Anna slowly sat up on her elbow. She studied my face with an eyebrow raised. “A skit? During a concert? That’s…interesting.”
I shrugged, then laughed. The adrenaline was making me goofy. “Yeah, it’s not exactly what I was hoping for, but it’s something, and something is better than nothing.”
Anna nodded, then held a hand to her stomach, like she was about to be sick. “Sounds good. Wake me when we’re there.”
She fell back to the bed and my eyes devoured her curves. I was way too jacked up to just go sit down with Kellan and Kiera, twiddling my thumbs. I needed action, something to keep me entertained. And Anna was the best form of entertainment that I knew of. I knew she felt like shit at the moment, but maybe a little fun time would make us both feel better? It had worked a time or two before. “Hey…think you and me can go to the bathroom and make a little magic? I’m too stoked. I need to burn off some energy.”
“Can’t. Trying not to be sick,” she murmured.
“Ah, come on. We’ll be in the bathroom, so if you do upchuck, you’ll be right there…and remember that one time when you were drunk and you thought you were gonna throw up, but we fucked and you felt so much better afterwards. I might just be the cure you need, babe.”
Her eyes flashed open; they were a fiery shade of deep green that seemed to glow with heat, and not the good kind. Before she could pierce me with the laser beams she was charging, I held my hands up. “How about I go, and you stay here and sleep.”
The heat dissipated and her eyes fluttered closed. “M’kay.” Whew. That was close.
I ended up pacing the bus for an hour. By the look on Kiera’s face, she wasn’t thrilled about my constant movement. Needing something to do, I grabbed Ryder from her and told her I’d keep him occupied so she could have some alone time with Kellan. She seemed uncertain about letting me babysit until Kellan convinced her that I wouldn’t break their baby. As if. I rocked with kids.
While his parents presumably got freaky, I bounced the little bundle of energy up and down the aisle, all the while telling him stories that Gibson often requested from me—stories of knights and dragons, and princesses who kicked ass. Ryder yawned, and his bright blue eyes eventually drooped closed; he was asleep five seconds later. See, Kiera, nothing to worry about. Mini-Bag loves me.
When we got to the venue, Kellan disappeared to go chat with the other guys about tonight, I assumed. I wanted to go with him, to plead my case and maybe throw around some ideas, but Gibson was being all needy and clingy, probably because I’d spent so much time with Ryder and she hated me paying attention to another kid. She was in for quite a shock when her baby brother or sister was born. But it was clear she needed me, so I stayed on the bus with her and Anna.
“So, what do you think you’ll do tonight?” Anna asked me. She looked a lot better now that the bus had stopped moving.
“I don’t know…what do you think I should do?” I’d been running over ideas in my head, but all I could come up with was penis puppetry, and I had a feeling the guys wouldn’t be cool with that.
Anna shrugged. “Show off your talent.” Thinking about what I’d been debating doing onstage made me snort. With an amused smile, Anna amended with “Your nonsexual talent.”
Nodding, I thought about what my talents were. Besides being devilishly handsome and a stallion in the bedroom, I was, in my humble opinion, a master rapper. In fact, I knew every lyric to every Vanilla Ice song. And not just his megahits, the B-side stuff too. Nobody could do Mr. Ice better than me. “That’s it. That’s what I’ll do!”
Anna blinked. “What’s it?”
Kissing her forehead, I handed Gibson to her. “I gotta find the guys before the show starts. I’m gonna need background music.”
“For what? What’s your plan?” she asked again.
“You’ll see,” I said, crooking a smile.
Anna rose to her feet. Gibson reached for me, but I couldn’t take her again. There was too much to do! “Wait,” Anna said, placing her hand on my arm. “Let’s take a moment and talk about your idea. You know, make sure you’ve got something really great so the guys will be blown away. While I was napping, I was thinking of some things that might—”
Grinning ear to ear, I cut her off with a kiss to her cheek. “I’m sure your ideas are cool, but what I’ve got planned will blow their skulls into a thousand freakin’ pieces!” Anna said my name again, but I was too excited to stop and explain it all to her now. I’d tell her when it was a done deal.
There were people everywhere when I hopped off the bus—security, people who worked for the venue, and members of the other bands. I didn’t see any D-Bags though. Fans behind a chain-link fence cheered when they spotted me. A few of them screamed, “I love you, Kellan!” I almost stopped and told them I wasn’t Kellan, but I didn’t have time. The show was starting in a couple hours.
Justin was the first person I spotted when I stepped inside the building. He was talking to the lead singer of Holeshot, Deacon. They were talking about Kate, from what I could tell. They were midconversation, but I smoothly interjected with “Hey, you seen Kellan?”
Justin turned my way, his lips in a frown. He had a tattoo across his collarbone that I thought was cool, but the script was so elaborate, I could never read it. Knowing Justin, it was something lyrical and poetic. If it were me, it would say something like Sit Here, with arrows pointing up. Oh man…I should totally do that.