I take his hand and unwrap his arm, dropping it in his lap. “You might have slipped in a kiss when I wasn’t looking, but don’t think it means you’re getting any.”
“See, right there,” he says, pointing at me. “You’re thinking about us going there. You can’t deny imagining it.” His smile grows impish. “Have you been fantasizing, Lucky?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snip, because he hit a little too close to home. I have been fantasizing, just not about him.
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Wow, okay. Sorry.”
The guys eat cake, go back for seconds, then thirds, and when it’s gone, one by one they start trickling out the door.
“Where’s everyone going?” Billie says when she notices.
“Somewhere there’s beer,” I say, holding up my Coke can.
She splits a stern glance between me, Max, and Chipper, who are the only ones left. “You boys need to remember she’s only seventeen.”
“Of course,” Max says, his face all sincere concern. “We’ll look out for her.”
She looks at him a second longer, then flicks her wrist in a shooing motion at the door. “Go. Have fun.”
Max pulls me up and the three of us skip down the stairs.
When we get to the guys’ bus, everyone is huddled around the TV watching some baseball game with their drink of choice. Tonight, it’s just the band and some of the backline crew. No girls who don’t belong here.
I drop into an empty spot on the couch and Chipper hands me a beer. “Hope Billie’s not too pissed.”
I shake my head. “She’s thinking about applying for legal guardianship, so I think she’s decided she needs to start acting more parental.”
“Wow,” he says. “That’s sort of a big deal, right?”
I shrug. “It’s really only for a year, and I think she’s just doing it because it will make things easier for her if I’m in L.A.”
When the game finishes, one of the guys puts in a DVD. I’m nursing my beer because I’m not going to let Max get the upper hand again tonight. Some of the crew starts to head out to their own buses when the movie ends, and when I look outside, I see people start to pour out of the venue onto the street. The clock on the microwave says it’s after eleven.
“What do you say?” Max says, reaching into a cup on the counter and holding up a dice. The wicked gleam in his eyes tells me he’s hoping for a repeat of the other night.
I scowl at him. “You told Billie you were going to look out for me.”
He nods slowly as his eyes rake down my top. “And I take that responsibility very seriously. I plan to look out for every inch of you.”
I feel my face scrunch. “Do you ever listen to yourself?”
“You can’t tell me it’s not working. Face it, you want me.”
I lean in a little. “You are kind of making me love you…”
His eyes light as he sticks a finger in the air. “Ah-ha! She admits it.”
“Like a big brother,” I add.
His face wrinkles in disgust. “You’d kiss your brother?”
I just give him a look.
His expression clears and something sparks in his dark eyes as he leans closer. His face is an inch from mine when he finally stops and lifts a hand to stroke my cheek. “Okay, then. I just have to step up my game.”
I grab him by the T-shirt and pull him closer. “You can step up anything you want,” I whisper in his ear. “It’s not going to get you into my pants.”
“It’s not your pants I want into…yet. It’s your heart.” His black eyes somehow grow darker in the dim lighting as he grasps my chin softly and forces me to look into them. “You will love me by the end of his tour. I guarantee it.”
I push up from the couch. “I should head back to my bus.”
“Uh-uh,” he says, catching my arm. “Not while it’s still your birthday.”
I tug my arm out of his grasp and keep moving, but just as I get to the stairs, the door of the bus hisses open and Tro steps through.
“Heard this was where all the cool kids were hanging out.”
Max is past me in a flash, blocking the stairs. “Sorry, dude. Closed party.”
Chipper brushes past me on his way to slug Max upside the head. “You’re a fucking moron, you know that?” He yanks Max out of the way. “Come on in, Tro. You’re always welcome on our bus.”
Tro glances at me, as if waiting for my okay.
“I was just heading out, so—”
“I thought we just determined you were staying till your birthday is over,” Max cuts in.
I spin on him. “No, you determined that. And I told you to go to hell.”
“You never told me to go to hell,” he says with a shake of his head.
“In my mind I did.”
“Come on, Lucky,” he pleads, grasping my elbow.
“You need to listen to the lady,” Tro says through a tight jaw.
I turn and he’s just behind me, his eyes fixed on Max’s hand on my arm. “I’ve got this,” I tell him with a warning glare.
He holds his hands up in surrender and that’s when I notice what looks like a rolled paper with a ribbon around it in his hand.