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“Never got the chance, now did I? My manager was breathing down my neck, and then there was this weepy little girl on my bus,” he says, making this horribly sexy pouty mouth as he leans in close to me. “So no, love, I didn't sleep with any of them. How fucking fortuitous are we both then?” he asks with a flourish of his tattooed fingers.
“If … you want to fuck me without a condom, then you—”
“Demand at least apathetic neutral, yeah, I remember.”
I smile, despite myself. The fact that Pax and I are both just assuming we'll fuck each other again is … interesting. Neither of us even bothers to ask.
“If you want to do this, you can't sleep with any other girls while I'm here. As soon as you do, it's over.” I take a deep breath and look him straight in the face. I know he's a bad boy and a rockstar and all that, but I won't take shit in this arena, not ever again. “My last boyfriend lied to me, cheated on me, and he made me sick,” I whisper, feeling suddenly nauseous.
Pax raises his eyebrows and Muse makes a soft, sad sound under his breath.
“Luckily it was completely curable and I caught it early, but I won't let anyone ever do that to me again. It's the worst kind of violation there is, and I'm lucky that it wasn't something worse. I can't take that chance. Please respect me on this. If you want to … fuck somebody else, just tell me you did and don't lie about it. Then that'll be the end of … this.”
I gesture randomly at the fallen pages.
The thought of any of these four screwing another girl while I'm around makes me sick, but what right do I have to demand their exclusivity? I slept with all of them one after the other on night one. But in this, at least, I have a valid reason, an excuse. I try not to feel so damn pleased about it.
“Look at you,” Pax whispers, touching his fingers to my hair, “roped yourself an entire rock band. And I thought you said you weren't a groupie.”
He smiles and takes a step back, disappearing down the hall and leaving me to look up at Muse, my heart pounding frantically in my throat.
Groupie.
See, there's that word again.
Lilith Goode, the one and only groupie for Beauty in Lies.
I'm disturbed by how much I like the way that sounds.
As soon as the bus comes to a stop, there's a sharp knock on the door and Pax is opening it to Octavia's angry face. The second she sees him, some of that ire melts away and she blushes, but then her gaze connects with mine and I feel this sick churning in my stomach.
She hates me and I haven't done a damn thing to deserve it.
“May I come in?” she asks Pax and he shrugs.
“Sure, what about? We're getting ready to go out.”
Octavia pauses as she ascends the last step and looks over at him.
“I see,” she says, and that's that. I guess the record label can't really control what the boys do in their spare time, now can it? I cross my arms over my new dress. Well, new in a sense. I made it out of the baggy Beauty in Lies t-shirt that Muse gave me. It was so long that I just sort of got inspired by it, using my time on the bus to let my creative juices flow … among other juices.
The dirty joke inside my own head makes me smile and Octavia turns a funny pink color.
“You agreed to stop by my trailer and sign a non-disclosure agreement,” she all but barks at me, her sweet voice tinny with anger as she takes in my outfit. In one of the boxes Muse rescued for me, I had a small portable sewing machine that I whipped out, taking in the waist of the dress, cutting out the armholes all the way down to the natural curve of my hips. Since I got my clean laundry back, I happened to have a pale pink lacy bra that I put on underneath. When I move, the sides of it show in the massive armholes.
The way the boys looked at me when I put it on—even Michael—I think I did a pretty good job. And it felt amazing to work with my hands again—to sketch, to sew. I just love to create, I guess.
“Oh,” I say, my mouth popping open as I remember our conversation backstage. I'd meant to head over there after I stopped by the bus, but then Cope and Ransom and I …
“Yeah, oh,” Octavia says, her pert nose lifted in the air, her hair the color of dirty dishwater bouncing in its usual ponytail as she turns to look at Paxton, cheeks coloring again. “I really need her to sign an NDA, honey.”
Honey.
The way she says it and the way Ransom says it could not be anymore different. He says it with this gentle sort of sincerity while Octavia just sounds desperate. I try not to hit her with a serious case of internalized misogyny, but I can't seem to help myself. She's being such a bitch.
