer. Yes, I knew that it made us little better than Devlin or Zander making their bet, but I really didn’t care. I wanted my revenge, and if Natalie didn’t want to participate then I’d still go through with it on my own with Wroth. I wanted to make him beg, and I wanted for him to give me what he’d denied me the first time around. I wanted him to be my first lover, and then I was going to leave him broken and bleeding as I walked away. Just as he had done to me.
Just like I still was.
“What are we betting?” Natalie finally asked. “What does the winner get?”
I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “If you win, I’ll take over your job for a week and you can take a vacation.”
“Holy shit that would be awesome.” Natalie rubbed her hands together, apparently warming to the idea. “Okay, okay. So if you win, I will switch rooms with you.”
I offered her my hand, the idea of having the larger room back at our apartment adding to the incentive to win our bet. “Deal.”
“Wait, what is the time frame? How long do we get to accomplish everything?”
I shrugged. “Everything has to be accomplished by the end of the tour.” That sounded like a reasonable time frame. Three months was plenty of time to torture Wroth Niall in my book.
“Okay then. Deal.”
Wroth
Natalie was spot on that we would be doing nothing but rushing once the bus stopped outside the arena where we would be preforming tonight. While Trance and Alchemy got ready to go on stage to open, OtherWorld and Demon’s Wings had to do meet and greets and sign merchandise for fans. Our road crews had arrived two hours before us and were already setting things up for us, like each band’s merchandise tents and our equipment.
I didn’t see more than a glimpse of Marissa here and there for the rest of the day. Since OtherWorld was closing tonight—and then Demon’s Wings would close at the next concert before switching back and forth for the rest of the tour—it was past midnight before I made it back to the bus. I was exhausted, grumpy, and still wired from our closing performance that had had the sold out stands shaking from the fans as they screamed our names. That never failed to get my blood pumping and now I was too wound up to relax.
When I got back to the bus it was to find Shane, Harper, Axton and Dallas waiting in the living room. They were all dressed up as if they were going out. I didn’t feel like going out. All I wanted was to find my roost, see if I could talk Marissa into lying down with me so that I could finally relax and maybe I would finally get some decent sleep for once. It felt like I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in a decade. I either couldn’t fall asleep because thoughts of Marissa would always haunt me, or I would wake up reaching for her only to find the bed beside me empty. When that happened, I couldn’t fall back to sleep no matter what I did.
Of course I knew that convincing Marissa to willingly come near me would be a miracle in and of itself. Which was made even more blindingly obvious when Marissa walked down the narrow hall dressed in club clothes with Linc. My jaw clenched so hard that my teeth began to ache when a third person appeared behind them.
Rhett Fucking Tomlinson.
“We’re ready,” Marissa announced with a smile as she sat down on the couch next to Dallas so that she could put her shoes on.
“Your hair smells good,” Dallas said with a sigh as she leaned forward to sniff Marissa’s hair. “What shampoo do you use? I want it.”
I didn’t hear what Marissa said because Rhett sat down on the arm of the couch beside Marissa and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Linc joined them by lifting Dallas and sitting in her spot, carefully arranging her on his lap. Beside him, Axton grumbled something snarky that made the muscle head laugh but he didn’t move.
“Hey, Wroth,” Harper greeted when she spotted me standing in the doorway. “Want to come clubbing with us?”
I turned my gaze to the beautiful woman sitting beside her husband and some of the rage I was feeling at the sight of some other bastard touching my girl eased. Just a little. Harper wasn’t anything like the girls I’d seen Shane Stevenson with for so many years. She was gorgeous, but it wasn’t all outward packaging. She was sweet, gentle, reminding me of Marissa in so many ways that I would have given Shane a run for his money over the chick if Marissa hadn’t already owned me. Harper was also broken, something that you could see in her startling violet eyes; but I admired her deeply for how brave she had been. Not many people could deal with all the things that she had to go through.
“Who’s all going?” I asked, offering her a small smile.
“All of us plus Natalie, maybe Jesse. Devlin and Zander most likely. And I think Felicity is going to come with us. Emmie wants her to have some fun too.” Harper stood and sat on Shane’s lap, something that the Demon’s Wings bassist looked more than happy to accept. “Here, you must be tired. Take my seat.”
Before I could move toward the offered seat the door opened behind me. Jesse stuck his head inside. “Hey, the limo is waiting. Let’s go. I want a beer.”
Clubbing had not been on my mind for ways to end the evening, but there was no way in hell I was going to let Marissa go out without me. Especially if the fucker who stood to follow her off the bus was going to be with her. Just the thought of him out with Marissa made my blood boil. So with a frustrated sigh I followed Shane and Harper off the bus and then climbed into the back of a waiting limo.