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“Don’t you worry about me, girl. Chey, you need anything, shout, we’re here for you, and we’re going to be at the motel for you. Just until we move into the house,” Kye smiled. I nodded. The Wild Wind had bought a smallish mansion, but it had needed work, and we couldn’t move in for another three weeks. Until then, we were staying with Nana and Jed. Trey groaned as we turned into the street that led to the motel, and Johnno let out a similar noise.
“Fuck, our whereabouts has been leaked,” Saint cursed. Bridge leaned forward and swore fluently. The tour bus we were travelling on slowed, and I frowned.
In the road was a thick throng of fans. Security was raising barriers and trying to move the crowd back, but at the moment, it was pointless. Hands banged on the sides, making me jump, and I reached out a hand to the most important person in my life. Jesse grasped my hand and squeezed. He offered a wry smile and relaxed in his seat.
“The loonies are out, Mom,” Jesse grimaced as someone knocked loudly on the tinted window.
“Telling me, son,” I teased. Jesse sent his father’s crooked grin in my direction, and I felt the pang I always suffered when I saw it.
“This is going to take a while to clear. Can I go play?” I rolled my eyes at Jesse; he wanted the console Kye had smuggled on board. Although Kye and Jesse both considered me too daft to realise they’d done it.
“Thought I’d banned you from that?” I asked. Jesse peeked at me from under long eyelashes, and I sighed. “Kid, that doesn’t work with me!” A woman’s scream made me jump, and I glanced outside. This was looking nasty.
“Chey, I’ll take Jesse to his room,” Kye said, getting up from his seat. Quietly, I nodded and hoped security would move the crowd along quicker. Although Jesse had been brought up around this craziness, it didn’t mean I liked Jesse experiencing it.
“This is a fuckin’ circus,” Bridge growled, looking unhappy.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have released notice The Wild Wind was taking a break from touring. Everyone’s frantic to get tickets, and they sold out within the hour,” Saint muttered, sitting back. Zyaire glanced out of the window and flinched as a heavily made-up face pressed against it.
“Shit!” Zyaire cussed, and I stifled a giggle. Zyaire was the chilled out one and rarely swore, so when he did, it was funny.
“You know this is dickwad protesting, don’t you?” Bridge complained.
“Yeah, asshole’s feeling left out of our decisions. This shit proves we can’t trust him,” Saint agreed. Ken, our manager, was on a three-month hiatus, and he’d set a junior manager on us. Only the prick thought managing one of the biggest bands in the world gave him rights and opportunities he’d never have with a lesser-known group. When Kye got his diagnosis five weeks ago, the band immediately had released a press release announcing we were taking a break from live concerts. Luckily, we were in the interval between touring and planning the next.
I phoned Ken personally, explained the situation, and received his full backing. The Wild Wind hadn’t told the prick, known as Peter Wiess, because we didn’t trust him. Ken backed us all the way and informed Peter to stop any future plans. Since then, Peter’s nose had been put out of joint. But I didn’t have faith in the asshole as far as I could throw him. This wasn’t the first time we’d earned a break, but someone, identified as Peter, I suspected, had let a rumour slip The Wild Wind was quitting the scene.
That had caused a media frenzy with reporters clocking that Kye had suddenly taken a step back from live performances. Rumours and outright lies had abounded, with us threatening legal action unless retractions were printed in the papers. Again, I suspected Peter was behind the talk, but we couldn’t prove anything yet. With all the drama happening, Ken had called and informed us he would cut his long vacation short and return in three days on Monday. This had put Peter’s nose right out of joint because he was being relegated to managing smaller bands. Although after this clusterfuck, he’d be lucky to have a job.
It sent a message the band was unhappy with his performance, no pun intended, and we didn’t trust him. This circus outside, I wouldn’t put past Peter. Also, I was damn sure it had been Peter who’d discovered that Kye was checking into a respite centre and had arranged for the media to be present. The headlines had screamed with accusations of Kye’s alleged drug use. So yeah, Ken was returning. Ken was well aware he was coming back to handle a shitstorm, and Peter would be fucked when Ken did.