Pax looks down at her with his sexy grey graze and then pans his expression over to me. We lock eyes and he gives me a wicked smirk.
“Nah, Lilith's alright then, aren't you, Lilith?”
“Um, yeah,” I say because signing an NDA sounds so formal and weird. My connection to these guys is so organic and strange and new. I don't really want to sign anything that promises I'll keep my mouth shut. I shouldn't have to. “I'm not sure I'm comfortable signing something I don't really understand.”
“She's not a media hound,” Pax says, and I find myself flushing with pleasure to hear him defending me against his manager. It's weird because we really don't know each other at all, but even with his anger problems and his cold indifference, he sees at least some of what I see.
“It's not up to you or me,” Octavia says softly, laying her fingers against his hand and looking between the two of us with this awful awareness dawning in her features. “If she's going to ride on the bus, she has to sign an NDA.”
Octavia produces a document from the folder tucked under her arm and thrusts it in my direction like it's a weapon.
“You can't spend another night on this bus unless you sign this and give it back to me.”
“Back off, Octavia.”
I glance over my shoulder to find Ransom in a black sleeveless hoodie with, of course, the hood thrown up, his dark chocolate hair spilling across his forehead, brown eyes rimmed in black. He's smoking a cigarette and glaring at his manager.
“You don't have to be so rude about it, okay?” he continues, his legs encased in white skinny jeans speckled with holes and tears that look genuine. On the front of his hoodie, a giant skull grins back at me with an evil mouth, wicked and sharp. “Leave the paper on the counter and we'll deal with it when we get back.”
“She can't sleep here without signing it,” Octavia repeats, looking from Pax to Ran to me with a curious expression on her face. “These aren't even my rules. This bus belongs to the label and the label has rules.”
“Fine,” I snap, taking the pen from Octavia's fingers and throwing back the top pages of the agreement to scribble my name. “There. Done.”
“Thank you,” she clips sharply, snatching the paperwork and shoving it back into the envelope. Octavia looks at Pax again, but he's staring at Ransom like he wants to start shit. Ran notices it, too, and gets stiff, exchanging a charged glare with his … friend? I guess they're not really friends at all, but it seems like they used to be, once upon a time. “Pax,” Octavia says, but he's too focused on Ransom to really pay her much attention.
“Well done,” Pax drawls in his thick British accent, “can we bloody go now? I'm so sick of this fucking bus, I could puke.”
He turns away from Octavia and descends the steps without waiting for the rest of us.
I'm nervous as hell and totally out of my element—I never went out much except to dinner and bars with Kevin—so this is kind of a new experience for me. I think I look good, too, not much like a girl who's dad died just a few days before.
My heart clenches painfully, but I breathe past the pain, reaching up to touch the silken red strands of my hair. It's clean, brushed until it shone, and hanging halfway down my back. My makeup is dark and intense: black around the eyes, lids covered in glitter, a bright pop of red at my mouth. My arms are drenched in bracelets—including my mother's charm bracelet. I neve
r take it off. Never. Not even to shower.
“Everyone ready?” Muse asks as he steps out of the hallway with Michael and Cope at his heels. Michael's gaze catches on mine and I smile, trying not to notice how beautiful his violet eyes are, how his tattoos peek out the neckline of his black tank, or how his leather jacket emphasizes the strong cut of his shoulders and arms.
He doesn't smile back, but he doesn't scowl at me or say anything rude either, so I guess we're moving in the right direction.
“Ready, baby?” Ransom asks me, his gaze so intense that when I meet it, I can feel him inside of me all over again. I can't wait to feel him bare, can't wait for him to come inside of me … I swallow back the thought and smile, refusing to let residual sadness leak into my expression. It's not so difficult to ignore it here, getting ready to go out with a group of sexy rockstars. I feel like I'm living in a book or a movie, like I've left my real life to live on Mars.
“Ready,” I say, letting him link an arm through mine, his clean clothes reeking of violets. I smile as we descend the steps and pause next to Paxton. I stand between the two boys like a shield, wishing I knew a little bit more about their history but not yet ready to outright ask about it.
