“I have to say, Syd, I was a bit surprised that you agreed to join the tour. I would have bet that Michael would have convinced you to stay back in Boston.” Kyle spoke matter-of-factly as he took a swig from the bottle of tequila he had managed to swipe from the bar before our exit.
Sienna responded quickly. “Dude, they broke up a few months ago. You don’t have to be so polite now. You can tell her what an ass**le that man was.” She reached for the bottle as Kyle passed the tequila to her.
Kyle laughed. “No shit. Good for you. That guy really was an uptight dick. Right, Justin, you were never a big fan?” Kyle nodded toward his brother.
I looked to Justin for his response and found him staring at me, a cocky smile on his face. Justin arched his eyebrows in my direction and held my stare before responding.
“Yep, never liked that ass**le. Always thought he didn’t deserve Syd.” Justin responded to his brother, but never looked away from me when he spoke, his famous sexy dimpled smile never faltered.
For some reason, his response made me nervous. I stood, needing to extract myself from the conversation and the sudden intenseness of Justin’s stare. “If you are all done talking about me as if I wasn’t actually sitting here, I think it’s time for me to go get some beauty sleep.”
Luckily, we slipped back into the hotel without getting noticed. But I saw there were at least two dozen women being kept outside of the main lobby by security when we ducked in through the side door.
***
The night before we were to check out of the hotel and start our life on tour with Double Strife, we had planned to sit down and spend a few hours going through the tour schedule and our playlists. Sienna suggested that the guys come to our room so that we could have privacy. I was a little uncomfortable having Justin in our room for some reason, but since word had gotten out that Double Strife was staying at the Chancery, the hotel was a minefield of eager fans trying to get the attention of Justin, so it only made sense to meet in one of our rooms.
The guys arrived together and were obviously confused when they walked in to our suite. “Holy shit, what did you ladies do to get a suite like this? I’ve been sharing a suite as big as your living room with this smelly ass**le for the last few nights.” Kyle laughed as he spoke.
I was a little embarrassed and not sure how to respond. But of course I didn’t have to think about it long because Sienna, as always, was ready with a response. “Didn’t we mention that Syd’s new boyfriend is a gazillionaire and owns this hotel chain?”
Kyle’s response was sincere. “No shit. Good for you, Syd.”
Justin, who was usually the first one with a sarcastic response, didn’t say a word.
We ordered dinner and, when Sienna told him our whole stay was comped by Jack, Kyle decided we needed dessert too. Before I knew it, the hours had flown by and it was almost midnight when my phone rang flashing a picture of Jack.
I answered. “Hey.”
“How was your day?” Jack’s voice was low and he sounded tired.
“Really good, how about you?” I smiled at the phone and caught Justin watching me out of the corner of my eye.
“Rough. Wish you were here with me to help work my stress out.” His voice was sexy and raspy. It sounded like he’d had a rough day and I instantly wished I was there to work the stress from his gorgeous body.
“Mmmm. And how would I do that?” I teasingly responded, completely forgetting that I had an audience.
“Excellent, we get to hear Syd have phone sex!” Kyle yelled in the background.
“Who was that?” Jack’s low, sleepy voice was suddenly at attention.
I gave Sienna and the guys the middle finger and walked to my bedroom for privacy.
“That was Kyle, he was just kidding around. We are going over our set list.”
“In your room?” Jack’s response was short.
“It’s already becoming difficult to find privacy. The hotel is crawling with fans since word got out they were staying here.”
“The hotel has conference rooms, you know.”
“We aren’t hanging out in the bedrooms, Jack. We have either been sitting at the dining room table or on the couch. It really isn’t that different than if we were in a conference room.” My reasoning sounded logical to me.
“Who is there?”
“Kyle, Justin, Sienna and I” As I responded, I realized that it sounded worse than it actually was. Would I want Jack hanging out with a friend and two girls in a hotel room, even if the girls were people he did business with?
“Syd, how would you feel if the situation was reversed and it was me in a hotel room with two women and a friend?” Even thousands of miles away the man still had the ability to read my mind.
“You’re right. I didn’t think of it that way. I wouldn’t like it at all.” I blew out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.
Jack’s voice was tense. “I’ll let you go so you can finish your work before they wind up spending the night in your suite and I completely lose my f**king mind.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to upset you. I love you.”
“I love you too. Give me a call tomorrow.” Then Jack hung up. I felt a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. He had gone out of his way to make sure I felt comfortable by arranging our suite and how did I repay him? By entertaining men in it.
I went back to the living room feeling deflated and all three of them shut up as I walked into the room. I didn’t think they could have heard my conversation. “What?” I asked, the question coming out a bit too defensive.
Sienna went to speak, but Justin beat her to it. “I didn’t realize this hotel was part of the Heston chain, so I didn’t put two and two together until Sienna just told us who your boyfriend was.”
I furrowed my brow, confused, waiting for the rest of the story. But Justin didn’t make me wait long for the rest. He had a sly smirk on his face as he said, “You don’t know who our tour sponsor is, do you?”
I shook my head, further confused.
Sienna spoke carefully, as if she was afraid to speak her words. “Heston International is the tour sponsor, Syd.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Heston is the money behind our tour, blondie. Without them, we wouldn’t have a tour. They were the ones that recommended you ladies fill in as the opening band — not that we didn’t think it was a great idea.” Justin looked at me, trying to gauge my reaction.