Page 13 of Rock Strong

She paused, caught off guard. “You were looking for me?”

“Yeah, man! Way to kill it on those two songs. Awesome job, thanks.” I gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder.

Ugh, a punch, Liam, really?

“Oh, thank you.” She smiled. A polite smile, when I so desperately wanted to see her grin big because she simply liked me. “By kill it, you mean…”

“You rocked it. You were awesome. Fantastic!” I ran a hand through my hair, something I did when I was nervous, which I could tell surprised Robbie almost as much as it surprised me.

He gave me one last lingering stare, and when he realized I was too wrapped up in a conversation to finish taking the selfie with him, he winked at me and walked off.

“So…” I turned back to Abby.

She wore a classic long, black skirt and a white ruffly top. Not exactly a wicked outfit, but then again, she was under no obligation to follow any rules of rock. She played by her own. Still, maybe by the end of the tour, we could have all our orchestra dressing in leather jackets and miniskirts. The girls anyway. That would be sick!

“Thanks for the flowers, by the way,” she said, wringing her hands. “And the wine. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“Oh…hey…I know that. Just felt bad about what happened. Tucker was being a real dick.” I folded my arms over my chest, trying to look relaxed and cool when I was probably coming across as an idiot. What was it about her that had me reverting to a high school geek once again? I thought I’d shed that skin already.

“I just wanted to say…” She fumbled with her fingers. “I mean…you don’t have to do that again. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but…” She took a deep breath then let it out. “I’m not one of your…groupies.” She stressed the word like it was poisonous. “So, before you go thinking anything…you won’t be getting into my pants.”

Her tall friend tried to discreetly elbow her in the back, but I caught it.

I wiggled my eyebrows at Abby.

“Whoa. Meow!” My fingers curled into cat claws. Her concrete outer shell should’ve, for all intents and purposes, turned me off, but there was something sad about it, and it spoke volumes about what she must’ve thought of me. I guess rumors have their downside. “Hey, listen, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just wanted to say sorry and thanks. That was it, I swear. Can’t a guy do that anymore?”

“With a hundred-dollar bottle of wine?” She raised an eyebrow.

Recoiling, I scoffed. “Uh, Abby, listen, I swear I’m not trying to get into your pants.” Okay, given my determined thoughts earlier, that was a bit of a lie, but it was also a bit of the truth. I wasn’t trying to get into her pants right now, at least. I mean, I did want to get to know her better, not just fuck her. “But might I point out the obvious that, tonight, you’re wearing a skirt?” I chuckled at my own little joke. Shit, she was going to unload on me. I just knew it.

Abby Chan, cellist, was not having it.

At that moment, her friend held up her camera, trying to dispel the tension. “Can I get a pic of the two of you? That cello-vocals duet onstage was brilliant, eh?”

We turned toward her and smiled, just as two people photobombed us from behind with rabbit ears and bottles of beer clinging to their hands. Tucker and Helen. “Wassuuuup, dawg!” Tucker slammed me with his chest and put my head into a choke hold. “We killed it, bro!”

“Yes, yes, we did. Now let go of me, you idiot.”

“I guess I’ll see you later,” Abby said quickly, darting off before I could get two more words in.

“Hey!” I called out, but she’d already bailed. “Damn it.”

I’m sure she split because of Tucker, and luckily, he didn’t see Abby, being too drunk to notice, but Helen hung back, watching us a moment then slipping past me, leaning into my ear. Her words would haunt me the rest of the night, even as the party plowed on, and the booze flowed until the bottles were empty, and the groupies lay asleep all over the couches. “Don’t bother, Liam,” she said with an all-knowing smirk. “She’s not your type.”

And there it was. Even Helen could see that Abby was someone I shouldn’t mess with. That might be the case, but she was wrong about Abby not being my type. Maybe someone like her had never been my type before, but right now, she was the only type of woman I was interested in. Sexy but classy. Talented and fierce. A ball-breaker, yet someone who provided glimpses of vulnerability in a way that made me want to howl, beat my chest, toss her over my shoulder, and carry her off to the nearest cave.

God, I definitely had a thing for Abby Chan. The only question was what I was going to do about it.

Later that night, away from prying ears and eyes, after losing the paparazzi down a dead-end hallway, I slipped into a dark room, flicked on a dim light, and sat on the floor to call the one person I could when my life was going fucking haywire and I didn’t know what to think.

“Hey, buddy, how’s the tour going?” Garrick asked, laughter in the background.

“Good. What’s going on with the new show?” I asked. Garrick was a Hollywood actor and had been a bunch of action movies, but he was up for his first role in a television series as a romantic lead.

“It’s down to me and one other person,” Garrick said.

“I’m sure you’ll get the part but keep me posted.”

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