Authors: Carlene Love Flores
His eyes were trained on Trista.
She was harder to see now that she’d taken
her seat.
It would have been nothing of
note to anyone but him, but once, for a very brief minute, her forehead fell
into her right hand, rubbing at it as if she had a headache.
She then corrected by leaning to the far
left, stretching out her neck and then back again to the right.
She was trying to release stress.
He felt thick with guilt that any portion of
that came from his recent cowardice.
He started going over what he would say
to her later at the hotel since he had no plans of ambushing her here.
And then he saw Ben’s familiar wool cap
topping a face full of smiles and dangling brown hair bobbing through her
aisle.
She greeted him with a kiss to the cheek
before he looked at his watch and then made his way back down to exit the
row.
Totally unaware of
who
Ben and Trista were, the fans who shared their row
didn’t give a second glance to the goofy guy in the vest or the beach beauty in
the home-made dress.
They were there to
see Sin Pointe.
Five minutes later, the outside venue
house lights went out and streams of red ribbon shot out from the cat walks
above.
Screams erupted so loudly he
wondered if any animals were left in the nearby woods.
When Jaxon strode out from the side stage,
his guitar strapped to his back and his oversized black boots trouncing with
each step, he ran a hand back against one side of his slicked hair and smiled
devilishly, reminding Lucky of what Trista had once told him.
Yeah,
they’re all yours, Jaxon
.
But Trista, she’s mine
.
The noise level raised at least ten more
decibels.
It peaked three more times, as each band
member took to their spots. Stefan strutted up front, already fond of the mic
stand.
Marion eased back to his side,
bass guitar ready to take them down into pure dirtiness, and Will, he stood for
a moment, straddling his seat behind the shiny black drum kit.
When he got the sign from Jaxon, the crowd
once again went crazy and Will jumped down onto his stool and started hammering
the bass drum.
Every single person there
was not only standing, but three beats into the first song and they were all in
a uniform bounce, their collective heads bobbing up and down in
solidarity.
He realized he wouldn’t see
Trista again until later at the hotel.
He stuck around for a good ten songs.
When Sin Pointe came back out for the encore,
he was already headed to his truck, on his way back to the elegant, quiet
solitude of the hotel.
Where he could
think about why failing tonight was not an option.
He hummed the opening lines of the song he’d
written.
“A smile like
yours is all I never had.
I didn’t know
how to help you, so I hurt you instead.
If I can’t do anything else with my life, I’ll try until the last breath
I take to see it one more time.
Your smile.
”
He strummed his guitar a few more times,
trying to give just the barest hint of a melody to his words.
When he felt a little more at ease in the way
his fingers slid over the strings, plucking them and holding them down in the
right ways, he set the instrument down.
It was eleven o’clock.
He called
Ben, his accomplice in winning Trista back.
He never expected to hear her voice
answering Ben’s phone.
It came through
like a dart slashing through honey, sticking him straight in the heart.
“Hello?
Hello?
Is anyone there?” Trista
asked as he sat down slowly on the bed’s edge, gathering himself.
She didn’t know it was him calling.
Ben must not have programmed his name into
his contact list.
Wouldn’t she at least
recognize the area code, or the numbers she’d dialed in the past weeks?
He almost froze up but then remembered that
this was his one chance to get things right.
And that wouldn’t happen if she had no idea he was in town, at her
hotel, lying in wait for her.
He cleared
his throat.
“Trista, it’s me, Lucky.”
She gasped, or maybe it was a huff.
She didn’t answer back so he quickly added
more, in case she hung up.
“I’m here, at
your hotel.
I have my own room.
I’m sorry, so sorry, first of all.”
No disconnection yet.
He kept on. “I need to talk to you.
To apologize and…”
But then he heard the click.
He immediately dialed back.
He couldn’t have failed this early on.
This time the call went straight to Ben’s
voicemail.
All he could hope for was
that Trista was ignoring his call but would at least return the phone to Ben.
If she chucked it into the woods, he’d be out
of luck.
He left a message.
“Ben, it’s me, Lucky.
I just called you but Trista answered.
I upset her.
I’m back at the hotel, in my room.
If you speak with her, please tell her I’ll be here, waiting. Doesn’t
matter how late it gets. Thanks, man.”
Chapter
Twenty-Five
The ride back to the hotel was
predictable.
The fact she saw it as such
was a sign she’d done this too many times.
The guys sat quietly, thinking about what they’d be doing in their rooms
later on.
Most times, they kept those
thoughts to themselves.
She wasn’t
claiming to be the Rock Star Whisperer, not officially at least, but she knew
she was right.
She’d gotten stuck in the
middle of too many of those kinds of night caps over the years.
Marion had his family with him and Will,
well, Will had his ghosts, but Stefan—and now Jaxon—were free to invite whoever
they’d like up for the night.
