Page 3 of Oops Baby for the Rockstar
Jett grins wider, and the way he says my name—it’s like he’s savoring something delicious. “Tamsin. I’ll come find you, okay? Don’t go hiding from me.”
I bite my lip, heart thudding, and shake my head. “I won’t.”
Two
Tamsin
Still three months ago
The green room is a huge, messy room in the belly of the stadium. Vending machines line the walls, and threadbare couches are scattered everywhere. The overhead lights are off, the room lit by sconces. There are tables and chairs stacked in one corner, but people are packed in too tightly for that, mingling and laughing and dancing to the music throbbing through overhead speakers.
Notmusic from Wishbone. Guess the band want a break from themselves at the after party.
A makeshift bar stretches all along one wall, with hassled-looking bartenders mixing drinks and scooping ice out of chest freezers. After one lonely lap of the room, my hand still tingling from Jett Santana’s touch, I decide to try my luck.
“Hey,” I yell over the din, leaning across the makeshift bar. “Are these drinks free? Or do we have to pay?”
The nearest bartender looks at me like I’m an alien, his little hipster mustache bristling with irritation.
“Of course you have to pay.”
“Even with this?” I hold up the VIP pass from where it dangles around my neck.
“Yeah, even with that.”
My stomach sinks and I lean back, trying to shrug off the choking embarrassment. “Cool. Okay.”
Well, there goes my night. Because I didn’t bring cash on my sneaky little expedition across the parking lot, and even if I did, I wouldn’t waste it on an overpriced drink from this jerk.
The crowd surges behind me, pressing me against the bar, and for a moment, I feel a piercing homesickness for my cubby bed on the crew bus. For my personal space, and for the relative quiet, and for myreallife. One where I don’t pretend to be a VIP with nothing to back it up.
I turn around to leave.
“You don’t want a drink?”
Jett Santana shoulders his way between me and the pushy crowd. The rock star is dressed in a black leather vest that clings to his tanned body, leather pants, and shit-kicker boots. Tattoos wrap around both of his muscled arms, and his dark hair is shaved on the sides and longer on top.
Startled, I shake my head. He really came?
“I forgot to bring money.”
Jett barks out a laugh. “No money, no phone. It’s like someone pushed you out of a plane and you landed here, baby.”
It kinda feels that way, too—and when Jett Santana calls me baby, my whole body heats up by a few degrees. I fight the urge to fan myself.
“So, what did you want?” he asks.
I blink. “Um. Sorry?”
“To drink.” His slow smile makes my pulse throb beneath my jaw. “What can I get you to drink, Tamsin?”
My palms start to sweat, and I wipe them as discreetly as I can on my red dress. The truth is, I look so out of place in this crowd, it’s painful. Not only because my clothes don’t fit, but becauseIdon’t fit. I don’t know the rules, can’t relax in the crowd. If I’m brutally honest, I don’t even know half of Wishbone’s songs, although the ones I do know, I love.
And now the lead singer wants to buy me a drink at his own after party. This can’t be real, right? There must be some reality TV camera pointed in my direction somewhere. The whole dropped VIP pass thing must have been some kind of set up; a social experiment. I squint into the shadows around the green room, suddenly suspicious, but I can’t see any hidden camera crews.
“Tamsin?”
Right. A hot rock star wants to buy me a drink. Just for fun, let’s say that maybe this is real, and I should stop acting like a complete headcase.
