Skipped a Beat Read online

  “It’s on the house.” She must read the question in my eyes because she shrugs and says, “It’s going to be a long night. I could use the company.” She nods toward the soup. “Go on. You look like you could use a hot meal.”

  I can’t take the trust in her eyes, the way she looks at me as if I’m a good person, so I stare down at the steaming bowl of food. I haven’t had a warm meal since I’ve had a shower. “Thank—” I clear my throat. “Thank you.”

  “’Welcome.” She leaves me to eat in peace.

  I’m grateful to not have an audience because I eat embarrassingly fast. I upend the bowl to drink what’s left of the broth and run my finger along the inside to make sure I don’t leave even the tiniest morsel behind. The coffee is bitter and warm and works to thaw me out and wake me up, reminding me again why it’s so dangerous to fall asleep.

  With a full belly and feeling more alert than I’ve been in days, I slump back in the booth and watch the snowfall, pretending for a second that I’m living my old life.

  Blissfully happy, safe, and being lied to by the only man I ever loved.

  Ryder

  I’m not going to lie.

  I had preconceived ideas about what going on tour with the one and only Jesse Lee would be like. I expected a nonstop party. We’d roll from city to city, spending our nights playing kickass shows to sold-out arenas, fighting off beautiful women, drinking beers, and sleeping in late only to wake up and write music that would change the world. We’d eat, sleep, and dream music for three straight months.

  I thought that’s how it was going to be.

  I was wrong.

  Sure, we do play kickass shows to sold-out arenas. There are beautiful women, but only from a distance, and there are no beers for Jesse. His new addiction is his fiancée, Bethany. After every show, he’s back on his bus with her, or if she’s in Los Angeles, he rushes back to his bus to Facetime her. Ethan, Chris, and I have a few beers and fuck around playing music, but with Jesse on his own bus, he’s seldom involved.

  Even though the tour life isn’t exactly what I thought it would be, I’m not complaining. Playing music for a living is my dream, and I wouldn’t give up this gig for anything.

  Not even for the woman I love.

  Lying in the darkness of my bunk on the tour bus, I stare at the ceiling just a foot above my head and ponder the last text message from my girlfriend, Rachel.

  2:35 a.m.

  A real man would give up anything to be with the woman he loves.

  Is that true?

  Is there no compromise?

  And a real man? Ouch.

  This will end up being another text fight I don’t win. Tonight will have no better ending than every other night for the last week.

  The first month of our tour, Rachel and I managed to get along great. It’s not like distance is a problem for us, since I moved to Los Angeles, and with her still in Las Vegas, we’ve made our relationship work. Mainly because I go back to Vegas every chance I get. But tour life is busy, and there are certain concerns that would put pressure on even the strongest relationships. So, like any mature adult, Rachel’s handling it in the best way she knows how. She picks fights.

  I hit send on my response.

  You said a three month tour wouldn’t come between us. THREE MONTHS, Rach. You act like it’s a lifetime.

  You moved to LA!

  The familiar anger of the same fucking argument rears up, and I punch my fingers onto my screen.

  It’s my job, and I come back to Vegas to spend time with you every chance I get.

  I don’t understand why you’re so against me moving in with you.

  My stomach fills with lead. Ever since I moved to LA, she’s been hinting about wanting to move in with me. As much as we’ve been fighting, we are not ready to cohabitate. And what happens if things don’t work out? It wouldn’t be a simple breakup. It’d be a physical removal from my property.

  You moving in with me wouldn’t change the fact that I leave for months at a time to tour.

  Text bubbles. Then nothing.

  I drop my phone onto the mattress and roll to my side. “I’m so sick of this shit,” I whisper to myself, then close my eyes knowing there’s no way my brain will let me fall asleep. I’ll do what I do every night since the recurring fights started—mull over everything I said, regret half of it, and finally apologize.

  Thankfully we have tomorrow off before our next show in Chicago. I’ll spend the day catching up on my sleep.

