“No.” Liam’s exhale is heavy. “Paige ismygirlfriend.”
“No shit!” From the ground, Jake laughs around a mouthful of sandwich.
Marlowe cracks a grin, too. “Girlfriend, huh?”
“Yes,” Liam says, his tone level. “Get a good look at her, boys. I wouldn’t wantanyof you to misunderstand this introduction.”
“We’re not going to hit on your girlfriend, Bishop,” Marlowe says, but he sounds thoroughly unconvincing.
“The lack of faith is insulting,” Siah adds, spreading his arms along the back of the couch.
“I was fully prepared to hit on her until ten seconds ago,” Jake admits.
Liam looks at the ceiling, hands on his hips. “Anyway. Now that we’ve established this, Paige and I will be going.”
“Us too.” Siah stands, dusts crumbs off his jeans. “But Paige—you should ditch Liam and travel on the bus with us some nights.”
“What the fuck did Ijustsay, Si?”
Siah holds up his hands in innocence. “Toplay, man!Music.Other than sound check, it’s the only chance we get to mess around.”
Liam glowers at all three of them before turning to me. “You should do that, if you want to,” he says, then grabs my hand and tugs me out of the room.
My waist, my back, my hand. He’s touched me more in the last five minutes than he did all of last night.
“You’re very supportive of my playing music with the others on this tour,” I note with amusement. “Just in a very angry manner.”
“Because those three are almost as good at picking up women as they are at their real jobs.”
“Well, you must be in good company with them.”
Liam’s laugh hitches before it fully forms. “You didn’t evenrealizeI was trying to pick you up when we first met.”
“That wasn’t your fault. I’d conditioned myself not to think I could be a man’s first choice.”
Liam slows near the bend in the semicircular hallway, where two other dressing room doors are labelledOpenerandPersonal Security.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Nowhere. I just wanted to”—he cuts himself off when I face him. Down here, there’s nobody in sight. Liam’s eyes soften. His thumb strokes my wrist before he drops my hand—“talk to you alone for a minute.”
A headiness pulses through me as his eyes rove my body. I’m wearing a T-shirt and jean shorts, but Liam’s looking at me like he sees lingerie.
“It was weird,” he murmurs. “You up there in the stands, where I could see you but knew I should be focused on something else. Like…”
“Your games,” I agree.
He smiles gently. “Carlos used to yell at me from first base every time he caught me looking at you.”
“I remember,” I say through a laugh. “It wasn’t that big of a stadium. But I can stay at the hotel tomorrow if—”
“No.” He leans over me. “Come as often as you want. Carlos never got that just because I like to look at you every now and then doesn’t mean I’m not getting the job done.”
I smile. “Okay. I’ll be here. Or there. Wherever.”
“The Seattle WAMU Theater.”
“Right. Exactly.”
