Rockstar Romeo - Abbie Zanders Page 0,51

I’m fine. I decided to take your advice and take a few days off.”

I held my breath through the several obscenely long moments of silence that followed. Behind me, Jace kissed my bare shoulder and squeezed my hip, unknowingly giving me courage.

“Where are you?” Ross asked.

“Staying with some friends,” I hedged.

Ross would have a coronary if he knew I was in Jace Logan’s hometown for his sister’s wedding, let alone his house and his bed. It was exactly why I hadn’t told him ahead of time.

“But don’t worry; Dark Wing put a hold on things for two weeks to take care of some family stuff, so I thought it was the perfect time.”

Jace nestled his rapidly hardening manhood against my backside at the same time he cupped my breast. It was his way of chastising me for being a coward. He had no qualms whatsoever telling Ross exactly where I was and who I was with. In fact, he’d suggested I do exactly that in the hopes that it might curtail some of the calls I had been getting at all hours of the day and night. He thought Ross was taking advantage of me. I told him it was complicated. That was the closest we’d come to a tiff, with the exception of that minor fiasco weeks earlier.

“Where are you?” Ross asked again.

“Upstate New York. What did you want to tell me?”

“Why in God’s name are you in Upstate New York?” he said in a booming voice, so loud that I pulled the phone away from my ear. His attitude—and the fact that he was ignoring my question—annoyed me.

I took a deep, calming breath and reminded myself that it came from a place of affection and worry.

“Asked and answered.” I yawned and stretched. “What do you want, Ross?”

Another long pause.

I knew Ross well enough to know he wasn’t pleased with my brush-off, but unless my boys needed me, I wanted to hang up and go back to my happy place. And since Ross was fixating on where I was and what I was doing instead of getting to the point, whatever he had to tell me probably wasn’t urgent and could wait.

“Ross?” I coaxed.

“You sound different.”

I counted to ten and prayed for patience. “Maybe that’s because this is the first day of my vacation, and I was hoping to sleep in.”

“How could I possibly have known that if you didn’t tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

“Ross!”

He audibly exhaled. “The tour’s not going well, Eva. Before you ask, the boys are fine. But Ian, he’s another story.”

“That bad?”

“You have no idea,” Ross said heavily. “Last night, Ian was an hour late for the show. If we hadn’t found him when we did, he probably wouldn’t have made it at all.”

“Oh no. I thought he was doing well.”

“He was, but some old friends showed up and convinced him to hang out ‘for old times’ sake’ while the boys and I were at the venue, doing sound checks. Ian was so out of it that we had to cut some of the mic feeds. Brian and Tommy bailed us out. Instead of remaining behind the scenes, they went onstage. Brian played the guitar solos, and we amped up Tommy’s mic, so we could overlay Ian’s voice with his. Thank God for those boys, Eva. If they hadn’t been here, Ian would have been booed right off the stage.”

I bolted to a sitting position, wide awake now. “Brian and Tommy performed?”

“Yeah, they saved the whole fucking show. Didn’t they tell you?”

“No, they didn’t,” I said slowly. “But I haven’t talked to them since yesterday morning. We were going to video chat later.”

“They probably didn’t want to wake you up with the time difference, assuming you told them,” he added sulkily. “They’re still crashed now, but don’t worry. Nothing but pure adrenaline was running through their veins. After spending some time around Ian, I think it’s safe to say they’re going to stay away from the hard stuff.” He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Pretty sad when your own father is the poster boy for Just Say No, eh?”

I exhaled a sigh of relief. I knew Brian and Tommy had good heads on their shoulders, but I also knew that drugs were not biased. They lured the intelligent and informed into their clutches too. Sometimes, the temptation was just too great to resist.

“So, what happens now?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Brian and Tommy are in heaven right now, except