Page 30 of Too Little Too Soon
Oz offered his hand to shake and then indicated a young woman hovering next to him. “This is my cousin, Carina. She’s joining the tour as our nanny.”
Carina looked to be in her mid or maybe late twenties, with long dark hair, big eyes, and a beautiful smile.
“Very nice to meet you,” Ava said before turning to her sister. Even though they’d already had the conversation, she said, “Brilliant idea, bringing along a nanny.”
“It’s definitely a mutually beneficial proposition,” Maria said with a wink. “Carina needed a change, and we needed help with Riley. Bonus that Carina loves kids.”
Ava could relate. About needing a change anyway. She wasn’t sure about kids. Besides never considering seeking a long-term relationship, she hadn’t considered having kids either. Or being around kids.
She tried to imagine it now, this concept of being a parent, but before any sort of image could form in her head, Travis stepped out of the tunnel, and for a moment, Ava forgot to breathe.
He was dressed similarly to when they’d met in that restaurant in Brooklyn: slacks and a sweater, with that blue fisherman’s cap on his head and, wow, whether those glasses were real hardly mattered because damn, he looked hot in them.
Dropping her gaze and willing her cheeks to cool, Ava smoothed a hand over the front of her cashmere sweater and waited for him to join their little group.
“Travis, you remember my sister, Ava, right?” Maria said.
He pulled the glasses off his nose and tucked them into an inside pocket, hardly sparing her a glance. “Yeah. What’s she doing here?”
There was no inflection, no emotion in that question. Exactly as she’d suspected he’d act.
Why was that so disappointing?
“She’s going on tour with us,” Maria said, clapping her hands. “She’s going to be my assistant. I can’t wait to boss my older sister around,” she added with a laugh.
“Shit,” Travis said, and he walked away.
Maria stared after him. “What was that about?”
Ava forced her gazenotto stare after him. “No clue,” she lied.
He wasn’t ambivalent about her joining the tour; he was downright unhappy about it. Maria had told her about the way he’d felt about her and Oz getting together, about Lacey and Parker dating; it didn’t take much of a leap to conclude that he was annoyed about sleeping with Ava.
Good thing no one else in the band knew about it. Somebody might have suggested she not join them. And now that she was here, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
Despite having to deal with Travis’s presence regularly for the next four months.
ChapterEleven
What the fuckwas she playing at? Was this on purpose? Had Ava convinced her sister to invite her on tour just so she could be a pain in Travis’s ass?
Sure as hell felt that way.
After gathering their luggage at the airport, the group flagged down a handful of Ubers to take them to their hotel. The bus and driver, Teddy, were already there, waiting for them. They’d check in, relax for a minute, and then they’d head over to the arena.
To start their very first North American tour.
It was hard not to be excited about that, but unfortunately, Travis was doing an excellent job.
It was easy to avoid Ava when they had so many people and an excess of luggage and needed multiple cars. And since they’d just come off a red-eye, no one batted an eye when he went straight to his hotel room without a word to anyone.
His relief was short-lived, though. He’d only just laid on his back on the bed and tried to force himself not to think about Ava so he could grab a nap before they had to leave, when there was a knock on the door.
He considered ignoring it, except a rocker in a hotel room alone not answering his door was never a good thing, so he groaned and rolled out of bed to see who it was and what they wanted.
Maria. With little Riley on her hip. Despite his annoyance, Travis mustered a smile. Riley was a seriously cute kid, and it was hard to be mad when she was around.
“Sorry,” Maria said, edging her way into his room and closing the door. “I didn’t intend to bring her with me when I came to talk to you, but she’s a little clingy right now. She’s still adjusting to her parents living in different places. She doesn’t like to be away from me for long stretches of time.”
