His shoulders eased.
He felt far more comfortable in a place like this than in the five-star restaurants and fancy clubs where everyone expected chart-topping musicians to hang out. “Beer—whatever you have on tap,” he said to the grizzled bartender and grabbed a stool, his eye on the rugby game in progress on the TV screen bolted above the bar.
He’d hardly taken a sip of his beer, the dark liquid bitingly cold, when he felt a presence at his back. Instincts honed by a childhood in one of the toughest areas of New York had him focusing on the mirror behind the bar to check out the situation before he turned. A big, bald, and heavily muscled male with a spiderweb tattoo on his neck was standing behind and just to the side of David, a smirk on his pockmarked face.
Belly heating, David turned with a slight smile. “Problem?”
The bald man bared his teeth and, laughing, looked to a table to his right. “Hear that, boys?” he called out to his friends. “The pussy rock star here wants to know if there’s a problem.”
Laughter and shouts from that particular table, while the rest of the men in the bar went quiet. David didn’t move, taking a measure of the players without letting it show. “Always know your opponent” had been one of the first things his father had taught him—Vicente Rivera didn’t believe in turning the other cheek; he believed in teaching his sons how to put bullies on the ground and keep them there.
“Yeah, there’s a problem,” the bald guy said, shoving at David’s shoulder. “This is a real bar for real men. Not pussies.”
Like that, then. Good. He was in the mood to do some violence. Lifting his beer, David took a long drink, then slammed it down… and punched Bald Head in the jaw at the same time that he kicked out with his foot to connect with the other man’s knee. The jackass went down like a ton of bricks.
Roaring in rage, the man’s friends came at David.
He grinned and started to show them what this “pussy rock star” could do.
It wasn’t until they’d broken a table and several chairs, and the bartender had called the cops that David realized Thea would have to deal with the fallout from this. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought as he was shoved into a cell alone, his erstwhile opponents in the cell opposite. Sliding down the graffiti-marked wall to the floor, he thought about the phone call the desk sergeant had said he could make and decided against it.
Fox had Molly with him—the band’s lead singer had been waiting for his girl to arrive since the instant Schoolboy Choir set foot in the city. As for Noah and Abe, they both had their own plans. He knew any one of the three men would drop those plans in an instant to come to his aid, but since the cops had made it clear he’d be spending the night in a cell no matter what, why mess up their plans?
“You do or say anything that’ll hit the media, you call me. Day or night. I hate surprises—so don’t you dare surprise me.”
Thea had given that order to all four of them when she’d agreed to act as their publicist. Her up-front nature and dedication to her job was part of the reason they’d hired her; Thea was the best and she didn’t take any shit from her clients. He wasn’t doing himself any favors by not calling her.
Right then, David couldn’t find it in himself to care. It wasn’t as if she could hurt him any more than she already had. And Jesus, how long was he going to carry this torch that was burning him alive? “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said aloud, banging the back of his head against the wall.
Thea was on her third cup of coffee when the phone rang. Seeing Fox’s name on the screen, she frowned. She was awake at this hour because she wanted to finalize a few things before she headed off on vacation later today—after handling the band’s scheduled media interviews. Fox, however, was with Molly, so if he was wasting time calling her, it had to mean trouble. “Fox, what’s happened?”
“David’s in jail.”
Thea collapsed onto a sofa, her mind spinning. “David? Don’t you mean Abe or Noah?”
“David,” Fox repeated. “He got in a bar fight, did enough damage that—”
Heart thumping, she broke into his words. “Is he all right?”
“Black eye, bruised ribs, but he came out better than the other guys. I’m on my way to pick him up from the station, but the media’s probably already gotten hold of the story.”
Eyes narrowing, Thea sat up. “When was this bar fight?”
“Last night. And yeah, I know he should’ve called you then, but he didn’t. Can you handle it?”
“Of course I can handle it.” Taking down the details he had, including the name of the bar, she disconnected and began to do her job, which in this case meant damage control. A rock star misbehaving wasn’t a big deal generally, but it all depended on how the media decided to report it—and it could get nasty if they pitched it as an arrogant international musician throwing his weight around against locals.