“Crap, we’re stuck here. I’ll make lunch,” Bridge grumbled. Wild Wind’s keyboard and synthesiser player looked beyond pissed as we heard sirens in the distance. Excellent, now the police were on the way because security couldn’t move the crowds back further. I stifled a laugh and glanced over my shoulder to ensure Jesse was in his room, and sighed in relief when he was absent. A woman pranced outside my window, topless and braless, and her heavy boobs swung like pendulums.
“Holy crap,” Zyaire muttered, and I laughed. The Wild Wind’s drummer looked appalled. Saint gazed heavenwards as she threw herself at the coach and plastered herself to the side. She was dragged off screeching. Our bass player expressed calmness considering Saint’s hair-trigger temper. The Wild Wind’s lead guitarist, Johnno, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. I’d never known a guy who’d drop off like Johnno. I was The Wild Wind’s main singer, with Kye taking up the male vocals. After another twenty minutes of mayhem, the tour bus began moving again, and we finally drove into Nana’s parking lot. Instead of dismounting straight away, we waited for the all-clear from security.
“Hey, your future husband is here!” Saint called from the front. A shiver ran down my spine. Tobias Urban had no less than ten restraining orders against him. The man had stalked me ever since the band blasted onto the scene.
“Calling Dave to move his ass on,” Bridge yelled. Worried, I watched as security approached the uniformed police, and together they moved on Tobias, who rabbited. Exasperated, I let out a long sigh. He’d be back. Consistently, since we broke our initial record, which made number one and stayed there for twelve weeks, Tobias had fixated on me. As soon as Tobias discovered I was an unwed mother, he’d sent me marriage offers every month, which had led to the original injunction. Tobias had spent time in jail for breaking into my hotel rooms and house several times. Luckily, Jesse and I hadn’t been in residence, but even prison didn’t stop him. Because of Tobias, Wild Wind had been forced to take their first break years ago.
I’d returned home and found things had been moved. So, I called the police, who thought it was in my mind until security footage showed a shadowy figure moving through the house. Luckily or unluckily, it depends on how one looked at it, Tobias had left me a nasty package under my mattress, and the cops got DNA and arrested the scumbag. That hadn’t stopped Tobias.
Tobias made wild claims to the media that he was Jesse’s dad and demanded DNA tests, which a judge had denied. This had fuelled the press into a feeding frenzy. I’d been painted as a heartless whore who stole a child from his parent. As much as I wanted to deny the accusations, I kept my mouth shut because Jesse’s protection mattered. Many rumours abounded about who Jesse’s father was, but I’d never once named him. Nor had any of the band. As far as we were concerned, Jesse’s sperm donor was dead to us, and Jesse was a miraculous birth. Which, in a way, he was.
The guys and I always remembered no matter what happened, Jesse hadn’t asked for this life. The Wild Wind protected Jesse against everything out there. The press had tried many times to get Jesse’s picture. Finally, we secured a court order protecting Jesse until he turned eighteen. This time Tobias’s behaviour had helped us, as the judge deemed him a danger to Jesse. When the media realised they were being managed by a madman, Tobias was in prison.
Ken had demanded front-page apologies and withheld interviews until we got them. Once we offered smaller, local papers exclusives instead of them, the leading publishers stopped their crap. Tobias had been outed as the crazed stalker he was. And after that, the press usually played ball, but our sudden announcement created chaos, and Peter fed into it. Kye’s unexplained disappearance from the band had caused rampant speculation. The fact that Tobias was here meant he was off his meds again, which was trouble.
“Want me to warn Kye and Jesse?” Bridge asked, and I nodded. Zyaire reached across and drew me into his embrace.
“Tobias will only get to Jesse once he’s gone through all of us,” Zyaire reassured me. I wrapped an arm around Zyaire’s stomach and leaned into him. I loved this gentle giant to distraction.
“Zyaire, it sucks that Tobias is out there, but we’ve security in place that we’re paying for. They answer to the band and not Peter, and Dave knows only to take orders from The Wild Wind.”
“Yes, and so does his team. They’ve been with us from the beginning. We trust them, right?”
“Yeah, of course. Dave would rather rip his arm off than allow harm to come to one of us. Especially Jesse,” I agreed, and Zyaire’s warm brown eyes smiled.
“Dave would hack his arm off and beat himself over the head with the bloody stump,” Zyaire teased. Bridge’s phone rang, and he answered it.
