Page 73 of Tone Deaf
“John cut his pinky finger,” Connor announces, as he slides past Raef, who moves back toward the hallway. Then Connor plants his ass on my lap and drops an arm over my shoulder. “How are you, Crocodile Dundee? Ready to play?”
“Why aren’t you worried for your man?” I ask, trying to push my friend off of me.
“Because he deserves what he got. He shouldn’t be playing with knives,” Connor says so nonchalantly. “Besides, John’s fine. He doesn’t need stitches. Only a small bandage, and I already gave him one.”
“Well, I’m glad—now get your bony ass off my legs. You’re cutting off the circulation.”
“Whatever, dick,” Connor flips me a middle finger.
“Play nice,” Dante declares, eyeballing us.
“We always play nice.” Bobby pops a tiny sucker into his mouth.
“We need to chat about your problem with sugar.” Dante points to Bobby’s mouth and frowns.
“I’m weening myself off. It’s a small one.” Bobby pulls the sucker out of his mouth. “See?”
Danny shushes us. “Listen… What’s that noise?”
I take a moment. “Wait. Is that a moan?”
We look around us, like we are counting who’s in the room. Everyone but Raef is here with us.
Then Bobby busts out laughing. “I knew it. Someone owes me money.”
“Shit,” Connor says and hands him a twenty.
“Who is that?” I ask.
“Who do you think?” Danny adds.
I look around the room again before asking, “Raef?”
“With who?” Connor stands, determination to find out written across his face, but Dante stops him.
“Don’t worry about it. Get ready and I’ll take care of it,” they declare and leave the room.
“Who can it be?” Danny looks at Bobby, but our keyboardist shakes his head no. I have a feeling he knows, since he hangs out with Raef almost all the time. I’d put my money on Lyric, although I could be wrong.
About forty minutes before we are to climb onto the stage, Raef rejoins us as we all head to the food tent. With the tight scheduling today, none of us got a chance to eat, and we want to grab a bite before we work up a sweat on stage.
Walking into the food tent, check out what’s on the menu, before we fill our plates. As we go, we chat with some of the friends we’ve made since we started playing at Rocktoberfest and finally take a seat at a empty table.
Dom, Pen and the rest of our security team have come with us and stationed themselves around the table we are sitting at. I glance over at my guys and smile. They both wink at me before they slide masks of indifference on their faces.
“Taking it a bit much, aren’t they?” a guy says at the table next to us.
“Do I know you?” I ask, angling my body in his direction. I don’t think I know this man, but his face is familiar.
“No, but I know you,” he says with an oily smile, pulls out a small camera from under his shirt and begins taking pictures of me and the entire band.
“Get the hell out of here. No reporters are allowed in here,” one of the event’s security men says as he grabs the guy, confiscates his camera, and then pushes him away from us and out of the tent.
“Who is that?” Connor whispers.
“That dude is trouble. He was caught taking pictures of another band while they were sleeping on their bus last night,” Fig explains, shaking his head.
“Thank Christ we arrived early this morning,” I mutter, since I have had enough bullshit to last me a life time. And last night? Danny let me have the back bedroom on the tour bus, and Dom, Pen and I got into some heavy petting. I can’t imagine having pictures circulated of us in compromising positions. It’s all I need—on top of the crap that has already happened.