“We've got a hired car for the night,” Pax says, smoking his cigarette as the other three boys cluster around us. Standing amongst them all—several inches shorter than the shortest one—I feel safe and protected, like I'm among friends. Even though we're going out in a strange city—I've never been anywhere but Gloversville, New York City a handful of times with my dad or Kevin, and Phoenix—I feel confident that there's nothing for me to worry about tonight. “They're meeting us at the gates.”
He gestures through a cluster of trailers and buses toward a set of black metal gates on wheels. To our left, the venue stands tall and imposing against the night sky, quiet until tomorrow evening. All around us though, there's activity. Roadies hopping down from trucks towing trailers, the other bands spilling from their buses. Some of my boys—because that's how I was going to start thinking of them all (even Michael eventually) in the future, as mine—raise their hands and exchange pleasant greetings with the other musicians.
But they don't invite any of them to go with us.
We hit the gates and they open automatically on a sleek black limo with a fucking driver standing by the open door.
Holy fuck.
I've been a limo two times in my life—both of them during prom, junior and senior.
I remember Dad pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead as I ducked inside the white limo Kev had hired, his eyes shining with pride, his lips telling me how beautiful I looked that night.
I choke on tears for a moment and cover my mouth with my palm.
“How are we all this evening?” the driver asks politely as Paxton ignores him and slides inside the car.
“Wonderful, thanks,” Muse says, stopping and checking something on his phone. He flashes the screen to the man. “We might bar hop a little, but we're starting at the Silver Skull. You know it?”
“Yes, sir,” the man says as Muse puts his phone back in his pocket and waits for Ransom and me to crawl in next.
My shirt-dress is so short, my thighs brush against the buttery leather when I sit down and gasp at the sensation.
“Oh, that's nice,” I say, curling my fingertips into the fabric as Pax laughs at me and fills a pair of champagne glasses with a bottle he rescues from an ice bucket. I'm beyond pleased when he hands one to me.
“Not used to the finer things in life, love?” he asks, like maybe he is. I wonder about Pax, where he comes from, what his parents are like. Maybe if I knew, I could understand why he's so angry all the time? His sister's death didn't help obviously, but there's something else inside him that's bleeding and festering, too.
“My dad was a mechanic, and my mom was an artist, so no.” I laugh and lean back into the leather as the other boys climb in and the driver shuts the door. “These seats are to die for.”
I cross my black booties at the ankles and lace my fingers together behind my head, listening to the slight drone of pop music in the background. It should be rock, shouldn't it? I open my eyes and spot the controls for the stereo underneath the window connecting us to the driver's side of the car. I crawl over Paxton's lap to get to it and he grabs me around the waist, spilling champagne on the sumptuous buttery seats.
“Where the fuck do you think you're going?” he asks me, heating the air in the small space up substantially. Our eyes lock and I take a sip of my champagne.
“To turn up the music,” I say and he relaxes his grip on me slightly, giving me just enough slack to crank up the volume. I finish off my champagne as Muse pours glasses for everybody else, passing them out as I sway with the music.
Dad is dead, this ugly little voice inside of me whispers.
I ignore it and grab the champagne bottle, swigging a giant mouthful as Pax chuckles low and deep. And then I let myself move with the song and don't give a fuck that the rest of them are staring at me. I need to … shake myself out a little.
Muse reaches out to take my hand and pulls me into his lap instead, dancing with me as best we can in the enclosed space as Cope smiles and Michael stares with violet eyes.
“You like to dance, Cutie?” Derek asks me and I shrug.
“I don't know. Honestly, I have no clue. Kevin never took me dancing and I never really made any friends in Phoenix, so I had nobody to go out with. Mostly I just went to these boring business functions he attended with his dad. When I danced at those, though, I sucked at it.”
“Kevin?” Cope asks with interest, sitting between Muse and Michael. Ran's on the other side and Pax is next to him. They seem to be on-again, off-again with their fighting, so I keep a close eye on them.
