“Yeah. I did. I don’t want to be here for the next act,” he says.
He sighs against my cheek.
“It’s my … mother.”
I hold back my gasp, forcibly tamping down my shock, outrage, and—I’m ashamed to admit it—curiosity.
I’m dying to see her. Dying to hear her.
I could stay.
I could let him walk back to the hotel or step outside and wait for me.
I could march up to that stage and give her a piece of my mind.
But Patty is more important than my curiosityormy ire.
Some things are worth more than knowing.
“Let’s go,” I say.
I grab his hand, and we weave through the crowd toward the door.
Just as we’re about to leave, a man’s voice cuts through the noise:
“Hey, don’t I know you?”
Anxiety prickles at my skin as the reality sinks in: I’m exposed.
Patty’s an effective bodyguard. But he’s just one bodyguard in a sea of people. He shifts to separate me from the inquiring man, and I think we’re in the clear. Until the guy presses.
“I do,” he says, stepping in front of Patty. “I know you. You were in … what was that band?”
“No band,” Patty says flatly, his voice clipped. “You don’t know me, man.”
And suddenly, my senses go on high alert.
This guy isn’t talking to me.
He’s talking to Patty.
He recognized Patty … from his college band?
Patty pushes past the guy, and we slip out the door.
I’m hit with a blast of cold air, and I immediately shiver.
Patty puts his arm around me, and we walk the half-mile back to our hotel in silence.
My brain is screaming the entire time:
What just happened?
“I guess this is where we put up a pillow wall to keep us chaste,” I say once we’re back in the hotel and have both used the bathroom.
“You don’t need a pillow wall to keep you safe from me,” Patty says, pulling the sheets back on the bed.
Full disclosure: I assumed Patty sleeps in his boxers with no shirt.
