“Why not? What’s wrong with Taylor?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Taylor…other than the fact that she is the most uptight, unapproachable, humorless person I’ve ever met in my life. If you’re forcing me to have a nanny for the next month, at least make it someone with whom conversation is possible.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “She's far from uptight. I would describe her as reserved and maybe a little dark, but she’s the best option available. All the guys agree.”
“Seriously?”
Jax nodded.
Cam had only met Taylor a handful of times, but every time he came into contact with her, she looked at him as though he wasn’t fit to lick the gum off the bottom of her shoes. She was a grade A bitch. “Why her?”
“We can trust her.”
Cam glared at Jax. “How do you figure? She’s barely human. She’s more like a robot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. She gives ice princess a new meaning.”
“She smiles.” Jax cocked his head to the side. “On occasion,” he added quickly. “She Alec’s sister. Would you expect anything else?” he commented as if that explained everything.
“And Alec is fine with this?” Cam asked disbelievingly, his eyebrows lifted. He couldn’t count the number of times Alec told the guys his sister was completely off limits, not that he was tempted. He wasn’t into the dark, brooding type even if Taylor did have an exotic sexy thing going for her. She was one of those women who had a mountain of dark emotional baggage just waiting to be unleashed on some unsuspecting guy and he had enough baggage of his own. He didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s.
“For the most part, but she needs a job and some work experience.”
“Do us both a favor and tell Alec to give her some money and hire a professional PR person.”
“She won’t take handouts,” Jax said.
“Great, now I’m her experiment. What’s going to stop her from selling our dirt for money?”
“She might not give a shit about you, but she’d stick a hot poker in her eye before she hurt Alec, and selling any of us out would hurt the band and, therefore, Alec. She wouldn’t do it. You know their history.”
He nodded. Alec hadn’t shared all the horrid details of his childhood, but he knew enough to realize it was far from happy and that meant that Alec and Taylor had each other’s backs more than any other brother and sister he’d ever met.
“Fine. We can trust her. That’s nice,” Cam said sarcastically. “But is she qualified?”
“By qualified, do you mean does she have any babysitting experience?” Laughing, Jax stood up from the chair. “I think she might have watched a couple of the neighbor’s kids when—”
“Screw you,” Cam hissed. “You know exactly what I’m asking.”
Smiling mockingly, Jax folded his arms across his chest. “Sure. She has a degree in marketing. She worked as a band promoter in Seattle while she was in college. She’s smart and she won’t fall for your innocent smile because she already knows you’re full of shit.” Jax shrugged. “The way I see it, she’s perfect.”
Cam grunted. He wasn’t getting out of this. He actually had a babysitter for the next thirty days. “What are the ground rules?”
“You can discuss that with her,” Jax looked at his watch. “You’re meeting her in the hotel restaurant in thirty minutes. Do yourself a favor, take a shower before you meet her. You smell like hell.”
Cam’s jaw dropped. “You had no intention of giving me a choice in this, did you? This was a done deal before you knocked on my door this morning. What if I refused to meet her?”
“Alec is waiting in the hall. We planned to physically drag you there if you didn’t agree to go.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I’m a good friend. An asshole would’ve kicked you out of the band.” Jax walked toward the door, opening it a few inches and then he paused. “Don’t screw this up. We need you, but if you can’t be a team player, we won’t hesitate to replace you. We won’t let you take down Chasing Ruin because you refuse to pull your head out of you ass.”
Fucker. When the door slammed, Cam tossed a pillow at the door. Sadly, he couldn’t even be pissed at Jax because Jax was right, he needed to hold up his end of the bargain and be a team player. Chasing Ruin had carried his dead weight long enough, and he needed to get his shit together and stop wallowing in the past. If that meant having Taylor Reed follow him around for the rest of the tour, he would do it, but he didn’t have to be happy about it.