The Bad Boys of Summer Anthology(15)

“Could you have picked anything more expensive?” she asks Wyatt as she slides the front desk clerk her MasterCard. “I mean, I realize you make a gazillion dollars a year, and I think that’s good for you and all, but some of us aren’t famous.”

Rolling his dark eyes, Cal grabs his bag and guitar from the floor. As he walks past us, he says in a voice loud enough for even the clerk to hear, “Guess you’ll be pulling a double shift on the phone-fuck line, huh?”

Heidi takes her card from the clerk’s outstretched hand, ignoring the look of mortification on the poor man’s face, and she gives Cal a tight smile. “You’ve got my number, asshole. Just make sure there’s enough money on your credit card.”

“Please just bone it out of your system already,” Wyatt growls under his breath, taking the words right out of my mouth. He works his way between them and grabs my bag and Heidi’s. When none of us race to follow him, he glances back. “You coming?” His blue eyes linger on me for far too long when he says coming, and I don’t miss the double entendre.

I fall back to walk beside Heidi. “I’ll pay you back when we get home, or I can get Lucas to Western union   you the money.” If I can even get in touch with him.

My brother has been missing in action ever since Wyatt showed up in New Orleans, and I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about Sin or if he’s simply busy with Sienna. Sienna, on the other hand, has no problem answering my messages. She sent me multiple texts while we were on the way here. While I’ve left messages for Lucas about the crap that went down back in New Orleans, I haven’t mentioned it to Sienna because the last thing I want to do is bring her into my drama.

Heidi waves her hand in the air, dismissing my offer to pay her for the hotel. “I refuse to take money from you.”

“You just whined about the cost of the hotel.”

“I whine about a lot of shit. It doesn’t mean it actually bothers me.”

I should have expected her to say this, but I still make a mental note to pay her back. I won’t be able to sleep worth a damn at night, knowing I owe my closest friend.

Wyatt drops our bags in front of our door, which is thankfully on the first floor this time. He takes the key card from Heidi, pops open the door, and then scoots the luggage inside. Reaching out in her direction, he begins to place the card back into her hands, but then he pauses. He widens his stance and holds it over her head, earning a pissed-off glare from Heidi.

I cock an eyebrow and fall back onto the bed closest to the door. “She’s on heels, McCrae, so please don’t make her jump and break her neck.”

While she’s tapping her foot impatiently, he stares in my direction, drinking in the sight of me on the bed, as he tells her, “Please don’t lose it this time.”

Jerking the key out of his hand, she rolls her light blue eyes. “What time are you and Cal playing tonight?”

It’s the first time I’ve heard her address Cal by his actual name.

Wyatt must also realize it because he grins. “I’ll text Kylie with the time.”

As soon as he leaves, she crawls onto my bed and collapses next to me. “You were so quiet the whole trip.”

“You were asleep most of the time, and besides, I was tired.”

I slept half the time on the way here, and the other half was spent texting back and forth with Sienna. She and Lucas are heading to my parents today as part of a documentary Lucas is taking part in, and she’s worried my mom and dad won’t like her. I told her the truth—if my parents accept and love Lucas and me with all our problems, then they’ll love her, too. Of course, Sienna’s messages also tell me that she and Lucas have obviously gone beyond the boundaries of professionalism.

“I’ll be better after I get some sleep.”

“But are you okay?” Heidi asks.

I hate the way she says okay.

My face is numb as I shake my head. “I’m a wishy-washy mess.” I close my eyes and take a calming breath. When I glance at her again, Heidi’s lips are curled down into a frown. She places her head on my shoulder, and we both stare up at the ceiling. “So, no, I guess I’m not okay.”

“You will be.”

I know that I will eventually, and it’s for this reason that I bob my head slowly. “Thank you for coming with me.” I smile tentatively. “Even if the reason for my vacation showed up, and things went to shit.”

She grabs her chest theatrically and blinks back mock tears. “Thank you for still loving me after my douche bag one-night stand broke into our room and stole most of our crap.”

