Page 2 of Oops Baby for the Rockstar (Oops Baby #2)

Two

Tamsin

S till three months ago

The green room is a huge, messy room in the belly of the stadium.

Vending machines line the walls, and threadbare couches are scattered everywhere.

The overhead lights are off, the room lit by sconces.

There are tables and chairs stacked in one corner, but people are packed in too tightly for that, mingling and laughing and dancing to the music throbbing through overhead speakers.

Not music from Wishbone. Guess the band want a break from themselves at the after party.

A makeshift bar stretches all along one wall, with hassled-looking bartenders mixing drinks and scooping ice out of chest freezers. After one lonely lap of the room, my hand still tingling from Jett Santana’s touch, I decide to try my luck.

“Hey,” I yell over the din, leaning across the makeshift bar. “Are these drinks free? Or do we have to pay?”

The nearest bartender looks at me like I’m an alien, his little hipster mustache bristling with irritation.

“Of course you have to pay.”

“Even with this?” I hold up the VIP pass from where it dangles around my neck.

“Yeah, even with that.”

My stomach sinks and I lean back, trying to shrug off the choking embarrassment. “Cool. Okay.”

Well, there goes my night. Because I didn’t bring cash on my sneaky little expedition across the parking lot, and even if I did, I wouldn’t waste it on an overpriced drink from this jerk.

The crowd surges behind me, pressing me against the bar, and for a moment, I feel a piercing homesickness for my cubby bed on the crew bus. For my personal space, and for the relative quiet, and for my real life. One where I don’t pretend to be a VIP with nothing to back it up.

I turn around to leave.

“You don’t want a drink?”

Jett Santana shoulders his way between me and the pushy crowd. The rock star is dressed in a black leather vest that clings to his tanned body, leather pants, and shit-kicker boots. Tattoos wrap around both of his muscled arms, and his dark hair is shaved on the sides and longer on top.

Startled, I shake my head. He really came?

“I forgot to bring money.”

Jett barks out a laugh. “No money, no phone. It’s like someone pushed you out of a plane and you landed here, baby.”

It kinda feels that way, too—and when Jett Santana calls me baby, my whole body heats up by a few degrees. I fight the urge to fan myself.

“So, what did you want?” he asks.

I blink. “Um. Sorry?”

“To drink.” His slow smile makes my pulse throb beneath my jaw. “What can I get you to drink, Tamsin?”

My palms start to sweat, and I wipe them as discreetly as I can on my red dress.

The truth is, I look so out of place in this crowd, it’s painful.

Not only because my clothes don’t fit, but because I don’t fit.

I don’t know the rules, can’t relax in the crowd.

If I’m brutally honest, I don’t even know half of Wishbone’s songs, although the ones I do know, I love.

And now the lead singer wants to buy me a drink at his own after party.

This can’t be real, right? There must be some reality TV camera pointed in my direction somewhere.

The whole dropped VIP pass thing must have been some kind of set up; a social experiment.

I squint into the shadows around the green room, suddenly suspicious, but I can’t see any hidden camera crews.

“Tamsin?”

Right. A hot rock star wants to buy me a drink. Just for fun, let’s say that maybe this is real, and I should stop acting like a complete headcase.

“A vodka tonic, please.”

Jett steps close and speaks past me to order, one hand resting casually on my shoulder.

There’s nothing intimate about the touch, nothing that crosses any lines, and yet all of my focus zeroes in on that big hand on my body.

Desperate to clear my head, I suck in a lungful of air—and catch the scent of spice and leather.

My knees tremble.

Jett Santana smells freaking delicious. So good that my mouth waters, and now I want nothing more than to lick him all over.

“Here.” Jett hands me a glass of clear, bubbly fluid, then clinks the rim against his beer bottle. “Cheers.”

“Um, cheers. And thank you.”

The rock star grins wolfishly, and I fully expect him to turn and shoulder his way back into the crowd, off to bask in the adoration of all his admirers.

The other band members are certainly enjoying themselves already, all splayed on the sofas in the center of the room with a groupie or two perched on their laps.

That’s what rock stars do after a show, right? That’s inevitable.

But Jett glances around the green room with an air of boredom, then leans down to speak in my ear. His lips brush my earlobe and a shiver rolls down my spine.

“Want to get out of here? No funny business, I swear. But maybe we can talk outside in the fresh air? Honestly, I’ve gone to hundreds of these after parties and I’m kinda over it.”

