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Roux pinched Raven’s arm. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“Obviously.”
“Snoop.”
“Cow.” Raven poked her in the shoulder. “Spill, or I’m asking Mama.”
“She doesn’t know him.”
“It’s Steve Aimes, isn’t it?”
Dammit. Raven knew her too well. “No,” Roux said. “Just drop it, okay?”
“You have Steve Aimes’s number and you haven’t called him,” Raven said very loudly.
“Steve gave you his number?” Azura asked, poking her head out of the bathroom.
“You haven’t called him?” Sage peeked over Azura’s dark head.
“Stop it.”
Iona shook her head. “Don’t you know how to take an opportunity when it’s offered to you?”
“He just wants to get in my pants,” Roux said, though she wasn’t convinced that was his only agenda.
“Exactly,” Iona said.
“You’re the one who told us not to sleep with guys on tour!” Roux reminded her, which was the main reason she hadn’t called him. That, and she was sort of a coward when it came to matters of the heart.
Iona smirked. “We’re not on tour yet.”
Roux tossed Iona’s phone at her. Luckily, she caught it. “I can’t believe you! You made us pinky swear!”
Iona shrugged. Maybe her exhaustion was making her lax in her rules. “Not on tour yet,” she repeated.
“You should call him right now,” Azura said.
“And let us listen in,” Sage added.
“Hell no,” Roux said. For the first time in over a week, she didn’t want to talk to him at all.
“Why did he give you his number?” Iona asked, her face screwed up in confusion. “I thought he hates keyboards.”
“Maybe.” Raven grinned. “But he definitely likes the women who play them.”
Roux shot her a look of warning. Raven was the only one who knew about her short adventure in Steve’s hotel room, and so far she’d kept the secret, but Roux could tell she was about to spill all.
“Something happened,” Azura said, hurrying over to sit on the back of their worse-for-wear plaid sofa, her feet on a threadbare cushion. She settled her elbows on her knees and her chin atop her clasped hands and waited for the show to begin.
Roux had no plan to be the afternoon’s entertainment.
“I keep having this strange memory of being carried in the arms of a tall, handsome man with long dark hair and exotic eyes,” Azura said. “And being in a limo with you and him. And a bucket of vomit.”
So she did remember that night.
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Roux said, turning her back to Azura and reaching for her bag. She slung it over one shoulder, ready to hit the road, but no one else moved. “We’d better get going before rush hour.”
Traffic was always a nightmare, but it extended into all seven layers of hell after three p.m.
“Was Steve in the limo that took you guys home?” Sage asked, scrambling over the back of the sofa to sit beside Azura. Roux could imagine them hauling out a big bucket of popcorn to share while they watched her squirm beneath their magnifying glass.
Roux shrugged. “Maybe.”
“He carried me to bed, didn’t he?” Azura asked, squirming with excitement as her drunken memories wriggled free of her subconscious. “I thought I dreamt that, but—” Her eyes went wide, and she covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh God. Did I really puke in front of him?”
Roux could not keep a lid on that precious morsel. “Oh yeah, you definitely puked. Three times if memory serves.”
“I didn’t get any on him, did I?” she moaned.
“No. You hit the bucket.”
“Thank God. So . . .” Azura pinned a laser-focused stare on Raven, because everyone knew Raven knew all of Roux’s business. “Did she do the nasty with him?”
“Azura!” Roux stomped one foot.
“Little Miss Goody-goody?” Raven snorted and then shook her head sadly. “Nope. She made him order her a vegetarian lasagna, ate it in his room, and fucking left him with a hard-on.”
Mouths wide, Azura, Sage, and Iona all gaped at Roux.
“How do you know he had a hard-on?” Roux snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
Raven rolled her eyes. “He had one before he even got you alone in his room. It’s not like I wouldn’t notice a schlong that big seeking its freedom from pants that tight.”
“You guys are the worst,” Roux said, swinging toward the door, her bag bouncing against her back as she marched forward.