“Kevin's my ex,” I say with a sick churning in my gut. He actually texted me today, a few hours after the whole no-condom conversation. Sorry about your dad. That's literally all it said. After knowing my dad almost his whole life, after dating me for five years, that's the only thing he had to say. I'd rather not have received anything from him at all. “He's a fucking lying, cheating, womanizing piece of shit asshole,” I say and most of the boys laugh.
“Did he fuck your best friend?” Pax asks casually and I turn my head to see Ransom gritting his teeth in anger. The moment gets tense for a second, but stops when Michael's phone rings and he curses under his breath. “Fucking Vanessa again,” Pax growls as I lean against Muse. “She calls like fifty fucking times a day.”
“I've counted,” Cope says casually. “It was fifty-four today.”
“Lay off,” Michael says, but he sounds exhausted when he answers. “Hey, Van, what's up?” A pause. “Yeah, we're going out to some place called the Silver Skull.” Another pause and his mouth creases into a deep frown. “Vanessa.”
The way he says her name, like a warning, makes me cringe a little. I don't know a lot about their relationship, but when those three syllables roll off of his tongue, I see the end of that relationship flashing before my eyes.
Michael's violet gaze meets mine and I glance away, down, toward the sparkling sea of tattoos I can see peeking above his neckline. Black, blue, and purple flames are inked up and over his shoulders and halfway up his throat, emphasizing the unique color of his eyes. His dark hair is razored in layers, feathered and falling almost to his shoulders.
I wonder what it'd be like to run my fingers through it?
I shiver and glance away. No fucking way in hell I'll ever be the other woman. I mean, ultimately, the responsibility in an affair lies with the person in the relationship, but with how much Kevin hurt me, I couldn't knowingly do that to somebody else.
“Vanessa.” Her name again, another warning. I remember Pax saying something about Michael having cheated on this poor girl before and I get the chills down my spine. If Vanessa was willing to forgive him after that, she either really loves Michael or she just doesn't know how to let go. I know both feelings—intimately. “I
have to go; we're almost there. I'll call you later,” he snaps, his voice low and angry. “I'm not going to fuck anybody. I've been celibate for a goddamn year waiting for you for fuck's sake. I messed up before; I won't make that mistake again.”
Michael hangs up the phone, turns it off and throws it against the wall where it bounces harmfully off the detailed black leather panels attached beneath the driver's window.
“We done with that shit for tonight?” Pax asks as the car rolls to a stop and he raises a blonde brow at his friend.
“We're done,” Michael promises, opening the door before the driver can get to it and stepping out into the icy cold Minnesota evening. As soon as the breeze sweeps in and kisses all my bare flesh with icy lips, I know I'm completely underdressed.
“Don't worry, darling,” Ran says, putting a hand on my bare knee and raising his dark brows. “You won't be outside long enough to need a coat.”
I smile and turn towards Cope, taking his hand and letting him help me out of the limo. On the street side of the sidewalk, small hills of dirty snow sit, collecting the small fresh flakes from above. But the awful weather doesn't stop the line for the Silver Skull from traveling all the way down the long city block and around the corner.
I blink in surprise at the gathered crowd as Cope leads me along behind Michael, straight to one of two bouncers manning the door. Above us, a silver arch made entirely of metal skulls frames the entrance; the sign with the club's name hanging beneath it in block purple letters glows the same color as Michael's eyes.
I'm so overwhelmed by the whole scene, by the people leaning against the wall watching us with curious expressions, that I don't even think about how we're going to get in. I guess I just assume we'll be waiting in line with everyone else, but that's just because I'm not used to hanging out with rock stars.
The crowd before me is dressed to the nines, in costumes, in leather and lace and velvet and masks, high heels and long dark coats. More than a few of them notice my boys and cover their mouths with their hands, point and call out, cheering Beauty in Lies from the side of the black and brown building. Some of them raise their phones and start recording us, but they don't get long because Cope's pulling me into the building, through the door on the opposite side of the velvet rope.