Page 18 of Too Little Too Soon
Well, son of a bitch, this sucked.
* * *
Travis was a drummer in a band?That was not the image he’d portrayed when they’d had lunch together, when they wandered the High Line, sipping hot chocolate and talking about their lives.
When she’d taken him back to her apartment and he’d made love to her so thoroughly her body was still tingling, hours later.
Hadn’t he said he worked at Madison Square Garden? Although to be fair, she supposed he really was, at least for tonight.
Wow. Had she been duped or what?
“I gotta go,” Holly announced and hugged her before turning to Maria. “Your turn to hang out with her.”
And then she was gone, hurrying down the hall and out of sight. Ava automatically turned to Maria. She needed a buoy in this sea of uncertainty. Normally, she was the most self-assured person in the room—or at least she was an expert at portraying as much—yet this was even worse than when Holly had been signing autographs and Ava stood next to her feeling incredibly out of place.
Maybe she should step into Holly’s dressing room and grab that bottle of champagne they hadn’t finished. She could really use a drink right now.
“Um, hi,” she said, because what the hell else was she supposed to do? “Nice to meet everyone.”
“You all go get cleaned up, and we’ll meet you in the meet and greet room,” Maria said before guiding Ava in that direction.
As soon as the band was out of earshot, Maria said, “Wow, that was some kind of crazy tension between you and Travis. You guys don’t know each other, do you?”
Actually, if one were only looking at physical references, she’d say she knew Travis better than anyone else in her entire life. And she ought to be able to say as much to Maria. That was the sort of relationship sisters were supposed to have, right?
“Um, he’s a drummer?”
“A fantastic one at that,” Maria confirmed.
She could say it was cool that she’d slept with the drummer from a rock band. Right?
“He’s kind of a manwhore, too.” Maria paused. “No, that’s not it. He’s actually super selective about who he sleeps with.”
Was Ava supposed to feel flattered?
Maria continued, “It’s just he never sleeps with the same woman twice. So you should steer clear, especially given the way he was looking at you.”
She certainly had chosen well when she’d convinced herself she wanted a one-night stand. But then the rest of what Maria said hit her. “How was he looking at me?”
“Like he wanted to eat you for lunch.” Maria laughed and flashed her credentials at the guy guarding the door.
This time, the place was packed with people. Most of the gazes in the room shot up when they stepped through the entry, just as quickly dismissing them when they realized Maria and Ava weren’t part of either band playing tonight.
“Want something to drink?” Maria asked as they wove through clusters of groupies toward one of two bars.
“God, yes. Champagne.”
Flutes in hand, Maria guided them over to a seating area near the windows. It was cordoned off by red velvet ropes and yet another security guard with gigantic arms who only allowed them to pass after Maria once again flashed her credentials.
“The band will be escorted over to this area, so they can receive guests in a controlled environment,” she explained. “It will be pretty hairy and crazy until the security teams gets them over, so it’s best to hang out here until the initial crush dies down.”
Ava glanced around, trying to be objective.
Black pipe and draping had been set up to hide whatever was normally on the walls. There were high-top tables with stools set up haphazardly, no tablecloths to hide the scratched and worn steel poles holding up the tabletops. Those stools looked like they’d been collected from a dumpster and had received a cursory wipe down before being placed in this room.
The roped off seating areas—there were two of them—contained cracked, faux leather sofas along with old coffee tables that looked like they hadn’t been resurfaced since the ’70s.
In truth, the space wasn’t bad, although it certainly could use a better decorator. Someone with a smidge more attention to detail.