“She did kiss him, however,” Raven said.
Ugh! Sisters!
“You didn’t even give him a hand job?” Iona asked, falling into step behind her. “Too cruel, Roux. Too cruel.”
“We talked, okay? He was . . . nice.”
“Nice!” Iona laughed as she followed Roux down the steps. Roux could hear the rest of her sisters finally vacating the apartment. They were talking over each other about hand jobs on first dates. “If Steve Aimes was being nice, you were doing it wrong.”
Roux paused on the landing and turned to look up at Iona. “And that’s why he gave me his personal number, right?”
She turned and flounced down the steps, smiling at her small victory.
“Hey, little sister,” Iona called after her, “I’m the band’s vocalist. I’m the only one allowed to drop the mic.”
Roux found her victory to be short-lived, as there was no way to spend five hours in a van with four obnoxiously nosy women and not end up calling Steve just to get them to leave her the fuck alone.
Ten
Of all the worst fucking timing. Steve had been waiting for this call for years—so maybe it had only been a week—but there was no way he could answer while sitting across from his cruel ex-wife. And there was no other word to describe her unless it was ball-busting, demonic, evil, heartless, and too damned beautiful for her own good. So, with an internal moan of agony, Steve silenced his cellphone, somewhat contented by the knowledge that even though he’d missed Roux’s call, he now had her number and could call her back after the hell on earth he was currently experiencing ended.
“Was that important?” Bianca asked with an alligator-like grin, nodding toward the phone he crammed into a pocket.
“You know nothing is as important as you are,” he said.
Her brown eyes brightened. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”
What did she mean? He’d always done his best to show her that she came first in his hectic life, but he didn’t want to discuss that now. That would start an argument, and they’d never get to the point of his visit. How had Zach talked him into this again?
“You know why I’m here,” he said.
“Because you missed me?” Her silky black hair slid across her cheek as she tilted her head flirtatiously.
Less and less, he admitted to himself, but yes, at the beginning it had been hard. “Are you working with Sam Baily?” he asked.
She flinched, her hand sliding across her desk to pick up a pen, which she began to click repetitively. Steve’s instinct was to push her before she collected her story or whatever it was she was thinking about so hard, but one benefit of marriage was getting to know a person’s habits and reactions. Bianca clicked her pen when she was stalling for time, which meant she was fabricating some lie, but he also knew that if he pressed for information before she settled on her story, she’d react with that volatile temper of hers. One that he used to enjoy watching explode back when he’d been under her spell. While he waited for Bianca to open her mouth, he wondered why Roux had suddenly decided to call him. He was sure it was because the North American leg of Exodus End’s tour had finally ended. She did seem like a stickler for the rules, and that rule she’d spouted about not being able to date a musician on tour . . . Well, he wasn’t on tour for the next two weeks. They could do a lot of damage to each other in two weeks.
“You’re thinking about a woman right now,” Bianca said, fire in her gaze.
The smile Steve hadn’t realized had spread across his face turned bitter. “It isn’t you.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
“And since your tabloid continues to insist that I’m gay, wouldn’t I be thinking about a man?”
She chuckled. “Is that why you’re here? Your overinflated ego couldn’t handle a little rumor?”
“You know Zach and I are only friends.”
“Friends become lovers all the time, Stevie.” She laughed.
God, he hated that laugh. It no longer carried joy, just cruelty. He also hated being called Stevie, and she fucking knew that. “You know that’s not the case, but that’s not why I’m here. How the fuck are you tangled up with Sam Baily?”
“Don’t you cuss at me.”
Steve took a breath to calm himself. She always focused on a triviality to direct his focus away from bigger issue. The difference between now and when they were married was that he recognized what she was doing, so instead of blowing a little thing out of proportion by getting into an argument about him swearing if he damned well felt like fucking swearing, he centered himself and asked again, without the added expletive, “How are you tangled up with Sam Baily?”