And nine
times out of ten, that’s what they’d do.
Vangie still hadn’t surfaced, in Jaxon’s
life or Maryella’s.
It was strange she
hadn’t shown up at any of the shows yet, or more precisely, at any of the
hotels.
Vangie knew which ones they
were.
Exclusivity and professional
courtesy kept the guys coming back to their favorite four-stars.
If she’d wanted to find Jaxon, she could
have.
For Maryella’s sake, even though
it grated her last nerve to admit it, she hoped Vangie showed soon.
Losing a mother was tragic and she’d hate for
the little girl to have to head down that road.
Ben sat in the seat next to her while she
conjured up a smiling, less bitchy version of her enemy flitting past them at
the hotel like a princess.
But fairytale
Vangie required too much mental making over.
She leaned her head down on Ben’s lanky but sturdy shoulder.
He smelled nice when she inhaled.
But inevitably the overwhelming scent of
sweaty musician knocked away whatever cologne Ben had splashed on that
night.
She was about to close her eyes
but remembered the phone call.
What did
Ben have to do with
him
?
Even though she’d only heard the first few
words that had come from Lucky’s mouth, it’d still been enough to turn her
emotions inside out.
She’d been holding Ben’s phone for him
backstage while he’d scribbled a note to Erby then ran off to hand deliver it.
A hand-written love note.
How could Erby not fall for that?
But then Ben’s phone rang with the familiar
number popping up on the caller ID.
It’d
left her stunned and gawking then hearing his first couple words had been
enough of a shock to temporarily deafen her.
That along with
the fans’ roaring applause.
When the phone rang again, she couldn’t
make her fingers
press accept
.
She’d already hurt Lucky so badly that he
couldn’t stand the thought of her.
So of
course there was no possibility he’d been calling to speak with her.
She wouldn’t embarrass herself by attempting
to speak to him at this point.
He had
some business with Ben and she would stay out of it.
That’s why this curiosity was so dang
annoying right now.
“Ben, you got a call earlier.
I answered at first, but um, well, they ended
up leaving you a message.”
She wanted to
tell him it might be important so that he’d listen to it right then and there.
But she knew better.
It would only hurt her if she opened that
part of her heart back up.
She had responsibilities to those in the
van.
There’d be no Trista Hart, Sin
Pointe VIP, if she was coddling a broken heart.
And it was broken.
Smashed.
Decimated.
Ignoring it during the day then letting
it out to wash over her night after night had left her an insomniac.
Going thicker on the eyeliner in an attempt
to mask the circles under her eyes tonight had left her looking like the
walking dead.
She took another long
whiff of Ben’s shoulder and held it as long as she could.
Ben pulled out his phone and held it up
to his ear, pushing temporarily at his hat and hair.
His eyes widened and she knew it was probably
Lucky’s message.
She didn’t know why Ben
would respond like that.
It was her love
that had vanished without a word.
No
chance to explain or beg him to stay long enough for her to drag Jaxon out of
the room by his ear and confess about his stupid kissing test.
What business did Ben have with Lucky?
The guys had started flinging Chiclets at
each other.
Stefan’s
favorites.
She sighed at their
foolery then focused on Ben, who had gently lifted his shoulder to budge her
into looking at him.
Was he trying to
come up with the right words?
Did those
even exist?
He stuttered through a few
beginnings.
She couldn’t contain herself
any longer.
This was going to hurt, she
just knew it.
“Ben, why was Lucky calling you?”
She wanted to add
when he won’t even consider my calls
, but refrained.
It wasn’t Ben’s fault.
“Okay, promise you won’t be mad at me?”
“I promise.
Please, Ben.”
Her eyes competed with his as saucers.
“Lucky called me a couple days ago and
asked if I’d help him out.”
“With what?”
“He wanted to come out and see you…wanted
to know what town we’d be in this weekend and where we were staying.
I got him a room on our floor.
I’m sorry, I know I should have told you but
he was so paranoid.”
Her mental capacities were too strung out
to process most of what he’d just confessed.
Especially the last part.
“Paranoid?”
“Yeah, he didn’t want to tell you ahead
of time because he thought you’d refuse to see him.”
She should refuse to see him but the
thought knocked another chunk from her shaky heart.
“You’re saying he’s at the hotel, now?”
“Yeah, room 2107.”
No Ben, you
take that information back!
How
could she be on the same floor as Lucky, and not go miserably haunting the hall
in hopes of seeing him?
No, not to see him.
She just wanted to be near him.
To feel the calm he’d brought to her for their few days together.
In her mind, it would be okay to rest her
cheek against his door.
In anyone else’s
mind, she knew that would be insanity.
“What did he say in his message?
Please tell me.”