“Yes! That’s the one.”
I imagined that bassline playing over what I already had, and frowned.
“Bad idea?”
“No, it’s actually perfect,” I said. “So perfect I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself.”
“Well, the song is only a few minutes old.” She smiled at me, and sort of leaned her shoulder against mine for a moment. “So this is how music is made, huh?”
“Sometimes,” I said, smiling back at her.
Roxie had the most engaging eyes I had ever seen. Big, round, and innocent. She blinked at me, and her eyes looked at my lips. It was a split second, but I noticed.
And I was noticing her lips, too. They had a natural pout, like they weremadeto be kissed.
She was leaning closer. Her knee brushed against my leg. I found myself leaning in, too, like I was under some sort of hypnotic spell…
No.
I quickly stood up and removed my guitar. “I’m going to brainstorm this some more. Thanks for the inspiration.”
She looked disappointed, then covered it with a smile. “That’s why I’m here, right?”
As much as I wanted to kiss Roxie—and my desire to kiss herburnedinside of me—I knew I couldn’t cross that line. I needed to prove that I had invited her on tour for creative reasons only. To be my muse for our next album.
But as I glanced back at her from the front of the bus, our eyes locking together for a heartbeat, I knew that I was only lying to myself.
And based on the way she smiled back at me?
She knew it, too.
13
Roxie
My whole body felt alive while sitting on the edge of the bed with Riot, listening to the beginning of his new song. I had assumed, naively, that my attraction to him had peaked at that first concert in Austin. That was when he was at his sexiest, prowling around on stage and giving me sexy smiles in the front row. Surely that attraction would fade when I saw him as a regular dude, on the tour bus and in hotels.
But somehow, he had only gotten sexier.
We had this insane chemistry. Every time we were within a few feet of each other, there was an undeniable sexual tension in the air. It made it hard for me to breathe, let alonethink.
I watched Riot walk to the front of the tour bus and put away his guitar. He glanced back at me, smiling for a moment, before saying something to Cash.
Jesus. I was like a teenage girl swooning over YouTube videos of Harry Styles. I was head-over-heels infatuated.
“Relax, Roxie,” I whispered to myself. “You’re obsessed because this is new and exciting. Eventually this feeling will fade. It always does.”
I just needed to hold out until then.
I fell asleep easier that night, probably because Riot was in the normal bed rather than the bunk directly above me. But when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, it was impossible not to notice his form in the bed. The comforter covered only half his body, revealing the bare skin of his upper back. Like his arms, it was covered with tattoos.
Realizing that I was standing there staring at a sleeping man, I quickly went into the bathroom to do my business. But when I returned to my bed, I left a little crack in the privacy curtain. Riot was perfectly in my line of sight while I slept on my side.
Can I hold out?I wondered while watching him sleep.
New Orleans was humid and crowded. I’d always heard good things about the city from friends who had visited, but my impression was that it was similar to Austin, but worse in every imaginable way.
I stayed in the tour bus and worked, aside from the few times we went out to a restaurant to eat. I no longer felt like an outsider who was intruding on an existing friend group; the members of Cherry Midnight made me feel like I belonged, including me in conversation and treating me like I was one of them.