  The air brakes on the RV sound, and my body shifts in a way I wouldn’t even notice if I were asleep. The bus comes to a complete stop.

  I pull the curtain of my sleeping pod open and peer out into the dark hallway that leads to the living room. Ethan is snoring in the bunk across from me, and Chris in the one beneath him.

  I hop out, figuring we must have a flat or something. I’m awake, so I may as well help. As soon as I stagger into the living space, I see the reason why we’re stopped.

  “We stuck in a blizzard?” I ask as our driver, Charles, types something into his phone and laughs.

  “Not a blizzard, desert boy, just some snow. It’ll clear.” He tosses his phone into the oversized cup holder next to his travel coffee mug. “Just sent Brent a text to let him know we pulled over to wait for the snow plows. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  I drop into the La-Z-Boy-style seat just behind the captain’s chair. “He’ll make it a problem.”

  Charles grunts in agreement.

  Our tour manager, Brent, is a grade-A dickbag. He treats us like the garbage that’s keeping him from his real dreams. The only person he doesn’t treat like a used rubber is Jesse.

  Such a kiss ass.

  I’m only grateful he doesn’t ride with us. He insists on flying, and when he’s forced to join us, he rides on Jesse’s bus.

  Charles stands and stretches, his back popping and his neck crunching as he rolls it on his shoulders. The man has been driving tour buses for the rich and famous for thirty-five years, and he’s still one of the very best in the business.

  “You should get some sleep.”

  “Nah… I’m in the mood for some decent coffee though.” He pats his back pocket for his wallet. “That hipster shit you boys drink is for pansies.”

  A gust of wind and snow beats at the gigantic windshield. “You sure you can make it across the parking lot?”

  Charles zips his coat and shakes his head. “I grew up in Rochester. We got over a hundred inches a year.”

  “Screw that.” I stand and head back to my bunk. “Call me if you need me to dig your ass out of an avalanche.”

  I crawl back into my bed and groan when I see I have eight new text messages from Rachel.

  Fuck, it’s gonna be a long night.

  Jade

  The truck stop has been dead for hours. That didn’t mean there weren’t big-rig trucks parked all around the shop, but not many of the drivers came inside. I assume they’re all sleeping, and this place will fill with truckers once the sun comes up.

  That’s when I’ll search for my next ride.

  My theory about choosing a man who looks like a grandpa was wrong. I decide this time I’ll look for someone younger, a man wearing a wedding ring, newly in love, with a wife and kid at home he doesn’t want to disappoint. As long as they’re headed west or even south, it’ll work for me.

  The door creaks open, sending a fresh wave of freezing air into the warm market. Fear swells in my throat as an older man comes inside. He’s shaking snow off his jacket as he unzips it, but looks otherwise unaffected by the storm. The dark color of his skin makes me relax instantly for many reasons, first of them being that he is not Roger.

  He tilts his head toward me. “Morning.”

  I tilt my head to avoid him seeing the bruised side of my face and simply nod.

  His thick brows, peppered with silver, rise above dark eyes. “Coffee fresh?”

  “I don’t work here.”

  Danni isn�
��t around. She must’ve run to the bathroom or to the back as I’ve seen her do a few times as she restocks shelves.

  He nods to my Styrofoam cup. “Is it good?”

  “It does the job.” I turn away from him. His kindness makes me uncomfortable. I’m not entirely sure why, other than he shouldn’t waste it on me.

  I stare out the window as the squeak of his wet soles travels to the far side of the room. I would’ve thought he was a truck driver, but he is dressed in a nice collared shirt with a sweater vest and a decent pair of jeans and boots. He has a freshly showered look about him, and I pick up a hint of his cologne, which smells expensive. The wind shifts and blows snow to reveal a gigantic black RV parked at the far end of the lot.

  I turn back just as the man disappears into the men’s room.

  He must be driving that thing.

  Maybe he’s delivering it and he’d be willing to give me ride as far as he’s going.

  I look down at myself. No way he’d let a dirty homeless girl into that mansion on wheels. I didn’t see him with keys in his hand. Is it possible he left the door unlocked?

