“Tobias.”
“One minute, Angel,” he murmured, placing a cut off piece of drinking straw to one nostril and inhaling an entire line before swapping sides and repeating the action. He sniffed hard and rubbed the back of his hand against his nose as he eyed me.
“Are you enjoying the show?”
He glanced at his hand and wiped it carelessly on the seat of his pants. I narrowed my eyes on him.
“Don’t change the subject. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” The scowl he gave me made him look so much like his brother that the breath froze in my lungs.
I shook off the moment, sent him my own scowl, and pointed at his face.
“Your nose is bleeding. That’s not fine.” Snatching a Kleenex from a box stashed behind the curtain, I pulled his face down and dabbed at the crimson fluid bubbling at his nostril.
“I hate that you do this to yourself,” I murmured as I erased the evidence of his addiction.
The music filtering from the stage was so loud that I assumed he hadn’t heard me, but his eyes were sad and as he turned away, I thought I heard him say, “Yeah, me too.”
We made it through the rest of the set mostly without incident until the encore when Harvey decided to pull a woman onstage and dry hump her. He had picked her out of the crowd, ignoring the scowl of the man beside her who reached for her as Harvey pulled her up beside him. Calix shook his head and played on as Harvey dropped the melody he’d been plucking out in favor of playing up to the crowd. The woman giggled and ground her ass against his crotch while he held her hips tight against him.
“Harvey.” Otis’s voice was almost drowned out by the sounds of the crowd, their shrieks of jealousy and screams of adoration on the brink of deafening.
Despite the noise, Harvey acknowledged his best friend with the briefest of glances, then tapped the girl on the ass, whispered in her ear, and pointed her in my direction. For fuck’s sake. What did he expect me to do? She traipsed across the stage, face aglow from the attention she’d received. I tried my best to keep my face civil, already anticipating the world of problems this would cause me.
“Harvey said you’d give me a backstage pass,” she said, her smile twisting into something less pleasant as soon as she passed into the wings.
“Did he?” I asked mildly.
She folded her arms and cocked a hip, her eyes sliding over my body in a look that would put any of the mean girls from my old high school to shame. She was pretty, in an overly made-up, designer clothing kind of way, and I wondered if this was Harvey’s usual type. I shook the thought away, reminding myself that from what I’d seen, consensual was Harvey’s type. And thank God for that, because anything else would have given me more than a headache.
“Listen, bitch. This is my chance to get hot and heavy with that rock god, and the last thing I need is the help getting jealous and trying to clam jam me, so how about you hop to it, do your fucking job, and get me a pass so I can fuck your employer so good he’ll want me to join the tour.”
Excuse me?
Before I could lose my mind at the entitled piece of shit human in front of me, the guys came bounding offstage. As usual, Toby swept me up and away from Whorie McGroupie, his arms banded tight around my middle as he walked us toward the green room. He smelled of sweat and aftershave, and I resisted burying my nose in his neck, knowing how high he was. It wasn’t professional to take advantage of my charges, especially when they were constantly affected by substances. It was the same reason I stepped in and kept Toby from joining in on any of Harvey’s bullshit.
Otis’s eyes were dark when I met them over Toby’s shoulder. I cocked my head at him in inquiry, and he gave me a small lift of the lips, telling me he was all right. Even if we both knew he was lying. It was clear he hated the way Harvey chased groupies, but he shut down every time I tried to talk to him about it.
“You smell amazing, Angel. I’m gonna carry you everywhere from now on.”
I chuckled, slapping at Toby’s shoulder. “You need to go and play nice with fans. Let me down.”
He hoisted me higher in his arms, burying his face in my stomach as he let out a groan that vibrated straight through my core. I gasped, squeezing my thighs together as an irritated grunt came from beside us.
“Put Tater-tots back on her feet, Toby. If I have to go through this, you’re doing it with me.”
I gave Calix an unimpressed look that, luckily, distracted me from the sensation of Toby sliding me down his body until my feet landed on the floor. With a squeeze of my waist, Toby shouldered past his brother, intentionally knocking into him in a way no one else would dare, and beelined for a table laid out with food and water bottles. He twisted the lid off the nearest bottle, and I watched his throat work as he swallowed half the contents before stopping for a breath.
I needed to get laid.
Between kicking Adam’s ass to the curb and living in such close quarters on the tour bus, opportunities for a little relief had been few and far between—self service or otherwise. Add in the fact that I was surrounded by four of the most physically attractive and talented men in the industry, and your girl was feeling hardup. I didn’t count the little encounter with Calix because, for one, I was trying my hardest to pretend it never happened, and for another thing, it did nothing but make matters a million times worse.
“Where’d Harvey go?” Calix bitched as he took his customary single seat to avoid close encounters with strangers.
“I’ll find him. Can you guys behave yourselves with the fans until I get back?”
Otis gave me a worried look as I spilled out the door and headed for the stage. I diverted my route as shouting echoed from the stage door.