My shoulders relax, and a couple seconds later, I’m laughing, and so is she.

“At least, I still have my iPod. I can play good music while I starve.” As if on cue, my belly rolls. I skipped breakfast this morning, and I didn’t pick up anything at the convenience stores along the way.

“And apparently you are starving.” Heidi rolls onto her flat stomach and grabs a tall brochure off the nightstand. “Room service, it is.” She knows me like the back of her hand because she orders me a cheesesteak and fries, my favorite. When she’s done, she leaves my bed in favor of her own. As we wait for room service, she checks her voice mail to see if anyone from New Orleans has called about Shiner Bock.

They haven’t, and after she hangs up I clear my throat, getting her attention. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask me anything.”

I bite my lip, hesitating, but when she nods her head to encourage me, I start, “You and Cal…have you ever—” My words are cut short when her face flushes bright red. My conflict with Wyatt is temporarily forgotten as I scramble into a sitting position. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

She lets her head loll off the bed. “Rock Fest, two years ago.”

“And?”

“Your Toxic Sequel’s show in Seattle last March.”

“And last night?”

Snorting, she gives me a look. “Um, no. I was staying with him because the guy I slept with the night before broke into our room. Hooking up with Cal so soon after that would have been awkward not to mention an open invitation for all kinds of drama.”

Good point. Still, with their outrageous bickering, I should have already known what was going on between them, and I mentally kick myself in the kneecap for failing to notice. “And you’re just now telling me?”

She shrugs. “You never asked.”





Chapter Seven

It’s eight thirty in the evening on the dot, and I’m dragging a striped, nautical print T-shirt over my head when my iPhone starts ringing from its spot on the dresser. “Shit,” I snap as I shimmy the close-fitting top down my torso and over my belly button. Stepping over a small pile of Heidi’s shoes, I snatch up the phone just before my ringtone, Chevelle’s “I Get It,” moves to my favorite part of the song, the line about living in an imaginary life.

I flip the phone right side up and mutter a soft curse when I see that it’s my brother calling. After sliding my finger across the screen to accept the call, I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder. “About damn time.”

“I’ve been fucking busy, Ky. Sorry I haven’t called you back.” His voice is so strained that I immediately feel for him. “Besides, you said you wanted to be left alone while you were gone.”

Before I left Nashville to go to New Orleans, I told him that I would quit if he so much as bothered me while I was away. I made a few more threats, but of course, he merely brushed them off.

“Since when do you give a crap whether or not I want to be left alone?”

“Since I decided I don’t want to be bothered either.”

Well played, big brother.

“Right…Sienna.” I lean close to the mirror to determine if I want to spring for makeup tonight. One look at the dark smudges under my brown eyes is all the convincing I need. “How’s that going?”

“She’s good.”

Leave it to Lucas to tiptoe around my question. He knows that I have a soft spot for her. There are few people I want to see at the receiving end of his bullshit, but Sienna’s one of the people that I would actually step in front of to protect from my brother. I told Lucas as much when he first realized that he had a potential second chance with her.

“She’s got everything taken care of here,” he assures me.

I bet she does. “Don’t fuck things up with her,” I warn.

He sucks in a breath. “Jesus, Kylie, stop that shit.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I know. Stay out of your personal life. I get it.”

When I hear a shuffling noise across the room, I look up to see Heidi in a giant robe, padding out of the bathroom. As she wraps a towel around her wet hair, her eyes find mine in the dresser mirror. She shifts one of her eyebrows curiously.

I turn my head around to face her. “It’s my brother.”

“Finally.” She grabs her underwear and a bundle of clothes from her bed before returning to the restroom.

Focusing my attention back on Lucas, I ask, “How was the thing with Mom and Dad today?” While I wait for him to respond, I put my phone on speaker and leave it on the dresser, so I can finish getting ready. It’s eight thirty-five now, and Wyatt and Cal’s set with the band is supposed to start in twenty-five minutes. If I’m going to make it on time, I’ll have to rush.