“This crew,” Easton muses between us, “it’s almost like a setup for a joke.”
As I take them all in, LL returns my curious gaze the longest, a Guinness can clutched in his hand.
“Maybe,” I say, turning back toward Easton, “but this is really happening. You’re doing it. You’re on your way to play another show right now.”
“Yeah, it’s amazing. But something wasn’t right.” He glances over to me. “It hit me in Oklahoma that I needed to pick up my favorite instrument.” Jumping on Easton’s bold and slightly infuriating declaration—knowing he didn’t really mean the misogynistic insinuation—I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn on my knees, gripping the headrest. Easton objects immediately by slapping my ass, hard.
“Just for a second,” I say, waving him away.
“Put that buckle back on, now,” he barks.
“Chill,” I dismiss. “So…” I give each of them a pointed stare. “Tell me about the ladies,” I waggle my brows, “how’s the action?”
LL is the first to smile, and I point at him. “Ah ha!”
Glancing over at Easton in time to see his nostrils flare, Tack speaks up as Syd smirks out of the window.
“What do you want to know?” Tack asks.
“Well, do any of you have a lady in waiting back home?”
“Fuck no,” Tack replies, “and it’s a good thing because—”
“Don’t you fucking finish that,” Easton warns, all too aware of what I’m getting at. Right now, it’s my only line of defense, so I press in.
“Oh, but Tack, I think you should,” I draw out.
“I’m divorced,” Syd offers, tapping his bare ring finger, “no birds to speak of at the moment, which I also consider a good thing.”
“And you, sir,” I ask LL, whose looks could vaporize panties worldwide. The man is stunningly gorgeous, though no Easton Crowne.
LL’s lips curve in a devious smile. “I’m a gentleman.”
Even Easton protests with a loud sigh of “Bullshit” as various debris retrieved from the floorboard flies toward LL’s head. As the chaos erupts, Easton’s fingers discreetly skim up my thigh, and I immediately turn toward him and catch the opposite of what I was expecting. He’s glaring at me in warning, a take no prisoners look marring his features. “Seat belt, now, or I’m fucking pulling over.”
“Geesh,” I turn back and buckle in. Seconds later, Dion’s “Only You Know” comes on through Easton’s playlist, a rare repeat. Easton turns it up, keeping his gaze on the highway as more anarchy erupts from the back of the van.
“What the fuck is this, golden oldies?” Tack wrinkles his nose.
“Exactly, it’s a classic. Listen up, and maybe you’ll learn something. Also, if you’re not driving, you don’t get a say,” Easton barks in his no fucks given tone.
Apparently, it’s a van rule.
Not long after, I get lost in the melody, in the memory of those minutes he played for me in that hotel. For several seconds, I mentally trace his profile. Though he doesn’t look over at me, I know he’s right there with me. When the song ends, his gaze finally slides over to mine.
“Your first time,” I whisper between us. “I wish I would have recorded it.”
“It’s better you didn’t,” he says in a way I know would tarnish some of the intimacy of that memory, and I slowly nod in agreement.
I’m tempted to fling myself at him, even with the burn of the groupie talk chattering in the back of my mind. I can’t help but ogle him freely, and I do, for miles. That is until Tack grips both our headrests with his heavily inked hands, his head popping up between us.
“So, what’s the deal with you two?” Tack cants his head toward Easton, his question directed toward me. “This fucker was tightlipped the entire way to Austin and only admitted we were picking up his girl five minutes before we pulled up.”
Easton shoots a quick look my way, forcing me to answer on our behalf, his expression muted.
“We’re friends,” I say, with a lead tongue, the words feeling like a betrayal. “Close friends,” I emphasize, glancing over to see Easton checking his blind spot as he shifts lanes, his reflection revealing he’s not at all happy about my answer, jaw ticking in response.
It’s not like I’m happy about it either, but we can’t be anything else, and somehow, I have to figure out a way to make him understand it while continuing to convince myself of the same thing. I wonder how many times you can lie to yourself before it becomes habitual. That’s what I feel like right now, a liar, because how in the hell am I going to resist this man? But I must. I have to make those words true. My father always taught me the right thing and the hard thing are often the same thing. In the case of Easton Crowne, my resistance to him will be my biggest test.