it, broke your glasses.” He made fake crying noises, not sure if she was familiar with the movie he was quasi-quoting.
“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid,” she said miserably.
Yep, she was familiar with the movie.
He rubbed her back, liking her a little more with each interaction they shared. “Do you have another pair?”
She nodded. “At home.”
“I’m sure we’ll have time to get you a new pair on our off day,” he said, “until then, we’ll probably just have to glue them together.”
“I hope it holds,” she said. “I can’t—”
“See a thing without my glasses,” he finished for her.
Logan grabbed a passerby and sent him on a mission for superglue.
“You never explained what happened to make you fall,” Logan said. All he knew was that she’d been lying on the stage with the wind knocked out of her. He had no idea how she’d gotten that way.
“I was trying to get a good shot of you down in the crowd, so I climbed up on a riser and some security guard tackled me to the ground.”
Fists clenched, Logan jumped to his feet. “Someone fucking tackled you?”
She nodded. “I should have gotten permission to climb up there. I’m sure they thought I was a deranged lunatic and a danger to the band.”
“Tell me who did it. After I beat the shit out of him, I’ll make sure he’s fired.”
Toni grabbed Logan’s wrist and pulled him toward the equipment case, encouraging him to sit beside her again.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “He was only doing his job.”
“And you were only doing yours,” Logan pointed out. He was still as far from calm as he could be. No one put his hands on Toni.
“Lesson learned,” she said. “I won’t be doing that again.”
Logan wasn’t sure how he was going to keep her safe so she could have the run of the place while she collected footage for her book, but he would find a way.
The glue retriever returned with a roll of white tape. “No one had any superglue. Will this work?”
Toni groaned and shook her head. “Seriously? Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Why would I be joking?” The guy handed her the roll of white tape and hurried away.
“Tape won’t work?”
She sighed and had Logan hold the pieces of her glasses together while she wrapped tape around the nosepiece.
When she was finished, she put her glasses on and turned to him. “Revenge of the nerds. Heh heh heh,” she said, doing an excellent impression of Lewis from the movie.
He burst out laughing and grabbed her in a tight hug. “God, I love you,” he bellowed, and then he went still when he realized what he’d said. “I mean as a friend,” he quickly amended, though he knew friend didn’t measure the depth of his feelings for her.
She pushed him away and stood. “I need to go to the bus. I have another camera in my bag. I’ll run and get it before the show starts.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
She had her back to him, so he couldn’t see her expression, but she shook her head. “I’ll go on my own. You should probably do your job and return to the meet and greet.”
“It’s over.” And if he got Toni alone on the bus for a few minutes, maybe they’d have time to explore the more lustful feelings of their developing friendship.
“Please don’t follow me,” she said and hurried off.
He stared after her in puzzlement until she disappeared around a corner. Was she still upset? He was sure she had plenty to be upset about after being tackled to the stage by an idiot—and he would find out who had assaulted her. He might not punch the guy, but Logan would be sure the man was reprimanded or, if the douche bag wasn’t apologetic enough for Logan’s tastes, fired.
No one hurt someone he cared about and got away with it.
Sinners had already taken the stage when Logan’s worry finally got the better of him and he went to check on Toni. It shouldn’t take over an hour just to collect a camera from the bus. He found her in the lounge with her laptop open. Her nose was red, and her eyes glassy, but she didn’t appear to have slipped into a concussion-induced coma.
“What are you doing?” he asked, entering the room and sitting beside her on the sofa. “I was worried.”
“I’m okay.” She didn’t even take her eyes from her computer screen to look at him. “Really.”