“Nothing. Just a snafu with the stage.” I tried to cover for her while she unzipped her other boot, though it was getting more and more difficult to think on my feet since all the blood in my body was rushing away from my brain and straight toward my cock.
“Is that a,”—the security guard squinted at the bag on the ground—“a dog? We don’t allow dogs in the venue.”
The blonde’s face fell. She glanced up at me as she captured her bottom lip with her teeth. “It’s?—”
“My dog,” I said. “And he won’t be a problem. I’ve already got clearance from the tour manager to have him here. If you have an issue with that, take it up with your boss.”
The security guard narrowed his dark eyes like he was sizing me up to see if I was telling the truth. Something in my glare must have convinced him. He mumbled a few words too low for me to hear, then turned to head back to his position by the door.
“Thanks so much for your help. We never actually introduced ourselves, did we? I’m Daisy.” She pulled her other foot from her boot, then picked up the bag holding the ferocious little dog.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Hendrix.” Without her boots on, the top of her head barely came to my chin. Damn, she was young. Bright-eyed and full of sunshine, too. A sense of protectiveness washed over me. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, minus the weird little dog who looked like a furry rat, and keep her safe from the big, bad world.
“This isn’t how I planned to start my backstage tour.” Daisy glanced around, oblivious to the rest of the roadies who’d stopped working to stare in appreciation. “I’ve had a string of bad luck lately.”
“You and me both.” Though my “string” had lasted the better part of the past twenty years. I bent down to free the heel of her boot from the crack. My low vantage point put my eye to navel with her. Damn, I would have given just about anything torun my palm over the curve of her hip and up her side. I never thought I had a “type” before. Turns out my type was Daisy. Everything about her turned me inside out.
She waited while I rocked the boot back and forth, then finally freed it from the crack. Except for a few scratches across the heel, her boot seemed to still be in one piece.
“Here you go.” Reluctantly, I handed it over. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but didn’t know how to extend our time together. She looked like a clean-cut sorority girl, and I was a gruff and grumbly prick who was probably old enough to be her daddy.
She took the boots in one hand. “I’m supposed to be meeting some friends. Do you know Shelby? She works on the tour.”
“I think I saw her out front.” Nudging my chin toward the set of doors across the arena, I tried to come up with a reason for her to stay. Then it came to me—the dog. I held out my hands. “If you’re not heading out right away, I’d better hold on to Growler for you. Unless you’ve got somewhere else you can leave him?”
Daisy drew in a big breath. “I guess I didn’t think that far ahead. He usually goes everywhere with me. I didn’t want to leave him at the hotel all by himself.”
“I’ll be here for another couple of hours. He’ll be fine with me.”
She looked around the stage. “Are you sure he won’t get hurt? I don’t want him to get stepped on or stuck in a crack like I did.”
“He can ride around in my pocket.” Far enough from my face to minimize the risk of the angry little fur-rat taking another chunk out of my chin. I pulled on the deep pocket on the thigh of my work jeans. “Plenty of room for him in there.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” A glimmer of hope sparkled in her eyes. Though I was far from it, she looked at me like I was some kind of savior in denim.
I’d subject myself to a hell of a lot more than an hour or two with a vicious ball of fur to have her look at me like that again. “I don’t mind at all.”
“You’ll need to take him out to go potty.” She picked up her bag and rummaged through. “Here’s his leash and some scented bags for his doodles.”
“Doodles?”
“When he poops,” she whispered. “You have to pick it up and throw it away. You can’t just leave it in the grass.”
A pooping, biting dog… even knowing that, I was still in. Getting to see her when she came back for Growler would be worth it. “Don’t worry. There’s no grass right outside the arena anyway.”
Her brows drew down. “Oh, he’ll only go on grass. Maybe this is a bad idea.”
We’d only just met, but I couldn’t stand the disappointment in her voice. I was no fucking hero, but I wanted to be one for her. I lowered my voice to minimize the risk of one of the other guys hearing me. “I’ll find a patch of grass for him to do his doodles, okay?”
“You’re sure?” Her lips split into a gorgeous smile that lit up my insides like fireworks on the fucking Fourth of July. And for a second, she looked at me like I wasn’t just a sorry-ass, unlucky loser.
“It would be my absolute pleasure, Daisy.” Fuck, I loved the way her name felt on my tongue. I took the purple leather leash studded with square-cut rhinestones and the bright pink roll of plastic baggies. I’d never hear the end of it from the guys watching, but at that moment, I didn’t give a damn about anything except knowing I was the one who made her pouty pink lips spread into that mega-watt smile.
“Thanks so much. Give me your phone, and I’ll add my number so we can stay in touch. If you need anything, please call.”
I handed her my phone and cursed myself for the thoughts rolling through my head. There were plenty of “needs” a woman like Daisy could help me with, but none of them were appropriate to mention out loud.
“There. Now text me, so I have your number and we’ll be connected.”
