1
My mother always said, “Reggie Peterson, one day your stubborn pride is going to blindside you.”
Let’s never tell her how right her words became one fateful day in my hometown.
I slipped into Pelican Bay, the small coastal town in northern Maine, and prayed my mother wouldn’t notice. As long as I got everyone else partaking in this crazy trip to the plane and headed for takeoff, I could escape unscathed. She’d been working hard to set me up with her neighbors’ daughter who just graduated law school. In my mother’s mind, both of us being lawyers would be enough for a match made in heaven. In reality, she just wanted grandchildren as quickly as possible.
The longer I avoided that situation, the better. For all of us.
When Pierce Kensington, my oldest friend since elementary school and business partner, called and asked me for a favor—one that would take me out of the state for the long weekend as my mother busied herself trying to arrange a blind date—I accepted easily. Babysitting a five-member band at a music festival in Bear Creek, Colorado, didn’t sound like my idea of a great time, but it beat spending the weekend pretending to find Brittany Cannington interesting. I spent two years in law school and the most important lesson I learned was never date a lawyer.
As the head lawyer for the Kensington family, I had tons of work to be done back at the office in New York, but the idea of getting away for a weekend was too exciting to pass up. I was ready to leave my meddling mother and the head spokesperson for Pitero Construction Management—otherwise known as a leading New York crime family—for a few days. Both had been hounding me for weeks.
I warned the Kensington twins when they tried to get into real estate in New York that they’d eventually have to handle the mob, but they laughed and promised the organization no longer existed. After what happened to them earlier in the month, no one was laughing anymore.
They might have survived their brushes with the seedier side of organized crime, but that didn’t mean I wanted to test it myself. The New York mob pushed hard for Cyrus and Corbin to sign a contract, letting the organization handle their building upgrades, but I refused to allow it. Once you went to bed with the mob, they’d eventually use the bedsheets to strangle you.
I took a seat in the back of the Pierce’s private plane and watched everyone fromScorpion’s House,the band I’d be babysitting as they boarded. Handling this rock band had to be easier than dodging Mr. Pitero. When Pierce asked me to step in as a liaison for the weekend, he didn’t give me many details. Nothing more than he’d sponsored a local Pelican Bay band for the Bear Creek Music Festival, and they needed a chaperone.
I googled the band before leaving New York and figured Pierce had lost his mind. From the looks of their poorly put together website, the band wasn’t big into technology or haircuts. They were kids, fresh out of high school within the last five years, but the band getting an invite to a state festival meant people were noticing. Add in the fact Pierce laid a stack of money on the five guys and their beat-up instruments, and I bet they had fame in their future.
The last concert I’d taken in was the New York Symphony Orchestra, but I didn’t imagine corralling a few twenty-something band members would be that big of a task. Everyone was old enough to wipe their own butts, set an alarm clock, and drink. Pierce just needed me to cut the checks and make sure no one went to jail while in Colorado.
Basically, a free vacation, in my opinion.
Outside the plane someone yelled and then laughter floated through the door two seconds before a sandy brown-haired man pushed his way onto the plane. He stopped and glanced at the interior before releasing a low whistle of appreciation. When it came to private planes, Pierce’s was a tad smaller than I preferred, but the richest Kensington was always one for economics, which I appreciated.
“You our babysitter?” he asked, stepping more onto the plane and dropping an overstuffed duffle bag to the floor before carefully lowering a guitar case beside it.
“I’m a representative for the Kensington family,” I quoted back the fancy title I gave myself on the ride to the airport.
Four other men—the rest of the band—made their way onto the plane. Bags and musical instruments were quickly strown over the empty aisle ways rather than being tucked away as they should have been before we took off.
I watched it from afar but noted our distinct differences. I showered that morning, brushed my hair, and put on a suit. They were… clothed, which I supposed counted. The men obviously shared a close relationship with one another. They joked while taking spots in the three rows of seats. I sat next to an empty chair in the far back row—an area Pierce set with a table allowing riders to work in the air. The more work I finished while on the flight, the less I’d need to do from my hotel room.
“You’re assholes. You realize no one can leave their shit there when the plane takes off. Right?” a woman’s voice spoke loudly before she even made it across the plane’s opening. A sheet of bright red hair cascaded down her back, and as she finished stepping all the way onto the plane, she leveled each of the men with a pointed glare. I reared back in my seat with her abrasive nature.
Her hair wasn’t just red, but she’d colored the bottom ends a striking shade of blue. She wore a short-sleeved dress, which hit at her knees, but that isn’t what drew my attention the most. A tattoo of a long-stemmed rose wrapping around her arm with thorns and petals in various places on her skin caught my gaze and wouldn’t let go. She was gorgeous and obviously trouble. If the devil himself sent someone to Pelican Bay, this woman would be his first choice.
She finished glaring at the men she obviously knew, and then her attention reached the back of the plane, where her movements paused for a moment. I gave her a jerky head nod of acknowledgment and waited as her eyebrows rose. She stared at me for three beats too long while carrying her bag onto the plane. If I believed in sappy shit like magnets drawing two people together, it’s exactly how I’d describe the situation. But the dick between my legs didn’t believe in that shit. The woman had charisma or something similar. The electricity in her attitude charged the air.
“Are you with the band?” I asked, wanting a reason to communicate with her as she kicked a duffle bag out of her way and continued in my direction.
“Fuck no,” she said, popping out her hip and putting a foot forward as she pushed one man from in front of her. “Move your fucking ass, Leo.”
Her profanity forced a smile from me. This woman was definitely not like the woman my mother tried to set me up with. Brittany, a woman now fresh out of law school and looking to settle down, would not be sayingfucking ass. This blue-haired tattooed woman had spunk and a mouth on her.
I didn’t like it.
“Dating a band member?” I asked, trying to pay attention and see which one she stopped beside. If she dated a member, it would make sense for her to be on the plane.
Hard to believe it possible, but her hip popped out even wider as she threw back her shoulders, which pushed out her breasts and forced me to glance at them. They were hard to miss normally, but when she jetted them out at an angle, they became unavoidable. Not that I wanted to avoid them. The blue beauty had tits men would fight to see.
“Nope.” She pushed her hair back behind her shoulder and finished her obstacle course of avoiding band instruments.
“Then what are you doing here?” Pierce gave me the job of babysitting band members. He didn’t mention anyone else to back me up. I didn’t need help or more mouths to feed and care for in Colorado.
She stepped right in front of me and with her hair pulled back and her ear flickered with rings. I counted six of them while trying not to be caught.
