“Wow! You have a book?”
She waves me off. “I didn’t write it, but yes. It’s the story of how Aeron and I met. I’m all for creepy stories. I wouldn’t recommend this author, though. She drinks too much, procrastinates a lot, and is easily distracted.”
I laugh, running my hand over the book while sliding it back to her. “So why did you want to have a drink with me tonight? Or this morning?”
Her focus drifts. “Well, I was really just hoping to pick your brain on how you dance. I run Aeron’s backup dancers now, and they’re driving me crazy. That’s saying a lot, because my crazy threshold is high due to who I’m married to.”
“Ask away!” I gesture with my hands as she peppers me with questions about my technique. I tell her that I not only have been dancing since I was able to walk, but I had lessons growing up, too, which she understood. Once we’re finished going back and forth, an hour has passed easily, and empty glasses are sitting in front of us.
“Wow.” She leans back in her chair. “I wish I could poach you.”
I’m barely keeping my eyes open. “I wish, too. Oh, how I do.”
“Where are you based?” she asks. “Your home base. Do you have one yet?”
“I don’t have one yet, but I think Delila likes us all to stay very close.”
“Yes, she does, so you’ll be close to the mansion. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was sorting your own house to be built on the property.” Beat pauses, emptying the rest of her drink into her mouth. “Tell me. Do you want to do this?”
I think over her question, wanting to give her an honest answer. “I want to stay alive.”
After a couple more drinks, we swap numbers, and Beat drops me back at the grounds, also called a “compound,” when Midnight Mayhem are on the road. My head is dizzy, and my thoughts are wavering. The vodka has long since left its claws inside me. I swing open the RV door, stumbling to the back of it toward my room. After wrangling my clothes off, I pull my phone up and grab my earbuds, hitting play on my playlist in hopes that music will make my head stop spinning. “Far Away” by Nickelback starts playing. I softly sing the words, tying my hair into a high ponytail and slipping beneath the sheets. I need to go out and grab some more supplies and do some laundry if I don’t want to start wearing the same clothes. I’m singing the chorus when my curtain is pulled open, and Keaton is watching me carefully, a drink hanging between his fingers. He pulls out his phone, so I remove my earbuds.
“What?” I don’t mean to be snappy to Keaton. It’s not like he’s been exactly rude to me, if you don’t count acting like I don’t exist as rude.
He presses play on the song again, pointing to me with his drink. “Sing it again.” When I don’t budge and the opening starts, he rolls his eyes and starts singing it lazily. Even lazy, he’s nailing it. I had no idea Keaton could sing at all. He doesn’t look like a singer, even if that does sound like a shit judgment for me to make. When the chorus comes in, I power it out, and our voices merge together in perfect harmony. As the guitar plays, he drops down onto my bed, dropping his drink on the floor in the process. He continues the song, and I come in again on the chorus, hitting the high notes with him merging through the rough notes.
He tilts his head, watching me with a new fascination. “Who taught you how to sing like that, Little Bird?”
“I was born with it, and then my mom had me take singing lessons every day after my ballet classes.”
“She sounds like a bitch,” he bites out, stumbling up from my bed and reaching for his bottle.
I lean over, snatching it out of his reach. “She wasn’t. She was just…driven, and I think you’ve had enough.”
Lying backward on my bed, he lets the bottle slip to my fingers. I catch it just in time. My head spins, but I curl my lip beneath my teeth to stop my laugh.
“What’s funny, Little Bird?” he murmurs, shading his eyes with his forearm. He kicks off his shoes and removes his shirt, before climbing up my bed and dropping down into a comfortable position.
“Yeah, you’re not staying in here, Keaton,” I say, shaking his arm. But it’s too late. It’s like shaking a corpse. He won’t move.
I sigh, climbing off my bed. I make my way into the kitchen when I pause in my steps at Kingston perched on one of the chairs, a drink just short of his lips. I ignore him, moving further into the kitchen. I pull open the fridge, pausing when I see it’s fully stocked again, reaching for a bottle of water.
“What’d you think of the show, Little B?” Kingston’s voice is cold, bitter. It leaves his mouth sharp and swallows down mine like a bitter shot of tequila. My hand comes to my mouth briefly at the thought of tequila.
“About as bad as I thought it’d be.” I screw off the lid and take a sip.
He laughs, standing from his chair. That’s when I notice he’s not wearing a shirt, only loose jeans. He looks dirty, deranged, and not someone I should trust to be around me right now. He’s obviously drunk.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“Because I haven’t seen all of your acts?” I ask, squeezing the bottle in my hand. I’m well aware of their stunts and what they can do physically, and Keaton can sing, and I mean the man can sing like Lewis Capaldi, and that’s drunk, but I haven’t seen a show from start to finish.
He pauses a few short steps away from me and tilts his head. I try to fight myself and not look too closely at what he’s doing or how he’s looking. I fail, though, because his hair is floppy and messy, his cheeks slightly flushed from the alcohol, and his body. His damn body. It’s not fair. I catch the two roses that are inked over his left hip, ducking beneath his briefs. One sits just above the other. The other over the edge. It looks to have less detail, less love. The one that slightly dips underneath has clarity and precision. It has passion.
“Getting a good look?” he asks, shoving past me to put his glass in the sink. “I’m getting tired of you eye-fucking me, Little Bird. I might just see if those eyes can match the promises they’re giving out.” He turns to face me, and I can feel his breath over my flesh.
I close my eyes and shove away from him, needing to be away. Away from him. From the fire that threatens to burn me to a crisp.
He brushes his chest against mine, and I back up, slamming against the kitchen counter. Each hand comes to the counter, caging me in. “Just to be clear, I hate you.”
“You don’t know me,” I snap, bringing my eyes up to his.
He searches mine and smirks. It sends chills down my spine. “I know more than you will ever know.”
I shiver, taking my attention away from him, only his hand comes to the back of my hair, and he yanks on it, pulling my eyes to his. “I don’t have to like you to want to fuck you, so just in case you get bored one night, my room is the one at the end of the hallway upstairs. Before you even think of wrapping these pretty little lips around anyone else’s cock again, I’d advise against it.”
“Why?” I yank my hair out of his grip.
His eyes slant in suspicion before he collects himself again and steps backward. “Because you’d go to waste on anyone else.”