Page 19 of Too Little Too Soon
A screen had been set up on the far end of the room, where concert clips were being played in a loop. She had no idea where the current clip was from, but she became riveted.
“Tell me what I’m watching,” she demanded of her sister. She hadn’t thought anything of missing the opening act in favor of being in Holly’s dressing room, getting reacquainted—or, in all honesty, getting acquainted for the first time in her adult life—with her sister, but now…
She suddenly, desperately wished she could go back in time and stand stage left with Maria so she could watch what was happening on the screen in person. How much stranger would it have been to realize who Travis was as he was walking up to his drum set, instead of bumping into him backstage after the concert?
“Lacey and Parker,” Maria said, pointing at the screen. “She’s the lead singer and he’s the bassist. They’re a couple, just got married in May.” Maria poked her arm. “You would have met them if you’d come to Holly’s wedding. Lacey is Sam’s sister.”
Ah, there was the connection. Ava knew there was one, besides Maria’s role with Demigoddess Revival.
“And that’s Oz,” Maria said, her voice going all soft and gooey. There were probably hearts in her eyes too.
A Black guy with white-blond dreads walked onto the stage, waving at the crowd, looking more like a politician than a member of a rock band. Well, besides the dreads and tattoos, anyway. It was something in the way he carried himself.
“Cash,” Maria said. “Our keyboardist. He used to be a classical concert pianist.”
Ah, that was it. His stance was left over from a different time, a different world.
“And that’s Travis—”
“The drummer,” Ava murmured, staring at the screen as he jogged out onto the stage, wearing a too-tight T-shirt and a pair of mouthwatering jeans and holding his drumsticks high above his head.
God, he was gorgeous. Maria said he never slept with the same woman twice, but he’d insisted he wanted to see Ava after the show. He’d known she was attending the concert, which meant he’d known she would have figured out his real identity. And he’d still insisted he wanted to see her again.
That probably didn’t truly invalidate his status as a guy who never slept with the same woman twice; after all, he was in a band, and he said he wasn’t from New York. Oh, and Holly had said this concert was kicking off a four-month tour. Both bands would be traveling from one end of the country to the other.
So probably, he just wanted to get laid one more time before he took off.
Was she against this idea?
No, not really. In fact, she very much approved. God knew, she wasn’t in the right headspace to start up any sort of relationship.
But God also knew that the sex had been off-the-charts spectacular, and if she had one more shot at such an incredibly good time, why not take it?
ChapterSeven
There weretwo showers in the band’s shared dressing room.
Even when there was only one, Lacey always went first; she could complete her beauty routine while the rest of the guys took turns cleaning up.
Travis didn’t like to think too hard about it, but more often than not, Lacey and Parker showered together—guess it was a kink of theirs—which they insisted saved time, except everybody knew they banged while they were in there, so really, how much time were they saving?
At any rate, with the double showers, they were all cleaned up and ready to greet the groupies in record time.
Too quickly, in Travis’s opinion. He wasn’t ready to go into that room. He’d been assured that security had done a sweep and his stalker wasn’t there—smart of her because there was a good chance she’d get arrested if she had been—but that wasn’t his problem. Not now.
It was Ava. Maria’s sister. And Holly’s sister. God, she was connected to his bandandPanic Station.
And this afternoon he’d fucked her six ways from Sunday.
Not only that, but he’d told her he wanted to see her again. And he had meant it—when he said it. Before he knew who she was.
Maybe he still did want to see her, but then again, he was not about to carry on anything at all with his publicist’s sister. No fucking way.
Because even if he did want to see her, he didn’t want a relationship, which meant it would end at some point, probably badly, and then what? He liked Maria. He didn’t want her to hate him. And since it was pretty much guaranteed that Oz and Maria were going to end up married, that meant Ava would eventually be Oz’s sister-in-law.
Not going there.
Travis stuffed his shit into his duffle bag and swung it over his shoulder. “I’m going to bail on the meet and greet,” he announced to the room at large. “Gonna go chill on the tour bus.”
