Reckless (Thoughtless, #3)(82)

Everyone waited near the stage for the clamoring to reach a near-frantic level. I thought the crowd might bring the house down if the boys didn’t go back out there. Kellan laughed as he stood beside me, waiting for the most opportune moment to reappear and announce the surprise to the fans. I squeezed him tight while the noise from the audience vibrated my chest.

When I was sure ceiling panels were about to break loose, Kellan gave me a long, lingering kiss. When he pulled away, his eyes were blazing. “I better go up there, so I can get this over with and take you to bed.”

Feeling better already, I grinned. “I like that plan.”

Kellan swatted my butt, then turned and dashed onstage. The noisy chaos of stomping and clapping switched to shrieking. Kellan held his hands out as he reached the mike. The noise didn’t stop, so he had to speak above it. “What are you guys still doing here? It’s over.”

Kellan shooed his hands at the audience, like he wanted them to leave. I laughed at the display, and several people in the crowd did too. As he was doing that, Sienna came up beside him. The outfit she was wearing was not the one she’d arrived in. Before, she’d been wearing tight jeans and a tight sleeveless top. Now she was wearing a sheer white top with a black bra underneath. A black bra? With a sheer top? And with the way the lights hit her shirt, she may as well have only been wearing the bra.

The crowd went nuts and Kellan peeked behind him. This was not the plan. Kellan was going to play with the crowd, then verbally announce Sienna. She was supposed to wait for her cue. While Kellan straightened as he stared at her, dozens and dozens of cell phones were whipped out. Waving to the crowd, Sienna beamed as she walked right up to Kellan. Her arms slid around his waist as she playfully kissed his shoulder, then rested her head against it. The crowd gobbled up the affection. Kellan spun around, discreetly getting away from her. A seamless smile plastered on his face, he told the hollering crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Sienna Sexton.”

By the tight way he said it, I could tell he wasn’t pleased. A staff member handed Sienna a mike while the rest of the D-Bags took their positions. Ignoring Kellan for a second, Sienna bowed and thanked the crowd. When she was done speaking, Kellan signaled Matt to start the song. The fans went absolutely ballistic when Kellan started singing, and Kellan’s irritation fell away as his professionalism kicked in. Kellan was a showman through and through, and regardless of his feelings about his singing partner, he’d give the crowd the best performance he could.

After singing a duet with Kellan that nearly brought the house down, Sienna brought both hands to her lips and blew a steady stream of kisses into the mass of enraptured fans. While she basked in their plentiful praises, Kellan gave the audience an appreciative wave, then he looked over his shoulder to where I was waiting offstage. When we locked gazes, he shook his head, then discretely shrugged. Like it or not, there was no denying the fact that that song was a gargantuan hit, and Kellan and Sienna performing it together was electrifying.





Chapter 15


No Hard Feelings





After Dallas, the tour meandered through the Midwest. It was just as flat, open, and spacious as Kellan had told me. I found the monotony of the environment relaxing, it allowed my mind to drift. And, like it so often did, my mind drifted to Kellan—my past with Kellan, to be exact. The bus was noisy and boisterous with so many boys on it, but I found small pockets of time throughout the day where I could hide in the back bedroom and write a paragraph or two.

This bus was a lot like the last bus Kellan and the guys had been on, more designed for capacity than comfort. The “bedroom” in the back was basically a larger version of a cubby—a thin mattress shoved up against the back portion of the bus. It constantly smelled like engine exhaust. The flimsy door cut out some of the sound though, and the bed was large enough for Kellan and me to sleep side by side, so I was satisfied. It wasn’t as nice as our place back home, but it was better than the bunk beds.

We’d left Sienna about a week ago. She’d headed back to her tour with a smirk on her face, and we’d packed up and moved on to the next location. The headlines the next morning were huge—Sienna Sexton Surprises Boyfriend on Tour! Even though I should have expected it, the gossip shocked me. It just didn’t seem to matter what Kellan said or did; everything was twisted around in the media to make it seem like he and Sienna were deeply in love.

The still shot of Sienna kissing Kellan’s shoulder that night was everywhere. I’d even seen fans ask Kellan to sign copies of it backstage. He never did. Saying that Sienna wasn’t his girlfriend, and the photo was misleading, he always asked them if he could sign something else. And the fans always looked at him like his devotion to keeping his relationship with Sienna quiet was endearing. They loved him all the more for the way he protected her, when in reality, Kellan was protecting me.

“Irritated” didn’t even begin to describe how I felt about Kell-Sex being the number one gossip story again. At least it would eventually die back down, now that they were apart. And Kellan wouldn’t agree to another duet if she happened to “show up” for another publicity stunt; he’d already told me as much. Kellan would just have to keep doing his best at squelching the rumors while we patiently waited for another celebrity couple to pull at the world’s heartstrings. And I was sure it would eventually happen. People loved to hear about power couples, especially when the power couple had problems.