Page 30 of Not the Punk

When I met him, he seemed so innocuous. And cute with his shiny green eyes and the way he bit his bottom lip when he looked at me. He’d been so sweet, but that had all been a lie. Of course, I didn’t find that out until after we broke up and he went psycho on me.

Colten stormed off the bus fast and pulled out his cell.

“Who’re you calling?”

“Don.” He put it on speaker, and I heard it ringing.

“Hey, Unca Colten. What’s up?” He sounded concerned, but we wouldn’t be calling him this late unless there was a problem.

“We need a different hotel room and a meeting with your band’s management. I don’t mean to take over, but this is a huge threat, and I don’t feel like Joe’s safe. We probably need to call the police or something as well.”

There was a quick conversation about what had happened. My heart pounded out a beat as strong as any Randy had ever laid down. Not because I was afraid of Trent, but because Daddy had just gone all protective over me. I hated the situation with Trent, but I loved Daddy Colten being so fierce.

No one had ever cared about me like that before. I’d dated Trent for nearly a year before we broke up, and in all that time, he never acted like I needed help and never offered. But Daddy wanted to help me whether I needed it or not, and when I obviously did, he leveled up fast. Alpha Daddy was hot, too.

Chapter fourteen

Colten on the Bus

Jinx reserved a conference room for breakfast and to discuss what had gone wrong. I poured a cup of coffee for Joe, got one for me, and sat down. He had a bagel loaded with cream cheese in front of him, and a second plate of food, but he hadn’t touched any of it.

Jinx, Marci, Kai, and a few other people I didn’t really know sat around the table with similar plates of food, coffee, and juice. Most were nibbling at their breakfast and sipping their drinks until Jinx got their attention. “Listen up. We had serious issues go down last night.”

That wasn’t nearly strong enough. “Your security is seriously lax, and someone is going to get hurt.”

“That was proven last night.” Jinx gave me a nod. “We’re going to tighten it up. I have a call before we hit the road with the company we use to add additional guards on the rest of the tour.”

“That’s a good start.” I didn’t know if it went far enough. I didn’t know how this guy kept getting that kind of access to Joe, but it had to stop.

Alden and Brax came into the room before we could discuss it further. Alden held his phone up. “I just had an update. They didn’t arrest the asshole last night. They didn’t even hold him. They said there wasn’t enough to charge him with anything, called him an overzealous fan, and less than ten minutes later, he was in the wind.”

“Great.” Joe scowled.

“That was before we knew about the break-ins, but—”

“Wait. What break-ins?” Marci asked, her head popping up and glaring at Alden.

Jinx held his hand up. “I haven’t had time to tell you, but before this clown showed up to harass Joe after the show, he’d been here at the hotel.”

“In our room,” I added, needing everyone to know just how close this was. “And on the bus.”

“Fuck.” Marci practically growled. “This cannot happen. Where’s Don?”

“He’ll be here in a minute,” Brax answered. “He was getting the update.”

“What’s Don have to do with this?” I was confused.

“He’s MH Management’s attorney. He’s part of this team, and anything that has to do with the law is his domain.”

“Right. Isn’t he just contract law?”

“He does our contracts, sure, but there’s all kinds of things that we could need him for. Like this.” Marci rolled her hand in the air, and as if she were conjuring him, Don walked in.

This wasn’t the silly Little I knew. Don was all business. “We have a civil harassment restraining order filed, but it’s tricky. They’re based in Miami where Joe lives.” He nodded to Joe. “They do apply based on the harassment, but this case is extenuating since you also live on the road half the year. The police station didn’t have any of this information.” He shook his head. “We need to collect evidence and document any and all threats. I already had the police department going over Joe’s room and the bus. I called them after we moved you last night. Your stuff is ready to go back on the bus, but we need you to identify what things do not belong to you.”

“Fuck.” Joe put his hands in his head, and I could tell he didn’t want to deal with any of this. He was nearing the end of his rope.

“This is going to set our travel time back too, isn’t it?” Marci asked.