  I move before I think through any of the consequences, and soon I’m trekking through the deep snow that has let up just enough, I can see what’s in front of me. The RV seems to get bigger the closer I get. There are no fancy swirls of color on the side and no bikes on the back like it belongs to a family who might be sleeping inside. I reach for the handle and give it a tug. It releases.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I whisper and slip through the crack I’ve made in the door to the steps inside.

  The heat hits me instantly, and I swallow a sigh of pleasure as it seeps in through my clothes and skin. I close the door as softly as possible, lifting the handle as it clicks closed, then sit and listen.

  I expect to hear a reprimanding voice, a woman shouting for me to get out maybe, but the only noise is the hum of vents circulating hot air. I crawl on my hands and knees up the stairs and into a room bigger than the living room at my old apartment. Holy shit, whoever this guy is driving this for is loaded.

  The scent of real leather wafts from the overstuffed couches and chairs. There’s another smell too, faint but there, soap or something fresh. I don’t have time to snoop, so I crawl to the table next to a kitchenette, then scurry to hide beneath it. The floor below me is hardwood, but it’s warm, and when I notice a small vent on the floor, I curl up next to it. With seats on either side, I feel sheltered and safe which is something I haven’t felt in what seems like a lifetime. Using my arms for a pillow, I make myself comfortable, hoping to finally get some uninterrupted sleep.

  I have a good chance this rig is headed in the right direction. As long as he’s not going east, I’ve made the right choice.

  2

  Ryder

  I wake suddenly from a dream where a naked and faceless woman with a bangin’ body is pouring hot maple syrup on my chest. Funny, my mouth didn’t water so much for the woman as it did that syrup. When the steaming drizzle dropped below my belly button, I shoot upright and crack my head on the wooded ceiling of my bunk.

  “Yep.” I rub my forehead, hoping it won’t leave a mark. “I’m up,” I mumble as I slide open the curtain and swing out of bed. The second my feet hit the floor, I know the reason for my fucked-up dream.

  Chris is at his gourmet waffle iron. The guy has a passion for cooking, which serves us well on tour even if because of it we have to run a few extra miles to burn off his kickass food. “You’re up,” he says when he sees me amble down the hallway. “Thought you’d sleep until noon what with all the anger texting I could hear coming from your bunk all night.”

  The sun is up and there’s no snow on the ground, which means we’re hours from the storm. The view from the front window shows a strip of highway that cuts through unremarkable flat land.

  Ethan is on the couch wearing his earphones, staring at the TV with a beer in his hand. Typical.

  “What time is it?” I turn back, remembering I left my phone in my bed. I did fight with Rachel until the early hours of the morning. No compromises were made. I finally gave up and passed out.

  “Just after ten.” He forks a waffle onto a plate and hands it to me. “Feel like bypassing your protein shake for chestnut praline?”

  “Smells good.”

  “Use the whiskey maple syrup.” He nods toward the row of different flavored syrups next to the Keurig.

  “Speaking of syrup,” I say while brewing a cup of coffee, “I had the weirdest dream last night.”

  “Dude, you always have weird dreams.” He grins as he pours another waffle’s worth of batter into the iron. “Was it as weird as the one where I was chasing you through a Forever 21 with a severed bear’s head?”

  “No.”

  “Was it as weird as the one where you went on stage at Madison Square Garden in a two-man band with Freddie Mercury, but the only song you guys sang was ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ over and over?”

  “That was really weird.” I drizzle syrup on my waffle and grab my coffee, then pass the couch where Ethan has given up his empty beer bottle and now has his hand shoved down the front of his pants. I shake my head and slide my food onto the table and take a seat in the short booth. “But Freddie and I had the crowd singing along. It was epic.”

  Chris turns toward me and rests his hip on the small countertop. “How about the dream where you were hate-fucking Big Bird literally in the middle of Sesame Street?”

