Matt sagged against the side of the bed and the most I could manage was a brief shuffle to get close and wrap one arm around his defeated form.
“You don’t need to say any more. I get it now. I’m sorry.”
The silence for a few moments was comforting.
“I’m sorry about last night, Evie. It’s coming back to me little by little. The way you acted straight after the shots immediately had Ethan and I on edge. That’s why I pulled you up for the dance. I wanted to keep an eye on you and also see if I could pinpoint anyone watching you by moving around on the dance floor without being obvious. Honestly, I was only looking out for you, but after we hit fresh air outside, I just felt so out of it. How we got back to my suite, I don’t really know. I vaguely remember peeling off my clothes, crawling into bed, and passing out, so I can assure nothing happened. No offence, but what you’ve got doesn’t do it for me at all. That combined with heavy drinking and drugs, well, I wouldn’t have been able to get it up for anyone.”
“You were looking out for me, Matt, and you have nothing to apologise for. I’m the one who’s sorry. Coby told you about Jimmy?” Matt nodded so I continued. “We can’t seem to shake him off because he keeps going underground. I’ve been starting to think he must be living in the sewers.” I mustered a smile.
Travis came back in. “Talk’s over guys. The nurse will be here in a couple of minutes.”
Matt nodded, gave my shoulder a reassuring pat, and said he’d see me tonight before he left the room.
“Travis―”
Travis held up a palm to cut me off. “Evie, you should know I heard your entire conversation. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you so the other side of the curtain was the furthest I was willing to go. Sorry for the lack of privacy but right now that’s the least of our concerns.”
“So you know about Matt then?”
He nodded.
“Well he’s not out to the world, Travis, so please keep that bit of information to yourself.”
Travis looked a bit insulted. “Do you think I’m gonna go to the nearest tabloids, Evie? Relax. I’m telling Jared though.”
“Have you spoken to him yet? I don’t have my phone. I left it on your dash.”
“Fuck, sweetheart.” Travis’s eyes flared irritably. “You need to keep your phone with you at all times okay? We’ve told you that before.”
The curtain whipped open again and this time Coby strode in. Reaching my side, he rubbed my back gently as he asked how I was doing. Telling him I was doing much better, he still ordered me to lie down.
When the nurse came in, she commanded Coby and Travis to leave, not looking the least intimidated when they both folded their arms and didn’t budge.
She eyed the two massive specimens of man and let out a sigh as she turned to me. “How did you get so lucky? Not just one, but two of them. Bit greedy, aren’t you?” she said with a wink.
I chuckled thinking it would probably bring on a stroke if Jared and Casey put in an appearance as well. “You haven’t seen the rest of them.”
She gave me a look of disbelief as she tied a tourniquet around my bicep in preparation to take a blood sample. “There’s more of those? Honey, I am your new best friend.”
“I could always do with more friends,” I offered.
She swabbed the inside of my elbow with an alcoholic wipe. “So what are we testing for today?”
Coby spoke up, sparks firing in his eyes. “She was drugged last night at a bar.”
“What time was that?”
Everyone looked at me as they waited for an answer, and I started to feel light-headed as I racked my brain for the time. “Um…….maybe about one...ish?”
The nurse wrote something down before she came at me with a needle.
“Sweetie,” she said, looking sympathetic. She frowned at both Coby and Travis before she leaned close to my ear, lowering her voice until I strained to hear her. “Do we need to do a rape kit?”
My blood instantly ran cold and then hot as I flushed uncomfortably. “No! No…nothing like that happened.”
She turned to look at Coby and Travis again. “Maybe you should leave,” she asked pointedly, obviously thinking I was unwilling to admit anything with the two of them in the room.
Coby shook his head stubbornly and the nurse sighed.
The curtain shoved open again, and Mitch walked in looking tired and rumpled, his detective badge clipped to the waistband of his worn jeans. His eyes immediately found mine and they softened with concern.
“My God,” the nurse barked out, and everyone jerked at the sound, including her. At her sudden movement, I feared the needle in my arm would snap clean in half and my blood would spurt out in some horror movie parody. “You were right, there is more. How many more? You need to pre-warn unsuspecting females about these types of things.”
This was true and I would have voiced my agreement, however, I was too busy cringing in pain.
She mumbled an apology and began to fill another vial full of blood. How much was she going to take? I wanted to shout for biscuits and orange juice STAT before I started to fade away.
After she finished harassing me with medical devices, and after I’d told Mitch everything I could remember, twice, Coby took me home so I could sleep off the effects of the drugs. I spoke to both Mac and Henry before I dozed off, promising I would be in the best shape of my life to perform the last show of the tour at the Sydney stadium tonight.
