Reckless (33 page)

Sienna stayed hidden away while all the bands performed. Not a single one of the fans had caught on to the fact that she was in the building. I had to admit, being in on such a huge surprise
gave me a buzz. I had to share the knowledge with someone, so I texted Anna and Denny. He immediately responded with,
Really? Wow.
A couple of minutes later he added,
Wait, she left
Montana to do a show in Dallas?
Anna just texted back,
Jealous!

That took me back. She was in Montana? How was that in any way “nearby”?

I didn’t have time to worry about it though, because the D-Bags were up. Maybe it was the extra electricity in the air, but they killed it on stage. Everything about the performance was
perfect. Just listening to them stirred my creative juices. I’d been on a bit of a holding pattern with writing lately. I tried to fit it in during quiet moments on the bus, but there were so
many people and so much activity, it was challenging. And backstage was no better. It was like one never-ending party, which was fun, but not very conducive to writing heartbreaking romance.

When the boys walked off the stage, the chanting for the crowd’s favorite song began. From the angle of where I was watching, I could see a few Kell-Sex shirts in the crowd. They were
going to freak when Kellan and Sienna took the stage. I instantly saw a downside to this plan and wondered if maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. We were trying to squelch the rumors, not help
them grow. It was too late, though. Sienna was already primed and ready for action.

Everyone waited near the stage for the clamoring to reach a near-frantic level. I thought the crowd might bring the house down if the boys didn’t go back out there. Kellan laughed as he
stood beside me, waiting for the most opportune moment to reappear and announce the surprise to the fans. I squeezed him tight while the noise from the audience vibrated my chest.

When I was sure ceiling panels were about to break loose, Kellan gave me a long, lingering kiss. When he pulled away, his eyes were blazing. “I better go up there, so I can get this over
with and take you to bed.”

Feeling better already, I grinned. “I like that plan.”

Kellan swatted my butt, then turned and dashed onstage. The noisy chaos of stomping and clapping switched to shrieking. Kellan held his hands out as he reached the mike. The noise didn’t
stop, so he had to speak above it. “What are you guys still doing here? It’s over.”

Kellan shooed his hands at the audience, like he wanted them to leave. I laughed at the display, and several people in the crowd did too. As he was doing that, Sienna came up beside him. The
outfit she was wearing was not the one she’d arrived in. Before, she’d been wearing tight jeans and a tight sleeveless top. Now she was wearing a sheer white top with a black bra
underneath. A black bra? With a sheer top? And with the way the lights hit her shirt, she may as well have
only
been wearing the bra.

The crowd went nuts and Kellan peeked behind him. This was not the plan. Kellan was going to play with the crowd, then verbally announce Sienna. She was supposed to wait for her cue. While
Kellan straightened as he stared at her, dozens and dozens of cell phones were whipped out. Waving to the crowd, Sienna beamed as she walked right up to Kellan. Her arms slid around his waist as
she playfully kissed his shoulder, then rested her head against it. The crowd gobbled up the affection. Kellan spun around, discreetly getting away from her. A seamless smile plastered on his face,
he told the hollering crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Sienna Sexton.”

By the tight way he said it, I could tell he wasn’t pleased. A staff member handed Sienna a mike while the rest of the D-Bags took their positions. Ignoring Kellan for a second, Sienna
bowed and thanked the crowd. When she was done speaking, Kellan signaled Matt to start the song. The fans went absolutely ballistic when Kellan started singing, and Kellan’s irritation fell
away as his professionalism kicked in. Kellan was a showman through and through, and regardless of his feelings about his singing partner, he’d give the crowd the best performance he
could.

After singing a duet with Kellan that nearly brought the house down, Sienna brought both hands to her lips and blew a steady stream of kisses into the mass of enraptured fans. While she basked
in their plentiful praises, Kellan gave the audience an appreciative wave, then he looked over his shoulder to where I was waiting offstage. When we locked gazes, he shook his head, then discretely
shrugged. Like it or not, there was no denying the fact that that song was a gargantuan hit, and Kellan and Sienna performing it together was electrifying.