  A tiny sound comes from beneath the table. I check the leather cushion under my ass by bouncing a couple times. “Did you hear that?” I grip the table and wiggle it. “And I told you never to bring that up again.” I scrunch my nose at the memory—the grunting, anger, so many feathers. “I’m still freaked out by it.”

  “Only because it was hot sex and you woke up with a stiffy.” He chuckles while staying focused on forking his waffle on a plate and adding syrup. “You know Big Bird is male, right?”

  I bounce again in my seat, but no sound comes out. Whatever. I fork a bite of food into my mouth and groan. “So good.”

  He slides his plate on the table and takes the seat across from me. “As good as being balls deep in Big Bird?”

  I hear the sound again, a mix between a snort and a squeak. “What the fuck is that?”

  “I don’t know. I heard it too.” Chris leans down to look under the table. His body stills, and he slowly sits back up. His face is pale, and when his eyes meet mine, he mouths, Oh shit.

  “What?”

  He shakes his head but only slightly and darts his gaze to the table.

  “Oh fuck, is it a mouse?” I jump out of my seat and cross as far away from the table as I can, which isn’t far in the bus. “I don’t do rodents, man.”

  I grab a butter knife and squat down, and there under the table, huddled into the corner as if trying to look as small as possible, is a girl. Her long hair peeks out from under her dark beanie, and her eyes are slits as she glares right at me.

  “No rodents, huh?” she asks. “Just birds?”

  Chris scurries out of the booth and squats next to me. “What the fuck…”

  My blood heats with anger at the violation of privacy. We’ve had fans do some crazy shit before, but none of them have managed to actually make it onto a tour bus to hide out unnoticed. Has she been here since New York? How did we not see her? And oh God, the things she must’ve overheard.

  My fury boils over. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Jade

  What was I thinking?

  That I’d be able to hide under a table and go unnoticed for days? I must’ve gotten close to eight hours sleep before my bladder woke me. I tried to crawl to the bathroom, but when I popped my head out from under the table, I saw a guy standing in front of an open refrigerator. His dark hair was shaggy but cut in a way that made me think it’s supposed to look unkempt on purpose. He wore snug, low-hanging jeans and a T-shirt that, when his arms were lifted, rode a little high. He was fit
in a way that said he didn’t really care what he looked like; he just happened to be a natural calorie burner.

  I managed to tuck back under the table before he turned around. He walked past me in bare feet to the living space, and I knew I was stuck. There were more footsteps, commotion in the kitchen, and I knew I was going to have to come clean or pee my pants and get caught.

  I spent many minutes trying to figure out the best way to out myself when the RV seemed to come to life with conversation. How many people were on this hotel on wheels? And were there no women?

  Staring between the two who found me, I realize I’m up against at least four men as neither of these two are the guy from the refrigerator or the driver from the truck stop.

  One of them has short brown hair cut into a faux-hawk, his mouth tilted slightly in an amused grin. The other has a thick mass of blond hair that isn’t messy but is cut to stick out intentionally.

  He’s the one I’m keeping my eye on as there isn’t a hint of humor in his expression. His blue eyes are cold, unforgiving, and remind me of Steven’s blue eyes the way I last saw them when he stared at me as if I were a stranger.

  Ah, this one must be “Big Bird fucker,” I say, mostly to myself but loud enough for him to hear.

  His lips grow thin, and he stands quickly. “Charles, pull over! We got a stowaway!”

  The smiling one holds out his hand toward me. “Come on, babe. Game’s over.”

  I shake my head and press deeper into the corner. I don’t honestly know what I’m doing, only that I don’t want to come out without knowing what these guys are capable of.

  The big RV slows and shifts as, I assume, it pulls off to the side of the road. A deep, rough voice asks, “Why are we stopping?”

  The guy with the offered hand points at me, and soon the guy with the messy brown hair drops to my eye level. He stares at me and frowns, then shoves the nice one and says, “You assholes are getting breakfast head without me?” He jumps up, and I watch in horror as he slides into one of the bench seats while fumbling with his zipper. “My turn!”