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I peered into the darkness. The band had their backs to me, and they hadn’t seen me. They were intently staring down the road, which was empty of cars. Stone pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. “One minute,” he said.
“Unfuckingbelievable,” Neal said, and Denver laughed.
I narrowed my eyes at Carlos. “What—”
Denver whooped. “Come on, Shimmy!” he shouted.
I turned to follow their line of sight. In the distance, a figure appeared on the road. A man, running toward us. Sprinting, in fact. His blond hair was loose, wild. It was Axel, moving at the speed of an Olympic runner.
And he was naked.
Completelynaked.
I couldn’t process it for a crazy second—Axel, naked.In the middle of the empty road.I registered his arms pumping, the flash of his legs, the fact that I could seeeverything, and then Stone shouted, “Thirty seconds!” and Neal doubled over, laughing, and Denver called out, “Go, Shimmy, go!” And I thought with sickening panic,Oh my God, they got high.
They must have. They must have snuck something onto their bus and taken it while I was sleeping. No one did this kind of thing sober.
Carlos and Paul were both laughing. “The balls on that fucking guy,” Paul said, and they both laughed harder at the unintended joke. Axel made it back to the bus, whooping, his hands in the air like a sprinter crossing the finish line. He looked elated.
“For the love of God, put that thing away!” Neal shouted. Axel disappeared into the bus.
My bare feet hit the ground before I could think. I pushed past the drivers and power walked to the other bus as the band followed Axel aboard. I stomped up the steps onto the bus and shouted, “What is going on here?”
The guys froze. Stone and Denver were on my left, Neal on my right. Axel had picked up his sweatpants, but hadn’t had time to put them on. He held them in front of his crotch when he saw me, his eyes going wide.
“Someone explain,” I said. I swept onto the bus in my bathrobe, poking around, looking for empty bottles. Looking for pills, powder. Weed. Some fucking mushrooms. Anything.
“You mad?” Stone asked me.
“Mad?” I whirled on him. “Youpromised.You all did. This is supposed to be a sober tour.”
Understanding crossed Denver’s face. “We’re not high,” he said.
“You’re full of shit!” Maybe I was overreacting. I probably was. I probably should be laughing this off, making nice, pretending everything was fine. I was a crazy woman, yelling at these grown men while standing here in my terrycloth bathrobe, with no shoes on. I sounded unhinged.
But I couldn’t stop, couldn’t do anything about the pit of panic that had opened up in the bottom of my stomach. It wasn’t just that my job, the entire reason I was here, was to keep Axel sober. It was that if he took something—anything—if he started slipping—
He had worked so hard, sacrificed so much. He had known this might happen. If he started slipping, I’dlosehim.
I didn’t see any evidence, but that didn’t mean much. I turned and faced all four of them. “Tell me,” I said, my voice calmer. “Just tell me the truth.”
“Brit.” This was Neal, nice guy Neal, and he was oh, so believable. He was a father. He was supposed to be the responsible one. “We couldn’t sleep, and we were bored. We dared Axel to run naked outside for two full minutes, and he took the dare. I swear we’re sober. We’re just stupid, that’s all.”
I walked straight up to Axel, standing there with his sweatpants held in front of him, and looked into his face. I searched his blue eyes. I didn’t know what to look for, because I hadn’t known him when he was high, and I didn’t know the signs. Dilated pupils? Sweaty skin? Would he look dazed or out of it? I was out of my depth. What if he was a good liar? What if they all were?
He was slightly out of breath from his sprint, his bare chest rising and falling, but he didn’t seem otherwise impaired. He looked straight back into my eyes, and his expression was serious. None of them were laughing at me or scoffing at my outrage. They weren’t minimizing my concern. They took this as seriously as I did, I realized. Axel most of all.
He still didn’t lower his gaze, and I tried to read what was in his eyes. They were soft, but underneath was pain that was icy and hard. The silence drew out as we stared at each other, and then he raised his free hand and lightly cupped my jaw. His fingers were warm and sure. He brushed his thumb across my cheek.
“I promise,” he said softly.
I made a pained noise in my throat. It was the remnants of the words that rose up, that I’d swallowed down again.I can’t lose you. I can’t.
Axel dropped his hand, and as my panic receded, I became more aware that he was naked. Absolutely naked, standing almost close enough for our chests to touch. I fought not to drop my gaze, but I had already seen everything, even though it was in a blur of motion in the dark. His sleek chest, his flat stomach, his tattoos. The line of dark blond hair that arrowed down his stomach. His hips. The rest of it. He hadn’t covered any of it now, except for a ball of fabric held in a strategic spot.
Axel was naked. Axel wasnaked.
I inhaled a breath and turned away from him, flinching the way you would if you had stared directly into the sun. “What the hell was this dare?” I asked the others, keeping my stern-teacher voice. “What did he win by doing this little stunt?”