In the early afternoon, Peter’s loud snoring woke me, and I could hear rummaging sounds in my wardrobe. Rubbing at my face as I struggled to surface into the real world, I heard a strange muttering that sounded suspiciously like “My God, Mac was right.”
When Tim bustled out of my wardrobe with an arm full of clothes, I flopped back down on my pillow, groaning at the return of the wrecking ball.
He dropped the clothes all over my bedroom floor and went rushing to the bedside table to hand over some Panadol and water.
“How are you feeling?”
I rubbed at my forehead wearily. “A hundred percent.”
He forced a laugh, peppering me with questions while he fussed for a few moments before disappearing back into my wardrobe, only to return with another load of clothes.
“What are doing?”
“Performing miracles it seems.”
I set the glass of water on the bedside table and sank back into the downy depths of the doona. “Oh?”
“Mac was right. We need to go shopping.”
He plucked a shirt out of the pile with the caricature of a person drinking a beer and held it up as though it was going to bite his face off. “‘Rehab is for Quitters’? That has got to go.” He shuddered with distaste and flung it across the room.
“Hey,” I mumbled. “That was a present from Frog.”
He held out another one and squealed. “'Come to the Nerd Side. We have Pi?' That is just weird! And lame. How many of these vile things do you have?”
“That one was from Hairy Parry. The rest are all from Cooper, so you can’t throw them away, Tim. Trust me, I wear the shirts he buys me around the house all the time. He’ll notice if I suddenly stop. What are you doing anyway?”
“A clean out for the Salvation Army by the looks of all this rubbish.” He eyed the piles distastefully as he made his way back into the wardrobe. “This might work.” He came back out holding a gold coloured silk camisole with shoestring straps. “I’m under orders from Mac to get you dressed and in Rockstar Goddess mode for tonight,” he explained. He laid the camisole on my bed and disappeared again. “Go and get in the shower.”
“We’ve got ages yet,” I whined and bunkered down, Peter snuggling close as he angled for a belly scratch.
Tim emerged long enough to throw me a withering look. “Have you seen yourself? Trust me, we need all the time we can get.”
“Fine,” I growled and whipped back the covers. “But I’m wearing what I choose to wear.”
As I stalked to the bathroom, I was pretty sure I heard him mumble something that sounded like, “Not in this life time.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mac
I stood off to the side of the stage next to Coby and Travis and watched Evie strut and chatter to the mammoth crowd of Sydneysiders crammed into the stadium. You couldn’t tell the shit she’d been through with the way she grinned and bantered with the audience, dazzling them with her sexy smile and glorious hair.
I grinned smugly to myself as I took in her outfit. Tim had come through, just like I knew he would. Her caramel hair hung down her back in her trademark glossy waves, and her skin glowed underneath the gold coloured strappy silk camisole. He’d teamed it with a thick gold arm band that encircled her bicep and a pair of vintage indigo Ksubi skinny jeans that I’d given her last winter when I realised, to my absolute devastation, they did her better justice.
My gaze moved to Jake as they hit the intro into the next song of their set. The conceited, egotistical bastard was shirtless again, as usual, and the muscles in his arms and chest rippled powerfully as he hammered the drums. Whatever it was about him rubbed me up the wrong way, and I knew he felt the same because whenever I got anywhere near him, he turned into a complete a**hole. I gave him a good glare, not that he was watching, but it did make me feel a little better.
My gaze moved over to pretty boy Henry as he hunched over his guitar, his fingers moving along the strings like he was born doing it. He’d tried to teach me several times how to play, but I was a complete boob when it came to music, and after a while, he gave up, lacking the patience of trying to turn me into a musical genius. Maybe he thought I felt a bit left out of the whole music vibe, but I was glad I wasn’t in the middle of it. Standing out there while a bazillion people watched you? No thanks. I was confident and outspoken, but I’d rather sit around a dirty campfire in the middle of the Congo and converse with snakes while chewing on alligator steaks than walk out in front of that.
My thoughts turned to next week. The band had two weeks off to recuperate before they had to get started on the songs they were planning for the first album. While they would all be busy sitting on their asses, I had meetings to arrange with all sorts of departments, bookings to sort out for studios, plan a music video, press events to respond to, and photo shoots. I also had five interviews lined up for potential assistants to help me deal with all the crap. One of them looked promising, the rest not so much. I had all my hopes on the promising one, so I’d set her interview up first.
I pulled out my phone to check for messages. Nothing. Damn you, Jared. Where the f**k are you?
As the band wrapped up the song, Evie turned to give me a questioning glance. I knew she was waiting for me to tell her the minute we’d got hold of Jared. I hid the worry from her because the moment I showed any concern would likely be the moment she fell apart. Evie depended on me to keep it together, so I shrugged, but I saw the anxiety and disappointment flitter across her face before she tucked the emotions away and forced a smile.