Page 24 of My Song for You
“What girlfriend?”
“The one who was kissing you.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Really? Because apparently she’s very intimate with your tongue and all the great things it did to her girlie parts.”
He slowly shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I choked back a laugh. Did I seriously need to spell it out? “You went down on her.”
He frowned. “She told you that?”
“Well, not me directly. I was lucky enough to be serving drinks to the table when she bragged to her friends about your gifted tongue. Trust me, it wasn’t something I wanted to hear.” I began walking down the busy street. The rain had taken a break at some point while I’d been working. Too bad. Maybe it could’ve washed from my brain the image of him going down on her.
Jared caught up with me. “I never went down on her or had sex with her.”
“Are you sure about that?” I shrugged, doing my best to make him think I didn’t care one way or another. “Maybe you just forgot her.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten her. Whatever she told her friends was a lie. Nothing like that happened.”
Something about his reaction made me believe him. Besides, he didn’t have a reason to lie to me. We weren’t dating. He wasn’t cheating on me. “I guess you get that a lot. I mean groupies who say they’ve slept with you just to impress their friends.”
“Maybe. But that’s the first I’ve heard of it happening.”
“So you’ve never had sex with a groupie?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as saying never. I’m not a monk. Never claimed to be.”
“Okay.” I turned down a side road that quickly became a residential street. On either side of the road, large leafy trees provided a canopy against the sky.
We kept walking, not saying much. It reminded me of when we used to hang out together. It wasn’t awkward at all. Just the opposite. Besides, what was there to say that I hadn’t already said the other night?
I was just relieved he hadn’t asked about my family. I couldn’t go there with him. Not now. Maybe one day, when their deaths weren’t still fresh wounds on my soul.
It also meant I avoided asking about his. I knew that if I did, he would reciprocate.
“So it must be cool seeing all those different places while touring,” I said.
“Not really. Usually we don’t see much of anything. We drive to the next city, maybe do radio interviews while the roadies set up the stage, meet some of our fans, perform, get back on the bus, and drive to the next location.”
“That sounds kind of…” I left the sentence hanging as I searched for the right adjective, one that sounded more upbeat than the word that first came to mind.
“Boring? Yeah, it is. But it’s worth it to see the fans and see how much they appreciate the music. I mean, we get that they do, based on our album sales, but that’s nothing compared to seeing them live and seeing their enthusiasm when we play.” His face beamed as he spoke, and it was easy to see how much his job meant to him. He lived for it.
And that made me smile. At least one of us had been able to follow his dreams.
“What are the guys in the band like?” I’d heard rumors, but they were based on the media, and I wasn’t sure how much was based on reality.
“They’re great guys. Mason can be a bit of a handful at times, and he enjoys pulling pranks on the unsuspecting, but overall he means well. He’s had some problems in the past, but he’s keeping that part of himself in check.”
“What kind of pranks?”
“One time he put rubber snakes in a drum case for a roadie to find. Unfortunately, Paul was terrified of snakes after a rattler bit him as a kid.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh my God! Was he okay?”
“He did get over it eventually. And there was that time when Mason told our tour bus driver that Kirk was taking a nap. It took us two hours to realize that we had left him in Tucson. He had actually told Mas that he was going for a run.”