Me too. I’ve been to exactly one after party, this one, and this room is claustrophobic as hell, with its crush of sweaty bodies and thumping music. Not to mention the snobby bartenders who shame a girl for trying her luck. If Jett Santana weren’t here beside me, I’d have bailed long ago.

“Sure.” My heart leaps as Jett takes my hand for the second time, tugging me gently through the crowd.

Ice clinks against the side of my glass, and I clutch my vodka tonic to my chest. All around, jealous glares scorch me from head to toe, and I don’t know whether to duck my head or say fuck it and preen.

Because it’s my hand Jett Santana is holding.

It’s me he’s pulling outside to chat in the fresh air.

There are so many beautiful people in this room, lots of them visibly desperate for the rock star’s attention, but instead it’s me he wants.

For now, for the next few minutes at least, he’s chosen me.

No one ever chose me before.

It’s a heady feeling.

Outside, spots of rain are gusting sideways, and clouds still block out the stars. I wrinkle my nose, but Jett leads me away from the doorway and draws me into the shelter of the stadium wall, then blocks the worst of the bad weather with his body.

“You aren’t cold?” I watch as raindrops trickle down one inked bicep.

Jett laughs softly, and it’s so different out here, so much quieter. I can hear our breaths. Can practically hear my heart thumping in my chest.

“I’m good.” He’s blocking me from the weather, but he’s not caging me. Not trapping me, and once again I marvel at the fact that I feel so safe with this wild rock star. “Now, Tamsin. Tell me about yourself, baby. You’re a goddamn enigma.”

I bite my lip.

What I am is a liar. A thief. Or at least, the sort of person who picks up a dropped VIP pass and uses it to blag her way into a gig and meet a band that she’s been crewing for months.

At the time, it felt exciting. Like an adventure. Only now, with Jett Santana looking at me like someone interesting, like a real VIP, I feel so embarrassed that my ears burn.

How can I tell this man—this famous rock star—that I’m a nobody who lives on the Wishbone crew bus? How can I tell him that actually, uh, I work for him?

“I’m a photographer,” I blurt, my mind going straight to the coolest person I’ve met lately. Patty. “I’ve been traveling around the country taking photos for magazines and stuff.”

The lie tastes bad on my tongue, but it’s out there now. I’ve said it.

“Huh,” Jett says, nodding along. “That’s cool. Have you been taking photos for us? Photos of our shows?”

“N-no.” I shake my head quickly, because that’s way too easy to prove wrong. “I don’t do that kind of photography. It’s more like—photojournalism. And artsy stuff.”

Jett shifts to block the wind better where it’s dragging at my dress. “Awesome. You’ll have to show me your website, Tamsin. I’d love to see your work.”

I smile weakly. “Sure.”

Honestly, I’ve never even touched one of those expensive cameras in real life.

The closest I’ve ever come was a battered old Polaroid my mom had when I was a kid, one that was broken and wouldn’t print out the pictures properly.

She gave it to me and I used to wander around the woods near our trailer, lining up the photos I would take and pretending to press the shutter.

My stomach feels all hollow thinking about that now. And shit, why would I lie about something I have literally zero knowledge of?

“Here.” Jett swigs from his beer, then starts digging in his pocket for his phone. “Show me.”

“Wait!” Before I can think straight, my hand snakes out to clutch his wrist. We both stare down at my pale fingers wrapped around his tan skin. “Wait,” I say again, breathing hard, because I’m not ready to be caught in this lie just yet. “I just—I don’t want to talk about work right now.”

Ashamed, I drop his wrist.

Jett nods slowly, then holds up both hands in the sign of surrender, his beer bottle tucked behind one thumb against his palm. His storm cloud eyes are so serious as they watch me, and the distant roar of the after party seeps through the brick wall.

“Okay, I hear that. What do you want to talk about, baby?”

Really?

He still wants to get to know me?

The famous rock star, the lead singer of Wishbone, still wants to chat after I’ve been so freaking weird all night?

It’s not a conscious decision. It’s not like I weigh the pros and cons; not like I plan it out in my head. One minute he asks me that, blocking the rain with those broad shoulders, water slicking down his bare arms, and the next—

My glass shatters against the concrete, and his bottle clunks down beside it, glugging beer into the puddles.

Boots scrape against the ground. There’s a low grunt and a muffled whimper.

And Jett Santana doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’ve wasted the drinks he bought, because he’s tugged up against me, our bodies flattened together and leaning against the damp brick, and I’m kissing the rock star with everything I’ve got.