Page 87 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

She dropped her voice to a whisper. At least Jamie’s version of one. “He was one of those uncut motherfuckers and man, I thought it was gross at first, but talk about a—”

“Jamie.”

“What?” She curled her lip at me and sat back on one of the trio of couches we carted around with us on the trucks. “You’re just jealous. I was in the land of cock and coconuts and you went to fucking upstate New York. I don’t get it.”

“Logan was in a bind.” Upstate New York hadn’t exactly been lacking in cock, but again, I couldn’t quite bring myself to share that little tidbit.

“Yeah, but you didn’t even fuck that guy. Why do you keep doing him favors?”

“Why do I put up with you? I didn’t fuck you either.”

“Okay. That’s fair. However, if you put that pretty boy on the same level as our friendship, we’re going to have a problem.”

“No one is like you, Jamie.”

“Fuckin’ A. I still think you’re way too nice.”

I sighed. “I know. But it’s done and I’m on my way to the venue.” I wouldn’t even have time to wash off the airplane stank, but since we were doing two nights in Chicago, at least I could crash in a nice hotel tonight. Not getting on a bus or a plane tonight sounded divine.

Maybe I’d even find Nash later for a little FaceTime action I’d actually enjoy.

Jamie flipped the camera around to where Oz and Teagan were talking. “Get a look at those seats. We sold this mother out, girl. It’s huuuuuge.”

The United Center was one of the bigger arenas on this leg of the tour. With well over twenty thousand seats, it was an impressive venue to sell out. Especially two nights in a row. Another step up in our evolution as a band.

I was nervy about discussing adding stadiums for the summer, but if we kept going on the same trajectory, it was one more goal post we’d reach for.

Oz waved. “Yo.”

I lifted my voice. “Hi, guys. Sorry I’m late.”

“All good, chief.” Oz rested his arm on Teagan’s shoulder. “We got things covered.”

Teagan knocked his arm off of her. “Glad to see you made your flight.”

Jamie twisted the screen back to her make-up free face. “Get your ass here. Darcy is getting that eye twitch thing again.”

“How long, George?”

“ETA is seventeen minutes,” he said from the front seat.

“Got that?”

She gave me the peace sign. “I’ll let our favorite devil know. Nice to see you back, chick.”

“You too.” I smiled and clicked out of the video chat.

Seventeen minutes to decompress was almost enough to get my head on straight. I checked email that I’d been ignoring for the week and sent a few texts to Darcy to get updates from her.

I was cutting it close to do any checks on my equipment so Jamie stood in for me and sent me a thirty-seven second video of her yowling out the lyrics to “All I Wanted” from what would be my perch on the B-stage.

Laughing, I sent her back a middle finger emoji as George pulled up to the side door to the venue. I grabbed my leather music journal-slash-planner that I couldn’t live without. I never knew when inspiration would hit. There was a lot of downtime between warmups and opening acts. Some nights we had too many VIPs backstage, but tonight, there should be mercifully few.

“I’ll have your bags brought to the hotel.”

“Thanks, George.”

“Of course. Have a good show.”

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