Page 17 of Her Ruthless Protector

“It’s possible something might catch my eye,” Kane said.

He’s flirting with me. Damn. To hell with terrorists. Who knows, he might not even be a typical asshole.

“Well, come along and I’ll give you the penny tour.” A.J. grinned as the men followed her out the door.

She put on her sunglasses as soon as they went outside, then she looked around to see that Asher and Kane had done the same. “First, we have one huge main stage and two rehearsal stages set up. Let’s start with the rehearsal stages and leave the main stage for when Ed arrives.”

“What’s the security going to be like the night of the event?” Kane asked.

“Security has already started,” A.J. said. “We’re thirteen days away from the Grand Finale. We have the first and second semi-finals to get through. So, we’re really eight days away from the first big show. Right now, we have forty-two acts, by the time we get to the big show in thirteen days we’ll be down to twenty-six acts. You’ve got to understand this is a huge deal that Oman is participating. The country participated for the first time three years ago, and it won last year with Yacoub Shareef, it was quite the upset.”

“It was,” Asher agreed. “Oman was the first Middle Eastern country to ever participate, except for Israel of course. It was all because of Yacoub. He’s phenomenal.”

“I hadn’t considered that fact. But yeah, this is called the Eurovision Song Contest, so having Israel and Oman participate doesn’t sound right,” Kane said thoughtfully.

“It’s because Israel is a participant that they had to consider Oman,” A.J. explained. “Also, when Farah hit the scene five years ago, she wowed everybody. Between Yacoub and Farah, Oman’s music industry was put on the map.”

“So why are they having the event here?” Kane asked.

“Whoever wins the show, their country gets to host the event the next year. This has been a huge deal for Oman, they can’t afford for anything to go wrong,” Asher explained.

“Did you memorize Wikipedia?” Kane demanded. “Seriously Asher, you’re spooky.”

“He’s right though, Oman has to have this go right.” A.J. said. “Don Salise is one of the biggest names in the business. He’s known for bringing these types of projects together.”

“What about you?” Kane asked.

“I’ve worked with him in the past, and he’s been happy with my performance.”

“How come I’m thinking you’re damning yourself with faint praise?” Kane said. “Okay, so tell me more about this contest. You’ve got forty-two acts now, but by the finale you have twenty-six and then you have one winner. How does the voting work?”

Asher and A.J. both laughed.

“It requires complex algebra and a map to understand the judging,” Asher said.

“It’s not that bad,” A.J. protested, then she sighed. “Okay, it’s close. But they have it down to a system. I’m just glad I don’t have to have anything to do with judging or scoring.”

“The group over there seems to be doing better.” Kane said, motioning to Heaven’s Demon Dream. “Seems like Old Sex Snake’s Trailer Talk did it’s work, it almost sounds like music.”

A.J. burst out laughing as she stopped walking. “Oh my God, I’m never going to be able to think of him as anything other than Old Sex Snake for the rest of the contest.”

Kane’s lip twitched. “I’d refer to him as OSS, if I were you.”

She grinned at him. Then she noticed Asher looking at Kane, then at her and then back to Kane again. He smirked at his friend. Guess their flirting was not as subtle as she thought.

Who cares? Flirting is fun.

“So, you have all the groups here rehearsing?” Kane asked.

“Not yet,” A.J. answered. “We just started allowing people to come and rehearse here at the stadium three days ago. With the heat and it being outdoors the powers-that-be decided that the acts should get more rehearsal time at the venue than they’ve ever allowed before. Currently we have only thirty of the forty-two acts here. The rest just have to arrive.”

“There’s more?” Kane asked incredulously. “Looking at the chaos it seems that all forty-two acts are here.”

“Some decided to forego the extra rehearsal time, some will get here tonight, tomorrow and the next day. When the real rehearsal starts, in five days, we’ll have all the acts, all the nation delegations and the press here. It’s a circus.”

“And you’re in charge of what exactly?”

“Anything that needs to be done to make sure that the show goes off without a hitch. That has so far included a trip to the hospital, a trip to a lingerie store, sourcing fifteen hay bales, breaking up two fights, wrangling with Food Services when we found them not keeping the food Kosher as promised, and continuing to put meat into the vegetarian recipes, then let’s not forget the coup de gras, which was when I had to stop Amber from posting top-secret rehearsal footage to Twitter.”