hoped she still liked what she saw. When she flushed, he felt a hard squirm of delight in his gut. He’d never expected to be standing within arm’s reach of her again. And he wouldn’t have been either, had the original series producer not needed emergency surgery. It was pure chance she got this gig. Pure chance he was standing here, looking at the first girl he’d ever wanted to kiss, and would get to keep looking at her for the next sixty days of the tour.
“You’re all grown up. Great teeth.” Rand grinned, tapping his own front tooth.
Harry laughed, then her cheeks pinked as she caught up with his memory of kissing through the steel barbs of her braces. He had a mad impulse to kiss her now, right here in front of How, Roley and the crew.
She hefted her laptop. “It’s amazing to see you. How’s Arielle?”
“I can’t believe it’s you.” Rand snorted. “Nobody calls her Arielle—she’s good.” He waved a hand towards the stage. “You’ll see her soon. I just can’t believe it’s you.”
They grinned at each other and Roley said, “Aw, for fuck’s sake, Rand. Put us all out of our misery and hug the girl.”
Rand laughed. He stepped forward hesitantly. “Can I have a hug, Harry?”
She put the laptop down and nodded, and then was in his arms, her head tucking under his chin. He said softly, “Now I’m home,” as he pulled her against him and hugged her off her feet.
They were interrupted by a runner with a message from Jake for Rand to join them on stage.
“Have dinner with me,” Rand said, holding one of Harry’s hands. He waited for her nod and sprinted towards the stage where he could see Jake, Tim and Bodge heads tipped back, checking out a piece of rigging.
“Jake, it’s just not right. I don’t like it,” said Tim. “Jonas insisted this is the way he wanted the lighting rig, but it’s not safe. I want to change it back the way we had it.”
Rand joined them and they moved to the side of the stage and unrolled a set of plans with the rigging changes Jonas had specified marked on them. Rie, Ceedee and Jeremy were in a huddle on the stage front, directly below the piece of rigging under discussion.
Tim said, “See this bracket is holding too much—” and he was cut off by the screeching sound of a metal tearing, followed by the sudden shattering of glass and the thump and clang of scaffolding pieces pounding down onto the stage.
Jeremy grabbed a screaming Ceedee and dragged her out of the way, but Rie was farther from him and too far from Rand for him to do anything but gawp at her. She crouched down, wrapping her arms over her head as metal and glass rained down around her.
Bodge was closest and first to react, moving while the scaffolding and rigging were still self-destructing. He ran into the hail of flying debris, and scooped up Rie, carrying her to safety bundled in his arms, while pieces of wreckage bounced off his back, head and shoulders. Rie looked like a kid in the big man’s arms, curled against his chest. In some ways she still was a kid, stuck in the horror of what happened and why they’d never come home before now. Rand went to her. This was all she needed on top of the crap with Jonas, to convince her the tour was jinxed.
Tim and Jake had reacted as well, and the three of them converged at the edge of the whirlpool of destruction.
Bodge said, “Take her,” and thrust Rie into Jake’s arms. He had blood streaming from a cut on his head, he swore and took off again to see Jeremy and Ceedee bellowing for the first aid kit. Rand wiped a hand over his face. Jonas. He wanted to reach back to LA and ring the dude’s neck til drugs didn’t help his pain. Jake had Rie. He went after Bodge to see what needed to be done to fix this.
Jake cradled Rielle. He looked her over. “Are you hurt?” There was blood, but he wasn’t sure if it was hers or Bodge’s.
“What the hell happened?” She breathed in, lifting her head to look up at him with wide violet eyes.
Jake exchanged a quick look with Tim. “Jonas wanted a rigging change, but we weren’t happy with it. We just didn’t figure it out quick enough.”
“Jonas did this?”
“Technically I did it,” said Tim,