Page 54 of Behind the Lights

Stoli’s ballad,Time to Move Onwas being played on every rock station we came across and hit the Billboard hot mainstream rock chart. Since royalties hadn’t been paid yet, we were given an advance to get the tour kicked off. We weren’t rolling in dough by any means, but for the first time since we started playing outside of Stoli’s garage we weren’t scraping up gas or food money. We’d come quite a way since sleeping in our van and walking in on guys getting blown in port-a-johns. The bed sheets that used to hang behind us on stage had now been replaced with professionally made backdrops. But we kept them and used them to decorate the bunk room on our bus.

As the tour moved on, I heard less and less from Lucas which was getting me down. When I finally got ahold of him we found our schedules would link up for the Vegas show so he said he’d meet me there. I’d already put him on the security list so when he showed up an hour before we were set to take the stage it surprised the hell out of me.

We were sitting backstage when all eyes turned to me before the voice I longed to hear whispered in my ear, “Surprise.”

I jumped and picked him up, swinging him around while peppering his face with kisses, absorbing that giggle I’d missed so much. “Fuck babe, you scared the shit out of me,” I said as I placed him back on solid ground.

“You sounded so sad on the phone. As soon as my meeting in L.A. was over, I hopped on the next flight out.” He stood on his tiptoes to kiss me.

When we turned back around, Stoli was gone. “Where’d Stoli go?” I asked the guys, both of which shrugged and kept poking at their phone screens.

“Once a bitch, always a bitch,” Lucas mumbled beside me.

“Don’t start, he barely started talking to me again,” I warned him.

“Come on,” he said, pulling me by the hand toward the exit. “We’ve only got a little while together and I’d like to get rid of these blue balls I’ve been carrying around.”

No need to tell me twice as I’d been hauling the mother load around myself. We snuck inside the tour bus, and in our usual needy fashion, left a clothing trail in our wake to my bunk. By the time I grabbed the supplies and laid down beside him, Easton had yelled from somewhere inside the bus that I needed to get back inside the arena.

“Fuck.” I tugged at my hair in frustration.

Lucas looked up at me, those pleading blue eyes boring holes deep into my soul.

“Hand jobs?” he asked, fisting mine.

“Yeah, but we gotta hurry.” I knocked his hand away, wrapping mine around both of us. “Fuck, it’s not gonna take much.”

“That’s okay, it’s better than nothing.” He leaned over, taking my lips in his while thrusting his hips up in my grip and moaning.

His lips trailed down over my throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark, but I didn’t give a shit. Right now, I needed a fast release and between his lips on my neck and our cocks in my fist it was headed to a happy ending.

“Now guys,” Easton yelled, clearly pissed.

Stroke, stroke, stroke. “Fuck!” I yelled, spilling over onto our hands.

Frustrated, Lucas complained, “Screw it, let’s go.”

“What about you?” I felt bad that he hadn’t come.

“You can take care of me later.” He stood and started dressing.

When we came out from behind the curtain we found an extremely pissed off Easton standing there with his hands on his hips. “Not cool, Joey, not cool at all,” he said before storming off the bus with us lagging behind him. The guys were just as pissed off as Easton was and Stoli was staring daggers at both of us.

“Sorry guys,” I tried to apologize, knowing it would be another tough couple of days with Stoli yet once again.Fuck.

After the show, we took our seats at the meet and greet area and spent the next hour there. Easton came over as we stood to leave to let us know the buffet was ready and that the guys from Maiden Voyage invited us back to their hotel suites for the after party. We were stoked, this was the first time on the tour we’d been asked to hang out with them afterwards and being huge Maiden fans made the offer even sweeter. Hell, it was the first time all night I saw Stoli smile, that alone was worth going for.

We headed to the room where they had the food set up and filled our plates to the brim. I made sure to sit Lucas far enough away from Stoli to try and keep the peace as best I could, but one of these days I was going to have to let them battle it out and figure out what the fuck was going on. When the concert ended, we were bussed over to the hotel Maiden was staying at. They’d rented out the penthouse and security guards were perched at every entrance.

“Whoa dude, this is so unreal,” I whispered to Diamond.

“No shit, did you see the size of those guys?” he pointed to the security detail we’d just passed.

The guy was easily six feet four, but ten times as wide as I was. His black suit did nothing to hide the muscles trying to escape from the confines of the fabric encasing them. These guys were seriously ripped and in-fucking-timidating.

“I’m gonna do all I can to not get on their bad side.” I shivered, knowing one punch from that dude and I would be down for the count.

“Holy shit,” Lucas said behind me, “Did you see that huge piece of man meat?”

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