Page 3 of Hard Rock Desires

He had his bass guitar slung around his shoulders even though we weren’t going on for another forty-five minutes. The thing was heavy enough to cart around for the two-hour-long concert; I didn’t know why he tortured himself any longer than he had to.

“There’s hundreds of people out there, Zain,” he reminded me with a heavy slap on my back. “It’s going to be hot from the body heat alone.”

The press of his hand made my shirt cling against my skin. Gross.

It wasn’t like this was the first time we’d played at a small, sweltering live house. When our band was indie, we had played at places like this all the time. Places too cheap to afford air conditioning or too small to have proper ventilation.

I’d thought we were over that part of our careers, but this wasn’t our usual stadium concert set up. This live was different. This was a VIP, hardcore fans-only special event. We were celebrating the first year anniversary of releasing an album under a major label.

It had been a whirlwind of a year. A lot of things had changed quickly. Sometimes too quickly.

“Mr. Weston, Mr. Finnley, we need your instruments for sound check,” a guitar tech said as he came up to us.

The tech held his hand out to take Finn’s bass. He growled, clutching it to his chest.

“I’ll do it,” the bass guitarist said stubbornly.

Some things still stayed the same, though, no matter what. I hid a grin. You’d have thought the damn thing was solid gold, the way Matthew Finnley treated his bass.

“Think you can find someone from the venue to turn up the A/C?” I asked the tech.

“It’s broken,” the man said. “That’s what I heard from one of the staff. It got overworked and blew a fuse or something.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Told you,” Finn said. “Too many people. We should have lowered the number of tickets.”

“We would have disappointed too many fans.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to suffer.”

“The price we pay for fame.” I reached into the cooler for a bottle of water, but a waiting assistant rushed up before I could bend over more than an inch.

“Here you go,” she said breathlessly, shoving a bottle into my hands.

“Thanks, love,” I winked at her.

She stammered and blushed, leaving Finn to fish through the bucket himself. He ignored the bottles of water and grabbed a can of beer instead. He popped the tab and took his own handful of chugs. The assistant recovered in time to reach for the half-empty can, more than willing to be a cup holder. He handed it over and held her gaze.

“I haven’t seen you before.” Finn let his fingers linger over hers as she took the can from him. “I thought I knew all the venue staff. Are you new?”

“Yes,” she squeaked. “I just started last week.”

A shark-like smile spread across his face.

“I bet you haven’t been to an after-party yet, have you?” he asked.

She shook her head, eyes so wide she looked like Bambi.

“You should join us tonight after the concert,” he said smoothly. “I’d like to see you there.”

Her fingers clenched down on the can so hard it crinkled, her face turning purple and ears going red.

And that was another one down for the count. If that idiot kept making the assistants swoon, we’d have no one to do the actual assisting.

I pressed the bottle of cold water to the back of my neck.

“Stupid, shitty, broken A/C,” I muttered.