Page 3 of #Moonstruck

This was not a man you’d want to physically restrain you while waiting for the police to arrive.

Imagine my shock when he broke out in a huge smile that softened his entire appearance. “Heya, Angie.”

Even more surprising, Angie launched herself at him, and he engulfed her in a hug, the top of her head just reaching his shoulder. “I’m so excited to see you again, Fox!”

He let her go, and she stepped back. “Thanks so much for everything—for the passes and the tickets. I can’t tell you what it means to me.”

“Anything for you. You know I’m only a phone call away.”

“And a flight away, considering you’re on tour with the biggest pop star on the planet.”

Was I imagining things, or was that a flirtatious tone in her voice? I’d never seen her do that before, and we’d been out together tons of times. Well, we went out whenever she could wrangle up a babysitter for her two-year-old. But even then, she spent all her time shooting guys down. She did not encourage them.

What I didn’t imagine was the interest in Fox’s eyes. He was definitely attracted to Angie, which he obviously should have been because she was beyond amazing.

But it didn’t seem like she knew he liked her.

Hmm.

“Have a good time,” he said as he opened the swinging door for us and gestured inside. “And don’t do anything that will force me to haul you guys out.”

He was teasing, but I was still worried about what Angie might do.

Because there was no greenroom or dressing room in a stadium, somebody had hung up a bunch of thick blue-gray curtains to cordon off certain areas. One of the curtains swung open, and I had a brief glimpse of brown-leather couches and a massive big-screen TV. Angie marched us straight ahead, and despite the fact that she was half my height, I had a hard time keeping up with her.

“How did you manage this?” I asked. I knew Angie was resourceful, but what she had pulled off was seriously impressive.

“Fox was in Hector’s ...” Her voice caught, and I knew from experience she didn’t want me to comfort her. Her husband, Hector, had died in combat a little over a year ago. IED. Angie still couldn’t say his name without getting emotional. She wanted to be able to talk about him without that happening. “He was in Hector’s unit.”

That explained the burn marks on Fox’s face and why he was doing this for Angie. After Hector died, the other soldiers in his unit and their wives had basically adopted her. She became their family, and they would do anything for her.

Including unfettered access to Ryan De Luna.

Although Fox hadn’t been looking at Angie in a particularly familial way.

“Fox called me to say he’d be in town and wanted to check in on me. When he told me he’d started working as a bodyguard for Ryan, well, one thing led to another, and here we are.”

Here we were.

She pushed the curtain aside, and I quickly glanced around the room, noting the two guys playing a video game on the big screen and a bunch of groupies talking to each other and twirling the ends of their hair. The other women sized us up and immediately dismissed us as possible competition.

I could see why. We were not from the groupie/pop-star girlfriend mold. Like, my clothing covered my body and stuff.

Them: Outfits that, if they sat down or bent over, revealed the parts that made them female.

Me: Black, ratty jeans and a worn (but soft) black Beatles T-shirt that had once belonged to my mother. (I worried sometimes that I was too much of a clichéd “lead singer in a rock band” with my choices but then decided if I was actually cool, I wouldn’t care what anybody else thought about my clothes. I was still working on that part.)

Them: Mostly various shades of blonde, with perfect waves and hair extensions for days.

Me: Unwashed, naturally long brown hair with scarlet streaks that I’d recently added.

Them: Enough makeup to properly audition for clown college.

Me: Okay, I liked to look quasi-nice and wore some makeup, especially when I performed, as the lights tended to wash me out. But I was not giving the scary thing from Stephen King’sIta run for his money.

Basically, we were total opposites in every way possible.

But then my brain stopped working entirely.

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