After Dallas, the tour meandered through the Midwest. It was just as flat, open, and spacious as Kellan had told me. I found the monotony of the environment relaxing, it
allowed my mind to drift. And, like it so often did, my mind drifted to Kellan—my past with Kellan, to be exact. The bus was noisy and boisterous with so many boys on it, but I found small
pockets of time throughout the day where I could hide in the back bedroom and write a paragraph or two.

This bus was a lot like the last bus Kellan and the guys had been on, more designed for capacity than comfort. The “bedroom” in the back was basically a larger version of a
cubby—a thin mattress shoved up against the back portion of the bus. It constantly smelled like engine exhaust. The flimsy door cut out some of the sound though, and the bed was large enough
for Kellan and me to sleep side by side, so I was satisfied. It wasn’t as nice as our place back home, but it was better than the bunk beds.

We’d left Sienna about a week ago. She’d headed back to her tour with a smirk on her face, and we’d packed up and moved on to the next location. The headlines the next morning
were huge—
Sienna Sexton Surprises Boyfriend on Tour!
Even though I should have expected it, the gossip shocked me. It just didn’t seem to matter what Kellan said or did;
everything was twisted around in the media to make it seem like he and Sienna were deeply in love.

The still shot of Sienna kissing Kellan’s shoulder that night was everywhere. I’d even seen fans ask Kellan to sign copies of it backstage. He never did. Saying that Sienna
wasn’t his girlfriend, and the photo was misleading, he always asked them if he could sign something else. And the fans always looked at him like his devotion to keeping his relationship with
Sienna quiet was endearing. They loved him all the more for the way he protected her, when in reality, Kellan was protecting me.

“Irritated” didn’t even begin to describe how I felt about Kell-Sex being the number one gossip story again. At least it would eventually die back down, now that they were
apart. And Kellan wouldn’t agree to another duet if she happened to “show up” for another publicity stunt; he’d already told me as much. Kellan would just have to keep doing
his best at squelching the rumors while we patiently waited for another celebrity couple to pull at the world’s heartstrings. And I was sure it would eventually happen. People loved to hear
about power couples, especially when the power couple had problems.

We were in South Dakota today, to do a promotion for the tour that cracked me up every time I thought about it. The radio station that was sponsoring the event called it “Darts with
D-Bags.” They had rented out a local pool hall for the afternoon to host the band and a few dozen contest winners. Kellan was looking forward to throwing darts, but he wasn’t the best
pool player. Me either. The other D-Bags were decent though; Griffin in particular had a true talent for it. As we drove to the hall in one of the radio station’s vans, Griffin started to
give Kellan some pointers.

“Now, if the girl is bending in half to make her shot, that means she totally wants you to grab her ass.”

“Griffin,” I groaned, closing my eyes.
What the hell did my sister see in him?

Griffin looked around Kellan to scoff at me. “What? That’s what it means. There’s no shot on earth that a chick has to bend over that far for. It’s obviously code for,
‘Grab me now and do naughty things to my no-no places.’”

Looking over at Kellan, I asked him, “Would you mind?”

Smiling, he answered, “Not at all,” then reached over and smacked Griffin on the back of the head.

“God, just trying to help, man,” Griffin muttered, rubbing his skull.

While Griffin switched his conversation to Evan in the front seat, I leaned my chin against Kellan’s shoulder, silently thanking him for understanding what I wanted. He kissed my head as
he softly laughed. True, I was trying to be nicer to Griffin, but some comments deserved a good smack. Even Anna would have thwacked him for that one.

We arrived at the pool hall and were ushered through the back doors by the radio personnel. Kellan and the boys posed for photos with the DJs while I waited with a group of interns. One girl
chewed on her lip while she watched Kellan flash the cameraman a heart-stopping grin. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I heard her groan.

Playing with my wedding ring, I debated if I wanted to try my hand at darts. I wasn’t all that coordinated, and there was a distinct possibility that someone could get injured if I threw a
pointy object across the room. The intern switched from watching Kellan to watching me. I glanced over at her with a puzzled expression.

