Reckless (Thoughtless, #3)(83)
We were in South Dakota today, to do a promotion for the tour that cracked me up every time I thought about it. The radio station that was sponsoring the event called it “Darts with D-Bags.” They had rented out a local pool hall for the afternoon to host the band and a few dozen contest winners. Kellan was looking forward to throwing darts, but he wasn’t the best pool player. Me either. The other D-Bags were decent though; Griffin in particular had a true talent for it. As we drove to the hall in one of the radio station’s vans, Griffin started to give Kellan some pointers.
“Now, if the girl is bending in half to make her shot, that means she totally wants you to grab her ass.”
“Griffin,” I groaned, closing my eyes. What the hell did my sister see in him?
Griffin looked around Kellan to scoff at me. “What? That’s what it means. There’s no shot on earth that a chick has to bend over that far for. It’s obviously code for, ‘Grab me now and do naughty things to my no-no places.’”
Looking over at Kellan, I asked him, “Would you mind?”
Smiling, he answered, “Not at all,” then reached over and smacked Griffin on the back of the head.
“God, just trying to help, man,” Griffin muttered, rubbing his skull.
While Griffin switched his conversation to Evan in the front seat, I leaned my chin against Kellan’s shoulder, silently thanking him for understanding what I wanted. He kissed my head as he softly laughed. True, I was trying to be nicer to Griffin, but some comments deserved a good smack. Even Anna would have thwacked him for that one.
We arrived at the pool hall and were ushered through the back doors by the radio personnel. Kellan and the boys posed for photos with the DJs while I waited with a group of interns. One girl chewed on her lip while she watched Kellan flash the cameraman a heart-stopping grin. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I heard her groan.
Playing with my wedding ring, I debated if I wanted to try my hand at darts. I wasn’t all that coordinated, and there was a distinct possibility that someone could get injured if I threw a pointy object across the room. The intern switched from watching Kellan to watching me. I glanced over at her with a puzzled expression.
“You came in with the guys,” she said as her eyes darted to my ring. “You married to one of them?” I could tell she was silently praying that I said no. Nerves clenched my stomach. I hadn’t anticipated someone asking me about my relationships. True, this was a one-on-one conversation and not an official interview, but this girl had the ears of the DJs. Saying something to her was akin to saying something to the whole city. Well, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but I still didn’t like the idea.
Not knowing quite what to say, I simply told her, “No. Not married.” That was the truth, since legally I wasn’t. She looked about to ask me more, but, getting uncomfortable under her scrutiny, I excused myself and walked away.
The contest winners were divided up into four teams, and each team was assigned a D-Bag as its captain. The girls on Kellan’s team were very excited. More than a few girls on the other teams seemed a little jealous, but quickly got over it; they were shooting pool and throwing darts with rock stars, after all. I weaseled my way onto Kellan’s team. I wouldn’t do much good in helping him win, but I could at least give him moral support when we lost. If we lost. I suppose I should start thinking positively. Go Team Kyle!
Each D-Bag had ten contest winners on his coed team. The team was then subdivided into a team of five that would play against another team of five. Plastered on a wall nearby was a complex bracket system that would eventually tell us which “Bag has the largest D.” There was even an ostentatious D-shaped trophy for the winning team captain to take home. But the scoring process was more complicated than any statistics assignment I’d ever had at school, and I couldn’t figure out how it all worked. All I knew was that even though Kellan and I were on the same team, he insisted on trying to distract me so much that I botched almost every shot.
During the dart game, Kellan would reach over and pinch the back of my thigh right as I was about to shoot. I missed the board three times in a row. One time when he did it, I’d been concentrating so hard on hitting the target—any target—that I hadn’t noticed him behind me. Right as I was getting ready to throw, he nonchalantly ran his hand around my hip and into my front pocket. It scared the shit out of me. I twisted as I tossed, and flung the dart into a clump of pool players. It hit Griffin in the ass. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we were playing electronic darts, and Griffin wasn’t injured. He did retaliate, though, by flicking a blue cue chalk at Matt, whom he’d incorrectly assumed had tagged him.
Kellan laughed so hard he had to step away from the game. A crowd of girls hovered around him like cats circling an open can of tuna. But again, the people around didn’t seem to think it was weird that Kellan flirted so much with me. Probably because they all shamelessly flirted with him. It was like Pete’s on crack. Kellan spent most of his nonplaying time swatting touchy-feely palms away, and politely redirecting wandering fingers. Even I had to admit, it was pretty amusing.
When our group switched over to the pool tables, the team’s rankings were: Griffin’s team, Evan’s team, Matt’s team, and then Kellan’s team. I wasn’t surprised that we were dead last. Nobody on our team was focusing very well, except maybe the three male contest winners. Although, even those guys found it hard to shoot pool with so many flirtatious girls around.