Page 25 of Love on Tour
Austin shifted. Then shifted again.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, other than I’m fucking hard as a rock.” His voice dropped, giving it a husky quality.
“You do have some tight muscles.”
“That’s not the muscle I’m talking about,” he said, shifting again. He rolled to his side and Christine couldn’t mistake the muscle he was referring to. His sweatpants did nothing to hide the obvious.
“Wow.” Christine said it without meaning to.
“I told you it was impressive.” He gave her an Elvis-type smile with a full-on lip curl.
“Oh my. I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, that’s not what I was . . .”
“It’s okay, Chrissy. You have great hands.” He took her hand in his. He reached up and put his other hand behind her head, pulling her toward him. He paused, looking into her eyes before settling his gaze on her lips.
Her head was pounding with one thought.He is going to kiss me.
The door to the bus opened and closed, followed by footsteps. Nobody sneaks onto a tour bus. He broke off eye contact and looked at the door.
A female voice said, “Hello?”
Christine pulled away from Austin.
“Damn. Next time,” Austin said.
“Uh-huh.” She stood and straightened her shirt. “I should probably go.”
“I’m going to give my boy a minute to go down, and I’ll meet you in catering.”
She stumbled out the door and ran into Alicia.
“Hey,” Christine said.
“Uh, hey. Is Austin back there?”
“Um, yeah. He is. We were, um, listening to some music.”
“Is Matt?”
Christine stood still. Matt! Her crush. And here she almost kissed Austin. What was she thinking? She wasn’t thinking. Warmth spread across her cheeks. She opened her mouth tospeak, but only her breath came out. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Hello?” Alicia said.
“Huh? What? Oh, sorry. No, Matt isn’t here. Did you try production?”
“He isn’t there. They said he was heading for the bus.”
“I haven’t seen him.” Christine wanted to get away, be alone, and think. Had Matt come to the bus and they hadn’t heard him? No. No way. The door squeaked and the floor shook every time someone came on. They’d have known. Unless they were so into the massage and near-kiss that they’d missed it. But no—she’d heard when Alicia came in. Christine needed to calm down. She left the bus and practically ran to the ladies’ dressing room, happy to find nobody was in there. She sat on the couch and tried to call Julianna. She got her voicemail. When her text chimed a moment later, she jumped.
It was from Austin.I’m in catering. Coming?
Austin was probably unfazed by the whole thing. He kissed a different woman every night. Maybe more than one. It meant nothing to him. She would try to match his nonchalance.
She texted back.Yep. On my way.
After getting her food, she sat next to Austin while Matt had an altercation with two of the servers. He had a phone in his hand and was pointing to it and yelling. Seeing him made her heart beat a little faster. He was in his standard black fitted T-shirt. His jeans molded to his body in all the right places. She chastised herself. How could she almost kiss Austin one minute and have her heart flutter over Matt the next? What was happening to her?
