Page 171 of Naughty Dreams
Roy hadn’t deserved that, maybe. They were both in a holding pattern, airplanes waiting to run out of fuel and fall out of the sky.
Hell.DJ pulled his notebook out of his pocket. Sometimes the most exhausting thing he did was live in his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Please come to the show dress rehearsal. I’d like you to see the performance of the new song. I also want to meet with you afterward.
Roy read the note for the fifth time. It had been delivered with a bouquet of Tootsie Pops. All grape, with DJ’s chosen raspberry forming an outside border. Inside the envelope were details for a private charter to take him to Florida.
A fifteen-thousand capacity arena. He knew Henry could handle it, but Roy had still called, with ways to improve his security coverage.
Henry had incorporated them into his plan, but added, “Don’t worry, Roy. We’ve got no unusual red flags on this one. I’ve triple checked, believe me.”
When he landed at the Jacksonville air strip, he was in for another surprise. While he was waiting in the VIP lounge for his rented car to be brought up—they refused to let him just go get it—he got some company.
“Honey, is thattheRoy Bloodwell? Security to the stars? Do you think he’s seen Taylor Swift in her underwear?”
Roy glanced up from his laptop to see Mick standing at the threshold. Cyn, wearing a slinky black dress, leaned against her man in a posture that suggested sex kitten or psychopath.
“Think he’s here for the Survival concert?” she added. “I want to throw my panties on stage.”
“Sweetheart, you didn’t wear any,” Mick informed her.
“How did you know I was going to be here?” Then Roy answered his own question. “G. Or Warren.”
“Warren’s here on a separate gig, but he’s free tonight,” Mick confirmed. “DJ had him on standby. He told him he’d invited you to see his rehearsal, but if you didn’t have backup on site, you’d be so busy double-checking stuff, you wouldn’t sit your ass down and watch the show. So Warren is going to handle things with Henry.”
The kid had been busy. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“Sometimes even the most together man on the planet needs moral support,” Cyn said. “Sy said so when he called. He also told me to tell you, and I quote: ‘The unlikeliest of pairings are often meant to be.’”
She swept an appraising gaze over Mick. “I have no idea what he’s talking about, 5-0.”
“Me either, Mistress Felon.”
“Ooh. I may change that to my scene name.”
“But I like Mistress Care Bear so much better.” Mick squeezed her trim waist with a strong hand as she chuckled in her throaty way.
Roy shouldered his bag and moved toward them. “I assume you cancelled my car. If I have to ride in that monster truck of Cyn’s, I call shotgun.”
Mick grinned. “We brought my vehicle. A sweet Lincoln Aviator with enough leg room for an NBA player.”
They’d given him an out on commenting about the need for backup, but when Roy reached them, Cyn brought him to a halt, her expression saying they weren’t going one step further until she got a straight answer.
“You want him?” she asked. “One word response. None of the bullshit going on in your head that doesn’t mean anything.”
She wasn’t much on small talk, and if Roy tried to work around it, she’d just kick him in the balls to get him to cut to the chase. Or try to. He gave himself even chances against her MMA skills. But she might get blood on his shirt.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Then let’s go get him.”
DJ was still on vocals only for the Jacksonville show. They were featuring a guest guitarist, on loan from another big name group not on tour. It had amped up the already enthusiastic response to the show, selling it out even faster than usual—a record ten minutes.
But for the first time in his career, performing a single song during a rehearsal was going to be more important than performing it in front of thousands of fans.
He stood in his dressing room alone. They’d put together a complicated performance for the song, but the challenge of it transcended that. All the things DJ knew and felt about music, about the art within him and the life without, everything that had led to this… Every part of it, every lyric, step, costume choice, all of it, had significance.