“You came in with the guys,” she said as her eyes darted to my ring. “You married to one of them?” I could tell she was silently praying that I said no. Nerves clenched
my stomach. I hadn’t anticipated someone asking
me
about
my
relationships. True, this was a one-on-one conversation and not an official interview, but this girl had the ears
of the DJs. Saying something to her was akin to saying something to the whole city. Well, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but I still didn’t like the idea.

Not knowing quite what to say, I simply told her, “No. Not married.” That was the truth, since legally I wasn’t. She looked about to ask me more, but, getting uncomfortable
under her scrutiny, I excused myself and walked away.

The contest winners were divided up into four teams, and each team was assigned a D-Bag as its captain. The girls on Kellan’s team were very excited. More than a few girls on the other
teams seemed a little jealous, but quickly got over it; they
were
shooting pool and throwing darts with rock stars, after all. I weaseled my way onto Kellan’s team. I wouldn’t
do much good in helping him win, but I could at least give him moral support when we lost.
If
we lost. I suppose I should start thinking positively. Go Team Kyle!

Each D-Bag had ten contest winners on his coed team. The team was then subdivided into a team of five that would play against another team of five. Plastered on a wall nearby was a complex
bracket system that would eventually tell us which “Bag has the largest D.” There was even an ostentatious D-shaped trophy for the winning team captain to take home. But the scoring
process was more complicated than any statistics assignment I’d ever had at school, and I couldn’t figure out how it all worked. All I knew was that even though Kellan and I were on the
same team, he insisted on trying to distract me so much that I botched almost every shot.

During the dart game, Kellan would reach over and pinch the back of my thigh right as I was about to shoot. I missed the board three times in a row. One time when he did it, I’d been
concentrating so hard on hitting the target—any target—that I hadn’t noticed him behind me. Right as I was getting ready to throw, he nonchalantly ran his hand around my hip and
into my front pocket. It scared the shit out of me. I twisted as I tossed, and flung the dart into a clump of pool players. It hit Griffin in the ass. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we were playing
electronic darts, and Griffin wasn’t injured. He did retaliate, though, by flicking a blue cue chalk at Matt, whom he’d incorrectly assumed had tagged him.

Kellan laughed so hard he had to step away from the game. A crowd of girls hovered around him like cats circling an open can of tuna. But again, the people around didn’t seem to think it
was weird that Kellan flirted so much with me. Probably because they all shamelessly flirted with him. It was like Pete’s on crack. Kellan spent most of his nonplaying time swatting
touchy-feely palms away, and politely redirecting wandering fingers. Even I had to admit, it was pretty amusing.

When our group switched over to the pool tables, the team’s rankings were: Griffin’s team, Evan’s team, Matt’s team, and then Kellan’s team. I wasn’t
surprised that we were dead last. Nobody on our team was focusing very well, except maybe the three male contest winners. Although, even those guys found it hard to shoot pool with so many
flirtatious girls around.

While two of the men on our losing team hit on a tall redhead who clearly only had eyes for Kellan, I leaned over to him and whispered, “Twenty bucks says I sink more shots than
you.”

Kellan scoffed at me. “Forty bucks says you just lost twenty bucks.” I laughed at his remark and stuck my hand out to shake his. Kellan’s lip curled into a smile that sent my
heart soaring. “No, let’s make this interesting. If I win, we have sex backstage tonight. If you win, we have sex backstage tonight.”

I wanted to laugh again, but the way he said
sex
froze my brain for a second. “Um . . . I don’t think you understand how betting works.”

Moving in close to me, he breathed his response into my ear while he rested his hand on my stomach. “Don’t I?”

“Okay,” I muttered, wanting him to slide his hand down a little. “Deal.” I had no idea where we’d find privacy in the circus that was the backstage area, but I
didn’t really care at that moment.

Kellan and I both proceeded to miss shot after shot after shot. I was beginning to wonder what the rules of our bet were if we tied with zero, when the sun shone down upon Kellan and he finally
sank a ball in a pocket. He seemed just as surprised as me. Throwing his fist in the air, he shouted, “Yes!”