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“So,you ever gonna tell me why we’re shacking uptonight?”
Zane was still staring at me and I was staring right back, as he asked the one question I was really hoping he wouldn’task.
Did he actually think Iwantedto share this ridiculous hotel suite withhim?
Yeah, not so much. Zane and I sharing a hotel suite could only end in disaster. Maybe I didn’t picture him cockblocking my hookup and spitting on my floor, but Zane and I had never shared walls before. I’d always been really, really careful aboutthat.
Because when Zane and I got alone in a room—which was not often—he got crazy and I got… weak. As in, my tough girl, smart girl self dove right out the window and my resistance to his diabolical charms gotlow.
Like dangerouslow.
I’d just never let him glimpse how low beforetonight.
And now the damage wasdone.
I’d kissed him, I’d lost my cool, and there was no taking it back. Really, all I could do now was try to salvage what was left of my dignity by making it clear I didn’tplanfor that to happen. It just wasn’t gonna be easy or without anypain.
So I took a deep breath and accepted the fact that I wasn’t getting out of this conversation. If Zane wanted to have it, we’d have it. Tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of the fucking year if that’s how long it took for him to get it out ofme.
Might as well rip off the bandage and begin the slowbleed.
“Because things got messed up,” I started to explain, wondering how much I could edit out and still satisfy him. “We weren’t supposed to share a suite. No one was. Except Jesse and Elle, but you know how thatgoes.”
He grunted, and I knew hedid.
“About two seconds after I saw you in the lobby, I ran into Elle,” I said. “She looked upset, so I tried tohelp.”
“Big fuckingmistake.”
“Yeah. But not exactly my job to walk away.” Seriously. Elle had tears in her eyes when I’d seen her, and that was rare. “She said she and Jesse had a fight and we needed to get him his own room. Didn’t really sound like a kiss-and-make-up situation. Which would’ve been fine, except the hotel’s fully booked, so I couldn’t even get us an extra room. The ones we have were booked months ago.” Not that that was my problem, exactly. The tour coordinator usually handled such things, but since the rooms were booked through my dad, I insisted on handling itmyself.
Last thing I needed was that man coming into unnecessary contact with anyone I workedwith.
To that end, I’d given up my room to Jesse, so at least I was the only one out a room, and Jesse Fucking Mayes, hottest guitar player in the universe, wouldn’t be slumming it on someone’s couch—which he probably would without complaint, he was that cool, but no fucking way was I havingthat. So, problem half-solved.
Zane was shaking his head. “Those two aren’t gonnalast.”
Yeah. I knew that. I saw it. Wasn’t my place to say anything about it,though.
I wasn’t close enough to Jesse, in that way, to say anything to him. Elle I could talk to, but when it came to shit within the band, I tread carefully. I wasn’t in the band; she was. And I sure as hell wasn’t in her relationship withJesse.
Besides that… the woman was totally gone for that guy. She’d break herself to hell and back for him if she had to. I could understand, in a way. Jesse was gorgeous and talented; tall, dark and elusive. Elle was beautiful and talented, too. But Jesse wasn’t the one who was head over heels in love; anyone could see that. He’d have to be the one to end it, and when he did, it would bebad.
I felt for Elle, but the band had to come first. That was the unspoken agreement we’d all made when we came on board this crazytrain.
“What happens to the band when they don’t last?” I asked, wishing I didn’t have to. But this was the first time anyone had even talked to me about it. Brody and I hadn’t even discussed ityet.
“Fuck all,” Zane said. “They go to their separate corners a while, lick their wounds. And we keep doing what we do. Nothing’s gonna break this band. Not ever. We’ll be eighty and still doing ourthing.”
I cracked a smile, hoping he was right about that. Would be pretty interesting, to say the least, booking gigs for eighty-year-old rockstars.
“Think we could still get Coachella?” Iasked.
He tipped his head back and gave a sexy laugh, and I tried to laugh with him. But his blue eyes were on me, and among his many talents—unfortunately, for me—Zane had the incredibly inconvenient talent of being able to read me better than anyone else I’d ever met. Including my mom, and I wastightwith mymom.
Hence, why it was a terrible idea for the two of us to sharewalls.
“Give it up, Maggs,” he said, his expression darkening as the laughterdied.
